George Gibbs

“ It has always been so. There has never been an age that has not had its carper to tell you of the wonders that once were.
Yet it was truly beautiful. With the tide on the ebb and the wind a-piping free, never was a fairer sight than the Atlantic clipper as she picked her speedy way through the shipping to the harbor’s mouth; and nothing so stately as the gallant frigate in her wake, with all sail set to ga’n’s’ls, her topsails bellying grandly to the quartering breeze, which whipped the filmy wave-tops against her broad bows, under which the yellow curl lapped merrily its greeting. ”

“ The skipper of the “Polly J.,” himself perhaps the scion of three generations of fishing captains, may wag his head regretfully, for fishers cannot be choosers; but he knows that his fishing has to be done, and, after all, a “Portygee” is as good a sailor-man and dory-mate as another,—better sometimes,—if he keeps sober.
So long as the ship-owner makes his credit good at the store for the people at home, the fisherman takes life as joyfully as a man may who looks at death with every turn of the glass. If he takes his pleasures seriously, it is because he lives face to face with his Maker. ”

“ Deftly casting off the tow-line of the prize, they hoisted all sail and jumped to their sweeps as though their lives depended on it. Macdonough’s gun-crew were loading with solid shot this time, and, as soon as they got the range, a ball went screaming down towards the fleeing Tripolitan. The men at the sweeps needed little encouragement. They had heard the news, and they loved James Decatur as they worshipped his brother, who stood aft, his lips compressed, anxiously watching the chase. The water boiled under the oar-blades as the clumsy hulk seemed to spring from one wave-crest to another. ”

“ But the Tripolitan tore the arms away as though he had been a stripling, and, seizing him by the throat, bore him by sheer weight to the deck, trying the while to draw a yataghan. The American crew, seeing things going badly with their young captain, fought in furiously, and in a moment the mass of Americans and Tripolitans were fighting in one desperate, struggling, smothering heap, above the prostrate bodies of their captains, neither of whom could succeed in drawing a weapon. ”

“ As she comes up into the wind, the noisy jib flaps down with a run, and the anchor drops to the sandy bottom. Now the buckets of bait are tossed up from below, and the skipper leaves his helm to take to the lines. Over the sides and stern they go, dragging down to leeward.
There is quiet for a moment, and then a line runs out. There is a tug as the strong arm checks it and hauls it in quickly, hand over hand. There is a gleam of light, a swish at the surface, and the fish flies over the rail, flopping helplessly on to the deck, the first catch of the season,—a big one. ”

“ But whatever the future may bring, it has been a marvellous and momentous change from the old navy to the new. Since the “Monitor”–“Merrimac” fight no country has been quicker to profit by the lessons of the victory of iron over wood and steel over iron than the United States.
But the navy that is, however glorious its achievements, can never dim the glory of the navy that was, though sailor-men, old and new, know that in a test of ship and ship, and man and man, the flag of this country will continue to fly triumphant. ”

“ His dead lay piled upon the poop so that he could not get to the gangway. His masts were shot through and through, and strained at the stays at every lift of the bow. The fire, though beaten from the magazine, still burst from the forward hatches, firing the tangled rigging and outlining them in its lurid hues against the black beyond. The water had risen, and the freshening breeze lashed the purple foam in at the lower-deck ports. For hours the men fought against their new enemy; but towards five in the morning their captain decided that no human power could save her. ”

“ Let it not be understood that the handling of the great ocean fortress of to-day may be mastered by any save a craftsman of the art. With plenty of sea-room and a keen watch alow and aloft the trick is a simple one, for the monster is only a speck in the infinity of sea and sky, and there is never a fear save for a blow, or a ship, or a shore. But in close manœuvre, or in harbor, the problem is different. Ten thousand tons of bulk cannot be turned and twisted on the heel with the swish and toss of the wieldy clipper. ”

“ There is a hazy glimmer of a row of lights, a roar and a splutter of steam, a shock and the inrush of the great volume of water, a shout or two from the towering decks and bridge, and the great body dashes by disdainfully, speed undiminished, her passengers careless, and unmindful that the lives and fortunes of half a dozen human beings have hung for a moment in the balance of Life and Death. But records have to be made, and the gold-laced officers forget to mention the occurrence. The men on the schooner do not forget it, though. More than one face is white with the nearness to calamity. ”

“ As the vessels grated together, Decatur jumped for the Tripolitan rigging, and, followed by his men, quickly gained the deck. Two Turks rushed at Decatur, aiming vicious blows with their scimetars; but he parried them skilfully with his pike, looking around him fiercely the while for the captain. As he thought of his brother dying, or dead, he swore that no American should engage the Turkish commander but himself. ”

“ Trippe and James Decatur had each picked out an adversary, and were bearing down as silently as he, in spite of the cannonade which now came from both the vessels and batteries of the Turks. The shots were splashing all around him, but nothing had been carried away, and the American jackies jeered cheerfully at the wretched marksmanship. As the Tripolitans came nearer, the Americans could see the black mass of men along the rails and catch the glimmer of the yataghans. Then Decatur ordered his own men to seize their pikes and draw their pistols and cutlasses. ”

“ Seamanship, in the sense of sail-handling, is a thing of the past. Though there is no officer in the navy who could not in an emergency handle a square-rigger with the science of an old sea-captain, the man on the bridge has now come to be first a tactician and after that a master of steam and electricity.
In the sea-battles of 1812 the captain was here, there, and everywhere in the thickest of the fight, inspiring by his personal magnetism the men at the guns. He was the soul of his ship. To-day the sea-battle is a one-man battle. ”

