say that English crews desert, that they’re loafers, bad seamen, expect
more wages than they’re worth, and that the best of us are no better
than vagrants, turnpike sailors, who’ll never work so long as there’s a
police-magistrate within hail, and who’ll soger[B] when they’re at sea.
That may be true of some, but it’s false if said of the rest; and,
depend upon it, sir, it don’t account for eighty per cent. of the men
employed in the mercantile marine being ‘Dutchmen.’ Our argument--the
English sailor’s argument--is this: There are a lot of foreign
boarding-house keepers in London. We’ll take one of ’em. He has, say,
twenty Dutchmen in his house, who pay him, each of ’em, sixteen
shillings a week. Well, sir, most of these men have no means to last
their expenses much beyond a fortnight; so the boarding-house keeper or
runner says, ‘Look here, my lads, you can’t stay here. I must get you a
ship, and you’ll pay me five shillings apiece out of your allotment
notes for doing it.’ To this they’re agreeable. The runner then goes
down to a ship with his pocket full of his men’s certificates, hands
them, along with a bribe, to the mate or master, who brings ’em to this
office, and the Dutchmen, who’ve been told by the runner to come to
Tower Hill, are called in to sign articles. It pays the runner, who gets
five shillings a man for shipping them, besides his other expenses out
of the allotment note, which he discounts at about fifty per cent.; and
it answers the purpose of the skipper, who pockets the bribe, and comes
down to find a crew all ready cut and dried for him; but it leaves us
Englishmen out in the cold, kicking our heels about, starving many of
us, and standing no shadow of a chance against the underhand roguery
that goes on.”
“This is a grave charge to bring against captains,” said I.
“Grave or not,” he replied, “go and ask the opinion of British seamen
all round the coast, and see whether or not this crimping swindle is
understood by them and taken as the evil that’s filling English ships
with foreigners.”
“But this kind of rascality is provided against, for the Act says that
any person who receives any remuneration whatever other than the
authorized fees for providing a seaman with employment incurs a penalty
of twenty pounds.”
“Act or no Act,” he answered contemptuously, “it’s done every day; it’s
done every hour.”
“Can’t you Englishmen catch one of these ‘Dutch’ crimps and make an
example of him?”
“It’s carried on so that it’s hard to prove,” he replied. “Dutchmen
won’t give evidence against one another; besides, the men sail away and
are lost sight of, and there’s no seeing how to get at the runners.”
“What is the remedy, then; what is it you want?” I asked.
“We English sailors want this,” he said; “we ask that captains shall
come to the Shipping Office and pick crews out of the crowd; not go and
take certificates from crimps, and come down to find a crew ready
beforehand, to step in as they’re called in. Give us a fair chance along
with the Dutchmen. If already eighty per cent. of the crews in English
ships are foreigners, what’s to happen later on when there’ll not be an
Englishman found in the forecastle of a ship that flies the red ensign?
Why, the whole breed of sailors’ll die out. Talk of Jack being a
skulker, a scaramouch, a no-sailor! What’s the good of abusing him if
you don’t give him a chance? It was said not long ago that owners meant
to ship black crews, so hard did they find it to get Englishmen to act
honestly by their employers. But look at this,” said he, pulling a
newspaper cutting from his pocket--“look at this account of three Arabs,
two Egyptians, and a negro locked up for thirty days for refusing to
serve as firemen after they had signed articles; receiving three pounds
apiece in money, and then striking because they wanted a month’s
advance; getting it, and then refusing duty because they said they
couldn’t get the allotment notes cashed; receiving the money from the
captain, and still refusing duty, and threatening to cut the captain’s
throat. Those were black men. Suppose they had been Englishmen?
Dutchmen! why, sir, the most dreadful mutinies that ever happened have
taken place aboard vessels manned with foreigners. Captains and owners
know that. And does any man suppose,” he continued, speaking with great
warmth, “that if England should find herself at war with foreign
nations, the Dutchmen who man her merchant ships wouldn’t carry ’em into
the enemy’s ports? Why, in crowding our forecastles with foreigners,
sir, we’re striking the heaviest blow that could be aimed at this
nation; we’re stopping all chance of recruiting the navy with seamen to
fight our battles; and we’re putting our property into the hands of
strangers who hate us, and who’d betray us by running away with it at
the sound of the very first gun that was fired in anger.” And so saying
he touched his cap, and left me to make my way out of the gloomy, dirty,
melancholy haunt, followed as far as the steps that led up to the street
by several men petitioning me to “do something for them,” “to get ’em a
ship,” “to help them out of this starving life.”
