ABSTRACT
‘Friends are not always the best biographers,’ said Mr Walsingham; ‘but I will try to be impartial. My ward’s first desire to be a sailor was excited, as he has often since told me, by reading Robinson Crusoe. When he was scarcely thirteen he went out in the Resolute, a frigate, under the command of captain Campbell. Campbell was an excellent officer, and very strict in all that related to order and discipline. It was his principle and his practice never to forgive a first offence; by which the number of second faults was considerably diminished. My ward was not much pleased at first with his captain; but he was afterwards convinced that this strictness was what made a man of him. He was buffeted about, and shown the rough of life; made to work hard, and submit to authority. To reason he was always ready to yield; and by degrees he learned that his first duty as a sailor was implicit obedience. In due time he was made a lieutenant: in this situation, his mixed duties of command and obedience were difficult, because his first-lieutenant, the captain’s son, was jealous of him.
