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- 14963
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z
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- text
- Mediterranean, in order to reach his imperial master, Nero, and do
homage for his crown?”
“What lingo is that?” cried the Captain of the Waist.
“Who’s Commodore Tiddery-eye?” cried the forecastle-man.
“Hear me out,” resumed Lemsford. “Like Tiridates, I venerate the sea,
and venerate it so highly, shipmates, that evermore I shall abstain
from crossing it. In _that_ sense, Captain of the Waist, I echo your
cry.”
It was, indeed, a remarkable fact, that nine men out of every ten of
the Neversink’s crew had formed some plan or other to keep themselves
ashore for life, or, at least, on fresh water, after the expiration of
the present cruise. With all the experiences of that cruise accumulated
in one intense recollection of a moment; with the smell of tar in their
nostrils; out of sight of land; with a stout ship under foot, and
snuffing the ocean air; with all the things of the sea surrounding
them; in their cool, sober moments of reflection; in the silence and
solitude of the deep, during the long night-watches, when all their
holy home associations were thronging round their hearts; in the
spontaneous piety and devotion of the last hours of so long a voyage;
in the fullness and the frankness of their souls; when there was naught
to jar the well-poised equilibrium of their judgment—under all these
circumstances, at least nine tenths of a crew of five hundred
man-of-war’s-men resolved for ever to turn their backs on the sea. But
do men ever hate the thing they love? Do men forswear the hearth and
the homestead? What, then, must the Navy be?
But, alas for the man-of-war’s-man, who, though he may take a Hannibal
oath against the service; yet, cruise after cruise, and after
forswearing it again and again, he is driven back to the spirit-tub and
the gun-deck by his old hereditary foe, the ever-devilish god of grog.
On this point, let some of the crew of the Neversink be called to the
stand.
You, Captain of the Waist! and you, seamen of the fore-top! and you,
after-guard’s-men and others! how came you here at the guns of the
North Carolina, after registering your solemn vows at the galley of the
Neversink?
They all hang their heads. I know the cause; poor fellows! perjure
yourselves not again; swear not at all hereafter.
Ay, these very tars—the foremost in denouncing the Navy; who had bound
themselves by the most tremendous oaths—these very men, not three days
after getting ashore, were rolling round the streets in penniless
drunkenness; and next day many of them were to be found on board of the
_guardo_ or receiving-ship. Thus, in part, is the Navy manned.
- title
- Chunk 5