"Midshipman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an unsuccessful attempt was made by one of the crew of the California to effect an exchange with one of our number. It was a lad, between fifteen and sixteen years of age, who went by the name of the "reefer," having been a midshipman in an East India Company's ship. His singular character and story had excited our interest ever since the ship came into the port. He was a delicate, slender little fellow, with a beautiful pearly complexion, regular features, forehead as white as marble, black ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... vessel, or disappear into it, in the same way. Forward of the ward-room, adjoining it, and on the same level, is the midshipmen's room, on the larboard side of the vessel, not partitioned off, so as to be shut up. On a shelf a few books; one midshipman politely invites us to walk in; another sits writing. Going farther forward, on the same level we come to the crew's department, part of which is occupied by the cooking-establishment, where all sorts of cooking is going on for the ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... increased zeal new candidates for African discovery come forward the moment that the death of any fresh victim to this pestilential country is announced. To the list of those who have already fallen, may be added young Park, the son of the late enterprising Mungo Park, and a midshipman of his majesty's ship Sybille. He went out in this ship with a full determination to proceed on foot, and alone, from the coast to the spot where his father perished, in the hope of hearing some authentic and more detailed account of the catastrophe than had yet ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... my dear Lord; Edward's sudden appearance has startled me out of all etiquette. To one and all, then, of my good friends here, allow me to introduce to their indulgent notice this said Edward Fortescue, midshipman and gallant officer on board His Majesty's good ship Prince William; and, in order that all reserve may be at an end between us, I propose a bumper to the health and prosperity of ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... 1783-1793, he commanded frigates, chiefly on the Newfoundland station; and in them, though now turning thirty, he displayed the superabundant vitality and restless activity that had characterized his early youth. "Whenever there was exertion required aloft," wrote a midshipman who served with him at this period, "to preserve a sail or a mast, the captain was foremost in the work, apparently as a mere matter of amusement, and there was not a man in the ship that could equal him in personal activity. He ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... in 1831—was intended by his father for the army, in which he received a captain's commission. But his own predilections were in favour of a seaman's life, and accordingly, after brief schooling, he joined the Hind, as a midshipman, in June, 1793, when he was nearly eighteen years ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... two hours the procession of boats, borne on the current, steered silently down the St. Lawrence. The stars were visible, but the night was moonless and sufficiently dark. The General was in one of the foremost boats, and near him was a young midshipman, John Robison, afterwards professor of natural philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. He used to tell in his later life how Wolfe, with a low voice, repeated Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard to the officers about ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... go alone," said Jerry Bird, as soon as he saw what the midshipman was about. Throwing off his jacket and shirt, he followed ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... once a cabin-boy, promoted step by step on the score of actual merit and brave service performed,—Midshipman Alexander, son of an old sailor's old widow, who lived in Salt Lane, to whom Andrew Swift and Silas Dexter and other well-disposed men had lent a helping hand when poverty had brought her to some desperate strait,—this young Alexander, who had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... Parea, who had now recovered his senses. He dispersed the crowd, made a signal to the English that they might return, restored their boat, and sent them back in it to their ship. Parea afterwards followed them, taking with him a midshipman's hat, and some other trifles which were missing; expressed his sorrow for the dispute that had arisen, and inquired whether O Rono desired his death, or whether he might come again to the ship.—(It ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... began, and the commander on the lee side of the quarter-deck grinned a grin that was reflected in the face of the signal-midshipman. Not a word of the song was lost, and the voice of the singer was the voice ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... out his throat, and so he rushed at him, and knocked him down and took his razor away, and begged him to be quiet; and Muddle, thinking it was a mutiny, nearly went into a fit, and straggled so desperately, and made such awful choking noises that two more men sat on him; and the navigating midshipman, thinking it was fire, told the bugler to sound to quarters, and then, seeing the captain being held down by three men, rushed to his assistance, but tripped over something or somebody and fell down and nearly broke ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... it, sir," said their guide; "the English midshipman and I had become great friends; and though I don't think he will be treated ill, yet he will not like to be kept away from his ship. However, when my father returns, I promise to do my best to ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... has been sent from College the greatest number of times; the Vice-Admiral is the poorest scholar in the class; the Rear-Admiral the laziest fellow in the class; the Commodore, one addicted to boating; the Captain, a jolly blade; the Lieutenant and Midshipman, fellows of the same description; the Chaplain, the most profane; the Surgeon, a dabbler in surgery, or in medicine, or anything else; the Ensign, the tallest member of the class; the Boatswain, one most inclined to obscenity; the Drum Major, the most aristocratic, and his assistants, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... University of Pennsylvania. He afterward became clerk of the Supreme Court of Delaware for his native county. When about twenty-nine years old he entered the navy, and made his first cruises under Commodore Barry. He was a midshipman on board the frigate United States, when she bore to France Chief Justice Ellsworth and General Davie, as envoys extraordinary to the French Republic. He was next appointed to the Ganges as midshipman. On the breaking out ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... fatal shot had been fired from The Redoutable that ship was captured, the man who killed Nelson having himself been shot by a midshipman ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... served his time as a midshipman on board his father's flag-ship, but had left the navy and accepted a commission in the Buenos-Ayrean service during the political struggles in that province; he had commanded a sort of privateer under ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... assigned, in the order of their numbers, to the Lieutenants or other Watch Officers, according to their rank, assigning the first division to the officer next in rank to the Executive Officer. In case of a deficiency of Watch Officers, the quarter-deck division may be assigned to an Ensign or Midshipman, who will act under the general supervision of the Executive Officer. When the number of officers on board of vessels having pivot-guns will permit, each pivot-gun will be placed under the special charge of a suitable officer of the division of which ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... would not forego a lecture fee to mix it with them without money and without price; but they didn't know their man. I'm always willing to make some sacrifice