Sailors are men of strong prejudices, and will often take wrong-headed
views of things. To what extent my informant spoke the truth, those who
have a wide knowledge of the inner life of the mercantile marine will
judge. But certainly I cannot persuade myself that shipmasters act the
part in relation to the foreign crimp which my seaman charged them with.
I will go further, and assert that the shipment of foreign seamen is
due, not to the British captain’s dislike of the English sailor, but to
his owner’s order that he shall man the vessel with “Dutchmen” only. But
these admissions must still leave the current system of crowding the
English forecastle with foreigners an unmixed evil; nor do they affect
the British sailor’s declarations as regards the energetic agent the
foreign crimp, runner, or boarding-house keeper is allowed to be in the
recruiting of our mercantile marine. The subject is one that will
probably in due course command attention. It is as unreasonable as it is
impolitic that the “Dutchman” should be caressed and honoured with the
full confidence of British employers while the English seaman, willing
to work, is left to starve or decay. From shipmasters and mates, at
least, some sympathy should be expected for him, for they are largely
sharing in the neglect he is visited with, and finding themselves ousted
out of their berths by foreigners. The English sailor has many faults,
but he certainly is not so bad but that he may be made better if
something of the old good will is shown him, and something of the old
helpful hand extended to him; and, let his demerits be what they will,
depend upon it he is the man who should be found aboard an English ship,
and that a fair specimen of him is worth as many “Dutchmen” as he has
fingers.
_SKIPPERS’ WIVES AT SEA._
Should owners allow captains to take their wives to sea with them?
Opinions vary among master mariners on this head. Some think that a man
has as much right to be taken care of at sea as ashore; that shirts,
buttons, and linen want as much looking after in a ship as in a house;
that captains are always the better for having their wives with them,
because when in port they have an inducement to stop by the vessel and
spend their evenings in the cabin, instead of roaming ashore at
nightfall and bringing up in bad and perilous anchorages; and they also
reason that a ship and cargo are bound to be rendered the safer by the
captain’s wife being on board, as the skipper is sure then to be
vigilant and keep his weather-eye lifting. Of course a cynic might say
that so far as regards the safety of the ship, and the inducements to
the skipper to spend his evenings when in harbour aboard of her, a good
deal must depend upon the lady as wife and companion. I once met a
captain who told me that he questioned whether an insurance could be
effected on his ship and cargo were it to be suspected that he had any
intention of carrying his wife to sea with him. “We’re always
quarrelling,” said he--a remark that saved me from asking him more
questions. But what do the wives think? Are owners’ objections to their
accompanying their husbands agreeable to them? It is quite possible for
a woman to love a sailor without loving the sea; and though owners
deserve no praise for their hard and fast rule touching captains’ wives,
as there is not an atom of sentimental regard for the ladies in it, I
cannot but think it a good rule, as it saves many a woman from following
her husband into a life to which nothing could have courted her but the
sense of wifely duty. After all, what sailor would willingly subject the
woman he loves to the perils of the deep by taking her with him voyage
after voyage? The farewells, it is true, are hard to say; the shot is
often low in the locker, and she and the children will have a hard job
to scrape through the months while father is absent: but then she is
safe, there are no gales of wind to affright her, no mutinies, no
collisions; the little home can never be water-logged, nor can there
ever arise the need of taking to the boats and perishing of famine after
a week of unspeakable anguish. There have, indeed, been many heroines
among captains’ wives, many brave and some truly heroical acts performed
by them whilst at sea with their husbands. Nothing, for instance, in its
way was ever more striking than the conduct of the wife of the captain
of the _Edgar_. All the crew, with the exception of the captain and
mate, were prostrated with sickness. The ship was homeward bound from
Senegal, and the captain and mate had to work in the engine-room, whilst
the wife steered. In this way the vessel was safely brought home,
though, as was related in the newspapers at the time, seven of the crew
died of the fever on the voyage. Here, perhaps, was a valuable ship
saved by a captain’s wife, for without her it is difficult to imagine
what the other two could have done; and those skippers who think owners
unjust in forcing them to go to sea _en garçon_ should quote the case of
the _Edgar_ as a very strong commercial argument--the only sort that is
likely to prove successful--in favour of their views. But, as Lord Bacon
said of dancing, so may I say of such instances as this: The better the
worse. The greater the marine dangers in which women distinguished
themselves, the more resolved should husbands be to guard their wives
against the like risks. If it were always fine weather; if charts were
always perfectly accurate; if there were no fogs and no shoals; if there
was no danger in iron pyrites; if all surveyors were above suspicion;
iron ships as well constructed as they are highly classed; stevedores
scientific people; and if vessels were built by rules of common sense
instead of being the fragile products of a system of economy rendered
vicious by insurance; then, indeed--the maritime millennium having
arrived--might all skippers laudably combine to agitate until owners
gave in, and allowed wives to ship with their husbands. But, while the
ocean and all the conditions of the ocean-wrecks, leaks, piecework,
blind rivet-holes, “boat iron,” storms, thick weather, and all the rest
of it--remain as they are, captains who are good husbands will keep the
ladies ashore. It is only men of the Billy Taylor type who deserve to be
followed to sea; and it is only the Hannah Snells of this world who
should attempt such pursuits. Over and over again one is reading of the
wrecks in which the captain’s wife, and too often, alas! the captain’s
little child, lose their lives. The poor things are always called
“passengers,” and it is usually the “passengers” who seem to be drowned.
