They were a little disposed,
perhaps, to wear their suddenly-acquired honors with some air of
pretension. Mr. Astor, too, had put them on their mettle with
respect to the captain, describing him as a gunpowder fellow who
would command his ship in fine style, and, if there was any
fighting to do, would "blow all out of the water."
Thus prepared to regard each other with no very cordial eye, it
is not to be wondered at that the parties soon came into
collision. On the very first night Captain Thorn began his man-
of-war discipline by ordering the lights in the cabin to be
extinguished at eight o'clock.
The pride of the partners was immediately in arms. This was an
invasion of their rights and dignities not to be borne. They were
on board of their own ship, and entitled to consult their ease
and enjoyment. M'Dougal was the champion of their cause. He was
an active, irritable, fuming, vainglorious little man, and
elevated in his own opinion, by being the proxy of Mr. Astor. A
violent altercation ensued, in the course of which Thorn
threatened to put the partners in irons should they prove
refractory; upon which M'Dougal seized a pistol and swore to be
the death of the captain should he ever offer such an indignity.
It was some time before the irritated parties could be pacified
by the more temperate bystanders.
Such was the captain's outset with the partners. Nor did the
clerks stand much higher in his good graces; indeed, he seems to
have regarded all the landsmen on board his ship as a kind of
Iive lumber, continually in the way. The poor voyageurs, too,
continually irritated his spleen by their "lubberly" and unseemly
habits, so abhorrent to one accustomed to the cleanliness of a
man-of-war. These poor fresh-water sailors, so vainglorious on
shore, and almost amphibious when on lakes and rivers, lost all
heart and stomach the moment they were at sea. For days they
suffered the doleful rigors and retchings of sea-sickness,
lurking below in their berths in squalid state, or emerging now
and then like spectres from the hatchways, in capotes and
blankets, with dirty nightcaps, grizzly beard, lantern visage and
unhappy eye, shivering about the deck, and ever and anon crawling
to the sides of the vessel, and offering up their tributes to the
windward, to infinite annoyance of the captain.
His letters to Mr. Astor, wherein he pours forth the bitterness
of his soul, and his seamanlike impatience of what he considers
the "lubberly" character and conduct of those around him, are
before us, and are amusingly characteristic. The honest captain
is full of vexation on his own account, and solicitude on account
of Mr. Astor, whose property he considers at the mercy of a most
heterogeneous and wasteful crew.
As to the clerks, he pronounced them mere pretenders, not one of
whom had ever been among the Indians, nor farther to the
northwest than Montreal, nor of higher rank than barkeeper of a
tavern or marker of a billiard-table, excepting one, who had been
a school-master, and whom he emphatically sets down for "as
foolish a pedant as ever lived."
Then as to the artisans and laborers who had been brought from
Canada and shipped at such expense, the three most respectable,
according to the captain's account, were culprits, who had fled
from Canada on account of their misdeeds; the rest had figured in
Montreal as draymen, barbers, waiters, and carriole drivers, and
were the most helpless, worthless beings "that ever broke sea-
biscuit."
It may easily be imagined what a series of misunderstandings and
cross-purposes would be likely to take place between such a crew
and such a commander. The captain, in his zeal for the health and
cleanliness of his ship, would make sweeping visitations to the
"lubber nests" of the unlucky "voyageurs" and their companions in
misery, ferret them out of their berths, make them air and wash
themselves and their accoutrements, and oblige them to stir about
briskly and take exercise.
Nor did his disgust and vexation cease when all hands had
recovered from sea-sickness, and become accustomed to the ship,
for now broke out an alarming keenness of appetite that
threatened havoc to the provisions. What especially irritated the
captain was the daintiness of some of his cabin passengers. They
were loud in their complaints of the ship's fare, though their
table was served with fresh pork, hams, tongues, smoked beef, and
puddings. "When thwarted in their cravings for delicacies," Said
he, "they would exclaim it was d-d hard they could not live as
they pleased upon their own property, being on board of their own
ship, freighted with their own merchandise. And these," added he,
"are the fine fellows who made such boast that they could 'eat
dogs.' "
In his indignation at what he termed their effeminacy, he would
swear that he would never take them to sea again "without having
Fly-market on the forecastle, Covent-garden on the poop, and a
cool spring from Canada in the maintop. "
As they proceeded on their voyage and got into the smooth seas
and pleasant weather of the tropics, other annoyances occurred to
vex the spirit of the captain. He had been crossed by the
irritable mood of one of the partners; he was now excessively
annoyed by the good-humor of another. This was the elder Stuart,
who was an easy soul, and of a social disposition. He had seen
life in Canada, and on the coast of Labrador; had been a fur
trader in the former, and a fisherman on the latter; and, in the
course of his experience, had made various expeditions with
voyageurs.
