down and call the captain while I say a few words of prayer."
The hand who aroused the commander told him that they were too near the
nether regions. The captain rushed on deck, and in a nervous tone asked
what was the matter.
"The matter?" responded the officer, "_there_ is what's the matter.
Look at them, and if you are not satisfied that we're as near hell as
ever we will be until we get into it, I am."
The captain was agitated and tremulously stuttered:
"Why it's the baker! How piteously he pleads to be rescued, but we can
do nothing for him."
The day, hour and minute of the appearance were entered in the
log-book, and when the vessel arrived home, the tale was told and
paraphrased in a way that attracted national attention. The comparing
of notes disclosed that the entry in the log-book corresponded
chronologically with the date and time of the baker's death.
Contemporary with this traditional gentleman was a well known
shipowner, who was notoriously mean and wicked towards the sailors who
manned his ships. Prayers of a highly peculiar character were
continuously made that he should be transported to the same region of
warmth as the Baker. Of course all shipowners are relegated to these
parts when they do anything to excite the anger of Jack. But the owner
of whom I am writing had put himself beyond all forgiveness; he was an
unspeakable wretch who would stoop to the most revolting methods of
sensuality. The sanctity of homes was invaded by the fiend who carried
on a double game of starving his men and destroying all that was dear
to them. The curses that were continuously poured forth upon him from
all parts of the world cannot be spoken; they may only be imagined.
Ultimately he died amid a storm of rejoicing, and when the hearse came
to take him to the graveyard the horses are said to have refused to
carry the body. It was no sooner placed in the hearse than they went
wild and smashed the conveyance; other horses were brought up, but they
were equally obdurate and violent, and it became necessary to employ
men to carry the coffin, but only the lowest roughs could be found for
the service. The community, especially the seafaring part of it, were
convinced that his wickedness had been so great that even the devil
refused to have anything to do with him in a respectable country. He
was forthwith passed on to Stromboli to assist the Baker in his arduous
task of keeping the fires going, and for the purpose of confirming the
sailors' belief in the law of retribution. This traditional person was
a butcher--if it be safe or lawful to use such a phrase as "tradition"
in connection with one of the mariner's solemn planks of faith. He left
a large fortune behind, which has been a curse to his descendants, and
it would have been a great disappointment to the contemporary seamen if
it hadn't, as much of their time was used in the imprecation of ghastly
forms of punishment and in imagining modes of disposing of what they
vehemently avowed was ill-gotten wealth.
In my youthful days I listened to these tales and drank them in with
juvenile credulity. How often have boys remained on deck during their
watch below to get a glimpse of these personalities, and sometimes I
imagined I could see all that others had told me they had seen.
Incidents of this kind varied the monotony of a long passage, as the
talk about it went on until some other thing equally sensational
developed. To make any attempt at ridiculing the reality of such things
was to offer a gross insult to the seamen's susceptibilities.
To say that shipowning, even in the early part or middle of the last
century, was synonymous with a system of heartless starvation would be
too sweeping an assertion to make. There always have been men who
strove to act generously towards the people serving in their vessels,
though these, I am persuaded, were in the minority, and it is to the
credit of that minority that they had to struggle against precedent,
example, and it may be the habitual conviction that it was part of the
sailor's business to take whatever food was put aboard for him. Running
short of provisions was to them only an incident natural to the
sailor's calling. This view had been handed down by successive
generations of avaricious stoats, not the least prominent and
contemptible of whom was Elizabeth, with her chilly heart, at one time
receiving from Drake the spoils of his voyage in the _Pelican_; at
another walking through the parks publicly with him, and listening with
eager fascination to his stories of "amazing adventure," adventures
that some of her Catholic subjects maintained to be "shocking piracy."
We all remember the story of his sailing off with bullion from Tarapaca
worth half a million ducats; also of the chase and capture of the
_Cacafuego_, which had aboard the whole of the produce of the Lima
mines for the season, consisting of silver, gold, emeralds and rubies.
