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FRAGMENTS
OF
VOYAGES AND TRAVELS,
INCLUDING
ANECDOTES OF A NAVAL LIFE:
CHIEFLY FOR THE
USE OF YOUNG PERSONS.
BY CAPTAIN BASIL HALL, R.N.
F.R.S.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
ROBERT CADELL, EDINBURGH:
WHITTAKER, TREACHER, & CO. LONDON.
M.DCCC.XXXI.
LONDON:
J. MOYES, TOOK’S COURT, CHANCERY LANE.
PREFACE.
This little work has been drawn up chiefly for the use of Young
Persons; it is therefore hoped, that should it fall under the eye of
older readers, the purpose for which it is written will be kept in mind.
On the other hand, should any young person meet with passages he does
not perfectly understand, he is recommended not to puzzle over them,
but rather to conclude that those parts of the book may be intended for
people a little further advanced.
It does not seem a settled point, whether, in the estimation of
Juvenile Readers, most interest attaches to a true story, or to one
entirely fictitious; but it may be right to mention, that all the
incidents here related are real.
The advice which the author has taken the liberty of offering to
his Young Friends, as well as the speculations he has occasionally
introduced, contain no opinions but such as he considers might have
proved useful to himself, at some stage of his own professional life.
_Putney Heath,
28th March, 1831._
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
Page
EARLY PREDILECTIONS 1
FIRST GOING AFLOAT 33
SPECIMENS OF COCK-PIT DISCIPLINE 61
BERMUDA IN THE PEACE 100
MIDSHIPMEN’S PRANKS 137
DIVERSITIES IN DISCIPLINE 161
GEOLOGY—NAUTICAL SQUABBLES 179
MAST-HEADING A YOUNG GENTLEMAN 196
KEEPING WATCH 217
DANGERS OF A NOVA SCOTIA FOG 261
BLOCKADING A NEUTRAL PORT 283
THE SCHOOLMASTER AFLOAT 302
FRAGMENTS
OF
VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY PREDILECTIONS.
Various circumstances conspired to give me, very early in life, what is
called a taste for the sea. In the first place, I came into the world
in the midst of a heavy gale of wind; when such was the violence of the
storm, and the beating of the rain, that there were some thoughts of
removing the whole party to a less ricketty corner of the old mansion,
which shook from top to bottom. So strong, indeed, was the impression
made on the imagination of those present, by the roaring of the surf,
close at hand, the whistling of the wind in the drenched forest, and
the obvious rocking of the house, under the heavy gusts of that
memorable gale, that, as soon as I was old enough to understand any
thing at all, the association between the events of my future life,
and those of my birth-night, began to be sown in my mind. Thus, long
before I shipped a pair of trousers, I felt that a salt-water destiny
was to be mine; and as every body encouraged me to cherish these
early predilections for the sea, I grew up with something of the same
kind of certainty of becoming a sailor, as an elder brother does of
becoming a country gentleman, from his knowing—‘for quickly comes such
knowledge’—that the estate is entailed upon him.
The holydays, also, which released me from the irksome confinement of
the High School of Edinburgh, were passed in the country, on a part
of the rugged sea-coast of Scotland, peculiarly calculated to foster
nautical propensities. During the weary months which preceded and
followed these six delicious weeks of liberty, my thoughts, instead of
being devoted to the comprehension of abstract rules of grammar, which
it was our worthy preceptor’s sole object in life to drive into us,
invariably strayed back to the picturesque and iron-bound shore, as it
is happily termed in naval language, along which I was wont to ramble
in full enjoyment during these holydays.
So incessantly, indeed, was the contrast presented to my imagination,
between the cramped routine of school discipline, and the glorious
freedom of the sea-beach, that I took little or no interest even in
the games which filled up the play-hours of the other boys; and, from
dwelling upon these thoughts day and night, I became so gloomy and
wretched, that the bare recollection of my feelings at that period
often makes me shudder, though more than thirty busy years have since
passed over my head. The master of our class was as excellent a man,
I believe, as could be; but he would have deemed it a shocking crime
against his calling—which he very naturally considered the first on
earth—to have allowed that any one boy possessed a particle more
of feeling, or was conscious of more independence of thought, than
his companions. Still less could he understand that any boy should
pretend to have aspirations and wild fancies—dreams he called them—the
object of which lay far beyond the boundary walls of the play-ground.
