a-piece for a valet. They next find out a good
steward, and having installed him in possession of the nascent stock
of gun-room crockery, make him hunt for a cook, generally a black man,
who takes into his sable keeping the pots and pans of the growing
mess. The mates and mids, a portion of whom are appointed by the
Admiralty, and a portion by the captain, gradually make their
appearance, and settle into their dungeon of a berth under the
caterage of some old boy of a captain's clerk or a hard-a-weather mate
of the decks. A pretty large proportion of youngsters also, or
squeakers, who cannot be appointed without the previous consent of the
Admiralty, spring up like mushrooms, with rosy cheeks and tender
hands, totally unconscious, poor little fellows! of the rugged lives
they are soon to lead.

If these boys had only sense enough to look on quietly, and pay
attention to all that is passing, with a sincere desire to understand
it, and were they to be assisted a little in their inquiries, they
might on such occasions as that of a ship fitting out, manage to learn
and store up much that would prove valuable on a future day. But these
youths are generally let loose from the Naval College, or from school,
or from mamma's apron-string; and unless they are looked after and
encouraged, they are too volatile to pay a proper degree of attention
to the duty which is going on. After all, it does not require much
ingenuity to arrange some employment for them, even at first, provided
their numbers be not so great that they stand in one another's way.
Three or four youngsters, even though absolute novices, might always
be kept well employed in a sloop-of-war, and perhaps twice that number
in a frigate or line-of-battle ship fitting. In peace time, however,
it will happen that the crowd of young gentlemen is so great, and the
disposition to learn so little diffused amongst them, that the first
lieutenant is often glad to get rid of them altogether by letting them
waste their time and money on shore.

The state in which the ship happens to be at the time she is
commissioned, must decide, as I said before, the course to be followed
in her equipment. If she be already masted and alongside the hulk, and
the ballast in, the officer will most likely wish to make some show in
the way of rigging--for as yet the masts are naked to the girt-lines,
or single ropes rove through blocks at the mast-head, by which first
the men and then the shrouds