LITMIR.BIZ

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wood were bound to his legs as shackles, and whatever the nature of his offence, he invariably began his expiation of it, the preliminary canter, so to speak, in irons. If he had a lame leg or a bad foot, he was "started" with a rope's-end as a "slacker." If he happened to be the last to tumble up when his watch was called, the rattan [Footnote: Carried at one time by both commissioned and warrant officers.] raised weals on his back or drew blood from his head; and, as if to add insult to injury, for any of these, and a hundred and one other offences, he was liable to be black-listed and to lose his allowance of grog.

      Some things, too, were reckoned sins aboard ship which, unhappily for the sailor, could not well be avoided. Laughing, or even permitting the features to relax in a smile in the official presence, was such a sin. "He beats us for laughing," declare the company of the Solebay, in a complaint against their commander, "more like Doggs than Men." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1435—Capt. Aldred, 29 Feb. 1703–4.] One of the Nymph's company, in or about the year 1797, received three dozen for what was officially termed "Silent Contempt"—"which was nothing more than this, that when flogged by the boatswain's mate the man smiled." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 5125—Petitions, 1793–7.] This was the "Unpardonable Crime" of the service.

      Contrariwise, a man was beaten if he sulked. And as a rule the sailor was sulky enough. Works of supererogation, such as polishing everything polishable—the shot for the guns, in extreme cases, not even excepted—until it shone like the tropical sun at noonday, left him little leisure or inclination for mirth. "Very pretty to look at," said Wellington, when confronted with these glaring evidences of hyper-discipline, "but there is one thing wanting. I have not seen a bright face in the ship."

      A painful tale of discipline run mad, or nearly so, is unfolded by that fascinating series of sailor-records, the Admiralty Petitions. Many of them, it must in justice be owned, bear unqualified testimony to the kindness and humanity of officers; but in the great majority of cases the evidence they adduce is overwhelmingly to the contrary. And if their language is sometimes bombastic, if their style is almost uniformly illiterate, if they are the productions of a band of mutinous dogs standing out for rights which they never possessed and deserving of a halter rather than a hearing, these are circumstances that do not in the least detract from the veracity of the allegations they advance. The sailor appealed to his king, or to the Admiralty, "the same as a child to its father"; and no one who peruses the story of his wrongs, as set forth in these documents, can doubt for a moment that he speaks the truth with all a child's simplicity.

      The seamen of the Reunion open the tale of oppression and ill-usage. "Our Captain oblidges us to Wash our Linnen twice a week in Salt Water and to put 2 Shirts on every Week, and if they do not look as Clean as if they were washed in Fresh Water, he stops the person's Grog which has the misfortune to displease him; and if our Hair is not Tyd to please him, he orders it to be Cutt Off." On the Amphitrite "flogging is their portion." The men of the Winchelsea "wold sooner be Shot at like a Targaite than to Remain." The treatment systematically meted out to the Shannon's crew is more than the heart "can Cleaverly Bear"—enough, in short, to make them "rise and Steer the Ship into an Enemies Port." The seamen of the Glory are made wretched by "beating, blacking, tarring, putting our heads in Bags," and by being forced to "drink half a Gallon of Salt Water" for the most trivial breaches of discipline or decorum. On the Blanch, if they get wet and hang or spread their clothes to dry, the captain "thros them overboard." The Nassau's company find it impossible to put the abuse they receive on paper. It is "above Humanity." Though put on board to fight for king and country, they are used worse than dogs. They have no encouragement to "face the Enemy with a chearful Heart." Besides being kept "more like Convicts than free-born Britons," the Nymph's company have an unspeakable grievance. "When Engaged with the Enemy off Brest, March the 9th, 1797, they even Beat us at our Quarters, though on the Verge of Eternity." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 5l25—Petitions, 1793–7.]

