Reading Captain Marryat

@marryat92 / marryat92.tumblr.com

Reading the books and studying the life of Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848): Napoleonic wars veteran of the Royal Navy, naturalist, inventor, courtier, gentleman, and novelist. A pioneer of nautical fiction. ⚓🌊

I don't think I have ever promoted my main blog here, in the four years I have had this Captain Marryat sideblog, but since I am increasingly neglecting my sideblogs due my academic and other commitments I thought some of you might want to be mutuals with me on @clove-pinks, where I post frequently about maritime history topics. I am always looking for more mutuals who love naval history and I will follow you back!

My main blog title, "very doubtful company," is from the chapter titles of Marryat's novel Poor Jack.

#obvious disclaimer: i won't follow you if you post bigoted or graphically nsfw content #i assume if you are a minor you don't want adults to follow you #this is okay to reblog #age of sail #poor jack #illustration

— Frederick Marryat, Poor Jack

I'm very happy to report that the traditional seafarer's ballad "Oh Cruel" now has a great Kate Rusby recording on Spotify!

I learned about this song when Marryat included some of the lyrics in Poor Jack, quoted above. I like Rusby's slightly different lyrics, singing "Haul away, boys, haul away" and not "tura-la, tura-la, tura-lara ley." This needs to go on every classic sea songs and shanties playlist!

Marryat's taste in music is generally good, and he was also credited with helping to revive the song "Spanish Ladies" when he included the lyrics in a popular novel.

#Spotify #frederick marryat #captain marryat #age of sail #music #shanties #sea songs #cruel #kate rusby #maritime #maritime history #poor jack #described

Whenever the wind is foul, which it now most certainly is, for I am writing any thing but “Newton Forster,” and which will account for this rambling, stupid chapter, made up of odds and ends, strung together like what we call “skewer pieces” on board of a man-of-war; when the wind is foul, as I said before, I have, however, a way of going a-head, by getting up the steam which I am now about to resort to — and the fuel is brandy.

— Frederick Marryat, maybe being a little too honest in the middle of Newton Forster.

#frederick marryat #captain marryat #newton forster #writing #19th century literature #alcohol #tbh these asides are some of my favourite parts of his writing

marryat92 reblogged

“Man is a free agent,” replied Easy.

“I’ll be shot if a midshipman is,” replied Gascoigne, laughing, “and that you’ll soon find.”

“And yet it was the expectation of finding that equality that I was induced to come to sea.”

“On the first of April, I presume,” replied Gascoigne. “But are you really serious?”

— Frederick Marryat, Mr. Midshipman Easy. Illustration by Leonard Huskinson.

#a little late but i was just thinking of this lol #mr midshipman easy

marryat92 reblogged

If you whistle long enough the wind is certain to come. In about an hour the breeze did come, and we took it down with us; but it was too dark to distinguish the schooner, which we had lost sight of as soon as the sun had set.

— Frederick Marryat, Jacob Faithful

A brig-schooner at sea, from the sketchbook of D. Tandy c. 1798-1805.

Source: rmg.co.uk

#jacob faithful

marryat92 reblogged

The first-lieutenant was a stern, but not unkind man; he would blow you up, as we termed it, when he scolded, for half an hour without ceasing. I never knew a man with such a flow of words; but if permitted to go on without interruption, he was content, without proceeding to further punishment. Any want of respect, however, was peculiarly offensive to him, and any attempt to excuse yourself was immediately cut short with, "No reply, sir."

— Frederick Marryat, Percival Keene

Lieutenant William Pringle Green (1783-1846), 1833 print by George Edward Madeley.

#percival keene

marryat92 reblogged

A commission of Frank Mildmay with Bisexual Lighting for @clove-pinks

#frank mildmay #bisexual antagonist energy

marryat92 reblogged

During one winter that he spent in Brussels he gave a party, at which there was a Christmas tree that formed a nine days' wonder. These trees were not so common then, at all events among the English, as they are now; and Captain Marryat, entering heart and soul into the spirit of the thing, went to a species of fancy repository in the town, and, with his lavish and thoughtless generosity, bought the entire contents upon the spot.

In consequence, not only the tree but the room (amongst the articles were seven rocking horses) was completely filled with presents; and as they ranged from playthings for the children to bijouterie for the ladies, each guest was perfectly satisfied.

— Florence Marryat recalling her father's enthusiasm for Christmas, in the Life and Letters of Captain Frederick Marryat, 1872.

image: 1836 illustration of a Christmas tree, the year the Marryat family had a Christmas tree in Brussels.

Captain Marryat: a Christmas early adopter! 🎄

Source: americanantiquarian.org

marryat92 reblogged

In the last years of his life, Captain Marryat remained on his estate in rural Langham, Norfolk. He described Christmas 1846 at Langham in a letter to his young goddaughter:

And now I will tell you how we passed our Christmas Day. We had a very small dinner by ourselves, but we thought of you and your fine Christmas tree, and how merry you were; but if we were not merry, there was a very merry party in the house; and if we did not feast, we had the pleasure of making others thank God for having a good dinner. All the men who work on the farm were invited to a Christmas dinner in the kitchen, and they sat down two and twenty at the table in the servants' hall, and were waited upon by our own servants. They had two large pieces of roast beef and a boiled leg of pork; four dishes of Norfolk dumplings; two large meat pies; two geese, eight ducks, and eight widgeon; and after that they had four large plum puddings.

