THE CLIPPER SHIP CREWS
The history of men before the mast on board American merchant ships is
not a history of American sailors, for strictly speaking there have
never been any American merchant sailors as a class; that is, no
American merchant ship of considerable tonnage was ever manned by
native-born Americans in the sense that French, British, Dutch,
Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, or Danish ships are manned by men born in
the country under whose flag they sail. Neither have Americans ever
followed the sea all their lives before the mast, as do men of the
nations named. Some of the small Salem ships and perhaps a few of the
Nantucket whalers of a century ago may possibly have carried entirely
American crews, but if so, the men did not remain long in the
forecastle.
The ship _George_, 328 tons, built at Salem in 1812 and owned by Joseph
Peabody, is a case in point. She was known as the “Salem frigate,” and
made many successful voyages to Calcutta. Of this ship’s sailors, during
her long and prosperous career, forty-five became captains, twenty chief
mates, and six second mates. One of her Salem crew, Thomas M. Saunders,
served as boy, ordinary seaman, able seaman, third, second, and chief
mate on board of her, and finally, after twelve East India voyages,
became her captain. This ship was a fair sample of many American vessels
of that period, but probably no ship of similar or greater tonnage in
the merchant service of any other nation can show such a brilliant
record for her men before the mast.
The demand for crews for the California clippers brought together a
miscellaneous lot of men, some good and some bad, some accustomed to
deep-water voyages to India and China, and some only to European ports,
while others were not sailors at all, and only shipped as such for the
sake of getting to California. The majority were of course from the
general merchant service of the time.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, American ships trading
upon long voyages to China and India carried crews composed chiefly of
Scandinavians--splendid sailormen who could do any kind of rigging work
or sail-making required on board of a ship at sea and took pride in
doing it well, and who also had sufficient sense to know that discipline
is necessary on shipboard. These Scandinavians, who were as a rule fine
seamen, clean, willing, and obedient, were the first and best class
among the men of whom the clipper ship crews were composed. A vessel
with a whole crew of these strong, honest sailors was a little heaven
afloat.
Then there were the packet sailors, a different class altogether, mostly
“Liverpool Irishmen,” a species of wild men, strong, coarse-built,
thick-set; their hairy bodies and limbs tattooed with grotesque and
often obscene devices in red and blue India ink; men wallowing in the
slush of depravity, who could be ruled only with a hand of iron. Among
themselves they had a rough-and-ready code of ethics, which deprived
them of the pleasure of stealing from each other, though it permitted
them to rob and plunder shipmates of other nationalities, or the ship
and passengers. So, too, they might not draw knives on each other, being
obliged to settle disputes with their fists, but to cut and stab an
officer or shipmate not of their own gang was regarded as an heroic
exploit.
With all their moral rottenness, these rascals were splendid fellows to
make or shorten sail in heavy weather on the Western Ocean, and to go
aloft in a coat or monkey jacket in any kind of weather was regarded by
them with derision and contempt. But making and taking in sail was about
all that they could do, being useless for the hundred and one things on
shipboard which a deep-water sailor was supposed to know, such as
rigging work, sail-making, scraping, painting, and keeping a vessel
clean and shipshape. The packets had all this work done in port, and
never looked so well as when hauling out of dock outward bound; whereas,
the China and California clippers looked their best after a long voyage,
coming in from sea with every ratline and seizing square, the sheer
poles coach-whipped, brass caps on the rigging ends and lanyard knots,
and the man-ropes marvels of cross pointing, Turks’ heads, and double
rose knots.
The packet sailors showed up at their best when laying out on a topsail
yardarm, passing a weather reef-earing, with their Black Ball caps, red
shirts, and trousers stowed in the legs of their sea boots along with
their cotton hooks and sheath knives, a snow squall whistling about
their ears, the rigging a mass of ice, and the old packet jumping into
the big Atlantic seas up to her knightheads. These ruffians did not much
care for India and China voyages, but preferred to navigate between the
dance-halls of Cherry Street and the grog-shops of Waterloo Road and
Ratcliffe Highway. As has often been said, they worked like horses at
sea and spent their money like asses ashore.
When the California clippers came out, these packet rats, as they came
to be called aboard the deep-water ships--men who had never before had
the slightest idea of crossing the equator if they could help it,--were
suddenly possessed with the desire to get to the California gold mines.
