Mr Midshipman Easy Read online

  MR MIDSHIPMAN EASY

  1 Acquisitiveness

  22 Hope

  2 Agreeableness

  23 Human Nature

  3 Alimentiveness

  24 Ideality

  4 Amativeness

  25 Imitation

  5 Benevolence

  26 Individuality

  6 Approbativeness

  27 Inhibitiveness

  7 Calculation

  28 Language

  8 Cautiousness

  29 Locality

  9 Color

  30 Mirthfulness

  10 Continuity

  31 Order

  11 Combativeness

  32 Parental Love

  12 Conscientiousness

  33 Secretiveness

  13 Conjugality

  34 Self-Esteem

  14 Constructiveness

  35 Size

  15 Causality

  36 Sublimity

  16 Comparison

  37 Spirituality

  17 Destructiveness

  38 Time

  18 Eventuality

  39 Tune

  19 Firmness

  40 Veneration

  20 Form

  41 Vitality

  21 Friendship

  42 Weight

  MR MIDSHIPMAN EASY

  by

  Captain Frederick Marryat

  CLASSICS OF NAUTICAL FICTION SERIES

  McBOOKS PRESS, INC

  ITHACA, NEW YORK

  Copyright © 1998 by McBooks Press

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such permissions should be addressed to: McBooks Press, Inc., I.D. Booth Building, 520 North Meadow Street, Ithaca, NY 14850.

  Book and cover design by Paperwork.

  Cover painting is a detail from Battle of the Nile by P. J. de Loutherbourg, 1798.

  Courtesy of Peter Newark’s Military Pictures.

  Edited by Patricia Zafiriadis. Glossary by Alexander G. Skutt.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Marryat, Frederick, 1792-1848.

  Mr. Midshipman Easy / Frederick Marryat.

  p. cm. — (Classics of nautical fiction series; no. 2)

  ISBN 0-935526-40-4 (paperback)

  1. Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History, Naval

  —19th century—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.

  PR4977.M7 1997

  823’.7—dc21

  97-15354

  CIP

  Mr Midshipman Easy was first published in 1836. This text is based on the 1896 edition of The Novels of Captain Marryat edited by R. Brimley Johnson and published by J.M. Dent and Co. in London and Little, Brown and Co. in Boston. Corrections were made for consistency and clarity, but most of the original spelling and punctuation remain intact.

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  Printed in the United States of America

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  Prefatory Note

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Chapter XXXV

  Chapter XXXVI

  Chapter XXXVII

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Chapter XXXIX

  Chapter XL

  Chapter XLI

  Square Sails

  Fore-And-AFT Sails

  Glossary

  PREFACE

  ENGLAND’S greatness as a world power in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries was based on her nautical might. The Royal Navy and the merchant fleet were the tools that built and maintained the British Empire.

  England fought wars against the Spanish, the Dutch, and other European powers, forming and breaking alliances, but its epic military struggle was against France. For more than 125 years, from 1689 to 1815, England and France waged a series of wars. This almost ceaseless conflict was the first to attain a truly global scale. A tale of enmity that often involved other nations, its “chapters” bear names such as the Nine Years War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years War (the American subchapter was called the French and Indian War), the War of American Independence, and the Napoleonic Wars.

  Safe at home, the British citizenry eagerly read the newspapers and broadsheets that described the numerous naval campaigns and battles. Noble sea captains and brave sailors were celebrated in stories and popular songs. Perhaps the most popular British hero was the legendary rear-admiral, Lord Horatio Nelson. Nelson died in 1805 at the moment of his greatest victory— the Battle of Trafalgar—and became a figure of mythic proportion.

  Another great hero was Captain Lord Cochrane. The adventurous Cochrane became famous when his ship, the Flying Pallas captured four richly laden Spanish galleons off the Azores, and the prize-money made every member of his crew a rich man. In 1806, a fourteen-year-old midshipman, Frederick Marryat, signed on with Lord Cochrane’s next command, the frigate Impérieuse. Marryat made lieutenant in 1814. The next year he was promoted to commander. From 1820 to 1822 Marryat commanded the sloop Beaver which, among other duties, cruised off St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, to guard against Napoleon’s escape from his second forced exile from France. He rose to captain and his later posts included an appointment as Senior Naval Officer in Burma. Because of Frederick Marryat’s successes in Asia, the Crown bestowed upon him the C.B. (Companion, Order of the Bath), a high honor. Altogether, Captain Marryat saw action in fifty battles.

