This unhappy person, John Hamp, was born of both honest and reputable parents in the parish of St. Giles-without-Cripplegate. They took abundance of pains in his education, and the lad seemed in his juvenile years to deserve it; he was a boy of abundance of spirit, and his friends at his own request put him out apprentice to a man whose trade it was to lath houses. He did not stay out his time with him, but being one evening with some drunken companions at an alehouse near the Iron Gate by the Tower, three of them sailors on board a man-of-war (there being at that time a great want of men, a squadron being fitted out for the Baltic), these sailors, therefore, observing all the company very drunk, put into their heard to make an agreement for their going altogether this voyage to the North. Drink wrought powerfully in their favour, and in less than two hours time, Hamp and two other of his companions fell in with the sailors' motion, and talked of nothing but braving the Czar, and seeing the rarities of Copenhagen. The fourth man of Hamp's company stood out a little, but half an hour's rhodomantade and another bowl of punch brought him to a sailor, upon which one of the seamen stepped out, and gave notice to his lieutenant, who was drinking not far off, of the great service he had performed, the lieutenant was mightily pleased with Jack Tar's diligence, promised to pay the reckoning, and give each of them a guinea besides. A quarter of an hour after, the Lieutenant came in. The fellows were all so very drunk that he was forced to send for more hands belonging to the ship, who carried them to the long-boat, and there laying them down and covering them with men's coats, carried them on board that night. There is no doubt that Hamp was very surprised when he found the situation he was in next morning, but as there was no remedy, he acquiesced without making any words, and so began the voyage cheerfully. Everybody knows that there was no fighting in these Baltic expeditions, so that all the hardships they had to combat with were those of the sea and the weather, which was indeed bad enough to people of an English constitution, who were very unfit to bear the extremity of cold.