In charge of the
Catalina's house was an old Scotchman, Robert, who, like most of
his countrymen, had some education, and, like many of them, was
rather pragmatical, and had a ludicrously solemn conceit of
himself. He employed his time in taking care of his pigs,
chickens, turkeys, dogs, &c., and in smoking his long pipe.
Everything was as neat as a pin in the house, and he was as
regular in his hours as a chronometer, but, as he kept very much
by himself, was not a great addition to our society. He hardly
spent a cent all the time he was on the beach, and the others said
he was no shipmate. He had been a petty officer on board the
British frigate Dublin, Captain Lord James Townshend, and had
great ideas of his own importance. The man in charge of the Rosa's
house, Schmidt, was an Austrian, but spoke, read, and wrote four
languages with ease and correctness. German was his native tongue,
but being born near the borders of Italy, and having sailed out of
Genoa, the Italian was almost as familiar to him as his own
language. He was six years on board of an English man-of-war,
where he learned to speak our language easily, and also to read
and write it. He had been several years in Spanish vessels, and
had acquired that language so well that he could read books in it.
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