Two Years Before the Mast
hardship upon seamen than any one other thing in the laws, or the
execution of them. Notwithstanding every advantage the captain has
over the seaman in point of evidence, friends, money, and able counsel,
it becomes apparent that he must fail in his defence. An appeal is
then made to the jury, if it is a civil action, or to the judge for a
mitigated sentence, if it is a criminal prosecution, on the two grounds
I have mentioned. The same form is usually gone through in every case.
In the first place, as to the previous good character of the party.
Witnesses are brought from the town in which he resides, to testify to
his good character, and to his unexceptionable conduct when on shore.
They say that he is a good father, or husband, or son, or neighbor, and
that they never saw in him any signs of a cruel or tyrannical
disposition. I have even known evidence admitted to show the character
he bore when a boy at school. The owners of the vessel, and other
merchants, and perhaps the president of the insurance company, are then
introduced; and they testify to his correct deportment, express their
confidence in his honesty, and say that they have never seen anything
in his conduct to justify a suspicion of his being capable of cruelty
or tyranny. This evidence is then put together, and great stress is
laid upon the extreme respectability of those who give it. They are
the companions and neighbors of the captain, it is said,--men who know
him in his business and domestic relations, and who knew him in his
early youth. They are also men of the highest standing in the
community, and who, as the captain's employers, must be supposed to
know his character. This testimony is then contrasted with that of
some half dozen obscure sailors, who, the counsel will not forget to
add, are exasperated against the captain because he has found it
necessary to punish them moderately, and who have combined against him,
and if they have not fabricated a story entirely, have at least so
exaggerated it, that little confidence can be placed in it.
The next thing to be done is to show to the court and jury that the
captain is a poor man, and has a wife and family, or other friends,
depending upon him for support; that if he is fined, it will only be
taking bread from the mouths of the innocent and helpless, and laying a
burden upon them which their whole lives will not be able to work off;
and that if he is imprisoned, the confinement, to be sure, he will have
to bear, but the distress consequent upon the cutting him off from his
labor and means of earning his wages, will fall upon a poor wife and
helpless children, or upon an infirm parent. These two topics, well
put, and urged home earnestly, seldom fail of their effect.
In deprecation of this mode of proceeding, and in behalf of men who I
believe are every day wronged by it, I would urge a few considerations
which seem to me to be conclusive.
First, as to the evidence of the good character the captain sustains on
shore. It is to be remembered that masters of vessels have usually
been brought up in a forecastle; and upon all men, and especially upon
those taken from lower situations, the conferring of absolute power is
too apt to work a great change. There are many captains whom I know to
be cruel and tyrannical men at sea, who yet, among their friends, and
in their families, have never lost the reputation they bore in
childhood. In fact, the sea-captain is seldom at home, and when he is,
his stay is short, and during the continuance of it he is surrounded by
friends who treat him with kindness and consideration, and he has
everything to please, and at the same time to restrain him. He would
be a brute indeed, if, after an absence of months or years, during his
short stay, so short that the novelty and excitement of it has hardly
time to wear off, and the attentions he receives as a visitor and
stranger hardly time to slacken,--if, under such circumstances, a
townsman or neighbor would be justified in testifying against his
correct and peaceable deportment. With the owners of the vessel, also,
to which he is attached, and among merchants and insurers generally, he
is a very different man from what he may be at sea, when his own
master, and the master of everybody and everything about him. He knows
that upon such men, and their good opinion of him, he depends for his
bread. So far from their testimony being of any value in determining
what his conduct would be at sea, one would expect that the master who
would abuse and impose upon a man under his power, would be the most
compliant and deferential to his employers at home.