to secure the luxury of a red-hot intellectual scrapping match. We proposed to make it a Midshipman Easy duel, a three-cornered fight—Brothers Homan and Benson vs. the "Apostle," but they wiggled in and they wiggled out, they temporized and tergiversated until we saw there wasn't an ounce of fight in ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... by Joseph Conrad The Nigger of the "Narcissus," by Joseph Conrad The Mirror of the Sea, by Joseph Conrad Captains Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling The Brassbounder, by David W. Bone Salt of the Sea, by Morley Roberts Mr. Midshipman Easy, by Captain Marryat The Wreck of the "Grosvenor," by Clark Russell Moby Dick, by Herman Melville An Ocean Tramp, ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... of posterity. He did a good deal of surveying, so that here we may perhaps lay our finger on the beginning of Fleeming's education as an engineer. What is still more strange, among the relics of the handsome midshipman and his stay in the gun-room of the PROTHEE, I find a code of signals graphically represented, for all the world as it would have been done ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or any other service might fully be depended on. As it was known that there were no inhabitants on Norfolk Island, there was sent with Lieut. King only a small detachment, consisting of one subaltern officer, and six marines, a very promising young man who was a midshipman, a surgeon,* two men who understood the cultivation and dressing of flax, with nine men and six women convicts. That the nature of this settlement may be fully understood, a copy of the instructions delivered to Mr. King at his departure ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... troublesome gambols, was the sole subject of dispute. The colonel, as is well known, a very elegant and generous young man, fell; and Captain Macnamara had thenceforwards a worm at his heart whose gnawings never died. He was a post-captain; and my brother afterwards sailed with him in quality of midshipman. From him I have often heard affecting instances of the degree in which the pangs of remorse had availed, to make one of the bravest men in the service a mere panic-haunted, and, in a moral sense, almost a paralytic wreck. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... midshipman of fourteen lay fearfully injured, but never uttered a sound till a physician of Memphis was about to dress his hurts. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... very young to serve his country, but not too young according to the standards of mankind to be a midshipman on the great steel monster keeping the leaden deep. It was the first time he had ever been away from home on Christmas day, too. The youngsters had all laughed and joked about it in the steerage mess. They had promised themselves some kind of a celebration in the morning, ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... conduct of James Jarvis, a midshipman in said frigate, who gloriously preferred certain death to an abandonment of his post, is deserving of the highest praise, and that the loss of so promising an officer is a subject of ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... that Harden-Hickey was forced to borrow from it freely. Knight himself says that the most minute and accurate description of Trinidad is to be found in the "Frank Mildmay" of Captain Marryat. He found it so easy to identify each spot mentioned in the novel that he believes the author of "Midshipman ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... benevolent countenance of Captain Dale, and had half a desire to ask leave to join his ship on the spot. If that impulse had been followed, it is probable my future life would have been very different from what it subsequently proved. I should have been rated a midshipman, of course; and, serving so early, with a good deal of experience already in ships, a year or two would have made me a lieutenant, and, could I have survived the pruning of 1801, I should now have been one of the oldest officers ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... sixteen years old, he determined to leave home and become a midshipman in the colonial navy. After he had sent off his trunk, he went to bid his mother good-by. She wept so bitterly because he was going away that he said to his Negro servant: "Bring back my trunk. I am not going to wake my mother suffer ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... more than twelve years of age when I entered the British Navy as a midshipman, much against my good father's will, for I was his only child, and my mother died the day I first saw the light. But I was a wayward, unruly boy, and he feared I might take to bad courses if restrained. It was a time of stirring action, ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... Two small forts lay at the mouth of the harbor, but, as the seamen scrambled ashore, they were precipitately abandoned by the garrison of "coast-guards." Captain Jones, Midshipman Green, and six men rushed shouting upon one of these, capturing it without an effort; the other was taken by Lieutenant Wallingford and eight sailors,—while four were left behind as a boat-guard. A few pistols spattered, ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... but the army got both of the boys, as it turned out. Gregory was to be the midshipman; my poor brother intending him for a sailor from the first, and so giving him the name that was once borne by the unfortunate relative we lost by shipwreck. I wished him to call one of the lads James, after St. James; but, somehow, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... answered the midshipman, rousing himself, and looking round with flashing eyes as he endeavoured to wave his hand in the air. "I'll live to fight ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... said to the young midshipman sitting by his side. "This pretty nearly makes up our complement; the press gang are sure to pick up the few hands we ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... of the Island Midshipman Merrill Ensign Merrill Sword and Pen Valley of Mystery, The ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... which English children are seldom able to endure after that age. Their mother had sailed for England with Dick, the youngest, but had died soon after she reached home. Dick had a passion for the sea, and his father's relations having good interest, had obtained for him a berth as a midshipman in the royal navy, in which rank he had been serving for upward of a year. His ship being now in Indian waters, a month's leave had been granted him that he might go up the country to see his father. The ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... great guns, and full of men. In the contest Lieut. Carruthers, the commanding officer, was once wounded by a ball in the loins; but after girding a handkerchief round his waist, he still kept the deck, till a ball entering his forehead, he fell. Mr. Salter, the midshipman on whom the command devolved, continued the fight with determined bravery, and after a stout resistance, beat them off, chased them some distance out to sea, and subsequently regained ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... the ship. "If you keep her on her present course, she's all right, but if you try and bring her up any more she begins to shake. And, by the way, Penelope wants to be called at 4.30." Bowers' 'snotty,' who is Oates, probably makes some ribald remarks, such as no midshipman should to a full lieutenant, and they both disappear below. Campbell's snotty, myself, appears about five minutes afterwards trying to look as though some important duty and not bed had kept him from making an earlier appearance. Meanwhile the leading hand musters ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... a period some fifteen or twenty years after Marryat had astonished the world by his thrilling descriptions of a naval officer's life and its accompanying troubles. At the time of which I write people flattered themselves that the sufferings which 'Midshipman Easy' and 'The Naval Officer' underwent while serving the Crown were tales of the past. I will show by what I am about very briefly to relate that such was very far from ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... of the Royal Navy and Commander. John Richardson, M.D., Surgeon of the Royal Navy. Mr. George Back, of the Royal Navy, Admiralty Midshipman. Mr. Robert Hood, of the Royal Navy, Admiralty Midshipman. Mr. Frederick Wentzel, Clerk to the North-West Company. ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... devil, and he has rarely come to trouble me since. Some future day, perhaps, I may be able to call Faraday's attention more decidedly. Pergo modo! "wie das Gestirn, ohne Hast, ohne Rast" (Das Gestirn in a midshipman's berth!). ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... can you object without turning the sword of Liberty against herself? Have you never heard tell, by the way, of Captain Byng's midshipman?" ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... bore an Italian stamp and a Neapolitan postmark. Arthur Miles was a midshipman now, soon to be a second-lieutenant; his ship, the Indomitable, attached to the Mediterranean fleet. She broke the seal. . . . The letter was a boyish one, full of naval slang, impersonal, the sort ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... entrance to the sound; and, being embayed near a point called the Bolthead, about four leagues higher up the channel, was dashed in pieces among the rocks, after all her anchors and cables had given way. All her officers and men, amounting to seven hundred, perished on this occasion, except one midshipman and twenty-five mariners, who had the good fortune to save themselves by leaping on the rocks as the hull was thrown forwards, and raised up by the succeeding billows. Such were the most material transactions of the year, relating ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... thirty-two miles to nearly seventy in one year, while the troops under his command had grown in numbers from less than sixty thousand to well over a million. The son of a naval officer, John Denton French began his career as a midshipman in the navy, but gave that up after a three years' trial and joined the army in 1874. General French was essentially a cavalry commander, and as such he distinguished himself in the South African War of 1899-1902. His conduct in the European War has been the subject of some criticism. The ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... midshipman see that the bars are properly pinned and swiftered next time," said the commander, as he walked aft to resume his place on ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... of the Panther showed the utmost cordiality and also the utmost curiosity toward their visitors. A dapper young midshipman gripped Madden's hand as he stepped on ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... a young sailor, Lawrence, from Burlington, N.J., who had begun life early, having been a midshipman when he was only sixteen years old. When Commodore Preble asked for volunteers to go on this expedition to snatch from the hands of the pirates the prize which they thought they had won, Lawrence was one of the first ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... death, and agreed, at the request of Horatio himself and the instigation of his father, after some doubtful comments as to the boy's physical suitableness for the rough life of a sailor, to take him; so on the 1st January, 1771, he became a midshipman on the Raisonable. On the 22nd May he either shipped of his own accord or was put as cabin-boy on a merchant vessel which went to the West Indies, and ended his career in the merchant service at the end of an eventful voyage. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... many other countries and peoples. From Osborne and Britannia days sincerity seems to have been inculcated into them. The discipline is inflexible, but kindly. The captain of a "Dreadnought" will take pains to ask a young midshipman to dine with him, and there exists a wonderful thoughtfulness on the part of the officers for the men. British naval officers are lovers of sports, and, having believed the Germans good sports before August, 1914, they cannot condone attacks ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... exclaimed a young midshipman, "and they are doing what all travellers do in a new country, they are looking ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... diagonally, leaving death and wounds in its track. The shattered craft sunk, and was soon followed by four others. The order for retreat was given; and, leaving their dead and some wounded in the shattered barges that lay in the shallow water, the British fled to their ships. Midshipman Tatnall, who, many years later, served in the Confederate navy, waded out with several sailors, and, seizing the "Centipede," drew her ashore. He found several wounded men in her,—one a Frenchman, with both legs shot away. A small terrier dog lay ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... intimation, the lieutenant proposed that the experiment should be tried; and went with the midshipman on board the ship that the claimant was on, for that purpose. After all the sailors had been assembled upon deck, Mr. B—, casting his eyes around, immediately distinguished Mr. A— in the crowd, and, laying his hand on his shoulder, 'This is the man,' said ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... age, he was sent to the Hopkinton Academy, and afterwards to the academy at Gilmanton. While at Gilmanton, General Charles H. Peaslee, then member of Congress from the Concord congressional district, offered him the appointment of acting midshipman to fill a vacancy at the Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, which, after some hesitation, his parents permitted him to accept, and he was withdrawn from Gilmanton and sent to Concord to prepare for entrance at Annapolis, under a private tutor. He remained ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... gold-banded cap to us, as the frigate rounded to, to the leeward of us,—and the glorious stripes and stars blew out clear against the hot sky. A light dingey was in the water before the main yard had been well swung aback, and a midshipman was urging the men, who needed no urging, to give way strong. I didn't know how weak I had got, till they were lifting me aboard the boat. An hour after, when I had had something to eat and was a little restored ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... the passion that I bestowed upon my favorite authors. I believe I had no critical reserves in regard to them, but simply they did not take my fancy. Still, we had great fun with Japhet in 'Search of a Father', and with 'Midshipman Easy', and we felt a fine physical shiver in the darkling moods of 'Snarle-yow the Dog-Fiend.' I do not remember even the names of the other novels, except 'Jacob Faithful,' which I chanced upon a few years ago and found ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... anecdote will be found as told by Sir Walter to Captain Basil Hall. The remainder of the present story is entirely imaginary. The writer wondered what such a woman as the landlady would do under certain given circumstances, after her marriage to the young midshipman—and here ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... the shrouds, ready to perform the office of Undertakers. In the vicinity of the Trades, they sometimes lie under the counters of merchantmen for days together. Nothing comes amiss to them, from a midshipman to a marrow-bone, and it may be interesting to politicians to know that Repeaters and Rings have occasionally been found in the maws of these monsters. They bite readily at "Salt horse," and, when hooked with a rattan in throat, may be yanked on board with the bight of a hawser. An enormous ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... patient himself states that he graduated from Annapolis in 1878, between which year and 1883 he traveled in Europe and South America as midshipman. In 1883 he entered the Cincinnati Law School, where he remained one year. After this he states he acted in the capacity of Judge Advocate General for a