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Updated: June 6, 2025
But he would have kept me on board as a ship-boy till the Auction of the Transports was over, and then he would have coolly sold me, for as much as I would fetch, to some Merchant of Kingston or Port Royal, who was used to deal in flesh and blood, and who, in due course, would have transferred me, at a profit, to some up-country planter.
My admiration of her was unbounded; and on the day of her launch upon which occasion I cheered myself hoarse I felt, as I saw her gliding swiftly and gracefully down the ways, that it would be a priceless privilege to sail in her, even in the capacity of the meanest ship-boy. And now I was to be a midshipman on board her!
His body was belted by a band of gold, a collar of fine thread lace floated on his neck and shoulders, and even his feet were clad in a sort of buskins, that were ornamented with fringes of real lace and tassels of bullion. The form and features of the child were delicate, and his air as unlike as possible to the coarse and brusque manner of a vulgar ship-boy.
Sant Iago was a beautifully built city, and Drake would perhaps have spared it; but a ship-boy who had strayed was found murdered and barbarously mutilated. The order was given to burn. Houses, magazines, churches, public buildings were turned to ashes, and the work being finished Drake went on, as Santa Cruz expected, for the Spanish West Indies.
"I will punctually obey you," replied the father, "when I have satisfied one part of my duty which calls upon me; it concerns the salvation or a soul, and there is no time to be lost on such an occasion." Immediately he ordered to be carried to his own bed a poor ship-boy, who lay stretched out on a little straw, with a burning fever upon him, without speech or knowledge.
People talk of sleeping like tops. A hard-worked ship-boy will beat any top in the world at sleeping soundly. For a second night the brig lay becalmed. I doubt that if even a fierce gale had sprung up it would have awakened us. The sun was shining when I opened my eyes. It might have been shining for hours for what I could tell.
"'Twas his the vast and trackless deep to rove, Alternate change of climates has he known, And felt the fierce extremes of either zone, Where polar skies congeal th' eternal snow, Or equinoctial suns for ever glow; Smote by the freezing or the scorching blast, A ship-boy on the high and giddy mast."
All, from Sir Stephen Lushington downwards to the youngest midshipman or ship-boy, did their duty right nobly; and though the bluejackets of England have no cause, as a rule, to complain that their gallantry is not sufficiently appreciated, perhaps on this occasion the service they rendered to their country is scarcely understood as it should be.
Even the mariners of our own times are not exempt from this weakness. The thoughtless ship-boy is reproved if his whistle be heard in the howling of the gale, and the officer sometimes betrays a feeling of uneasiness, if at such a moment he should witness any violation of the received opinions of his profession.
Then they were going to bind Billy hand and foot; but he was discovered to be perfectly calm; so they remonstrated instead, and presently Billy's commander-in-chief, a ship-boy called Georgie White, shoved in and asked him in a shrill haughty voice how he dared do that.
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