Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 14222-h.htm or 14222-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/2/2/14222/14222-h/14222-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/2/2/14222/14222-h.zip) POOR JACK by CAPTAIN MARRYAT Works of Captain Marryat, Volume Ten With Illustrations [Illustration: POOR JACK--FRONTISPIECE--Marryat Vol. X.] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME TEN FRONTISPIECE--Poor Jack Fisher's Alley I summoned all my strength, and called out long before we floated past her Anderson reading the Bible to Jack Anderson reading the news of the Battle of the Nile Jack's Father landing after the Battle of the Nile Jack in Nanny's Room Jack and Bramble aboard the Indiaman The Fore-peak Yarn "How's her head, Tom?" Bramble saving Bessie Jack heaving the lead Nanny relating her story Jack and his Father under the Colonnade A Surprise Bramble and Jack carried into a French Port The Leith Smack and the Privateer The Arrival of the Privateer at Lanion The Prison Jack a Prisoner The Escape Wreck of the Galley We found both Bramble and Bessy clinging to the rope Bramble had knelt by the bedside, and was evidently in prayer I went down to the beach, ... and I was soon on board "Mr. Saunders, ... may I ask where you procured this spy-glass?" Sir J. O'Connor and Mrs. St. Felix I met face to face a Frenchman POOR JACK CHAPTER ONE In which, like most People who tell their own Stories, I begin with the Histories of other People. I have every reason to believe that I was born in the year of our Lord 1786, for more than once I put the question to my father, and he invariably made the same reply: "Why, Jack, you were launched a few months before the Druids were turned over to the Melpomene." I have since ascertained that this remarkable event occurred in January 1787. But my father always reckoned in this way: if you asked him when such an event took place, he would reply, so many years or months after such a naval engagement or remarkable occurrence; as, for instance, when I one day inquired how many years he had served the King, he responded, "I came into the sarvice a little afore the battle of Bunker's Hill, in which we licked the Americans clean out of Boston[1]." As for Anno Domini, he had no notion of it whatever. [Footnote 1: I have since heard a different version of the result of this battle.]