Ernest had been so cruelly treated while on board the brig that he had little regret at the loss of the vessel. The captain was a Spaniard, and a most hard-hearted, cruel man. He was the owner of the vessel, and was so avaricious that he actually begrudged the boy the food required to keep him alive. He expected him to subsist upon such scraps as were left from his own meals, and if there were none left, for him to go without, and would curse him if he asked for food, telling him that he was a poor Spaniard, and couldn't afford to feed him. When the ship was lost, not being insured, he was indeed poor. The crew were so incensed at him, because they couldn't collect the pay due them, that several of them actually drew their knives and attempted to assault him in the Spanish Consul's office at Falmouth. Ernest was kept at the Cornwall Sailors' Home for a few weeks, as he neither had any means of subsistence nor chance to go home, and then was told to get out and shift for himself. He began seeking employment among the ships in port, and soon succeeded in finding a captain who was willing to employ him as cabin boy at $5.00 per month. His new berth was soon found to be but little better than his former one, so far as treatment was concerned. The first job given him to do was to black the captain's shoes. The shoes were wet, and he didn't succeed in making them shine as nicely as they otherwise would have done, and he received a clout for it that almost made him see stars. However, he had sufficient to eat, and was thankful for that. The vessel was a Hanoverian brig, the "Lucy von Leer," Captain Jensen commanding, bound for Antwerp. He soon found out that, in addition to serving as cabin boy, he was also expected to cook for the officers and crew. While preparing his first dinner he was sent aloft to shorten sail, and when he came down the peas he was cooking were burned, and that brought down upon him the wrath of all the officers and men who learned of it. The channel pilot yelled for some one to beat him, and he had to run the gauntlet to escape the blows aimed at him. After arriving at Antwerp, while waiting for the crew to be paid off, and when he had just finished cooking the Sunday dinner, several of the crew volunteered special praise for the quality of the soup he had made for them. He was so overjoyed thereat that he forgot to take the spoons from the water in which he had been washing the dishes, and threw them and the water together overboard into the dock. The spoons were not missed until supper time arrived, and then the failure to find them resulted in his recalling and confessing his forgetful act, and receiving such a general and merciless beating that the crew of a Norwegian barque, lying in the dock near by interfered, and threatened to come to his relief and thrash the Hanoverians if they didn't desist. They stopped beating him, but the chief officer swore that he would get even with the boy when he got to sea.