Two Years Before the Mast
indolence and vice, which follow in the wake of the converted man, make
it sure that he will instruct himself in the knowledge necessary and
suitable to his calling. The religious change is the great object. If
this is secured, there is no fear but that knowledge of things of the
world will come in fast enough. With the sailor, as with all other men
in fact, the cultivation of the intellect, and the spread of what is
commonly called useful knowledge, while religious instruction is
neglected, is little else than changing an ignorant sinner into an
intelligent and powerful one. That sailor upon whom, of all others,
the preaching of the Cross is least likely to have effect, is the one
whose understanding has been cultivated, while his heart has been left
to its own devices. I fully believe that those efforts which have
their end in the intellectual cultivation of the sailor; in giving him
scientific knowledge; putting it in his power to read everything,
without securing, first of all, a right heart which shall guide him in
judgment; in giving him political information, and interesting him in
newspapers;--an end in the furtherance of which he is exhibited at
ladies' fairs and public meetings, and complimented for his gallantry
and generosity,--are all doing a harm which the labors of many faithful
men cannot undo.
The establishment of Bethels in most of our own seaports, and in many
foreign ports frequented by our vessels, where the gospel is regularly
preached and the opening of "Sailors' Homes," which I have before
mentioned, where there are usually religious services and other good
influences, are doing a vast deal in this cause. But it is to be
remembered that the sailor's home is on the deep. Nearly all his life
must be spent on board ship; and to secure a religious influence there,
should be the great object. The distribution of Bibles and tracts into
cabins and forecastles, will do much toward this. There is nothing
which will gain a sailor's attention sooner, and interest him more
deeply, than a tract, especially one which contains a story. It is
difficult to engage their attention in mere essays and arguments, but
the simplest and shortest story, in which home is spoken of, kind
friends, a praying mother or sister, a sudden death, and the like,
often touches the heart of the roughest and most abandoned. The Bible
is to the sailor a sacred book. It may lie in the bottom of his chest,
voyage after voyage; but he never treats it with positive disrespect.
I never knew but one sailor who doubted its being the inspired word of
God; and he was one who had received an uncommonly good education,
except that he had been brought up without any early religious
influence. The most abandoned man of our crew, one Sunday morning,
asked one of the boys to lend him his Bible. The boy said he would,
but was afraid he would make sport of it. "No!" said the man, "I don't
make sport of God Almighty." This is a feeling general among sailors,
and is a good foundation for religious influence.
A still greater gain is made whenever, by means of a captain who is
interested in the eternal welfare of those under his command, there can
be secured the performance of regular religious exercises, and the
exertion, on the side of religion, of that mighty influence which a
captain possesses for good, or for evil. There are occurrences at sea
which he may turn to great account,--a sudden death, the apprehension
of danger, or the escape from it, and the like; and all the calls for
gratitude and faith. Besides, this state of thing alters the whole
current of feeling between the crew and their commander. His authority
assumes more of the parental character; and kinder feelings exist.
Godwin, though an infidel, in one of his novels, describing the
relation in which a tutor stood to his pupil, says that the conviction
the tutor was under, that he and his ward were both alike awaiting a
state of eternal happiness or misery, and that they must appear
together before the same judgment-seat, operated so upon his naturally
morose disposition, as to produce a feeling of kindness and tenderness
toward his ward, which nothing else could have caused. Such must be
the effect upon the relation of master and common seaman.
There are now many vessels sailing under such auspices, in which great
good is done. Yet I never happened to fall in with one of them. I did
not hear a prayer made, a chapter read in public, nor see anything
approaching to a religious service, for two years and a quarter. There
were, in the course of the voyage, many incidents which made, for the
time, serious impressions upon our minds, and which might have been
turned to our good; but there being no one to use the opportunity, and
no services, the regular return of which might have kept something of
the feeling alive in us, the advantage of them was lost, to some,
perhaps, forever.
The good which a single religious captain may do can hardly be
calculated. In the first place, as I have said, a kinder state of
feeling exists on board the ship. There is no profanity allowed; and
the men are not called by any opprobrious names, which is a great thing
with sailors. The Sabbath is observed. This gives the men a day of
rest, even if they pass it in no other way. Such a captain, too, will
not allow a sailor on board his ship to remain unable to read his Bible
and the books given to him; and will usually instruct those who need
it, in writing, arithmetic, and navigation; since he has a good deal of
time on his hands, which he can easily employ in such a manner. He
will also have regular religious services; and, in fact, by the power
of his example, and, where it can judiciously be done, by the exercise
of his authority, will give a character to the ship and all on board.
