Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/331

 boarding-house on Ann Street I found a number of old sailors who were discussing the brig Somer's tragedy,  which had occurred a short time previous. One would have thought from the conversation that they were talking about bullies, tyrants, and brutes, instead of American naval officers.

"Why!" growled out one old man-of-war’s man, who had served in the navy over twenty years, "instead of  making spread-eagles of us — tyin’ the men up to the  riggin’ by their wrists with their arms extended — and  lashin’ ’em with the cats on their bare backs, now they’ll  put ’em in stocks, straight-jackets, or in double irons and  gag ’em, and —"

"Jest look at the cowardly hangin’ from the yard-arm o’ them three young men on board o’ the brig Somers,  ’thout givin’ ’em a chance to write a line to their fathers  and mothers, or even say their prayers," interrupted  another old weather-beaten sailor.

"Yes," spoke out a third, excitedly, "if you happen to cross an officer, let him be drunk or sober, you are  counted a mutineer, and are strung up to the yard-arm  or knocked down with a handspike or a belaying-pin;  and what are you going to do about it? They seem to  have forgotten the cowardly actions of the Portuguese  boatswain’s mate and other foreigners on board the  unfortunate frigate Chesapeake, and keep right on promoting foreigners to petty officers’ berths; and I can’t  get promoted even to a Jimmy Duck’s berth, or a captain of the afterguard. No more navy for me, shipmates."

The last speaker was a young American sailor who had