SPECIMENS OF COCK-PIT DISCIPLINE.
I skip over many other anecdotes at Portsmouth, in order to get fairly
out to sea; for I never felt completely disengaged from the thraldom of
school, and fully adrift on the wide world of independent life, till
we had left the white cliffs of old England many leagues astern. The
following brief despatch was penned just before starting; and I can
remember the mixture of exultation, and undefined dread of something
that was to come which I experienced, while I was writing it:—
_“H. M. S. Leander, Spithead, July 11, 1802._
“Yesterday the captain received his sailing orders, and we have now
got up a Blue Peter at the fore-top, which is a signal for immediate
sailing. We are just going to unmoor ship, and shall sail for Halifax
immediately. So, farewell to England!”
Off we set, accordingly; and it may be interesting, and perhaps
useful, for youngsters in similar circumstances, to know, that all the
pleasurable anticipations came to pass sooner than any of those which
were gloomy in their promise. Yet it is curious, that, since those
days, when I was first launched upon blue water, I have very rarely set
out upon a voyage without experiencing many misgivings, often amounting
almost to a wish that some accidental incident might arise to check
the expedition altogether. This is the more strange, as I have seldom,
if ever, failed to find the reality more delightful than was expected,
the difficulties more easily overcome, and the harvest of amusement and
instruction more fertile, than any previous reading or conversation,
had led me to suppose the jog-trot course of a professional life could
possibly afford.
I don’t deny that I had sometimes a plaguy tough job of it to keep
my spirits up to this mark; and though I never quite lost heart, I
was often very low in the scale of resolution. So much so, that, on
looking back to those times, I fear I can discover moments when, had
good opportunities offered, I might perhaps have been tempted to cut
and run. Fortunately for me, however, there never was the least choice
left between perseverance and poverty; and I had been long taught to
consider, that the bread of idleness, however supplied, was the most
degrading food a gentleman could eat. It is true I was not then so
strongly convinced as I am now, that many of the essential advantages
of the primogeniture law, lie on the side of the younger sons, yet
I always felt, that it was my duty, as well as my interest, to
illustrate, practically, the truth of this seeming paradox.
The first damper to this magnanimous resolution, of making myself
useful in the world, was caused by a speech of our excellent captain,
who, calling all the youngsters into his cabin, a few days after we
were out of sight of land, addressed us in the following words:—
“Now, younkers, I have sent for you all, to tell you that you are not
of the smallest use on board the ship; in fact, if any thing, you are
rather in the way: but since you are here, I have no objection to
your learning your business, if you have a mind to do so. You shall,
therefore, have your choice, either to keep watch or not, exactly as
you please; only, recollect this,—if any of you decide to do your duty
in the way proposed, you shall be made to perform it in earnest. So,
mind what you are about, and give me an answer to-morrow morning. Now,
little fellows, be off with you!”
Out of about a dozen, I think there was only one other besides myself
who decided upon keeping watch. Most of this party had been a cruise or
two at sea before, and knew that pacing up and down the deck for four
hours in the night, over and above the tasks of the day, was no joke;
and they rather chuckled at the prospect of being let off so easily.
For my part, I was so grievously annoyed at the contemptuous official
assurance of being of no use, that I never hesitated an instant, but
caught eagerly at any opening which promised me the means of belying
this disparaging assertion. Of course, I knew little or nothing of the
duties which would be required; but I had a pretty distinct notion,
that, provided any person has a specific course chalked out for him to
follow, no matter how humble that path may be, there must be a better
and a worse way of going over it; and, if so, that there will be a
certain amount of distinction due to him who, in the first instance,
resolves to do his business properly, and has afterwards perseverance
enough to make good his pledge.
To a lad who has health and spirits, keeping watch is rather agreeable
than otherwise. I speak from about twelve years of almost uninterrupted
experience of the practice, when I say that, upon the whole, its
pleasures outweigh its annoyances. There is no opiate, that ever was
devised, which gives such hearty relish to sleep, as a good four
hours’ night-watch. Without refining or philosophising too deeply,
every one, I am sure, who has tried the experiment, will recollect
the sort of complete self-satisfaction with which he has ‘turned in,’
after having gone through his work, and stripped off his dripping
clothes. Still less will he forget the delighted kind of hug, which
he has bestowed upon himself, when fairly under the blankets. All the
world is then forgotten; the gale may be rising; the ship in no great
safety; the labours of the night just beginning—no matter, his watch is
out—his task is done. “I’ll go to sleep,” he says; and, sure enough,
a young middy, after the weary watch is out, lies down as perfect a
personification of Shakspeare’s ship-boy as imagination could desire.
