m in novels; and no prevailing desire to gain
the reputation of being his friend, have actuated me in anything I have
said, in any part of this work, touching the gross oppression under
which I know that the sailors suffers. Indifferent as to who may be the
parties concerned, I but desire to see wrong things righted, and equal
justice administered to all.

Nor, as has been elsewhere hinted, is the general ignorance or
depravity of any race of men to be alleged as an apology for tyranny
over them. On the contrary, it cannot admit of a reasonable doubt, in
any unbiased mind conversant with the interior life of a man-of-war,
that most of the sailor iniquities practised therein are indirectly to
be ascribed to the morally debasing effects of the unjust, despotic,
and degrading laws under which the man-of-war's-man lives.

CHAPTER LXXIII.

NIGHT AND DAY GAMBLING IN A MAN-OF-WAR.

Mention has been made that the game of draughts, or checkers, was
permitted to be played on board the Neversink. At the present time,
while there was little or no shipwork to be done, and all hands, in
high spirits, were sailing homeward over the warm smooth sea of the
tropics; so numerous became the players, scattered about the decks,
that our First Lieutenant used ironically to say that it was a pity
they were not tesselated with squares of white and black marble, for
the express benefit and convenience of the players. Had this gentleman
had his way, our checker-boards would very soon have been pitched out
of the ports. But the Captain--usually lenient in some
things--permitted them, and so Mr. Bridewell was fain to hold his peace.

But, although this one game was allowable in the frigate, all kinds of
gambling were strictly interdicted, under the penalty of the gangway;
nor were cards or dice tolerated in any way whatever. This regulation
was indispensable, for, of all human beings, man-of-war's-men are
perhaps the most inclined to gambling. The reason must be obvious to
any one who reflects upon their condition on shipboard. And
gambling--the most mischievous of vices anywhere--in a man-of-war
operates still more perniciously than on shore. But quite as often as
the law against smuggling spirits is transgressed by the unscrupulous
sailors, the statutes against cards and dice are evaded.

Sable night, which, since the beginning of the world, has winked and
looked on at so many deeds of iniquity--night is the time usually
selected f