  In 1829, Marryat was still serving in the Royal Navy as captain of the Adriade when he wrote his first novel, Frank Mildmay or The Naval Officer. He had previously published a book of ship’s flag signals and a polemic calling for the abolition of the impressment of sailors. Marryat’s fiction was such a success that he quit the Navy to devote himself to writing. Over a nineteen-year writing career, Marryat authored 22 novels or books of stories. His early writings were nearly all set on or around the sea. Most of his later works were adventure stories intended for young people. He journeyed to America and, in 1839, published a widely read, six-volume, rather acerbic, account of his travel experiences. Marryat died in 1848 at the age of 56.

  Marryat’s writing followed notable examples of the sea-story genre by Daniel Defoe and Sir Walter Scott. In turn, his writing influenced Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad and—in our time—C.S. Forester, Alexander Kent, and Patrick O’Brian. What made Marryat different than some of the aforementioned writers was that he lived the adventures about which he wrote. Marryat had skylarked in the rigging with othe
r midshipman, he had heard the roar of the cannon, and he had commanded a surging man-of-war into battle. Lord Cochrane, the first naval captain under whom Marryat served, was the model for Forester’s Horatio Hornblower and O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey. But Marryat was there first. His Midshipman Jack Easy was the first fictional character modeled after Lord Cochrane.

  Patrick O’Brian’s phenomenally popular Aubrey/Maturin series of historical novels has reawakened interest in this venerable genre of English literature—nautical fiction. As readers explore this realm, they will find that Marryat is still well worth reading. His value is not just in the perfectly authentic lore of the navy of wooden ships, present in every page of his books. Marryat’s sharp wit, love of word play, sense of irony, and interest in the strange and the scandalous are evident throughout his works.

  ALEXANDER G. SKUTT

  PREFATORY NOTE

  by R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON from the 1896 edition

  PRE-EMINENT among the kindly, good-humoured portraits that hang in Marryat’s long gallery of fun stands “equality Jack,” Mr Midshipman Easy. The critical reader to-day, quoting the science of heredity as taught in continental fiction, may smile at the absurd production of so shrewd a youth from such thoroughly imbecile parents. But the comment is irrational and pedantic. To appreciate a farce we must grant to the author his “impossible” conditions; and may then demand that he should manipulate them effectively.

  Given the mad father, the doting mother, etc., and his own clever, manly, and affectionate nature, Jack’s conduct in the middies’ berth is no libel on humanity. It possesses the further merit of being extremely amusing. He argues with so much point and persistence, and accepts the consequences of differing from his superior officers with so much genuine philosophy, that the reader scarcely knows whether to laugh at or with him. Certainly Jack is no fool, and as experience developes his character we find ourselves, without fear of inconsistency, slowly changing our point of view and confessing to a certain measure of cordial respect for the lad we were once nearly tempted to despise.

  In a story depending for its main interest on comedy that is almost wholly farcical, it is peculiarly satisfactory to find men of sterling worth untouched by satire, and the serious side of life treated with feeling. Captain Wilson and his worthy lieutenant, Sawbridge, do not suffer in dignity from their wit-conflicts with the hero who, indeed, is never essentially disrespectful to his seniors. The slight sketch of Martin, the melancholy mate, has been justly praised for its genuine, quiet pathos; and Jack’s treatment of his poor father is thoughtful and considerate.

  It is scarcely necessary to speak of the admirable and stirring scenes of naval life with which the pages of this novel are crowded. As we have said of his work generally, Marryat excels in the true realism which is born of intimate knowledge, and he has the wisdom to avoid any melodramatic exaggeration. Obviously Jack’s experiences are over-crowded and impossibly varied, but any one of them is within the range of a midshipman’s actual daily life. The encounter with the Russian frigate is considered a masterly report of a perfectly actual sea-fight.

  There is a striking passage in Henry Kingsley’s Ravenshoe which shows that he, at any rate, gave much honour to Midshipman Easy. While sailing past Malta at sunrise, “a flood of historical recollections comes over Charles, and he recognises the place as one long known and very dear to him. On these very stairs Mr Midshipman Easy stood, and resolved that he would take a boat and sail to Gazo. What followed on his resolution is a matter of history. Other events have taken place at Malta, of which Charles was as well informed as the majority, but Charles did not think of them; not even of St Paul and the viper, or the old wordy dispute in Greek testament lecture at Oxford between this Melita and the other one off the coast of Illyricum. He thought of Midshipman Easy, and felt as if he had seen the place before.”

  When this novel, for which he received £1200, was first published, Marryat was editing the Metropolitan Magazine, and he printed a specimen chapter, the first, in the number for August 1836, by way of advertisement.

  Midshipman Easy is here re-printed, with a few corrections, from the first edition in three vols. Saunders & Otley, 1836.

  CHAPTER I

  Which the reader will find very easy to read.

