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.
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