Here is one of these stories related by the captain himself; and, taking
it as a typical thing, which all seamen may know it to be, I will ask,
is it not well that owners--no matter the reasons which influence
them--should object to their captains taking their wives to sea with
them?
“The steamer I commanded was a schooner-rigged vessel, built at Low
Walker, and you may call her tonnage in round numbers 500. She left a
North-country port on a certain day with a crew of seventeen hands and a
cargo of coal, our destination being Cronstadt. My wife was on board,
and this was the first voyage she had made with me. We had been married
two years, and in that time I had made several trips, as you may
imagine; these voyages--as I suppose I must call a trip across the North
Sea, or a run along the Mediterranean--occupying only a few weeks. Every
time I started, my wife wanted to go too; the owners had no objection,
but I had. I told her the sea was all very well for lady passengers who
had to cross it, but it was no place for a woman to make a home of. She
would do far better keeping house ashore, and making all ready for my
return; and so I would put her off. But when it came to this trip, she
pleaded so earnestly, saying that she loved the sea, that the run would
do her good, that she felt terribly lonely when I was away, and that her
place was at my side let me be where I would, that I could no longer
refuse. ‘Very well,’ said I, ‘for this once,’ my notion being that one
voyage would do more for my wishes than fifty years of arguing; and so
she came aboard. Well, sir, at the start we had fine weather. It was in
the spring; the air was sharp, but the sky was blue and the sunshine
strong and cheerful; and my wife heartily enjoyed it. There was no
sea-sickness to baulk her relish; she was too much a sailor’s lass for
that weakness. We were not much of a ship; you know the regular type,
high bows, wall-sided, Plimsoll’s mark well awash, you may take your
oath, the flying-bridge over the chart-house, and the pole-compass
forking up like a scarecrow above that. But my wife thought the vessel
made a fine sight--merely, I expect, because I commanded her. Poor girl!
poor girl! often I’d come on deck and see her leaning over the side,
when she’d call to me to admire the line of froth there--as if that was
a thing an old fist like me would take notice of; and if a vessel passed
she’d stand and watch it with a look of delight, as though nothing more
beautiful was ever seen, though it might be an old sailing collier, sir,
with nothing showing over the rail but a red night-cap, or a
steam-waggon after our own pattern. But much as she enjoyed the water,
her presence never gave me pleasure. I remember going below on the very
night on which the ship was lost, and looking at my poor lass as she lay
sleeping, and I recall that the sight of her worried me to a degree
you’d scarcely think likely. I was for ever wishing her back home, snug
and secure in the little house that she always had ready and bright and
cheerful for me to return to. You might almost think such wishes
unnatural, but I see them in their proper light now, and reckon there’s
a world of truth in that old saying about coming events casting their
shadows before them. It was a Tuesday afternoon. The weather had changed
in the forenoon, and at midday it was blowing a strong breeze from the
north-west. It had grown as cold as January, and now and again when a
squall drove up there’d come a shower of hail that was like heaving a
bucket of shot on to the decks. I had kept the patent log towing astern,
our course being a trifle to the north of east, and on hauling it in at
noon I found that we had made about a hundred and seventy miles run
since quitting our port. There were no sights to be got, for, though the
morning had opened fine, the sky was now as thick as mud. All this time
the wind was freshening up into a gale. I put the log over again,
keeping the vessel on the same course, under sail, and her engines going
full ahead. The wind was well abaft the beam, the sea a following one,
and there was nothing to stop the ship; she drove along handsomely,
whitening the water all around her, and for a couple of miles astern,
and making excellent sport for my wife, who stood holding on and taking
in the scene with her eyes like diamonds, and her cheeks like roses. I
never could have supposed that there was so much to admire in the sea as
she had found. To me it was hardly much more than a waste of salt water
that was to be crossed as soon as possible, full of hard work, exposure,
poor pay, and heavy anxiety. My poor lass knew nothing of that part of
it, except the pay. I think, had time been given her, and we’d been
making a long voyage, she’d have converted me into a kind of poet, and
taught me to see beauties even in thick weather and strong head seas.