Accordingly, I dragged on a tolerably profitless and painful existence
for several years; though, perhaps, with a little management, this
period might have been rendered not only useful, but happy.
Once only, during my continuance in this Limbo, as the Spaniards call
the Purgatory of Children, I was addressed in a very kind manner by the
head master, though a severe personage in his way, as far as regarded
the use of the formidable strap, or taws, which in Scotland supply the
place of the wholesome birch of English seminaries. He took me on one
side, and said, in a tone so unusual in the despotic government of
schools in those days, that it made me start,—“How comes it, little
fellow, that you are always so gloomy; and that you never play as the
rest do, but look for ever as if some misfortune had befallen you?”
I answered, ‘that the confinement of the school was much too great, and
that I could not bear being always treated as if I had no feelings or
peculiar wishes worthy of separate consideration. That it was not the
number of hours’ confinement I complained of, but the awkward selection
of the periods.’ “Let me, sir,” I said, “but choose the time for study,
and I will cheerfully work even much longer. At present, the day is
totally cut up and destroyed.”
He smiled, patted me on the head, and said the hours and discipline
could not be changed, merely to suit the fantastic taste of one boy.
I knew this well enough already; in fact, I was not so absurd as to
suppose that a public school could be maintained on my visionary
principles, or that any rules could be established for their
government but such as took account of average abilities, and made
allowance for an ordinary share of feeling and patience. Whether or
not my quantum of sensibility were needlessly great, is of little
consequence: it certainly was so different from that of my companions,
that it completely prevented my profiting, in the mean time, by the
opportunities of this school, and drove me to rest my only prospect of
happiness in getting away from its thraldom.
Certain very troublesome misgivings, also, as to the future, came
across my juvenile thoughts about this epoch; especially as to the
probabilities of happiness in that wide world of freedom for which my
soul panted, and of which I knew nothing, except by description. I
happened, one day, to get hold of Gray’s Ode on a distant Prospect of
Eton College,—a poem fraught, it is true, with images of the highest
possible beauty, both of thought and of expression, but most of which
are certainly far better calculated to beget despondency than hope,
by teaching that school days are unavoidably happier than those of
after-life.
What the ‘march of intellect’ may have done lately to remedy this
matter, I cannot say; but in my time, and at the particular school
alluded to, the season of boyhood was, to me at least, any thing but a
happy one; and I well remember, after reading the poem in question,
exclaiming, in a state of great despair, “If it is certain that my
future life is to be more wretched than this, which is now so full of
misery, what, alas! is existence worth?”
In this terrified frame of mind, I dived into various other works,
but, to my sorrow, very seldom met with anything of a more consolatory
nature. Nor was it till many years’ trial of the wear and tear of
actual life, that I came to learn the fallacy of most of these
assertions respecting the comparative happiness of school; and to feel
assured that the whole, or nearly the whole matter, lies essentially
with ourselves, since, in any situation in life, the amount of our
happiness will be found to bear, in the long run, a pretty exact ratio
to the heartiness with which we perform our duty. Whereas Gray’s
Ode, Young’s Night Thoughts, and other sombre productions, too often
thrust into the hands of young people, would almost seem to inculcate
the notion that the most virtuous persons are the least happy, and
that life is necessarily filled with care and remorse, instead of
being, as it really is, to those who choose to make it so, a scene
of high enjoyment—not, indeed, one of unmixed enjoyment, but one
in which the pleasures generally far outweigh the sorrows. It has,
accordingly, always seemed to me a libel on our nature, and a perverse
misapplication of the gifts of Providence, to consider that the
earliest days of life must of course be the happiest. It may do very
well, in poetical fiction, to talk of childhood being the ‘sunshine
of the breast;’ but surely the true, broad daylight of life, not
poetically, but practically speaking, is to be found at a later period,
when the faculties are far more matured, and the will is left free.
