Jack in the Forecastle; or, Incidents in the Early Life of Hawser Martingale

by John Sherburne Sleeper

The captain was awakened by the word "breakers," a word which sounds ominous in a sailor's ears, and was on deck in a trice. He heard the rumbling noise, the character of which could not be mistaken. "Ready about!": he screamed. "Stations, men! Hard down the helm!"

The brig came up into the wind, the sails shivered, but owing to the head sea or some other cause, she would not come round, and soon gathered stern way. But captain Mott was a good seaman. "Brace round the head yards!" he exclaimed. "Lower away the spanker peak!"

The brig, by the action of the helm, the head sails being thrown aback, fell off rapidly on her heel, and soon gathering headway, barely cleared the dark and rugged cliffs of St. Agnes in the north, which now, as well as the powerful beacon light by which they were surmounted, broke through the dense fog.

It was a narrow escape. Fifteen minutes more would have carried us among the sunken rocks and ledges which are piled together in admirable confusion on the southwest side of the Scilly Isles, and the vessel and all hands would have been among the things which were.

The wind came round to the eastward on the following day, and we shaped our course across the Atlantic, bound for Savannah, whither we arrived, without the occurrence of any remarkable incident, about the first of May, 1817.

Having passed a couple of months in Savannah a few years before, I was aware from personal inspection of the wretchedly low character of the sailor boarding houses in that city; and I shuddered at the idea of passing the few days or weeks of my sojourn in Savannah at one of these "omnium gatherums" of intemperance and iniquity.

I gave to my shipmates such a graphic but faithful description of the sailor boarding houses in Savannah, that the boatswain of the brig, with Jonas Silvernail and William Jones, agreed to join me in trying to secure quarters of a character somewhat more respectable than the dens of iniquity frequented by sailors. We flattered ourselves there would be no difficulty in finding such a boarding house as we wished, knowing there were many mechanics at that time in Savannah, temporary residents, who were accommodated with board in well-regulated families at a reasonable rate, and we saw no reason why we should not be treated with equal favor.

Accordingly, the day after our arrival in port, having received our discharge, we carefully removed from our hands all stains of tar, rigged ourselves out in our neatest apparel, put on our most sober and demure faces, and started off on a cruise after a boarding house. We had received some desultory information from persons we had fallen in with about the wharves, which in a measure influenced our course.

We were not particularly successful in our quest. The simple fact which we could not deny, that "WE WERE SAILORS," was sufficient to bar every door against our entrance. It was in vain we represented ourselves as remarkably staid and sober sailors, possessing amiable dispositions, not given to liquor or rowdyism, and in search of quiet quarters in a respectable family.

To all this the one fatal objection was opposed, "WE WERE SAILORS," and of course could not reasonably expect to be received into any respectable house. No faith was given to our professions of sobriety. The term "sailor" in the minds of those good people was synonymous with "blackguard" or "drunken vagabond." It comprehended everything which was vile or wicked. After applying at more than a dozen different places, and finding the estimate of a sailor's character every where the same, and that exceptions to the general rule in this case were not allowed, we reluctantly abandoned our exploring expedition, disgusted and mortified at finding such unfounded prejudice existing against sailors, whom WE not only believed to be human beings, and entitled to rights, privileges, and indulgences as such, but a class of men which actually included many worthy, honest, well-behaved individuals, as well as those of an opposite character. We could not but doubt the policy as well as justice of a line of conduct which represses every effort on the part of seafaring men to cultivate a self-respect, and elevate themselves in the scale of society; a line of conduct which is calculated to thrust them contemptuously back, and plunge them deeper in the slough from which, perhaps, they are striving to emerge.