s not very
common; but I never yet knew an officer who prided himself upon his
practical knowledge, who was at the same time a good navigator; and too
often, by assuming the Jack Tar, they lower the respect due to them, and
become coarse and vulgar in their manners and language. This was the
case with Mr Phillott, who prided himself upon his slang, and who was
at one time "hail fellow, well met" with the seamen, talking to them,
and being answered as familiarly as if they were equals, and at another,
knocking the very same men down with a handspike if he were displeased.
He was not bad tempered, but very hasty; and his language to the
officers was occasionally very incorrect--to the midshipmen invariably
so. However, on the whole, he was not disliked, although he was
certainly not respected as a first lieutenant should have been. It is
but fair to say that he was the same to his superiors as he was to his
inferiors; and the bluntness with which he used to contradict and assert
his disbelief of Captain Kearney's narratives often produced a coolness
between them for some days.

The day after we sailed from Carlisle Bay I was asked to dine in the
cabin. The dinner was served upon plated dishes, which looked very
grand, but there was not much in them. "This plate," observed the
captain, "was presented to me by some merchants for my exertions in
saving their property from the Danes, when I was cruising off
Heligoland."

"Why, that lying steward of yours told me that you bought it at
Portsmouth," replied the first lieutenant: "I asked him in the galley
this morning."

"How came you to assert such a confounded falsehood, sir?" said the
captain to the man who stood behind his chair.

"I only said that I thought so," replied the steward.

"Why, didn't you say that the bill had been sent in, through you, seven
or eight times, and that the captain had paid it with a flowing sheet?"

"Did you dare say that, sir?" interrogated the captain, very angrily.

"Mr Phillott mistook me, sir," replied the steward. "He was so busy
damning the sweepers, that he did not hear me right. I said, the
midshipmen had paid their crockery bill with the fore-topsail."

"Ay, ay," replied the captain, "that's much more likely."

"Well, Mr Steward," replied Mr Phillott, "I'll be damned if you ar'n't
as big a liar as your--" (master he was going to plump out, but
fortunately the first lieutenant checked himself, and added)--"as your
father