Though not literally perched on the high and giddy mast, he is pretty
nearly as soundly rocked; for, after being bagged up in a hammock, and
hoisted close to the beams, in the cable tier, with only a foot and a
half of space above, and not half a foot below him, he is banged, at
every roll, against the stanchions, or driven by the motion of the
ship against the deck overhead. In spite of all this, added to the loud
creaking of the lower-deck guns, and the hundred-and-fifty other noises
above and below him, he sleeps through all, and sleeps soundly; or, as
the Spaniards say, ‘Rienda suelta,’—at full gallop.
There is another very satisfactory result of keeping watch, besides the
certainty of insuring good sleep. It not only defines the duty to be
performed, but the period in which it is to be done, so exactly, that
all the rest of the time is free for us to make use of, in the way that
most suits our own pleasure. To a person disposed to turn his spare
moments to account, such privilege is a great affair, independently
of the moral advantage of having a precise task to execute at stated
hours. This obligation of working periodically seems, indeed, to act
as a sort of hone, on which our intellects, as well as our industry,
may be sharpened. Some reasoners and refiners on this matter go so far
as to say, that a man of talents and fancy will often be able to turn
his gifts to greater account, if forced to give up a considerable
portion of his day to dull, or even disagreeable drudgery, than if he
had the whole twenty-four hours to himself. It has even been said, that
the most successful and imaginative writer of our times, considers
himself indebted, for some of his happiest flights, to the necessity
of plodding round and round the dull routine of a court of law, for
many hours of every day; for, when he takes wing to the country, in the
vacation, the spring of his energies is vastly more elastic, than if he
had not been chained to a desk for many months before.
Be this as it may, I, for my own part, certainly took great delight
in keeping watch, and even rejoiced, now and then, in catching a good
sound ducking, as it tended to assure me that there was no play, but
real earnest, in what I was about. During these early times, my chief
apprehension seems to have been that I should be considered useless.
In some other respects, likewise, keeping watch possesses its
advantages. Nothing else produces such punctual habits, or contributes
more directly, to cast both mind and body, into those trains of
thought and of action which lead to certainty of purpose, by teaching
us how much we may accomplish when we set about things regularly. The
practice, also, of early trust is extremely salutary; and although
the youngster of a watch has but a small charge, what little he has
soon makes him acquainted with the meaning of the word responsibility,
and he is thus gradually brought up to court, rather than to shrink
from, the exercise of high duties. He learns that the first object of
his professional life is to perform what is required by the rules of
the service in a proper manner, careless of the consequences. He is
likewise taught the wholesome lesson, that any praise for so doing
is not only quite a secondary affair, but that such commendation
essentially belongs only to those grand efforts of exertion, when an
officer of enterprise and resource, in the midst of difficulties,
adopts that particular line of conduct which the result proves to be
best calculated to accomplish some high purpose.
At the same time, although praise is not an article much used in naval
discipline, I know few things which tend more directly to stimulate
exertion, and confirm the best resolutions of a young officer, as
some mark, no matter how small, of well-timed approbation. There is
hardly any man so dull or so wicked, so old or so young, who is not
keenly alive to the influence of such commendation at the right moment.
It is both interesting and practically important, also, to observe,
that praise, like charity—of which it may be called a branch—can be
dispensed by every man. There is no person so low in station, who, if
he be inclined, may not do works of kindness to some of his shipmates.
In fact, a ship’s crew are so isolated from the rest of the world, and
thrown so constantly together, that they can influence one another’s
happiness even more effectually than neighbours on shore have it in
their power to do. Accordingly, there is no officer, man, or boy, in
a ship of war, so circumstanced, who, in the exercise of his ordinary
duties, and without departing from strict truth, may not give much
pleasure to those under him or about him, and thus essentially tend
to advance the best interests of the service, by making the motives to
action spring from a desire to do well. This, after all, is the great
secret of discipline.
