A Sailor-Boy's Log-Book from Portsmouth to the P

Name: A Sailor-Boy's Log-Book from Portsmouth to the Peiho
Author: Walter White

A Sailor-Boy's Log-Book from Portsmouth to the Peiho is a first-person memoir of a boy's entry into the Royal Navy and his service during the Second Opium War, edited by Walter White from the journals of his son Henry. The narrative opens with the author's enlistment at Portsmouth, where as a restless boy dissatisfied with a shopkeeper's life he presents himself at the training ship Illustrious ("old Guardho"), enduring the rough initiation, cramped quarters, and instructional drills — knots, boat-handling, cutlass, rifle, and gunnery — that transform him into a "passed boy." After training aboard the brig Sealark and returning to the Guardho, he is assigned to HMS Highflyer, a corvette bound for the China station. The bulk of the log-book follows the Highflyer's long outward voyage: Spithead to Plymouth, across the Atlantic via Tenerife and Rio de Janeiro, round the Cape of Good Hope with stops at Algoa Bay, Natal, and Simon's Bay, then east through the Strait of Sunda to Singapore and Hong Kong. White records shipboard routine, discipline, punishments, the equatorial line-crossing ceremony, and encounters with local populations, alongside vivid sketches of ports and customs. Once in Chinese waters, the narrative turns operational: patrols on the Pearl River, skirmishes with pirates, the bloodless capture of Chuenpee Fort, and garrison life at Canton after its fall, including grim observations of Chinese executions, funerals, and prisons. The book's climax is the disastrous First Battle of Taku Forts (June 1859), rendered in harrowing detail — the naval bombardment, the failed landing through mud under withering Chinese fire, the deaths of shipmates around the narrator, his own narrow escapes, and the humiliating retreat, followed by grief and recrimination aboard ship afterward. The final chapters shift tone with a voyage to Japan (Nagasaki, Kanagawa, Yeddo, Hakodadi), where White contrasts Japanese cleanliness, courtesy, and orderly customs favorably against China, describing temples, funerals, markets, and hospitable villagers. The work closes with the Highflyer's return to dock at Whampoa, introducing new officers and messmates, and the crew's frustrated hopes of returning home after three years abroad. Throughout, White writes in the vernacular of the lower-deck sailor, freely rendering shipmates' dialect and grumbling alongside his own reflective, often homesick asides. The book functions as a first-person ethnographic and military travelogue — part coming-of-age account of naval training, part eyewitness record of Britain's mid-nineteenth-century imperial ventures in East Asia, and part sympathetic (if period-bound) observation of Chinese and Japanese society under the pressures of Western intrusion.

By Walter White · First published 1862 · Genre: Autobiography, Travel Narrative, Coming-of-Age · 15 chapters · 62,834 words

First lines

old Guardho -- Well, Youngster! what do you want? -- The Main-deck -- Encouraging Reception -- Agree to enter for Ten Years -- A hard Supper, and harder Pillow -- Turning in and turning out -- Rouse and Bit -- A Chance for a Wash -- Pipe to Breakfast -- What the Doctor said -- I am passed -- Starboard and Port -- Knots and Hitches -- Handling a Boat -- Feather and Toss -- My first Uniform -- A Ditty-box -- The Mast-head -- Cutlass Drill -- Rifle Drill -- Big Gun Exercise -- Splices, left-handed Eyes, Matthew Walker, and Turk's Head -- Old Pipes -- Hawser-eye and Dead-eye -- Compass and Lead-line -- The _Sealark_ -- Sore Feet -- A Day's Work-Out on a Cruise -- Distress -- The wrong Signal -- Return to the Guardho -- The _Highflyer_ -- Are you Napoleon Bonyparte? -- A Lambasting.

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A Sailor-Boy's Log-Book from Portsmouth to the Peiho is listed on Textopian as a historical account by Walter White, dated 1862 CE.

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Work type: Historical account
Author: Walter White
Date: 1862 CE
Language: English
Genres: Autobiography, Travel Narrative, Coming-of-Age, War Narrative, Maritime Literature
Length: 62,834 words
Structure: 15 chapters, 397 paragraphs
Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)

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Genres

Autobiography — The work is Walter White's first-person account of his five-year naval service aboard HMS Highflyer, documenting his personal experiences, observations, and reflections from 1856-1861.
Travel Narrative — Extensive detailed descriptions of voyages to Teneriffe, South America, the Cape of Good Hope, China, Japan, and numerous ports, with geographic and cultural observations about each location.
Coming-of-Age — Chronicles the protagonist's maturation from an adolescent schoolboy yearning for adventure into a disciplined seaman and thoughtful young man through naval training and life experience.
War Narrative — Provides vivid first-hand account of the Battle of Peiho (Taku Forts) in the Second Opium War, including combat, casualties, tactical decisions, and emotional responses to conflict.

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