Be all this, however, as it may, I never lost a minute in hurrying
away from school, the instant our examinations were ended. At these
periodical trials, it may be well supposed, I never cut any great
figure; for, I contented myself with trying to keep a little above
the middle, partly because some boys sat thereabouts to whom I was
attached, anti partly because the particular bench alluded to was near
the fire. As soon as the term of imprisonment was over, I flew to the
coach-office, and never felt perfectly satisfied that all was right
and safe, till fairly seated on the top, by the side of my friend the
guard, and bowling along the high road. On reaching the country, the
first object always was to hunt out some of the fishermen on the shore,
who readily engaged to give me a row next morning. After a sleepless
night of anticipated delights, I commonly found myself, at sunrise, in
a fishing-boat, half a league from the coast, surrounded by congenial
spirits—fellows who had no idea of grammar—and who were willing, either
from bribery, or from motives of professional sympathy, to consider
me as somebody, and not to reckon me as a mere zero, serving no other
purpose but to augment the numbers of a school, without having any
value in myself.
At all events, these hardy boatmen were so much amused with my
enthusiasm about their art, that they took great pleasure in feeding
my young fancy with tales of nautical dangers and hardships, the
joyous excitement of which placed the dull drudgery of syntax in sad
contrast. On these expeditions, however, I was always wofully sea-sick;
for the boats, or cobbles, as they are called, were not altogether so
tidy as a man-of-war’s gig; besides which, they generally enclosed a
due allowance of bilge water, and decayed remnants of forgotten fish.
So that my taste for the sea had often tough work to hold its ground,
against the deranged action of the stomach; and it must be owned that
I often leaped on shore again, to the enjoyment of steady footing and
an atmosphere less fishified, with a half-uttered vow at my lips that I
would never tempt the ocean more.
This slight infidelity to my beloved element, however, was always very
transient, as it seldom lasted longer than the time it cost to climb
the high, steep bank, which guarded the coast. From this elevation,
the view extended far up the Firth of Forth on one hand, with many a
mountain lying beyond it; right out into the German Ocean in front;
while the scene was bounded on the right, or eastern side, by the
noble promontory called Fast Castle, better known as the Wolf’s Crag
of the Waverley Novels. To my young fancy this seemed the grandest of
all landscapes—and still, after I have rambled for more than a quarter
of a century over the earth’s surface, and made personal acquaintance
with some of the sublimest works of nature, my opinion of the beautiful
scenery in question is not changed, otherwise than by increased
admiration. Indeed, it will often require much time, and more extended
means of comparison, as well as the assistance of just conceptions of
what is really meant by the great and beautiful in nature, which spring
from experience alone, before we can fairly estimate the advantages
which frequently lie at our very doors. This will apply, perhaps, to
other things besides scenery—but it is with that alone I have to do
just now—and certainly few things can be imagined more brilliant than
the view from the part of the coast in question. For the sea at that
point being a great commercial thoroughfare, is generally studded over
with vessels of various sizes and descriptions, and, I may add, of
colours. For what the lights and shades of heaven do not perform in
this respect, the seamen do for themselves, by tanning their sails, and
painting the ships of many different hues. As these vessels drifted
past, and dropped, one by one, out of sight, beyond the horizon, I felt
the most eager desire to follow their wanderings into those wide seas,
about which I had so often read—where the land is lost sight of for
months together, and where every evening brings fresh stars into view,
and every bird and fish, as well as every breath of air, indicates
another climate, and almost another world.
In the meantime, however, my operations in nautical affairs were
necessarily limited to the horse pond, upon which, by the assistance
of an obliging carpenter lad, I managed to make the first fair trial
of that element with which, in after life, it was my happy lot to
become so familiar. Our vessel consisted of two or three rough logs,
filched from the farm-yard, and sundry planks nailed or lashed across
them. A mast was readily obtained by the abstraction of a bar from
the nearest paling. But considerable difficulty arose as to the sail;
for canvass was a material much beyond our finances or influence. At
length my ingenious companion—who, by the way, distinguished himself in
after-life as a ship-builder—suggested the idea of employing one of the
mats used by the gardener to protect his plants from the frost. Thus,
step by step, our gallant vessel was at length rigged out; and on the
second day of our labours, every thing being ready, and the wind fair,
we started from one end of this inland sea, and, after a prosperous
voyage of about ten minutes, by ‘God’s grace’—to use the quaint
language still printed in bills of lading—more than by any skill of our
own—we reached the other extremity, without any serious disaster.
