PECULIAR AND UNEDUCATED
The average seaman of the middle of the nineteenth century,
like his predecessor, was in many respects a cruel animal.
To appearance he was void of every human feeling, and yet
behind all the rugged savagery there was a big and generous
heart. The fact is, this apparent or real callousness was
the result of a system, pernicious in its influence, that
caused the successive generations of seafaring men to swell
with vanity if they could but acquire the reputation of
being desperadoes; and this ambition was not an exclusive
possession of those whose education had been deplorably
neglected. It was proudly shared by some of the best
educated men in the service. I do not wish it to be
supposed, however, that many of them had more than a very
ordinary elementary education; but be that as it may, they
got along uncommonly well with the little they had. Mr.
Forster's Educational Bill of 1870, together with Wesleyan
Methodism, have done much to nullify that cultivation of
ignorance, once the peculiar province of the squire and the
parson. Amongst other influences, Board Schools have
revolutionised (especially in the villages and seaport
towns) a condition that was bordering on heathenism, and no
class of workmen has benefited more than seamen by the
propaganda which was established by that good Quaker who
spent his best years in hard effort to make it possible that
every English child, no matter how poor, should have an
education.
At the time of the passing of the Education Act there were
thousands of British lads who were absolutely illiterate
(this does not apply so much to Scottish boys); and there
were hundreds of master-mariners who could neither read nor
write, and who had a genuine contempt for those who could.
They held the notion that learning, as they called it,
always carried with it nautical ignorance and general
deterioration; and in some instances the old salts' opinions
seemed amply borne out by palpable blunders in practical
seamanship which were not uncommonly made when the theoretic
seaman or navigator was at work. These shortcomings of the
"learned" were never forgotten or forgiven by the practical
though illiterate seamen.
Until well into the 'fifties the north-east coast collier
brigs and schooners were usually commanded by this type of
illiterates, and innumerable stories might be told of their
strange methods and grotesque beliefs. The following is a
fair example. The London trade once became congested with
tonnage, and a demand sprang up for Holland, whereupon a
well-known brig was chartered for Rotterdam. She had been so
long employed running along the coast with the land aboard
that the charts became entirely neglected. When the time
came to say farewell there was more than ordinary affection
displayed by the relatives of the crew whose destiny it was
to penetrate what they conceived to be the mysteries of an
unexplored East. There were not a few females who regarded
the undertaking as eminently heroic. With characteristic
carelessness the trim craft was rollicked along the
Yorkshire coast until abreast of Flamborough Head, when it
became necessary to take a departure and shape a course for
Rotterdam. She scampered along at the rate of six to seven
knots an hour amid much anxiety among the crew, for a
growing terror had possessed the captain and his mate as
they neared the unknown dangers that were ahead of them. The
captain went below and had begun to unroll the chart which
indicated the approaches to his destination, when he became
horrorstruck, and rushing up the cabin stairs called out,
"All hands on deck! Hard, a port!" The mate excitedly asked,
"What's the matter?" "The matter?" said the infuriated and
panic-stricken skipper, "Why the b----y rats have eaten
Holland! There is nee Rotterdam for us, mister, _this_
voyage." But in spite of a misfortune which seemed serious,
the mate prevailed upon this distinguished person to allow
_him_ to have a share in the navigation, with the result
that the vessel reached the haven to which she was bound
without any mishap whatever.
It was not unusual for those old-time brigs, when bound to
the North in ballast, to be blown off the land by strong
westerly gales, and these occasions were dreaded by the
coasting commander whose geographical knowledge was so
limited that when he found himself drifting into the German
Ocean beyond the sight of land, his resources became too
heavily taxed, and perplexity prevailed. It was on one of
those occasions that a skipper, after many days of
boisterous drifting, remarked to his mate, "I wish our wives
knew where we are this terrible night!"
"Yes," replied the shrewd officer, with comic candour; "and
I wish to heaven we knew where we are ourselves!"
Such was the almost opaque ignorance, in spite of which a
very large carrying trade was successfully kept going for
generations.
The writing of the old-time skipper was so atrocious that it
brought much bad language into the world. One gentleman used
to say that his captain's letters used to go all over the
country before they fell into his hands, and when they did,
they were covered over with "try here" and "try there."
Their manners, too, were aboriginal; and they spoke with an
accent which was terrible. They rarely expressed themselves
in a way that would indicate excessive purity of character.
They thought it beneath the dignity of a man to be of any
other profession than that of a sailor. They disdained
showing soft emotion, and if they shook hands it was done in
an apologetic way. The gospel of pity did not enter into
their creed. Learning, as they called it, was a bewilderment
to them; and yet some of those eccentric, half-savage beings
could be entrusted with valuable property, and the
negotiation of business involving most intricate handling.
Sometimes in the settlement of knotty questions they used
their own peculiar persuasiveness, and if that was not
convincing, they indicated the possibility of physical
force--which was usually effectual, especially with
Levantines. Here is an instance: one of the latter plethoric
gentlemen, with an air of aggrieved virtue, accused a
captain of unreasonableness in asking him to pay up some
cash which was "obviously an overcharge." The skipper in his
rugged way demanded the money and the clearance of his
vessel. The gentlemen who at this time inhabited the banks
of the Danube could not be made to part with money without
some strong reasons for doing so. The Titanic and renowned
captain, having exhausted a vocabulary that was awful to
listen to, proceeded to lock the office door on the inside.
That having been satisfactorily done, he proceeded to unrobe
himself of an article of apparel; which movement, under
certain conditions, is always suggestive of coming trouble.
The quick brain of the Levantine gentleman saw in the
bellicose attitude assumed possibilities of great bodily
harm and suffering to himself; on which he became effusively
apologetic, and declaimed with vigorous gesticulation
against the carelessness of his "account clerk who had
committed a glaring error, such as justified his immediate
dismissal!" That stalwart hero of many rights had not
appealed in vain. He got his money and his clearance, and
made a well-chosen and impressive little speech on the
wisdom of honest dealing. His convert for the time being
became much affected, declaring that he had never met with a
gentleman whose words had made such a strange impression on
him!
This then was the kind of creature who wrought into its
present shapes and aspects England's Mercantile Marine. In
carrying out his destiny he lashed about him with something
of the elemental aimlessness of his mother the sea. The next
chapter will show how the captain of to-day grew up and,
literally, got licked into his present form at the rough and
cruel hands of the old-time skipper.