My fresh stock of clothes I brought down in a trunk, which I found very handy, and contrived to keep in better order than I had formerly done.  The money given me to procure more bedding, I pocketed:  indeed I began to grow cunning.  I perceived that the best-dressed midshipmen had always the most pleasant duties to perform.  I was sent to bring off parties of ladies who came to visit the ship, and to dine with the captain and officers.  I had a tolerably good address, and was reckoned a very handsome boy; and though stout of my age, the ladies admitted me to great freedom under pretence of my being still a dear little darling of a middy, and so perfectly innocent in my mind and manners.  The fact is, I was kept in much better order on board my ship than I was in my father’s house—­so much for the habit of discipline; but this was all outside show.  My father was a man of talent, and knew the world, but he knew nothing of the navy; and when I had got him out of his depth, I served him as I did the usher:  that is, I soused him and his company head over heels in the horse-pond of their own ignorance.  Such is the power of local knowledge and cunning over abstruse science and experience.

So much assurance had I acquired by my recent success in town, that my self-confidence was increased to an incredible degree.  My apparent candour, impudence, and readiness gave a currency to the coinings of my brain which far surpassed the dull matter-of-fact of my unwary contemporaries.

Of my boyish days, I have now almost said enough.  The adventures of a midshipman, during the first three years of his probationary life, might, if fully detailed, disgust more than amuse, and corrupt more than they would improve; I therefore pass on to the age of sixteen, when my person assumed an outline of which I had great reason to be proud, since I often heard it the subject of encomium among the fair sex, and their award was confirmed even by my companions.

My mind kept pace with my person in every acquirement save those of morality and religion.  In these, alas!  I became daily more and more deficient, and for a time lost sight of them altogether.  The manly, athletic frame, and noble countenance, with which I was blessed, served to render me only more like a painted sepulchre—­all was foul within.  Like a beautiful snake, whose poison is concealed under the gold and azure of its scales, my inward man was made up of pride, revenge, deceit, and selfishness, and my best talents were generally applied to the worst purposes.

In the knowledge of my profession I made rapid progress, because I delighted in it, and because my mind, active and elastic as my body, required and fed on scientific research.  I soon became an expert navigator and a good practical seaman, and all this I acquired by my own application.  We had no schoolmaster; and while the other youngsters learned how to work a common day’s work from the instruction of the older midshipmen, I, who was no favourite with the latter, was rejected from their coteries.  I determined, therefore, to supply the deficiency myself, and this I was enabled to do by the help of a good education.  I had been well grounded in mathematics, and was far advanced in Euclid and algebra, previous to leaving school:  thus I had a vast superiority over my companions.