But although somewhat grieved with my first experience of sailor life, I secretly struggled against my feelings, and with the most philosophic desperation resolved to make the best of my condition. We were kept busily at work every day until the ship’s stores were all on board, and our frigate was ready for sea. Then two hundred more men, draughted from receiving ships, came on board, to complete the number of our crew, which, after this addition, numbered full three hundred men. The jocularity, pleasantry, humor and good feeling that now prevailed on board our frigate, somewhat softened the unpleasantness of my lot, and cultivated a feeling of reconciliation to my circumstances. Various little friendships, which sprang up between me and my shipmates, threw a gleam of gladness across my path; a habit of attention, respect and obedience in a short time secured me universal good will. I began to be tolerably satisfied. Many boys complain of ill usage at sea. I know they are subjected to it in many instances; yet, in most cases, they owe it to their own boldness. A boy on shipboard, who is habitually saucy, will be kicked and cuffed by all with whom he has to do; he will be made miserable. The reason is, I imagine, that sailors, being treated as inferiors themselves, love to find opportunity to act the _superior_ over some one. They do this over the boys, and if they find a saucy, insolent one, they show him no mercy. Permit me, then, to advise boys who go to sea, to be civil and obliging to all; they will be amply repaid for the effort it may cost them to make the trial, especially if they gain the reputation, as I did, of being among the best boys in the ship. A vessel of war contains a little community of human beings, isolated, for the time being, from the rest of mankind. This community is governed by laws peculiar to itself; it is arranged and divided in a manner suitable to its circumstances. Hence, when its members first come together, each one is assigned his respective station and duty. For every task, from getting up the anchor to unbending the sails, aloft and below, at the mess-tub or in the hammock, each task has its man, and each man his place. A ship contains a set of human machinery, in which every man is a wheel, a band, or a crank, all moving with wonderful regularity and precision to the will of its machinist--the all-powerful captain.