The hanging of Mr Doughty Philips, the spy, was talked of; the cutting
off from the Church of God for cowardice of the chaplain, Mr Fletcher,
and the chaining of his leg to a ringbolt in the deck until he repented
of his sin. And she is so much interested in all these things that a
royal banquet is held aboard the _Pelican_. Her Majesty attends and
knights Drake. Mendoza demands for his master the stolen treasure.
Leicester wants to share it with his friends; but Elizabeth puts her
foot down and maintains it to be a legal capture which must be held.
She conceives this to be a part of the game. Subsequent events cause
Drake to plead with her to grant supplies, and she rebukes him for his
extravagance. The Armada is close at our shores. Lord Howard reminds
her that food is exhausted and that her sailors are having to catch
fish to make up their mess, and yet they are praying for the quick
arrival of the enemy. Their commander says English sailors will do what
they can to vanquish the invaders, but they cannot fight with famine.
"Awake, Madam," writes the poor distracted Lord admiral; "awake, for
the love of Christ, and realize the danger that confronts the nation."
He managed this time to squeeze one month's rations out of her, but
when asked if any more should be provided, this lovely virgin monarch
replied peremptorily, "No!" And when the great Armada came in sight
there was but two days' food remaining. "Let tyrants fear," she says;
"I have always so behaved myself that under God I have placed my
chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my
subjects"!! She knows that she has the body of a weak and feeble woman,
but she is assured she has the heart of a king, and rather than any
dishonour should grow by her, "I myself will take up arms and be your
general, judge and rewarder of all your virtues." That is all very
pretty, and sounds pre-Napoleonic, but we cannot all swallow sweet,
cantish little nothings in place of food and wages. Better would it
have been had Elizabeth shown some practical evidence of "devotion" to
her "people" by granting supplies and food to her starving sailors who
fought and won in the most deadly naval encounter that the world has
ever known. Their stomachs were empty but their hearts were big, though
many of them went under with sickness brought on by famine, while she
held tight that seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds which Drake
brought home for her. It is amazing that a historian should be found to
regard that speech of hers as being "free from affectation." But one
historian not only says this, he adds: "She was the protector of her
country, and the prudent executor of its will." She was nothing of the
sort; on the contrary, she was a cold, greedy, heartless termagant, who
risked the loss of her country by her parsimony, and it was only saved
by the dauntless courage of the famishing seamen. I think that is one
of the most gruesome and humiliating pieces of British history: for the
monarch of a great empire to exhibit herself in the light of a sailor's
boarding-housekeeper; squeezing his life's blood out, and herself
handing down to posterity a character for meanness that would put to
the blush the owner of a collier brig whose main idea of economy may be
starving his crew. When I hear her spoken of as the Good Queen Bess, I
think of how she ordered the Puritan lawyer, John Stubbs, and the
printer of his pamphlet to be led to the scaffold and have their right
hands driven off by the wrist with a butcher's knife and mallet, and
how in God's name she commits many other unspeakable acts of
devilishness, the most dastardly of which was her refusal to provide
food for the thousands of brave men who saved her and her kingdom. What
a contrast between this woman and the great Queen Victoria, whose long
career is free from a single act of cruelty, and whose whole life teems
with good deeds, while Elizabeth's reeks with an odour so bad that no
student of history can peruse the account without wondering why she was
allowed to live; for truly she was as bad a shrew as ever wore a skirt!
IX
MISCELLANEOUS
Fifty or sixty years ago the N.E. coast ports were all tidal; no
harbours of refuge; no twenty-four feet on any of the bars at low water
as there is now; no piers or breakwaters projecting as they do to-day
far into the German Ocean. It therefore frequently happened that during
neap tides there was not sufficient water over the bars for even the
shallowest drafted vessels. In that case, if the weather was fine,
i.e., wind off the land, and smooth water, the vessels were taken
outside, and the balance of their cargoes sent to them by a peculiar
type of lighter known in that part of England by the name of keels.