short time while on shore duty. He then went to sea again and finally resigned ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... was fifteen years old I was sent to sea as a means of bettering my morals. I served first on board an Indiaman, made two voyages to China, and was wrecked on the coast of Malabar; and when I got home my father or friends procured me the position of midshipman on board a man-of-war. I served on board the frigate Winchester, and other of His Majesty's ships, I did, for fifteen years, and was only a midshipman at the end. Heaven forgive me for my sins. It seemed there was no promotion for me. I was then transferred ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... youth of twenty-four years, had been trained in a rugged school. He had gone to sea at the age of eleven and at this tender age had taken part in his first sea-fight. He served as a naval midshipman during the Seven Years' War. At its conclusion he became a mate on one of the ships of the Hudson's Bay Company, in which position his industry and ingenuity distinguished him among his associates. For some years Hearne was employed in the fur trade north of the Churchill, and ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... into the town to get my measure taken by Andrew Spurling, who promised to have a "nautical cut" suit ready for me by the next day. I had, in an impulse of gratitude, begged that he might make my clothes. It was fatal to my appearance as a trim midshipman; and I had to discard some, and get others altered, before I was fit to present myself on ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... of; but as soon as I could bear the weight of a cockade and a dirk, uncle got me a berth as midshipman on board his own ship. So there I was, Mr. Bellophron Box. I didn't like the sea or the service, being continually disgusted at the partiality shown towards me, for in less than a month I was put over the heads of all my superior officers. You may stare—but it's true; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... aware that the 147th section of the Merchant Shipping Act provides, that 'if any unauthorized person engages or supplies any mate, seaman, midshipman, or apprentice, to be entered on board any ship in the United Kingdom, he will be liable to be prosecuted; and if convicted, to a penalty of 20 for each offence?' I ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... officers, and commended Kearney and Mason for nipping that idea in the bud, and keeping the power in their own hands. He then sent for the first lieutenant (Drayton), and inquired if there were among the officers on board any who had ever been in the Upper Bay, and learning that there was a midshipman (Whittaker) he was sent for. It so happened that this midshipman had been on a frolic on shore a few nights before, and was accordingly much frightened when summoned into the commodore's presence, but as soon as he was questioned as to his knowledge of the bay, he ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... marines on board, who had talked a good deal to them upon the preceding day, came up to them. "I thought that you would be in a fix about clothes, my lads," he said. "You could not very well join in these midshipman's uniforms, so I set the tailor yesterday to cut down a couple of spare suits of my corps. The buttons will not be right, but you can easily alter that when you join. You had better go below at once and see if the things fit pretty well. I have told the tailor to take them to ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... ticket-jingle Rousseau du ruisseau, which, though not without some real pertinency, is directly misleading. Another class, consisting of some at least, if not most, of those who have read him to some extent, may urge that Decency—taking her revenge for the axiom of the boatswain in Mr. Midshipman Easy—forbids Duty to let him in. And yet others, less under the control of any Mrs. Grundy, literary or moral, may ask why he is let in, and Choderlos de Laclos[418] and Louvet de Courray, with some more, kept out, as they ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... within! The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy,[9.B.] The hoarse command, the busy humming din, When, at a word, the tops are manned on high: Hark, to the Boatswain's call, the cheering cry! While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides; Or schoolboy Midshipman that, standing by, Strains his shrill pipe as good or ill betides, And well the docile crew that skilful ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... spellings 'casualities' to 'casualties' 'Midshipmen's hitch' to 'Midshipman's hitch' Illustration for Timber Hitch is Fig. 38, not Fig. 32 There is ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... as deserving officers as any in his Majesty's service; but he could speak more particularly to the merit of Captain Keats, having served under him for four years and a half during a former war as midshipman in the same watch. He was persuaded, whenever the country should be engaged in another war, Captain Keats would eminently ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... missionaries than the knowledge he gained from going to a high-priced ball or champagne supper held a few feet from the shore, expressing the most emphatic opinions concerning the value of a foreign missionary's life and influence! He changed his costume several times a day. And I learned from a midshipman who volunteered the information that the following comprises the regular and compulsory list of clothes a naval officer in this Christian age is obliged to possess and solemnly wear on the proper occasions. ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... the foaming bosom of the broad Atlantic Ocean. My father was a sea-captain; my grandfather was a sea-captain; my great-grandfather had been a marine. Nobody could tell positively what occupation his father had followed; but my dear mother used to assert that he had been a midshipman, whose grandfather, on the mother's side, had been an admiral in the royal navy. At anyrate we knew that, as far back as our family could be traced, it had been intimately connected with the great ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Newton Forster. The Pirate and the Three Cutters. Peter Simple. Japhet in Search of a Father. Mr. Midshipman Easy. ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... made such a book as shall become the heroic text of every midshipman in the Navy, and the association of Nelson and Southey will not, I think, be ungrateful to you. If it be worth your attention in this way I am disposed to think that it will enable me to treble the sum I first offered ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... Something was whispered to the captain, who left us in consternation. Happily for us, an English sloop of war, the Hawk, was cruising in those parts, and had signalled the captain to bring to; but the signal not being promptly answered, a gun was fired from the sloop and a midshipman sent on board our vessel. He was a polite young man, and gave me hopes that the lancha, which was laden with cacao, would be given up, and that on the following day we might pursue our voyage. In the meantime he invited me to accompany him on board ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Aspirations for a naval career. His father's wish. John Flinders' advice. Study of navigation. Introduction to Pasley. Lieutenant's servant. Midshipman on the Bellerophon. Bligh ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... over in every light. But in the first place, Bertie, if you go with me you will have to remember that I am your commanding officer. I am ten years older than you, and besides I am a lieutenant in the King's Navy, while you are only a midshipman in the merchant service. Now, I shall expect as ready obedience from you as if I were captain of my own ship and you one of my ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... season. Such being the situation, the young girls of the Blue Band might have tried in vain to make any impression upon him. But the hatred with which he