Harper's Round Table, January 26, 1897

Copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.

Everybody will remember the exciting story of the ship Aberfoyle : how her Captain drank himself into delirium-tremens and then poisoned himself, how the crew mutinied, how the mate was washed overboard, and how this ship was eventually safely navigated to Melbourne by her second officer, who was little more than a boy. But perhaps the most memorable example of a boy's heroism is that of young Shotten. He was an apprentice on board a vessel called Trafalgar , which left Batavia fever-stricken, with the result that the superior officers perished, and young Shotten was left alone with the remains of a wicked ship's company to navigate the vessel. He carried her to Sydney in safety. His story is a true romance of the deep. This fine young fellow had not only to fight the ocean and its tremendous perils, he had also to handle a set of desperate, reckless men who refused to recognize his authority, and, charged with the dreadful spirit of mutiny and murder, scarcely suffered the boy commander to save their lives. Stories of this sort need the pen of a Defoe; they should be submitted to the world by the hand of genius, that, being in all senses things of beauty, they might be immortal as inspirations in such hours of conflict as young Shotten passed through. It is to be regretted that writers for boys do not uniformly invent with some perception of the good taste, sound judgment, and high aspirations and feelings of the young public they address. The typical boy hero of the boy's book is, for the most part, impossible; the lad as he reads grows disdainful, he may even detect blunders in seamanship or in the employment of nautical words, and his confidence is gravely shaken. No impression is left, no animating and lofty influence exerted, because the tale is trash; it is not true; the boy knows it never could have been true. I was once a boy myself, though I find this hard to believe, and I remember that the sea-stories which influenced me and which did me most good were tales founded on the facts of the ocean, plain and sincere narratives of the stern realities of the deep, such as this of Shotten. A young apprentice in Shotten's situation might, after reading his story, take courage from it, find an example in it, and achieve an end not less heroic than the model he imitated.