These craft were skilfully managed by two men called keelmen, who
worked them up and down the stream with the tide and manipulated them
with long oars. One of these lighters was being rushed out of the river
by a heavy westerly wind and a current of abnormal velocity. The two
men were doing their best to control their little vessel towards its
destination, when the skipper spontaneously observed that they were
going to drift out to sea unless aid came to them, or some means of
stopping her progress were not adopted. He naturally bethought himself
of the anchor, and shouted out to his mate:
"By gox, Jimmy, w'or gan to drift into the German Ocean! Let go the
b--y anchor!"
The mate shouted back:
"What the devil's the use of lettin' go the anchor when there's ne
chain fast te'ed?"
"Never mind a d--n about that," shouted the skipper at the top of his
voice and with feverish excitement. "Chuck the b--y thing ower and
trust to Providence for'd hangin' her. We better de that, ye' fool as
drive to Norraway or some other place o' worship!"
The anchor was thrown over, but Providence did not yield to Geordie's
persuasive ingenuity, thereupon his faith gave way and he switched his
mind and utterance on to a singular form of petition to "Had her, Lord,
had her" (hold her). History tells us that Geordie believed this latter
appeal to have been answered, as it fell calm, and the sea became
still.
Some sailors were rowing off to their vessel in a jolly-boat on the
same occasion, and when the wind went down a dense fog came on, with
the result that they missed their ship. They were all night in the fog,
and in the morning as there was no indication of it clearing up they
were filled with anxiety. At last one of their number said there was
nothing else for it but to pray, and called upon a companion to do so,
but he said that he had never prayed in his life.
"I don't know what to ask."
"Divvent ask," promptly replied his shipmate, "until you've made all
kinds of promises"; whereupon all kinds of specific pledges of an
extraordinary character were prompted, and the praying commenced and
was continued with great facility and becoming earnestness, when all at
once the sailor who had suggested prayer called out:
"Stop, stop! Don't commit yourself too far. I think I see the land,"
and the man who was in the act of praying opened his eyes, beheld the
land himself, and called out:
"Why the devil didn't you tell me sooner, before I made all them
promises?"
"I cautioned you as soon as I saw it myself," said his friend; "why
didn't you keep your own eyes open?"
"Eyes open, d'ye say? How d'ye think a man can pray with his eyes open,
you fool?"
* * * * * *
These men belonged to an old-fashioned race, sailed in old-fashioned
ships, at a time when the old-fashioned winters, as they are sometimes
called, were a terror to underwriters, owners and seamen alike; for the
easterly gales always left in their wake along the whole seaboard
relics of devastation. Wrecks used to be strewn all over the coast, and
sombre tokens of bereavement were everywhere visible. When the White
Sea, Baltic and St Lawrence were closed to navigation, the class of
vessels that were employed in these trades were either sent to the Bay
of Biscay or the coast of Portugal with coal in order that they might
bring from that country to this cork or salt, or both; and from the
French ports in the Bay of Biscay cargoes of sugar were frequently
obtained as return cargo; but the coal freights were generally so good
at that time that vessels could be brought back in ballast and _then_
leave a big profit.