They, with other adventurers and blacklegs of the vilest sort, who were
not sailors but who shipped as able seamen for the same reason, partly
composed the crews of the clipper ships. The packet rats were tough,
roustabout sailormen and difficult to handle, so that it was sometimes a
toss-up whether they or the captain and officers would have charge of
the ship; yet to see these fellows laying out on an eighty-foot
main-yard in a whistling gale off Cape Horn, fisting hold of a big No. 1
Colt’s cotton canvas main-sail, heavy and stiff with sleet and snow,
bellying, slatting, and thundering in the gear, and then to hear the
wild, cheery shouts of these rugged, brawny sailormen, amid the fury of
the storm, as inch by inch they fought on till the last double gasket
was
[Illustration: Clipper-Ship Captains
Josiah P. Creesy H. W. Johnson
]
fast, made it easy to forget their sins in admiration of their splendid
courage.
Then there were Spaniards, Portuguese, Chinamen, Frenchmen, Africans,
Russians, and Italians from the general merchant service, many of whom
were excellent seamen and some of whom were not; and lastly came the men
of various nationalities who were not sailors at all nor the stuff out
of which sailors could be made, and who had no business to be before the
mast on board of a ship. Many of these men had served their time in the
penitentiary and some should have remained there. These impostors
increased the labor of able seamen who were compelled to do their work,
and endangered the safety of the ship so unfortunate as to have them
among her crew.
With such barbarians the New England captains from the yellow sands of
Cape Cod and the little seaports along the Sound, and from the rocky
headlands of Cape Ann and the coast of Maine, were often called upon to
handle the clipper ships. There were, as has been said, a large number
of respectable, hard-working, Scandinavian sailors, some of whom became
captains and mates, as well as from four to eight smart American boys
aboard each ship who looked forward to becoming officers and captains.
The clipper ship captains had the reputation of being severe men with
their crews, but considering the kind of human beings with whom they had
to deal, it is difficult to see how they could have been anything else,
and still retain command of their ships. Taken as a class, American
sea-captains and mates half a century ago were perhaps the finest body
of real sailors that the world has ever seen, and by this is meant
captains and officers who had themselves sailed before the mast. They
enforced their authority by sheer power of character and will against
overwhelming odds of brute force, often among cut-throats and
desperadoes. They were the first to establish discipline in the merchant
service, and their ships were the envy and despair of merchants and
captains of other nations. Intrepid and self-reliant sailors, they are
justly entitled to the gratitude of mankind. No doubt there were
instances of unnecessary severity on board the American clipper ships;
they were exceptional, and the provocation was great; but it would be
difficult to cite a case of a sailor being ill-used who knew and
performed the duties for which he had shipped, for captains and officers
appreciated the value of good seamen, and took the best care of them.
The abuses from which sailors in those days suffered, were not when at
sea or on board ship. It was the harpies of the land who lay in wait
like vultures, to pollute and destroy their bodies and souls--male and
female land-sharks, who would plunder and rob a sailor of his pay and
his three months’ advance, and then turn him adrift without money or
clothes. It made no difference to these brazen-hearted thieves--and the
women, if possible, were worse than the men--whether a sailor was bound
round the Horn in midwinter or to the East Indies in midsummer; they saw
to it that he took nothing away with him but the ragged clothes he
stood in, and perhaps a ramshackle old sea chest with a shabby suit of
oilskins, a pair of leaky sea boots, a bottle or two of Jersey
lightning, and two or three plugs of tobacco chucked into it. These
vice-hardened men and women of various nationalities were permitted to
work their abominable trade unmolested, almost within the shadow of
church spires and Courts of Justice in the chief seaports of the United
States. The destitute condition in which men were put on board of
American ships became so common that clothing and other necessaries were
provided for them in what was known as the slop chest, in charge of the
steward, with which all ships bound upon distant voyages were supplied,
and from which the crew received whatever they required at about one
half the cost extorted by the slop shops on shore. This arrangement was
necessary, as otherwise, in many instances, the men would not have had
sufficient clothing to stand a watch in cold or stormy weather.
American sea-captains were often compelled to take these outcasts as
they found them, because they could get no other men. They provided them
with better food than they had ever seen or heard of on board vessels of
their own countries, supplied them with clothes, sea boots, sou’westers,
oilskins, and tobacco, restored them to health, paid them money which
many of them never earned, and for the time being, at least, did their
utmost to make men of them. If any one imagines that this class of
sailors ever felt or expressed the least gratitude toward their
benefactors, he is much mistaken. Let him picture to himself these
creatures in their watch below, laying off in their frowzy berths or
sitting around their dirty, unkempt forecastle on their chests--those
who happen to own them--smoking their filthy clay pipes, amid clouds of
foul tobacco smoke, reeking in the stench of musty underclothing, mouldy
sea boots, and rancid oilskins, rank enough to turn the stomach of a
camel, or any other animal than man. The noxious air is too much for the
sooty slush lamp that swings uneasily against the grimy bulkhead; it
burns a sickly blue flame with a halo of fetid vapor; while the big
fat-witted samples of humanity in the bunks and on the sea chests
cheerfully curse their captain up-hill and down dale as their natural
enemy, but are never tired of yarning about their “shore friends.” They
recall the attractive qualities of such characters as Dutch Pete,
One-thumbed Jerry, and Limerick Mike--sleek, smooth-tongued
boarding-house runners who have practised upon the vices of these same
men, robbed them of their advance wages, drugged and shanghaied them
without clothing or tobacco. Then these stupid fellows will yarn about
the enticing charms of such “real ladies” as Big Moll, Swivel-eyed Sue,
or French Kate, and the comfort and hospitality of the establishments
over which these hussies preside. But let the boatswain come along and
knock three times on the forecastle door with his brawny fist, and sing
out, “Now then, get out here and put the stun’sails on her,” and these
hulky brutes will tumble over each other to get on deck, for they know
that they will be beaten and booted if there is any hanging back.