In large ships especially, if they be destined, as the Leander was,
to bear an admiral’s flag, there are always many more midshipmen on
board than are absolutely necessary for performing the duty. These
young gentlemen, therefore, are divided into three watches, and the
individuals of each set are stationed on different parts of the deck.
The mate of the watch, who is the principal person amongst them, with
two or three youngsters, walk on the quarter-deck, always, of course,
on the lee side. Another midshipman, generally the second in seniority,
has the honour of being posted on the forecastle; while a third,
stationed abaft, walks on the poop. To these is added, sometimes,
a signal-mid, whose business, as will be understood without minute
explanation, is to watch the communications made by other ships in
company, or to convey orders to them, by means of flags, which are
generally hoisted from the poop.
After a certain probation, I was promoted from youngster on the
quarter-deck to have charge of the poop; and in the hope of being
advanced, in due time, to the dignity of forecastle-midshipman, became
extremely assiduous—rather too much so, as it would appear.
It was a positive order, and a very proper one, that no clothes should
be hung up to dry except on the clothes’ lines, or in the weather
rigging, and even there only by permission of the officer in charge
of that part of the ship. Every one, of course, is aware that nothing
is considered so sluttish as hanging clothes below the gunwale, and
especially on the davits or guys of the quarter boats. But all poop
middies who have tried to keep these ropes clear of shirts and jackets,
know that it is not very easy to exact obedience to these orders. In
all well-regulated ships, however, these apparently small matters are
found to contribute to the maintenance of uniformity and good order.
They form the tracery or fringe, as it were—the ornamental parts of
discipline—which, if properly attended to, generally imply that the
more substantial requisites are not neglected. At all events, our first
lieutenant was most particular on this subject; and when any shirt or
pair of trousers was detected by his piercing eye, which had escaped
the vigilance of the midshipman of the poop, the young gentleman
was sure to fall under his biting censure, or, in the slang of the
cock-pit, was certain to ‘catch it.’
I had constitutionally from my infancy—and doubly so from the first
day I went afloat—a great horror at being reproached, or ‘wigged,’
as we called it; and therefore laboured at all times with prodigious
ardour to escape the torture of that direct, cutting, merciless sort
of censure, which so many persons consider the only proper vehicle of
instruction when reproving the rising generation. Of course, therefore,
as soon as I was placed in command of the poop, I waged fierce war
against the wet shirts of the sailors, or the still more frequent
abomination of the well-pipe-clayed trousers of the marines, who
naturally affect that part of the ship, and are seldom seen forward
amongst the seamen. All experience shews, however, that there is no due
proportion between the difficulty of getting a trifling order obeyed,
and that of accomplishing a great affair. People are apt to forget,
that the obligation of obedience does not always turn upon the greater
or less importance of the measure commanded, but upon the distinctness
of the injunction. At all events, the unhappy poop-mids of my day
were in hot water, almost every morning, about this petty affair,
which the men, to our great plague, were exceedingly slow to take up,
without more severe punishments than the first lieutenant was generally
disposed to inflict. “It is entirely owing to your negligence, young
gentlemen,” said he to us one day, “that these wet things are so
continually hung up, to the disgrace of the poop. If you would only
contrive to keep your sleepy eyes open, and look about you, during your
watch, instead of snoosing in the hammock netting, with the fly of the
ensign wrapped about you, the men would never think of hanging up
their clothes in such improper places.”
We used to marvel much how he managed to point his sarcastic censure
so exactly as to hit the precise fault we had been guilty of, and we
resolved in future to keep out of its reach, as far as these eternal
wet things went. Yet, in spite of all sorts of attention, the day
seldom broke without some provoking article of dress making its
fluttering appearance—though how on earth it got there, often baffled
conjecture. Upon one occasion, my juvenile bile was fairly capsised,
and having given warning, as I declared, for the hundred-and-fiftieth
time, and all to no effect, I pulled out my knife, and cut the stops
which tied a shirt to the jolly-boat’s tackle-fall. Had I proceeded no
further, all would have been right and proper; but, in my zealous rage,
I leaped beyond the lines of my duty, and fairly threw the offending
garment overboard!
