Excerpt from Recollections of a Sea Wanderer's Life Messmates, hear a brother sailor Tell the dangers of the sea. When, to the intense astonishment of my acquaintances, it was noised abroad that I had determined to write the history Of my life at sea, I was overwhelmed with advices and suggestions, not only widely differing from one another, but utterly conflicting and irreconcilable. On one point, however, all my friends agreed that a preface was de rigueur, and that to write a book without a preface would be as absurd as to play Hamlet without Ophelia. Slowly and sadly I yielded a reluctant assent, and hence these few lines. Should my patrons pass them over unread, I shall be the last to blame them. For I believe that in most instances (i know it to be so in the present one) a preface is as superfluous and as useless as a Sergeant of Marines. Of course, it is quite natural that writers of the calibre of Mr. Dickens Should not deign to put pen to paper without claiming for their labors a higher motive than the design to gain wealth and reputation, or to furnish amusement for an idle hour. Like the mythical heroes of Old, Jack the Giant Killer and Don Quixote, their lance is ever poised to hurl the giant oppressor to earth, and right the wrongs of the afflicted and the fair. 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.