To COMMODORE CHRISTOPHER NORTH.
DEAR OLD GENTLEMAN,
Your chief devil has got me into a terrible mess by a misprint in last
Chapter--confound my cramp fist--regarding which Old Splinter
(erst of the Torch,) has ever since quizzed me verv nearly up to gunpowder
mark.
To the matter--The said imp makes me say, in page 84, standing on the
bowsprit, that "the spray from the stern was flashing over me, as it
roared through the waste of sparkling and hissing waters." Now, I don't
dispute the roaring of sterns--in season. But,--me, if you or any other
man shall make Tom Cringle's stern roar, out of season, on compulsion. I
wrote STEM, the cutwater of the ship, the coulter as it were--the head of
her, not the tail, as the devil would have it. And again, when the
privateer hauls his wind suddenly to let the Torch shoot past him, and
thereby gain the weather--gage, when old Splinter should sing out, as it
was written--but, confound the fist once more "Give her the stem"--that
is, run her down and sink her, the stem being the strongest part, as the
stern is the weakest, he, Belzebub, judging, I presume, of the respective
strength of the two ends from his own comparative anatomy, makes him say,
"Give her the stern," as if he were going to let drive at her with that
end. "Poo, nonsense--it don't signify." But it does signify, old man.
To touch you more near--you yourself have been known to get fou and
pugnacious on great occasions--the visit of royalty, for instance--it is
on record.
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