Memoirs of the Extraordinary Military Career of John Shipp Late a Lieut. in His Majesty's 87th Regiment — Reading Notes

In the ponderous mouldy register of the little market-town of Saxmundham, in the county of Suffolk--covered with the red remnants of the old worn-out velvet pulpit-cushion of the said village church, into which the Christian religion had been beaten and enforced, both with clenched fist and pointed elbow, and which now plainly told the congregation that it had at last yielded only to Parson Brown's impressive manner and arguments--in this prodigious volume, protected by huge brass clasps, which naught but the rough hand of the man of skulls[2] could force to obedience, after the oft-wetted thumb had aroused some hundreds of gigantic leaves from their peaceful slumber, and the book had opened wide its time-worn pages, there was, and, I doubt not, is still to be discovered, a plainly-written record, setting forth, in most intelligible terms, that I, John Shipp, the humble author of these Memoirs, came into this wicked and untoward generation on the 16th day of March, A.D. 1785. If this register be an authentic enrolment, which I have neither reason nor inclination to doubt, I was the second son of Thomas and Laetitia Shipp--persons of honest fame, but in indigent circumstances, who had both "drank deep" of the cup of sorrow. Of the latter of those dear parents I was bereft in my infancy; and, as my father was a soldier in a foreign clime, thus was I thrown on the world's tempestuous ocean, to buffet with the waves of care, and to encounter the breakers of want.

At the death of my poor mother I was left, with my elder brother, in utter destitution. The advantage which other children derive from the support and good counsel of an affectionate father, we had never known; and we were now suddenly bereft of a fond mother's fostering care, and with it, of our humble parental home. Where, under such circumstances, could we look for protection? Friends we had few, if any; and those who might have been generously disposed to assist us were, unfortunately, incapacitated, by their own distressed circumstances, from extending a helping hand towards us. Need I feel shame, then, in avowing that there was one place of refuge, and one place only, in which two helpless orphans could obtain, at once, food, clothes, and shelter; and that that one asylum was the village poorhouse!

At the age of nine I was deprived of my brother, who was pressed on board a man-of-war. He was a remarkably fine youth of about fourteen; and, being of a wild spirited disposition, I have every reason to believe that but little _pressing_ was required to induce him to go to sea; but rather, that being, like myself, homeless and dependent, he gladly availed himself of the opportunity which offered of setting his youthful heart free from bondage, by becoming a volunteer in the service of his country. Since that period--now upwards of thirty years--I have never heard of him!

To return to my own Memoirs: now that my brother had left me, I was desolate indeed! His departure afflicted me most sincerely, and I felt myself alone in the wide world, a friendless isolated being. But the spirits of childhood, buoyant and elastic, though they may be depressed for a time, readily accommodate themselves to all exigencies, and rise superior to the greatest calamities. Grief, however poignant at first, will not dwell long with youth; and the ingenuity and curiosity of a boy ever on the alert to discover some new expedient with which to amuse his mind and to gratify his fickle fancy, effectually prevent him from indulging in unavailing despondency. I was naturally a wild dog, of an active unconquerable spirit; and although the miseries peculiar to my friendless situation could not but at first severely affect me, yet, after a short time, I found that, in spite of them all, I had so contrived it as to have established in the village a character for mischief infinitely superior to that possessed by any other boy of my own age. This character, however reverenced by boys of the same genius, was not, it must be acknowledged, very likely to increase the number of my real friends; and I therefore cannot speak in very rapturous terms of the comforts I enjoyed at this period of my youth. I have a recollection of sundry tricks and misdemeanours in which I was very actively concerned, and for which I was frequently as deservedly punished; and, as far as my memory serves me, my time, just at this juncture, was passed in a pretty even routine of planning and executing mischief, and receiving its reward.