Just as the sun peeped above the horizon, our most systematic of first
lieutenants made his periodical appearance. I watched his eye as it
glanced towards my department, and I chuckled a good deal, when I saw
that my activity had baffled every attempt to detect a square inch of
the forbidden drapery.
The decks, however, were hardly swabbed up before I saw a scamp of a
mizen-top-man, with his hat in one hand, and smoothing down the hair
in front of his head with the other, while he shifted his balance from
leg to leg, address himself to the first lieutenant, evidently in the
act of lodging a complaint. In the next minute I was called down, and
interrogated as to my proceedings. The fact of my having thrown the
lad’s shirt overboard being admitted, I was desired to recompense
him for his loss, by paying him the value in money—while he, in like
manner, was punished for disobedience in hanging it up in so improper a
situation.
A common-place person would have stopped short there; but this
judicious officer was of a different stamp—and I have often lamented,
since those days, that he did not live to receive the grateful
acknowledgments experience has taught me were his due, for this and
many other lessons which at that time I could not justly appreciate.
It was his practice every evening, just before going to bed, to give to
the mate of the watch a written order of what he wished executed in the
course of the night, or early in the morning; and many an injunction,
it may be supposed, his little neatly-bound order-book contained
against the particular kind of delinquency above noticed. On the
present occasion, however, the night orders consisted of these words
only:—
“Mr. Hall is the only gentleman who attends to his duty on the poop.”
It was needless to point more distinctly, even to the youngest squeaker
amongst us, how adroitly the scales of justice and good sense were
balanced in this case. On my side, it was quite clear I had no business
wantonly to cast away another man’s property, merely because that
property was not in its right place; and accordingly I was compelled to
make full restitution. This, of itself, was a considerable censure.
But as the fault really arose from disinterested zeal, in furthering
the objects of the service, the first lieutenant, by one of those
well-timed notes of approbation, which bind inferiors to their duty far
more strongly than punishments ever deter them from neglecting it, took
care to improve the lesson to my advantage, by putting his official
sense of that zeal upon record. Small as the incident was, there are
few things which have since happened, that have given me more permanent
satisfaction than this slight, passing notice. From the strong
manner, also, in which it disposed me to esteem the person who thus
distinguished me, I can understand the secret by which great commanders
rivet the affections and secure the best services of the people about
them. The opposite course, it should not be forgotten, holds still more
true. While half a dozen words, such as these, written at the proper
time, may fix the gratitude of a whole life, a single careless word,
spoken at the wrong season, or in the wrong tone of voice, though
perhaps void of hurtful intention, will often rankle for years, and
permanently estrange men from one another, who might otherwise be truly
attached.
The excellent officer above alluded to, I am grieved to say, was
lost to the service a few years afterwards. When lieutenant of the
Conqueror in 1808, on her passage to Lisbon, he, and about half the
ship’s company, were seized with ophthalmia. He never fully recovered
his sight, and, though eventually promoted to the rank of commander,
he was not able to serve long, and finally became stone-blind. He
still, however, expected his post promotion with so much anxiety, that
when he found the Admiralty passed him over, the disappointment preyed
so deeply on his mind, once so vigorous, that it broke to pieces!
His intellects were literally destroyed, by the mere denial of an
honour which must have been purely nominal, as he never could have
gone afloat. Had he but retained his sight, however, he would, in all
probability, have now been one of the most valuable officers in his
majesty’s service. But his fate was different, and he died blind,
insane, and broken-hearted!
I have already mentioned, I think, that I was very little for my age,
and somewhat impatient in disposition, and, further, that I spoke the
hideous patois of Edinburgh, with the delectable accompaniment of
the burr of Berwick. These circumstances, which ought, perhaps, to
have excited pity, acted and reacted upon one another somewhat to my
disadvantage, and in no very agreeable style.
