The Queen of night, whose vast command
Rules all the sea, and half the land;
And over moist and crazy brains,
In high spring-tides at midnight reigns.
HUDIBRAS.
Among the millions who, on the hallowed and appointed day, lay aside
their worldly occupations to bow the knee to the Giver of all good,
directing their orisons and their thoughts to one mercy-beaming power,
like so many rays of light concentrated into one focus, I know no class
of people in whose breasts the feeling of religion is more deeply
implanted than the occupants of that glorious specimen of daring
ingenuity--a man-of-war. It is through his works that the Almighty is
most sincerely reverenced, through them that his infinite power is with
deepest humility acknowledged. The most forcible arguments, the most
pathetic eloquence from the pulpit, will not affect so powerfully the
mind of man, as the investigation of a blade of grass, or the mechanism
of the almost imperceptible insect. If, then, such is the effect upon
mankind in general, how strong must be the impressions of those who
occupy their business in the great waters! These men "see the works of
the Lord, and his wonders in the deep." They behold him in all his
magnificence, in all his beauty, in all his wrath, in all his vastness,
in all his variety. Unassisted by theory, they practically feel that
God is great, and their worship, although dumb, is sincere.
I am aware that it is the idea of many that sailors have little or no
religion: and their dissolute conduct, when thrown on shore, is
certainly a strong argument in support of this opinion; but they must
not be so partially judged. Those who are constantly mixed with the
world, and exposed to its allurements, are subject to a continual
struggle against their passions, which they are more enabled to
restrain, as temptation so rapidly succeeds temptation that one destroys
the other--effacing it from their recollection before they have had time
to mature their embryo guilt. But in our floating monasteries, where
rigid discipline and active duties allow only the thoughts to ramble to
that society which never has been intended to be abandoned, the passions
are naturally impelled towards that world, whose temptations are so much
increased by long and unnatural seclusion.
In the mountain lake, whose waters are daily increasing, all is
unruffled till their own weight has forced its boundaries, and the
roaring cataract sweeps everything before it. Such is the licentious
and impetuous behaviour of the sailor on shore. But on board he is a
different being, and appears as if he were without sin and without
guile. Let those, then, who turn away at his occasional intemperance,
be careful how they judge. They may "thank God that they are not as
that publican," and yet be less justified, when weighed in that balance,
where, although Justice eyes the beam, Mercy is permitted to stand by,
and throw into the scale her thousand little grains to counter-poise the
mass of guilt.
Religion in a sailor (I mean by the term, a common seaman) is more of an
active than a passive feeling. It does not consist in reflection or
self-examination. It is in externals that his respect to the Deity is
manifest. Witness the Sunday on board of a man-of-war. The care with
which the decks are washed, the hauling taut, and neat coiling down of
the ropes, the studied cleanliness of person, most of which duties are
performed on other days, but on this day are executed with an extra
precision and attention on the part of the seamen, because it is
_Sunday_. Then the quiet decorum voluntarily observed; the attention to
divine service, which would be a pattern to a congregation on shore; the
little knots of men collected, in the afternoon, between the guns,
listening to one who reads some serious book; or the solitary
quarter-master, poring over his thumbed Testament, as he communes with
himself--all prove that sailors have a deep-rooted feeling of religion.
I once knew a first-lieutenant receive a severe rebuke from a ship's
company. This officer, observing the men scattered listlessly about the
forecastle and waist of the frigate, on a fine Sunday evening, ordered
the fiddler up, that they might dance. The ship's company thanked him
for his kindness, but stated that they had not been accustomed to dance
on that day, and requested that the music might be sent below.
The Sunday on board a man-of-war has another advantage over the Sabbath
on shore: it is hallowed throughout. It commences with respect and
reverence, and it ends with the same. There is no alehouse to resort
to, where the men may become intoxicated; no allurements of the senses
to disturb the calm repose of the mind, the practical veneration of the
day, which bestows upon it a moral beauty.
It was on the evening of such a day of serenity, after the hammocks had
been piped down and the watch mustered, that Captain M--- was standing
on the gangway of the _Aspasia_, in conversation with Macallan, the
surgeon. It was almost a calm: the sails were not _asleep_ with the
light airs that occasionally distended them, but flapped against the
lofty masts with the motion communicated to the vessel by the undulating
wave. The moon, nearly at her full, was high in the heavens, steering
for the zenith in all her beauty, without one envious cloud to obscure
the refulgence of her beams, which were reflected upon the water in
broad and wavering lines of silver. The blue wave was of a deeper
blue--so clear and so transparent that you fancied you could pierce
through a fathomless perspective, and so refreshing, so void of all
impurity, that it invited you to glide into its bosom.