inspired Fred found some relief in the composition of fragments of melancholy verse, which the young midshipman hid under his mattresses. It is not an uncommon thing for naval men to combine a love of the sea with a love of poetry. Fred's verses were not good, but they were full of dejection. The poor fellow compared Raoul Wermant to Faust, and himself to ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... sailed eastward, first to Toobooai, or Tubuai, an island to the south of the Society Islands, thence to Tahiti (June 6), back to Tubuai (June 26), and yet again, to Tahiti (September 20), where sixteen of the mutineers, including the midshipman George Stewart (the "Torquil" of The Island), were put on shore. Finally, September 21, 1789, Fletcher Christian, with the Bounty and eight of her crew, six Tahitian men, and twelve women, sailed away still further ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... craft, built in New York, and fitted, furnished, and ornamented without regard to cost. Colonel Raybone had a nephew who was a passed-midshipman in the navy, who, while on a visit to Redlawn, had instructed the crew in the elements of boating. The black boys did not regard their labors as work, and took so much pride in making themselves proficient in their duties, that they might well have challenged comparison ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... be a limit to the indulgence of these fancies; and if even an elder midshipman or mate of the decks were permanently to distinguish himself after this masquerade fashion, he would speedily lose caste even with the crew. When a mid, for example, is promoted to lieutenant, he must speedily decide whether he shall follow up in earnest a course ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... routine, the slavery of civilisation, [166] man feels once more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of youth, excitement gives a new vigour to the muscles and a sense of sudden freedom adds an inch to the stature." Among the crew was a midshipman, C. R. Low, who became a life-long friend of Burton. Says Mr. Low, "We used to have bouts of single-stick in the pleasant evening sin the poop, and many's the time he has blacked my arms and legs with his weapons.... Though a dangerous enemy, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... hisself nor nobody else. I've a-took 'en to say.... Never again! 'Er ain't no fisherman nuther. An' thic Joe Barker's past it. He've had his day. Been in the Army an' been in the Navy, an' an't brought no pension out o' the one n'eet out o' t'other. Helped throw a 'Merican midshipman overboard once, so they say, drough a porthole. Thought they was going to be hanged for it, but they wasn't. He've a-lived wildish in his time, I can tell 'ee; an' now he's the man for sleep. Take 'en ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... the creek, and churning on the bay. Purchasing a quantity of clothing, and other supplies for volunteers, I sailed early on the morning of the eighth for New Helvetia, in a boat belonging to the sloop-of-war Portsmouth, manned by U.S. sailors, under the command of Midshipman Byres, a native of Maysville, Ky. We encamped that night at the head of "Soeson," having sailed about fifty miles in a severe storm of wind and rain. The waves frequently dashed entirely over our little craft. The rain continued during the ninth, and we encamped ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... the British frigate, one of the boobies, pointing to Lord Charles, called to me, "Poll, who is that?" I answered, "Red tape and sealing-wax;" and raised a general shout at the expense of the little diplomatic pedant. An Irish midshipman present, a Mr. O'Gallagher, pointing to Mr. Henry, asked me, "Who is that, Poll?" "Good for nothing," I replied; and Mr. Henry flew at me in a rage, swore I had been taught to insult him, and that he would wring my neck off. This ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... orderly swung the port-cabin door open, and standing up as rigid as a pump-bolt, with a finger to the visor of his stovepipe hat, in cross-belts and bayonet, he announced "Lieutenant Hardy and Midshipman Mouse!" ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... bright eye open," said a gay young midshipman, as he stepped into the boat which was to reconvey him to his vessel, "you may cut out one or two of them, for they sail wide apart, and the frigate keeps heaving ahead, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... after visited the family at their home and offered to adopt one of the children. Young David Farragut then knew little of the element upon which his future life was to be passed; but, dazzled by the commander's uniform and by that of his own elder brother William, who had received a midshipman's warrant a short time before, he promptly decided to accept an offer which held forth to him the same brilliant prospects. The arrangement was soon concluded. Porter promised to be to him always a friend and guardian; and the admiral wrote in after life, "I am ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... Regent, laden with military stores, having as passengers Captain Laing of the Royal African Light Infantry, and a prize crew commanded by Midshipman Gordon, belonging to H.B.M. sloop of war, Driver, six days from Sierra Leone, bound for Cape Coast, was at the time in the offing (a little past the Cape). So unusual a circumstance as cannonading at midnight could not fail to attract ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... the assistance of some friends ashore, we have procured a comfortable house in one of the suburbs of Rio, called the Catete, from the name of a little river which runs through it into the sea. To this house I have brought my poor suffering midshipman, Langford; and trust that free air, moderate exercise, and a milk diet, will restore him. We have been visited by several persons, who all appear hospitable and kind, particularly the acting consul-general, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... patrol up the Parang River in the Malay peninsula. On board are the midshipman, Bob Roberts, and the ensign, Tom Long. Their friendly bickering goes on throughout the book. Various tropical indispositions trouble them, and also of course the insect life in the air and saurian life in the ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... the boats with a rush, and casting themselves into the sea, everything had been lost in the way of ship's papers; the charts, the two logs—everything, in fact, that could indicate the latitude and longitude of the disaster. The first and second officers and a midshipman had shared the fate of the quarter-boat; of the fore-mast hands saved, not one, of course, could give the slightest hint as to ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... should be provided by making a large addition to the classes at Annapolis. There is one small matter which should be mentioned in connection with Annapolis. The pretentious and unmeaning title of "naval cadet" should be abolished; the title of "midshipman," full of historic association, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... born my brothers; 6. Richard, known to us all by the household name of Pink, who in his after years tilted up and down what might then be called his Britannic majesty's oceans (viz., the Atlantic and Pacific) in the quality of midshipman, until Waterloo in one day put an extinguisher on that whole generation of midshipmen, by extinguishing all further call for their services; 7. a second Jane; 8. Henry, a posthumous child, who belonged ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... ladies, of whom one was a dowager countess, but there were also a bishop and a midshipman. The last had a bad cold and kept on blowing his nose during the performance of the soprano, a lady of strange appearance, said to be a Serbian refugee of ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... visitors there at the time; that the young Blount loaded the guns, and that a strong fire was kept up on the advancing column. Nat Turner was thrown from his mule, then they became panic-stricken, and