ubject 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.

The great difficulty was to renew my application to study, after many
months of idleness. This, however, I accomplished, and after having
been one year at sea, kept a good reckoning and sent in my day's work
to the captain. The want of instruction which I first felt in the
study of navigation, proved in the end of great service to me: I was
forced to study more intensely, and to comprehend the principles
on which I founded my theory, so that I was prepared to prove by
mathematical demonstration, what others could only assert who worked
by "inspection."

The pride of surpassing my seniors, and the hope of exposing their
ignorance, stimulated me to inquiry, and roused me to application. The
books which I had reported lost to my father, were handed out from the
bottom of my chest, and read with avidity: many others I borrowed from
the officers, whom I must do the justice to say, not only lent them
with cheerfulness, but offered me the use of their cabin to study in.

Thus I acquired a taste f