During his harangue two or three of my old schoolfellows came aboard, and, on visiting my quarters, remarked upon the poor accommodations and filthiness to which I was to be doomed; upon which remark the old tar broke out with, “And so this is a young gentleman going to sea for the first time? O, ho! All right. I’ll be his guardian, and keep an eye on him when he’s aloft, and, to start fair, if my opinion was asked, I’d say we’d better go up the wharf, and splice the matter over a social glass.” At this hint, so delicately conveyed, we gave the fellow a sum sufficient to allay his thirst, had it been never so great, and he at once took leave of us, only to return, however, in a few minutes, declaring that he had lost every cent, at the same time reiterating his offer to become my friend for a consideration.
The noise of the tow-boat now called us on deck, where we found a perfect Babel of confusion, caused by the throng of porters, boarding-house runners, idlers, and sailors’ friends, who were giving and receiving advice in quantities to last until the vessel returned to her port. About this time I was touched on the shoulder by a rough-looking personage in a sailor’s dress, who took me aside, and inquired if I really intended going to sea. “Because,” said he, “if you are, let me give you a bit of advice. I’m an old shell, and can steer my trick as well as the next one; and as we’re to be shipmates, and you’re young, all you’ve got to do is to stick close to me, and I’ll larn yer all the moves.” After showing so kind an interest in my affairs, he hinted, like the other man, that there was “still time enough to step up to the house, and splice the main brace.” As I was ignorant of this point in seamanship, I handed him some money, that he might perform it alone, when he disappeared. I saw nothing more of him for the next half hour; and it was only when the vessel was about moving off that he staggered over the rail, to all appearances well braced; and as he expressed a desire to handle all on board, from the “old man” (the captain) “in the cabin to the doctor” (cook) “in the galley,” I concluded that his splicing had received especial attention, and that his strands would not unravel for several hours to come.
These scenes on board of the M., while getting under way, were comparatively tame to others that I have since witnessed on other vessels. I have known men to be carried on board ship by boarding-house keepers, who had enticed them into their dens of infamy, and who had drugged them so powerfully that they did not recover their senses until the vessel had left the port. In this manner, fathers of families, mechanics, tradesmen, and other persons wholly unfitted for a sea life have been carried off, unknown by their friends. When full consciousness returned to the unhappy victims, they sought the officers for an explanation, when I have seen them so beaten and kicked, that in apprehension for their lives, they bowed in submission to a tyranny worse than that of slavery itself.
After lying for more than twenty-four hours, wind-bound, in the outer harbor, all hands were called before daylight, and though the mercury stood but a few degrees above the freezing point, the decks were washed down; after which operation the anchor was weighed, and we set sail out upon the bosom of the broad Atlantic. When we were fairly under way, we were set to work stowing away chains and ropes, securing the water casks upon deck, lashing the anchors upon the rail; then a short breathing spell was allowed us. While looking to windward, an old sailor, with whom I had commenced a friendship, which I was determined to strengthen, said, “Here, boy: do you see that land, there? It is the last you will see until we drop anchor in the River Plata.” I gazed long upon it. It was Cape Cod. Its white sand-hills looked cold and drear as the sea beat against their bases, some of which were smooth and sloping, others steep and gullied by the rains. An hour after this the breeze freshened, the light sails were taken in, and the topsails double-reefed; and as the sea ran higher, and our little vessel grew proportionally uneasy, I began to experience the uncomfortable nausea and dizziness of seasickness, which, added to the repulsive smell and closeness of the forecastle, completely overcame my fortitude, when retiring to my bunk I tried to make myself comfortable.
About five o’clock in the afternoon all hands were mustered upon the quarter-deck, and the watches chosen. To my satisfaction I was selected by the mate, and had the further gratification of finding that old Manuel, my friend, had also been chosen for our watch—a result which evidently delighted him as much as myself. Ours was the larboard watch, and remained upon deck, while the captain’s, or starboard watch, went below. The duties of sea life had now fairly commenced.
The two hours that followed, from six to eight, were passed in a pleasant conversation with the old Frenchman, Manuel. He informed me that he had his eye on the moves of the crew, and he concluded that there was but one sailor on board: it was left to my sagacity to infer that he meant himself.
Two of the crew, who had shipped as ordinary seamen, were ignorant of the duties for which they had contracted, and each man in the forecastle had shipped as an American-born citizen, with protection papers received from the Custom House, which legally asserted him as such. These papers they had obtained from their boarding-house masters, who had purchased them at twenty-five cents each, and had retailed them to their foreign customers at seventy-five cents apiece. Of this American crew, two were Germans, or Dutchmen (an appellation given by sailors to all persons from the north of Europe), one of unknown parentage, who could only speak a few words of English, two Irishmen, one Englishman, another who swore point blank to being a native-born citizen of the States, an old mariner from Bordeaux, and myself. The law that makes it the duty of a captain to take with his crew a certain proportion of native-born Americans, had surely not been complied with here. To one of our crew I cannot do otherwise than devote a few lines.
The “doctor,” or cook, had already introduced himself, and informed us in a short and patriotic speech, delivered at the galley door, that he would confess that his father was a distinguished Irish barrister, and that he himself possessed no little share of notoriety in the old country. He had once been taken by a celebrated duchess, as she rode past in her carriage, for a son of the Marquis of B. His amusing vanity drew many expressions of contempt from the tars, who pronounced him to be “an idle Irish thief,” which only served to make him wax more warm in his assumptions of gentility. He was interrupted in the midst of a high-flown harangue by the loud squealing of the pigs, which squealing reminded him that his duties must not be neglected for the purpose of edifying a crowd of ignorant tars.
Our watch lasted until eight bells, when I went below, but had very little appetite for supper—a meal consisting of salt beef, biscuits, and a fluid which the cook called tea, although, on trial, I was sadly puzzled to know how it could merit such an appellation.
Of the three weeks which followed this first experience of nautical life and its miseries, I can say but little, as I labored during this period under the exhausting effects of seasickness, which reduced me to such a degree of weakness that I once fainted on the flying jib-boom, from which position of peril I was rescued and brought in by my friend Manuel. But this distressing malady wore away, and at last became altogether a memory of the past. Despite hard fare and labor, I not only recovered my lost flesh, but grew rugged and hearty, and, moreover, became tolerably familiar with the duties of a life at sea.