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Ned Myers;

or, A Life Before the Mast

By James Fenimore Cooper.

    Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
     And fetters sure and fast
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.
                            BRYANT.

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1843, by

J. Fenimore Cooper,

in the clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for theNorthern district of New York.

Preface

It is an old remark, that the life of any man, could the incidents befaithfully told, would possess interest and instruction for the generalreader. The conviction of the perfect truth of this saying, has inducedthe writer to commit to paper, the vicissitudes, escapes, and opinions ofone of his old shipmates, as a sure means of giving the public some justnotions of the career of a common sailor. In connection with the amusementthat many will find in following a foremast Jack in his perils andvoyages, however, it is hoped that the experience and moral change ofMyers may have a salutary influence on the minds of some of those whosefortunes have been, or are likely to be, cast in a mould similar to thatof this old salt.

As the reader will feel a natural desire to understand how far the editorcan vouch for the truth of that which he has here written, and to beinformed on the subject of the circumstances that have brought himacquainted with the individual whose adventures form the subject of thislittle work, as much shall be told as may be necessary to a properunderstanding of these two points.

First, then, as to the writer's own knowledge of the career of thesubject of his present work. In the year 1806, the editor, then a lad,fresh from Yale, and destined for the navy, made his first voyage in amerchantman, with a view to get some practical knowledge of hisprofession. This was the fashion of the day, though its utility, on thewhole, may very well be questioned. The voyage was a long one, includingsome six or eight passages, and extending to near the close of the year1807. On board the ship was Myers, an apprentice to the captain. Ned, asMyers was uniformly called, was a lad, as well as the writer; and, as amatter of course, the intimacy of a ship existed between them. Ned,however, was the junior, and was not then compelled to face all thehardships and servitude that fell to the lot of the writer.

Once, only, after the crew was broken up, did the writer and Ned actuallysee each other, and that only for a short time. This was in 1809. In 1833,they were, for half an hour, on board the same ship, without knowing thefact at the time. A few months since, Ned, rightly imagining that theauthor of the Pilot must be his old shipmate, wrote the former a letter toascertain the truth. The correspondence produced a meeting, and themeeting a visit from Ned to the editor. It was in consequence of therevelations made in this visit that the writer determined to produce thefollowing work.

The writer has the utmost confidence in all the statements of Ned, so faras intention is concerned. Should he not be mistaken on some points, he isan exception to the great rule which governs the opinions andrecollections of the rest of the human family. Still, nothing is relatedthat the writer has any reasons for distrusting. In a few instances he hasinterposed his own greater knowledge of the world between Ned's morelimited experience and the narrative; but, this has been done cautiously,and only in cases in which there can be little doubt that the narrator hasbeen deceived by appearances, or misled by ignorance. The reader, however,is not to infer that Ned has no greater information than usually falls tothe share of a foremast hand. This is far from being the case. When firstknown to the writer, his knowledge was materially above that of theordinary class of lads in his situation; giving ample proof that he hadheld intercourse with persons of a condition in life, if not positively ofthe rank of gentlemen, of one that was not much below it. In a word, hisintelligence on general subjects was such as might justly render him thesubject of remark on board a ship. Although much of his after-life was