Ned Myers, or, a Life Before the Mast

by James Fenimore Cooper

The Hope turned out to be a regular down-east craft, and I had been in so many flyers and crack ships as to be saucy enough to laugh at the economical outfit, and staid ways of the vessel. I went on board half drunk, and made myself conspicuous for such sort of strictures from the first hour. The captain treated me mildly, even kindly; but I stuck to my remarks during most of the passage. I was a seaman, and did my duty; but this satisfied me. I had taken a disgust to the ship; and though I had never blasphemed since the hour of the accident in the way I did the day the Susan and Mary was thrown on her beam-ends, I may be said to have crossed the Atlantic in the Hope, grumbling and swearing at the ship. Still, our living and our treatment were both good.

At Rotterdam, we got a little money, with liberty. When he last was up, I asked for more, and the captain refused it. This brought on an explosion, and I swore I would quit the ship. After a time, the captain consented, as well as he could, leaving my wages on the cabin-table, where I found them, and telling me I should repent of what I was then doing. Little did I then think he would prove so true a prophet.

Chapter XVIII.

I had left the Hope in a fit of the sulks. The vessel never pleased me, and yet I can now look back, and acknowledge that both her master and her mate were respectable, considerate men, who had my own good in view more than I had myself. There was an American ship, called the Plato, in port, and I had half a mind to try my luck in her. The master of this vessel was said to be a tartar, however, and a set of us had doubts about the expediency of trusting ourselves with such a commander. When we came to sound around him, we discovered he would have nothing to do with us, as he intended to get a crew of regular Dutchmen. This ship had just arrived from Batavia, and was bound to New York. How he did this legally, or whether he did it at all, is more than I know, for I only tell what I was told myself, on this subject.

There was a heavy Dutch Indiaman, then fitting out for Java, lying at Rotterdam. The name of this vessel was the Stadtdeel--so pronounced; how spelt, I have no idea--and I began to think I would try a voyage in her. As is common with those who have great reason to find fault with themselves, I was angry with the whole world. I began to think myself a sort of outcast, forgetting that I had deserted my natural relatives, run from my master, and thrown off many friends who were disposed to serve me in everything in which I could be served. I have a cheerful temperament by nature, and I make no doubt that the sombre view I now began to take of things, was the effects of drink. It was necessary for me to get to sea, for there I was shut out from all excesses, by discipline and necessity.

After looking around us, and debating the matter among ourselves, a party of five of us shipped in the Stadtdeel. What the others contemplated I do not know, but it was my intention to double Good Hope, and never to return. Chances enough would offer on the other side, to make a man comfortable, and I was no stranger to the ways of that quarter of the world. I could find enough to do between Bombay and Canton; and, if I could not, there were the islands and all of the Pacific before me. I could do a seaman's whole duty, was now in tolerable health and strength, and knew that such men were always wanted. Wherever a ship goes, Jack must go with her, and ships, dollars and hogs, are now to be met with all over the globe.

The Stadtdeel lay at Dort, and we went to that place to join her. She was not ready for sea, and as things moved Dutchman fashion, slow and sure, we were about six weeks at Dort before she sailed. This ship was a vessel of the size of a frigate, and carried twelve guns. She had a crew of about forty souls, which was being very short-handed. The ship's company was a strange mixture of seamen, though most of them came from the north of Europe. Among us were Russians, Danes, Swedes, Prussians, English, Americans, and but a very few Dutch. One of the mates, and two of the petty officers, could speak a little English. This made us eight who could converse in that language. We had to learn Dutch as well as we could, and made out tolerably well. Before the ship sailed, I could understand the common orders, without much difficulty. Indeed, the language is nothing but English a little flattened down.

So long as we remained at Dort, the treatment on board this vessel was well enough. We were never well fed, though we got enough food, such as it was. The work was hard, and the weather cold; but these did not frighten me. The wages were eight dollars a month;--I had abandoned eighteen, and an American ship, for this preferment! A wayward temper had done me this service.

The Stadtdeel no sooner got into the stream, than there was a great change in the treatment. We were put on an allowance of food and water, in sight of our place of departure; and the rope's-end began to fly round among the crew we five excepted. For some reason, that I cannot explain neither of us was ever struck. We got plenty of curses, in Low Dutch, as we supposed; and we gave them back, with interest, in high English. The expression of our faces let the parties into the secret of what was going on.

It is scarcely necessary to add, that we English and Americans soon repented of the step we had taken. I heartily wished myself on board the Hope, again, and the master's prophecy became true, much sooner, perhaps, than he had himself anticipated. This time, I conceive that my disgust was fully justified; though I deserved the punishment I was receiving, for entering so blindly into a service every way so inferior to that to which I properly belonged. The bread in this ship was wholesome, I do suppose, but it was nearly black, and such as I was altogether unused to. Inferior as it was, we got but five pounds, each, per week. In our navy, a man gets, per week, seven pounds of such bread as might be put on a gentleman's table. The meat was little better than the bread in quality, and quite as scant in quantity. We got one good dish in the Stadtdeel, and that we got every morning. It was a dish of boiled barley, of which I became very fond, and which, indeed, supplied me with the strength necessary for my duty. It was one of the best dishes I ever fell in with at sea; and I think it might be introduced, to advantage, in our service. Good food produces good work.