had good weather and nothing happened that was worth mentioning. Captain
Sol had his eyes open, because there was a war between England and
France and sometimes an English warship would meet an American ship and
stop her and do things that neither the captain nor the crew of the
American ship liked to have done. But there didn't seem to be anything
that the American ship could do except run away; and sometimes they
could get away and sometimes it wouldn't do any good to try.
And the _Industry_ kept getting nearer to the coast of Spain and to the
Straits of Gibraltar. It was the twenty-second of October, 1805, and
Captain Sol thought that he should sight Cape Trafalgar the next day.
So, the next morning, he began to look out for Cape Trafalgar before it
was light. And, when it was light enough to see anything, he saw that
they were very near to a lot of great ships. They were warships and they
were battered and there were great shot holes in their sides and some of
the yards and topmasts had been shot away and there were great rents in
their sails and, altogether, they looked like a lot of wrecks. It didn't
take a man as smart as Captain Sol very long to guess that there had
been a great battle a few days before. And he was right. The battle of
Trafalgar was fought between the English fleet of ships and the fleets
of France and Spain; and the ships that Captain Sol saw were English
ships. The sailors were mending the ships, as well as they could, so
that they would be fit to sail.
And Captain Sol wanted to know what was going on, so he sailed nearer;
and, when he was as near as he dared to go, he had the sailors fix the
sails so that the ship wouldn't go ahead, and he waited there.
Pretty soon some sailors got into a boat from one of the English ships,
and then an officer got in, and they rowed the boat over to the
_Industry_, and the English officer came on board of the _Industry_.
Captain Sol met him and he had some of the sailors stand in line on
each side of the gangway. And Captain Sol and the English officer talked
together, very politely, although the officer was plainly very much
surprised to see so young a man as captain. Captain Sol was only
twenty-one.
And the officer told Captain Sol about the battle, and he told him that
Lord Nelson had been shot in that battle, and he had died on board the
_Victory_ a few hours after the battle was over. And the officer saw the
lumber that the _Industry_ had on her deck, and he asked Captain Sol
what other cargo he carried. And Captain Sol told him about the flour
and the apples and the salt fish and the tobacco, and the officer got
into his boat again and was rowed back to the _Victory_.
Captain Sol stayed there, waiting to see what would happen; for he
thought that, perhaps, he might sell some of his cargo to the English
ships and not have to carry it to Leghorn. And, sure enough, the officer
got into the boat again and came back. And he told Captain Sol that the
commander of the fleet would be much obliged to him if he would sell
some of his lumber and some flour and some apples; but he didn't ask for
any of the salt fish nor for any of the tobacco. And Captain Sol agreed
and the officer rowed away.
Then the _Victory_ made signals to the other ships, telling them to send
boats for the lumber and the flour and the apples that they needed. And
a boat came to the _Industry_ for each ship, until they were clustered
about her as thick as bees about a hive. And the sailors were very
busy, putting into the boats the lumber and the flour and the barrels of
apples. Captain Sol had to have a tackle rigged over the hatchway of the
_Industry_ to hoist out the barrels. And when each boat had got its
load, it was rowed back to its ship.
It took them a long time to get all those things out of the _Industry_,
but at last it was all done and the last boat had rowed away; and
Captain Sol found that he had sold all of his lumber and about half of
his flour and about half of his apples. The English sailors needed all
that lumber to mend the ships. Then another boat came from the
_Victory_, and it was rowed to the _Industry_, and the paymaster of the
English fleet came aboard and two men came after him carrying bags of
gold money.
Captain Sol and the paymaster and the men with the bags of money went
down into the cabin; and the paymaster counted out the gold money for
the lumber and the flour and the apples, and left it on the cabin table.
And, besides, he thanked Captain Sol for selling them the things. Then
he went away.
[Illustration]
Then Captain Sol had the sailors fix the sails so that the ship would go
ahead, and he had a sailor stand at the flag halliards and dip the flag
for a salute to the English ships. And the _Industry_ sailed away from
those English ships towards Gibraltar, and pretty soon the ships were
out of sight.
And that's all.
THE CARGO STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
That wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once the brig _Industry_ was all ready to sail from Boston for far
countries. She had her cargo all stowed, but Captain Sol hadn't seen it
stowed, for he had had to be away from Boston while it was being put
aboard. So a lumper, or 'longshoreman, had told the men where to put
things. A lumper was a man who did the work of carrying things into a
ship, or out of it. This man was a pretty good 'longshoreman, but a
lumper wasn't a sailor and couldn't be expected to get the things stowed
quite so well as a captain or a mate. The captain or the mate would be
more interested in having the things stowed well, for it makes a great
difference, in the sailing of a ship and in her behavior, how the cargo
is stowed. Captain Sol generally liked to attend to those things
himself.
They had put on board all the things that they would eat and the water
that they would drink; and Captain Sol came back and the _Industry_
sailed away from that wharf out upon the great ocean. And she sailed the
length of the Atlantic, but she met a good deal of rough weather and
she ran into three or four storms.
Captain Sol soon found that the cargo hadn't been well stowed and it
bothered him a good deal. For, in his log-book, he wrote things like
these:
Aug. 27, Heavy sea from the eastward. Ship labors very badly.
Sept. 1, Squally with rough, heavy sea. Ship labors very much.
Sept. 10, Ship rolls and labors hard through the night.
Sept. 22, Heavy gales & Squally with tremendous sea. Ship'd much
water.
Sept. 25, Strong gales and rough sea. Ship rolls heavy.
Sept. 30, Hard squalls and tremendous sea from N. & E. Ship labors
very hard.
Oct. 3, A very heavy sea running during the 24 hours. Ship labors
too much, owing to bad stowage of cargo. It must be corrected.
So, before the _Industry_ had got around the Cape of Good Hope, Captain
Sol had made up his mind that he would have that cargo overhauled and
stowed the way it ought to be. For he thought that the ship would sail
enough faster to make up for the time it would take, and all hands would
be more comfortable. And he had the sailors steer her to a little island
that he knew about, where there was a good harbor and where he wouldn't
be bothered. And she got to that island and the sailors let her anchor
down to the bottom of the harbor, and they began to take out her cargo.
First they rigged tackles to the yards high up on the masts, and they
swung the yards so that the tackles would be just above the hatchways;
and one was over the forward hatchway and one was over the after
hatchway. Then Captain Sol sent one gang of men down into the hold of
the _Industry_ by the after hatch, with the mate to tell them what to
do; and he sent another gang of men into the hold by the fore hatch,
with the second mate to tell them what to do. And he divided the sailors
that were left into two parts, six men for the fore hatch and six men
for the after hatch. The sailors were all stripped to the waist and
barefooted, for they knew, from the way the crew was divided up, that
they would have to work hard and as quickly as they could. Captain Sol
was a driver for work, but his crew didn't think any the less of him for
that.
And Captain Sol called to the mates. "Are you all ready?" he said.
And the mates answered that they were all ready when he was.
"Well, rout it out, then, as fast as you're able," said Captain Sol;
"I'll see that we keep up with you."
And he ordered four men to tail on to each rope. He meant for four men
to take hold of the free end of the rope that ran through the blocks of
the tackle.
"And run away with it," he said. "And when I say run I don't mean walk,
either."
The sailors already had hold of the ropes, and they grinned when Captain
Sol said that.
"Aye, aye, sir," they shouted.
And he ordered the other two men at the fore hatch and the other two men
at the after hatch to be ready to handle and loose the bales and to be
lively about it.
"All ready!" he called to the mates.
Then the fun began. The bales and the barrels and the boxes seemed to
fly out of the hatchways and to alight on the deck like a flock of great
birds. And the men who had to handle them and to cast off the hooks did
it in the liveliest way that can be imagined, and they hustled the boxes
and the barrels and the bales to one side so that there should be room
for the next thing that came up. And there was a great noise of a lively
chanty, that the sailors sang all the time, without stopping. It wasn't
worth while to stop; for then, as soon as they had stopped singing, they
would have to begin again, so they kept on all the time. And there was
the soft noise of their bare feet stamping on the deck but they didn't
stamp very hard because that would hurt their feet.
Pretty soon the bodies and the faces of the sailors began to glisten;
and, before long, the sweat was running down in streams. For, working
there, at that island, was just about the same as it would have been if
they had been working at Charleston or Savannah in May. It was pretty
hot for such hard work. But the sailors were merry at it, and grinned
and shouted their chanty, and they kept at it until all the things were
out on the deck of the _Industry_ that had to be taken out. The things
that were the heaviest they didn't take out, but just moved them to one
side and left them in the hold.
By dinner time, they had all the cargo taken out that had to be taken
out, and the heaviest freshly stowed in the middle of the ship at the
very bottom. Then Captain Sol told the mates and the sailors to come up.
"There!" said he. "I'll bet dollars to buttons there never was a ship
unloaded any quicker than we've unloaded this one. Now go to your
dinner, and we'll finish this stowing this afternoon."
And he told the mate to serve out to the sailors a little rum. They had
been working very hard and they would have a lot more hard work to do
before the day was done. It was the custom, in those days, to serve out
rum to the crew now and then; perhaps once a week. It wasn't a good
custom, perhaps, but it was a custom. Captain Sol never once thought of
breaking that custom, but he gave each man a very little, and then they
had their dinner.
And, after they had finished their dinner, the sailors who had been on
deck in the morning went down into the hold and the sailors who had been
in the hold in the morning stayed on deck. But the mates had to go down,
and sometimes Captain Sol was in the hold and sometimes he was on deck.
For he wanted to see for himself how the work was being done.
They put the heaviest things they had left next to those great, heavy
things that were stowed in the middle of the ship at the very bottom.
And they kept lowering down the heaviest things that they had on deck,
and the sailors who were in the hold stowed them. They packed them very
tightly, so that, no matter how much the ship should pitch and toss and
roll, the cargo should not get loose. For it is a very bad thing for the
cargo to shift, and a ship might be lost if its cargo shifted, in a
storm. It is only in a storm that such a thing is likely to happen.
At last they had lowered the last bale and the last box that they had on
deck, and they had been stowed. And the men who were in the hold called
out for more, and the men on deck said that there wasn't any more. The
mates were surprised, for there was some room left in the hold that
there hadn't been the way the cargo was stowed at first. And the mates
came up, and the sailors came up, and they were just dripping wet.
And Captain Sol thanked the men for working so willingly all day, and he
said that he thought that they would all be glad because the ship would
ride easier, after this, and wouldn't take in so much water; and it
would be much easier to handle sail in rough weather. And he said that
he supposed they thought they ought to have a little more rum. He was
going to serve it out to them, but he warned them that it would be a
very little.
And, at that, the men all roared out, and Captain Sol went to the
quarter deck and stood by the railing that divided it from the rest of
the ship. He had a jug beside him. And the men came up, with their tin
cups in their hands, and they held their cups up high, one at a time.
And Captain Sol poured a very little rum into each cup, and the man with
the cup went forward.
But, while Captain Sol was doing that, there was one sailor near the
middle of the ship who felt as if he would rather have a dousing of cold
water than all the rum in the jug. And that man got one of those buckets
that were used to get salt water from the ocean for washing down decks
and for other things. The bucket had a long rope for a handle. And he
dropped the bucket overboard and gave the right jerk to the rope, and he
pulled it up, full of water. Then he stopped a man who was going by with
his cup, and asked him to throw the water over him. The other man asked
him where he would have it.
"Alow and aloft," said the sailor who had got the water, "and fore and
aft."
[Illustration]
So the other sailor began to throw the water over him. But, just then,
there was another sailor just going by, and the temptation was too
great. He threw what water was left in the bucket over that other
sailor. And that sailor gave a great roar, and ran to get another
bucket. And he filled it and tried to throw the water on the man who had
wet him down; but he couldn't find him. So he threw the water over
another man.
And that man ran for a bucket, and in about a minute all the sailors
were chasing each other around, throwing water over everybody they met.
There was a great noise and uproar, but everybody was good-natured about
it, for they were all very hot and the salt water felt very pleasant to
them. And, of course, the clothes that they had on were all wet through,
but nobody had on anything much besides his breeches, and it didn't
matter. And Captain Sol and the mate stood on the quarter deck and
laughed at them.
And, when the men had got tired of playing, they went down to their
supper; and Captain Sol went down to write in his log-book.
Nov. 6. Had cargo out and restowed it between 9 a. m. and 6 p. m.,
with an hour for dinner. I w'ld like to see the gang of lumpers
that can do half as well. So ends this day.
And that's all.
THE PRIVATEER STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
That wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once, in the year 1807, the brig _Industry_ sailed from Boston for far
countries with Captain Sol as her captain. There was, at that time, a
great war between France and Spain, on one side, and England and some
other countries, on the other side; but the English ships had to do
almost all the fighting, for their side, that was done on the ocean.
And there were a good many English and French and Spanish privateers
sailing about, seeing how much harm they could do to the ships that
belonged to the other side.
[Illustration]
A privateer was a vessel that was fitted out by private persons, just as
if Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob had made up their minds that the
_Industry_ should be a privateer, if the United States was at war. And
they would fit her out with guns and swords and cutlasses, and they
would get a crew for her, and they would ask the government if she could
be a privateer. And the government would probably have said that she
could, and they would have sent Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob some
papers, called "letters of marque and reprisal," which said that the
_Industry_ was a United States privateer and that she could take ships
as prizes and sell them. Governments do not do that, now, and a
privateer is no better than a pirate; but they all did it a hundred
years ago.
Captain Sol had thought about it a great deal, for privateers weren't
very particular what ships they captured; and he wondered whether he
ought to carry a whole lot of guns. He always had some guns on the ship,
but not enough to make a fight with, if the other vessel had a whole
lot, as privateers always did. But, finally, he decided that he had
better not, or he might be taken for a pirate. For his country wasn't
at war and, of course, he hadn't any papers. Pirates that are captured
are usually short lived. So he had sailed away without any guns worth
mentioning.
The _Industry_ sailed along over the ocean for about two weeks and
nothing much happened, and she wasn't so very far from the coast of
Spain; perhaps she was three or four hundred miles away.
For, on that voyage, she was bound to Leghorn, first, and then she was
going to Java and Manila. And, in the middle of the forenoon of that
day, the lookout in the crosstrees of the _Industry_ reported a sail
heading directly for them.
Captain Sol was worried about it and asked the sailor about the rig of
the vessel. And the sailor said that he couldn't tell what her rig was
because he couldn't see any more than her upper sails, and not much of
them; but she seemed to be a brig, and he thought she was fast, by the
way she was rising. He thought he should be able to see her hull in less
than half an hour.
Captain Sol said a bad word and took his glass and went up to the
crosstrees himself. But he couldn't see enough, there, so he went on, up
the mast. And he rested the glass against the rigging and looked. It
took him a long time to see anything, the rigging jumped around so; but
at last he managed to see. And he came down quickly and spoke to the man
at the wheel, who looked at him as if he expected some orders.
"Keep her as she goes," he said. "It won't do any good to try to run
away from that vessel. She can sail three feet to our two. And, whoever
she is, she has no business with us, anyway."
But Captain Sol knew that it would make very little difference whether
she had any right to stop them or not. If her captain wanted to he
would. And the mates knew that, and the sailors knew it. So Captain Sol
ordered one of the sailors to hoist the United States flag, and he kept
on.
[Illustration: "THAT WAS A SIGNAL FOR THE _Industry_ TO STOP"]
The brig kept rising fast and, in a short time, they could see her hull
from the deck of the _Industry_. They saw that she was a Spanish
privateer; and she hoisted the Spanish flag and kept on. And, pretty
soon, she was nearly abreast of the _Industry_; and she turned a
little, and there was a little puff of smoke from her side, and the
sound of the report came over the water a second or two later.
That was a signal for the _Industry_ to stop. But the _Industry_ seemed
to have grown deaf, and she didn't stop, and no sailor made a move to
touch a rope. And the Spanish brig seemed to be a little angry, and she
turned again and there was a bigger puff of smoke from her side and a
cannon ball came skipping across the water, ahead of the _Industry_.
That was a hint that she had better stop, if she knew what was good for
her. But Captain Sol only had another United States flag hoisted, and it
was a bigger flag than the first one.
When the Spanish brig saw that the _Industry_ wasn't going to stop, she
seemed to get very angry. There was another puff of smoke from her side,
and a solid shot tore through one of the sails of the _Industry_,
leaving a ragged hole.
[Illustration]
"Well," said Captain Sol, "she's begun to talk. I guess we may as well
heave to."
So he had the sailors fix the sails so that the ship wouldn't go ahead.
But the sailors worked slowly, and the mates didn't hurry them, either.
And, in a few minutes, a boat put off from the Spanish brig, and the
boat was filled with men. They had a pretty long way to row because
Captain Sol hadn't stopped when he was asked to. But, after a while,
they were at the side. The officer in the Spanish boat was very much
excited and talked very fast. He wanted Captain Sol to put a gangway or
a ladder over the side, so that he could get on board easily.
But Captain Sol winked at the mate and made believe that he didn't
understand.
"No compreeny," he said, leaning over the side. For he thought that they
could come aboard any way they were able. He had had the ship stopped
for them.
"Donkey!" said the officer, in Spanish. And he scrambled up, followed by
ten of his men. The other men stayed in the boat.
And Captain Sol was very polite, but he couldn't talk Spanish and he
made believe he couldn't understand what was said. Really, he knew
enough Spanish to be able to understand what the officer said, but he
couldn't speak Spanish. After a while, the officer tried French, but
Captain Sol made believe that he couldn't understand that, either, and
he said, in English, that he was very sorry that he didn't have any
Frenchmen in the crew. So the officer gave up trying to make Captain Sol
understand.
And he made the crew of the _Industry_ go in the boat, but he left
Captain Sol and the mates, and ten men for a prize crew. And he told
Captain Sol that he was to take the ship to Cadiz. He kept saying that
name over and over.
Captain Sol knew that it would be of no use to resist, and he didn't.
And the crew bade him good bye, and the boat was rowed away. Then his
new Spanish crew fixed the sails so that the ship would go ahead. He
thought they were pretty clumsy about it, but he didn't say anything.
And the _Industry_ sailed away towards Cadiz, and the Spanish brig
turned to the north.
They sailed all the rest of that day towards the coast of Spain, which
was on their way to Leghorn, anyway. Captain Sol kept his eyes open, for
he hadn't given up hoping for a chance to get the ship back again; but
the chance didn't seem very good, with only the two mates and himself
against the ten Spaniards. And, that night, there must have been
something the matter with the watch that the Spaniards kept, for, when
there was light enough to see, in the morning, there was a big English
warship close to them. She was big enough to swallow the _Industry_
whole and never to know the difference. Captain Sol laughed right out
loud when the Spaniards first saw her; he had known about her nearly
half the night.
The Spaniards never once thought of fighting, but surrendered right off.
It would have been very foolish for them to fight, for they were only
ten men, in a ship that wasn't fitted for fighting; and the English ship
was a big ship fitted up on purpose to fight, and she had a crew of
three or four hundred men.