James Emerson Fletcher, Midshipman
On Board HMS Essex
January 25, 1804
Jacky Faber
The Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls
Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Dear Jacky,
At least I know that you are not dead, and that is some comfort to me. There was a new group of sailors brought on board the Essex yesterday and one of them was lately come from the Excalibur. I later overheard him regaling his fellows on the fo’c’sle with an account of a girl in Boston racing seasoned seamen through the Excalibur’s top rigging. I knew it could be none other than you, my wild and foolish girl. I have chosen not to believe their tale of the girl taking off her dress and diving into the water, and attribute that to the sailors’ love of tall tales.
That is the only news of you that I have gotten since we parted. I exchange letters quite often with my mother and she informs me with each letter that I have received nothing from you and I am cast down into darkness each time she so informs me.
Why, if you were on the Excalibur for your sport, why did you not send me a letter by her? I know you to be many things, Jacky, but cruel and hard-hearted and indifferent are not among them. You must tell me why you are treating me so.
I throw myself into my studies to try and get you out of my mind, but I am never completely successful. I shall be testing for lieutenant within the year, but it will be a hollow honor if I succeed.
We keep the French fleet bottled up here, with endless patrols back and forth, back and forth across the mouth of the bay, but they’ve got to come out eventually, and when they do, well, maybe a cannonball will cure my black despair.
Please write, Jacky, if only to tell me I am no longer in your heart. I am desolate.
Your most humble,
Jaimy