THE GOOD OR BAD TEMPER OF MEN-OF-WAR’S MEN, IN A GREAT DEGREE,
ATTRIBUTABLE TO THEIR PARTICULAR STATIONS AND DUTIES ABOARD SHIP.
Quoin, the quarter-gunner, was the representative of a class on board
the Neversink, altogether too remarkable to be left astern, without
further notice, in the rapid wake of these chapters.
As has been seen, Quoin was full of unaccountable whimsies; he was,
withal, a very cross, bitter, ill-natured, inflammable old man. So,
too, were all the members of the gunner’s gang; including the two
gunner’s mates, and all the quarter-gunners. Every one of them had the
same dark brown complexion; all their faces looked like smoked hams.
They were continually grumbling and growling about the batteries;
running in and out among the guns; driving the sailors away from them;
and cursing and swearing as if all their conscience had been
powder-singed, and made callous, by their calling. Indeed they were a
most unpleasant set of men; especially Priming, the nasal-voiced
gunner’s mate, with the hare-lip; and Cylinder, his stuttering
coadjutor, with the clubbed foot. But you will always observe, that the
gunner’s gang of every man-of-war are invariably ill-tempered, ugly
featured, and quarrelsome. Once when I visited an English
line-of-battle ship, the gunner’s gang were fore and aft, polishing up
the batteries, which, according to the Admiral’s fancy, had been
painted white as snow. Fidgeting round the great thirty-two-pounders,
and making stinging remarks at the sailors and each other, they
reminded one of a swarm of black wasps, buzzing about rows of white
headstones in a church-yard.
Now, there can be little doubt, that their being so much among the guns
is the very thing that makes a gunner’s gang so cross and quarrelsome.
Indeed, this was once proved to the satisfaction of our whole company
of main-top-men. A fine top-mate of ours, a most merry and
companionable fellow, chanced to be promoted to a quarter-gunner’s
berth. A few days afterward, some of us main-top-men, his old comrades,
went to pay him a visit, while he was going his regular rounds through
the division of guns allotted to his care. But instead of greeting us
with his usual heartiness, and cracking his pleasant jokes, to our
amazement, he did little else but scowl; and at last, when we rallied
him upon his ill-temper, he seized a long black rammer from overhead,
and drove us on deck; threatening to report us, if we ever dared to be
familiar with him again.
My top-mates thought that this remarkable metamorphose was the effect
produced upon a weak, vain character suddenly elevated from the level
of a mere seaman to the dignified position of a _petty officer_. But
though, in similar cases, I had seen such effects produced upon some of
the crew; yet, in the present instance, I knew better than that;—it was
solely brought about by his consorting with with those villainous,
irritable, ill-tempered cannon; more especially from his being subject
to the orders of those deformed blunderbusses, Priming and Cylinder.
The truth seems to be, indeed, that all people should be very careful
in selecting their callings and vocations; very careful in seeing to
it, that they surround themselves by good-humoured, pleasant-looking
objects; and agreeable, temper-soothing sounds. Many an angelic
disposition has had its even edge turned, and hacked like a saw; and
many a sweet draught of piety has soured on the heart from people’s
choosing ill-natured employments, and omitting to gather round them
good-natured landscapes. Gardeners are almost always pleasant, affable
people to converse with; but beware of quarter-gunners, keepers of
arsenals, and lonely light-house men.
It would be advisable for any man, who from an unlucky choice of a
profession, which it is too late to change for another, should find his
temper souring, to endeavour to counteract that misfortune, by filling
his private chamber with amiable, pleasurable sights and sounds. In
summer time, an Aeolian harp can be placed in your window at a very
trifling expense; a conch-shell might stand on your mantel, to be taken
up and held to the ear, that you may be soothed by its continual
lulling sound, when you feel the blue fit stealing over you. For
sights, a gay-painted punch-bowl, or Dutch tankard—never mind about
filling it—might be recommended. It should be placed on a bracket in
the pier. Nor is an old-fashioned silver ladle, nor a chased
dinner-castor, nor a fine portly demijohn, nor anything, indeed, that
savors of eating and drinking, bad to drive off the spleen. But perhaps
the best of all is a shelf of merrily-bound books, containing comedies,
farces, songs, and humorous novels. You need never open them; only have
the titles in plain sight. For this purpose, Peregrine Pickle is a good
book; so is Gil Blas; so is Goldsmith.
But of all chamber furniture in the world, best calculated to cure a
had temper, and breed a pleasant one, is the sight of a lovely wife. If
you have children, however, that are teething, the nursery should be a
good way up stairs; at sea, it ought to be in the mizzen-top. Indeed,
teething children play the very deuce with a husband’s temper. I have
known three promising young husbands completely spoil on their wives’
hands, by reason of a teething child, whose worrisomeness happened to
be aggravated at the time by the summer-complaint. With a breaking
heart, and my handkerchief to my eyes, I followed those three hapless
young husbands, one after the other, to their premature graves.
Gossiping scenes breed gossips. Who so chatty as hotel-clerks, market
women, auctioneers, bar-keepers, apothecaries, newspaper-reporters,
monthly-nurses, and all those who live in bustling crowds, or are
present at scenes of chatty interest.
Solitude breeds taciturnity; _that_ every body knows; who so taciturn
as authors, taken as a race?
