arage, communing with himself as to
the propriety of keeping the circumstance of the boy's birth a secret,
or divulging it to his grandfather, in the hopes of eventually inducing
him to acknowledge and to protect him.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

To the seas presentlye went our lord admiral,
With knights couragious and captains full good;
The brave Earl of Essex, a prosperous general,
With him prepared to pass the salt flood.

At Plymouth speedilye took they ship valiantlye,
Braver ships never were seen under sayle,
With their fair colours spread, and streamers o'er their head:
Now, bragging foemen, take heed of your tayle.
OLD BALLAD, 1596.

Many and various were the questions that were put by our little hero to
Adams and others, relative to the fate of his parents. That they were
both dead was all the information that he could obtain; for, to the
honour of human nature, there was not one man in a ship's company
composed of several hundred, who had the cruelty to tell the child that
his father had been hanged. It may, at first, appear strange to the
reader, that the child himself was not aware of the fact, from what he
had witnessed on the morning of execution; but it must be recollected
that he had never seen an execution before, and had therefore nothing
from which to draw such an inference. All he knew was, that his father
was on the quarter-deck, with a night-cap on, and that he told him that
he was going to sleep. The death of his mother, whose body he was not
permitted to see, was quite as unintelligible, and the mystery which
enveloped the whole transaction added no little to the bereavement of
the child, who, as I have before stated, from his natural talent and
peculiar education was far more reflective and advanced than children
usually are.

Adams returned to his little charge with pleasure: he had now a right to
adopt the child, and consider him as his own. In the ship, the boy was
such an object of general sympathy, that not only many of the men, but
some of the officers, would gladly have taken him, and have brought him
up. The name of his father was, by general consent, never mentioned,
especially as Adams informed the officers and men that Peters had been a
"_purser's name_," adopted by the child's father, and that, although the
clergyman had stated this, he had not intrusted him with the real name
that the child was entitled to bear. As, therefore, our little hero was
not only w