Sketches of Naval and Military Adventure; By One in the Service (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1849 Excerpt: ... MY LAST VOYAGE. My mind was overwhelmed by the disappointment I had experienced. My hopes had been annihilated. If those hopes were of recent birth, they had sprung into existence as giants, and their death-struggle was fearfully intense. Well, fifteen years passed away. During that period I took a part in various engagements, amongst others, in the battle of Navarino, where I lost an arm and gained a Lieutenancy. Ill health afterward induced me to retire on half-pay, and thus I remained, until an appointment was procured for me in 1831 by the Earl of F, in a vessel ordered to cruize in the Atlantic. I had been discontented and unhappy on shore, but felt restored to peace, and equanimity, and home, when once more rolling on the broad bosom of the deep. My heart leaped for joy as I gazed into the briny abyss; my mind shook off the torpor and melancholy which had weighed it down, as I looked on the merry waves; my pulses throbbed with delight, the ocean gave me a second adolescence, and seemed to welcome me back with a voice of rough, but hearty congratulation. Our captain was one of the most singular men I ever happened to meet with. He was, it is true, an author; one, too, whose productions had obtained for him no little celebrity, and this may account for, and excuse his oddities. But whatever idea those who were only acquainted with him by his writings might have conceived of him (and doubtless, they had imagined him a perfect model), he was the jest and the plague of his crew. Beside the rest of the officers he looked as long as a yard-arm; while for meagreness he seemed to rival a handspike. To judge by his dress you would have imagined that he was accustomed to turn in all-standing; for, look at him in what way you might, top or tail, you would have fo...