Unfortunately, this was the only way to deal with this type of men on
shipboard. They were amenable to discipline only in the form of force in
heavy and frequent doses, the theories of those who have never commanded
ships or had experience in handling degenerates at sea to the contrary
notwithstanding. To talk about the exercise of kindness or moral suasion
with such men, would be the limit of foolishness; one might as well
propose a kindergarten for baby coyotes or young rattlesnakes.
One does not like to dwell upon these depressing phases of human nature
in connection with the graceful, yacht-like clipper, perhaps the most
beautiful and life-like thing ever fashioned by the hand of man. It is
therefore pleasant to record that there were many American clipper ships
with crews that were for the most part decent, self-respecting men, who
kept themselves, their clothes, and their forecastles clean and sweet.
Of course, these men would have their grog and sweethearts on shore, and
their quiet growl at sea--the birthright of all good sailormen; but they
required no urging beyond a word of encouragement to do their work on
deck and aloft quickly and well. Such a crew would not live with men who
were unclean in their speech and habits, and would compel such human
nuisances to pick up their traps and take themselves out under the
topgallant forecastle to get along as best they might; but it was a
great hardship when good seamen found themselves among a crew composed
chiefly of these poor enough sailors but proficient blackguards and
bullies.
In those days there was a class of persons who did their utmost to
degrade an honorable profession by calling themselves lawyers. The ports
of New York and San Francisco were the scenes of their most lucrative
exploits. When a ship arrived, these fellows would waylay the sailors
and follow them to dance-halls, gin-mills, and other low resorts,
worming their way into the confidence of the too easy mariners by fairy
tales and glittering prospects of large sums of money to be recovered as
damages from their late captains, until they succeeded in extracting a
narrative of the last voyage, including alleged grievances. They would
then libel the ship and commence legal proceedings against the captain
and officers. These cases would be tried before juries of landsmen who,
having no practical knowledge of sailors or of the usages of the sea,
frequently awarded damages, though in many cases the captain and
officers were able to disprove false complaints or to justify their
actions upon the ground of necessity in maintaining proper discipline.
It is perhaps needless to say that of the damages recovered not one
penny was ever handled by the aggrieved sailor, for the guiding
principle of the sea lawyer’s career being the resolve never to part
with his client’s money, these fellows literally made their clients’
interests their own. Sailors themselves used to laugh and joke about the
bare-faced yarns which they had spun under oath in court and got
greenhorn juries to listen to and believe; but they did not laugh and
joke about their lawyers, whom they regarded with contempt. One of the
most insulting epithets which a sailor could apply to another was to
call him a “sea lawyer,” and there
[Illustration:
David S. Babcock George Lane
Clipper-Ship Captains]
was a particularly ravenous species of shark which used also to be known
as the “sea lawyer.”
At one time this abuse of the law became such a powerful instrument of
extortion that captains and officers, innocent of any wrong, unless the
protection of life and property be regarded as wrong, were compelled to
leave their ships in the harbor of New York before they hauled alongside
the wharf, in order to escape prosecution, and were made to appear like
criminals fleeing from justice. This cannot be considered a very
cheerful welcome home after a voyage round the globe. Yet it compares
not unfavorably with the reception sometimes accorded the returning
traveller nowadays--at the hands of officers of the law empowered to
collect “protective” duties on personal effects.
After a while this nefarious trade, by which ship-owners, captains,
officers, and crews were alike defrauded, perished by its own rapacity;
but the attitude of the United States Government of half a century ago
in permitting her splendid American merchant captains and officers to be
subjected to gross indignities, and the foreign seamen sailing under her
flag to be robbed and shipped away without their knowledge or consent,
must ever remain a blot upon the page of American maritime history.
