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- constantly demanding a cool head and steady nerves, and the misfortune
of filling a post that does _not_ at all times demand these qualities.
So exact and methodical in most things was the discipline of the
frigate, that, to a certain extent, Captain Claret was exempted from
personal interposition in many of its current events, and thereby,
perhaps, was he lulled into security, under the enticing lee of his
decanter.
But as for Mad Jack, he must stand his regular watches, and pace the
quarter-deck at night, and keep a sharp eye to windward. Hence, at sea,
Mad Jack tried to make a point of keeping sober, though in very fine
weather he was sometimes betrayed into a glass too many. But with Cape
Horn before him, he took the temperance pledge outright, till that
perilous promontory should be far astern.
The leading incident of the gale irresistibly invites the question, Are
there incompetent officers in the American navy?—that is, incompetent
to the due performance of whatever duties may devolve upon them. But in
that gallant marine, which, during the late war, gained so much of what
is called _glory_, can there possibly be to-day incompetent officers?
As in the camp ashore, so on the quarter-deck at sea—the trumpets of
one victory drown the muffled drums of a thousand defeats. And, in
degree, this holds true of those events of war which are neuter in
their character, neither making renown nor disgrace. Besides, as a long
array of ciphers, led by but one solitary numeral, swell, by mere force
of aggregation, into an immense arithmetical sum, even so, in some
brilliant actions, do a crowd of officers, each inefficient in himself,
aggregate renown when banded together, and led by a numeral Nelson or a
Wellington. And the renown of such heroes, by outliving themselves,
descends as a heritage to their subordinate survivors. One large brain
and one large heart have virtue sufficient to magnetise a whole fleet
or an army. And if all the men who, since the beginning of the world,
have mainly contributed to the warlike successes or reverses of
nations, were now mustered together, we should be amazed to behold but
a handful of heroes. For there is no heroism in merely running in and
out a gun at a port-hole, enveloped in smoke or vapour, or in firing
off muskets in platoons at the word of command. This kind of merely
manual valour is often born of trepidation at the heart. There may be
men, individually craven, who, united, may display even temerity. Yet
it would be false to deny that, in some in-stances, the lowest privates
have acquitted themselves with even more gallantry than their
commodores. True heroism is not in the hand, but in the heart and the
head.
But are there incompetent officers in the gallant American navy? For an
American, the question is of no grateful cast. White Jacket must again
evade it, by referring to an historical fact in the history of a
kindred marine, which, from its long standing and magnitude, furnishes
many more examples of all kinds than our own. And this is the only
reason why it is ever referred to in this narrative. I thank God I am
free from all national invidiousness.
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