"How clear the moon shines to-night! to-morrow, I think, will be full
moon."
"It would be well," observed the surgeon in reply to remark of the
captain, "to request the officer of the watch to permit the men to sleep
on the upper deck. We shall have many of them moon-blind."
"I have often heard that effect of the moon in the tropics mentioned,
but have never seen it. In what manner does it affect the eyes?"
"The moon can act but in one way, sir," replied Macallan,--"by
attraction. The men who are affected see perfectly well in broad
daylight; but as soon as it is dusk, their powers of vision are gone
altogether. At the usual time at which the hammocks are piped down they
will not be able to distinguish the numbers. I have had sixty men in
one ship in the situation I have described."
"We ridicule the opinion of the ancients, relative to the powers of this
planet," observed the captain; "but, at the same time, I have often
heard more ascribed to her influence than the world in general are
inclined to credit. That she regulates the tides is, I believe, the
only point upon which there is now no scepticism."
"There has been scepticism even upon that, sir. Did you ever read a
work entitled `Theory of the Tides'? I can, however, state some other
points, from observation, in which the moon has power."
"Over lunatics, I presume?"
"Most certainly; and why not, therefore, over those who are rational?
We observe the effect more clearly in the lunatic, because his mind is
in a state of feverish excitement; but if the moon can act upon the
diseased brain, it must also have power, although less perceptible, over
the mind which is in health. I believe that there is an ebb and flow of
power in our internal mechanism, corresponding to the phases of the
moon. I mean, that the blood flows more rapidly, and the powers of
nature are more stimulated, at the flood and full, than at the ebb and
neap, when a reaction takes place in proportion to the previous
acceleration. Dr Mead has observed, that of those who are at the point
of death, nine out of ten quit this world at the ebb of the tide. Does
not this observation suggest the idea, that nature has relaxed her
efforts during that period, after having been stimulated during the
flood? Shakespeare, who was a true observer of nature, has not omitted
this circumstance; speaking of the death of Falstaff, Mrs Quickly
observes, `It was just at the turn of the tide.'"
"Well, but, Mr Macallan, laying aside hypothesis, what have you
ascertained, from actual observation, besides that which we term
moon-blindness?"
"The effect of the moon upon fish, and other animal matter, hung up in
its rays at night. If under the half-deck, they would remain perfectly
sweet and eatable; but if exposed to the moon's rays, in the tropics,
they will, in the course of one night, become putrid and unwholesome.
They emit no smell; but when eaten will produce diarrhoea, almost as
violent as if you had taken poison."
"I have heard that stated, also, by seamen," said the captain; "but have
never witnessed it."
"A remarkable and corroborative instance occurred, when I was in the bay
of Annapolis," resumed the surgeon. "I was becalmed in a small vessel,
and amused myself with fishing. I pulled up several herrings; but, to
my astonishment, they were putrid and sodden an hour or two after they
were dead. I observed the circumstance to one of the fishermen, who in
formed me that several hundred barrels, taken at a fishery a few miles
off, had all been spoiled in the same manner. I asked the reason, and
the answer was, `that they had been spawned at the full of the moon.'
How far the man was correct, I know not; but he stated that the
circumstance had occurred before, and was well known to the older
fishermen."
"Very singular," replied Captain M---. "We are too apt to reject the
whole, because we have found a part to be erroneous. That the moon is
not the Hecate formerly supposed, I believe; but she seems to have more
power than is usually ascribed to her. Is that seven bells striking?"
"It is, sir; the time has slipped rapidly away. I shall wish you good
night."
"Good night," replied Captain M---, who, for some time after the
departure of the surgeon, continued leaning over the rail of the
entering-port, in silent contemplation of the glassy wave, until the
working of his mind was expressed in the following apostrophe:--
"Yes--placid and beautiful as thou art, there is foul treachery in thy
smile. Who knows, but that, one day, thou mayest, in thy fury, demand
as a victim the form which thou so peaceably reflectest? Ever-craving
epicure! thou must be fed with the healthy and the brave. The
gluttonous earth preys indiscriminately upon the diseased carcases of
age, infancy, and manhood; but thou must be more daintily supplied.
