Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/24

 In taking my discharge, I was told by. Lieutenant Boutwell that my wages amounted to one hundred and sixty-nine dollars, but I was paid only one dollar and seventy-one cents. The lieutenant said that the rest of my wages had been paid to Captain Ramsey three  days before, and that he had gone to Washington. Instead of coxswain, I should have been rated on the ship’s books as a first-class boy, at eight dollars per month. The duty of the coxswain is to have charge of the captain’s gig. It is a petty officer’s berth, and belongs to an able-bodied seaman.

The next day I set out for Washington in company with another boy about my age by the name of Martin. He also was rated as a petty officer, and the captain had taken his wages. On arriving in Washington, we soon found the captain’s house. He put us at menial service for a time, and then hired us out to work on  the Georgetown aqueduct. In the evenings, my chum and I used to visit the Capitol. I remember seeing there John C. Calhoun, R. M. Johnson, John Tyler,  Colonel Washington, Judge Bibb, James Bell, James K.  Polk, General Cass, Judge Woodbury, Edward Everett,  Daniel Webster, John Davies, Colonel Benton, Otis,  Hayne, Ticknor, Judge Story, Sumner, General Scott,  John Q. Adams, Henry Clay, and other distinguished  men. I was very much impressed with their noble looks, and shall never forget them. Most of them had round and very large heads. Calhoun’s was long; Clay’s was long, but smaller. General Cass had a wart on the side of his nose. Such an array of talent and intellect I have never seen since, although I have