I am not at sea because I object to bad treatment, poor food, poor wages, and worse prospects. I am not at sea because very early I discovered that it is a comfortless, weariful and thankless life—a life compact of hardness and sordidness such as shore people can scarcely conceive. I am not at sea because I dislike being a pawn with the sea for a board and the shipowners for players.
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Source, in full
‘Is the Mercantile Navy Worth Joining?—Certainly Not.’ 1905. The Grand Magazine, September 1905. Reprinted in The Wandering Soul: Glimpses of a Life: A Compendium of Rare and Unpublished Works. Ed. Jane Frank. Leyburn: Tartarus Press, 2005.