Ned Myers, or, a Life Before the Mast

by James Fenimore Cooper

I can say conscientiously, that were my life to be passed over again, without the hope of commanding a vessel, it should be passed in the navy. The food is better, the service is lighter, the treatment is better, if a man behave himself at all well, he is better cared for, has a port under his lee in case of accidents, and gets good, steady, wages, with the certainty of being paid. If his ship is lost, his wages are safe; and if he gets hurt, he is pensioned. Then he is pretty certain of having gentlemen over him, and that is a great deal for any man. He has good quarters below; and if he serve in a ship as large as a frigate, he has a cover over his head, half the time, at least, in bad weather. This is the honest opinion of one who has served in all sorts of crafts, liners, Indiamen, coasters, smugglers, whalers, and transient ships. I have been in a ship of the line, two frigates, three sloops of war, and several smaller craft; and such is the result of all my experience in Uncle Sam's navy. No man can go to sea and always meet with fair-weather, but he will get as little of foul in one of our vessels of war, as in any craft that floats, if a man only behave himself. I think the American merchantmen give better wages than are to be found in other services; and I think the American men-of-war, as a rule, give better treatment than the American merchantman. God bless the flag, I say, and this, too, without the fear of being hanged!

The Delaware lay two or three weeks in the Roads before she went up to the Yard. At the latter place we began to strip the ship. While thus employed, we were told that seventy-five of us, whose times were not quite out, were to be drafted for the Brandywine 44, then fitting out at New York, for a short cruise in the Gulf. This was bad news, for Jack likes a swing ashore after a long service abroad. Go we must, and did, however. We were sent round to New York in a schooner, and found the frigate still lying at the Yard. We were hulked on board the Hudson until she was ready to receive us, when we were sent to our new vessel. Captain Ballard commanded the Brandywine, and among her lieutenants, Mr. M'Kenny was the first. This is a fine ship, and she got her name from the battle in which La Fayette was wounded in this country, having been first fitted out to carry him to France, after his last visit to America. She is a first-class frigate, mounting thirty long thirty-two's on her gun-deck; and I conceive it to be some honour to a sailor to have it in his power to say he has been captain of the forecastle in such a ship, for I was rated in this frigate the same as I had been rated in the Delaware; with this difference, that, for my service in the Brandywine, I received my regular eighteen dollars a month as a petty officer; whereas, though actually captain of the Delaware's forecastle for quite two years, and second-captain nearly all the rest of the time I was in the ship, I never got more than seaman's wages, or twelve dollars a month. I do not know how this happened, though I supposed it to have arisen from some mistake connected with the circumstance that I was paid off for my services in the Delaware, by the purser of the frigate. This was in consequence of the transfer.

The Brandywine sailed in March for the Gulf. Our cruise lasted about five months, during which time we went to Vera Cruz, Pensacola, and the Havana. We appeared to me to be a single ship, as we were never in squadron, and saw no broad-pennant. No accident happened, the cruise being altogether pleasant. The ship returned to Norfolk, and twenty-five of us, principally old Delawares, were discharged, our times being out. We all of us intended to return to the frigate, after a cruise ashore, and we chartered a schooner to carry us to Philadelphia in a body, determining not to part company.

The morning the schooner sailed, I was leading the whole party along one of the streets of Norfolk, when I saw something white lying in the middle of the carriage-way. It turned out to be an old messmate, Jack Dove, who had been discharged three days before, and had left us to go to Philadelphia, but had been brought up by King Grog. While we were overhauling the poor fellow, who could not speak, his landlady came out to us, and told us that he had eat nothing for three days, and did nothing but drink. She begged us to take care of him, as he disregarded all she said. This honest woman gave us Jack's wages to a cent, for I knew what they had come to; and we made a collection of ten dollars for her, calculating that Jack must have swallowed that much in three days. Jack we took with us, bag and hammock; but he would eat nothing on the passage, calling out constantly for drink. We gave him liquor, thinking it would do him good; but he grew worse, and, when we reached Philadelphia, he was sent to the hospital. Here, in the course of a few days, he died.