A forced, interior quietude, in the midst of great out-ward commotion,
breeds moody people. Who so moody as railroad-brakemen,
steam-boat-engineers, helmsmen, and tenders of power-looms in cotton
factories? For all these must hold their peace while employed, and let
the machinery do the chatting; they cannot even edge in a single
syllable.
Now, this theory about the wondrous influence of habitual sights and
sounds upon the human temper, was suggested by my experiences on board
our frigate. And al-though I regard the example furnished by our
quarter-gunners—especially him who had once been our top-mate—as by far
the strongest argument in favour of the general theory; yet, the entire
ship abounded with illustrations of its truth. Who were more
liberal-hearted, lofty-minded, gayer, more jocund, elastic,
adventurous, given to fun and frolic, than the top-men of the fore,
main, and mizzen masts? The reason of their liberal-heartedness was,
that they were daily called upon to expatiate themselves all over the
rigging. The reason of their lofty-mindedness was, that they were high
lifted above the petty tumults, carping cares, and paltrinesses of the
decks below.
And I feel persuaded in my inmost soul, that it is to the fact of my
having been a main-top-man; and especially my particular post being on
the loftiest yard of the frigate, the main-royal-yard; that I am now
enabled to give such a free, broad, off-hand, bird’s-eye, and, more
than all, impartial account of our man-of-war world; withholding
nothing; inventing nothing; nor flattering, nor scandalising any; but
meting out to all—commodore and messenger-boy alike—their precise
descriptions and deserts.
The reason of the mirthfulness of these top-men was, that they always
looked out upon the blue, boundless, dimpled, laughing, sunny sea. Nor
do I hold, that it militates against this theory, that of a stormy day,
when the face of the ocean was black, and overcast, that some of them
would grow moody, and chose to sit apart. On the contrary, it only
proves the thing which I maintain. For even on shore, there are many
people naturally gay and light-hearted, who, whenever the autumnal wind
begins to bluster round the corners, and roar along the chimney-stacks,
straight becomes cross, petulant, and irritable. What is more mellow
than fine old ale? Yet thunder will sour the best nut-brown ever
brewed.
The _Holders_ of our frigate, the Troglodytes, who lived down in the
tarry cellars and caves below the berth-deck, were, nearly all of them,
men of gloomy dispositions, taking sour views of things; one of them
was a blue-light Calvinist. Whereas, the old-sheet-anchor-men, who
spent their time in the bracing sea-air and broad-cast sunshine of the
forecastle, were free, generous-hearted, charitable, and full of
good-will to all hands; though some of them, to tell the truth, proved
sad exceptions; but exceptions only prove the rule.
The “steady-cooks” on the berth-deck, the “steady-sweepers,” and
“steady-spit-box-musterers,” in all divisions of the frigate, fore and
aft, were a narrow-minded set; with contracted souls; imputable, no
doubt, to their groveling duties. More especially was this evinced in
the case of those odious ditchers and night scavengers, the ignoble
“Waisters.”
The members of the band, some ten or twelve in number, who had nothing
to do but keep their instruments polished, and play a lively air now
and then, to stir the stagnant current in our poor old Commodore’s
torpid veins, were the most gleeful set of fellows you ever saw. They
were Portuguese, who had been shipped at the Cape De Verd islands, on
the passage out. They messed by themselves; forming a dinner-party, not
to be exceeded ire mirthfulness, by a club of young bridegrooms, three
months after marriage, completely satisfied with their bargains, after
testing them.
But what made them, now, so full of fun? What indeed but their merry,
martial, mellow calling. Who could he a churl, and play a flageolet?
who mean and spiritless, braying forth the souls of thousand heroes
from his brazen trump? But still more efficacious, perhaps, in
ministering to the light spirits of the band, was the consoling
thought, that should the ship ever go into action, they would be
exempted from the perils of battle. In ships of war, the members of the
“music,” as the band is called, are generally non-combatants; and
mostly ship, with the express understanding, that as soon as the vessel
comes within long gun-shot of an enemy, they shall have the privilege
of burrowing down in the cable-tiers, or sea coal-hole. Which shows
that they are inglorious, but uncommonly sensible fellows.
Look at the barons of the gun-room—Lieutenants, Purser, Marine
officers, Sailing-master—all of them gentlemen with stiff upper lips,
and aristocratic cut noses. Why was this? Will any one deny, that from
their living so long in high military life, served by a crowd of menial
stewards and cot-boys, and always accustomed to command right and left;
will any one deny, I say, that by reason of this, their very noses had
become thin, peaked, aquiline, and aristocratically cartilaginous? Even
old Cuticle, the Surgeon, had a Roman nose.
But I never could account how it came to be, that our grey headed First
Lieutenant was a little lop-sided; that is, one of his shoulders
disproportionately dropped. And when I observed, that nearly all the
First Lieutenants I saw in other men-of-war, besides many Second and
Third Lieutenants, were similarly lop-sided, I knew that there must be
some general law which induced the phenomenon; and I put myself to
studying it out, as an interesting problem. At last, I came to the
conclusion—to which I still adhere—that their so long wearing only one
epaulet (for to only one does their rank entitle them) was the
infallible clew to this mystery. And when any one reflects upon so
well-known a fact, that many sea Lieutenants grow decrepit from age,
without attaining a Captaincy and wearing _two_ epaulets, which would
strike the balance between their shoulders, the above reason assigned
will not appear unwarrantable.