and the waves.
Why is it that ships, dismasted, indeed, but light and staunch, are so
often found rolling abandoned on the seas? It is the daily incident of
our marine columns. I have been told by an old shipmaster, how, when he
was a young mate, his ship was dismasted on the Banks of Newfoundland,
on a voyage to Europe. The captain had been disabled and the vessel was
leaking. He came into command. But in those days men never dreamed of
leaving their ship till she was ready to leave them. They rigged
jury-masts, and, under short canvas and working at the pumps, brought
their craft to the mouth of Plymouth Harbor. The pilot demanded
salvage, and was refused leave to come on board. The mate had been into
that port before, was a good seaman and a sharp observer, and he took
his vessel safely to her anchorage himself, rather than burden his
owners with a heavy claim. Captains and mates will not now-a-days
follow that lead, because they cannot trust their men, because with
every emergency the _morale_ of the forecastle is utterly gone.

For all this there is of course no universal panacea. Nor do I believe
that legislation will much help the matter. The common-law of the seas,
well carried out by competent courts of admiralty, is better than many
statutes. For emergencies require extraordinary powers and a wide
discretion. There can be no divided rule in a ship. But if every man
know his place and his duty, and none overstep it, there will come
thereof successful and happy voyages. There must be discipline,
subordination, and law. The republican theory stops with the shore.
"Obey orders, though you break owners," is the Magna Charta of the
main. This can be well and wisely carried out only with some
homogeneity of the ship's company, with a community of feeling and a
community of interest. Everybody who has been off soundings knows, or
ought to know, the difference between things "done with a will" and
"sogering." If it be important on land to adjust the relations of
employer and employed, it is doubly important on the sea, where the
peril and the privation are great. For it is a hard life, a life of
unproductive toil, that oftenest shows no results while accomplishing
great ends. It cannot be made easy. The gale and the lee-shore are the
same as when the sea-kings of old dared them and did battle with them
in the heroic energy of their old Norse blood. The wet, the cold, the
exposure must be, since you cannot put a Chilson