“Well, sir, by this time there was thick weather enough. It was three
o’clock, a gale of wind on the quarter, the sea out of sight half a mile
ahead, lost in a haze of rain, and the steamer pitching heavily as she
swung over the stormy tumble. Nothing could have been more annoying than
the thick weather; the gale was good, the sea did no harm; we were
getting an extra two knots out of the ship; but the haze was like your
being in a hurry, mounted on a swift horse, with your eyes blindfolded.
However, I was determined not to slow down. Despatch is everything
nowadays. It is all very well to talk of risk, but if a man’s situation
depends upon his pleasing his owners by being sharp, sharp he must be,
and take the odds as they come. Better lose a ship and let the owners
touch the insurance than make a losing venture by tardy delivery. So, as
sailors say, we ‘held on all,’ keeping the canvas aloft and firing up
below, and racing through the smother in proper modern fashion. Darker
and darker it grew, and the wind came along more fiercely. My poor lass
was frightened, and came up to me and asked what made me rush the ship
when scarcely her own length was visible. I said we couldn’t stop the
vessel; the wind was after her, and she was bound to go. ‘But you may
run into another ship,’ said she, ‘and not know she is there until you
have struck her.’ ‘Ah, Polly,’ said I, ‘that sort of calculation belongs
to a past age. Certificates would be of no use if they were based on
such reckoning. All that we skippers have to do is to drive on. If there
were to be any trouble over a tardy delivery, do you suppose this thick
weather would be taken as an excuse? Others who left, perhaps, after we
did, will have arrived before us; and the luck of one is expected to be
the luck of others.’
“It stormed up harder after nightfall, and was then as dark as a vault.
I was on deck from eight till twelve, going into the chart-house
occasionally, but never into the cabin, and at midnight I hauled the log
in, and found we had run about a hundred and twenty miles since noon.
The course, east by north half north, seemed to me correct. It was as I
always steered on this run, and so I held on, putting the log overboard
again; and I was going below for a minute to see after my wife, when
there was a noise like the explosion of a gun forward, and some one sung
out that the fore trysail had blown away. This was a small matter; but
it was good as a hint. We took in the other canvas, and went rolling
and pitching along under steam, averaging about seven knots, but
shipping a good deal of water forward, which washed about the decks and
made walking difficult and uncomfortable. At four bells in the middle
watch I went below to get some rest, leaving the chief mate in charge.
