Page:The Clipper Ship Era.djvu/165

 Rh clothes he stood in, and perhaps a ramshackle old sea chest with a shabby suit of oilskins, a pair of leaky sea boots, a bottle or two of Jersey lightning, and two or three plugs of tobacco chucked into it. These vice-hardened men and women of various nationalities were permitted to work their abominable trade unmolested, almost within the shadow of church spires and Courts of Justice in the chief seaports of the United States. The destitute condition in which men were put on board of American ships became so common that clothing and other necessaries were provided for them in what was known as the slop chest, in charge of the steward, with which all ships bound upon distant voyages were supplied, and from which the crew received whatever they required at about one half the cost extorted by the slop shops on shore. This arrangement was necessary, as otherwise, in many instances, the men would not have had sufficient clothing to stand a watch in cold or stormy weather.

American sea-captains were often compelled to take these outcasts as they found them, because they could get no other men. They provided them with better food than they had ever seen or heard of on board vessels of their own countries, supplied them with clothes, sea boots, sou'westers, oilskins, and tobacco, restored them to health, paid them money which many of them never earned, and for the time being, at least, did their utmost to make men of them. If any one imagines that this class of sailors ever felt or expressed the least gratitude toward their benefactors, he is much mistaken. Let him picture to himself these creatures in