One would have Lucy, and another took Mary; but there was a great dispute about Ellen, as I had said that she was the prettiest of the whole.

At last they agreed to put her up to auction, and she was knocked down to a master's mate of the name of O'Brien, who bid seventeen shillings and a bottle of rum.

They requested that I would write home to give their love to my sisters, and tell them how they had been disposed of, which I thought very strange; but I ought to have been flattered at the price bid for Ellen, as I repeatedly have since been witness to a very pretty sister being sold for a glass of grog.
I mentioned the reason why I was so anxious for a letter, viz., because I wanted to buy my dirk and cocked hat; upon which they told me that there was no occasion for my spending my money, as, by the regulations of the service, the purser's steward served them out to all the officers who applied for them.

As I knew where the purser's steward's room was, having seen it when down in the cock-pit with the Trotters, I went down immediately.

"Mr Purser's Steward," said I, "let me have a cocked hat and a dirk immediately." "Very good, sir," replied he, and he wrote an order upon a slip of paper, which he handed to me.