Excerpt from The King's Own and the Pirate, Vol. 1 And I also beat a retreat to my sofa and as I threw myself upon it, mentally vowed that, for a month at least, I never would take up my pen. The book is full of digressions; on the profession of authorship and the conduct of reviews - chap. Xxviii., on courage, on Sunday at sea, on smuggling, on theology and natural history. There is also an interesting auto biographical note, which may perhaps be partially credited, concerning Marryat's reasons for going to sea. It was not, he declares, to escape the drudgery and confine ment of a school, or the admonitions received at home. But, after the battle of Trafalgar, when I returned home, I witnessed the funeral profession of Lord Nelson; and, as the triumphal car, upon which his earthly remains were borne, disappeared from my aching eye, I felt that death could have no terrors if followed by such a funeral; and I determined that I would be buried in the same manner. 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.