Never, in all my folly and excesses, did I give myself so much up to drink, as when I reached Philadelphia this time. I was not quite as bad as Jack Dove, but I soon lost my appetite, living principally on liquor. When we heard of Jack's death, we proposed among ourselves to give him a sailor's funeral. We turned out, accordingly, to the number if a hundred, or more, in blue jackets and white trowsers, and marched up to the hospital in a body. I was one of the leaders in this arrangement, and felt much interest in it, as Jack had been my messmate; but, the instant I saw his coffin, a fit of the "horrors" came over me, and I actually left the place, running down street towards the river, as if pursued by devils. Luckily, I stopped to rest on the stoop of a druggist. The worthy man took me in, gave me some soda water, and some good advice. When a little strengthened, I made my way home, but gave up at the door. Then followed a severe indisposition, which kept me in bed for a fortnight, during which I suffered the torments of the damned.

I have had two or three visits from the "horrors," in the course of my life, but nothing to equal this attack. I came near following Jack Dove to the grave; but God, in His mercy, spared me from such an end. It is not possible for one who has never experienced the effects of his excesses, in this particular form, to get any correct notions of the sufferings I endured. Among other conceits, I thought the colour which the tar usually leaves on seamen's nails, was the sign that I had the yellow fever. This idea haunted me for days, and gave me great uneasiness. In short, I was like a man suspended over a yawning chasm, expecting, every instant, to fall and be dashed to pieces, and yet, who could not die.

For some time after my recovery, I could not bear the smell of liquor; but evil companions lured me back to my old habits. I was soon in a bad way again, and it was only owing to the necessity of going to sea, that I had not a return of the dreadful malady. When I shipped in the Delaware, I had left my watch, quadrant, and good clothes, to the value of near two hundred dollars, with my present landlord, and he now restored them all to me, safe and sound. I made considerable additions to the stock of clothes, and when I again went to sea, left the whole, and more, with the same landlord.

Our plan of going back to the Brandywine was altered by circumstances; and a party of us shipped in the Monongahela, a Liverpool liner, out of Philadelphia. The cabin of this vessel was taken by two gentlemen, going to visit Europe, viz.: Mr. Hare Powell and Mr. Edward Burd; and getting these passengers, with their families, on board, the ship sailed. By this time, I had pretty much given up the hope of preferment, and did not trouble myself whether I lived forward or aft. I joined the Monongahela as a forward hand, therefore, quite as well satisfied as if her chief mate.

We left the Delaware in the month of August, and, a short time out, encountered one of the heaviest gales of wind I ever witnessed at sea. It came on from the eastward, and would have driven us ashore, had not the wind suddenly shifted to south-west. The ship was lying-to, under bare poles, pressed down upon the water in such a way that she lay almost as steady as if in a river; nor did the force of the wind allow the sea to get up. A part of the time, our lee lower yard-arms were nearly in the water. We had everything aloft, but sending them down was quite out of the question. It was not possible, at one time, for a man to go aloft at all. I tried it myself, and could with difficulty keep my feet on the ratlins. I make no doubt I should have been blown out of the top, could I have reached it, did I let go my hold to do any work.

We had sailed in company with the Kensington, a corvette belonging to the Emperor of Russia, and saw a ship, during the gale, that was said to be she. The Kensington was dismasted, and had to return to refit, but we did not part a rope-yarn. When the wind shifted, we were on soundings; and, it still continuing to blow a gale, we set the main-topsail close-reefed, and the foresail, and shoved the vessel off the land at the rate of a steam-boat. After this, the wind favoured us, and our passage out was very short. We stayed but a few days in Liverpool; took in passengers, and got back to Philadelphia, after an absence of a little more than two months. The Kensington's report of the gale, and of our situation, had caused much uneasiness in Philadelphia, but our two passages were so short, that we brought the news of our safety.