lying in harbour. The effects of this
patriotic plan may be easily imagined: the whole ship is converted into
a dram-shop; and the intoxicated sailors reel about, on all three
decks, singing, howling, and fighting. This is the time that, owing to
the relaxed discipline of the ship, old and almost forgotten quarrels
are revived, under the stimulus of drink; and, fencing themselves up
between the guns--so as to be sure of a clear space with at least three
walls--the combatants, two and two, fight out their hate, cribbed and
cabined like soldiers duelling in a sentry-box. In a word, scenes ensue
which would not for a single instant be tolerated by the officers upon
any other occasion. This is the time that the most venerable of
quarter-gunners and quarter-masters, together with the smallest
apprentice boys, and men never known to have been previously
intoxicated during the cruise--this is the time that they all roll
together in the same muddy trough of drunkenness.

In emulation of the potentates of the Middle Ages, some Captains
augment the din by authorising a grand jail-delivery of all the
prisoners who, on that auspicious Fourth of the month, may happen to be
confined in the ship's prison--"_the brig_."

But from scenes like these the Neversink was happily delivered. Besides
that she was now approaching a most perilous part of the ocean--which
would have made it madness to intoxicate the sailors--her complete
destitution of _grog_, even for ordinary consumption, was an obstacle
altogether insuperable, even had the Captain felt disposed to indulge
his man-of-war's-men by the most copious libations.

For several days previous to the advent of the holiday, frequent
conferences were held on the gun-deck touching the melancholy prospects
before the ship.

"Too bad--too bad!" cried a top-man, "Think of it, shipmates--a Fourth
of July without grog!"

"I'll hoist the Commodore's pennant at half-mast that day," sighed the
signal-quarter-master.

"And I'll turn my best uniform jacket wrong side out, to keep company
with the pennant, old Ensign," sympathetically responded an
after-guard's-man.

"Ay, do!" cried a forecastle-man. "I could almost pipe my eye to think
on't."

"No grog on de day dat tried men's souls!" blubbered Sunshine, the
galley-cook.

"Who would be a _Jankee_ now?" roared a Hollander of the fore-top, more
Dutch than sour-crout.

"Is this the _riglar_ fruits of liberty?" touchingly inquired an Irish