Thirty-Six Years of a Seafaring Life by an Old Quarter Master: And Farewell to my Old Shipmates and Messmates (Cambridge Library Collection - Maritime Exploration)
Cambridge University Press, 7/2/2015
EAN 9781108083423, ISBN10: 1108083420
Paperback, 452 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 2.6 cm
Language: English
This volume contains two works by 'an old quarter master', John Bechervaise, born in St Aubin, Jersey in 1791. The first is a narrative of 'thirty-six years of a seafaring life', published in 1839, describing maritime experiences such as spending a winter in Newfoundland among Native Americans, being captured by privateers, being committed to a debtor's prison, and deciding to join the Royal Navy. His detailed account of the day-to-day routines of life aboard ship are an important resource for naval historians, and the success of the book prompted a second memoir, published in 1847 by the same Portsmouth printer, which contains anecdotes and cautionary tales from the lives of ordinary sailors whom Bechervaise had known. There is an account of the comforts of the Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich, a number of stories about the perils of drunkenness, and some acts of extraordinary heroism both at sea and on shore.
List of subscribers
1. My early days
2. A winter among the Indians at the back of Newfoundland, in the Baye du Desespoir
3. Indian villages, manners, and customs
4. Captured by a French privateer
5. Loss of a ship in the western ocean
6. Recaptured by the active revenue cruizer
7. Voyage to the Brazils
8. Voyage to Prince Edward's Island, Newfoundland, etc.
9. Burin, Cadiz, and Falmouth
10. Ten weeks in Winchester prison
11. Three months' sojourn in France
12. Home, sweet home
13. One week in a smart ship described
14. Sicily
15. A current's thwarting force
16. Pitcairn Island
17. Sandwich Islands, Kamtschatka manners and improvements
18. Kotzebue Sound, California, China, etc.
19. The Arctic
20. Kotzebue Sound, second visit, etc.
21. Mexico
22. Return to England
23. Portugal
24. Our home is on the deep
25. Lisbon
26. Friends
27. West Indies
Farewell.