University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.

The ship remained in Prince's Dock over six weeks; but
as I do not mean to present a diary of my stay there, I shall
here simply record the general tenor of the life led by our
crew during that interval; and will then proceed to note
down, at random, my own wanderings about town, and impressions
of things as they are recalled to me now, after the
lapse of so many years.

But first, I must mention that we saw little of the captain
during our stay in the dock. Sometimes, cane in hand, he
sauntered down of a pleasant morning from the Arms Hotel,
I believe it was, where he boarded; and after lounging about
the ship, giving orders to his Prime Minister and Grand
Vizier, the chief mate, he would saunter back to his drawing-rooms.

From the glimpse of a play-bill, which I detected peeping
out of his pocket, I inferred that he patronized the theaters;
and from the flush of his cheeks, that he patronized the fine
old Port wine, for which Liverpool is famous.

Occasionally, however, he spent his nights on board; and
mad, roystering nights they were, such as rare Ben Jonson
would have delighted in. For company over the cabin-table,
he would have four or five whiskered sea-captains, who kept
the steward drawing corks and filling glasses all the time.
And once, the whole company were found under the table
at four o'clock in the morning, and were put to bed and
tucked in by the two mates. Upon this occasion, I agreed
with our woolly Doctor of Divinity, the black cook, that they

should have been ashamed of themselves; but there is no
shame in some sea-captains, who only blush after the third
bottle.

During the many visits of Captain Riga to the ship, he
always said something courteous to a gentlemanly, friendless
custom-house officer, who staid on board of us nearly all the
time we lay in the dock.

And weary days they must have been to this friendless
custom-house officer; trying to kill time in the cabin with
a newspaper; and rapping on the transom with his knuckles.
He was kept on board to prevent smuggling; but he used
to smuggle himself ashore very often, when, according to
law, he should have been at his post on board ship. But
no wonder; he seemed to be a man of fine feelings, altogether
above his situation; a most inglorious one, indeed;
worse than driving geese to water.

And now, to proceed with the crew.

At daylight, all hands were called, and the decks were
washed down; then we had an hour to go ashore to breakfast;
after which we worked at the rigging, or picked oakum,
or were set to some employment or other, never mind
how trivial, till twelve o'clock, when we went to dinner. At
half-past one we resumed work; and finally knocked off at
four o'clock in the afternoon, unless something particular
was in hand. And after four o'clock, we could go where we
pleased, and were not required to be on board again till next
morning at daylight.

As we had nothing to do with the cargo, of course, our
duties were light enough; and the chief mate was often put
to it to devise some employment for us.

We had no watches to stand, a ship-keeper, hired from shore,
relieving us from that; and all the while the men's wages ran
on, as at sea. Sundays we had to ourselves.

Thus, it will be seen, that the life led by sailors of American
ships in Liverpool, is an exceedingly easy one, and abounding
in leisure. They live ashore on the fat of the land; and

after a little wholesome exercise in the morning, have the rest
of the day to themselves.

Nevertheless, these Liverpool voyages, likewise those to
London and Havre, are the least profitable that an improvident
seaman can take. Because, in New York he receives
his month's advance; in Liverpool, another; both of which,
in most cases, quickly disappear; so that by the time his
voyage terminates, he generally has but little coming to him;
sometimes not a cent. Whereas, upon a long voyage, say to
India or China, his wages accumulate; he has more inducements
to economize, and far fewer motives to extravagance;
and when he is paid off at last, he goes away jingling a
quart measure of dollars.

Besides, of all sea-ports in the world, Liverpool, perhaps,
most abounds in all the variety of land-sharks, land-rats,
and other vermin, which make the hapless mariner their
prey. In the shape of landlords, bar-keepers, clothiers, crimps,
and boarding-house loungers, the land-sharks devour him, limb
by limb; while the land-rats and mice constantly nibble at
his purse.

Other perils he runs, also, far worse; from the denizens
of notorious Corinthian haunts in the vicinity of the docks,
which in depravity are not to be matched by any thing this
side of the pit that is bottomless.

And yet, sailors love this Liverpool; and upon long voyages
to distant parts of the globe, will be continually dilating upon
its charms and attractions, and extolling it above all other
sea-ports in the world. For in Liverpool they find their
Paradise—not the well known street of that name—and
one of them told me he would be content to lie in Prince's
Dock till he hove up anchor for the world to come.

Much is said of ameliorating the condition of sailors; but
it must ever prove a most difficult endeavor, so long as the
antidote is given before the bane is removed.