Owners, however, always aimed at getting employment over the winter
months in the coasting trade to France or London, and when freights
were depressed beyond paying point they did not hesitate to lay them up
until the White Sea and Baltic season came round again. It frequently
happened that this course had to be adopted, and the ports all along
the coast became blocked with idle tonnage, and the little towns
overcrowded with seamen, who, as a rule, stuck to their ships and did
odd jobs, without pay, until the time came for them to be again engaged
in active service. It was customary for the captain and mate to
specially look after the vessels when laid up so that no harm came to
them, and they were expected to do so without remuneration. The honour
and pride in those earlier days of having command or being mate of even
a leaky old craft was very pronounced. Each brig, brigantine, or
schooner, carried three or four apprentices. These lads were allowed
10s. per week, which was called board money. The owners, it may be
presumed, found it cheaper to make this arrangement rather than have
cooking aboard while the vessel was laid up; but though an allowance
was made for food, it was a standing instruction that at least two out
of the four boys should sleep aboard the ship, and as soon as she was
put into commission none but the oldest apprentice could have the
privilege of sleeping ashore. This personage, by the way, was looked up
to as a kind of Mogul even by his commander, but especially by the
younger apprentices. He claimed the right indeed to chastise a wayward
youth with the rope's end, and when very bad offences occurred, a
double punishment was inflicted by keeping the little delinquent on
deck in the cold at night, until his superior thought fit to pardon
him. On the other hand, I have seen a mate soundly thrashed by this
same person for striking a young boy during the process of a voyage.
Such were the peculiar ethics of this class of seamen that, while they
conceived it to be their duty to uphold the dignity of discipline when
they were in supreme control of the little colony of apprentices during
the time the vessel was laid up in port, they would not brook undue
physical interference with their co-apprentices on the part of the
chief officer when in active commission. Sometimes the stay in port
would last three months. The master and mate were in attendance every
day, and in order that their berths might be retained, the sailors came
aboard on fine days, repaired sails, running gear, standing rigging,
scraped and tarred the holds out, scraped masts, painted yards,
scrubbed bottom, tarred and blackleaded it, and, in fact, when the time
came to fit out for the spring voyage to the Baltic, the little vessels
looked as trim and as neat as it was possible to make them, and there
was little left to do except bend sails and take stores aboard.
[Illustration: A NORTHUMBERLAND HARBOUR.]
Nor were the apprentices allowed to be idle. Each day they had to wash
decks when the tide was up, and although it may seem a very small
matter to refer to, it is worthy of note that the drawing of water by
the youngest boy was the occasion of much interest to the onlookers,
who always congregated in large numbers on the quays when anything of
this sort was being done. The bucket which supplied the water was
stropped with rope so that it did not injure the side of the vessel;
great care was observed that no harm came to the planking, no matter
how old the craft might be. The boy was expected to draw with such
rapidity that the person who was throwing the water along the deck
should not have to wait. It was considered quite an art to throw the
water properly, and also to supply it, and it taxed both the strength
and the deftness of the youngster; many a wigging he would get in the
process of training even in this small matter.
The two youngest boys took week and week about in keeping the
forecastle clean. It was insisted that the floor should be spotless.
This was enforced by the oldest apprentice, and he had to account to
the master if it were not as he wished it to be. They of course
assisted the men during the period of inactivity, but on those days
when no work was being done by the sailors it was usual for the mate to
give them so many _nettles_ to plait: that is, five or seven rope yarns
plaited into seizings for _bends_ in hawsers, mooring chains, and
ropes. Sometimes the mate was a person of artistic taste, and in that
case they would be given bucket strops or man ropes to _graft_, or
turkheads and _grafting_ to work on to some deck arrangement or
yardarm, and bunt gaskets to work with marline. Indeed, the course of
training was so systematic and so perfect that these young fellows long
before their time had expired could do anything that a sailor might be
called upon to do. To be taunted with laziness was a grievous
indictment. The average lad of that period would do himself physical
injury in the effort to avoid such a stigma. They prided themselves on
being the pupils and under-studies of the finest sailors in the world;
and so they were. When the time came round for the spring fleet to fit
out, there was great commotion amongst the little community. The crews
emulated each other in the effort to make their vessels look smart, and
the distinction of being first ready for sea claimed a prominent share
of their ambition. They knew also that they would be subjected to the
stern criticism of the female population, the limitations of which
would not necessarily be confined to wives and sweethearts, or even
relations.
