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The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner

The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner

List Price: $12.00
Your Price: $9.00
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Interesting and entertaining; if only it were longer!
Review: I love nautical fiction set during the age of sail (O'Brian, Pope, Kent, etc.) and so I enjoyed this memoir of a real-life sailor from this period. There are two disappointing things about this book though; it's very short (only about 160 pages if you exclude the introduction) and Nicol doesn't spend very much time relating events from the voyages themselves or his day-to-day life in the Royal Navy. Nicol mostly describes the places he visited and the cultures of the people who lived in those places. He does do a wonderful job describing these people and places, and he does it without being long-winded. He also relates a few humorous stories and gives us some details of his personal life, such as his ill-fated romance with a convict during their journey to Australia. Animal rights advocates and environmentalists would be horrified by one of his voyages in which he claims that he and his crew clubbed about thirty thousand seals plus many sea-lions. The way I look at it though, it was just a very different, more primative age. In any case, I enjoyed this book, and only wish that it had been longer and more detailed.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Interesting and entertaining; if only it were longer!
Review: I love nautical fiction set during the age of sail (O'Brian, Pope, Kent, etc.) and so I enjoyed this memoir of a real-life sailor from this period. There are two disappointing things about this book though; it's very short (only about 160 pages if you exclude the introduction) and Nicol doesn't spend very much time relating events from the voyages themselves or his day-to-day life in the Royal Navy. Nicol mostly describes the places he visited and the cultures of the people who lived in those places. He does do a wonderful job describing these people and places, and he does it without being long-winded. He also relates a few humorous stories and gives us some details of his personal life, such as his ill-fated romance with a convict during their journey to Australia. Animal rights advocates and environmentalists would be horrified by one of his voyages in which he claims that he and his crew clubbed about thirty thousand seals plus many sea-lions. The way I look at it though, it was just a very different, more primative age. In any case, I enjoyed this book, and only wish that it had been longer and more detailed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A fascinating story
Review: This account was first published in 1822, and has been republished with a forward and added footnotes by the editor. Unlike most seamen in the Royal Navy, John Nicol enlisted for the adventure, first serving at the age of 21 as a ship's cooper during the American Revolution, mostly in Canada and the West Indies. For the next 25 years he served on a large number of Royal Navy and merchant ships. He was present at some well known battles including the victories by Admiral Jervis at Cape St. Vincent and Admiral Nelson at Aboukir Bay. In the merchant service, he went to China 3 times, to Australia, Hawaii, the west coast of the Americas from Cape Horn to Alaska, Brazil and Portugal, and to the West Indies. He served aboard whalers and sealers that took him to Greenland and the Falkland Islands.

As noted by the editor, mortality rates among seamen at that time could average 15 percent per year from disease, shipwrecks, accidents aboard ship, or armed conflicts. John Nicol was one of the minority who survived to old age. He had saved his money and would have been reasonably well off ashore, but he married a cousin, and then abandoned a well paid trade as a cooper to escape the Royal Navy press gangs after 1801 and stay with his wife. He was a widower living in poverty when offered the opportunity to publish his story.

This is a well written account by a man who had only a basic formal education. I would highly recommend it as a "must read" book for readers interested in naval and merchant marine service of that time period. The book contains many tidbits of information not available elsewhere, including his recollections of female convicts in the second fleet to sail for New South Wales.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A fascinating story
Review: This account was first published in 1822, and has been republished with a forward and added footnotes by the editor. Unlike most seamen in the Royal Navy, John Nicol enlisted for the adventure, first serving at the age of 21 as a ship's cooper during the American Revolution, mostly in Canada and the West Indies. For the next 25 years he served on a large number of Royal Navy and merchant ships. He was present at some well known battles including the victories by Admiral Jervis at Cape St. Vincent and Admiral Nelson at Aboukir Bay. In the merchant service, he went to China 3 times, to Australia, Hawaii, the west coast of the Americas from Cape Horn to Alaska, Brazil and Portugal, and to the West Indies. He served aboard whalers and sealers that took him to Greenland and the Falkland Islands.

As noted by the editor, mortality rates among seamen at that time could average 15 percent per year from disease, shipwrecks, accidents aboard ship, or armed conflicts. John Nicol was one of the minority who survived to old age. He had saved his money and would have been reasonably well off ashore, but he married a cousin, and then abandoned a well paid trade as a cooper to escape the Royal Navy press gangs after 1801 and stay with his wife. He was a widower living in poverty when offered the opportunity to publish his story.

This is a well written account by a man who had only a basic formal education. I would highly recommend it as a "must read" book for readers interested in naval and merchant marine service of that time period. The book contains many tidbits of information not available elsewhere, including his recollections of female convicts in the second fleet to sail for New South Wales.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The ordinary life in an extraordinary time
Review: This is the life of an ordinary seaman at the time of the beginning of scientific exploration. John Nicol a seaman on the voyages of discovery and later trade to Australia, the Americas and to Africa. He observed life of the captains, the ordinary men at sea and the people of the lands he visited. He went to sea at an early age was imprisoned, married and lived to 94 and died in England. The diarys are a remarkable work of an eyewitness to history. It is written and edited in an easly readable style and brings history to life.


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