Ned Myers, or, a Life Before the MastCooper, James Fenimore
History
Ned Myers, or, a Life Before the Mast
Cooper, James Fenimore
Myers, Ned, approximately 1793-1849; Seafaring life
On our arrival at Samarang, the mate got a doctor from a Dutch frigate,
to look at me, who declared nothing ailed me. By these means nearly all
hands in the ship were set against me, but my four companions, and the
little boy fancying that I was a skulk, and throwing labour on them. I was
ordered on deck, and set to work graffing ring-bolts for the guns. Walk I
could not, being obliged, literally, to crawl along the deck on my hands
and knees. I suffered great pain, but got no credit for it. The work was
easy enough for me, when once seated at it, but it caused me infinite
suffering to move. I was not alone in being thought a skulk, however. The
doctor himself was taken ill, and the mate accused him, too, very much as
he did me, of shirking duty. Unfortunately, the poor man gave him the
lie, by dying.
I was kept at the sort of duty I have mentioned until the ship reached
Batavia again. Here a doctor came on board from another ship, on a visit,
and my case was mentioned. The mate ordered me aft, and I crawled upon the
quarter-deck to be examined. They got me into the cabin, where the strange
doctor looked at me. This man said I must be operated on by a burning
process, all of which was said to frighten me to duty. After this I got
down into the forecastle, and positively refused to do anything more.
There I lay, abused and neglected by all but my four friends. I told the
mate I suffered too much to work, and that I must be put ashore. Suffering
had made me desperate, and I cared not for the consequences.
Fortunately for me, there were two cases of fever and ague in the ship.
Our own doctor being dead, that of the admiral's ship was sent for to
visit the sick. The mate seemed anxious to set evidence against me, and he
asked the admiral's surgeon to come down and see me. The moment this
gentleman laid eyes on me, he raised both arms, and exclaimed that they
were killing me. He saw, at once, that I was no impostor, and stated as
much in pretty plain language, so far as I could understand what he said.
The mate appeared to be struck with shame and contrition; and I do believe
that every one on board was sorry for the treatment I had received. I took
occasion to remonstrate with the mate, and to tell him of the necessity of
my being sent immediately to the hospital. The man promised to represent
my case to the captain, and the next day I was landed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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