ly so crowded that it becomes dangerous to lower them down,
and more time is lost in getting the people out again than would have
manned them twice over, if any regular system had been prepared, and
rendered familiar and easy by practice beforehand.

I could give a pretty long list of cases which I have myself seen, or
have heard others relate, where men have been drowned while their
shipmates were thus struggling on board who should be first to save
them, but who, instead of aiding, were actually impeding one another
by their hurry-skurry and general ignorance of what really ought to be
done. I remember, for example, hearing of a line-of-battle-ship, in
the Baltic, from which two men fell one evening, when the ship's
company were at quarters. The weather was fine, the water smooth, and
the ship going about seven knots. The two lads in question, who were
furling the fore-royal at the time, lost their hold, and were jerked
far in the sea. At least a dozen men, leaving their guns, leaped
overboard from different parts of the ship, some dressed as they were,
and others stripped. Of course, the ship was in a wretched state of
discipline where such frantic proceedings could take place. The
confusion soon became worse confounded; but the ship was hove aback,
and several boats lowered down. Had it not been smooth water,
daylight, and fine weather, many of these absurd volunteers must have
perished. I call them absurd, because there is no sense in merely
incurring a great hazard, without some useful purpose to guide the
exercise of courage. These intrepid fellows merely knew that a man had
fallen overboard, and that was all; so away they leaped out of the
ports and over the hammock-nettings, without knowing whereabouts the
object of their Quixotic heroism might be. The boats were obliged to
pick up the first that presented themselves, for they were all in a
drowning condition; but the two unhappy men who had been flung from
aloft, being furthest off, went to the bottom before their turn came.
Whereas, had not their undisciplined shipmates gone into the water,
the boats would have been at liberty to row towards them, and they
might have been saved. I am quite sure, therefore, that there can be
no offence more deserving of punishment, as a matter of discipline,
and in order to prevent such accidents as this, than the practice of
leaping overboard after a man who has fallen into the water. There are
cases, no doubt, in which it wo