you know that Thomas Letting is a Sailor."--_Admiralty Records_
1. 1468--Capt. Bertie, 6 May 1706.] again, was essentially a creature
of contradictions. Notorious for a "swearing rogue," who punctuated
his strange sea-lingo with horrid oaths and appalling blasphemies, he
made the responses required by the services of his Church with all the
superstitious awe and tender piety of a child. Inconspicuous for his
thrift or "forehandedness," it was nevertheless a common circumstance
with him to have hundreds of pounds, in pay and prize-money, to his
credit at his bankers, the Navy Pay-Office; and though during a voyage
he earned his money as hardly as a horse, and was as poor as a church
mouse, yet the moment he stepped ashore he made it fly by the handful
and squandered it, as the saying went, like an ass. When he was sober,
which was seldom enough provided he could obtain drink, he possessed
scarcely a rag to his back; but when he was drunk he was himself the
first to acknowledge that he had "too many cloths in the wind."
According to his own showing, his wishes in life were limited to
three: "An island of tobacco, a river of rum, and--more rum;" but
according to those who knew him better than he knew himself, he would
at any time sacrifice all three, together with everything else he
possessed, for the gratification of a fourth and unconfessed desire,
the dearest wish of his life, woman. Ward's description of him,
slightly paraphrased, fits him to a hair: "A salt-water vagabond, who
is never at home but when he is at sea, and never contented but when
he is ashore; never at ease until he has drawn his pay, and never
satisfied until he has spent it; and when his pocket is empty he is
just as much respected as a father-in-law is when he has beggared
himself to give a good portion with his daughter." [Footnote: Ward,
_Wooden World Dissected_, 1744.] With all this he was brave
beyond belief on the deck of a ship, timid to the point of cowardice
on the back of a horse; and although he fought to a victorious finish