In addition to other sources of annoyance, I was more than usually
subject to sea-sickness whenever there was the least breeze of wind,
and about once a-week was pestered with the toothache. In the midst of
these mortifications, I reckoned with confidence on the support of my
own countrymen, of whom there were several amongst the elder mids—an
error into which I was led by having often heard of the way in which
Scotchmen hang together in foreign parts. But these wicked fellows,
though very truly my friends, were not always disposed to aid and
assist me in the precise way I wished; and young folks, as well as
their seniors, do not like to be obliged except on their own terms.
I had also unluckily taken it into my head that I spoke English with
remarkable purity—a sad mistake! Upon one occasion I missed some money;
and a brother-mid seeing me in distress, asked what was the matter.
“Oh,” said I, “I have tint a half-guinea.”
“Tint!” cried the other, “what’s that?”
At this moment one of my quizzing countrymen happening to pass, and
hearing the question, burst into a laugh, and explained, that ‘tint,’
being interpreted, meant ‘lost;’ adding, “none but Sawney from the
north” would have used such a barbarous word, unknown in England.
“Eh, Saunders, where are ye gawin?” and many other taunting expressions
to the disparagement of my country, which will hardly bear the press,
were flung at me from the English portion of the circle now assembled
to hear this confusion of tongues. If the Scotch, in its purity, be
bad enough, it is truly savage in the mouth of a pretender; and I was
doubly provoked to hear its Doric beauties marred by southern lips. I
made play, therefore, for some time, but presently became quite angry,
which was exactly what the rogues desired. Then, suddenly seized with
a bright thought, I turned short round on the original framer of the
mischief, whose interpretation of my native word ‘tint’ had brought the
laugh upon me, and said, in a rage, “I dare say it was you that stole
the half-guinea!”
For one moment, and no more, I had the laugh with me; but, in the next
instant, a shower of thumps from the accused party vindicated the
freedom of cock-pit justice, and set the whole posse of us small fry
to the right and left, like a shoal of flying fish sprung upon by a
dolphin.
This affair had scarcely blown by, when I got into a second scrape,
also with a countryman, who was then, and still is, one of the best
friends I have, but whose fate it was, at that early period, to inspire
me with many doubts as to the value of his good offices, albeit they
were every way kind and disinterested.
There is no class of persons in His Majesty’s naval service who have
such ravenous appetites as the younger class of middies—indeed their
plates and platters leave the birth, generally, as clean as they were
before the dinner entered. What may be the cause of this voracity
it is needless to inquire—the fact of their prodigious appetites is
universal. And it will easily be imagined that, in such a community,
the Esquimaux maxim of first come, first served, would sometimes
introduce itself into the practice of those polished young gentlemen.
One day, after keeping the forenoon watch, I went down at half-past
twelve to dinner, but found nothing left on the board but a morsel of
the ship’s beef which we generally called salt junk, and sometimes
believed to be salt horse, resembling very much a piece of mahogany,
and often quite as sapless. To this was added a very small portion of
suet pudding, called in our lingo, dough, or duff, and differing but
little in aspect and weight from good honest pipe-clay. It has been
very properly observed of a young midshipman, that, ‘although God may
turn his heart, the devil cannot turn his stomach;’ and certainly,
upon this occasion, I made no sort of objection to the victuals set
before me—except as to the quantity. In five minutes, the dish and
the plate had returned to that habitual state of purity, which would
have rendered the office of scullion a complete sinecure, had we been
honoured with such an attendant.
While I was ruminating upon this meagre fare, one of the oldsters
bawled out to me, “Come, youngster, you have done your dinner—march
off! I want your place at the table to write my log up—so scull away
with you!” And, in spite of Lord Chesterfield, which he was constantly
reading, he instantly shovelled me right into the cock-pit. What with
the indignity of my exit, which I cannot more particularly describe,
without a greater breach of the graces than I choose to risk even
at this long interval of time, and what with the empty state of my
stomach, I mounted upon deck again, of course, in a precious bad
humour, not a quarter of an hour from the time I had dived.
“Hollo! Maister Saunders,” cried one of my Scotch friends, “what’s
the matter with you? You look as black as your countryman when he was
caught half-way through a hole in the orchard wall.”
“Why,” said I, glad to find some vent for my disappointment, “to tell
you the truth, I have not got my share of the pudding to-day.”
