HENRY CHARLES FLEEMING JENKIN (Fleeming, pronounced Flemming, to
his friends and family) was born in a Government building on the
coast of Kent, near Dungeness, where his father was serving at the
time in the Coastguard, on March 25, 1833, and named after Admiral
Fleeming, one of his father's protectors in the navy.
His childhood was vagrant like his life. Once he was left in the
care of his grandmother Jackson, while Mrs. Jenkin sailed in her
husband's ship and stayed a year at the Havannah. The tragic woman
was besides from time to time a member of the family she was in
distress of mind and reduced in fortune by the misconduct of her
sons; her destitution and solitude made it a recurring duty to
receive her, her violence continually enforced fresh separations.
In her passion of a disappointed mother, she was a fit object of
pity; but her grandson, who heard her load his own mother with
cruel insults and reproaches, conceived for her an indignant and
impatient hatred, for which he blamed himself in later life. It is
strange from this point of view to see his childish letters to Mrs.
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