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Updated: June 8, 2025
A solitary bumboat canoe, with a yellow bunch of bananas in the bow, and an old negro woman dipping a languid paddle at the stern, were all that met my eye. Presently, however, a six-oared custom-house galley darted out from the tier of ships, pulling for the American brigantine.
So saying, he laid hold on the landlord's fist, and honoured him with such a squeeze, as compelled him to roar with great vociferation, to the infinite satisfaction of the commodore, whose features were a little unblended by this acknowledgment of his vigour; and he thus proceeded, in a less outrageous strain: "They make a d d noise about this engagement with the French: but, egad! it was no more than a bumboat battle, in comparison with some that I have seen.
A few days after I came onboard, I purchased some tarts of the bumboat woman, as she is called; I wished to pay for them, but she had no change, and very civilly told me she would trust me. She produced a narrow book, and said that she would open an account with me, and I could pay her when I thought proper.
The next morning, at daylight, Blue Peter was hoisted at the fore-royal masthead and a gun fired as a signal that the ship was about to sail; boats were hoisted in and stowed, stock was brought alongside, and the order was given to clear the ship of strangers sailors' wives and sweethearts who had come off to say a last good-bye, bumboat women who were making a final desperate effort to obtain a settlement of their accounts, and tradesmen of all kinds engaged upon the same errand or intent upon palming off upon the men otherwise unsaleable stock.
Instantly noting their course I awaited their reception with interest, an interest intensified by a drawling English voice from amid the crowd about me, saying: "I reckon thar'll be some dead niggers in thet thar bumboat if they don't sheer off almighty soon."
"Bloomin' fool," growled the Cockney. But it was the wrong word, and the others were silent. A man in trouble with an officer, though he be no seaman and a Dago, may always count on the sympathy of the fo'c'sle. "'E ain't fit to paddle a bumboat," the Cockney went on. "Can't go aloft, can't stand 'is wheel, can't even fetch the hash to time." "Yes!"
Gig upset with captain." Florence Marryat in her father's memoirs thus relates the incident: "When this gig was capsized, it contained, besides Captain Marryat, a middy and an old bumboat woman.
This worthy, I noticed, looked quite smart and seaman-like in the dungaree suit he had purchased from Mrs Poll Nash, the bumboat woman, which his messmates had taught him to rig up in proper man-o'-war fashion, the good-hearted chaps also supplying whatever other necessaries were required for his wardrobe, such as the black silk handkerchief, tied in a loose knot round his neck, and the knife and lanyard without which no bluejacket's toilet is complete.
"Dobbs Ferry, near New York," I answered. "I'd -I'd like to have a talk with you, when you are not busy." "That's all right," he said. "I'm not busy now. That bumboat pirate queered the only business I had. Where are you going to stop? There is only one place," he explained; "that's Pulido's.
This scrubbing of decks and scouring of ladders put an extra edge on our appetites, so we agreed with "Stump" when he said, "I feel as if I could put a whole bumboat load of stuff out of commission all by my lonely." "Stump's" appetite was out of proportion to his size.
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