"The anonymous author might not have been gifted in thinking up short, snappy titles, but there's no doubt about what this volume published in New York contained. I was particularly taken by a short account of an exploit in the early years of a cabin boy who galvanised a ship's crew to withstand attack by a French privateer – a story that sounds too good to be true. A little further digging did indicate however that the case was a true one and that the boy in question was to ascend to dizzy heights in his later life. I'll quote extensively (in italics) from the account in the book as its period-style gives it a charm of its own.
Though the father and grandfather of Charles Wager (1666-1743) had seen service at sea under both Cromwell and Charles II, he lacked the patronage that would have allowed him easy entry to the Royal Navy. His mother had married a Quaker merchant in London after his father's death – this being a time when Quakers were a new and often suspect sect. Through his step-father however, Wager gained an apprenticeship with a Quaker from Barnstable, Massachusetts, a merchant ship's captain called John Hull who sailed regularly between Britain and the Americas. The key event of Wager's early career, as told below, must have happened before 1689, the first year in which he appears in the Royal Navy's records.
Britain was at war with France in the late 1680s – a condition that was to be almost the norm from this period until 1815, interspersed with only brief intervals of peace. Though war was being waged at sea, and with merchant shipping the much sought-for quarry of privateers, Captain John Hull, as a Quaker, refused to arm his ship. On one of his voyages from America and close to the British coast, his vessel was chased, and ultimately overhauled, by a French privateer. Hull "had used every endeavor to escape, but seeing from the superior sailing of the Frenchman, that his capture was inevitable, he quietly retired below: he was followed into the cabin by his cabin boy, a youth of activity and enterprise, named Charles Wager. He asked his commander (Hull) if nothing more could be done to save the ship—his commander replied that it was impossible, that everything had been done that was practicable, there was no escape for them, and they must submit to be captured."…"
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