. The reader will probably
be aware that except the circumstance of reducing the size of my
chest, and the seizure and confiscation of my jars and gingerbread,
there was scarcely a vestige of truth in my story. That I had lost
most of my things was most true; but they were lost by my own
carelessness, and not by being thrown overboard. After losing the key
of my chest, which happened the day I joined, a rapid decrease of my
stock convinced the first lieutenant that a much smaller package might
be made of the remainder, and this was the sole cause of my chest
being converted into a razee.

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 s