The result was that he took me under his wing, so to speak. He
spent the whole morning with me, explaining to me the differences
in build and rig between the vessels lying there, telling me a
great deal about the duties of a seaman and the ways of life at
sea. He counseled me very earnestly to give up my design and seek
an employment on shore.
"Sea life bean't for the likes of you," he said. "I don't know
nothing about lawyers, saving them as they call sea lawyers, and
they're rogues; but you'd better be a land lawyer than go to sea.
'Tis all very well for them as begin as officers, but for the men
the life bean't fit for a dog. Aboard ship you'd meet some very
rough company--very rough indeed. I don't pretend to be better nor
most, but there be some terrible bad ones at sea. Of course it
depends mostly on the skipper, but even where the skipper's a good
'un--and there be good and bad--he can't have his eyes everywhere,
and I've knowed youngsters so bad used on board that they'd sooner
ha' bin dead. Not but what you mightn't stand a chance, being a big
fellow of your inches."
What the old fellow said did not in the least shake my resolution.
The only effect of it was to turn my inclination rather in favor of
the merchant service than the king's navy, to which I had inclined
hitherto. In a king's ship I might certainly share in some
fighting, which has ever great attractions to a healthy boy; but
then I should have little chance of seeing the world unless
specially favored by circumstances, for the ship might be kept
cruising about, looking for the French who never came.
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