retend they were lost overboard, or
destroyed? The list of defects are given in to the admiral, he signs
the demand, and the old commissioner must come down with the stores,
whether he will or not. I was once in a sloop of war, when a large
forty-four-gun frigate ran on board of us, carried away her jib-boom,
and left her large fine-weather jib hanging on our foreyard. It was
made of beautiful Russia duck, and to be sure, didn't we make a gang
of white hammock-cloths, fore and aft, besides white trousers for the
men? Well now, you must know, that as we make _Uncle George_ suffer
for the stores, so I mean to make dad suffer for my traps. I mean to
lose my chest overboard with all my 'kit,' and return home to him and
the old woman just fit for the fashion."

"And do you really mean to deceive your father and mother in that
way?" replied I, with much apparent innocence.

"Do I? to be sure I do, you flat. How am I to keep up my stock, if I
don't make the proper use of an action like this that we have been
in?"

I took the hint: it never once occurred to me, that if I had fairly
and candidly stated to my parents that my stock of clothes were
insufficient for my appearance as a gentleman on the quarter-deck,
that they would cheerfully have increased it to any reasonable extent.
But I had been taught artifice and cunning; I could tell the truth
where I thought it served my purpose, as well as a lie; but here I
thought deception was a proof at once of spirit and of merit; and I
resolved to practise it, if only to raise myself a trifling degree
in the estimation of my unworthy associates. I had become partial to
deception from habit, and preferred exercising my own ingenuity
in outwitting my father, to obtaining what I needed by more
straightforward and honourable measures.

The ship needed some repairs, and by the indulgence of the captain,
who was pleased with my conduct, I, who required so much instruction
in the nature and cause of her defects, was allowed to be absent while
they were made good. By this oversight, I lost all that improvement
which I should have gained by close attention to the unrigging or
shipping of the ship; the manner of returning her stores; taking out
her masts and ballast, and seeing her taken into dock; the shape of
her bottom, and the good or bad qualities which might be supposed to
accelerate or retard her movements. All this was sacrificed to the
impatience of seeing my parents; to the vaingl