No steamboats ploughed the ocean, nor were railroads thought of, when
our young friends Jack, Tom, and Bill lived. They first met each other
on board the _Foxhound_ frigate, on the deck of which ship a score of
other lads and some fifty or sixty men were mustered, who had just come
up the side from the _Viper_ tender; she having been on a cruise to
collect such stray hands as could be found; and a curious lot they were
to look at.
Among them were long-shore fellows in swallow-tails and round hats,
fishermen in jerseys and fur-skin caps, smugglers in big boots and
flushing coats; and not a few whose whitey-brown faces, and
close-cropped hair, made it no difficult matter to guess that their last
residence was within the walls of a gaol. There were seamen also,
pressed most of them, just come in from a long voyage, many months or
perhaps years having passed since they left their native land; that they
did not look especially amiable was not to be wondered at, since they
had been prevented from going, as they had intended, to visit their
friends, or maybe, in the case of the careless ones, from enjoying a
long-expected spree on shore. They were all now waiting to be inspected
by the first lieutenant, before their names were entered on the ship's
books.
The rest of the crew were going about their various duties. Most of
them were old hands, who had served a year or more on board the gallant
frigate. During that time she had fought two fierce actions, which,
though she had come off victorious, had greatly thinned her ship's
company, and the captain was therefore anxious to make up the complement
as fast as possible by every means in his power.
The seamen took but little notice of the new hands, though some of them
had been much of the same description themselves, but were not very fond
of acknowledging this, or of talking of their previous histories; they
had, however, got worked into shape by degrees: and the newcomers, even
those with the "long togs," by the time they had gone through the same
process would not be distinguished from the older hands, except, maybe,
when they came to splice an eye, or turn in a grummet, when their clumsy
work would show what they were; few of them either were likely ever to
be the outermost on the yard-arms when sail had suddenly to be shortened
on a dark night, while it was blowing great guns and small arms.
The frigate lay at Spithead. She had been waiting for these hands to
put to sea. Lighters were alongside, and whips were never-ceasingly
hoisting in casks of rum, with bales and cases of all sorts, which it
seemed impossible could ever be stowed away. From the first lieutenant
to the youngest midshipman, all were bawling at the top of their voices,
issuing and repeating orders; but there were two persons who out-roared
all the rest, the boatswain and the boatswain's mate. They were proud
of those voices of theirs. Let the hardest gale be blowing, with the
wind howling and whistling through the rigging, the canvas flapping like
claps of thunder, and the seas roaring and dashing against the bows,
they could make themselves heard above the loudest sounds of the storm.
At present the boatswain bawled, or rather roared, because he was so
accustomed to roar that he could speak in no gentler voice while
carrying on duty on deck; and the boatswain's mate imitated him.
The first lieutenant had a good voice of his own, though it was not so
rough as that of his inferiors. He made it come out with a quick, sharp
sound, which could be heard from the poop to the forecastle, even with
the wind ahead.
Jack, Tom, and Bill looked at each other, wondering what was next going
to happen. They were all three of about the same age, and much of a
height, and somehow, as I have said, they found themselves standing
close together.
They were too much astonished, not to say frightened, to talk just then,
though they all three had tongues in their heads, so they listened to
the conversation going on around them.
"Why, mate, where do you come from?" asked a long-shore chap of one of
the whitey-brown-faced gentlemen.
"Oh, I've jist dropped from the clouds; don't know where else I've come
from," was the answer.
"I suppose you got your hair cropped off as you came down?" was the next
query.
"Yes! it was the wind did it as I came scuttling down," answered the
other, who was evidently never at a loss what to say. "And now, mate,
just tell me how did you get on board this craft?" he inquired.
"I swam off, of course, seized with a fit of patriotism, and determined
to fight for the honour and glory of old England," was the answer.
It cannot, however, be said that this is a fair specimen of the
conversation; indeed, it would benefit no one were what was said to be
repeated.
Jack, Tom, and Bill felt very much as a person might be supposed to do
who had dropped from the moon. Everything around them was so strange
and bewildering, for not one of them had ever before been on board a
ship, and Bill had never even seen one. Having not been much accustomed
to the appearance of trees, he had some idea that the masts grew out of
the deck, that the yards were branches, and the blocks curious leaves;
not that amid the fearful uproar, and what seemed to him the wildest
confusion, he could think of anything clearly.