were dispersed. For the bravery displayed by young Blount on that occasion, he received a midshipman's warrant in the United States Navy. I will now quote from G. P. R. James' book, called the "Old Dominion," in which he states that a "young mother with her infant fled to the Dismal Swamp for safety." It was ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... Fanny was made happy by a visit from her brother William, now, through Sir Thomas's influence, a midshipman; and soon the former intercourse between the families at the Park and at the Parsonage was revived, Sir Thomas perceiving, in a careless way, that Mr. Crawford, who was back again at Mansfield, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... a doubt of it!" cried a young midshipman, fresh from Annapolis, and of course "throughly posted" in the latest revelations of Astronomy. "I feel as certain of their being there as I am of our being here on ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... had been absent from Kirklands had proved very eventful to her in many ways. There had been some changes in her outer life. Walter, her only brother and playmate, had left home to go to sea. They had only had one passing visit from him since, so changed in his midshipman's dress, with his broadened shoulders and bronzed face, and so full of sailor life and talk, that his playmate had hardly composure of mind to discover till he was gone that the same loving heart still beat under the blue dress and bright buttons. And while she thought of him ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... [7] The midshipman of this voyage was Peter Chaplin, whose journal was deposited in the Naval College of the Admiralty, St. Petersburg. Berg gives a summary of this journal. A translation by Dall is to be found in Appendix ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... and for him also Mary found room in her lodgings until, through her influence, he went to Woolwich, where for a few months he was under the instruction of Mr. Bonnycastle, the mathematician, as a preparation to enter the Royal Navy. He eventually went on Lord Hood's fleet as a midshipman, and was then promoted to the rank of lieutenant, after which he appears to have been able to ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... of Highfield, with issue, six sons - William, a Lieutenant in the 78th Highlanders, who died at Breda, in Holland, from a wound which he received on the previous day at the taking of Merxein, in 1814 Thomas, a Midshipman, R.N., drowned at sea; Frederick, R.N., murdered at Calcutta in 1820; Francis, R.N., drowned at sea in 1828; and Colin, all without issue; also Captain Alexander, of the 25th Regiment, subsequently Adjutant of the Ross-shire Militia, who married ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... I'm foolish. Hug me Aileen or it will all seem like a dream and I'll wake up and find we've got to roost with someone like that stupid Electra Sanderson, or Petty Gordon, who can't do a thing but talk about that midshipman at Annapolis to whom she says she's engaged, and she's only just seventeen. She ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Farragut had sailed as a midshipman on the Essex in her famous cruise to the South Pacific, and lived through the murderous fight in which, after losing three fifths of her crew, she was captured by two British vessels. Step by step he rose in his profession, but never had an opportunity of distinguishing himself until, when ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... in the West Indies, carrying specie, or chasing buccaneers and slavers, Charles Jenkin, junior, was introduced to the family of a fellow midshipman, son of Mr. Jackson, Custos Rotulorum of Kingston, Jamaica, and fell in love with Henrietta Camilla, the youngest daughter. Mr. Jackson came of a Yorkshire stock, said to be of Scottish origin, and Susan, his wife, was a daughter ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... morning after we landed, Power rode off with dispatches to headquarters, leaving me to execute two commissions with which he had been entrusted—a packet for Hammersly from Miss Dashwood and an epistle from a love-sick midshipman who could not get on shore, to the Senhora Inez da Silviero. I took up the packet for Hammersly with a heavy heart. Alas! thought I, how fatally may my life ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... in 1755, was far from being happy. Incompatibility of temper, and radical and stubborn differences in political principle and sentiment, were the main ingredients in the chalice of bitterness and woe which both, doubtless, helped to fill. His only son, a youth of promise, entered the navy as midshipman, and died at eighteen. His eldest daughter, Elizabeth, married a loyalist, Captain Brown, who was wounded at Bunker Hill,—an alliance that much distressed him. The sad fortune of his second daughter, Mary, was another source ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... correspondence at red heat was kept up for several weeks, is long before this entirely out of your regard,—not so much by reason of the six months' disparity of age, as from the fact, communicated quite confidentially by the travelled Nat, that she has had a desperate flirtation with a handsome midshipman. The conclusion is natural that she is an inconstant, cruel-hearted creature, with little appreciation of real worth; and furthermore, that all midshipmen are a very contemptible—not to say dangerous—set of men. She is consigned to forgetfulness ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... (with the airs of an amateur.) Ugh! ugh! I'm hoarse. Now mind the coal-box, byes, and sing it up. "The Jolly Midshipman's" ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... been made a midshipman, uncle," I argued, "I should have always been running the risks of the sea, and the foreign climate where I was sent, and of being killed ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... Standish was soon in the cabin of the yacht, and after swallowing some champagne he revived sufficiently to tell us his story. The sunken ship was the "Melbourne," bound for Australia, and this was Charley's first voyage as a midshipman on board. During the darkness of the night she had been run into by a large homeward-bound merchantman of the same class. She sank within an hour of the collision. In the scramble for the boats Charley ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... guns on the Redoutable, for about fifteen minutes after Lord NELSON was wounded; in which short period Captain ADAIR and about eighteen Seamen and Marines were killed, and Lieutenant BLIGH, Mr. PALMER Midshipman, and twenty Seamen and Marines, wounded, by the Enemy's musketry alone. The Redoutable had been on fire twice, in her fore-chains and on her forecastle: she had likewise succeeded in throwing a few hand-grenades into the Victory, which ...
— The Death of Lord Nelson • William Beatty
