I do not state this idea either as new, or as applicable solely to naval affairs. The same thing occurs, in a still more striking degree, in politics, and, generally, in all those branches of civil as well as military authority, or any other kind of rule, where the passions and interests of men are placed under the guidance of their fellow-creatures. But, without launching forth on such a sea of topics, it will be admitted to be highly important that officers, and particularly young officers, should be made sensible how much caution is necessary in their discipline, since we know that even the wisest and the most experienced arrive, at last, only at this conclusion, that much still remains beyond their grasp, which they have not yet learned; and that every day may be expected to produce complicated cases of such doubt and difficulty, as will require the exercise of all their patience and attention.
But, although we cannot get to the bottom of the subject, or ever hope to frame a set of regulations to meet one thousandth part of the cases of ordinary discipline, we ought not to despair upon this point, any more than upon other perplexing questions. Nor should we relax in our efforts to investigate those laws in the moral organization of our nature, merely because they are complicated. It is a fine remark of La Place, that even the motes which we see dancing in the sun-beam are regulated, in their apparently capricious movements, by the very same laws of gravitation and momentum which determine the orbits of the planets. In like manner, there can be no doubt that, if we only knew how to trace it, this beautiful analogy would be found to extend to the laws regulating the minutest of those moral influences, which we are apt so hastily to pronounce irregular and uncertain.
The science of moral government, whether afloat or on shore, and whether the scale be great or small, is like that of physical astronomy, and has what may be called its anomalies and disturbances, sometimes very difficult to be estimated, and requiring numberless equations, or allowances, to set them right; but the pursuit is not, on that account, one whit the less true to our nature, or less worthy of that patient investigation by which alone truth can ever be reached, and all such apparent discordances reconciled.
CHAPTER X.
DANGERS OF A NOVA SCOTIA FOG.
On the 9th of May, we reached Halifax, off which port we were detained in a very disagreeable way; for we had the misfortune to be kept three whole days off the harbour, in one of those Nova Scotia fogs, which are celebrated all over the world. I can hardly give by description an idea of how gloomy they are; but I think their effects can be compared to those of the sirocco; with the further annoyance, that, while they last, we are not able to see far beyond our noses. They are even worse than rain, for they seem to wet one through sooner; while they make every thing appear dreary, and certainly render all the world lazy and discontented.
On the day we made the land, we had great hopes of being able to enter the harbour, as the wind was fair: when, all at once, we were surrounded by so thick a mist, that, for the three succeeding days, we could not see above twenty yards on any side.
There are few things, indeed, more provoking than these fogs off Halifax; for, as they happen to be companions of that very wind, the south-east, which is the best for running in, the navigator is plagued with the tormenting consciousness, that if he could be allowed but a couple of hours’ clear weather, his port would be gained, and his troubles over. The clearing up, therefore, of these odious clouds or veils is about the most delightful thing I know; and the instantaneous effect which a clear sight of the land, or even of the sharp horizon, when far at sea, has on the mind of every person on board, is quite remarkable. All things look bright, fresh, and more beautiful than ever. The stir over the whole ship at these moments is so great, that even persons sitting below can tell at once that the fog has cleared away. The rapid clatter of the men’s feet, springing up the hatchways at the lively sound of the boatswain’s call to “make sail!” soon follows. Then comes the cheerful voice of the officer, hailing the topmen to shake out the reefs, trice up the staysails, and rig out the booms. That peculiar and well-known kind of echo, also, by which the sound of the voice is thrown back from the wet sails, contributes, in like manner, to produce a joyous elasticity of spirits, greater, I think, than is excited by most of the ordinary occurrences of a sea life.
A year or two after the time I am speaking of, it was resolved to place a heavy gun upon the rock on which Sambro light-house is built; and, after a good deal of trouble, a long twenty-four pounder was hoisted up to the highest ridge of this prominent station. It was then arranged that, if, on the arrival of any ship off the harbour, in a period of fog, she chose to fire guns, these were to be answered from the light-house; and in this way a kind of audible, though invisible, telegraph might be set to work. If it happened that the officers of the ship were sufficiently familiar with the ground, and possessed nerves stout enough for such a groping kind of navigation, perilous at best, it was possible to run fairly into the harbour, notwithstanding the obscurity, by watching the sound of these guns, and attending closely to the depth of water.
I never was in any ship which ventured upon this feat; but I perfectly recollect a curious circumstance, which occurred, I think, to His Majesty’s ship Cambrian. She had run in from sea towards the coast, enveloped in one of these dense fogs. Of course they took for granted that the light-house and the adjacent land, Halifax included, were likewise covered with an impenetrable cloud or mist. But it so chanced, by what freak of Dame Nature I know not, that the fog, on that day, was confined to the deep water; so that we, who were in the port, could see it, at the distance of several miles from the coast, lying on the ocean like a huge stratum of snow, with an abrupt face, fronting the shore. The Cambrian, lost in the midst of this fog bank, supposing herself to be near the land, fired a gun. To this the light-house replied; and so the ship and the light went on, pelting away, gun for gun, during half the day, without ever seeing one another. The people at the light-house had no means of communicating to the frigate, that, if she would only stand on a little further, she would disentangle herself from the cloud, in which, like Jupiter Olympus of old, she was wasting her thunder.
At last the captain, hopeless of its clearing up, gave orders to pipe to dinner; but as the weather, in all respects except this abominable haze, was quite fine, and the ship was still in deep water, he directed her to be steered towards the shore, and the lead kept constantly going. As one o’clock approached, he began to feel uneasy, from the water shoaling, and the light-house guns sounding closer and closer; but, being unwilling to disturb the men at their dinner, he resolved to stand on for the remaining ten minutes of the hour. Lo and behold! however, they had not sailed half a mile further before the flying-jib-boom end emerged from the wall of mist—then the bowsprit shot into daylight—and, lastly, the ship herself glided out of the cloud into the full blaze of a bright and ‘sunshine holyday.’ All hands were instantly turned up to make sail; and the men, as they flew on deck, could scarcely believe their senses when they saw behind them the fog bank, right ahead the harbour’s mouth, with the bold cliffs of Cape Sambro on the left, and, farther still, the ships at their moorings, with their ensigns and pendants blowing out, light and dry in the breeze.