Frederick Marryat

Poor Jack Frederick Marryat

I have every reason to believe that I was born in the year of our Lord 1786, for morethan once I put the question to my father, and he invariably made the same reply: "Why, Jack, you were launched a few months before the Druids were turned over to theMelpomene." I have since ascertained that this remarkable event occurred in January1787. But my father always reckoned in this way: if you asked him when such an eventtook place, he would reply, so many years or months after such a naval engagement orremarkable occurrence; as, for instance, when I one day inquired how many years he hadserved the King, he responded, "I came into the sarvice a little afore the battle of Bunker'sHill, in which we licked the Americans clean out of Boston." As for Anno Domini, he hadno notion of it whatever