Mr Midshipman Easy

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marryat, Frederick, 1792-1848.

Mr. Midshipman Easy / Frederick Marryat.

p. cm. — (Classics of nautical fiction series; no. 2)

ISBN 0-935526-40-4 (paperback)

1. Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History, Naval

—19th century—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.

PR4977.M7 1997

823'.7—dc21

Mr Midshipman Easy
was first published in 1836. This text is based on the 1896 edition of
The Novels of Captain Marryat
edited by R. Brimley Johnson and published by J.M. Dent and Co. in London and Little, Brown and Co. in Boston. Corrections were made for consistency and clarity, but most of the original spelling and punctuation remain intact.

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Preface

Prefatory Note

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXX

Chapter XXXI

Chapter XXXII

Chapter XXXIII

Chapter XXXIV

Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVII

Chapter XXXVIII

Chapter XXXIX

Chapter XL

Chapter XLI

Square Sails

Fore-And-AFT Sails

Glossary

ENGLAND'S greatness as a world power in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries was based on her nautical might. The Royal Navy and the merchant fleet were the tools that built and maintained the British Empire.

England fought wars against the Spanish, the Dutch, and other European powers, forming and breaking alliances, but its epic military struggle was against France. For more than 125 years, from 1689 to 1815, England and France waged a series of wars. This almost ceaseless conflict was the first to attain a truly global scale. A tale of enmity that often involved other nations, its “chapters” bear names such as the Nine Years War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years War (the American subchapter was called the French and Indian War), the War of American Independence, and the Napoleonic Wars.

Safe at home, the British citizenry eagerly read the newspapers and broadsheets that described the numerous naval campaigns and battles. Noble sea captains and brave sailors were celebrated in stories and popular songs. Perhaps the most popular British hero was the legendary rear-admiral, Lord Horatio Nelson. Nelson died in 1805 at the moment of his greatest victory— the Battle of Trafalgar—and became a figure of mythic proportion.

Another great hero was Captain Lord Cochrane. The adventurous Cochrane became famous when his ship, the
Flying Pallas
captured four richly laden Spanish galleons off the Azores, and the prize-money made every member of his crew a rich man. In 1806, a fourteen-year-old midshipman, Frederick Marryat, signed on with Lord Cochrane's next command, the frigate
Impérieuse.
Marryat made lieutenant in 1814. The next year he was promoted to commander. From 1820 to 1822 Marryat commanded the sloop
Beaver
which, among other duties, cruised off St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, to guard against Napoleon's escape from his second forced exile from France. He rose to captain and his later posts included an appointment as Senior Naval Officer in Burma. Because of Frederick Marryat's successes in Asia, the Crown bestowed upon him the C.B. (Companion, Order of the Bath), a high honor. Altogether, Captain Marryat saw action in fifty battles.

In 1829, Marryat was still serving in the Royal Navy as captain of the
Adriade
when he wrote his first novel,
Frank Mildmay
or
The Naval Officer.
He had previously published a book of ship's flag signals and a polemic calling for the abolition of the impressment of sailors. Marryat's fiction was such a success that he quit the Navy to devote himself to writing. Over a nineteen-year writing career, Marryat authored 22 novels or books of stories. His early writings were nearly all set on or around the sea. Most of his later works were adventure stories intended for young people. He journeyed to America and, in 1839, published a widely read, six-volume, rather acerbic, account of his travel experiences. Marryat died in 1848 at the age of 56.

Marryat's writing followed notable examples of the sea-story genre by Daniel Defoe and Sir Walter Scott. In turn, his writing influenced Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad and—in our time—C.S. Forester, Alexander Kent, and Patrick O'Brian. What made Marryat different than some of the aforementioned writers was that he lived the adventures about which he wrote. Marryat had skylarked in the rigging with other midshipman, he had heard the roar of the cannon, and he had commanded a surging man-of-war into battle. Lord Cochrane, the first naval captain under whom Marryat served, was the model for Forester's Horatio Hornblower and O'Brian's Jack Aubrey. But Marryat was there first. His Midshipman Jack Easy was the first fictional character modeled after Lord Cochrane.

Patrick O'Brian's phenomenally popular Aubrey/Maturin series of historical novels has reawakened interest in this venerable genre of English literature—nautical fiction. As readers explore this realm, they will find that Marryat is still well worth reading. His value is not just in the perfectly authentic lore of the navy of wooden ships, present in every page of his books. Marryat's sharp wit, love of word play, sense of irony, and interest in the strange and the scandalous are evident throughout his works.

PRE-EMINENT among the kindly, good-humoured portraits that hang in Marryat's long gallery of fun stands “equality Jack,” Mr Midshipman Easy. The critical reader to-day, quoting the science of heredity as taught in continental fiction, may smile at the absurd production of so shrewd a youth from such thoroughly imbecile parents. But the comment is irrational and pedantic. To appreciate a farce we must grant to the author his “impossible” conditions; and may
then
demand that he should manipulate them effectively.

Given the mad father, the doting mother, etc., and his own clever, manly, and affectionate nature, Jack's conduct in the middies' berth is no libel on humanity. It possesses the further merit of being extremely amusing. He argues with so much point and persistence, and accepts the consequences of differing from his superior officers with so much genuine philosophy, that the reader scarcely knows whether to laugh at or with him. Certainly Jack is no fool, and as experience developes his character we find ourselves, without fear of inconsistency, slowly changing our point of view and confessing to a certain measure of cordial respect for the lad we were once nearly tempted to despise.