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- military guard at his heels, and unostentatiously taking his seat by
the side of the meanest citizen in a public conveyance; while this is
the case, there still lingers in American men-of-war all the stilted
etiquette and childish parade of the old-fashioned Spanish court of
Madrid. Indeed, so far as the things that meet the eye are concerned,
an American Commodore is by far a greater man than the President of
twenty millions of freemen.
But we plain people ashore might very willingly be content to leave
these commodores in the unmolested possession of their gilded penny
whistles, rattles, and gewgaws, since they seem to take so much
pleasure in them, were it not that all this is attended by consequences
to their subordinates in the last degree to be deplored.
While hardly any one will question that a naval officer should be
surrounded by circumstances calculated to impart a requisite dignity to
his position, it is not the less certain that, by the excessive pomp he
at present maintains, there is naturally and unavoidably generated a
feeling of servility and debasement in the hearts of most of the seamen
who continually behold a fellow-mortal flourishing over their heads
like the archangel Michael with a thousand wings. And as, in degree,
this same pomp is observed toward their inferiors by all the grades of
commissioned officers, even down to a midshipman, the evil is
proportionately multiplied.
It would not at all diminish a proper respect for the officers, and
subordination to their authority among the seamen, were all this idle
parade—only ministering to the arrogance of the officers, without at
all benefiting the state—completely done away. But to do so, we voters
and lawgivers ourselves must be no respecters of persons.
That saying about _levelling upward, and not downward_, may seem very
fine to those who cannot see its self-involved absurdity. But the truth
is, that, to gain the true level, in some things, we _must_ cut
downward; for how can you make every sailor a commodore? or how raise
the valleys, without filling them up with the superfluous tops of the
hills?
Some discreet, but democratic, legislation in this matter is much to be
desired. And by bringing down naval officers, in these things at least,
without affecting their legitimate dignity and authority, we shall
correspondingly elevate the common sailor, without relaxing the
subordination, in which he should by all means be retained.
CHAPTER XLI.
A MAN-OF-WAR LIBRARY.
Nowhere does time pass more heavily than with most men-of-war’s-men on
board their craft in harbour.
One of my principal antidotes against _ennui_ in Rio, was reading.
There was a public library on board, paid for by government, and
intrusted to the custody of one of the marine corporals, a little,
dried-up man, of a somewhat literary turn. He had once been a clerk in
a post-office ashore; and, having been long accustomed to hand over
letters when called for, he was now just the man to hand over books. He
kept them in a large cask on the berth-deck, and, when seeking a
particular volume, had to capsize it like a barrel of potatoes. This
made him very cross and irritable, as most all librarians are. Who had
the selection of these books, I do not know, but some of them must have
been selected by our Chaplain, who so pranced on Coleridge’s “_High
German horse_.”
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