borhood who could recall the young midshipman as he was at
Neif's school; a lad short of stature and not very handsome in face, but
who bore himself very erect because, as he often declared, he could not
afford to lose a fraction of one of his scanty inches. There was, and
still is, near the spot where he went to school a tavern called the
Seven Stars, which has been a public house since the time of the
Revolution, and which had sheltered Howe and Cornwallis as the British
army advanced from the head of the Chesapeake toward Philadelphia, in
1777. Upon its porch Farragut spent much of his leisure time, and within
its walls joined in the social gayeties of the neighboring families, who
afterward recalled with pride and interest this association with the
young sailor before whom lay such a brilliant but unforeseen future.

In November, 1814, Farragut was exchanged, and at once ordered to New
York to join the brig Spark, which was intended to form one of a
squadron of small vessels to cruise against British commerce under the
command of Captain Porter. He was here for the first time separated from
his guardian and thrown wholly upon his own force of character to guide
his steps; and this beginning was made with a set of messmates with whom
he was temporarily quartered on board the John Adams, among whom were
several very wild young men. Farragut evidently felt the force of the
temptation, for he speaks with warm thankfulness of the
counter-influence of the first lieutenant, to which he attributed much
of his deliverance from the dissipation by which he was surrounded.
"When I have looked back with a feeling of horror to that period of my
life," he wrote, "I have always remembered with gratitude Mr. Cocke's
counsels and kind-hearted forbearance." It was indeed characteristic of
the man that, while by no means insensible to the natural temptations of
youth, he was ever more attracted to and influenced by the good than by
the evil around him. During the following year, on his cruise to the
Mediterranean, he was messmate with a midshipman named William Taylor, a
young man of singularly fine character, which seems to have been the
chief cause of the influence he exerted upon Farragut. "He took me
under his charge, counseled me kindly, and inspired me with sentiments
of true manliness, which were the reverse of what I might have learned
from the examples I saw in the steerage of the John Adams. Never having
had any real love for