Consider, that, with the majority of them, the very fact
of their being sailors, argues a certain recklessness and sensualism

of character, ignorance, and depravity; consider that
they are generally friendless and alone in the world; or if
they have friends and relatives, they are almost constantly
beyond the reach of their good influences; consider that
after the rigorous discipline, hardships, dangers, and privations
of a voyage, they are set adrift in a foreign port, and
exposed to a thousand enticements, which, under the circumstances,
would be hard even for virtue itself to withstand, unless
virtue went about on crutches; consider that by their
very vocation they are shunned by the better classes of
people, and cut off from all access to respectable and improving
society; consider all this, and the reflecting mind
must very soon perceive that the case of sailors, as a class,
is not a very promising one.

Indeed, the bad things of their condition come under the
head of those chronic evils which can only be ameliorated, it
would seem, by ameliorating the moral organization of all
civilization.

Though old seventy-fours and old frigates are converted
into chapels, and launched into the docks; though the
“Boatswain's Mate” and other clever religious tracts in the
nautical dialect are distributed among them; though clergymen
harangue them from the pier-heads: and chaplains in
the navy read sermons to them on the gun-deck; though
evangelical boarding-houses are provided for them; though
the parsimony of ship-owners has seconded the really sincere
and pious efforts of Temperance Societies, to take away
from seamen their old rations of grog while at sea:—notwithstanding
all these things, and many more, the relative
condition of the great bulk of sailors to the rest of mankind,
seems to remain pretty much where it was, a century
ago.

It is too much the custom, perhaps, to regard as a special
advance, that unavoidable, and merely participative progress,
which any one class makes in sharing the general movement
of the race. Thus, because the sailor, who to-day steers the

Hibernia or Unicorn steam-ship across the Atlantic, is a
somewhat different man from the exaggerated sailors of
Smollett, and the men who fought with Nelson at Copenhagen,
and survived to riot themselves away at North
Corner in Plymouth;—because the modern tar is not quite
so gross as heretofore, and has shaken off some of his shaggy
jackets, and docked his Lord Rodney queue:—therefore, in
the estimation of some observers, he has begun to see the
evils of his condition, and has voluntarily improved. But
upon a closer scrutiny, it will be seen that he has but drifted
along with that great tide, which, perhaps, has two flows
for one ebb; he has made no individual advance of his
own.

There are classes of men in the world, who bear the same
relation to society at large, that the wheels do to a coach:
and are just as indispensable. But however easy and delectable
the springs upon which the insiders pleasantly
vibrate: however sumptuous the hammer-cloth, and glossy
the door-panels; yet, for all this, the wheels must still revolve
in dusty, or muddy revolutions. No contrivance, no sagacity
can lift them out of the mire; for upon something the coach
must be bottomed; on something the insiders must roll.

Now, sailors form one of these wheels: they go and come
round the globe; they are the true importers, and exporters
of spices and silks; of fruits and wines and marbles; they
carry missionaries, embassadors, opera-singers, armies, merchants,
tourists, scholars to their destination: they are a
bridge of boats across the Atlantic; they are the primum
mobile of all commerce; and, in short, were they to emigrate
in a body to man the navies of the moon, almost every thing
would stop here on earth except its revolution on its axis,
and the orators in the American Congress.

And yet, what are sailors? What in your heart do you
think of that fellow staggering along the dock? Do you not
give him a wide berth, shun him, and account him but little
above the brutes that perish? Will you throw open your

parlors to him; invite him to dinner? or give him a season
ticket to your pew in church?—No. You will do no such
thing; but at a distance, you will perhaps subscribe a dollar
or two for the building of a hospital, to accommodate sailors
already broken down; or for the distribution of excellent
books among tars who can not read. And the very mode
and manner in which such charities are made, bespeak, more
than words, the low estimation in which sailors are held.
It is useless to gainsay it; they are deemed almost the
refuse and offscourings of the earth; and the romantic view
of them is principally had through romances.

But can sailors, one of the wheels of this world, be wholly
lifted up from the mire? There seems not much chance for
it, in the old systems and programmes of the future, however
well-intentioned and sincere; for with such systems, the
thought of lifting them up seems almost as hopeless as that
of growing the grape in Nova Zembla.

But we must not altogether despair for the sailor; nor
need those who toil for his good be at bottom disheartened.
For Time must prove his friend in the end; and though
sometimes he would almost seem as a neglected step-son of
heaven, permitted to run on and riot out his days with no
hand to restrain him, while others are watched over and
tenderly cared for; yet we feel and we know that God is
the true Father of all, and that none of his children are
without the pale of his care.