[27] "Maccay" (Meares); "M'Key" (Dixon).
[28] There is a portrait of him, apparently authentic, in Meares's Voyages, vol. ii. (1791). That in the original edition of Jewitt's Narrative, like the plate of the capture of the Boston, appears to have been drawn from description, though there is a certain resemblance in it to Meares's sketch made fourteen or fifteen years earlier. But the scenery, the canoes, the people, and, above all, the palm trees in Nootka Sound, are purely imaginary.
JOHN JEWITT'S NARRATIVE
CHAPTER I
BIRTH, PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE OF THE AUTHOR
I was born in Boston, a considerable borough town in Lincolnshire, in Great Britain, on the 21st of May, 1783. My father, Edward Jewitt, was by trade a blacksmith, and esteemed among the first in his line of business in that place. At the age of three years I had the misfortune to lose my mother, a most excellent woman, who died in childbed, leaving an infant daughter, who, with myself, and an elder brother by a former marriage of my father, constituted the whole of our family. My father, who considered a good education as the greatest blessing he could bestow on his children, was very particular in paying every attention to us in that respect, always exhorting us to behave well, and endeavouring to impress on our minds the principles of virtue and morality, and no expense in his power was spared to have us instructed in whatever might render us useful and respectable in society. My brother, who was four years older than myself and of a more hardy constitution, he destined for his own trade, but to me he had resolved to give an education superior to that which is to be obtained in a common school, it being his intention that I should adopt one of the learned professions. Accordingly, at the age of twelve he took me from the school in which I had been taught the first rudiments of learning, and placed me under the care of Mr. Moses, a celebrated teacher of an academy at Donnington, about eleven miles from Boston, in order to be instructed in the Latin language, and in some of the higher branches of the mathematics. I there made considerable proficiency in writing, reading, and arithmetic, and obtained a pretty good knowledge of navigation and of surveying; but my progress in Latin was slow, not only owing to the little inclination I felt for learning that language, but to a natural impediment in my speech, which rendered it extremely difficult for me to pronounce it, so that in a short time, with my father's consent, I wholly relinquished the study.
The period of my stay at this place was the most happy of my life. My preceptor, Mr. Moses, was not only a learned, but a virtuous, benevolent, and amiable man, universally beloved by his pupils, who took delight in his instruction, and to whom he allowed every proper amusement that consisted with attention to their studies.
One of the principal pleasures I enjoyed was in attending the fair, which is regularly held twice a year at Donnington, in the spring and in the fall,[29] the second day being wholly devoted to selling horses, a prodigious number of which are brought thither for that purpose. As the scholars on these occasions were always indulged with a holiday, I cannot express with what eagerness of youthful expectation I used to anticipate these fairs, nor what delight I felt at the various shows, exhibitions of wild beasts, and other entertainments that they presented; I was frequently visited by my father, who always discovered much joy on seeing me, praised me for my acquirements, and usually left me a small sum for my pocket expenses.