Health and vigour--prime of life and joyous heart--high-beating pulse
and energy of soul--active bodies, and more active minds--such is the
food in which thou delightest: and with such dainty fare wilt thou ever
be supplied, until the Power that created thee, with the other elements,
shall order thee to pass away."
The bell struck eight, and its sharp peals, followed by the hoarse
summoning of the watch below, by the boatswain's-mates, disturbed his
reverie, and Captain M--- descended to his cabin.
And now, reader, I shall finish this chapter. You may, perhaps, imagine
that I have the scene before me, and am describing from nature: if so,
you are in error. I am seated in the after-cabin of a vessel, endowed
with as liberal a share of motion as any in His Majesty's service:
whilst I write I am holding on by the table, my legs entwined in the
lashings underneath, and I can barely manage to keep my position before
my manuscript. The sea is high, the gale fresh, the sky dirty, and
threatening a continuance of what our transatlantic descendants would
term a pretty-considerable-tarnation-strong blast of wind. The
top-gallant-yards are on deck, the masts are struck, the guns
double-breeched, and the bulwarks creaking and grinding in most
detestable regularity of dissonance as the vessel scuds and lurches
through a cross and heavy sea. The main-deck is afloat: and, from the
careless fitting of the half-ports at the dockyard, and neglect of
caulking in the cants, my fore-cabin is in the same predicament. A
bubbling brook changing its course, ebbing and flowing as it were with
the rolling of the ship, is dashing with mimic fury against the trunks
secured on each side of the cabin.
I have just been summoned from my task, in consequence of one of the
battens which secured my little library having given way to the
immoderate weight of learning that pressed upon it; and as my books have
been washed to and fro, I have snatched them from their first attempts
at natation. Smith's Wealth of Nations I picked up first, not worth _a
fig_; Don Juan I have just rescued from a second shipwreck, with no
other _Hey-day_ (Haidee) to console him, than the melancholy one
extracted from me with a deep sigh, as I received his shattered frame.
Here's Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," in a very melancholy plight
indeed, and (what a fashionable watering-place my cabin has turned to!)
here's Burke's "Peerage," with all the royal family and aristocracy of
the kingdom, taking a dip, and a captain of a man-of-war, like another
Sally Gunn, pulling them out. So, you perceive, my description has been
all moonshine.
"My wishes have been fathers to my thoughts."
My bones are sore with rocking. Horace says, that he had a soul of
brass who first ventured to sea; I think a body of iron very necessary
to the outfit. My cot is swinging and jerking up to the beams, as if
the lively scoundrel was some metamorphosed imp mocking at me. "Sarve
you right--what did you _list_ for?"--Very true--Why did I?--Well,
anxious as I am to close this chapter, and to close my eyes, I will tell
you, reader, what it was that induced me to go to sea. It was not to
escape the drudgery and confinement of a school, or the admonitions
received at home. The battle of Trafalgar had been fought--I recollect
the news being brought down by the dancing-master when I was at school;
but although I knew that eighteen or twenty sail of the line had been
captured, yet never having seen a vessel larger than a merchant ship at
London Bridge, I had very imperfect ideas on the subject--except that it
must have been a very glorious affair, as we had a whole holiday in
consequence. But when I returned home, I witnessed the funeral
procession of Lord Nelson; and, as the triumphal car upon which his
earthly remains were borne disappeared from my aching eye, I felt that
death could have no terrors, if followed by such a funeral; and I
determined that I would be buried in the same manner. This is the fact;
but I am not now exactly of the same opinion. I had no idea at that
time, that it was such a terrible roundabout way to St. Paul's. Here I
have been tossed about in every quarter of the globe, for between twenty
and five-and-twenty years, and the dome is almost as distant as ever.
I mean to put up with the family vault; but I should like very much to
have engraved on my coffin--"Many years Commissioner," or "Lord of the
Admiralty," or "Governor of Greenwich Hospital," "Ambassador," "Privy
Councillor," or, in fact, anything but Captain: for, though acknowledged
to be a good travelling name, it is a very insignificant title at the
end of our journey. Moreover, as the author of "Pelham" says, "I wish
somebody would adopt me."