“ The rigging was filled from netting to top with the rough, jesting figures, and cheer upon cheer and laugh upon laugh greeted a successful bout or fortunate sally.
Jack is a child at the best of times and at the worst, and he takes his pleasures with the zest of a boy of seven, laughing and making merry until he falls to the deck from very weariness. And woe be at these merry times to the shipmate who has no sense of humor. His day is a hideous one, for he is hazed and bullied until he is forced in self-defence to seek the seclusion granted by the nethermost part of the hold. ”

“ Where, in the old days, ignorance and all its accompanying evils held sway over the mind of poor Jack, and made him a prey to superstition and imagination, to-day, by dint of careful training of brain as well as body, he has become a thinking creature of power and force of mind. He knows in a general way the working of the great mechanical contrivances; and in the fights that are to come, as well as those that have been, he will show that the metal the American Jacky is made of rings true and stands well the trial by fire. ”

“ Inside the harbor of Carrickfergus, where Belfast is, lay a man-of-war of twenty guns, the “Drake,” a large ship, with more men than the “Ranger” carried. He would drop down alongside of her under cover of the night and board her before her crew could tumble out of their hammocks. Such an attempt in a fortified harbor of the enemy would not have occurred to most men, but Paul Jones believed in achieving the impossible. He waited until nightfall, and then, with a wind freshening almost to a gale, sped up the harbor. ”

“ More than one of them had his own private score to settle with the British navy. Many of them had been at one time or another taken off American merchant-ships and impressed into the service of the enemy, and some of them still bore upon their backs the scars of the bloody lashes of the relentless “Cat.” The father of Captain Hull had died in the pest-ship “Jersey,” in the Revolution, and the other officers had all some grievances of their own which made them look eagerly forward to the battle which they intended should mean victory or death. ”

“ He was more gentle than ever in those last few days, and as he and Decatur leaned over the hammock-nettings of “Old Ironsides,” looking towards the line of white where the sea was breaking over the outer roofs, the melancholy look seemed to deepen and the far-away expression in his eyes was of another world. Decatur knew that rather than give up his ship and his powder, Somers would blow the ship and himself to eternity.
When volunteers were called for, the desperateness [177] of the enterprise was fully explained; but the crew of the “Nautilus,” Somers’s own vessel stepped forward to a man. ”

“ As the big gun was discharged point-blank into the thick of the crowded figures, Decatur shifted his helm quickly and lay aboard the Tripolitan. So tremendous had been the execution of the musket-balls, and so quickly had the manœuvre been executed, that almost before the Tripolitans were aware of it the Americans were upon them. The few shots from the Turkish small arms had gone wild, but a fierce struggle ensued before the Americans reached the deck. At last Decatur, followed by Thorn, Macdonough, and twenty-two seamen, gained the fo’c’s’le in a body, and the Tripolitans retreated aft. ”

“ Any ship, old or new, is as frail as the crew that mans it. The strength of any vessel varies directly with its discipline and personnel. Hull, Jones, Decatur, Bainbridge, and Stewart, in the old days, knew with some accuracy the forces they had to reckon with. Their guns were of simple contrivance, and their men knew them as well as they knew how to reef a topsail or smartly pass a weather-earing. They feared nothing so long as they were confident of their captain. ”

“ Bristol-fashion for the cruise. The running-gear was neatly coiled for running, the guns secured for sea, and the watches told off. The officer of the deck walked to and fro, singing softly to himself, casting now and then a careful eye aloft to the weather-leeches, which quivered like an aspen as the helmsman, leaning to the slant of the deck, kept her well up to her work.
And yet the poetry has not gone out of it all. The poetry of the sailing-frigate was lyric. That of the steel battle-ship is Homeric.
Nothing save a war of the elements has the power of a battle-ship in action. ”

“ It is never done. The ship is to be cleaned down and the gurry-pen and dory are to be sluiced out in readiness for the morrow. A vigil is to be kept, watch and watch, and woe be to the youngster who tumbles off his hatchway to the deck from sheer weariness. ”

“ The mess-tables hang by iron supports to the beams of the deck above, and when the mess has been served and eaten,—as only Jack knows how to eat,—they are triced up into their places, and all is cleaned and made ship-shape in the twinkling of an eye. A half-hour is allowed for dinner, and this time is kept sacred for Jack’s use. A red pennant flies from the yard-arm, that all may know that the sailor-man is eating and must not [199] be disturbed by any importunate or curious callers. ”

“ Men are greater brutes at sea than ashore. The one-man power, absolute, supreme in the old days, when all license was free and monarchies trod heavily on weak necks, led men to deeds of violence and death, whenever violence and death seemed the easiest methods of enforcing discipline. Men were knocked down hatchways, struck with belaying-pins, made to toe the seam on small provocation or on no provocation at all. The old-fashioned sea-yarns of Captain Marryat ring true as far as they go, but they do not go far enough. ”

“ The Spanish war has shown that it is not always the men who stand at the heads of their classes who lead in the more practical duties of ship and camp. Admiral Sampson, one of the greatest thinkers and most profound students in the navy, as a boy and as a man always led in everything he undertook; but, on the other hand, Hobson, though one of the leaders of his class at Annapolis, was demure and retiring, hardly the man one would select to lead a forlorn hope into the jaws of death. ”