Author: Elbridge S. Brooks

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-06-26

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9781330435533

Excerpt from The Story of the American Sailor in Active Service on Merchant Vessel and Man-of-War In all the mass of material devoted to the doings and the duties, the experiences, the adventures and the romance of the American sailor there is to be found no work that presents in consecutive narrative the progressive record of the seamen of America. Such a narrative this volume seeks to tell. Jack's story, however poorly told, possesses a certain interest that must enliven even the dullest tale, for the American sailor has made his name the synonym of daring, of endeavor and of achievement. His arm has been the stoutest in sea-fight; his heart has proved the most undaunted in peril, the most faithful in time of stress, the most kindly in seasons of doubt, of trial and of disaster. With so much material from which to draw, the sailor's story, compressed within the limits of one brief volume, must necessarily be fragmentary. Details have been skipped and only the general phases of his development, his progress and his decline have been here set into something like orderly array. The glorification of any calling is not always its best defense. No class of the world's workers but has its negative side, none but has its phases of life and manners that are justly open to criticism, not one but may disclose the antagonistic elements of virtue and vice, of manliness and dishonor. No story is really a story that presents but one side. But in spite of every drawback the American sailor has a story well worth the telling. And if from the gleanings and gatherings here set down the reader can evolve a plain and consecutive narrative the author will feel that the months of labor and of research spent in studying and sifting this accumulation of matter will not have been in vain. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.