AN ADDRESS TO PARENTS. 387 



To your parents, dear ladies, I would particularly 

 address myself, and say to them : it is your duty (I 

 speak plainly) to hasten this important matter, by 

 which a noble class of your fellow-men may be so 

 greatly benefitted, both here and hereafter. Do not 

 fear, that by the introduction of the sailor into your 

 families, you would nurse an adder, who would take 

 advantage of your courtesy, and either corrupt j^our 

 daughters, or entice your sons from home into his 

 own perilous pursuit. His high appreciation and 

 admiration of virtue will secure for the female portion 

 of your family a degree of respect and attention from 

 him, that would be looked upon by the young bucks 

 of the present day with wonder and contempt ; whilst 

 his plain matter-of-fact and common-sense descrip- 

 tions of the sea and its perils, hardships and plea- 

 sures, would divest the subject of the glowing ima- 

 gery with which it is clothed by the fertile fancy of 

 your youthful son, and thus enable him to see it in 

 its true light. K the latter should then, however, 

 still be anxious to barter the comforts and luxuries 

 of home for the discomforts and privations of the sea, 

 let him go ! He was cut out for a sailor, and will 

 sooner or later arrive at eminence in the profession 

 of his well-advised choice. 



But how, (methinks I hear you ask,) and by what 

 means, is this good work to be accomplished ? It is 

 quite easy, says another I imagine, to see and de- 

 scribe the need of such a proceeding ; but how is it 

 to be done? My answer is: I have accomplished 

 what I originally intended, namely, to indicate 

 the great good to be done by such a movement. 

 It would be presumption, on the part of so young a 