... Nolan began six or eight years after the War, on my first voyage after I was appointed a midshipman. It was in the first days after our Slave-Trade treaty, while the Reigning House, which was still the House of Virginia, had still a sort of sentimentalism about the suppression of the horrors of the Middle Passage, and something was sometimes done that way. We were in ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... father of a family, a well-to-do merchant in London, dies suddenly. His eldest son had gone off to sea, but had not been heard of for some time, and by some was presumed dead. The second son is our young hero, who goes to sea as a midshipman. The book is thereafter filled with his adventures as he finds his way through rumour and chance to rescue his brother from ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... road. The only bridle-path through the woods led over the hill to the little house on the westerly slope, where lived Dame Ransom, Lucy's bowed and wrinkled grandmother. Mark wondered not a little where the midshipman had been; but as he still retained the memory of the old quarrel, he did not accost him, and presently thought no more of it. Reaching the house, he got some dry clothes and then went home with bounding steps. The earth was never so beautiful nor the sky so benign. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... In 1856 it was decided that the prince, in accordance with his own wishes, should enter the navy, and a separate establishment was accordingly assigned to him, with Lieutenant Sowell, R. E., as governor. He passed a most creditable examination for midshipman in August 1858, and being appointed to the "Euryalus,'' at once began to work hard at the practical part of his profession. In July 1860, while on this ship, he paid an official visit to the Cape, and made a very favourable impression both on the colonials ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... year that I determined to join the Royal Navy. An uncle of mine had presented me with Captain Marryat's novels complete in one immense volume. I felt that a life on the ocean wave was the only one worth living. Accordingly I offered my services to the Admiralty as a midshipman. As I could not write (a fact I felt myself justified in concealing from the First Lord), I got old Micky Nolan, who was employed as a clerk in the village bakery, to pen the application for me. Micky, who had seen better days, was quite a ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... found the mate of the watch had fallen asleep, and that the other midshipman was not ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... pirate who was very troublesome in the South Atlantic in the early part of the last century. Eventually captured by Midshipman Hull Foot of the U.S. Navy in March, 1825, at St. Thomas Isle. Executed in Porto Rico by the terrible Spanish method ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... aristocratic sisters, who, as of ancient lineage, not a little haughty, and rank Tories, had but little sympathy with Dissent.. Susanna was much at our house, and when away scarcely a day passed on which she did not write some of us a letter or send us a book. Then there was a brother Tom, a midshipman—a wonderful being to my inexperienced eyes—who once or twice came to our house seated in the family donkey-chaise, which seemed to me, somehow or other, not to be an ordinary donkey-chaise, but something of a far superior character. I have pleasant recollections of them all, and of the annuals ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... subsequent fate. Messrs. Dupont, Captain of Foot; In Senegal. L'Heureux, Lieutenant; In Senegal. Lozach, Sub-Lieutenant; Dead. Clairet, Sub-Lieutenant; Dead. Griffon du Bellay, Ex-Clerk of the Navy; Out of employment. Coudin, eleve de marine; Midshipman. Charlot, Serjeant Major (of Toulon); In Senegal. Courtade, Master Gunner; Dead. Lavillette. In France. Coste, Sailor; In France. Thomas, Pilot; In France. Francois, Hospital Keeper; In the Indies. Jean Charles, black Soldier; Dead. Correard, Engineer ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... nothing. His father had but little naval interest, and had for years been employed on coast guard service. Charlie agreed that, although he should have liked of all things to go to sea, it was useless to think of it now, for he was past the age at which he could have entered as a midshipman. ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... parrot; that will hold a dialogue, for what an honest man knows, in a dozen languages; mayhap in the Bay of State lingo; mayhap in Greek or High Dutch. But dost it know what it means itself? canst answer me that, good woman? Your midshipman can sing out, and pass the word, when the captain gives the order, but just send him adrift by himself, and let him work the ship of his own head, and stop my grog if you dont find all the Johnny Raws ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... it Angus?" I cried. For how was I to know the boy I had left in a midshipman's jacket, in this mainmast of a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the main walk the Brigade had broken ranks and the midshipmen were hurrying up to greet their friends. Captain Stewart was a favorite with all, and one of the very few officers who could recall how the world looked to him when he was a midshipman. Consequently, he was able to enter into the spirit and viewpoint of the lads and was always greeted with an enthusiasm rare in the intercourse between the midshipmen and the officers. Mrs. Harold was their "Little Mother," as she had been for the past five years, and Peggy and Polly the ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... relates that, "when Prince Christian, King of Denmark, was in London, attending the marriage of his daughter to the Prince of Wales, Lord John Russell discovered the second son of Prince Christian in the uniform of a midshipman, and suggested his name ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... years the farm of Efgill, in the parish of Westerkirk, and county of Dumfries. He had two sons, William and James, who were both men of superior intelligence, and both of them writers of verses. William, the poet's father, having for a brief period served as a midshipman, emigrated to the island of Grenada, where he first acted as the overseer of an estate, but was afterwards appointed to a situation in the Customs at St George's, and became the proprietor and editor ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was a buoy loose, and another that it was a black diver, and wanted to fire at it, which would not have been pleasant for the mayor: but just then such a yell came out of a great hole in the middle of it that the midshipman in charge guessed what it was, and bade pull up to it as fast as they could. So somehow or other the Jack-tars got the lobster out, and set the mayor free, and put him ashore at the Barbican. He never went lobster-catching again; ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... and, no doubt, the place is as well known to young fellows and old "under the pennant" in these prosaic days of "floating flat-irons and gimcrack fighting machines," as the "Fountain Inn" in High Street and the "Blue Posts" at Point were to Peter Simple and Mr Midshipman Easy in the early part of the century, when, to quote dear old Dad again, "a ship was a ship, and sailors were seamen and not all stokers ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the other midshipman. "Don't bother the poor fellow, Murray. Here, May, what do you fellows before the ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... cutters in the Revenue work were not always as active as they might be. In one of his novels (The Three Cutters) Captain Marryat gives the reader a very plain hint that there was a good deal of slackness prevalent in this section of the service. Referring to the midshipman of the Revenue cutter Active, the author speaks of him as a lazy fellow, too inert even to mend his jacket which was out at elbows, and adds, "He has been turned out of half the ships in the service for laziness; but he was born so, and therefore it is not his fault. A Revenue ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... to their horses' tails, after giving me this scar across the cheek, and taught us to drink mares' milk, and to do a good deal of dirty work beside. So there we stayed with them six months, and observed their manners, which were none, and their customs, which were disgusting, as the midshipman said in his diary; and had the honour of visiting a pleasant little place in No-man's Land, called Khiva, which you may find in your atlas, Mary; and of very nearly being sold for slaves into Persia, which would not have been pleasant; and at last, Mary, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... home town, where would Midshipman Darrin be more naturally found than in the parlor at the home of ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... life as a Leigh fisherman, and that Lily would probably in time become a fisherman's wife. When therefore Mrs. Godstone told her that her husband was ready to place Jack on board one of his ships as midshipman, and that he would take care he had every chance of making his way up, Mrs. ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... how from the very first he disliked Captain Reid. He was second lieutenant in the ship—the Orion—in which Frederick sailed the very first time. Poor little fellow, how well he looked in his midshipman's dress, with his dirk in his hand, cutting open all the newspapers with it as if it were a paper-knife! But this Mr. Reid, as he was then, seemed to take a dislike to Frederick from the very beginning. And ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... pocket-comb? What does a midshipman want more?" he exclaimed. "But I will find him all the luxuries he may require. Let him stay, and tell his friends that he is in ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... beat those who beat better players than himself?" Vingt et un was given up, as they played too high at it; and Napoleon had a great aversion to gaming. One night a negro threw himself overboard to avoid a flogging, which occasioned a great noise and bustle. A young midshipman meeting Las Cases descending into the cabin, and thinking he was going to inform Napoleon, caught hold of his coat and in a tone of great concern exclaimed, "Ah sir, do not alarm the Emperor! Tell him the noise is owing to an accident!" In general the midshipmen behaved ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... green; a pair of sleek drab stable-keepers, showing off horses for sale; the surgeon of the union, in Mackintosh and antigropelos; two holiday schoolboys with trousers strapped down to bursting point, like a penny steamer's safety-valve; a midshipman, the only merry one in the field, bumping about on a fretting, sweating hack, with its nose a foot above its ears; and Lancelot Smith, who then kept two good horses, and 'rode forward' as a fine young fellow of three-and-twenty who can afford it, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... think, tell Sir William, that impudence had got such deep root in Wales. I send you the letter, as a curiosity; and to have the impudence to recommend a midshipman! ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... prisoners confined in this house, near 300, together with a scanty allowance of provisions, occasioned it to be very sickly. * * * George Barnard, who had been a midshipman on the Hancock, and who was confined in the same room as myself, concerted a plan to release us, which was to be effected by digging a small passage under ground, to extend to a garden that was behind the prison, and without the prison wall, where we might make a breach in the night with ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... years old, he went to sea as midshipman on board Admiral Pye's ship, the Harfleur; from whence, in the following year, he was removed to the Romney, Captain Keith Elphinstone, on the Newfoundland station; and on the return of the ship ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... hand at the great Circle course, but none of us knew much about it down in that gloomy, 'tween-decks, slush-flavoured cavern in which we youngsters lived. I was fourteen years old, homeward bound on my first voyage; a little bit of a midshipman, burnt dry by Pacific suns, with a mortal hatred and terror of the wild, inexpressibly bitter cold of the roaring ice-loaded parallels in whose Antarctic twilight our noble ship was plunging and rolling now under a ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... English are very funny people. There is a rumor, you know, of pourparlers. What if you were to sail down to the gulf and some little midshipman were to fire ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... invalid with fine red lines such as one may see in the faces of consumptives when a pitiless cough forces the blood into the extremest and tiniest blood-vessels, he thought of a school-fellow, a young aristocrat, who was a midshipman now; he looked ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Mr. Francis, "that I must sit down at my desk and write: 'Past Midshipman John de ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... think," said Mrs. Cole, "that we'll have high tea at half-past seven, and the children shall stay up afterwards and we'll have 'Midshipman Easy.'" ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... imagination that he was for throwing his books away, at fifteen, and going into the navy. He was too young for the army, but Lawrence, who rather encouraged him, told him that he could get him a berth as midshipman. ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... age of eleven," was the prompt reply, "I was a midshipman in the navy, and made my first voyage under the gallant Decatur. I spent four years at sea with him, and during that time I had those terrible fights with the Algerines, of which I have before spoken. ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... to-day, dear," said Jane in an imploring voice; and Elinor accordingly remained with her cousin, while Miss Agnes went down to meet Mrs. George Wyllys. This lady was still living at Longbridge, although every few months she talked of leaving the place. Her oldest boy had just received a midshipman's warrant, to which he was certainly justly entitled—his father having lost his life in the public service. The rest of her children were at home; and rather spoilt and troublesome ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... letter, as a historical document, is worth preserving in the pages of "N. & Q." It relates to the important national events of the battle of Trafalgar and death of Nelson. The writer was, at the time, a signal midshipman in the service, and only about thirteen years of age. He was a native of Glasgow, and died many years since, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... the Classics? Precious few of them know any thing. In proof of this, in 1841, during the Administration of President Tyler, when the mutiny was detected on board of the American Man of War Brig Somers, the names of the Mutineers, were recorded by young S—— a Midshipman in Greek. Captain Alexander Slidell McKenzie, Commanding, was unable to read them; and in his despatches to the Government, in justification of his policy in executing the criminals, said that he "discovered ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... item of life was summarized on board. Men chatting, women laughing, dogs barking, cocks crowing, and pigs squealing, a floating farmyard, such is life on the sea. For the Rob Roy I had tried to get a monkey as a funny friend, if not as a tractable midshipman, but an end was put to the idea by the solemn warning of an experienced comrade, who stated, that after the first two days, a monkey pursues steadily one line of conduct afloat—he ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... later, only a few leagues from the place where Laperouse first learnt what it meant to fight the British on the sea, another young officer who was afterwards greatly concerned with Australasian exploration had his introduction to naval warfare. It was in 1794 that Midshipman Matthew Flinders, on the BELLEROPHON, Captain Pasley, played his valiant little part in a great fleet action off Brest. Both of these youths, whose longing was for exploration and discovery, and who are remembered by mankind in that connection, were cradled ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott
... the future supremacy of the British flag in these seas can be charged upon the founders of the colony, in fact, Governor King sent a small schooner under command of a midshipman after M. Baudin, with secret orders to watch their movements, and, if necessary, hoist the King's colours and land a corporal's guard at any place where the French appeared likely to make ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... sure, and he is half broken-hearted about it." We reached the beach soon after, where a couple of Jacks were in charge of the boat, and soon after we were pulled alongside of the lugger, to find that the men left on board, in charge of a midshipman of about my own age, had been busy repairing damages, fishing, as they called it, the broken spar, while the lugger's crew sat forward smoking and looking on, in company with their skipper, ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn |
