excellent pickings. One of the most successful of the cruising ships was
the _Atalanta_, of eighteen guns, that was hardly paid off and her crew
discharged when, such was her popularity, on being almost immediately
re-commissioned men entered with extraordinary eagerness. In one short
cruise alone she captured eight sail and nearly two thousand ankers of
spirits, besides bale goods; and every man’s share of the prize money
amounted to twice the value of his wages. The old reports run thus:
“Came in the _Atalanta_, eighteen guns, Captain Mansfield, with a fine
smuggling cutter of eighty tons, called the _Admiral Pole_, of Exeter,
with one hundred and seventy ankers of spirits, taken after a long
chase. She was seized some months since at Weymouth for having an over
quantity of spirits on board, and was liberated on bond being given to
the Board of Customs and Excise.” Or, “Came in, the _Eagle_, Excise
cutter, Captain Ward, with a fine smuggling cutter, called the _Swift_
(formerly the _Bonaparte_, French privateer), with five hundred tubs of
brandy, after a long chase within the limits of the _Dodman_.” Or,
“Sailed on a cruise against the smugglers, the _Ranger_, cutter, Captain
A. Fraser.” Or, “Came in from a cruise against the smugglers, the
_Galatea_, of thirty-six guns, Captain Wolfe.”
It will be judged that if bold Will Watch or belted Joe Marline
succeeded in running his goods it was certainly not through lack of
attention to him on the part of the King’s navy. And, as may be
supposed, many black deeds of violence and murder are on record. The
story of an assassination eminently characteristic of the old smuggling
times is preserved in the Old Bailey annals. On the night of December
26, 1798, a Custom House officer went in a boat to look after smugglers
near Cawsand Bay on the coast of Cornwall. He saw a sloop lying at
anchor, the people of which hailed him, and asked him whose boat it was.
He answered that it was a King’s boat. They warned him not to approach;
if he did, they would fire on him; he was then some eight or ten fathoms
distant from the sloop. His men, nothing daunted, continued to row,
whilst he held the Revenue colours in his hand. The smugglers fired a
volley from their muskets, slipped their cable, and made off. One of the
men in the boat was killed. The smugglers were apprehended on the
evidence of one of their own people. This man, named Tom Rogers, said
that he was a sailor on board the vessel (named the _Lottery_) on the
night referred to. They had just arrived from Guernsey with a cargo of
smuggled spirits, and, at the moment of the approach of the Customs’
boat, they were discharging the tubs into boats alongside. The witness
declared that after they had made sail, one of the crew named Potter
said it was he who had fired, that he had taken good aim, and had seen a
man drop in the boat. On this evidence Potter was found guilty, and
hanged at Execution Dock.
But whatever may be thought of the morality of the smuggler, it is
indisputable that his cutter or lugger was a magnificent nursery for
seamen. The exploits of some of these fellows in respect of recaptures
alone would fill a stout volume with wonderful instances of intrepidity
and seamanship. Take the case of the _Echo_, of Poole, that was boarded
by a French privateer, and retaken by the mate and a boy of twelve, who
seized the helmsman, forced him below with two French seamen, battened
them down, and brought them to Plymouth.
Of the _Marquis of Granby_, that was captured off the Goodwins by a
French lugger; the captain and two men were put into the Frenchman’s
boat, in order to be conveyed on board the privateer, that was giving
chase to another vessel, and that, by carrying a press of sail, in a
short time left the boat nearly five miles astern. On observing this the
smuggling skipper wrested a sword out of the hands of the officer of the
boat, and compelled the French sailors to row him back to his own ship.
This done, he gallantly boarded her, sword in hand, and speedily cleared
the deck of the Frenchmen, who, to save their lives, jumped overboard,
and were picked up by their own boat. The smuggler then proceeded on his
voyage; but what became of the French sailors was never known.
Of the _William_, that was captured by a privateer off Bridlington; all
the crew, except three, were taken out and five Frenchmen put on board.
The three Englishmen found means to choke the pumps with ashes, and made
the Frenchmen believe the vessel was sinking. Sooner than go to the
bottom they agreed to make for the nearest port, and eventually they
carried the _William_ to Sunderland. The Frenchmen, I read, were landed
the same evening, “and have since been sent to Durham gaol.”
Of the _Beaver_, that was captured by a French privateer, named La
Braave, of eighteen guns and seventy men. They put a prize-master and
four seamen in the prize, leaving only the captain and a boy on board.
The skipper contrived to secure the French prize-master by seizing him
in the cabin and fastening his hands behind him; he then ran on deck
with a crow-bar and a pistol, and in the scuffle the steersman fell
overboard, and was drowned. The other three were aloft. The English
captain, taking the helm, ordered them to remain aloft, or he would
shoot them. In this manner he steered the vessel all night, and next
morning sighting an English frigate, signalled and was brought safely to
port by her. There is something not a little humorous in the thought of
those three Frenchmen hanging on aloft all night, the smuggling
Britisher at the helm, steering with one hand and with the other
covering them with a pistol.
These are but a plum or two from a pudding very rich with such fruit.
Somehow the British mariner of that period never could be taught to
respect the French seaman as an adversary. Again and again you read of a
man and a boy out-manœuvring and subduing a fair ship’s company of
wooden-shoes. I sometimes fancy that Napoleon Bonaparte helped to
confirm the Englishman’s indifference to the French mariner—the
intellectual heritage of years of conquest—by his coddling policy of
dress and treatment. The uniform he himself designed for his nautical
braves consisted of a blue jacket in the manner and of the cut of those
of dragoons; red waistcoat with gilt buttons, and blue cloth pantaloons;
red stockings, pointed shoes with round buckles, cropped hair “without
powder!” They were ordered to change their shirts three times a week,
and when on shore to wear small cocked hats. They were also provided
with red nightcaps, ordered to be washed once a week. Every man had two
nightcaps and two neckcloths. They were obliged to comb their hair three
times in the seven days, and to be shaved twice a week. Their captains
called them “mes enfans.” It was impossible for Jack to have a high
opinion of marine masqueraders after this pattern, and when it came to
fighting, the more the merrier, as you notice in the actions of
smuggling men and boys.
The smugglers often turned out some fine useful seamen. There was Mr.
Harry Paulet, who happened to be sneaking home with a cargo of brandy
one morning when the French fleet, under Conflans, had stolen out of
Brest, while Admiral Hawke lay concealed behind Ushant to watch the
motions of the enemy. Paulet, loving his country better than his cargo,
ran up to the British admiral, and, asking leave to speak to him, was
allowed to go aboard. On his telling what he knew of the enemy, Hawke
said if he was right he would make his fortune; but that if he _lied_ he
would hang him at the yard-arm. The fleet was instantly under weigh, and
by Paulet’s directions was presently brought between the enemy and the
French coast. The admiral then ordered Paulet into his own vessel; but
the bold smuggler begged leave to remain, that he might assist in
beating the enemy. This favour was granted, a station was assigned to
Paulet, who fought like a gamecock, and when the battle was over he was
sent home with a pocket full of letters of commendation, and
subsequently rewarded in such a manner as to enable him to live in ease
during the rest of his life. The famous comedian, Parsons, used to say
that “he would rather spend a crown to hear Harry Paulet relate one of
Hawke’s battles than sit gratis by the most celebrated orator of the
day. There was,” said Parsons, “a manner in his heart-felt narrations
that was certain to bring his auditors into the very scene of action;
and when describing the moments of victory I have seen a dozen labouring
men, at the Crown public house, rise together and, moved by an
instantaneous impulse, give three cheers while Harry took breath to
recite more of his exploits.”
Johnson, a smuggler, achieved amazing reputation as a pilot and seaman.
He was several times locked up, laid in irons, as for instance in the
New Jail in the Borough, and the Fleet, but always managed to break out,
and at this work was a complete Jack Sheppard. He went to Holland, and
his fame as a seafarer having spread, the French Government offered to
make a settlement of £600 a year upon his family if he would engage in
the attempt to invade England; but the bold smuggler was a patriot, and
said no. His life was then threatened, but the skill that was equal to a
Borough jail was superior to a French prison. Johnson got away, came
home, and received King George’s pardon in consideration of “qualities
which would do honour to a more elevated state.” But smugglers after the
pattern of Paulet and Johnson have long ceased to flourish. Well may the
old tar sing:
Farewell to every sea-delight!
The cruise, with eager watchful days,
The skilful chace by glimmering night,
The well-worked ship, the gallant fight,
The lov’d commander’s praise!
Will Watch has flung down his hanger and pistols, and appears in the
more amiable and less hazardous part of a ship’s steward, a lascar, a
foremast seaman, with a few pounds of cigars in his shirt or a cube of
honeydew under his bunk boards. The coastguard, it is true, still keeps
a look-out; but if it were not for the gardens and lawn-tennis grounds
which his superior officer sets him to work upon, he would find his
calling very dull and uneventful.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_SEA PHRASES._
“The sea-language,” says Sir William Monson in his “Naval Tracts,” “is
not soon learned, and much less understood, being only proper to him
that has served his apprenticeship; besides that, a boisterous sea and
stormy weather will make a man not bred to it so sick that it bereaves
him of legs, stomach, and courage so much as to fight with his meat; and
in such weather, when he hears the seamen cry starboard or port, or to
bide aloof,[33] or flat a sheet, or haul home a clew-line, he thinks he
hears a barbarous speech, which he conceives not the meaning of.” This
is as true now as then. But the landsman is not to blame. There is no
dialect peculiar to a calling so crowded with strange words as the
language of the sea. Dr. Samuel Johnson, who is never more diverting
than when he thunders forth his abhorrence of naval life and of sailors
as a community of persons, has in some cases perpetuated, and in some
cases created, the most ludicrous errors regarding ships, their
furniture and crews. If, as Macaulay declares, the Doctor was at the
mercy of Junius and Skinner in many of his shore-going derivatives, he
was equally at the mercy of Bailey and Harris when he came to the ocean.
A few samples will suffice.
Footnote 33:
“Keep your luff!”
“_Topgallant_, the highest sail.” “_Topsail_, the highest sail.” The
word topgallant, as Johnson prints it, is not a sail at all. Had Johnson
defined the “topgallant-sail” as the highest sail, he would have been
right; for in his day there was no canvas set above the topgallant yard.
But it is manifest that if the “topgallant-sail” was the highest sail,
the top-sail could not be the highest too. “_Tiller_, the rudder of a
boat.” The proverbial schoolboy knows better than that. “_Shrouds_, the
sail-ropes. It seems to be taken sometimes for the sails.” It is hardly
necessary to say that the shrouds have nothing whatever to do with the
sails. They are ropes—in Johnson’s day of hemp, in our time of wire—for
the support of lower, top, and topgallant masts. “_Sheets._” This word
he correctly defines, borrowing his definition from a dictionary. But he
adds, “Dryden seems to understand it otherwise;” and quotes—
“Fierce Boreas drove against his flying sails,
And rent the _sheets_.”
It is very evident that Dryden perfectly understood the term as
signifying the ropes at the clews or corners of sails. “_Quarter-deck_,
the short upper deck.” This is as incorrect as “_Poop_, the hindmost
part of the ship.” The poop lies aft, to be sure, but it is no more the
hindmost part of the ship than the mizzen-mast is—any more than the
quarter-deck need necessarily be “short” or “upper”—in the sense clearly
intended by Johnson. “_Overhale_, to spread over.” Overhale then
signified what is now meant by overhaul. To overhaul a rope is to drag
it through a block; to overhaul a ship is to search her. It certainly
does not mean “to spread over,” nor, in my judgment, does Spenser employ
it in that sense in the triplet that Johnson appends. “_Loofed_, gone to
a distance.” Loofed in Johnson’s day denoted a ship that had
luffed—_i.e._ put her helm down to come closer to the wind. “_Keel_, the
bottom of the ship.” No doubt the keel is at the bottom of the ship, but
sailors would no more understand it as a ship’s bottom than they would
accept the word “beam” as a definition of the word “deck.” Johnson gives
“_helm_” as “the steerage, the rudder.” It is plain that he is here
under the impression that “steerage” is pretty much the same as
“steering.” In reality the helm is no more the rudder than it is the
tiller, the wheel, the wheel-chains, or ropes and the relieving-tackles.
It is a generic term, and means the whole apparatus by which a ship is
steered. “_Belay_, to belay a rope; to splice; to mend a rope by laying
one end over another.” To belay a rope is to make it fast.[34]
Footnote 34:
Bailey correctly defines this word: “to fasten any running rope so
that when it is haled it cannot run out again.” Either Johnson doubted
Bailey (whom he quotes nevertheless) as an authority, or consulted him
for his sea-words at capricious intervals.
These examples could be multiplied; but it is not my purpose to
criticize Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary. Yet, as it is admittedly the
basis of most of the dictionaries in use, it is worth while calling
attention to errors which have survived without question or correction
into the later compilations.
These and the like blunders merely indicate the extreme difficulty that
confronts, not indeed the etymologist—for I nowhere discover any signs
of research in the direction of marine originals—but the plain definer
of nautical words. The truth is, before a man undertakes to explain the
language of sailors he should go to sea. It is only by mixing with
sailors, by hearing and executing orders, that one can distinguish the
shades of meaning amidst the scores of subtleties of the mariner’s
speech. It is, of course, hard to explain what the sailor himself could
not define save by the word he himself employs. Take, for example,
“inboard” and “aboard.” You say of a man entering a ship that he has
gone “aboard her;” of a boat hanging at the davits that it must be swung
“inboard.” There is a nicety here difficult of discrimination, but it is
fixed nevertheless. You would not say of a man in a ship that he is
“inboard,” nor of davits that they must be slewed “aboard.” So of “aft”
and “abaft.” They both mean the same thing, but they are not applied in
the same way. A man is “aft” when he is on the quarter-deck or poop; you
could not say he is “abaft.” But suppose him to be beyond the
mizzen-mast, you would say “he is standing abaft the mizzen-mast,” not
“he is standing aft it.”
Peculiarities of expression abound in sea-language to a degree not to be
paralleled by the eccentricities of other vocational dialects. A man who
sleeps in his bunk or hammock all night, or through his watch on deck,
“lies in” or “sleeps in.” But neither term is applicable if he sleeps
through his watch below. “Idlers,” as they are called, such as the cook,
steward, butcher, and the like, are said to have “all night in”—that is,
“all night _in_ their bunks or hammocks.” To “lay” is a word plentifully
employed in directions which to a landsman should render its
signification hopelessly bewildering. “This word ‘lay,’” says Richard
Dana, in a note to “Two Years Before the Mast,” “which is in such
general use on board ship, being used in giving orders instead of ‘go,’
as ‘_Lay_ forward!’ ‘Lay aft!’ ‘Lay aloft!’ etc., I do not understand to
be the neuter verb _lie_ mis-pronounced, but to be the active verb
‘_lay_’ with the objective case understood, as ‘Lay _yourselves_
forward!’ ‘Lay _yourselves_ aft!’ etc. At all events, lay is an active
verb at sea and means go.” It is, however, used in other senses, as to
“lay up a rope,” “the ship lay along,” the old expression for a vessel
pressed down by the force of the wind. Other terms strike the land-going
ear as singular contradictions, such as “to _make_ land,” to “_fetch_
such and such a place”—_i.e._ to reach it by sailing, but properly to
arrive at it by means of beating or tacking; “_jump_ aloft,” run aloft;
“_tumble_ up,” come up from below; “bear a hand,” look sharp, make
haste; “handsomely,” as in the expression, “Lower away handsomely!”
meaning, lower away with judgment, but promptly; “bully,” a term of
kindly greeting, as “Bully for you!”[35]
Footnote 35:
This and other terms must now be called Americanisms. But they are
Americanisms only as are other old words which the people of the
United States have preserved from the language of their English
forefathers, but which on this side of the water are obsolete, or
employed with a different meaning.
The difficulties of the lexicographer desiring the inclusion of nautical
terms in his list are not a little increased by the sailor’s love of
contractions, or his perversities of pronunciation. Let me cite a few
examples. The word “treenail,” for instance—a wooden spike—in Jack’s
mouth becomes “trunnel.” “To reach” is to sail along close-hauled; but
the sailor calls it “ratch.” “Gunwale,” as everybody knows, is “gunnel,”
and so spelt by the old marine writers. “Crossjack,” a sail that sets
upon a yard called the “crossjack yard,” on the mizzen-mast, is
pronounced “crojjeck.” The “strap” of a block is always termed “strop;”
“streak,” a single range of planks running from one end of the ship or
boat to the other, is “strake;” “to serve,” that is, to wind small
stuff, such as spun-yarn, round a rope, is “to sarve.” The numerous
contractions, however, are pre-eminently illustrative of the two
distinctive qualities of the English sailor—nimbleness and alertness.
Everything must be done quickly at sea: there is no time for
sesquipedalianism. If there be a long word it must be shortened somehow.
To spring, to jump, to leap, to tumble, to keep his eyes skinned, to
hammer his fingers into fish-hooks: these are the things required of
Jack. He dances, he sings, he drinks, he is in all senses a lively
hearty; but underlying his intellectual and physical caper-cutting is
deep perception of the sea as a mighty force, a remorseless foe. The
matter seems trifling, yet the national character is in it.