  MR NICODEMUS EASY was a gentleman who lived down in Hampshire; he was a married man, and in very easy circumstances. Most couples find it very easy to have a family, but not always quite so easy to maintain them. Mr Easy was not at all uneasy on the latter score, as he had no children; but he was anxious to have them, as most people covet what they cannot obtain. After ten years, Mr Easy gave it up as a bad job. Philosophy is said to console a man under disappointment, although Shakespeare asserts that it is no remedy for toothache; so Mr Easy turned philosopher, the very best profession a man can take up, when he is fit for nothing else; he must be a very incapable person indeed who cannot talk nonsense. For some time, Mr Easy could not decide upon what description his nonsense should consist of; at last he fixed upon the rights of man, equality, and all that; how every person was born to inherit his share of the earth, a right at present only admitted to a certain length; that is, about six feet, for we all inherit our graves, and are allowed to take possession without dispute. But no one would listen to Mr Easy’s philosophy. The women would not acknowledge the rights of men, whom they declared always to be in the wrong; and, as the gentlemen who visited Mr Easy were all men of property, they could not perceive the advantages of sharing with those who had none. However, they allowed him to discuss the question, while they discussed his port wine. The wine was good, if the arguments were not, and we must take things as we find them in this world.

  While Mr Easy talked philosophy, Mrs Easy played patience, and they were a very happy couple, riding side by side on their hobbies, and never interfering with each other. Mr Easy knew his wife could not understand him, and therefore did not expect her to listen very attentively; and Mrs Easy did not care how much her husband talked, provided she was not put out in her game. Mutual forbearance will always ensure domestic felicity.

  There was another cause for their agreeing so well. Upon any disputed question Mr Easy invariably gave it up to Mrs Easy, telling her that she should have her own way—and this pleased his wife; but, as Mr Easy always took care, when it came to the point, to have his way, he was pleased as well. It is true that Mrs Easy had long found out that she did not have her own way long; but she was of an easy disposition, and as, in nine cases out of ten, it was of very little consequence how things were done, she was quite satisfied with his submission during the heat of the argument. Mr Easy had admitted that she was right, and if like all men he would do wrong, why, what could a poor woman do? With a lady of such a quiet disposition, it is easy to imagine that the domestic felicity of Mr Easy was not easily disturbed. But, as people have observed before, there is a mutability in human affairs. It was at the finale of the eleventh year of their marriage that Mrs Easy at first complained that she could not enjoy her breakfast. Mrs Easy had her own suspicions, everybody else considered it past doubt, all except Mr Easy; he little “thought, good easy man, that his greatness was ripening;” he had decided that to have an heir was no Easy task, and it never came into his calculations, that there could be a change in his wife’s figure. You might have added to it, subtracted from it, divided it, or multiplied it, but as it was a zero, the result would be always the same. Mrs Easy also was not quite sure—she believed it might be the case, there was no saying; it might be a mistake, like that of Mrs Trunnion’s in the novel, and, therefore, she said nothing to her husband about the matter. At last Mr Easy opened his eyes, and when, upon interrogating his wife, he found out the astounding truth, he opened his eyes still wider, and then he snapped his fingers and danced, like a bear upon hot plates, with delight, thereby proving that different causes may produce similar effects in two instances at one and the same time. The bear dances from pain, Mr Easy from pleasure; and again, when we are indifferent, or
do not care for anything, we snap our fingers at it, and when we are overjoyed, and obtain what we most care for, we also snap our fingers. Two months after Mr Easy snapped his fingers, Mrs Easy felt no inclination to snap hers, either from indifference or pleasure. The fact was, that Mrs Easy’s time was come, to undergo what Shakespeare pronounces “the pleasing punishment that women bear;” but Mrs Easy, like the rest of her sex, declared “that all men were liars,” and most particularly poets.

  But while Mrs Easy was suffering, Mr Easy was in ecstasies. He laughed at pain, as all philosophers do when it is suffered by other people, and not by themselves.

  In due course of time, Mrs Easy presented her husband with a fine boy, whom we present to the public as our hero.

  CHAPTER II

  In which Mrs Easy, as usual, has her own way.

  IT WAS the fourth day after Mrs Easy’s confinement that Mr Easy, who was sitting by her bedside in an easy chair, commenced as follows: “I have been thinking, my dear Mrs Easy, about the name I shall give this child.”

  “Name, Mr Easy! why, what name should you give it but your own?”

  “Not so, my dear,” replied Mr Easy; “they call all names proper names, but I think that mine is not. It is the very worst name in the calendar.”

  “Why, what’s the matter with it, Mr Easy?”

  “The matter affects me as well as the boy. Nicodemus is a long name to write at full length, and Nick is vulgar. Besides, as there will be two Nicks, they will naturally call my boy young Nick, and of course I shall be styled old Nick, which will be diabolical.”