E-book online - novel - poor-jack - doooha.com

E-book online - novel - poor-jack - doooha.com

In which, like most People who tell their own Stories, I begin

with the Histories of other People.

I have every reason to believe that I was born in the year of

our Lord 1786, for more than once I put the question to my

father, and he invariably made the same reply: “Why, Jack,

you were launched a few months before the Druids were

turned over to the Melpomene.” I have since ascertained that

this remarkable event occurred in January 1787. But my father

always reckoned in this way: if you asked him when such an

event took place, he would reply, so many years or months

after such a naval engagement or remarkable occurrence; as,

for instance, when I one day inquired how many years he had

served the King, he responded, “I came into the sarvice a little

afore the battle of Bunker’s Hill, in which we licked the

Americans clean out of Boston

.” As for Anno Domini, he

had no notion of it whatever.