“Oh! ho! that’s it—is it? Capital! Your share of the
pudding?—excellent!” And away he shot down the ladder, to pass the
joke amongst the rest below; so that, by and by, I was assailed at
every turn with inquiries touching my ‘share of the pudding;’ and my
unfortunate speech, translated into various dialects of what they all
thought Scotch, merely because it was not like English, was sung out
like a ballad, for the amusement of the whole fraternity, for the next
week.
This, like the half-guinea story, would soon have passed off for
something else, had not one of the mess been reading Sir Launcelot
Greaves, in which book one Justice Gobble is described as a great
glutton. The malicious young reader no sooner came to the place than he
roared out that he had found a name for me! and I was dubbed forthwith
Mr. Justice Gobble, which title I retained till another, somewhat more
to my taste, and more appropriate, I hoped, was given in exchange.
I had heard or read somewhere, that if a bottle, well corked, were let
down into the sea for a hundred fathoms or so, and then drawn up again,
it would be found full of fresh water. Like most modern discoverers,
I took upon me to suppose that this experiment had not been properly
tried before. So, one fine, calm morning, I borrowed a couple of
cod lines, which were then in grand preparation for the banks of
Newfoundland, and having stowed myself out of sight, under the breast
of one of the lower deck guns, I plunged my apparatus overboard. Some
one detected me when I was just beginning to haul in the apparatus;
and, before it reached the surface, half-a-dozen of my less scientific
messmates were perched on the neighbouring guns and chests, cracking
their jokes upon my proceedings. A huge horse-laugh was got ready to
explode upon me as I examined the bottle, and found the cork in its
place, but inverted, and the contents as salt as need be.
“Well, now,” said one of the party, “this is funny enough—Justice
Gobble is turned Experimental Philosopher; who would have thought it?”
and off they scattered to laugh at something else—light-hearted, and
careless of all things about them—up to any mischief or any business,
and gradually forming themselves, by an involuntary process, for the
right performance of those varied duties which belong to their calling,
and which, like the elements they have to deal with, are scarcely ever
two days alike.
Some of these lads had a turn for mechanics, some for navigation;
others devoted much of their time to rigging, and different branches
of seamanship—their hands being constantly in the tar-bucket. A few
applied themselves to reading and drawing; several desperate hands
stuck resolutely to the flute; one or two thought of nothing but dress;
and a few swore a pretty steady friendship to the grog-bottle; while
every now and then a sentimental youth deemed himself inspired, and
wrote execrable verses which we thought capital. By far the greater
number of these promising young men have found graves, some on
land—some in the deep sea!
On crossing the banks of Newfoundland the ship was hove to, for the
purpose of sounding; and the quarter-master having tied a baited
hook to the deep-sea lead, a noble cod was drawn to the surface,
from the depth of ninety fathoms. Upon this hint, the captain, very
considerately, agreed to lie by for an hour or two; and some fifty
lines being put over, the decks were soon covered, fore and aft, with
such a display of fish as Bilingsgate has rarely witnessed.
People who know nothing of a sea life fancy that fish is not a rarity
with us; but there is nothing of which we taste so little; so that the
greatest treat by far, when we come into port, is a dish of fresh
soles or mackerel; and even the commonest fish that swims is looked
upon as a treasure. It is only in soundings that any are to be met
with; for, in the open and bottomless ocean, we meet with nothing but
whales, porpoises, dolphins, sharks, bonitas, and flying fish. I shall,
perhaps, have occasion to describe the mode of catching, dressing,
and eating, all of these: for we demolish them all, excepting only
the shark, between which and the sailors there rages an interminable
war—something not unlike that which exists, from age to age, between
the Indians and the Esquimaux—in which the sharks may be compared to
the Indians, who eat their prisoners, and we to the Esquimaux, who only
kill their captives, but prefer eating something else.
I never could conceive, or even form a probable conjecture, how it is
that some persons manage to catch fish, and others none. It is easy to
understand, that in angling, a certain degree of skill, or choice of
situation, may determine the probable amount of success. But when a
line is let down to the depth of eighty or a hundred fathoms, or even
to twenty or thirty feet, quite out of sight, what has skill to do
there? And yet, in a ship, on the banks of Newfoundland, or in a boat
on the Thrumcap shoals in Halifax harbour, I have seen one man hauling
in cods or haddocks as fast as he could bait his hooks; while others,
similarly circumstanced in all apparent respects, might fret and fidget
for half a day without getting more than a nibble.
