The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

Zachariah gives Charlotte a dirk, “a small daggerlike blade hardly more than six inches in length from its white scrimshaw handle, where a star design was cut, to its needle-sharp point” (25). This knife is for her protection, but at first she doesn’t want it, tries to give it back, later offers it to Captain Jaggery, considers tossing it overboard, and finally decides to keep it. When she moves in with the crew, Jaggery finds the dirk beneath Charlotte’s old mattress; he uses it to kill his rebellious first mate Hollybrass, then frames Charlotte for the murder. 

The Seahawk’s figurehead—a carved statue of a person or animal that hangs from the bowsprit—is itself a seahawk, its wings pressed back against the bow, its beak open, red tongue sticking out in a kind of scream that suggests the rage, torment, and rebellion soon to break out on the ship. The figurehead unnerves Charlotte with its angry, dangerous appearance; it’s the last thing Jaggery grabs at as he desperately tries to save himself from falling overboard and drowning. 

The Seahawk’s forward mast is called the foremast; the rear mast is the mainmast; a narrow mast behind the mainmast is the snow. The ship is a square-rigger—meaning its sails are square-shaped—and the sails at the top are called royals; beneath are the topgallants; under those are the topsails; at the bottom are the largest sails, simply called the foresail or mainsail, based on the mast to which they’re attached. A beam, called the bowsprit, projects forward from the bow; attached to the bowsprit are triangular sails called jibs. Ropes called stays and shrouds hold the masts in place; rope ladders are ratlines. 

Jaggery asks Charlotte to report to him if she sees a certain symbol made of two circles, one inside the other, and between them signatures. This “round robin” is a contract, a pact between sailors who have agreed to stage a mutiny. It’s also effectively a confession of a crime on the high seas. Charlotte sees one on a paper in the crew cabin and reports it to the captain, who puts down the rebellion with lethal ruthlessness. 

Charlotte sails aboard her father’s company ship, the Seahawk, on her return from England to America. The ship, 30 to 40 years old, is a brig, two-masted and 107 feet long; it carries items of trade across the ocean. Captain Jaggery is a perfect gentleman toward her but abusive toward his men. The sailors are a sullen bunch who, Charlotte learns, have signed on to get revenge on Jaggery for previous cruelties.