A gentleman of the Universalist persuasion was once appointed a chaplain in the navy, and reported for duty on board one of our ships fitting for sea. His creed soon became known to the sailors, and was freely discussed in their messes. “If we are all so good that we are going to heaven,” said an old tar, “what is the use in overhauling one’s sins? it only gives a man a bloody sight of trouble for nothing.” “If we are all on the right tack,” said another, “and must bring up at the right port, what is the use in preaching and praying about it?” “If we trust this doctrine, and it don’t turn out true, there’ll be hell to pay,” exclaimed a third. These sentiments were shared in by the whole crew, and soon became known to the newly-appointed chaplain. He resigned his commission, and showed a considerateness in doing it which entitles him to respect. Sailors, ignorant and wicked as they are, can never be made to believe that the good and bad bring up at last in the same port.
Monday, Dec. 1. Our fine east wind, which has been shoving us on at the rate of two hundred and thirty miles a day, was crossed this afternoon by a squall from the south, and knocked under. We watched its overthrow with grief, and expected for some time that it would rally and overpower its antagonist. But victory remained with the foe, and we were driven from our course. In the mean time, a tropical shower, falling without premonition, has drenched all on duty to the skin.
These reverses fall hardest upon the gentlemen among the crew. We have one, an Englishman by birth, who was living a few months since at the Astor-House, drinking the choicest wines the hotel could furnish, and promenading Broadway in white-kid gloves, with gold-headed cane and quizzing-glass. But suddenly, from some freak of nature, he threw himself into our ship as a common sailor. He is about twenty years of age, full six feet high, and extremely well proportioned. He has a small foot and hand, an open cheerful countenance, large floating eye, and hair that falls in showering ringlets. He is willing and prompt in the performance of every duty. But what a transition! The Astor-House for a wet rolling deck, its beds of down for a hammock, its rich viands and desserts for salt junk and hard tack. The last London cut in coat, pants, and beaver, for a blue roundabout, ducks, and tarpaulin, and a gold-headed cane for a tarred rope! And yet he is cheerful, and seemingly ambitious of excelling as a sailor. How nature accommodates herself to circumstances!
Tuesday, Dec. 2. Poor Lynch, one of our crew, from the state of Maine, died last evening, and we have to-day, as the sun was setting, committed his remains to the deep. He has left a pious mother, of whom he often spoke to me in his last sickness. She seemed to be the strongest tie that fastened him to earth. Her early lessons of piety awoke with singular power as his end approached. They crowded thick and fast upon his heart; he clung to them as something that could stay him, something that could lift him above present suffering and future apprehension. He died under the light of these sentiments, and in an humble hope of the happiness which they promise to the pure and meek.
At the call, “All hands to bury the dead!” the officers and crew took their stations. The body, wound in its hammock, and preceded by the chaplain, was brought up the fore hatch and round the capstan to the waist, the band playing the “dead-march,” and the marine guard presenting arms. The service was read, and the hollow sound of the hammocked dead descending through the sea, told that another of our crew had left us for ever. This is the third that we have lost within less than thirty days. The death of a man in a crowded town is little felt, but in a ship’s crew it leaves a vacuum which all observe. Still, these bereavements are so blended with the vicissitudes of a sea-life, that they fail to make a permanent impression; they are felt deeply for the moment and then glide away.
“As from the wing the sky no scar retains,
The parted wave no furrow from the keel,
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.”
Wednesday, Dec. 3. Our trade-wind has left us utterly. We have had a regular Irishman’s hurricane—up and down. The rain fell in a perfect avalanche; with all the scuppers open, the water became, in a few minutes, almost knee deep on the spar-deck. The rolling of the ship threw it over the combings of the hatches, and down it came upon the gun-deck, and then took another leap below, flooding the wardroom, steerage, and berth-deck. With the hatches covered, and the external air excluded, the heat below soon became intolerable. Our choice lay between being roasted or drenched. Most of us preferred the latter, and emerged into the drifting sea above.
In the midst of these troubles, our cook came aft and informed our caterer that the water came in such floods into the galley, that he could not keep fire enough alive to light his pipe by. This was good news for our last pig, who looked out from his gratings as one that has another day to live. I always pity the last tenant of the coop and sty. He looks so lonely, so disconsolate in the midst of that voiceless solitude, which the untimely death of his companions has spread around him, that I could never have the heart to kill him. It seems like extinguishing the last of a race. Indeed, I would never take the life of any thing, unless it was in the way in which the Irishman thought his squirrel might have been killed. Two of them were gunning, and had treed a large squirrel upon a very high limb. One of them, a little more experienced at the business, lifted and fired his old Queen’s-arm; down came the squirrel with a bone-breaking crash; when the other exclaimed, “An’ faith, you might as well have spared your pooder, the fall itself would ha’ kilt him.”