"With my permission," continued Mr. Seagrave, "my boys shall never go
to sea if there is any other profession to be found for them."

"Well, Mr. Seagrave, they do say that it's no use baulking a lad if he
wishes to go to sea, and that if he is determined, he must go: now I
think otherwise - I think a parent has a right to say no, if he
pleases, upon that point; for you see, sir, a lad, at the early age at
which he goes to sea, does not know his own mind. Every high-spirited
boy wishes to go to sea - it's quite natural; but if the most of them
were to speak the truth, it is not that they so much want to go to sea,
as that they want to go from school or from home, where they are under
the control of their masters or their parents."

"Very true, Ready; they wish to be, as they consider they will be,
independent."

"And a pretty mistake they make of it, sir. Why, there is not a greater
slave in the world than a boy who goes to sea, for the first few years
after his shipping: for once they are corrected on shore, they are
punished ten times at sea, and they never again meet with the love and
affection they have left behind them. It is a hard life, and there have
been but few who have not bitterly repented it, and who would not have
returned, like the prodigal son, and cast themselves at their fathers'
feet, only that they have been ashamed."

"That's the truth, Ready, and it is on that account that I consider
that a parent is justified in refusing his consent to his son going to
sea, if he can properly provide for him in any other profession. There
never will be any want of sailors, for there always will be plenty of