In foreign ports, a ship is known by her captain; for, there being no
general rules in the merchant service, each master may adopt a plan of
his own. It is to be remembered, too, that there are, in most ships,
boys of a tender age, whose characters for life are forming, as well as
old men, whose lives must be drawing toward a close. The greater part
of sailors die at sea; and when they find their end approaching, if it
does not, as is often the case, come without warning, they cannot, as
on shore, send for a clergyman, or some religious friend, to speak to
them of that hope in a Saviour, which they have neglected, if not
despised, through life; but if the little hull does not contain such an
one within its compass, they must be left without human aid in their
great extremity. When such commanders and such ships, as I have just
described, shall become more numerous, the hope of the friends of
seamen will be greatly strengthened; and it is encouraging to remember
that the efforts among common sailors will soon raise up such a class;
for those of them who are brought under these influences will
inevitably be the ones to succeed to the places of trust and authority.
If there is on earth an instance where a little leaven may leaven the
whole lump, it is that of the religious shipmaster.
It is to the progress of this work among seamen that we must look with
the greatest confidence for the remedying of those numerous minor evils
and abuses that we so often hear of. It will raise the character of
sailors, both as individuals and as a class. It will give weight to
their testimony in courts of justice, secure better usage to them on
board ship, and add comforts to their lives on shore and at sea. There
are some laws that can be passed to remove temptation from their way
and to help them in their progress; and some changes in the
jurisdiction of the lower courts, to prevent delays, may, and probably
will, be made. But, generally speaking, more especially in things which
concern the discipline of ships, we had better labor in this great
work, and view with caution the proposal of new laws and arbitrary
regulations, remembering that most of those concerned in the making of
them must necessarily be little qualified to judge of their operation.
Without any formal dedication of my narrative to that body of men, of
whose common life it is intended to be a picture, I have yet borne them
constantly in mind during its preparation. I cannot but trust that
those of them, into whose hands it may chance to fall, will find in it
that which shall render any professions of sympathy and good wishes on
my part unnecessary. And I will take the liberty, on parting with my
reader, who has gone down with us to the ocean, and "laid his hand upon
its mane," to commend to his kind wishes, and to the benefit of his
efforts, that class of men with whom, for a time, my lot was cast. I
wish the rather to do this, since I feel that whatever attention this
book may gain, and whatever favor it may find, I shall owe almost
entirely to that interest in the sea, and those who follow it, which is
so easily excited in us all.
[1] I am not sure that I have stated, in the course of my narrative,
the manner in which sailors eat, on board ship. There are neither
tables, knives, forks, nor plates, in a forecastle; but the kid (a
wooden tub, with iron hoops) is placed on the floor and the crew sit
round it, and each man cuts for himself with the common jack-knife or
sheath-knife, that he carries about him. They drink their tea out of
tin pots, holding little less than a quart each.
These particulars are not looked upon as hardships, and, indeed, may be
considered matters of choice. Sailors, in our merchantmen, furnish
their own eating utensils, as they do many of the instruments which
they use in the ship's work, such as knives, palms and needles,
marline-spikes, rubbers, etc. And considering their mode of life in
other respects, the little time they would have for laying and clearing
away a table with its apparatus, and the room it would take up in a
forecastle, as well as the simple character of their meals, consisting
generally of only one piece of meat,--it is certainly a convenient
method, and, as the kid and pans are usually kept perfectly clean, a
neat and simple one. I had supposed these things to be generally
known, until I heard, a few months ago, a lawyer of repute, who has had
a good deal to do with marine cases, ask a sailor upon the stand
whether the crew had "got up from table" when a certain thing happened.
TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AFTER
It was in the winter of 1835-6 that the ship Alert, in the prosecution
of her voyage for hides on the remote and almost unknown coast of
California, floated into the vast solitude of the Bay of San Francisco.
All around was the stillness of nature. One vessel, a Russian, lay at
anchor there, but during our whole stay not a sail came or went. Our
trade was with remote Missions, which sent hides to us in launches
manned by their Indians. Our anchorage was between a small island,
called Yerba Buena, and a gravel beach in a little bight or cove of the
same name, formed by two small projecting points. Beyond, to the
westward of the landing-place, were dreary sand-hills, with little
grass to be seen, and few trees, and beyond them higher hills, steep
and barren, their sides gullied by the rains. Some five or six miles
beyond the landing-place, to the right, was a ruinous Presidio, and
some three or four miles to the left was the Mission of Dolores, as
ruinous as the Presidio, almost deserted, with but few Indians attached
to it, and but little property in cattle. Over a region far beyond our
sight there were no other human habitations, except that an
enterprising Yankee, years in advance of his time, had put up, on the
rising ground above the landing, a shanty of rough boards, where he
carried on a very small retail trade between the hide ships and the