utter or a Revenue Pink, the skipper and his crew fierce
in their Defence of the Laws of the Land, the Admiralty Droits, and
their own twentieths; and from Hard blows with fists and spikes, matters
would often come to the arbitrament of cutlasses and firearms; so that
naval Engagements of a Miniature kind have often raged between the Deal
Boatmen and the King's Officers. Surely the world was a Hard and a Cruel
and a Brutal one, when I was young--bating the Poor-Laws, which were
more merciful than at present; for now that I am old the Gazettes are
full of the Tender Valour and Merciful Devotion of the Deal Boatmen,
who, in the most tempestuous weather, will leave their warm beds, their
wives and bairns, and put off, with the Sea running mountains high, to
rescue Distraught Vessels and the Precious Lives that are within them.
The Salvage Men of my time were brave enough, but they were likewise
unconscionable rogues.

The wind proved false to us at Deal, and we had to wait a weary ten days
there. Captain Handsell was our commander. He was a man who knew but one
course of proceeding. 'Twas always a word and a blow with him. By the
same token the blow generally came first, and the word that followed was
sure to be a bad one. The Captain of a Ship, from a Fishing Smack to a
Three-Decker, was in those days a cruel and merciless Despot. 'Twas only
the size of his ship and the number of his Equipage that decided the
question whether he was to be a Petty Tyrant or a Tremendous One. His
Empire was as undisputed as that of a Schoolmaster. Who was to gainsay
him? To whom, at Sea, could his victims appeal? To the Sharks and
Grampuses, the Dolphins and the Bonettas? He was privileged to beat, to
fetter, to starve, to kick, to curse his Seamen. Even his Passengers
trembled at the sight of this Bashaw of Bluewater; for he had Irons and
Rations of Mouldy Biscuit for them too, if they offended him; and many a
Beautiful and Haughty Lady paying full cabin-passage has bowed down
before the wrath of a vulgar Skipper, who, at home, she would have
thought unworthy to Black her Shoes, and who would be seething in the
revelry of a Tavern in Rotherhithe, while she would be footing it in the
Saloons of St. James's. Yet for a little time, at the outset of his
voyage, the Skipper had his superior; the Bashaw had a Vizier who was
bigger than he. There was a Terrible Man called the Pilot. He cared no
more for the Captain than the Archbishop of Canterbur