hm_jollies | Entries tagged with recruits

Also, if it wasn't specifically mentioned before:

Royal Marines' Museum, ref 11/19/93 - although I think the RMM one is a different actual poster; the image above is from the War of 1812

Current Mood: bouncy

"My advent in the guardship as a marine recruit was of a very different nature to my first experience as a volunteer in the naval service, for all of the new hands were at once put into the regular messes of the marines on board, and everything was done that the nature of our rather limited arrangements would admit of to make us comfortable."
Daniel Goodall, Salt Water Sketches; Being Incidents in the Life of Daniel Goodall, quoted in Jack Tar by Roy and Lesley Adkins, chapter entitled Learning the Ropes (p29 my copy)

I KNEW the name 'Goodall' was familiar! :D

A sailor's interaction with a Marine recruit.

We then returned to our anchors [the narrator's ship was stationed in Cork at this point] and. about a month after, took under convoy 7 sail of homeward bound East India Men, and a Transport called the Paddy and Jenny, with recruits on board for the third or Plymouth division of marines; but being in want of seamen, I and five more were sent to assist the Captain in working her to Plymouth. when we got into a rough sea, the poor unseasoned recruits appeared like so many spectres; and when we came off the lizard, we carried away our fore top-mast; but getting up a jury top-mast, top-sail yard, &c. and standing off shore (the wind being a-head) a recruit came forward, saying, Arah, where are we going? I told him to Plymouth. But, how, my dear joy, said he, can leaving the land be going to Plymouth? I said we should shortly put about and stand the other way, which joyful tidings he instantly communicated to his comrades, who all wished to be on land again, that they might have a little respite from the rough treatment they had already met with on the watery element.

From Memoirs of a Seaman's Life: The Narrative of William Spavens, pp55-56, by the Folio Society, in 2000.