THE MASTER'S DUTIES--_continued_.
While we have thus lightly run over such duties of the master of a
merchant ship as are imperatively demanded of him by his position, it
must not be lost sight of that there are many things that he should
be and know that, while not compulsory, are most necessary, and no
master who is really attached to his profession will neglect them. For
instance, the Board of Trade has a voluntary examination in "steam,"
which is based upon some of the most elementary facts connected with
running marine engines. A master may pass in steam or he may not, as he
pleases, and it is doubtful whether many owners are influenced in their
choice of a master to command one of their ships by the fact that his
certificate is endorsed "passed in steam." Yet it should be obvious to
all that for a master of a steamship, however small, to be ignorant of
at least the broad principles of marine engineering must be a terrible
defect. He should certainly be able, in the event of his engineers
dying or becoming incapacitated, of taking charge of the obedient
monsters below, and running his ship, if not to her destination, to
some port where the need could be supplied; and, in any case, he should
know well under what conditions those engines do their work, that he
may be the better able to appreciate his engineers' reports, and for
other reasons which need not be stated. Any lack of this knowledge on
the part of a steamship master is the more to be deprecated because he
has such splendid opportunities and such ample time for learning.
Another subject which is not compulsory, but which it is very necessary
that the shipmaster should have more than a nodding acquaintance with,
is ship construction. Studied in books, it looks formidable enough to
any one but a student of the subject and an excellent mathematician;
but a few visits to a shipbuilding yard intelligently made, and the
things seen there carefully noted, would be of inestimable service.
Allied to this is the vast subject of magnetism, which so intimately
concerns every shipmaster in these days of steel, when the compass,
poor thing, is hard put to it to remember the location of the
magnetic pole at all, so sorely is it beset by diverting influences
above, below, and around. But for a fair list of the things that all
shipmasters _should_ know and might, from their abundance of leisure,
in sailing ships especially, so pleasantly and easily acquire,
reference should be made to a book which I remember as a bantling, but
which has now grown to most portly proportions, "Wrinkles," by Squire
T. S. Lecky. Within the boards of this splendid book Mr. Lecky has
gathered a stupendous amount of information, which he imparts in the
most delightful manner. For many years he commanded one of Messrs.
Holt's steamships running between Liverpool and South America, so
that his practical knowledge is as extensive as need be, while his
theoretical learning is not only great, but sound. This book has been
the hobby of his life; and it may truly be said that any shipmaster
who will read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it will be perfectly
equipped for one of the most onerous of all professions if he only has
the power of putting his learning to practical use. I have never seen,
spoken to, or had a letter from Mr. Lecky in my life, so that what I
say is perfectly unbiassed by any personal consideration. Mr. Lecky is
a magnificent example of what the merchant shipmaster may make of his
opportunities for study, if he be so inclined.
There are also branches of study, such as the most fascinating one of
marine natural history, which can be pursued nowhere else so well as
at sea in a sailing ship. With a little aptitude for drawing, a camera
and a microscope, the shipmaster might not only pass his plenteous
spare time most pleasantly, but accumulate a store of the most valuable
material, whereon the savants ashore might exercise their stock of
wisdom. And the study of languages, too; how necessary for a man who,
if he speak but his own tongue, must of necessity be often severely
handicapped in the race with foreigners, who usually speak two or
three--to say nothing of the ease with which a man may be imposed upon
in a foreign port who is obliged to transact his business by the aid
of an interpreter. But the time is probably fast approaching when the
knowledge of one other language at least besides his own will be made
compulsory for the British shipmaster, so that I will say no more about
the matter here, except that, unless greater efforts are put forward
by sea-going youths in this most valuable direction, they will find
it harder than ever to compete with the constantly increasing numbers
of foreigners who are pressing into the afterguards of our Mercantile
Marine.
And now for the least pleasant portion of this section of my subject,
the question of drunkenness. For the reasons already quoted, this
vice is one to which the shipmaster is continually being tempted.
