CHAPTER II.
At Sea.
June 19th.—Two days ago, at noon, land was descried from the mast-head. We were approaching the Bahama Islands, not in the direction of the Mona Passage, but in that of the Caycos, more to the west, the wind having headed us off from our first course. During the previous night, we had passed over a point on the ocean, memorable in its historic interest, where, on the very eve of joyful triumph, the illustrious discoverer of the western world suffered the severest trial of his daring voyage. It was here that the discouragement and fears of his followers in their frail barks, approached desperation and open mutiny; and confident hope had well nigh ended in disappointment, and triumphant success in failure. It was impossible to traverse the same waters, without recalling vividly to mind the scene of trial and conflict which they had witnessed more than three hundred and fifty years before, and sympathizing afresh with the great navigator in his distress; or to hear the cry, “land ho!” without recurring in thought to the devout exultations of his heart, when, in the watches of the night, the interrupted glimmerings of a distant light peered upon eyes eagerly searching its gloom, dispelling for ever the fears of his companions, and crowning his adventurous enterprise with imperishable honor.
The land descried aloft, soon became visible from the deck. It was the great Caycos, the most eastern of the Bahamas, a low, flat island of sand, surrounded by extensive shoals. There was little to interest in its appearance; a mere tufting of bushes on the water, along the line of the horizon, of which we soon lost sight. The next morning, and for the rest of the day, the west end of St. Domingo was in view, furnishing in its turn abundant subjects for musing in the tragic scenes of the revolt of 1791. Before nightfall the eastern extremity of Cuba was also in sight. Both are lofty and mountainous, but less picturesque in general outline than the islands of the South Seas. The sail of the afternoon and evening was delightful,—the perfection of its kind. The trade-wind was fresh and balmy, and so steady, that the lofty mass of canvas we spread to it was as motionless as if it were a fixture on the sea; while the ocean, of the most beautiful tint of marine blue, was every where gemmed with white-caps of the brilliancy of so much snow.
June 20th.—Hitherto the duty of the ship has been carried on admirably under a kind and humane discipline. The lash, formerly in such constant requisition on board a man-of-war, in bringing a new crew under ready control, has neither been heard nor seen. A fight, however, which came off a day or two since, between two of the marines, led to a kind of drumhead court-martial, yesterday, and to the punishment of the parties this morning, with the cat-o’-nine-tails. It is the first instance with us of such a revolting spectacle, and I most devoutly hope it may be the last. I am sure it will, unless there be those on board so incorrigible and so determined to subject themselves to it, that no other mode of discipline will meet their case. Before we left port, Captain McIntosh, in an excellent address, after the first reading in public of the “articles of war,” assured the crew with deep feeling, that nothing could give him greater pleasure than to return to the United States and have it in his power to report to the Navy Department that a lash had never been given on board the Congress during the cruise. He reiterated the same sentiment this morning to the ship’s company, mustered to witness the punishment, with the fresh avowal of his utter unwillingness to resort to so degrading a mode of chastisement: adding “that the existing law, however, made the duty imperative upon him as an ultimate means of enforcing his command, and protecting his ship from insubordination and misrule; and that it should be remembered by all, whenever the necessity was forced on him of administering this punishment, that it would only be through the deliberate purpose and choice of any one subjecting himself to it.”
The cat-o’-nine-tails, as a mode of punishment, is a relic of barbarism disgraceful to the age in which we live, and antagonistic to its entire spirit. The wonder is, not that men-of-wars men are scarce, and recruits for the navy few, but that, with such a barbarous punishment legalized, an American sailor can be found willing to place himself in a position in which he can, by any contingency, be exposed to the disgrace of its infliction.
In place of attempting a description of the spectacle, as just witnessed by us, I will substitute one, which happens to be before me, of a similar scene, from the pen of an officer in the British Navy. It is more graphic than any I could furnish, and as truthful to the reality, in its leading features, as can well be pictured. It is drawn from his early experience as a midshipman. “I had not been many days on board,” he says, “before I heard a hollow sound reverberating round the frigate’s decks, and which seemed to bring a shade of gloom over the faces of all around me. Again the words were repeated, ‘All hands, Ahoy!’ I eagerly inquired the meaning of this mystery, and was answered by a lad about sixteen years of age, ‘It is all hands to punishment, my boy; you are going to see a man flogged.’
“The idea of a man being flogged at all, under any possible circumstances, had never before entered my brain. I had as yet no notions that such a degree of barbarity could exist; I had indeed known that boys were flogged, but how they could horse a man was to me a mystery. My reflections were broken in upon by observing all my messmates busily engaged in putting on their cocked-hats and side-arms. And as this was the first time I had sported my new dirk, I felt very strange and mingled sensations, as I stepped forth on the quarter-deck. The marines were drawn up on the larboard side of the deck, with their bayonets fixed, and their officers with their swords drawn, and resting against their shoulders. On the main deck the seamen had all assembled in a dense crowd around the hatchway, and the said hatchway was ornamented with several gratings fixed up on one end, evidently for some purpose which I had never yet seen accomplished. The officers in their full uniforms, with swords, and cocked hats, were pacing the decks: but all was still and solemn silence. At length the captain came forth from his cabin, the marines carrying arms at his first appearance on the quarter-deck. The first lieutenant, taking off his hat, approached him, and reported that ‘all was ready.’
“As the captain came up to the gangway, he removed his hat; which was followed by all the men and officers becoming uncovered. Then, taking a printed copy of the articles of war, he read aloud a few lines, which denounced the judgment of a court-martial on any person who should be guilty of some particular offence, the nature of which I did not understand. This done, he ordered Edward Williams to strip; adding, ‘You have been guilty of neglect of duty, sir, in not laying in off the foretopsail yard when the first lieutenant ordered you; and I will give you a d——d good flogging.’ By this time the poor fellow had taken off his jacket and shirt, which was thrown over his shoulders by the master-at-arms, while two quartermasters lashed the poor fellow’s elbows to the gratings, so that he could not stir beyond an inch or two either way. It was in vain that he begged and besought the captain and first lieutenant to forgive him; protesting that he did not hear himself called, in consequence of having a bad cold, which rendered him almost deaf. His entreaties were unheeded; and at the words, ‘Boatswain’s mate, give him a dozen,’ a tall, strong fellow came forward with a cat-o’-nine-tails, and, having taken off his own jacket, and carefully measured his distance, so as to be able to strike with the full swing of his arm, he flung the tails of the cat around his head, and with all the energy of his body brought them down upon the fair, white, plump back of poor Williams. A sudden jerk of the poor fellow almost tore away the gratings from their position; he gave a scream of agony, and again begged the captain, for the sake of Jesus Christ, to let him off. I was horror-struck on seeing nine large welts, as big as my fingers, raised on his back, spreading from his shoulder-blades nearly to his loins; but my feelings were doomed to be still more harrowed. For as soon as the tall boatswain’s mate had completed the task of running his fingers through the cords to clear them and prevent the chance of a single lash being spared the wretched sufferer, he again flung them around his head to repeat the blow. Another slashing sound upon the naked flesh, another shriek and struggle to get free succeeded,—and then another and another, till the complement of twelve agonizing lashes was completed. The back was, by this time, nearly covered with deep red gashes; the skin roughed up and curled in many parts, as it does when a violent blow causes an extensive abrasion. The poor man looked up with an imploring eye toward the first lieutenant, and groaned out, ‘Indeed, sir, as I hope to be saved, I did not hear you call me.’ The only reply was on the part of the captain, who gave the word, ‘another boatswain’s mate!’ ‘Oh, God, sir, have mercy on me!’ was again the cry of the poor man: ‘Boatswain’s mate, go on; and mind that you do your duty!’ the only answer.
“The effect of one hundred and eight cuts upon his bare back had rendered it a fearful sight, but when these had been repeated with all the vigor of a fresh and untired arm, the poor fellow exhibited a sad spectacle indeed. The dark red of the wounds had assumed a livid purple, the flesh stood up in mangled ridges, and the blood trickled here and there like the breaking out of an old wound. The pipes of the boatswain and his mates now sounded, and they called ‘all hands up anchor!’ The gratings were quickly removed, and of all the human beings who had witnessed the cruel torture on the body of poor Edward Williams, not one seemed in the slightest degree affected. All was bustle and activity and apparent merriment as they went to work in obedience to the call.”
In this account there is no exaggeration: no exaggeration of the usual manner of inflicting such punishment; no exaggeration of the triviality of the alleged offence; no exaggeration of the earnest asseveration of innocence; no exaggeration of the hardening effect of the scene upon the spectators. I have known men to be thus flogged for acts or omissions equally if not more trivial—not only singly, but, in one instance at least, a dozen at a time, and that, too, where it was known that one only of the number was really in fault. Because some one of a quarter watch in the top did a careless and lubberly thing, in the estimation of an officer, though doubtless, from the circumstances of the case, accidentally, and none of his topmates would give up his name, the whole watch were ordered on deck, and, in succession, received a dozen lashes each.
The entire experience of the writer of the above account, as to this punishment, corroborates fully the opinion I have formed from my own observation as to its effects—that in all its bearings it has a tendency to demoralize and harden rather than to reform. He proceeds to state that the captain under whose command the case of flogging described occurred, changed ships not long afterwards with one who abominated the system of corporal punishment; and adds, “For four years I served under his orders, and witnessed no more of the inhuman practice. The men were allowed to go on shore frequently sixty and seventy at a time, and in all respects were treated so kindly that but one case of desertion occurred during all that period. The captain made it a point to visit the whole crew when at dinner, to see, himself, that they had every thing they required to make them comfortable. This he did every day; and the sick were always fed from his own table. The result of this was that our ship was the smartest frigate on the station, and fought one of the most glorious actions which ever graced the annals of the British Navy.”
His experience in the matter did not end here. He thus proceeds: “I joined another ship, the captain of which was wont to say, ‘I never forgive a first offence—for if there was no first offence there could be no second.’ Profane swearing and drunkenness, he never by any accident forgave. The result was a flogging match every Monday morning, and very frequently once or twice in the week besides. The crew grew worse and worse from this treatment, till, at length, there was scarcely a sober seaman or marine on board the ship, though her complement was about six hundred men and boys. The more drunken they became the more he flogged them; but the crime and punishment seemed to react on each other, and the ship became at last so very notorious for the cat that he was jested upon it by his fellow captains, and the men deserted at every opportunity.”
I believe the experience, thus presented, of these two ships, to be a fair exposition of the general and direct tendency of the two systems. Revolting as punishment with the ‘colt’ and ‘cat’ ever has been to me, and often as my blood has been made to boil in witnessing it, a want of practical knowledge in the case led me, for a time, reluctantly to acquiesce in the opinion universally held, so far as I could discover, by those most experienced in naval rule, that it was indispensable as a means of discipline on board a man-of-war. But the teachings of my nature, that this is an error, have been corroborated by long observation; and had no previous conviction of this been fastened on my mind, the success of the executive officer of the Congress in devising and substituting more humanizing modes of punishment for transgressions of law and delinquencies in duty, would have gone far in persuading me to it. I doubt not that should the law of the lash be abrogated by our national legislature to-morrow,[[1]] and the change be met by the enactment of a wise and philanthropic code of naval rule, the discipline and efficiency of the service would be more perfect than ever before.
[1]. Flogging was abolished, both in the navy and mercantile marine, a few months after the above was written.
June 24th.—
“The twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
Flash the white caps of the sea.”
So sings Longfellow, and such is the imagery around us from the passing of a heavy squall. The rushing wind and the dampness brought with it, from the approaching rain, are welcome and most refreshing, after two or three days and nights on the south side of Cuba, sultry almost to suffocation. Whether correct in our recollections or not, all hands agree that, in no part of the world in which we have been, either on land or at sea, have we before suffered so much from the intensity of the heat. Notwithstanding, I was never in the enjoyment of more vigorous health or in more elastic spirits.
In the afternoon of my last date, we had a distant view of a part of the island of Jamaica, as well as of San Domingo and Cuba: a sail, too, was in sight, and the smoke of a steamer marked on the horizon—all taking much from the solitariness of our position. The next morning we were slowly advancing westward, along the lofty, but mist covered and cloud obscured mountain range of the Sierra de Cobra, beneath a point in which lie the port and city of St. Jago de Cuba. At sunset the same evening we were directly abreast Cape de Cruz, in full view of the coast, but at too great a distance to make out the distinctive features of the landscape, even with the best glasses. We are now off the Isle of Pines, famed in the annals of the Buccaneers of the olden time, and a haunt of pirates in our own day.
Light and baffling winds, with alternate calms, have made our progress slow. The tedium of the time has been relieved in part by a first interchange of dinner parties between the wardroom mess and the commodore and captain. The kindest feeling exists among the officers of all grades on board, and these reunions, where the formality of official intercourse gives place for the time to the free interchange of thought and feeling, and of sympathy in intellect and taste, are salutary in their influences on both mind and heart. The Sabbath is the day usually chosen on board a man-of-war for these courtesies; but it has been unanimously decided, by our mess, that the entertainments given in the wardroom shall be on a week day.
During the continuance of moonlight in the evening and early part of the night, the enjoyment of it on deck in quiet musings, after the heat of the day, seemed the prevailing mood of the ship’s company. The band in whole or in part, at times, added music to the sympathies which were sending our thoughts and affections homeward by the way of the moon. But now that she is on the wane, and reserves her beams for the later watches of the night, the sailors cheer themselves in the darkness, by singing on the spar-deck, grouped in their respective limits from the fife-rail to the forecastle. Last evening, even the quarter-deck was invaded, under the sanction of an officer, by a party of negro minstrels: not such mock performers as are heard on shore under the name, but of the genuine type, consisting of the servants of the wardroom. For half an hour or more they sang, in practised harmony and with effect, many of the more sentimental and popular of the negro melodies; while forward and in the gangways there was echoed forth, in varied song, the feats of warrior knights and the love of ladies fair. Others of the crew were, at the same time, listening in groups between the guns along the entire deck, to a rehearsal by their shipmates of tragic stories of shipwreck, piracy and murder; to recitations from tragedies and comedies; to close arguments on various topics—navigation and seamanship, politics, morals and religion—and, at one point, to a lecture on history, of which I overheard enough to learn the subject to be the life and achievements of the brave Wallace, dilated upon in the broad dialect of the “land o’ cakes!”
Light-heartedness and contentment seem every where to prevail, and all manifest by their conduct, as well as by word, that they feel themselves to be on board a favored ship.
Had I time for the record, you would be amused by many things I hourly hear and see, in my walks of leisure. To-day, while on the quarter-deck after the men’s dinner, I overheard one of the messenger boys, who had just come from this meal, say to a companion, “I tell you what, Jim, I couldn’t eat much of that dinner: old mahogany and hard tack, is what I call pretty tough eating. To-morrow too is bean day, and I wouldn’t give a penny for a bushel of them.” A sprightly young sailor who completed an apprenticeship in the service, happening to pass at the time, stopped for a moment, and with an assumed air of indignant reproof, exclaimed, “Why, you ungrateful young cub!—you growling at Uncle Sam’s grub? why you ought to be down upon your knees thanking God that you have so good an uncle to give you any thing!”
Just afterwards, I fell into conversation with an old salt who had been with me, in the Delaware line-of-battle ship, in 1833. After mutual inquiries of various officers and men who were shipmates with us then; what had become of this one and what of that—he said, in all honesty of heart, and with a most lugubrious expression of face, “And there was Lieut. M—— too: they tell me, sir, he stepped out entirely, the other day at the Hospital!”—meaning that he had died there. I never heard the expression in such a connection before, and could not avoid being struck, not only with its oddity, but also with its force.
June 29th.—Just at nightfall, on my last date, we doubled Cape Antonio, the extreme westerly point of Cuba, at a distance of ten or twelve miles. It is long and low, covered with dark woods, and, in general aspect, not unlike the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey, as seen from the sea. As soon as our course was turned northward for Havana, the regular wind became adverse to us, and the next morning we were in the Florida Channel, far from the land and a hundred miles and more from our port. The tediousness of a dead beat to windward was relieved, however, by the greater freshness and elasticity of the air, in comparison with that on the south side of Cuba. For two or three evenings, here, the sunsets were among the most gorgeous I recollect. The whole western hemisphere, filled with fantastic and richly colored clouds, glowed with a brilliancy and glare of crimson light, as if the entire sea beneath were one vast bed of volcanic fire.
After two days we again made the land, with fine views during the afternoon, of two lofty ranges of mountains in the interior of the island—the Sierra del Rosario and the Sierra de los Organos or Organ mountains; but it was not till last night that we reached the parallel of Havana. At 10 o’clock the Moro light, at the entrance of the port, was descried, some fifteen miles distant. Its brilliant flashings, through the darkness of an unsettled sky, came cheerily upon the sight over the troubled water, in the assurance they gave of our true position, amid the changing currents and hazardous navigation of these straits.
Before daybreak this morning we fell in with and spoke the sloop-of-war Germantown, Captain Lowndes, cruising off the harbor. I was early on deck. The morning was fresh and beautiful, but the shores less bold and striking than I had anticipated; and the mountains in view were more remote. Still the landscape was pleasing in its verdure, though neither varied nor picturesque in its outline. Having been lying to for the night, we were still eight or ten miles from the entrance of the harbor; but the Moro Castle and city were in distinct view—the former, surmounted by its pharos towering loftily on a precipitous cliff of rock on the left of the entrance, and the latter stretching beneath it to the right, in a long line of whiteness on a level with the sea.
The scene increased momentarily in interest. A fresh trade-wind, creating a sea which, in the brightness of the sun, tossed up jets of diamonds on every side, hurried us rapidly forward, under topsails and topgallant-sails only: the Germantown, a beautiful craft, followed closely in our wake, fluttering over the water with the lightness and buoyancy of a bird. There were besides some eight or ten square-rigged merchant vessels in sight, under various degrees of sail—some entering and others leaving port. While in the midst of these, the Germantown and Congress interchanged salutes, with pretty effect on the general picture.
The wind had now increased to a half gale; a pilot had boarded us, and we bore away with a rush for the Moro, which immediately overhangs the entrance to the port. This is narrow—very narrow; seemingly a mere creek, a few ships’ length only in width. It runs at right angles with the line of coast along which we were flying. This made it necessary in entering, to haul suddenly, from a free course, closely on the wind. We did so, at the speed of a race-horse, almost grazing the surf-lashed rocks over which tower the frowning battlements of the Moro, and within biscuit throw, as it were, of the batteries of the Punta on the opposite side—the pilot, momentarily alternating the exclamation “Hard a port!” “Hard a starboard!” “Steady—steady!” kept the men at the helm on the full spring in shifting the wheel from side to side; while at the same time the yards were filled with the crew reducing sail to bare poles, as if by magic, under the trumpet orders of the first lieutenant. I thought it one of the most exciting moments, and one of the most beautiful sights, in the navigation of so large a ship, I had ever witnessed.
In less time than is required thus to state it, we were transferred from the tossings of a rough sea, to the glassy surface of an apparent river. The scene on either hand was picturesque and animated. On one side, were the terraced heights adjoining the Moro, grim with the defences of war, relieved here and there by sentries and groups of soldiers, lounging about the batteries; and, on the other, level with the water, a range of stone quays, lined with shipping and coasting craft, and covered with sailors, boatmen, negro porters, and stevedores. Beyond rose the buildings of the city, painted in every variety of light and gay colors, and overtopped by the time-stained domes and towers of the churches and other public structures. The aspect of the whole was so entirely transatlantic, that I could scarce resist the illusion that I was again in old Spain, and that it was “fair Cadiz” I saw stretched before me. The gallantry of our entrance had attracted the gaze of the thousands crowding the quay in its whole length, and murmurs of admiration were every where heard at the beauty of our frigate, and the dashing style in which she glided rapidly along under the headway brought in by her from the sea.
At the end of half a mile, the straight and narrow inlet expands into a round basin, five or six miles in circumference. Near the centre of this we dropped anchor: having the city and its defences towards the sea on one side of us, and green hills tufted with palm-trees and dotted with cottages and country seats on the other. The harbor is a gem of beauty, capable of containing the navies of half the world. Five Spanish men-of-war, including a ship-of-the-line, are moored within pistol shot of us, and the Germantown immediately at our stern. The dropping of the anchor was followed by salutes from our batteries of twenty-one guns to the flag of Spain, seventeen to that of the Spanish admiral, in command, and nine in honor of Mr. Campbell, the American consul, who soon boarded the Congress.