As to the appeal made in the captain's behalf on the ground of his
being poor and having persons depending upon his labor for support, the
main and fatal objection to it is, that it will cover every case of the
kind, and exempt nearly the whole body of masters and officers from the
punishment the law has provided for them. There are very few, if any
masters or other officers of merchantmen in our country, who are not
poor men, and having either parents, wives, children, or other
relatives, depending mainly or wholly upon their exertions for support
in life. Few others follow the sea for subsistence. Now if this
appeal is to have weight with courts in diminishing the penalty the law
would otherwise inflict, is not the whole class under a privilege which
will, in a degree, protect it in wrong-doing? It is not a thing that
happens now and then. It is the invariable appeal, the last resort, of
counsel, when everything else has failed. I have known cases of the
most flagrant nature, where after every effort has been made for the
captain, and yet a verdict rendered against him, and all other hope
failed, this appeal has been urged, and with such success that the
punishment has been reduced to something little more than nominal, the
court not seeming to consider that it might be made in almost every
such case that could come before them. It is a little singular, too,
that it seems to be confined to cases of shipmasters and officers. No
one ever heard of a sentence, for an offence committed on shore, being
reduced by the court on the ground of the prisoner's poverty, and the
relation in which he may stand to third persons. On the contrary, it
had been thought that the certainty that disgrace and suffering will be
brought upon others as well as himself, is one of the chief restraints
upon the criminally disposed. Besides, this course works a peculiar
hardship in the case of the sailor. For if poverty is the point in
question, the sailor is the poorer of the two; and if there is a man on
earth who depends upon whole limbs and an unbroken spirit for support,
it is the sailor. He, too, has friends to whom his hard earnings may
be a relief, and whose hearts will bleed at any cruelty or indignity
practised upon him. Yet I never knew this side of the case to be once
adverted to in these arguments addressed to the leniency of the court,
which are now so much in vogue; and certainly they are never allowed a
moment's consideration when a sailor is on trial for revolt, or for an
injury done to an officer. Notwithstanding the many difficulties which
lie in a seaman's way in a court of justice, presuming that they will
be modified in time, there would be little to complain of, were it not
for these two appeals.
It is no cause of complaint that the testimony of seamen against their
officers is viewed with suspicion, and that great allowance is made for
combinations and exaggeration. On the contrary, it is the judge's duty
to charge the jury on these points strongly. But there is reason for
objection, when, after a strict cross-examination of witnesses, after
the arguments of counsel, and the judge's charge, a verdict is found
against the master, that the court should allow the practice of hearing
appeals to its lenity, supported solely by evidence of the captain's
good conduct when on shore, (especially where the case is one in which
no evidence but that of sailors could have been brought against the
accused), and then, on this ground, and on the invariable claims of the
wife and family, be induced to cut down essentially the penalty imposed
by a statute made expressly for masters and officers of merchantmen,
and for no one else.
There are many particulars connected with the manning of vessels, the
provisions given to crews, and the treatment of them while at sea, upon
which there might be a good deal said; but as I have, for the most
part, remarked upon them as they came up in the course of my narrative,
I will offer nothing further now, except on the single point of the
manner of shipping men. This, it is well known, is usually left
entirely to the shipping-masters, and is a cause of a great deal of
difficulty, which might be remedied by the captain, or owner, if he has
any knowledge of seamen, attending to it personally. One of the
members of the firm to which our ship belonged, Mr. S----, had been
himself a master of a vessel, and generally selected the crew from a
number sent down to him from the shipping-office. In this way he
almost always had healthy, serviceable, and respectable men; for any
one who has seen much of sailors can tell pretty well at first sight,
by a man's dress, countenance, and deportment, what he would be on
board ship. This same gentleman was also in the habit of seeing the
crew together, and speaking to them previously to their sailing. On
the day before our ship sailed, while the crew were getting their
chests and clothes on board, he went down into the forecastle and spoke
to them about the voyage, the clothing they would need, the provision
he had made for them, and saw that they had a lamp and a few other
conveniences. If owners or masters would more generally take the same
pains, they would often save their crews a good deal of inconvenience,
beside creating a sense of satisfaction and gratitude, which makes a
voyage begin under good auspices, and goes far toward keeping up a
better state of feeling throughout its continuance.
It only remains for me now to speak of the associated public efforts
which have been making of late years for the good of seamen: a far more
agreeable task than that of finding fault, even where fault there is.
The exertions of the general association, called the American Seamen's
Friend Society, and of the other smaller societies throughout the
Union, have been a true blessing to the seaman; and bid fair, in course
of time, to change the whole nature of the circumstances in which he is
placed, and give him a new name, as well as a new character. These
associations have taken hold in the right way, and aimed both at making
the sailor's life more comfortable and creditable, and at giving him
spiritual instruction. Connected with these efforts, the spread of
temperance among seamen, by means of societies, called, in their own
nautical language, Windward-Anchor Societies, and the distribution of
books; the establishment of Sailors' Homes, where they can be
comfortably and cheaply boarded, live quietly and decently, and be in
the way of religious services, reading and conversation; also the
institution of Savings Banks for Seamen; the distribution of tracts and
Bibles;--are all means which are silently doing a great work for this
class of men. These societies make the religious instruction of seamen
their prominent object. If this is gained, there is no fear but that
all other things necessary will be added unto them. A sailor never
becomes interested in religion, without immediately learning to read,
if he did not know how before; and regular habits, forehandedness (if I
may use the word) in worldly affairs, and hours reclaimed from