I felt some small degree of uncertainty about the success of my first attempt at soup making, neither did I venture to say anything about the salt water; but thought I would leave the event as the proof of the soup would be in the eating. At 12 o'clock the mate came to the galley to know if dinner was ready. I told him it had been boiling three hours, and I thought it was done. " Well, give the men their dinner, then go and set the table in the cabin." In the meantime he took a quid about the size of a musket cartridge from his mouth, and holding it in his left hand took out°a ladle full of the boiling beverage, and after blowing and sipping a few minutes, turned round to me saying, " you young dog, you have put in too much salt, but it's good soup though, don't put in so much next time." " No sir." So I came to the conclusion that soup should be made with fresh water, although I heard no grumbling from the sailors.
Our cargo being on board and everything ready for sea we sailed on the hrst of June, 1807, for Rotterdam. The next day I was quite sea-siek and could hardly crawl to the camboose house. I began to have some suspicion that our captain was what old sailors call a " horse," and I also discovered that it was his intention to be very severe on me, for I was so sick that I could hardly hold up my head, he sent me to look for what he called a creeper, a cooking utensil generally called a spider. I hail never seen it among the galley fixings; yet in a tyrannical manner he ordered me to find it. I began to wish myself back again, for when drunk, which was nearly half the time, he would grin and show his teeth like a monkey, threatening to flog me declaring it was the only method of making a sinart man of a boy.
In a few days my sea-sickness had disappeared, and I was all right again. The ship's bill of fare, the following of which is a true copy, was stuck up in the cabin, and from the orthography of the bill, it will seem to be evident, that the schoolmaster was not on board. Sundy — bef and pork and poclins and peters. Mondy — bef and pork and peters. Tnsdy — pork and bens. Wensdy — salt fish peters and pork fat. Thusdy — bef and pork and podins. Fridy — pork and bens. Saterdy — salt fish peters and pork fat. The first line of this remarkable document would read thus, in the English language: Sundays — Beef, Pork, Puddings, and Potatoes.
Besides my duty as cook, cabin-boy, and steward, I had to loose and furl the royals, and as we had but one top-mast studdingsail, and but one boom, it devolved on me to shift the latter from side to side as occasion required, which was no easy job when she was rolling heavy, a trick she was well accustomed to. In tacking ship it was my duty to let go the fore-sheet, and shift over the middle stay-sail-sheet. One day when we had tacked, and after I had let go the fore-sheet, I jumped below to secure a can of molasses that I had just drawn; I was not below more than half a minute, the captain saw me go down and came to the hatchway with the end of the top-sail buntling in his hand, waiting for me to come up, and as soon as my head was above deck he commenced, and I am sure 1 shall never forget that rope's endr ing.
It may almost be set down as a proverb, and I have seen it verified in my commerce with men, that we as often get punished for doing our duty as for neglecting it. My good captain seemed to labor under the impression that flogging was a very necessary and indispensable branch of discipline in my education for a sailor. And whether he considered that the use of a rope's end was a vulgar mode of punishment, and wishing to treat me with some degree of refinement, 1 cannot say, for he had a nice cat o' nine tails made by one of the seamen, nicely pointed and grafted, and pretty enough to hang up in a museum; the elaborate finish of this cat the skipper looked upon as the profoundest test of skill in seamanship.
After taking a stiff glass of grog, he called me into the cabin, and with his usual monkey grin, held out this pretty plaything, and commenced his address: " You see this, donH you?" "Yes, sir." " Well, when you first come aboard, I liked your looks, but hvyitfd I should have a job to cook you. Look out now" He then hung it up against his state-room door, and told me to be off. He never had the pleasure, however, of using his man-maker upon my back, for that night it disappeared, and was never seen afterwards; and what was very singular, he did not inquire for it. But I rather suspected that he had some idea where it went.