But there is a different tale to tell when the tonnage outran the Bluenose ability to man it, and Dutchmen, Dagos, miscellaneous wharf-rats, and 'low-down' Britishers had to be taken on instead. If the crew was mixed and the officers Bluenose there was sure to be trouble of graduated kinds, all the way up from simple knock-downs to the fiercest gun-play of a real hell ship. The food was inferior to that aboard the Yankees. But in discipline there was nothing to choose. An all-Bluenose or all-Yankee sometimes came as near the perfection of seamanship and discipline as anything human possibly can. But aboard a mixed Bluenose the rule of bend or break {99} was enforced without the slightest reference to what was regarded as landlubber's law. The Britisher's Board of Trade regulations were regarded with contempt; and not without reason; for, excellent as they were, they struck the Bluenose seamen as being an interference made solely in the supposed interests of the men against the officers. The mistake was that the old injustices were repeated in a new way. Formerly the law either sided with the officers and owners or left them alone; now it either sided with the men or left the officers and owners in the lurch. The true balance was not restored. Here is a thoroughly typical instance of the difference between a Britisher and a Bluenose under the new dispensation. The second mate of a Britisher asked for his discharge at Bombay because he could not manage the men, who had shirked disgracefully the whole way out. The skipper got a good Bluenose for his new second mate. The first day the Bluenose came aboard one of the worst shirkers slung a bucket carelessly, cut the deck, and then proceeded to curse the ship and all who sailed in her, as he had been accustomed to do under the Britisher. The Bluenose mate simply said, 'See here, just shut your head or I'll {100} shut it for you,' on which the skulker answered by threatening to 'cut his chicken liver out.' In a flash the Bluenose had him naped, slung, and flying across the rail. A second man rushed in, only to be landed neatly on the chin and knocked limp against the scuppers. The rest of the watch, roused by this unwonted assertion of authority, came on, but stopped short, snarling, when the Bluenose swung an iron bar from the windlass in a way that showed he knew how to handle it effectively. The skipper and mate now appeared, and, seeing a clear case of actual fight, at once ranged themselves beside the capable Bluenose. The watch, a mixed lot, then slunk off; and, from that day out, the whole tone of the ship was changed, very much for the better.