The Perils of Certain English Prisoners

By Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens needs no formal introduction, having been the most popular English writer of the 19th century and still one of the most popular writers in history today. Dickens was obsessed with reading, making him a natural journalist by the age of 20, when he began a career in journalism. Along the way, he also began writing his own short stories and materials, often serializing them in monthly installments in publications, a popular method of publishing in the 19th century. Unlike most writers, Dickens would not write an entire story before it began its serialization, allowing him to work on the fly and leave plot lines up in the air with each opportunity. 


By the time he died at the relatively young age of 58 from a stroke, he was already Europe’s most famous writer. His obituary noted that Dickens was a “sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed.” Dickens was interred in Westminster Abbey, a rare honor bestowed only among the greatest and most accomplished Britons. 
Many of Dickens’ novels were written with the concept of social reform in mind, and Dickens’ work was often praised for its realism, comic genius and unique personalities. At the same time, however, Dickens’ ability as a writer was nearly unrivaled, with his ability to write in prose unquestioned and unmatched. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Krill Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781518356575

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was one of England's greatest writers. Best known for his classic serialized novels, such as Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations, Dickens wrote about the London he lived in, the conditions of the poor, and the growing tensions between the classes. He achieved critical and popular international success in his lifetime and was honored with burial in Westminster Abbey.

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THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS

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Charles Dickens

YURITA PRESS

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Copyright © 2016 by Charles Dickens

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I—THE ISLAND OF SILVER-STORE

CHAPTER III {1}—THE RAFTS ON THE RIVER

FOOTNOTES

The Perils of Certain English Prisoners

By

Charles Dickens

The Perils of Certain English Prisoners

Published by Yurita Press

New York City, NY

First published circa 1870

Copyright © Yurita Press, 2015

All rights reserved

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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CHAPTER I—THE ISLAND OF SILVER-STORE

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IT WAS IN THE YEAR of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-four, that I, Gill Davis to command, His Mark, having then the honour to be a private in the Royal Marines, stood a-leaning over the bulwarks of the armed sloop Christopher Columbus, in the South American waters off the Mosquito shore.

My lady remarks to me, before I go any further, that there is no such christian-name as Gill, and that her confident opinion is, that the name given to me in the baptism wherein I was made, &c., was Gilbert.  She is certain to be right, but I never heard of it.  I was a foundling child, picked up somewhere or another, and I always understood my christian-name to be Gill.  It is true that I was called Gills when employed at Snorridge Bottom betwixt Chatham and Maidstone to frighten birds; but that had nothing to do with the Baptism wherein I was made, &c., and wherein a number of things were promised for me by somebody, who let me alone ever afterwards as to performing any of them, and who, I consider, must have been the Beadle.  Such name of Gills was entirely owing to my cheeks, or gills, which at that time of my life were of a raspy description.

My lady stops me again, before I go any further, by laughing exactly in her old way and waving the feather of her pen at me.  That action on her part, calls to my mind as I look at her hand with the rings on it—Well!  I won’t!  To be sure it will come in, in its own place.  But it’s always strange to me, noticing the quiet hand, and noticing it (as I have done, you know, so many times) a-fondling children and grandchildren asleep, to think that when blood and honour were up—there!  I won’t! not at present!—Scratch it out.

She won’t scratch it out, and quite honourable; because we have made an understanding that everything is to be taken down, and that nothing that is once taken down shall be scratched out.  I have the great misfortune not to be able to read and write, and I am speaking my true and faithful account of those Adventures, and my lady is writing it, word for word.

I say, there I was, a-leaning over the bulwarks of the sloop Christopher Columbus in the South American waters off the Mosquito shore: a subject of his Gracious Majesty King George of England, and a private in the Royal Marines.

In those climates, you don’t want to do much.  I was doing nothing.  I was thinking of the shepherd (my father, I wonder?) on the hillsides by Snorridge Bottom, with a long staff, and with a rough white coat in all weathers all the year round, who used to let me lie in a corner of his hut by night, and who used to let me go about with him and his sheep by day when I could get nothing else to do, and who used to give me so little of his victuals and so much of his staff, that I ran away from him—which was what he wanted all along, I expect—to be knocked about the world in preference to Snorridge Bottom.  I had been knocked about the world for nine-and-twenty years in all, when I stood looking along those bright blue South American Waters.  Looking after the shepherd, I may say.  Watching him in a half-waking dream, with my eyes half-shut, as he, and his flock of sheep, and his two dogs, seemed to move away from the ship’s side, far away over the blue water, and go right down into the sky.

It’s rising out of the water, steady, a voice said close to me.  I had been thinking on so, that it like woke me with a start, though it was no stranger voice than the voice of Harry Charker, my own comrade.

What’s rising out of the water, steady? I asked my comrade.

What? says he.  The Island.

O!  The Island! says I, turning my eyes