There can be no doubt, of course, that intellectual power must be
in operation at one end of the line, otherwise no fish will come to
the other; but the puzzle is, by what mysterious process can human
intelligence manage to find its way, like electricity, down the line
to the bottom of the sea? I have often asked successful fishermen
what they did to make the fish bite; but they could seldom give any
available answer. Sometimes they said it depended on the bait. “Well,
then,” I have answered, “let me take your line, and do you take mine.”
But in two minutes after we had changed places, my companion was
pulling in his fish as fast as before, while not a twitch was given to
my new line, though, just before, the fish appeared to be jostling one
another for the honour of my friend’s hook, to the total neglect of
that which had been mine, now in high vogue amongst them.
There is some trick, or sleight of hand, I suppose, by which a
certain kind of motion is given to the bait, so as to assimilate it
to that of the worms which the fishes most affect in their ordinary
researches for food. But, probably, this art is no more to be taught by
description, or to be learnt without the drudgery of practice, than the
dexterity with which an artist represents nature, or a dancer performs
pirouettes. Uninstructed persons, therefore, who, like myself, lose
patience because they cannot catch fish at the first cast of the line,
had better turn their attention to something else.
Almost the only one I ever caught was during this first voyage across
the Atlantic, when, after my line had been down a whole weary hour,
I drew it up in despair. It felt so light, that I imagined the line
must have been accidentally broken; but presently, and greatly to my
astonishment, I beheld a huge cod float to the top, swollen to twice
the usual dimensions by the expansion of its sound, as the air-bag
is called, which lies along the back-bone. At the depth of eighty or
ninety fathoms, this singular apparatus is compressed by the enormous
addition of fifteen or sixteen atmospheres. But when the air is
relieved of this weight, by approaching the surface, the strength of
the muscles proves inadequate to retain it in its condensed form; and
its consequent expansion not only kills the fish, but often bursts it
open as completely as if it had been blown up with gunpowder.
After a passage of about six weeks, we reached Halifax, in Nova
Scotia; and I can perfectly recollect the feelings with which I first
put my foot on shore in the New World. “At last,” I said to myself,
“I am decidedly abroad; and it shall go hard with me but this round
globe shall be well tramped over by these feet before I rest!” This
resolution has been tolerably well kept; but it is perhaps worthy of
remark, that almost the whole of the journeys alluded to have been
accomplished in the jog-trot routine of professional avocations, and
generally without any express design on my part. It is true I once took
a hasty scamper over Europe, and, more lately, a deliberate jaunt in
North America; but with these exceptions, and a small trip to Prince
Edward’s Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to which I shall possibly
advert again,—every league of my voyaging and travelling has been at
the expense of His Majesty, that is to say, in the exercise of purely
professional duties.
I have mentioned this, merely because I think it furnishes a sort of
encouragement to naval officers, of all ranks and ages, who, unless
they be very stupid, or very unfortunate, or both, may, in the course
of their lives, probably have nearly as ample means of observation in
foreign parts, as if they had been born to fortunes, and spent them in
the sole occupation of travelling. It is surely a pleasant affair to
be carried about from place to place free of cost; and perhaps there
is also some advantage in our being thus tossed about without any
free choice of our own. There is often bitter disappointment, it is
true, in being hurried away before our remarks are half made, with our
curiosity only half satisfied, to be plunged into new scenes, piping
hot from those we have left. But by this means the attention is kept
briskly alive; and the powers of observation, being forced to act on
the instant, are certainly rendered more acute. From so much, and such
varied practice, also, the mind becomes more decided and clear, as
well as more prompt, in its conclusions. And in consequence of this
accumulation of knowledge, every new country visited appears to be more
fertile than the last in objects of interest, till at length the field
of view seems so thickly crowded, that the naval traveller, instead
of having to search for materials, is generally overpowered by their
abundance, and scarcely knows which to lay his hand upon, in order to
describe the effect produced.
