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Updated: May 10, 2025
My descent to the midshipmen's berth for the purpose of making my few preparations was the signal for a general fusillade of questions from my inquisitive messmates as to the why and wherefore of my summons to the cabin, and great was the disgust which each felt that he had been passed over in favour of so unimportant a personage as myself.
By and by, after a period of terrible suspense, the man in the water was seen to be seized by his messmates and drawn into the boat, which was then turned toward the ship.
One of them the Boxer, a tin-clad, mounting eight guns had Frank on board. He had been detached from the Trenton, and ordered to join this vessel, which had been assigned a station a short distance below Grand Gulf. As usual, he had no difficulty in becoming acquainted with his new messmates, and he soon felt perfectly at home among them.
Soon after, I had the pleasure of seeing a lot of the men's garments hung on a couple of lines in the rigging, and Barkins and Smith hard at work fishing, in which they were so wonderfully successful that I longed to go and join them; but I was too busy over my task of disguising the twenty sailors, and consequently my two messmates had all the sport to themselves, dragging in, every few minutes, an abundance of good-sized fishes, which were at last strung upon a piece of stout line and hung over the stern rail.
Not that his ideas soared to such a pitch of extravagant hope as that which took possession of his messmates, who frequently quarrelled one with another about the degrees of favour to which they should be entitled after the king's restoration; but he firmly believed that affairs would speedily take such a turn in Italy, as would point out to the English court the expediency of employing him again; and his persuasion seemed to support him against every species of poverty and mortification.
And, indeed, methinks it was lovely and touching that so divine a ray of goodness and superior reason should have shot from his heart or from Heaven across that poor benighted brain. But it must be owned his mode of showing his humanity was somewhat excessive and abnormal, and smacked of lunacy. After this, however, the affection of his messmates was not so contemptuous.
Of course, that is the vessel we sighted just before we attacked here to-day. But the other three men?" "Don't know, sir, unless they are prisoners in the forecastle." "Go and see, my lads," cried the lieutenant; and, to the delight of their messmates, the others were set free from where they had been imprisoned.
While thus occupied, and alternately chattering with terror, and screaming with delight, till the enraged owner of the property burst in upon him, hardly more angry with Jacko than with his malicious messmates, who, instead of preventing, had rather encouraged the pillage. All this was innocent, however, compared to the tricks which the blue-jackets taught him to play upon the jolly marines.
He soon became a great favourite with most of my messmates, who appreciated his affection for me; but he was certainly not one with the first mate or the captain. He gave further evidence of his sagacity by managing, in the most active manner, to keep out of their way whenever they came on deck.
I who had always borne an unsullied name, whose character had always stood high both with my officers and messmates, to be now branded as a thief! How could I ever face those I loved, conscious of the marks of the foul lash on my back?
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