      On the principle advanced by Rochefoucault, that there is something not displeasing to us in the misfortunes of our friends, the sailor doubtless derived a sort of negative satisfaction from the fact that he was not the only one on shipboard liable to the pains and penalties of irascibility, brutality and excessive disciplinary zeal. Particularly was this true of his special friend the "sky-pilot" or chaplain, that super-person who perhaps most often fell a victim to quarter-deck ebullitions. Notably there is on record the case of one John Cruickshank, chaplain of H.M.S. Assurance, who was clapped in irons, court-martialled and dismissed the service merely because he happened to take—what no sailor could ever condemn him for-a drop too much, and whilst in that condition insisted on preaching to the ship's company when they were on the very point of going into action. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 5265—Courts-Martial, 1704–5. His zeal was unusual. Most naval chaplains thought "of nothing more than making His Majesty's ships sinecures"] There is also that other case of the "saucy Surgeon of the Seahorse" who incurred his captain's dire displeasure all on account of candles, of which necessary articles he, having his wife on board, thought himself entitled to a more liberal share than was consistent with strict naval economy; and who was, moreover, so "troblesome about his Provisions, that if he did not always Chuse out of ye best in ye whole Ship," he straightway got his back up and "threatened to Murder the Steward." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1470—Capt. Blowers, 3 Jan. 1710–11.] Such interludes as these would assuredly have proved highly diverting to the foremast-man had it not been for the cat and that savage litter of minor punishments awaiting the man who smiled.

      In the matter of provisions, there can be little doubt that the sailor shared to the full the desire evinced by the surgeon of the Seahorse to take blood-vengeance upon someone on account of them. His "belly-timber," as old Misson so aptly if indelicately describes it, was mostly worm-eaten or rotten, his drink indescribably nasty.

      Charles II. is said to have made his breakfast off ship's diet the morning he left the Naseby, and to have pronounced it good; and Nelson in 1803 declared it "could not possibly be improved upon." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 580-Memorandum on the State of the Fleet, 1803.] Such, however, was not the opinion of the chaplain of the Dartmouth, for after dining with his captain on an occasion which deserves to become historic, he swore that "although he liked that Sort of Living very well, as for the King's Allowance there was but a Sheat of Browne Paper between it and Hell." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1464—Misdemenors Comited by Mr. Edward Lewis, Chapling on Board H. M. Shipp Dartmouth, 1 Oct. 1702.] Which of these opinions came nearest to the truth, the sequel will serve to show.

      On the face of it the sailor's dietary was not so bad. A ship's stores, in 1719, included ostensibly such items as bread, wine, beef, pork, peas, oatmeal, butter, cheese, water and beer, and if Jack had but had his fair share of these commodities, and had it in decent condition, he would have had little reason to grumble about the king's allowance. Unhappily for him, the humanities of diet were little studied by the Victualling Board.

      Taking the beef, the staple article of consumption on shipboard, cooking caused it to shrink as much as 45 per cent., thus reducing the sailor's allowance by nearly one-half. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1495—Capt. Barrington, 23 Dec. 1770.] The residuum was often "mere carrion," totally unfit for human consumption. "Junk," the sailor contemptuously called it, likening it, in point of texture, digestibility and nutritive properties, to the product of picked oakum, which it in many respects strongly resembled. The pork, though it lost less in the cooking, was rancid, putrid stuff, repellent in odour and colour-particulars in which it found close competitors in the butter and cheese, which had often to be thrown overboard because they "stunk the ship." [Footnote: To disinfect a ship after she had been fouled by putrid rations or disease, burning sulphur and vinegar were commonly employed. Their use was preferable to the means adopted by the carpenter of the Feversham, who in order to "sweeten ship" once "turn'd on the cock in the hould" and through forgetfulness "left it running for eighteen howers," thereby not only endangering the vessel's safety, but incidentally spoiling twenty-one barrels of powder in the magazine.—Admiralty Records 1. 2653—Capt. Watson, 18 April 1741.] The peas "would not break." Boiled for eight hours on end, they came through the ordeal "almost as hard as shott." Only the biscuit, apart from the butter and cheese, possessed the quality of softness. Damp, sea-water, mildew and weevil

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