Bill Rayner had certainly not been born with a silver spoon in his
mouth. His father he had never known. His mother lived in a garret and
died in a garret, although not before, happily for him, he was able to
do something for himself, and, still more happily, not before she had
impressed right principles on his mind. As the poor woman lay on her
deathbed, taking her boy's hands and looking earnestly into his eyes,
she said, "Be honest, Bill, in the sight of God. Never forget that He
sees you, and do your best to please Him. No fear about the rest. I am
not much of a scholar, but I know that's right. If others try to
persuade you to do what's wrong, don't listen to them. Promise me,
Bill, that you will do as I tell you."
"I promise, mother, that I will," answered Bill; and, small lad as he
was, meant what he said.
Poor as she was, being a woman of some education, his mother had taught
him to read and write and cipher--not that he was a great adept at any
of those arts, but he possessed the groundwork, which was an important
matter; and he did his best to keep up his knowledge by reading
sign-boards, looking into book-sellers' windows, and studying any stray
leaves he could obtain.
Bill's mother was buried in a rough shell by the parish, and Bill went
out into the world to seek his fortune. He took to curious ways,--
hunting in dust-heaps for anything worth having; running errands when he
could get any one to send him; holding horses for gentlemen, but that
was not often; doing duty as a link-boy at houses when grand parties
were going forward or during foggy weather; for Bill, though he often
went supperless to his nest, either under a market-cart, or in a cask by
the river side, or in some other out-of-the-way place, generally managed
to have a little capital with which to buy a link; but the said capital
did not grow much, for bad times coming swallowed it all up.
Bill, as are many other London boys, was exposed to temptations of all
sorts; often when almost starving, without a roof to sleep under, or a
friend to whom he could appeal for help, his shoes worn out, his
clothing too scanty to keep him warm; but, ever recollecting his
mother's last words, he resisted them all. One day, having wandered
farther east than he had ever been before, he found himself in the
presence of a press-gang, who were carrying off a party of men and boys
to the river's edge. One of the man-of-war's men seized upon him, and
Bill, thinking that matters could not be much worse with him than they
were at present, willingly accompanied the party, though he had very
little notion where they were going. Reaching a boat, they were made to
tumble in, some resisting and endeavouring to get away; but a gentle
prick from the point of a cutlass, or a clout on the head, made them
more reasonable, and most of them sat down resigned to their fate. One
of them, however, a stout fellow, when the boat had got some distance
from the shore, striking out right and left at the men nearest him,
sprang overboard, and before the boat could be pulled round had already
got back nearly half-way to the landing-place.
One or two of the press-gang, who had muskets, fired, but they were not
good shots. The man looking back as he saw them lifting their weapons,
by suddenly diving escaped the first volley, and by the time they had
again loaded he had gained such a distance that the shot spattered into
the water on either side of him. They were afraid of firing again for
fear of hitting some of the people on shore, besides which, darkness
coming on, the gloom concealed him from view.
They knew, however, that he must have landed in safety from the cheers
which came from off the quay, uttered by the crowd who had followed the
press-gang, hooting them as they embarked with their captives.
Bill began to think that he could not be going to a very pleasant place,
since, in spite of the risk he ran, the man had been so eager to escape;
but being himself unable to swim, he could not follow his example, even
had he wished it. He judged it wiser, therefore, to stay still, and see
what would next happen. The boat pulled down the river for some way,
till she got alongside a large cutter, up the side of which Bill and his
companions were made to climb.
From what he heard, he found that she was a man-of-war tender, her
business being to collect men, by hook or by crook, for the Royal Navy.
As she was now full--indeed, so crowded that no more men could be stowed
on board--she got under way with the first of the ebb, and dropped down
the stream, bound for Spithead.
As Bill, with most of the pressed men, was kept below during this his
first trip to sea, he gained but little nautical experience. He was,
however, very sick, while he arrived at the conclusion that the tender's
hold, the dark prison in which he found himself, was a most horrible
place.
Several of his more heartless companions jeered at him in his misery;
and, indeed, poor Bill, thin and pale, shoeless and hatless, clad in
patched garments, looked a truly miserable object.