Being, when at sea, a law unto himself, he may, if he will, become a
steady tippler, gradually sinking lower and lower into the helpless
drunkard. If he have any tendency that way there is only one thing for
him to do--that is, become a total abstainer from intoxicants. Sad it
is to say, on the testimony of many such men, that such a virtuous
resolve should be often detrimental to a man's chances of doing his
business in foreign ports, where that business is only carried on over
drink. I know that by some good people ashore this statement will be
pooh-poohed; but it is nevertheless true, and the hindrance it puts in
the way of the teetotaller doing justice to himself and his employer
very real. Many a smart skipper has been thus ruined, having laid the
foundation of drunken habits in ports where the first questions and the
last to be put to him were--
"Well, cap'n, what are you going to have?" or, "What are you goin' to
stand?"
Again we may take comfort in the thought that sobriety is the rule
among shipmasters of to-day, and not the exception, as it once
was. I speak feelingly, having suffered many things at the hands of
drunken skippers. Vividly do I remember, on my last voyage as mate
on the first night in the Channel outward bound, my skipper saying
to me confidentially, "I always live on brandy while we're in the
Channel," and the sick feeling that I experienced at his remark. Let
me hasten to add that he was wrongly accusing himself, being at the
time half-seas-over, and exaggerating, as was his wont at such a
time. He certainly did drink, and very much more than was good for
him, but his tippling never gave or made any trouble. What made his
remark so terrible to me was that two voyages before I had been mate
of a brig with a man who, from the day that I joined her until the
day, nearly four months afterwards, when I refused to stay on board
any longer, never drew a sober breath. I may, perhaps, be excused for
dwelling a little upon the plain facts of this short sea-experience
of mine, which, in the words of Mr. Justice Day, who heard some of it
recapitulated and proved in the Court of Queen's Bench, "surpassed the
wildest flights of imagination." Sordid, certainly, yet not without a
certain romantic outcome.
The vessel, whose name I suppress, was the property of a hard-working
man in one of our northern sea-ports, who had toiled and saved until
he became her owner. At the time when I joined her as mate she had
been absent from her first port of departure in England for nearly two
years. During that period she had visited many ports, in each of which
the master had abandoned himself to drunkenness, spending recklessly
every penny upon which he could lay his hands, and ignoring all the
owner's complaining letters. Five different mates had been engaged,
had sickened of their position and had left. At last my turn came,
and, all unknowing what awaited me, I went on board. I found the poor
old vessel most shamefully neglected, the crew looking woe-begone and
disheartened, and the only officer, the second mate, firmly determined
to work no more. I took charge, and did what I could, going ashore
persistently for such instructions as I needed, but ever finding my
commander in a state of maudlin drunkenness. After a few days the
vessel was loaded, and made as ready for sea as her condition rendered
possible. I duly informed the master--who had never even seen the
vessel since I joined--of our readiness to proceed, but he was of
opinion that there was no hurry. So day after day slipped by for three
weeks, until the consignee of the cargo wired from New Brunswick,
protesting so vigorously, that the shipper took steps to expedite
our departure. He told the fuddled skipper that unless he went to
sea forthwith I should be ordered to leave without him, the shipper
taking all responsibility. This ultimatum aroused him sufficiently to
get him on board, and to sea we went. But he immediately sought his
berth, and continued his spirituous exercises, varied by attacks of
_delirium tremens_, while alone and unaided except by the weary crew, I
endeavoured to navigate the clumsy vessel down the Nova Scotian coast
in mid-winter. To add to my troubles, the chronometer was hopelessly
out of order, having been, I believe, tampered with by the mutinous
second mate.
How many hairbreadth escapes from destruction we had in that stormy
passage of three weeks I have no space to tell in detail; but at last
we obtained a pilot, who brought us safely into the harbour of St.
John, New Brunswick, in a night of inky blackness and drenching rain,
and there left us entangled amidst a motley crowd of coasters. Next day
we were extricated and laid by a wharf, when, to my astonishment, my
worthy commander appeared and went ashore, his first public appearance
since coming on board in Cape Breton. That night, when the vessel had
settled down upon the mud, by reason of the great fall of the tide,
so that her tops were nearly level with the wharf-edge, the skipper
returned and, avoiding the lighted gangway carefully placed for him,
walked over the unprotected side of the wharf and fell fifty feet. He
passed between the vessel's side and the piles of the wharf without
touching, and entered the mud feet first with a force that buried him
to his arm-pits. His cries aroused us, and we rescued him, actually
unhurt, but nearly sober. Again he disappeared from our midst, having
now a good excuse--shock to the system! Having discharged the cargo,
and taken in ballast according to instructions from the consignee, I
again danced attendance upon him at his hotel until he at last decided
to make a move, and came on board attended by a most finished rascal of
a longshoreman, who had apparently been his drinking crony all the time
he had been ashore, and who was now, save the mark, coming with us to
our next port to stow the cargo of lumber we were to take home.
