Page:Autobiography of Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes.djvu/43

Rh but I was to be a boy before the Mast and to learn to be a sailor. I shall never forget the first time I dressed in my Sailors Jacket & trousers, the vanity and pride I felt, and when I came to show myself to my father, I was greatly astonished to see the tears starting from his eyes. He still used the expression that he had often before, "My dear boy, choose that which is best and custom will make it most pleasant." My Uncle had strongly urged upon my father to let him take me in the Bank of New York, of which he was then Cashier. He would give me a nice compensation and advance me, but I obstinately refused and scouted the idea of my becoming a money changer and was exceedingly affronted at the proposal made me. I afterwards discovered that my father's consent to my going to sea before the mast was his having been impressed with the opinion that a voyage before the mast as a boy would be certain to sicken me of a sea life, going, as I was then, from my happy & luxurious home to encounter the life of a forecastle, and that he had left it with Capt Graham to give me all the hardships he could of a Sailor's life. At this time I was a rosy cheek boy, a pretty Sailor, and left home with a high idea of my consequence.