My First Voyage to Southern Seas

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Have you remarked anything strange about him lately, Marsden?” he asked in return.

I said that I thought he looked flushed and hurried in his manner, and that he often spoke thick, and said things without meaning.

“You have divined one of the many reasons I have for not liking him,” he observed. “He has one of the worst vices which the master of a ship can possess, or any man who has the lives of hundreds committed to his charge. He is desperately addicted to liquor; yet, strange to say, he has sufficient command over himself to keep sober in harbour, or when he is approaching a port, so that the owners and consignees, and others who might have taken notice of it, have never discovered his failing, as it would be called, while an inferior officer like myself would feel that it would be perfectly useless to report him. I thought of doing so for the sake of my fellow-creatures who might have otherwise to sail with him, but I knew that there would be great difficulty in substantiating my charge, and that if I failed I should ruin my own prospects; so, right or wrong, I abandoned the idea.”

“And so once more you have to sail with him,” I could not help remarking.

“You are right, Marsden; I ought to have had more moral courage,” answered the second mate. “And now I fear that he will get us into greater trouble than he did those on board the ship in which I before sailed with him. The way the men are treated is very bad; and his refusal to put into harbour may be productive of very serious consequences, especially should we be caught by bad weather.”

Scarcely had Mr Henley said this than the captain made his appearance on deck with his sextant in his hand, as if to take a meridional observation. Though it was thus early in the day, I remarked the peculiarities about him of which I had been speaking. He looked around him angrily.

“Are none of the officers here?” he exclaimed, turning away, however, from the second mate. “Where is Mr Grimes? what is the fellow about? send him here, some one. And you, sir—you think yourself a navigator—go and get your sextant and prove yourself one,” he added, turning fiercely to me. “You young slips of gentility must be kept in order.”

Of course I made no other reply than, “Ay, ay, sir,” and went below to get my sextant. I kept it, I should have observed, in Mr Henley’s cabin. The door was locked, so I had to return to him for the key, and some little time had thus elapsed before I got back on deck. I found the first mate and captain in high dispute. The origin of the quarrel I could not comprehend. They had differed, I found, as to their readings on their instruments which is not surprising, for, horrible to relate, as I watched them attentively the conviction forced itself on my mind that they had both deprived themselves of the right use of their intellects—they were both drunk, verging towards the condition of brute beasts. Presently Mr Grimes said something which still more offended the captain, who, lifting up his sextant—a valuable instrument belonging to Captain Seaford—threw it with all his force at the mate’s head, and it was dashed to pieces on the deck. The latter, whose ear had been struck, with the same thoughtless impulse, and furious at the insult, rushed towards the captain, and striking him with his sextant in return on the face, knocked him over, when, falling forward with the impetus, it also was rendered hopelessly useless. There they both lay, grovelling, kicking, and swearing, and abusing each other in a manner truly terrible; while the cabin passengers who were on the poop, witnesses of the scene, looked on with dismay, not knowing what might next happen.

“I have seen something like this occur before,” said Mr Henley to me. “Call Mr Waller and the boatswain, we must carry them to their cabins.”

I hurried to obey the order. Some of the men had observed the occurrence, and I feared that the officers would scarcely be able to maintain any authority over them after it. The master and first mate were carried to their cabins; but they both contrived to get more spirits brought to them, I afterwards found, by the steward, and for several days they remained almost in a state of insensibility. During this time three or four more of the second-class passengers had died; the first, or, as some of the people forward called them, the aristocrats, had hitherto escaped, as their cabins were better ventilated and dryer, and they had better food, and, more than all, generally knew better how to take care of themselves. But now they also began to sicken, and look pale, and anxious, and sad. Well they might indeed!