CHAPTER XI
On shipping in the Boxer, I received three months’ advance, which, excepting a small sum expended for clothing, fell into the hands of my rapacious landlord. How much this gentleman contrived to filch from me, it is not in my power to say; but that he was well paid, I have no doubt. He had my hundred dollars, my advance, all I earned for working on the wharves, and nine dollars beside, which I obtained from the purser. All this, according to his account, I spent in a few weeks, with the exception of a very small sum laid out for clothing. As I had no means of proving his statements false, there was no alternative but submission, and a return to a life of toil and danger, to earn a fresh supply.
As the method by which I obtained the nine dollars, above mentioned, from the purser, will exhibit one of the modes in which seamen are sometimes cheated, I will relate it. While in the Siren I drew but half my allowance of grog. By the rules of the service, I could claim the balance in money. This I overlooked when we were paid off, but, when my funds got low, it came into my mind. I proposed to some of the boys, who had a similar claim, to visit the purser. They only laughed at me, and said it would be of no use, for he would not pay it now we were discharged. Finding they would not join me, I went alone to the City Hotel, where the purser boarded, and inquired for him of the bar-tender. He came down stairs, and I spread out my complaint before him. He blustered and said I had no such claim allowed; I insisted, and told him it was my right, and he must pay it. Hoping to get rid of me, he told me to call again the next day. This I did, when he paid me nine dollars. This will show the reader one of the ways in which poor Jack is plundered, and that too by GENTLEMEN!
The Boxer lay at the navy yard, whither we were conducted. The vacillation of a seaman’s character was illustrated before we got on board, by one of our hands running away: another went a little beyond the first. He went on board, where he pretended to lose his hat overboard. Begging permission to recover it, he seized the rope which fastened the boat to the shore, dropped over the stern into the boat, and pushing up to the wharf, leaped ashore and made off. Such fickle-mindedness is not uncommon among sailors.
We lost another of our crew in a more melancholy manner; he was in my mess, an Englishman by birth, who had just left a British vessel to enter the American service. He was at work on the main yard, and by some means or other, losing his foothold, he fell. Unfortunately, he struck a carronade screw in his descent, which inflicted a terrible wound. The poor man suffered excruciating agonies for a short time, and died. We buried him on shore, in a plain coffin, without form or ceremony. Such are the contingencies which wait to hurry seamen to the grave!
We were kept busily at work upon the brig for some time; after which our commander, Captain Porter, came on board. We soon found him to belong rather to the race of Fitzroys and Cardens, than to that of Decaturs, Parkers or Nicholsons. He was inclined to tyranny and severe discipline.
He soon gave us a specimen of his character in a most illegal act of punishment. We lay alongside the Hornet or Peacock, I forget which. It happened that her captain and most of her officers were gone ashore one day. Our captain accidentally saw one of her men engaged in some act of misconduct: instead of entering a complaint against the man to his own officers, he ordered him to be seized up and severely flogged, notwithstanding the earnest entreaties of the offender for pardon. Why the captain of that vessel did not call Captain Porter to an account for this manifest invasion of his prerogatives, I never knew, for we put to sea shortly afterwards. An officer who would thus gratuitously volunteer his services to punish a man, must be a tyrant at heart. So at least we thought; while many misgivings, concerning the future, troubled our minds.
As I was now rated an ordinary seaman, and not a boy, as heretofore, I had a station assigned me in the fore-top, instead of being a servant to any of the officers. I was also appointed to be one of the crew of the captain’s gig. This made my lot one of more fatigue and exposure than in any former voyage; a proof of which, I very soon experienced. It being now late in the fall, the weather became very cold. One afternoon, the pennant having got foul of the royal mast, an officer ordered me to go up and clear it. I had no mittens on; it took me some time to perform my task, and before I came down one of my fingers was frozen. Thus it is, however, with the poor tar; and he thinks himself happy to escape his dangers with injuries so slight as this.
The disposition of our commanding officer was still further revealed to my discomfort one day, while we were at work on the cables. Something I did, not happening to suit him, he gave me a severe blow on the head with his fist, not far from the place where I had been previously injured by the malice of the Malay boy. This unmanly blow occasioned me violent pains for several days.