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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 294 of 324
Words from 153956 to 154456
of 170236