The pleasure which this primitive voyage inspired, has never since
been much exceeded. It was the first unalloyed happiness I had
ever experienced, and at once opened up a new prospect of hope and
resolution, which rendered the weary load of school existence somewhat
less intolerable than it had been before. It also gave me a foretaste
of the joys of enterprise, and independent command, which, in their
turn, called up innumerable visions of successful resource, surmounted
difficulties, and all the demi-savage delights of such a life as
that of Robinson Crusoe, with the additional advantage of that great
adventurer’s experience.
Little did I then think, and, in fact, it was nearly impossible I
should reasonably think, that the realities of life could ever reach
these imaginary conceptions. And yet I have lived to experience that,
sanguine as I then was, these anticipations fell much short of the
glorious reality which is almost every where to be met with. Indeed,
I may say, with perfect truth, that in all these voyages and travels,
I have generally found things more curious, and more interesting, in
all respects, than I had looked for—or, if the career of curiosity has
at any time been checked, it has only been followed by a more ardent
pursuit, and ultimately by still higher rewards.
This process of feeding the curiosity, was well enough exemplified
by a series of very exciting, though often painful and seemingly
discouraging, incidents that occurred every year on the coast already
mentioned, as forming the scene where I passed the holydays. Ten
leagues, or thirty geographical miles, due north of the house in which
I was born, lies the Bell Rock, just off the mouth of the Tay, and
close to the northern side of the great estuary called the Firth of
Forth. At the time I am speaking of, this rock was justly considered
one of the most formidable dangers that the navigators of those seas
had to encounter; for its head was merged under the surface during
greater part of the tide, and at no time did it make any shew above the
water. There was nothing to be done, therefore, but to keep well clear
of the mischief, or, as seamen express themselves, to give the rock a
wide birth. Ships, accordingly, bound for the Forth, in their constant
terror of this ugly reef, were not content with giving it ten or even
twenty miles of elbow room, but must needs edge off a little more to
the south, so as to hug the shore, in such a way, that, when the wind
chopped round to the northward, as it often did, these overcautious
navigators were apt to get embayed in a deep bight to the westward of
Fast Castle. If the breeze freshened before they could work out, they
paid dearly for their apprehensions of the Bell Rock, by driving upon
ledges fully as sharp, and far more extensive and inevitable. Thus, at
that time, from three to four, and sometimes half a dozen vessels used
to be wrecked every winter, within a mile or two of our very door.
Perhaps there are few more exciting spectacles than a vessel stranded
on a lee-shore—and especially such a shore—which is fringed with reefs
extending far out, and offering no spot for shelter. The hapless
ship lies dismasted, bilged, and beat about by the waves, with her
despairing crew clinging to the wreck, or to the shrouds, and uttering
cries totally inaudible in the roar of the sea—while at each successive
dash of the breakers, the number of the survivors is thinned, till, at
length, they all disappear—the gallant bark goes to pieces—and the
coast, for a league on either side, is strewed with broken planks,
masts, boxes, and ruined portions of the goodly cargo, with which, a
few hours before, she was securely freighted, and dancing merrily over
the waters.
But it is the greatest of all mistakes to suppose that the actual
contemplation of such disasters, still less the description of
hardships, has any tendency to divert a young mind from following its
original bent, towards a profession of such varied and high excitement
as that of the sea. At all events, the effect of each succeeding
shipwreck I witnessed, was only to stimulate me more and more to pursue
the object of all my thoughts, waking or dreaming.
