“As anything; I’m too poor to choose, sir. I’ll go as A. B. if I can get the berth. But this hanging about is eating up all our little savings.”
“Why can’t you get a berth?” said I.
“Because the captains won’t take Englishmen,” he said.
“What are their objections?”
“Oh,” said he, “objections are easily made if they’re wanted. Captains say that English crews desert, that they’re loafers, bad seamen, expect more wages than they’re worth, and that the best of us are no better than vagrants, turnpike sailors, who’ll never work so long as there’s a police-magistrate within hail, and who’ll soger[B] when they’re at sea. That may be true of some, but it’s false if said of the rest; and, depend upon it, sir, it don’t account for eighty per cent. of the men employed in the mercantile marine being ‘Dutchmen.’ Our argument—the English sailor’s argument—is this: There are a lot of foreign boarding-house keepers in London. We’ll take one of ’em. He has, say, twenty Dutchmen in his house, who pay him, each of ’em, sixteen shillings a week. Well, sir, most of these men have no means to last their expenses much beyond a fortnight; so the boarding-house keeper or runner says, ‘Look here, my lads, you can’t stay here. I must get you a ship, and you’ll pay me five shillings apiece out of your allotment notes for doing it.’ To this they’re agreeable. The runner then goes down to a ship with his pocket full of his men’s certificates, hands them, along with a bribe, to the mate or master, who brings ’em to this office, and the Dutchmen, who’ve been told by the runner to come to Tower Hill, are called in to sign articles. It pays the runner, who gets five shillings a man for shipping them, besides his other expenses out of the allotment note, which he discounts at about fifty per cent.; and it answers the purpose of the skipper, who pockets the bribe, and comes down to find a crew all ready cut and dried for him; but it leaves us Englishmen out in the cold, kicking our heels about, starving many of us, and standing no shadow of a chance against the underhand roguery that goes on.”
“This is a grave charge to bring against captains,” said I.
“Grave or not,” he replied, “go and ask the opinion of British seamen all round the coast, and see whether or not this crimping swindle is understood by them and taken as the evil that’s filling English ships with foreigners.”
“But this kind of rascality is provided against, for the Act says that any person who receives any remuneration whatever other than the authorized fees for providing a seaman with employment incurs a penalty of twenty pounds.”
“Act or no Act,” he answered contemptuously, “it’s done every day; it’s done every hour.”
“Can’t you Englishmen catch one of these ‘Dutch’ crimps and make an example of him?”