He Said That, A Number Of Years Before,
While At A Boarding-House In Liverpool, He Had Fallen In With
A pamphlet on the subject, and, as it contained calculations,
had read it very carefully, and had ever since wished
To find
some one who could add to his stock of knowledge on the question.
Although it was many years since he had seen the book, and it was
a subject with which he had no previous acquaintance, yet he had
the chain of reasoning, founded upon principles of political
economy, perfect in his memory; and his facts, so far as I
could judge, were correct; at least, he stated them with great
precision. The principles of the steam engine, too, he was very
familiar with, having been several months on board of a steamboat,
and made himself master of its secrets. He knew every lunar star
in both hemispheres, and was a perfect master of his quadrant and
sextant. Such was the man, who, at forty, was still a dog before
the mast, at twelve dollars a month. The reason of this was to
be found in his whole past life, as I had it, at different times,
from himself.
He was an Englishman, by birth, a native of Ilfracomb, in Devonshire.
His father was skipper of a small coaster, from Bristol, and dying,
left him, when quite young, to the care of his mother, by whose
exertions he received a common-school education, passing his
winters at school and his summers in the coasting trade, until his
seventeenth year, when he left home to go upon foreign voyages.
Of his mother, he often spoke with the greatest respect, and said
that she was a strong-minded woman, and had the best system of
education he had ever known; a system which had made respectable
men of his three brothers, and failed only in him, from his own
indomitable obstinacy. One thing he often mentioned, in which he
said his mother differed from all other mothers that he had ever
seen disciplining their children; that was, that when he was out
of humor and refused to eat, instead of putting his plate away,
as most mothers would, and saying that his hunger would bring
him to it, in time, she would stand over him and oblige him to
eat it - every mouthful of it. It was no fault of hers that he
was what I saw him; and so great was his sense of gratitude for
her efforts, though unsuccessful, that he determined, at the
close of the voyage, to embark for home with all the wages he
should get, to spend with and for his mother, if perchance he
should find her alive.
After leaving home, he had spent nearly twenty years, sailing upon
all sorts of voyages, generally out of the ports of New York and
Boston. Twenty years of vice! Every sin that a sailor knows, he
had gone to the bottom of. Several times he had been hauled up in
the hospitals, and as often, the great strength of his constitution
had brought him out again in health. Several times, too, from his
known capacity, he had been promoted to the office of chief mate,
and as often, his conduct when in port, especially his drunkenness,
which neither fear nor ambition could induce him to abandon, put him
back into the forecastle. One night, when giving me an account of his
life, and lamenting the years of manhood he had thrown away, he said
that there, in the forecastle, at the foot of the steps - a chest
of old clothes - was the result of twenty-two years of hard labor
and exposure - worked like a horse, and treated like a dog. As he
grew older, he began to feel the necessity of some provision for
his later years, and came gradually to the conviction that rum had
been his worst enemy. One night, in Havana, a young shipmate of
his was brought aboard drunk, with a dangerous gash in his head,
and his money and new clothes stripped from him. Harris had seen
and been in hundreds of such scenes as these, but in his then state
of mind, it fixed his determination, and he resolved never to taste
another drop of strong drink, of any kind. He signed no pledge, and
made no vow, but relied on his own strength of purpose. The first
thing with him was a reason, and then a resolution, and the thing
was done. The date of his resolution he knew, of course, to the
very hour. It was three years before I knew him, and during all
that time, nothing stronger than cider or coffee had passed his
lips. The sailors never thought of enticing Tom to take a glass,
any more than they would of talking to the ship's compass. He was
now a temperate man for life, and capable of filling any berth in
a ship, and many a high station there is on shore which is held by
a meaner man.
He understood the management of a ship upon scientific principles,
and could give the reason for hauling every rope; and a long
experience, added to careful observation at the time, and a
perfect memory, gave him a knowledge of the expedients and resorts
in times of hazard, which was remarkable, and for which I became
much indebted to him, as he took the greatest pleasure in opening
his stores of information to me, in return for what I was able to
do for him. Stories of tyranny and hardship which had driven men
to piracy; - of the incredible ignorance of masters and mates,
and of horrid brutality to the sick, dead, and dying; as well
as of the secret knavery and impositions practised upon seamen
by connivance of the owners, landlords, and officers; all these
he had, and I could not but believe them; for men who had known him
for fifteen years had never taken him even in an exaggeration, and,
as I have said, his statements were never disputed.
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