I can recollect, however, being conscious of a feeling of awe,
approaching at times to dread, as I saw the waves curling themselves
over these devoted vessels, and gradually tearing them to pieces as
the tide advanced. But still there was always more of confidence and
pleasure in the prospect which my mind’s eye conjured up to itself
beyond these stirring adventures. To this day there is told a
traditional story amongst our fishermen, of my having once contributed
to save a ship’s crew, by engaging some country people to transport a
boat from a distance, across the hills, in a cart. The account farther
sets forth, that I had only a few halfpence in my pocket; and that when
these proved insufficient to induce the carter to go out of his way, I
stoutly asserted I had authority from my father to offer five pounds
for any such assistance. Upon this pledge, the cart was freighted with
its unwonted cargo, and the boat was brought in time to the spot. I
have no recollection whatsoever of this incident; but something of
the kind may possibly have occurred, or, more probably, may have been
merely talked of amongst the fishermen, my great patrons and admirers.
These things, by making me feel not so utterly useless in the world, as
I was made to appear at school, must have united me by still stronger
ties to the animating profession to which I grew up, apparently as a
matter of course.
Future generations of the family, however, will not have this costly
and melancholy source of encouragement for their children to go to
sea:—since the shipwrecks that helped to do me this good turn, are now,
fortunately for commerce and humanity, hardly ever known. The fatal
Bell Rock—the direct and indirect cause of so many losses—has recently
been converted into one of the greatest sources of security that
navigation is capable of receiving. By dint of scientific skill, backed
by well-managed perseverance, and the example of the Eddystone to copy
from, a light-house, one hundred and twenty feet high, has been raised
upon this formidable reef as a foundation. So that the mariner, instead
of doing all he can to avoid the spot, once so much dreaded, now
eagerly runs for it, and counts himself happy when he gets sight of the
revolving star on the top, which, from its being variously coloured,
he can distinguish from every other light in that quarter. He is then
enabled to steer directly for his port, in perfect security, though the
night be ever so dark.
On returning from these scenes of real life and activity, to that most
picturesque of cities, the Old Town of Edinburgh, I was plunged into
tenfold gloom; and really do not know what I should have done had I
not lighted accidentally upon Shakspeare’s description of the ship-boy
reposing on the high and giddy mast. This idea was so congenial to
the fancy of a sailor elect, and withal so exquisitely poetical, that
I could not rest till possessed of a copy of the whole of his Plays,
which were forthwith read over from beginning to end—to the total
destruction, I am half ashamed to say, of all the little respect I
then had for the ancient classics. The Tempest was soon learned almost
by heart—the nautical part of it in particular—and I swore an eternal
friendship with the boatswain, whose seamanship, by the way, though
wild and strange, is, upon the whole, wonderfully correct. One would
like to know how Shakspeare picked it up.
About this period, also, when my thoughts presented a strange jumble
of real and imaginary shipwrecks, with the intricate niceties of Latin
grammar, I met my father one day in the streets, close to the late
Lord Duncan’s house.
“Well met!” he cried, “come along, master sailor, and you shall see the
hero of Camperdown.”
I was accordingly introduced as a future brother-seaman to this great
officer, whose noble appearance was in such good keeping with his
renown, that I felt my respect for him rise at every moment of the
interview.
“You are a youngster of some taste,” observed his lordship
good-naturedly; “and if you will come here with me, I can shew you
something to encourage you to stick to your business.”
So saying, he led the way to another room, where a flag he had taken
from Admiral de Winter, on the 11th of October, 1797, was hanging up.
This sight was interesting, to be sure, but I was still more enchanted
with the frankness and kindliness of the veteran’s manner,—and I could
not help saying to myself, that if such a man saw reason to treat a boy
with attention, I was surely entitled to something less disrespectful
than I met with at school,—and I remember, next morning, shedding
a torrent of tears as I entered the scene of what I considered my
imprisonment, and contrasted the master’s reception with that of the
admiral.
Not long afterwards, I happened to meet Professor Playfair, of
Edinburgh College, at a house in the country. It was the singular
fortune of this amiable and accomplished philosopher, to be equally
a favourite with the young as with the old. He won the regard and
the confidence of children, not only by the matchless sweetness of
his disposition, but by the generous encouragement he delighted to
give to their opening thoughts; whilst among men of science, or of
letters, he was not less admired for the extent and variety of his
attainments, than for the clear, popular, and often eloquent facility
which he possessed of giving expression to the most abstract branches
of knowledge.