It is the curious property of well-directed inquiry into any branch of
natural knowledge, that the thirst for such investigations generally
goes on increasing with the indulgence; and what is equally or more to
the purpose, the motives to perseverance are proportionably augmented.
I believe there are few exceptions to this rule; and I think it may
be observed, that, in the navy, precisely as an officer rises in the
service, so his means of travelling to good purpose are improved
likewise. As he advances in rank, his introductions to society become
more easy and extensive, and his facilities for seeing strange things
are multiplied at every step, till at length, when he arrives at the
command of a ship, he finds himself in one of the most agreeable
situations, perhaps, that the nature of things admits of, for viewing
the world to advantage.
It must be recollected, too, that the chief interest of most countries,
and especially of new countries, lies on their sea-coasts, where the
first towns are naturally erected. In those cases where this rule does
not hold good, naval officers often contrive to visit the interior:
and wherever they go, they are sure of a hearty welcome, and a ready
access to all that is worthy of investigation. Their best passport,
in fact, is their uniform—their best letters of introduction, the
columns of the navy list; and if in any case they fail to profit by the
opportunities thus placed within their reach, the fault lies with the
dull nature of the particular parties themselves, and not with their
glorious profession. In all probability, the very same persons who,
as officers, can turn their naval life to no account in the way of
travelling, would have done no better in any other situation in life.
This reminds me of a tailor at Halifax, who, on being sadly provoked
by some of the scampish band amongst us, for not paying his abominably
long bills, said, in a rage, in the cock-pit before us all, that after
having tried his son in half a dozen professions, without any chance of
success, he was now resolved, as a last resource, to make a midshipman
of him! This sarcasm was uttered during the short peace of Amiens,
when we first visited Halifax,—a period when the mids had so little
real business to attend to, that they seized eagerly upon any opening
for a joke. As soon, therefore, as the tailor had quitted the ship, it
was resolved to punish him for his uncourteous speech.
It had not escaped the notice of his tormentors, that this vulgar
fraction of his species prided himself, in a most especial degree, on
the dignity of a very enormous tail or queue, which reached half-way
down his back; and it was resolved in secret council, that this
appendage should be forthwith docked.
Nothing, I must fairly own, could be more treacherous than the means
devised to lower the honour and glory of the poor tailor. He was
formally invited to dinner with us; and, being well plied with grog,
mixed according to the formidable rule for making what is called a
North-wester, which prescribes that one half of each glass shall
consist of rum, and the other half of rum and water, our poor guest was
soon brought under the table. Being then quite incapable of moving, he
was lifted in noisy triumph out of the birth, and placed in the tier,
across the bends of the small bower cable, where, after many a grunt
and groan at the rugged nature of his couch, he at length fell asleep.
His beautiful tail, the pride of his life! was presently glued by
means of a lump of pitch to the strands of the cable; and such was the
tenacity of the substance, that in the morning, when, on the daylight
gun being fired directly over his head, poor snip awoke, he could no
more detach himself from the spot on which he lay, than could Lemuel
Gulliver in like circumstances. His noddle was still so confused, that
he knew not where he lay, nor what held him down. After tugging at his
hair for a minute or two, he roared out lustily for help. One of the
mids, seized with the brilliant idea of making the tailor the finisher
of his own fate, hurried to his assistance, and, handing him a knife,
roared out, “by all means to make haste, as the devil had got hold of
him by the tail!”
The poor tradesman, terrified out of his wits, and in great horror
at his mysterious situation, instantly did as he was desired, and cut
away lustily, little dreaming that his own rash hand was shearing the
highest and most cherished honours of his house! On turning round, he
beheld with dismay the ravished locks, which, for half a century and
more, had been the joint delight of himself and his tender partner
Rebecca. As the thought of returning tail-less to his home crossed
his half-bewildered brain, he exclaimed, in agony of spirit, to his
malicious tormentors—“Oh Lord! oh Lord! I am a lost man to my Becky!”
The revenge of the malicious middies was now complete; and this
expression of being a ‘lost man to one’s Becky’ became a byword in the
ship, for many years afterwards, to denote the predicament of any one
who got into a scrape, and came out of it with loss.