Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/525

 discipline was most essential to the safety of the vessel and all on board; moreover, the rule requiring misconduct on the part of a seaman to be entered in the log and immediately read to the offender was a contrivance so ill-calculated to promote good behaviour that masters frequently left offences unnoticed rather than resort to such a proceeding; the Commissioners recommended, therefore, that this plan should be materially modified (they do not state how), and that, to secure fair treatment for the seaman, without destroying discipline or weakening the authority of the master, should be the object of the Legislature.

Indeed, when it is considered that the safety of a merchant ship, as well as of the lives of the passengers and crew, are entrusted to the skill and judgment of the master, it is essential that his authority should be upheld, as any interference tending to impair his authority and to lower his position adds seriously to the dangers of navigation.

As a ship at sea is in herself a little kingdom, the power of the master should be paramount and all but unquestioned; hence, while held strictly amenable to the law for any acts of tyranny and cruelty, the Legislature was bound to take care not to deprive him of the control necessary for the security of his vessel. Now, as the law as it at present stands, gives him very little power of punishing a sailor for anything but mutinous conduct, and as the sailor may be guilty with virtual impunity of many gross derelictions of duty, such as drunkenness, sleeping on the look-out, disobedience, and insubordination, the Commissioners recommend that some remedies, less cum