A great number of words are used by sailors which are extremely
disconcerting to landsmen, as apparently sheer violations of familiar
sounds and the images they convey. To lash: ashore, this is to beat with
a whip, to thrash; at sea it means to make anything fast by securing it
with a rope. To foul: when a sailor speaks of one thing fouling another,
he does not intend to say that one thing soils or dirties another, but
that it has got mixed in a manner to make separation a difficulty. “Our
ship drove and fouled a vessel astern.” A line is foul when it is
twisted, when it jams in a block. “Seize” is to attach: it does not
mean, “to grasp.” “Seizing” is the line or lanyard or small stuff by
which anything is made fast. “Whip:” this word naturally conveys the
idea of the implement for flogging, for driving; in reality, it
signifies a line rove through a single block. “Whip it up!” hoist it up
by means of the tackle called a whip. “Get it whipped!” get it hoisted
by a whip. “Sweep” looks like a fellow who cleans a chimney; at sea it
is a long oar. “Board” is not a plank, but the distance measured by a
ship or vessel sailing on either tack, and beating against the wind
before she puts her helm down for the next “ratch.” “Guy” has nothing to
do with the fifth of November, nor with a person absurdly dressed, but
is a rope used for steadying a boom. “Ribands” are pieces of timber
nailed outside the ribs of a wooden ship. “Ear-rings” are ropes for
reefing or for securing the upper corners of a sail to the yard-arms.
The bewilderment increases when Jack goes to zoology for terms. “Fox” is
a lashing made by twisting rope-yarns together. “Spanish fox” is a
single yarn untwisted and “laid up” the contrary way. “Monkey” is a
heavy weight of iron used in shipbuilding for driving in long bolts.
“Cat” is a tackle used for hoisting up the anchor. “Mouse” or “mousing”
was formerly a ball of yarns fitted to the collars of stays. “To mouse”
is to put turns of rope-yarn round the hook of a block to prevent it
from slipping. “Spider” is an iron outrigger. “Lizard” is a piece of
rope with a “thimble” spliced into it. “Whelps” are pieces of wood or
iron bolted on the main-piece of a windlass, or on a winch. “Leech”[36]
is the side-edge of a sail. “Sheepshank” is the name given to a manner
of shortening a rope by hitches over a bight of its own part.
Footnote 36:
Sometimes spelt “leach,” and perhaps correctly. “To leach” formerly
signified to “cut up.” In a sense the “leach,” or “leech,” may be
taken as meaning the cut sides of the sail. Leach also meant “hard
work.”
Of such terms as these, how is the etymology to be come at? The name of
the animal might have been suggested in a few cases, as in “lizard,”
perhaps, by some dim or fanciful resemblance to it in the object that
wanted a title. But “monkey,” “fox,” “cat,” and other such appellations,
must have an origin referable to any other cause than that of their
likeness to the creatures they are called after. It is possible that
these names may be corruptions from Saxon and other terms expressive of
totally different meanings. It will be supposed that “Spanish fox” comes
from the Spaniards’ habit of using “foxes” formed of single yarns. We
have, for example, “Spanish windlass,” as we have “French fake,” “French
sennit,” etc. The derivatives of some words are suggested by their
sounds. “Bowse,” pronounced “Bowce,” is a familiar call at sea. “Bowse
it taut, lads!” “Take and bowse upon those halliards!” The men _pull
off_ upon the rope and bow it by their action. It is therefore
conceivable that “bowse” may have come from “bow,” “bows.”[37] “Dowse,”
pronounced “dowce,” signifies to lower, to haul down suddenly. Also to
extinguish, as “dowse the glim,” “put out the light.” The French word
“_douce_” is probably the godfather here. But “rouse,” pronounced
“rouce”? “Rouse it aft, boys!” It means, to drag smartly. Does it really
signify what it looks to express—to “rouse up” the object that is to be
handled? It is wonderful to note how, on the whole, the language of the
sea has preserved its substance and sentiment through the many
generations of seafarers down to the present period of iron plates and
steel masts, of the propeller and the steam engine. The reason is that,
great as has been the apparent change wrought in the body and fabric of
ships since the days of the _Great Harry_ of the sixteenth century, and
the _Royal George_ of the eighteenth century, the nomenclature of remote
times still perfectly answers to a mass of nautical essentials, more
especially as regards the masts, yards, rigging, and sails of a vessel.
And another reason lies in the strong conservative spirit of the sailor.
There was a loud outcry when the Admiralty many years ago condemned the
term “larboard,” and ordered the word “port” to be substituted. The name
was not to be abandoned without a violent struggle, and many throes of
prejudice, on the part of the old salts. What was good enough for
Hawkins, Duncan, Howe, Rodney, Nelson, was surely good enough for their
successors.
Footnote 37:
Old dictionaries give “to bowse” as meaning “to drink hard.” The
correct etymology might lie in this direction.