It is also necessary towards understanding what is to follow, that I should touch a little on the progress of this great man to the mercantile eminence which he afterwards (whether by means of the Cat or not) attained. It is known that the Kings of England have a private, or rather a notoriously public, mark, whereby they distinguish their property, known to the initiated as the King's _Broad Arrow_, but vulgarly called the King's Broad R. This mark is held up by all "dealers in marine stores" of these our days to their children as the Scylla of their voyage through life. They are taught never to purloin (if there be any other within reach) any timber, thick stuff, or plank, or iron or copper bolts, belaying-pins, gudgeons, stauncheons, fastenings or sheathing, or any other article having on or about it the King's Broad Arrow by "stamp, brand, or otherwise," and carefully to abstain (as far as possible) from meddling with any cordage of three inches and upwards wrought with a white thread the contrary way (which thread is improperly called the rogue's yarn) or any canvas wrought or unwrought with a blue streak in the middle; or any bewper wrought with one or more streaks of raised white tape, as they believe in and fear the 22 Charles II., cap. 5; the 9 and 10 William III., cap. 41; 9 George I., cap. 8; 17 George II., cap. 40; 39 and 40 George III., cap. 89, sects. 5 and 6 most especially.[32] Unfortunately, Mr. Whittington early in life formed an intimacy with a man whose name was Joshua, who, for want of proper tuition, had fallen foul, not exactly of the above-named statutes (inasmuch as they were enacted long after his demise, and were therefore, strictly speaking, not applicable to him) but of sundry others, partly confirmed and partly repealed by the 31 of Elizabeth, cap. 4, which unfortunately affected him, since he was detected in the fact of adapting to his own use sundry marked articles appertaining to our then liege sovereign, Edward I. This Joshua was of a very low origin, and was ironically called Joshua the son of _none_, never having an ostensible father or mother; to which untoward circumstance may be charitably attributed the errors into which he was occasionally betrayed. The first notion of property which a child receives, is from being told, I am _your_ parent; you are _my_ son; this is _your_ milk; that is _his_ bread. The poor innocent who does not receive this early instruction is naturally deficient in this particular; whence it happens that such persons are generally found rather lax in their principles of _meum_ and _tuum_ to the end of their lives; which, however, by an equal dispensation of Providence, are usually shortened by a special interposition of the law.