I found him one morning seated on the ground, taking the sun’s altitude
with a pocket sextant, from an artificial horizon, which had been
made by pouring some treacle into a bowl. Upon my expressing great
curiosity to know what magical operation he could be about, he at
once explained, or rather endeavoured to explain, the object of such
pursuits. Instead of cutting me short with some idle reply about the
thing being above my comprehension, he intermitted his work, and
sought earnestly to make me perceive how closely such observations
were connected with the duties of a naval life. Next day he gave me
a copy of Bonnycastle’s Astronomy, which I possess to this hour;
and I think I may date from the conversation above alluded to, the
growth of a taste for this branch of professional pursuits—I mean
nautical astronomy—which has not only proved at all times a source of
the highest enjoyment, but, as will be seen in the sequel, has been
accompanied by no small utility in helping me on in the world.
I shall be sorry if what I have here said dispose any idle youth who
may not find himself happy at school, to try so rugged a profession
as that of the sea, unless he have many other, and more substantial
reasons for preferring it to all others. The whole system of school
discipline, however, has been so much changed since the present century
commenced, that boys have probably much less excuse than I had for not
sticking to their lessons. And yet truth forces me to confess, that the
fault lay fully more with the scholar than with the school. But my head
had got so filled with notions of voyaging and travelling, that, even
if I had been at Eton, I dare say I should have sighed to be allowed to
fly away.
It is clear enough, that no boy, instruct him as we will, can form
correct ideas of what he is likely to meet with in any profession;
still, if his mind be ardently bent upon one particular pursuit, and
it be decided to indulge this fancy, he will be bound in honour,
if he have the spirit of a gentleman within him, to persevere in
following up the line he has been allowed to choose for himself. The
incipient difficulties and discomforts of all professions are probably
pretty much alike; and the boy who has not energy enough to set his
face resolutely against the early discouragements of any particular
calling, will, in all probability, be successful in no other. It is,
however, so great an advantage to have a young person’s own feelings,
and his point of honour heartily engaged in the cause in which he has
embarked, that, if circumstances render such a thing at all expedient,
or not quite unreasonable, the choice of a profession may often be
conceded with advantage. But such free choice ought to be afterwards
burdened, with a positive interdict against change. In the case of a
sea life, this appears to be quite indispensable; for the contrast
is so striking, in most cases, between the comforts of home and
the discomforts of a ship—to say nothing of rough fare, hard work,
sea-sickness, and strict discipline—that, if an opening be constantly
presented for escape, few youngsters will have resolution enough to
bear up against those trials to which they must be exposed, and which
they ought to hold themselves prepared to meet with cheerfulness.
Perhaps the naval profession owes a good deal of its peculiar character
to these very disadvantages, as they are called; and though we may
often regret to see young men, of good abilities, dropping out of the
navy, who, if they had only cast on the right tack, might have done
the service and themselves much honour—yet there is no denying that
their more vigorous-minded and sterner-framed companions, whom they
leave afloat, are, upon the whole, better fitted to make useful public
servants.
In many other professions, it is possible to calculate, beforehand,
with more or less precision, the degree and kind of work which a young
man is likely to be called upon to perform; but there is peculiar
difficulty in coming to any just conclusion upon these points, even in
a vague way, in the life of a sailor. His range of duties includes the
whole world,—he may be lost in the wilderness of a three-decker, or
be wedged into a cock-boat;—he may be fried in Jamaica, or frozen in
Spitzbergen;—he may be cruising, or be in action during six days of the
week, in the midst of a fleet, and flounder in solitude on the seventh;
or he may waste his years in peaceful idleness, the most fatal to
subordination, or be employed on the home station, and hear from his
friends every day, or he may be fifteen months, as I have been, at a
time, without getting a letter or seeing a newspaper. He may have an
easy-going commander, which is a very great evil; or his captain may be
one of those tight hands, who, to use the slang of the cock-pit, keeps
every one on board ‘under the fear of the Lord and a broomstick.’ In
short, a man may go to sea for twenty years, and find no two men, and
hardly two days alike. All this, which is delightful to some minds, and
productive in them of every kind of resource, is utterly distracting,
and very often ruinous, to others. Weak frames generally sink under
its severity; and weak minds become confused with its complication,
and the intensity of its action. But, on the other hand, the variety
of its objects is so boundless, that if a young man have only strength
of body, to endure the wear and tear of watching and other inevitable
fatigues; and have also strength of character enough to persevere,
in the certainty of openings occurring, sooner or later, by which his
talents or his industry may find profitable employment,—there can be
little doubt that the profession of a sailor might be made suitable to
most of those who, on entering it, are positively cut off from retreat.