As the wind was fair, the voyage did not last long, and glad enough he
was when the cutter got alongside the big frigate, and he with the rest
being ordered on board, he could breathe the fresh air which blew across
her decks.
Tom Fletcher, who stood next to Bill, had considerably the advantage of
him in outward appearance. Tom was dressed in somewhat nautical
fashion, though any sailor would have seen with half an eye that his
costume had been got up by a shore-going tailor.
Tom had a good-natured but not very sensible-looking countenance. He
was strongly built, was in good health, and had the making of a sailor
in him, though this was the first time that he had even been on board a
ship.
He had a short time before come off with a party of men returning on the
expiration of their leave. Telling them that he wished to go to sea, he
had been allowed to enter the boat. From the questions some of them had
put to him, and the answers he gave, they suspected that he was a
runaway, and such in fact was the case. Tom was the son of a solicitor
in a country town, who had several other boys, he being the fourth, in
the family.
He had for some time taken to reading the voyages of Drake, Cavendish,
and Dampier, and the adventures of celebrated pirates, such as those of
Captains Kidd, Lowther, Davis, Teach, as also the lives of some of
England's naval commanders, Sir Cloudesley Shovell, Benbow, and Admirals
Hawke, Keppel, Rodney, and others, whose gallant actions he fully
intended some day to imitate.
He had made vain endeavours to induce his father to let him go to sea,
but Mr Fletcher, knowing that he was utterly ignorant of a sea life,
set his wish down as a mere fancy which it would be folly to indulge.
Tom, instead of trying to show that he really was in earnest, took
French leave one fine morning, and found his way to Portsmouth, without
being traced. Had he waited, he would probably have been sent to sea as
a midshipman, and placed on the quarter-deck. He now entered as a
ship-boy before the mast.
Tom, as he had made his bed, had to lie on it, as is the case with many
other persons. Even now, had he written home, he might have had his
position changed, but he thought himself very clever, and had no
intention of letting his father know where he had gone. The last of the
trio was far more accustomed to salt water than was either of his
companions. Jack Peek was the son of a West country fisherman. He had
come to sea because he saw that there was little chance of getting bread
to put into his mouth if he remained on shore.
Jack's father had lost his boats and nets the previous winter, and had
shortly afterwards been pressed on board a man-of-war.
Jack had done his best to support himself without being a burden to his
mother, who sold fish in the neighbouring town and country round, and
could do very well for herself; so when he proposed going on board a
man-of-war, she, having mended his shirts, bought him a new pair of
shoes, and gave him her blessing. Accordingly, doing up his spare
clothes in a bundle, which he carried at the end of a stick, he trudged
off with a stout heart, resolved to serve His Majesty and fight the
battles of Old England.
Jack went on board the first man-of-war tender picking up hands he could
find, and had been transferred that day to the _Foxhound_.
He told Tom and Bill thus much of his history. The former, however, was
not very ready to be communicative as to his; while Bill's patched
garments said as much about him as he was just then willing to narrate.
A boy who had spent all his life in the streets of London was not likely
to say more to strangers than was necessary.
In the meantime the fresh hands had been called up before the first
lieutenant, Mr Saltwell, and their names entered by the purser in the
ship's books, after the ordinary questions had been put to them to
ascertain for what rating they were qualified.
Some few, including the smugglers, were entered as able seamen; others
as ordinary seamen; and the larger number, who were unfit to go aloft,
or indeed not likely to be of much use in any way for a long time to
come, were rated as landsmen, and would have to do all the dirty work
about the ship.
The boys were next called up, and each of them gave an account of
himself.
Tom dreaded lest he should be asked any questions which he would be
puzzled to answer.
The first lieutenant glanced at all three, and in spite of his old
dress, entered Bill first, Jack next, and Tom, greatly to his surprise,
the last. In those days no questions were asked where men or boys came
from. At the present time, a boy who should thus appear on board a
man-of-war would find himself in the wrong box, and be quickly sent on
shore again, and home to his friends. None are allowed to enter the
Navy until they have gone through a regular course of instruction in a
training ship, and none are received on board her unless they can read
and write well, and have a formally signed certificate that they have
obtained permission from their parents or guardians.