Chapter I: Preface

I have often been solicited, by my personal friends, to commit the incidents of my life to paper. It was thought that they contained sufficient interest to command public attention. At any rate, there is a novelty in the fact of an unlettered sailor’s appearance before the public, detailing the secrets of the naval Main Deck. The Quarter Deck has long and often told its own story, and has given its own coloring to naval life. Here, however, is a voice from the main deck, revealing life in a man of war as it appears to the sailor himself. As such, this work has some claim on the attention of the public.

I have endeavored to state facts as they were when I was a sailor, and in the ships to which I belonged. My object is to give a true picture. That, I have done, as far as a remarkably strong memory enabled me. I kept no journals, and consequently some slight mistakes in names, dates and places, may be found in my book; but I have been careful to state nothing as _facts_, of which I was not certain.

That the naval service has improved since I belonged to it, is, I believe, universally admitted. I rejoice at it. Still, it is not yet what it should be. If this work should, in any degree, stir up the public mind to amend the condition of seamen, I shall feel gratified, and fully repaid for the labor of placing these facts on record.

With many prayers that the perusal of these pages may do good, I leave the reader to pursue his way along the track of my experience: assuring him, that what may afford him pleasure to read, has cost me much pain to suffer.

SAMUEL LEECH.

RECOMMENDATIONS

_From the Hon. Erastus Corning._

ALBANY, N. Y., December 3, 1842.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I have known and have had intercourse with Mr. Samuel Leech, for
the last twenty years, and have always found him honorable in his
dealings, and consider him entitled to the confidence of the public
as a man of strict integrity.

ERASTUS CORNING.

The undersigned, being acquainted with Mr. Samuel Leech, the author
of the following work, do cheerfully vouch for his moral and
Christian character; and assure the public, that the interesting
volume, which he here presents to the world, may be relied upon as
an honest statement of facts, with which the writer was personally
conversant; and as having no fellowship whatever with those
fictitious tales of the sea, which, under the garb and professions
of truth, have been proffered to the reading community.

CHARLES ADAMS,
_Principal Wes. Academy._

JOHN BOWERS,
_Pastor Cong. Church, Wilbraham, Mass._

WILBRAHAM, May 4, 1843.

DAVID PATTEN,
_Pastor, Providence, R. I._

REUBEN RANSOM,
_Presiding Elder, Springfield Dis. N. E. C._

HENRY CHASE,
_Preacher to Seamen, N. Y._