Chapter 1

In consenting to lay before the world the experience of a common seaman,
and, I may add, of one who has been such a sinner as the calling is only
too apt to produce, I trust that no feeling of vanity has had an undue
influence. I love the seas; and it is a pleasure to me to converse about
them, and of the scenes I have witnessed, and of the hardships I have
undergone on their bosom, in various parts of the world. Meeting with an
old shipmate who is disposed to put into proper form the facts which I can
give him, and believing that my narrative may be useful to some of those
who follow the same pursuit as that in which I have been so long engaged,
I see no evil in the course I am now taking, while I humbly trust it may
be the means of effecting some little good. God grant that the pictures I
shall feel bound to draw of my own past degradation and failings,
contrasted as they must be with my present contentment and hopes, may
induce some one, at least, of my readers to abandon the excesses so common
among seamen, and to turn their eyes in the direction of those great
truths which are so powerful to reform, and so convincing when regarded
with humility, and with a just understanding of our own weaknesses.

I know nothing of my family, except through my own youthful recollections,
and the accounts I have received from my sister. My father I slightly
remember; but of my mother I retain no distinct impressions. The latter
must have died while I was very young. The former, I was in the habit of
often seeing, until I reached my fifth or sixth year. He was a soldier,
and belonged to the twenty-third regimen of foot, in the service of the
King of Great Britain.[1] The fourth son of this monarch, Prince Edward as
he was then called, or the Duke of Kent as he was afterwards styled,
commanded the corps, and accompanied it to the British American colonies,
where it was stationed for many years.

I was born in Quebec, between the years 1792 and 1794; probably in 1793.
Of the rank of my father in the regiment, I am unable to speak, though I
feel pretty confident he was a commissioned officer. He was much with the
prince; and I remember that, on parade, where I have often seen him, he
was in the habit of passing frequently from the prince to the ranks--a
circumstance that induces my old shipmate to think he may have been the
adjutant. My father, I have always understood, was a native of Hanover,
and the son of a clergyman in that country. My mother, also, was said to
be a German, though very little is now known of her by any of the family.
She is described to me as living much alone, as being occupied in pursuits
very different from those of my father, and as being greatly averse to the
life of a soldier.

I was baptized