— Frederick Marryat in a letter dated Langham, 4 Jan. 1847. (The Life and Letters of Captain Frederick Marryat)

A Christmas Party, watercolour by John Leech (1817-1864)

Source: artuk.org

marryat92 reblogged

ltwilliammowett

Rats from a sinking ship

Sailors believed that rats had a sixth sense and that the sight of them leaving a ship in large numbers was a portent of disaster.

Shakespeare noted the tendency in The Tempest: … they prepared a rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg’d, nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats instinctively have quit it.

Rats leaving a sinking ship passed shocked sailors, 19th Century (x)

There could have been something to this belief, because rate were denizens of the bilge, the nethermost region inside the ship’s hull and the first place to flood when a vessel takes on water. In 1625, Francis Bacon, giving the metaphor a land base, wrote of the “ wisdom of rats that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall.” And people also liked to call deserters rats who abandon the sinking ship. When abandoning a cause that seems doomed to failure, a person is considerd to be a rat fleeing a figuratively sinking ship.

While rats leaving a sinking ship must have been an alarming sight, they were not the only animals infesting the lower decks.

When young Percival Keene attempted to sail home a prize ship (which had been scuttled), one bad sign was the swarming of cockroaches:

It was not till past midnight that I could obtain any sleep; the heat was excessive, and I was teazed by the cockroaches, which appeared to swarm in the cabin to an incredible degree, and were constantly running over my face and body. I little thought then why they swarmed.

[...] At last I turned round and felt a splashing as of water, and some water coming into my mouth, I awoke. All was dark and quiet; I put my hand out, and I put it into the water—where was I—was I overboard? I jumped up in my fright; I found that I was still on the standing bed-place, but the water was above the mattress.

— Frederick Marryat, Percival Keene

And yet we don't say, "like cockroaches fleeing a sinking ship"!

#language #percival keene

marryat92 reblogged

By the steamboats, rail-roads, and the wonderful facilities of water-carriage, a journey of five hundred miles is as little considered in America, as would be here a journey from London to Brighton. “Go ahead” is the real motto of the country; and every man does push on, to gain in advance of his neighbour.

— Frederick Marryat, Diary in America

'Philadelphia Citizen's Line of Steam Boats to New York and Baltimore': 1831 lithograph by William L. Breton.

Source: lccn.loc.gov

#diary in america

marryat92 reblogged

Marryat wrote, originally, for fun. He found he was a born writer. Later, he needed money badly, and was constrained to turn the jaunt into a grind: but of literary solemnity he was innocent. He was indeed, 'non-pompous', as a sailor the worse for liquor is described in Poor Jack.

— Oliver Warner, Captain Marryat: A Rediscovery

'Men of War, bound for the Port of Pleasure': 1791 mezzotint after Robert Dighton.

Source: britishmuseum.org

#oliver warner #biography

marryat92 reblogged

The men doated on me as a martyr in their cause, and delighted in giving me every instruction in the art of knotting and splicing, rigging, reefing, furling, &c., &c.; and I honestly own that the happiest hours I had passed in that ship were during my seclusion among these honest tars.

— Frederick Marryat, The Naval Officer (Frank Mildmay)

'A Débût' print after Clarkson Stanfield, 1857.

Source: britishmuseum.org

marryat92 reblogged

My mother, pleased with the idea of becoming as it were a patroness under the rose, did so effectually exert her influence over the captain, that in a day or two afterwards play-bills were posted all over the town, announcing that the play of The Stranger, with the farce of Raising the Wind, would be performed on Friday evening, for the benefit of Miss Mortimer, under the patronage of the Honourable Captain Delmar, and the officers of his Majesty's ship Calliope.

— Frederick Marryat, Percival Keene

A lottery advertisement made 1813-1815 by George Cruikshank uses the character of Jeremy Diddler and a quote from James Kenney's 1803 farce Raising the Wind.

Source: britishmuseum.org

#percival keene

marryat92 reblogged

The latest addition to my collection: Men o' War by Captain Henry Taprell "Taffrail" Dorling. It's notable for the selection of Royal Navy officers he has chosen to celebrate, apparently his personal favourites. It's a short list: John Jervis the 1st Earl of St. Vincent, Lord Thomas Cochrane, Captain Frederick Marryat, Jacky Fisher of HMS Dreadnought fame, and Lord Charles Beresford.

The fact that Dorling chose Marryat, Cochrane, and Fisher warms my heart, but I purchased this 1929 book because it's apparently the source of the story about Marryat challenging a clergyman to a duel.

#biography #naval history

marryat92 reblogged

If you whistle long enough the wind is certain to come. In about an hour the breeze did come, and we took it down with us; but it was too dark to distinguish the schooner, which we had lost sight of as soon as the sun had set.

— Frederick Marryat, Jacob Faithful

A brig-schooner at sea, from the sketchbook of D. Tandy c. 1798-1805.

Source: rmg.co.uk

#jacob faithful #a personal fave

marryat92 reblogged

I returned to my own vessel, and made sail for England: once more we greeted the white cliffs of Albion, so dear to every true English bosom. No one but he who has been an exile from its beloved shores can appreciate the thrill of joy on such an occasion.

— Frederick Marryat, The Naval Officer (Frank Mildmay)

View of Dover from St Margaret's Bay, unknown artist c. 1800

Source: artuk.org

Sponsored

You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.