Those well-intentioned philanthropists who had an idea that sailors were
being ill-treated on board American ships, and who wasted sympathy upon
a class of men most of whom required severe discipline, might have been
better employed had they exerted their energies toward purging the
seaports of the country of the dens of vice and gangs of robbers that
infested them, though this might not have been so romantic as a
sentimental interest in the welfare of the sailor when encountering the
supposed terrors of the deep. As a matter of fact, the lives, limbs, and
morals of sailors at that period were very much safer at sea than they
were on land.
It is refreshing to turn to one man, at least, who knew and understood
sailors, and who in early life had himself been a sailor. This was the
Rev. Edward Thompson Taylor, known upon every sea with respect and
affection as “Father Taylor.” In 1833 the Seaman’s Bethel was erected in
North Square, Boston, and there Father Taylor presided for some forty
years. During that time he did an enormous amount of good, both among
sailors themselves, to whom he spoke in language which they could
understand and feel, and by drawing the attention of influential men and
women to the lamentable condition of the life of sailors when on shore,
not only in Boston, but in all the great seaports of the United States.
For many years the Seaman’s Bethel was one of the most interesting
sights of Boston, and all classes were attracted there by the novel and
picturesque earnestness and eloquence of Father Taylor. Distinguished
visitors were usually taken there or went of their own accord, to listen
to the words of this inspired seaman, and many of them have recorded
their impressions. Harriet Martineau, J. S. Buckingham, M. P., Charles
Dickens, Frederika Bremer, John Ross Dix, Mrs. Jameson, Catherine
Sedgwick, and Walt Whitman all testified to the wonderful power of this
homely, self-educated Baptist preacher.
[Illustration:
Lauchlan McKay Philip Dumaresq
Clipper-Ship Captains]
Father Taylor had little to say about the treatment of sailors on
shipboard, for he knew that they were treated with humanity and
according to their deserts, but he did have a great deal to say about
their life and vile associations on shore; he once prayed with
unconscious humor, “that Bacchus and Venus might be driven to the ends
of the earth and off it.” He possessed a marvellous power of
description, and perhaps no poet or painter has more vividly portrayed
the ever-changing moods of the ocean. He used these superb sea pictures
as metaphors and illustrations. I have a clear remembrance of some of
them and recall them with gratitude, but no words of mine can convey an
adequate impression of their beauty and grandeur; his was a genius that
eludes description.
It was once said of Father Taylor that he hated the devil more than he
loved God, but I think whoever said this could not have understood him,
for the affection, tenderness, and substantial help which Father Taylor
lavished upon God’s children, afflicted in body and mind, knew no
bounds. At the same time he knew the men whom it was his mission to
rescue, and often when denouncing their follies and vices his words fell
hot as burning coals. He detested shams in any form, and was swift to
detect them in sailors as well as in others.
In those days there was far too much ignorant sentimentality bestowed
upon seamen and their affairs, too much
“Poor child of danger, nursling of the storm,
Sad are the woes that wreck thy manly form.”
Sad enough, no doubt, to the captain of a clipper ship bound round Cape
Horn, compelled to stand by and see his canvas slatting to pieces in the
first bit of a blow outside Sandy Hook, because he was cursed with a
crew unable or unwilling to handle it. But this seldom happened more
than once aboard of an American clipper in the fifties, for such a crew
was taken in hand and soon knocked into shape by the mates, carpenter,
sailmaker, cook, steward, and boatswain. Belaying pins, capstan-bars,
and heavers began to fly about the deck, and when the next gale came
along the crew found that they could get aloft and make some kind of
show at stowing sails, and by the time the ship got down to the line,
they were usually pretty smart at handling canvas. As the clipper winged
her way southward, and the days grew shorter, and the nights colder,
belaying pins, capstan bars, and heavers were all back in their places,
for system, order, and discipline had been established. When the
snow-squalls began to gather on the horizon, and the old-time clipper
lifted her forefoot to the first long, gray Cape Horn roller, with
albatross and Cape pigeons wheeling and screaming in her wake, the mate,
as he stood at the break of the quarter-deck in his long pilot-cloth
watch-coat, woollen mittens, sea boots, and sou’wester, and sung out to
the boatswain to get his men along for a pull on the weather braces,
felt with pride that he had something under him that the “old man” could
handle in almost any kind of weather--a well-manned ship.
In those days of carrying canvas as long and sometimes longer than
spars and rigging would stand, with only brawn, capstans and watch
tackles to handle it, the crew was a far more important factor on board
a sailing ship than in the present era of steel spars, wire rigging,
double topsail, and topgallant yards, donkey engines and steam winches.
Indeed, all the conditions were quite different from anything known at
the present time and required a type of men, both forward and aft, that
do not sail upon the ocean to-day.