Jack (Tom Saunders) is being tested by Bramble the pilot, to whom he is apprentice, on his knowledge of compass bearings. He is watched by Bramble's adopted daughter Bessy, whom he later marries. ' "And now," says he, "we must try you. This iron skewer is the ship's head, recollect, and I shall stick it into the table: when I do so, you must tell me what point of the compass stands to it, and then that will be the direction of the ship's head. Do you understand? Practice makes perfect, ... Now, then, how's her head, Tom [sic]?" "North-half-west," said I, after a little time.'

Wood-engraved by Henry Vizetelly, this appeared opposite the passage quoted on p. 170 in Ch. XXIV of Marryat's 'Poor Jack' (1840). It is one of a group of five such drawings for the novel bequeathed to the Museum in 1953, and was cat. no. 234 in the Stanfield exhibition at Sunderland and Bonn in 1979. For further infomation see PAF6068.