Excerpt from Lost Endeavour I had fetched old Carter's snuff half a dozen times before my troubles began. I liked the business very well, for Deptford streets were amusing in those days, when the naval docks were there. The river used to be full of shipping. The docks and building slips were full, too. It was one of the gayest, brightest sights in the world that little naval station. The ships with their flags and their scarlet gun-ports (all triced up in a line above the brass gun-muzzles), made a fair show from the river bank. And then to see a great ship coming up under sail, firing her guns to salute the flag, and all the other ships firing, or dipping their colours, moved one to the bone. There were sailors everywhere in Deptford, at all times; mostly men-of - war's men; but you must not think that I sought their company. In those days one shunned a sailor, as a sort of rough bear without a soul, who had somehow escaped hang ing. Afterwards, when I came to mix with sailors, I found that people were right about them. They were a hard and vicious company, with a few good among them, but not many. Most of them were turned out of the gaols to serve in the fleet. Some of them were branded. Some of them had been under sentence of death. Some of them were deserters from other navies. The few allowed free in Deptford were old men, whose toughness had raised them to warrants, and to some little responsibility in the hulks or arsenal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.