The morning after my arrival, I was put into a “mess.” The crew of a man of war is divided into little communities of about eight, called _messes_. These eat and drink together, and are, as it were, so many families. The mess to which I was introduced, was composed of your genuine, weather-beaten, old tars. But for one of its members, it would have suited me very well; this one, a real gruff old “bull-dog,” named Hudson, took into his head to hate me at first sight. He treated me with so much abuse and unkindness, that my messmates soon advised me to change my mess, a privilege which is wisely allowed, and which tends very much to the good fellowship of a ship’s crew; for if there are disagreeable men among them, they can in this way be got rid of; it is no unfrequent case to find a few, who have been spurned from all the messes in the ship, obliged to mess by themselves. This unkindness from the brutal Hudson rather chilled my enthusiasm. The crew, too, by some means had an impression that my mother had brought me on board to get rid of me, and therefore bestowed their bitterest curses on her in the most profuse manner imaginable. Swearing I had heard before, but never such as I heard there. Nor was this all; in performing the work assigned me, which consisted in helping the seamen take in provisions, powder, shot, etc., I felt the insults and tyranny of the midshipmen. These little minions of power ordered and drove me round like a dog, nor did I and the other boys dare interpose a word. They were _officers_; their word was our law, and woe betide the presumptuous boy that dared refuse implicit obedience. These things reminded me of what had been said to me of the hardships of sea life in a man of war. I began to wish myself back in my father’s house at Bladen. This, however, was impossible, and to add to my discouragement they told me I was entered on the ship’s books for life. Dreary prospect! I felt more than half disposed, as I went to my tasks, to use the language of the Irishman, as sung by my shipmates. Tempted and beguiled while intoxicated, he had enlisted for a soldier, but found the sergeant at the _recruiting office_ and the sergeant on the _drill-field_ very different personages. He is hence made to say, “It was early next morning to drill I was sent, And its och to my soul! I began to lament; Cannot you be aisy and let me alone? Don’t you see I’ve got arms, legs, and feet of my own?”