We towed across the Bay of Fundy to Parrsboro' in charge of a pilot,
the skipper and his friend both shut in the skipper's state-room below,
drinking. When we arrived, I was in serious difficulty as to a berth,
because the master was so drunk I could get no instructions. But after
a while I succeeded in finding a berth, where we lay quietly all night.
In the morning early my skipper sent for a sleigh and again departed to
an hotel, where he remained until the vessel was loaded. I frequently
saw him in bed, and protested with all my power against the shameful
way in which the quondam stevedore was stowing the cargo; but all my
remonstrances were unheeded. At last the cargo was complete, including
a deck-load six feet high, and the vessel was so unstable ("crank," as
we call it) that she would hardly stand up at the wharf.
Then I sought the skipper for a final interview, telling him that,
having regard to the condition of the ship, his own continued
drunkenness, and to the fact that I was the only officer on board (the
second mate having obtained his discharge in St. John), I wanted to
leave the ship. I felt that it would only be tempting fate to undertake
a North Atlantic passage in mid-winter in such a vessel under such
circumstances. Moreover, I warned him that in my estimation he did not
intend that the vessel should reach home, hoping by shipwreck to wipe
out the effects of his two years' drunkenness and dishonesty. Of course
he laughed at me and bade me go to hell. I then took the only course
open to me there--I left the ship, writing a letter to the owner, in
which I detailed matters. Two days afterwards a tug-boat was engaged,
and the brig was towed back to St. John, where I heard that another
fortnight's spree was consummated. Another mate was engaged, and she
sailed for home. Four days after, in a gale, with frost, fog, and snow,
she was run ashore on the coast of Maine, becoming a total wreck, and
destroying four of her crew, not, of course, including the skipper.
Yet this man had the effrontery to sue the owner upon his return to
England for his wages for the whole voyage. Not only so, but he would
certainly have won his case but that the owner succeeded in discovering
me. My evidence was final, supported as it was by the entries in the
log-book, which was, unfortunately for the skipper, saved from the
wreck.
Before closing my remarks upon the master, which, lengthy as they are,
only skirt the subject, I would like to pay a well-deserved tribute to
that splendid body of master-mariners commanding the great Mercantile
Marine of our North-American colonies. Many, nay, most of them, have
risen to command their ships in the teeth of great disabilities and
drawbacks. They have little polish, but a great deal of capacity, for
the "Blue-nose," as the British North-American seaman is called by all
other English-speaking mariners, is a born seaman as well as a born
shipbuilder. In only one other part of the world, viz. Scandinavia, is
it possible to find men who are capable of building a ship, farming
and timber-felling between whiles, then, when the hull is finished,
rigging her and loading her with their own produce, and sailing her to
any part of the world. These qualities seem indigenous to the soil of
the coast of British North America and the north-eastern shores of
the United States. But it is to be noted that the final extinction of
this splendid industry is near at hand. Iron and steel and steam have
compelled those sturdy seamen of the north to give up their beloved
and stately wooden ships, all but a few that are holding on almost
despairingly against the steadily-rising tide.
Yet, when all has been said for the "Blue-nose" master that ought to be
said, it must not be forgotten that his reputation for humane dealing
with his crews is far worse than that of the Yankee. He has learned the
American lesson of how to enforce discipline without law--in defiance
of law, in fact--and learned it so well that any old sailor will tell
you that a "Blue-nose" is the hardest of all ships to sail in. Perhaps
this is hardly to be wondered at when the motley character of the crews
they are obliged to carry is remembered, their own spare population
only sufficing to supply them with officers. That their high courage
and stern resolution to be master in fact as well as name often leads
them into deplorable excesses of cruelty cannot be denied truthfully.
And yet it may be doubted whether a good seaman would not rather sail
in a ship under stern discipline, even if it were enforced by an
occasional broken head, than be one of a crew who were permitted to act
and speak as their fancy listed, to the misery of all on board, as is
undoubtedly the case in so many of our British ships.