Supposing that this ticklish question, of the choice of a profession,
has been conceded to a boy, there remains the still more perplexing
problem—what is the fittest method of training him beforehand, so that
he may enter his new life with best effect? The difficulty arises, I
suspect, from two causes, one of which applies to education generally,
the other to the particular case of a lad intended for the navy. Most
people seem to think, and very naturally, that the object of a school
is to teach knowledge which shall afterwards be practically available
in the business of life; and they cannot well understand what is
the use of teaching Latin and Greek, which appear to be so little
applicable to real work. Much of this difficulty vanishes, however, if
it be considered that the chief purpose of education is to discipline
the mind, and to train up the character, so that it may be found equal
to any task, no matter how unlooked-for it may be. In such a view, the
Classics are as good, and probably better than any other.
If the principles, the faculties, and the feelings of a boy be
duly cultivated at school, he may be expected to enter the world
in as fit a state to profit by the opportunities in his path, as
his nature will allow of; nor does it, perhaps, much matter by what
artificial machinery this degree of perfection in mental culture has
been attained. All that seems essentially of importance is, that the
endowments given him by nature, should have been so well exercised,
that when brought to bear on the real, manly business of life, they may
act with effect. If the process of education has been well managed, its
utility will probably not be the least sensibly felt, in cases where
the pursuits to be followed in earnest are dissimilar to those, by
means of which the boy’s faculties were originally developed at school.
In the instance of young men intended for the navy, I think this rule
applies with particular force. The early age of thirteen, at which
they must of necessity go on board ship, renders it almost impossible
that they can have acquired any great stock of what is usually called
knowledge. But, by proper management, they may, previous to that age,
have secured a very large stock of that particular description of
information which will be of most use to them in the outset of life;
and their growing minds may have been fitted, by a good system of
school discipline, to submit with cheerfulness, as well as advantage,
to that singular mixture of constraint and freedom, which forms the
most striking feature of a sea life. If this be true, it is perhaps of
no great consequence whether the ground-work of such an education be
the ancient classics, the mathematics, or modern languages: for the
real object to be arrived at, viz. mental training, may, by proper
management, be equally well attained by any of these methods.
No two boys, perhaps, out of a dozen, intended for the sea, may
require the same training; but still there is no reason why the whole
number should not be equally well fitted, by previous education, to
advance themselves in the service, according to their respective
talents, though some of them, at starting, may be altogether ignorant
of those subjects, generally supposed to be of the most indispensable
utility at sea.
Antecedent, therefore, to the age of thirteen, after which a boy ought
never to commence his naval career, it appears to matter extremely
little what he learns, provided his mind be kept fully occupied. It
will be better, no doubt, if a boy’s taste happen to lie in that
direction, that his occupations at school have as direct a reference
as possible to his future pursuits. If, for instance, he have a turn
for mathematics, or for modern languages, he ought certainly to be
indulged in his fancy. But the essential objects to be attended to, at
this stage of his education, lie a great deal further from the surface,
and consequently make much less show. The formation of character,
upon the solid basis of religion, and a due cultivation of manners,
especially of those branches which relate to temper and self-denial,
are quite within the range of education antecedent to the age of
thirteen. If, then, a boy be only well grounded in his principles, and
if he be taught to think and feel and act like a gentleman, before he
is turned adrift on the wide ocean, and he have also acquired habits
of industry and obedience, together with the ordinary elements of
knowledge—reading, writing, and so on—it matters little, as I conceive,
whether he has acquired much information besides—for all else that is
wanting will follow in good time.
The consideration of what system of instruction should be pursued
afterwards, at the naval college, or on board ship, is a totally
different affair, and deserves to be treated by itself.