A mistaken notion has long prevailed, that boys derive advantages from suffering under the tyranny of their oppressors at schools; and we constantly hear the praises of public schools and midshipmen’s berths on this very account—­namely, “that boys are taught to find their level.”  I do not mean to deny but that the higher orders improve by collision with their inferiors, and that a young aristocrat is often brought to his senses by receiving a sound thrashing from the son of a tradesman.  But he that is brought up a slave, will be a tyrant when he has the power; the worst of our passions are nourished to inflict the same evil on others which we boast of having suffered ourselves.  The courage and daring spirit of a noble-minded boy is rather broken down by ill-usage, which he has not the power to resist, or, surmounting all this, he proudly imbibes a dogged spirit of sullen resistance and implacable revenge, which become the bane of his future life.

The latter was my fate; and let not my readers be surprised or shocked, if, in the course of these adventures, I should display some of the fruits of that fatal seed, so early and so profusely sown in my bosom.  If, on my first coming into the ship, I shrank back with horror at the sound of blasphemy and obscenity—­if I shut my eyes to the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, it was not so long.  By insensible degrees, I became familiarised with vice, and callous to its approach.  In a few months I had become nearly as corrupt as others.  I might indeed have resisted longer; but though the fortress of virtue could have held out against open violence, it could not withstand the undermining of ridicule.  My young companions, who, as I have observed, had only preceded me six months in the service, were already grown old in depravity; they laughed at my squeamishness, called me “milksop” and “boarding-school miss,” and soon made me as bad as themselves.  We had not quite attained the age of perpetration, but we were fully prepared to meet it when it came.

I had not been two days on board, when the youngsters proposed a walk into the main top.  I mounted the rigging with perfect confidence, for I was always a good climber; but I had not proceeded far, when I was overtaken by the captain of the top and another man, who, without any ceremony or preface, seized me by each arm, and very deliberately lashed me fast in the rigging.  They laughed at my remonstrance.  I asked what they meant, and the captain of the top said very civilly taking off his hat at the same time, “that it was the way all gemmen were sarved when they first went aloft; and I must pay my footing as a bit of a parkazite.”  I looked down to the quarter-deck for assistance, but every one there was laughing at me; and even the very little rogues of midshipmen who had enticed me up were enjoying the joke.  Seeing this was the case, I only asked what was to pay.  The captain of the top said a seven shilling bit would be thought handsome.  This I promised to give, and was released on my own recognizances.  When I reached the quarter-deck I paid the money.