Chapter 1- Leaves from the Log -
From There Go the Ships by George Shirley

Page 1
I was born either in Lambeth or Westminster, October 29th, 1774 and lived and worked in both places for some time at a printer's near Lambeth Marsh Turnpike Gate. I remember Astley's Amphitheatre, a large wooden building entered by a wooden bridge over a ditch from the road.

Being of a somewhat restless disposition, I resolved to go to sea, and accordingly entered on board the Courageaux, 74, Captain A. Gardner, some time in 1791 as a boy and landsman, and was at sea about eighteen months, when