Author : Jacob A. Hazen
Release : 2013-09
Genre : Sailors
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 218/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Five Years Before the Mast, Or, Life in the Forecastle Aboard of a Whaler and Man-Of-War by : Jacob A. Hazen

Download or read book Five Years Before the Mast, Or, Life in the Forecastle Aboard of a Whaler and Man-Of-War written by Jacob A. Hazen. This book was released on 2013-09. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 edition. Excerpt: ...abstinent during the whole period of my service in the Preble, received regularly my quarterly stipend of five dollars and fortyfour ceuts; and I now supposed that when the Treble's books would be footed up, and the balance stricken, there would be some show of my last quarter's grog-money, which was near falling due, and which I desired to draw on board of the Columbus. Had the purser credited me with four dollars and twenty cents, and charged the government, he would have but carried out the principle of the regulation, and I should not have been wronged out of a single cent; but this he positively refused to do, and declared that there was no grog-money due me until the final expiration of the quarter. He, however, did not deem it-an unworthy act to charge the government four dollars and twenty cents, although he placed nothing to my credit; but for what purpose he did it I know not. All I can conscientiously say, is that between the public purse, the purser's purse, the purser, and the perseverance of the purser's steward, I was fleeced out of the sum of four dollars and twenty cents; and what made the thing still more aggravating, was that they prohibited me from drawing my grog ration on board the Columbus until the termination of the quarter, so that by the whole process of this act of peculation, I was actually defrauded of a full quarter's grog-money. It is, however, a very consoling reflection to know that, by this species of worldly prudence, purser Wilson prospered so amazingly that in the course of a few years he became possessed of wealth to the amount of an hundred thousand dollars; and that at his death he was enabled to secure the reputation of an honest man by granting munificent bequests to the support of institutions...