Poor Jack

FRONTISPIECE--Poor Jack Fisher's Alley I summoned all my strength, and called out long before we floated past her Anderson reading the Bible to Jack Anderson reading the news of the Battle of the Nile Jack's Father landing after the Battle of the Nile Jack in Nanny's Room Jack and Bramble aboard the Indiaman The Fore-peak Yarn "How's her head, Tom?" Bramble saving Bessie Jack heaving the lead Nanny relating her story Jack and his Father under the Colonnade A Surprise Bramble and Jack carried into a French Port The Leith Smack and the Privateer The Arrival of the Privateer at Lanion The Prison Jack a Prisoner The Escape Wreck of the Galley We found both Bramble and Bessy clinging to the rope Bramble had knelt by the bedside, and was evidently in prayer I went down to the beach, ... and I was soon on board "Mr. Saunders, ... may I ask where you procured this spy-glass?" Sir J. O'Connor and Mrs. St. Felix I met face to face a Frenchman

POOR JACK

CHAPTER ONE

In which, like most People who tell their own Stories, I begin with the Histories of other People.

I have every reason to believe that I was born in the year of our Lord 1786, for more than once I put the question to my father, and he invariably made the same reply: "Why, Jack, you were launched a few months before the Druids were turned over to the Melpomene." I have since ascertained that this remarkable event occurred in January 1787. But my father always reckoned in this way: if you asked him when such an event took place, he would reply, so many years or months after such a naval engagement or remarkable occurrence; as, for instance, when I one day inquired how many years he had served the King, he responded, "I came into the sarvice a little afore the battle of Bunker's Hill, in which we licked the Americans clean out of Boston[1]." As for Anno Domini, he had no notion of it whatever.

[Footnote 1: I have since heard a different version of the result of this battle.]

Who my grandfather was, I cannot inform the reader, nor is it, perhaps, of much consequence. My father was a man who invariably looked forward, and hated anything like retrospection: he never mentioned either his father or his mother; perhaps he was not personally acquainted with them. All I could collect from him at intervals was, that he served in a collier from South Shields, and that a few months after his apprenticeship was out, he found himself one fine morning on board of a man-of-war, having been picked up in a state of unconsciousness, and hoisted up the side without his knowledge or consent. Some people may infer from this that he was at the time tipsy; he never told me so; all he said was, "Why, Jack, the fact is when they picked me up I was quite altogether non pompus." I also collected at various times the following facts--that he was put into the mizzentop, and served three years in the West Indies; that he was transferred to the maintop, and served five years in the Mediterranean; that he was made captain of the foretop, and sailed six years in the East Indies; and, at last, was rated captain's coxswain in the "Druid" frigate, attached to the Channel fleet cruising during the peace. Having thus condensed the genealogical and chronological part of this history, I now come to a portion of it in which it will be necessary that I should enter more into detail.