Part 10 (2/2)
The details of the occurrence were never actually known, but it is thought that Somers, being laid aboard by three gunboats before actually in the midst of the s.h.i.+pping, and feeling himself overpowered, fired his magazine and destroyed himself and his own men in his avowed purpose not to be taken by the enemy.
Thus died Richard Somers, Henry Wadsworth, the mids.h.i.+pman, Joseph Israel, and ten American seamen, whose names have been inscribed on the navy's roll of fame. Nothing can dim the honor of a man who dies willingly for his country.
THE Pa.s.sING OF THE OLD NAVY
OLD SALTS AND NEW SAILORS
Since ballad-mongering began, the sea and the men who go down to it in s.h.i.+ps have been a fruitful theme; and the conventional song-singing, horn-piping tar of the chanteys is a creature of fancy, pure and simple.
Jack is as honest as any man. Aboard s.h.i.+p he goes about his duties willingly, a creature of habit and environment, with a goodly respect for his ”old man” and the articles of war. Ash.o.r.e he is an innocent,--a brand for the burning, with a half-month's pay and a devouring thirst.
Sailor-men all over the world are the same, and will be throughout all time, except in so far as their life is improved by new conditions. Though Jack aboard s.h.i.+p is the greatest grumbler in the world, ash.o.r.e he loves all the world, and likes to be taken for the sailor of the songs. In a week he will spend the earnings of many months, and go back aboard s.h.i.+p, sadder, perhaps, but never a wiser man.
He seldom makes resolutions, however, and so, when anchor takes ground again, his money leaves him with the same merry clink as before. Though a Bohemian and a nomad, he does not silently steal away, like the Arab.
His goings, like his comings, are accompanied with much carousing and song-singing; and the sweetheart he leaves gets to know that wiving is not for him. With anchor atrip and helm alee, Jack mourns not, no matter whither bound.
The improved conditions on the modern men-of-war have changed things for him somewhat, and, though still impregnated with old ideas, Jack is more temperate, more fore-sighted, and more self-reliant than he once was. His lapses of discipline and his falls from grace are less frequent than of yore, for he has to keep an eye to windward if he expects to win any of the benefits that are generously held out to the hard-working, sober, and deserving.
But the bitterness of the old days is barely disguised in the jollity of the chanteys. However we take it, the sea-life is a hards.h.i.+p the like of which no land-lubber knows. Stories of the trials of the merchant service come to him now and then and open his eyes to the real conditions of the service.
Men are greater brutes at sea than ash.o.r.e. The one-man power, absolute, supreme in the old days, when all license was free and monarchies trod heavily on weak necks, led men to deeds of violence and death, whenever violence and death seemed the easiest methods of enforcing discipline. Men were knocked down hatchways, struck with belaying-pins, made to toe the seam on small provocation or on no provocation at all. The old-fas.h.i.+oned sea-yarns of Captain Marryat ring true as far as they go, but they do not go far enough.
In England the great frigates were generally both under-manned and badly victualled, and the cruises were long and sickening. The practice of medicine had not reached the dignity of the precise science it is to-day, and the surgeon's appliances were rude and roughly manipulated.
Anaesthetics were unknown, and after the battles, the slaughter in which was sometimes terrific, many a poor chap was sent to his last account by unwise amputation or bad treatment after the operation.
The water frequently became putrid, and this, with the lack of fresh vegetables and the over use of pork, brought on the disease called scurvy, which oftentimes wiped out entire crews in its deadly ravages. Every year thousands of men were carried off by it. A far greater number died from the effects of scurvy than from the enemy's fire. Lieutenant Kelly says that during the Seven Years' War but one thousand five hundred and twelve seamen and marines were killed, but one hundred and thirty-three thousand died of disease or were reported missing. Not until the beginning of this century was this dreadful evil ameliorated.
The evils of impressment and the work of the crimp and his gang--so infamous in England--had no great vogue here, for the reason that, during our wars of 1776 and 1812, the good seamen--coasters and fishermen, who had suffered most from the Lion--were only too anxious to find a berth on an American man-of-war, where they could do yeoman's service against their cruel oppressor.
”Keel-hauling” and the ”cat” were relics of the barbarism of the old English navy. Keel-hauling was an extreme punishment, for the unfortunate rarely, if ever, survived the ordeal. In brief, it consisted in sending the poor sailor-man on a voyage of discovery along the keel of the vessel.
Trussed like a fowl, he was lowered over the bows of the s.h.i.+p and hauled along underneath her until he made his appearance at the stern, half or wholly drowned, and terribly cut all over the body by the sea-growth on the s.h.i.+p's bottom. He bled in every part from the cuts of the barnacles; but ”this was considered rather advantageous than otherwise, as the loss of blood restored the patient, if he were not quite drowned, and the consequence was that one out of three, it is said, have been known to recover from their enforced submarine excursion.”
Think of it! Recovery was not antic.i.p.ated, but if the victim got well, the officer in command made no objection! Beside the brutality of these old English navy bullies a barbarous Hottentot chief would be an angel of mercy.
Flogging and the use of the cat were abolished in the American navy in 1805. This law meant the use of the cat-o'-nine tails as a regular punishment, but did not prohibit blows to enforce immediate obedience.
Before that time it was a common practice for the punishment of minor offences as well as the more serious ones.
Flogging in the old days was an affair of much ceremony on board men-of-war. The entire s.h.i.+p's company was piped on deck for the punishment, and the culprit, stripped to the waist, was brought to the mast. The boatswain's mate, cat in hand, stood by the side of a suspended grating in the gangway, and the captain, officer of the deck, and the surgeon took their posts opposite him. The offence and the sentence were then read, and the stripes were administered on the bare back of the offender, a petty officer standing by to count the blows of the lash, while the doctor, with his hand on the victim's pulse, was ready to give the danger signal when absolutely necessary.
The men bore it in different ways. The old hands gritted their teeth philosophically, but the younger men frequently shrieked in their agony as the pitiless lash wound itself around the tender flesh, raising at first livid red welts, and afterwards lacerating the flesh and tearing the back into b.l.o.o.d.y seams.
The effect upon the lookers-on was varied. The younger officers, newly come from well-ordered English homes, frequently fainted at the sight.
But the horror of the spectacle soon died away, and before many weeks had pa.s.sed, with hardened looks, they stood on the quarter-deck and watched the performance amusedly. Soon the spectacle got to be a part of their life, and the jokes were many and the laughter loud at the victim's expense. The greater the suffering the more pleasurable the excitement.
Many yarns are spun of Jack's tricks to avoid the lash or to reduce to a minimum the pain of the blows. Sometimes the men had their flogging served to them regularly, but in small doses. To these the punishment lost its rigor. For the boatswain's mate not infrequently disguised the force of his blows, which came lightly enough, though the victim bawled vigorously to keep up the deception, and in the ”three- and four-dozen” cases he sometimes tempered his blows to the physical condition of the sufferers, who otherwise would have swooned with the pain.
One Jacky, who thought himself wiser than his fellows, in order to escape his next dozen, had a picture of a crucifix tattooed over the whole surface of his back, and under it a legend, which intimated that blows upon the image would be a sacrilege. When next he was brought before the mast he showed it to the boatswain and his captain. The captain, a crusty barnacle of the old harsh school, smiled grimly.
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