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Power will accept my repentance who best knows its sincerity.
Before I resume the thread of my narrative, I will just venture to give the reader a few lines, descriptive of a midshipman's life, which will require, I trusty no apology, when I state that they were the production of some of the junior members of our mess, and composed in die space of a very few hours.—Of the correctness of the picture therein drawn, I can truly say, probatum est.
VERSES
Written on Board His Majesty's Ship, the Astræa, by the
younger Midshipmen of that Frigate, 1708.
I.
When in the Cockpit[1] all was dim,
And Dot a Mid dar'd ahew his glim[2];
A youth was left alone:
He scratched his head; surveyed his clothes;
Then took the other cheering dose[3];
And thus began his moan:—
II.
Ah I cursed be that fatal day,
When I from home was led astray,
In this d——'d place to dwell:
