PECULIAR AND UNEDUCATED
The average seaman of the middle of the nineteenth century, like his predecessor, was in many respects a cruel animal. To appearance he was void of every human feeling, and yet behind all the rugged savagery there was a big and generous heart. The fact is, this apparent or real callousness was the result of a system, pernicious in its influence, that caused the successive generations of seafaring men to swell with vanity if they could but acquire the reputation of being desperadoes; and this ambition was not an exclusive possession of those whose education had been deplorably neglected. It was proudly shared by some of the best educated men in the service. I do not wish it to be supposed, however, that many of them had more than a very ordinary elementary education; but be that as it may, they got along uncommonly well with the little they had. Mr. Forster's Educational Bill of 1870, together with Wesleyan Methodism, have done much to nullify that cultivation of ignorance, once the peculiar province of the squire and the parson. Amongst other influences, Board Schools have revolutionised (especially in the villages and seaport towns) a condition that was bordering on heathenism, and no class of workmen has benefited more than seamen by the propaganda which was established by that good Quaker who spent his best years in hard effort to make it possible that every English child, no matter how poor, should have an education.
At the time of the passing of the Education Act there were thousands of British lads who were absolutely illiterate (this does not apply so much to Scottish boys); and there were hundreds of master-mariners who could neither read nor write, and who had a genuine contempt for those who could. They held the notion that learning, as they called it, always carried with it nautical ignorance and general deterioration; and in some instances the old salts' opinions seemed amply borne out by palpable blunders in practical seamanship which were not uncommonly made when the theoretic seaman or navigator was at work. These shortcomings of the "learned" were never forgotten or forgiven by the practical though illiterate seamen.
Until well into the 'fifties the north-east coast collier brigs and schooners were usually commanded by this type of illiterates, and innumerable stories might be told of their strange methods and grotesque beliefs. The following is a fair example. The London trade once became congested with tonnage, and a demand sprang up for Holland, whereupon a well-known brig was chartered for Rotterdam. She had been so long employed running along the coast with the land aboard that the charts became entirely neglected. When the time came to say farewell there was more than ordinary affection displayed by the relatives of the crew whose destiny it was to penetrate what they conceived to be the mysteries of an unexplored East. There were not a few females who regarded the undertaking as eminently heroic. With characteristic carelessness the trim craft was rollicked along the Yorkshire coast until abreast of Flamborough Head, when it became necessary to take a departure and shape a course for Rotterdam. She scampered along at the rate of six to seven knots an hour amid much anxiety among the crew, for a growing terror had possessed the captain and his mate as they neared the unknown dangers that were ahead of them. The captain went below and had begun to unroll the chart which indicated the approaches to his destination, when he became horrorstruck, and rushing up the cabin stairs called out, "All hands on deck! Hard, a port!" The mate excitedly asked, "What's the matter?" "The matter?" said the infuriated and panic-stricken skipper, "Why the b——y rats have eaten Holland! There is nee Rotterdam for us, mister, this voyage." But in spite of a misfortune which seemed serious, the mate prevailed upon this distinguished person to allow him to have a share in the navigation, with the result that the vessel reached the haven to which she was bound without any mishap whatever.
It was not unusual for those old-time brigs, when bound to the North in ballast, to be blown off the land by strong westerly gales, and these occasions were dreaded by the coasting commander whose geographical knowledge was so limited that when he found himself drifting into the German Ocean beyond the sight of land, his resources became too heavily taxed, and perplexity prevailed. It was on one of those occasions that a skipper, after many days of boisterous drifting, remarked to his mate, "I wish our wives knew where we are this terrible night!"
"Yes," replied the shrewd officer, with comic candour; "and I wish to heaven we knew where we are ourselves!"
Such was the almost opaque ignorance, in spite of which a very large carrying trade was successfully kept going for generations.
The writing of the old-time skipper was so atrocious that it brought much bad language into the world. One gentleman used to say that his captain's letters used to go all over the country before they fell into his hands, and when they did, they were covered over with "try here" and "try there." Their manners, too, were aboriginal; and they spoke with an accent which was terrible. They rarely expressed themselves in a way that would indicate excessive purity of character. They thought it beneath the dignity of a man to be of any other profession than that of a sailor. They disdained showing soft emotion, and if they shook hands it was done in an apologetic way. The gospel of pity did not enter into their creed. Learning, as they called it, was a bewilderment to them; and yet some of those eccentric, half-savage beings could be entrusted with valuable property, and the negotiation of business involving most intricate handling. Sometimes in the settlement of knotty questions they used their own peculiar persuasiveness, and if that was not convincing, they indicated the possibility of physical force—which was usually effectual, especially with Levantines. Here is an instance: one of the latter plethoric gentlemen, with an air of aggrieved virtue, accused a captain of unreasonableness in asking him to pay up some cash which was "obviously an overcharge." The skipper in his rugged way demanded the money and the clearance of his vessel. The gentlemen who at this time inhabited the banks of the Danube could not be made to part with money without some strong reasons for doing so. The Titanic and renowned captain, having exhausted a vocabulary that was awful to listen to, proceeded to lock the office door on the inside. That having been satisfactorily done, he proceeded to unrobe himself of an article of apparel; which movement, under certain conditions, is always suggestive of coming trouble. The quick brain of the Levantine gentleman saw in the bellicose attitude assumed possibilities of great bodily harm and suffering to himself; on which he became effusively apologetic, and declaimed with vigorous gesticulation against the carelessness of his "account clerk who had committed a glaring error, such as justified his immediate dismissal!" That stalwart hero of many rights had not appealed in vain. He got his money and his clearance, and made a well-chosen and impressive little speech on the wisdom of honest dealing. His convert for the time being became much affected, declaring that he had never met with a gentleman whose words had made such a strange impression on him!
This then was the kind of creature who wrought into its present shapes and aspects England's Mercantile Marine. In carrying out his destiny he lashed about him with something of the elemental aimlessness of his mother the sea. The next chapter will show how the captain of to-day grew up and, literally, got licked into his present form at the rough and cruel hands of the old-time skipper.