Everything was right, as I supposed; a hand on the look-out on the
forecastle, plenty of water under and around us, and nothing to cause
anxiety but the haze. My wife was sound asleep. I lay down, completely
dressed, on a locker, but could get no rest. This was unusual; a sailor,
they say, can sleep anywhere, and amid any sort of disturbance; and I
for one in former days have been able to sleep when it was impossible to
hear a voice calling the watch, in consequence of the shrieking of the
storm on deck and the groaning of the vessel below. I had a foreboding,
an uneasiness in my mind; there was nothing to account for it, but it
kept me awake, and presently it found me standing looking at my wife,
wishing her to wake up, that she might talk to me, yet unwilling to
arouse her. At that moment the ship struck--I felt the grind of her
forefoot along the stony bottom; she heeled over, with the engines
working their hardest, and I knew that she had come to a dead stop, not
only by the manner in which I was thrown forward, but by the thunder of
the seas breaking over her decks. I rushed up and heard the men
shouting. It was still very thick, hailing and raining in torrents. I
sung out for the mate, and he came to me, and I told him to get the
wheel put hard aport, whilst I bawled down to the engine-room to keep
the engines going. No attention was paid to this, for the engineers,
firemen, and the others, thinking the vessel was going down, swarmed up
on deck, and, without heeding my commands, turned-to to help the rest
of the crew to get the boats over. My notion was that all hands meant
to abandon the ship, and would leave my wife and me to our fate if we
did not bear a hand to join them; so I ran below, and found my poor lass
dressing herself and in a terrible fright. I did not wait to answer her
questions, but, catching her by the hand, ran on deck with her. Great
heaven! what a night, what weather, what a scene for any poor girl to be
dragged into! I heard the cries of men alongside, and understood by that
that one of the boats had been stove and the men in her thrown out. I
shouted, ‘Here is my wife, men; for God’s sake, take her with you if you
intend to abandon the ship.’ The chief engineer answered, ‘Bring her
here--there’s room in the starboard lifeboat.’ I ran with her to the
side, and, looking over, saw the boat with seven or eight men in her. I
called to the men to look out, and I then put her over, giving her a
kiss as I did so, and bidding her have no fear; and the men caught her,
and sung out to me to let go the painter. I answered no, it would be
better to let the boat veer astern and ride there whilst I endeavoured
to find out the condition of the ship; and they agreeing, I carried the
end of the painter aft and made it fast.
“I now called to such as remained on board to join me, but only three
men came, amongst them my two mates; all the others had got away, were
drowned, or were in the boat with my wife. We could do nothing till
daylight came, and sat crouching out of the reach of the water that was
flying in heavy masses over the ship. It was as much as I could do to
see the boat astern; but every now and again I’d crawl aft to notice if
she still lived, and then come back again to the others thankful to the
Almighty that she was making good weather of it, and might still save my
lass’s life. But how am I to describe my feelings as I reflected upon
what she was suffering in that open boat, pelted with the hail and rain,
the deadly cold wind penetrating her poor body, tossed like a nutshell
upon the roaring seas, and never knowing but that the next moment would
find her struggling in the water. Well, sir, the daylight came, and
showed us that we were hard and fast upon a dangerous reef off the
Jutland coast. We could see the land there looming upon the haze about
four or five miles off. The ship was full of water and bound to go to
pieces, though she was still holding well together in spite of the
terrible pounding of the sea. I went to the stern to hail the boat and
say a word of comfort to my wife; and when the men saw me they sung out,
‘Let go the painter, captain. We must take our chance of driving ashore;
it’s killing work here.’ My wife put out her arms to me, and I heard her
cry, ‘Oh, don’t leave him behind!’ The boat had already as many as she
could well carry. Perhaps the men feared that I would try to join my
wife, and drag the boat alongside, which might end in sinking her; but I
had no thought of that kind, the gig still remaining, and was about to
tell them to hold on and keep the shelter of the wreck for a spell, as
the weather might moderate presently, when a man in the bows cut the
painter. A heavy sea taking the boat as he did this, swung her up and
around; she plunged into the hollow, and the water rolling between,
prevented me from seeing her. But as it passed it hove up the boat again
bottom up, the black keel just showing among a smother of foam, with
here and there the upright arms of a drowning man. It was done in a
moment; it was all over in a moment; it left me staring like a man
struck dead by lightning and holding the posture he was killed in. The
chief mate, catching me by the arm, cried out, ‘She’s going to pieces,
sir. For Heaven’s sake, let’s get away. We’re doomed men if we linger.’
I broke from the horror and grief in me, and went to work, not so much
to save my own life as to help the others to save theirs. Had I been
alone I should have thrown myself down and waited for death. The shock I
had sustained had driven all instincts of life out of me. Well, sir, we
got the gig overboard, and that we were saved you may suppose, as I am
here to tell the story. Four other men got ashore besides us, making ten
of the crew drowned besides my lass. Oh, sir!” cried the poor fellow,
covering his face and speaking amid convulsive sobs, “why did she insist
upon accompanying me? Why did she not keep to our little home ashore,
and be there to cheer and comfort me when I came back from this
shipwreck, a ruined man! My certificate has been suspended--I cannot get
a berth--and I have lost the darling of my heart, the truest wife that
ever man had. Why did she insist? why did she insist?” he repeated; and,
rising like a blind man, he left me speehless in the face of a grief it
was not in the power of human sympathy to soften.
_SEA SONGS._