Neither men nor women found companionship in books. If the women read
anything, it was what the newspapers said about shipping movements, and
it is safe to say very few concerned themselves about that. So their
mental energy found an outlet in the gossip of things nautical. They
knew by instinct almost when a vessel was thoroughly cared for, and
although they might not be able to call things by their proper names,
they never liked their husbands or sweethearts to have any hand in, or
association with, an untidy vessel. Hence, to secure approval from
their women critics, these sailor men and apprentice lads would strain
every faculty to have sails stowed in a cloth, that is, stowed so that
not a wrinkle could be seen anywhere. The youngest apprentice furled
the royals and staysails, two other boys the topgallant sails, and all
the crew, except the master, the larger square sails. The yards were
squared by the braces. The lower yards were made to correspond with the
topsail yards by means of the lifts, every rope was hauled taut, and
every coil round the belaying pin was made strictly uniform. Every end
of a rope had to have what is called a cross-whipping to prevent the
end from becoming a tassel. A well-worn, though authentic story, which
bears on this, did service many times in those days of nautical
rectitude. A gentleman was brought from another district to our little
port to serve as chief mate aboard a hitherto well-kept brig, and his
chief characteristic was in neglecting to conform to one of the great
essential nautical principles by allowing everything to get into
disorder; warps and rope ends were allowed to go without whippings
until it became an eyesore and a subject of strong condemnation. His
wife, who did not conform to the orthodox faith, began to draw
comparisons, and vigorously proclaimed that her husband's taste was a
thing to be emulated. "Look," said this incensed lady, "at the fringes
and tassels. Do they not look better than having things tied up like
whipcords?" But her aesthetic opinions did not prevent her husband's
services being dispensed with.
I have said that some of these small vessels were in the St Lawrence
trade carrying timber from Quebec, and grain or timber from Montreal.
They usually went out in ballast in order to make two voyages during
the season, and there were very few that did not succeed in doing it,
provided they kept free from accident. The spring voyage was fraught
with great danger owing to large fields of ice and icebergs drifting
out of the St Lawrence across the Banks of Newfoundland. Sometimes the
spring fleet would be fast for days, and many of them got badly damaged
in the effort to force a channel through the ice-field, while some got
so badly crushed and damaged that they foundered. That was a real
danger at the beginning of the season, but it did not compare with the
danger of encountering the terrific westerly hurricanes that swept over
the Atlantic in the fall of the year. We speak sympathetically about
the six and seven thousand ton steamers that tramp across during the
winter months at the present time, and yet it is less than fifty years
since the whole of that trade was done by tiny brigs and barques who
leaked and worked like Russian prams, but were handled with an ability
that saved both them and their crews many times from destruction. Every
autumn some of them became waterlogged, and not a few were never heard
of after leaving the port of loading. The owner of an old brig which I
knew very well was induced by the high rate of freights from Montreal
to fix her to load a cargo of heavy grain from that port. Some of the
owner's friends expostulated with him on the danger of sending so old
and small a vessel to the St Lawrence so late in the season. "Old?"
said the owner, "hasn't she had new decks? And you call her small! What
about Drake's ships that he sailed to the Pacific Ocean and all over
India with? Why, the largest wasn't half the size of mine! No,
gentlemen, ships were built to go to sea, not to lie and rot at the
quays." So to sea she went, and arrived at Montreal none too soon to
assure the completion of her loading and sailing before the winter set
in. She was, however, quickly loaded, and sailed on her homeward
voyage. A quick run was made to Cape Breton, and thence through scores
of "Codbangers" right away to the edge of the Banks of Newfoundland.
Anchors, boats, hatches and everything else were made secure in
anticipation of a wild passage. The studding-sail booms and other spars
or planks were lashed at each side of the hatchways in order to break
the weight or fire of the sea before it tumbled on to them. This was
the old-fashioned plan of protection, and I hope it is still practised.
I have often had recourse to it myself both in sailing vessels and
steamers. There was no Plimsoll mark in those days, and this
cockle-shell of a vessel was literally loaded down to the scuppers. A
westerly hurricane struck her just after crossing the Banks, and she
was run so long before it that to attempt to heave to meant certain
destruction.