The Owners
Of The Vessel, And Other Merchants, And Perhaps The President Of
The Insurance Company, Are Then Introduced; And
They testify to
his correct deportment, express their confidence in his honesty,
and say that they have never seen anything
In his conduct to
justify a suspicion of his being capable of cruelty or tyranny.
This evidence is then put together, and great stress is laid upon
the extreme respectability of those who give it. They are the
companions and neighbors of the captain, it is said, - men who know
him in his business and domestic relations, and who knew him in
his early youth. They are also men of the highest standing in the
community, and who, as the captain's employers, must be supposed
to know his character. This testimony is then contrasted with
that of some half dozen obscure sailors, who, the counsel will
not forget to add, are exasperated against the captain because
he has found it necessary to punish them moderately, and who
have combined against him, and if they have not fabricated a
story entirely, have at least so exaggerated it, that little
confidence can be placed in it.
The next thing to be done is to show to the court and jury that the
captain is a poor man, and has a wife and family, or other friends,
depending upon him for support; that if he is fined, it will only be
taking bread from the mouths of the innocent and helpless, and laying
a burden upon them which their whole lives will not be able to work
off; and that if he is imprisoned, the confinement, to be sure,
he will have to bear, but the distress consequent upon the cutting
him off from his labor and means of earning his wages, will fall
upon a poor wife and helpless children, or upon an infirm parent.
These two topics, well put, and urged home earnestly, seldom fail
of their effect.
In deprecation of this mode of proceeding, and in behalf of men
who I believe are every day wronged by it, I would urge a few
considerations which seem to me to be conclusive.
First, as to the evidence of the good character the captain sustains
on shore. It is to be remembered that masters of vessels have usually
been brought up in a forecastle; and upon all men, and especially upon
those taken from lower situations, the conferring of absolute power is
too apt to work a great change. There are many captains whom I know
to be cruel and tyrannical men at sea, who yet, among their friends,
and in their families, have never lost the reputation they bore in
childhood. In fact, the sea-captain is seldom at home, and when
he is, his stay is short, and during the continuance of it he is
surrounded by friends who treat him with kindness and consideration,
and he has everything to please, and at the same time to restrain
him. He would be a brute indeed, if, after an absence of months
or years, during his short stay, so short that the novelty and
excitement of it has hardly time to wear off, and the attentions
he receives as a visitor and stranger hardly time to slacken, - if,
under such circumstances, a townsman or neighbor would be justified
in testifying against his correct and peaceable deportment. With
the owners of the vessel, also, to which he is attached, and among
merchants and insurers generally, he is a very different man from what
he may be at sea, when his own master, and the master of everybody
and everything about him. He knows that upon such men, and their
good opinion of him, he depends for his bread. So far from their
testimony being of any value in determining what his conduct would
be at sea, one would expect that the master who would abuse and
impose upon a man under his power, would be the most compliant
and deferential to his employers at home.
As to the appeal made in the captain's behalf on the ground of
his being poor and having persons depending upon his labor for
support, the main and fatal objection to it is, that it will
cover every case of the kind, and exempt nearly the whole body
of masters and officers from the punishment the law has provided
for them. There are very few, if any masters or other officers of
merchantmen in our country, who are not poor men, and having either
parents, wives, children, or other relatives, depending mainly or
wholly upon their exertions for support in life. Few others follow
the sea for subsistence. Now if this appeal is to have weight with
courts in diminishing the penalty the law would otherwise inflict,
is not the whole class under a privilege which will, in a degree,
protect it in wrong-doing? It is not a thing that happens now and
then. It is the invariable appeal, the last resort, of counsel,
when everything else has failed. I have known cases of the most
flagrant nature, where after every effort has been made for the
captain, and yet a verdict rendered against him, and all other
hope failed, this appeal has been urged, and with such success
that the punishment has been reduced to something little more
than nominal, the court not seeming to consider that it might be
made in almost every such case that could come before them. It is
a little singular, too, that it seems to be confined to cases
of shipmasters and officers. No one ever heard of a sentence,
for an offence committed on shore, being reduced by the court
on the ground of the prisoner's poverty, and the relation in
which he may stand to third persons. On the contrary, it had
been thought that the certainty that disgrace and suffering will
be brought upon others as well as himself, is one of the chief
restraints upon the criminally disposed.
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