Jack in the Forecastle; or, Incidents in the Early Life of Hawser MartingaleSleeper, John Sherburne
General
Jack in the Forecastle; or, Incidents in the Early Life of Hawser Martingale
Sleeper, John Sherburne
Seafaring life
The lumber was taken to the shore on large rafts, and hauled up on the
beach by men belonging to the brig. The mark on every separate board or
plank was called out in a clear voice by the man who dragged it from
the raft to the beach, and was noted down by the mate of the brig and a
clerk of the mercantile house that purchased the lumber. Those parties
were comfortably seated beneath the shade of a tamarind tree, at some
distance, smoking cigars and pleasantly conversing. They compared notes
from time to time, and there was no difference in their accounts. Every
thing on our part was apparently conducted on the strictest principles
of honesty. But each sailor having received a hint from the mate, who
had been posted by the captain, and a promise of other indulgences,
often added from fifteen to twenty per cent, to the mark which had been
actually scored by the surveyor on every board or plank. Thus, if a
board was MARKED twelve feet, the amount given was fifteen feet; a board
that measured only eighteen or twenty feet, would be represented as
twenty-five; and sometimes a large, portly-looking board, measuring
thirty or thirty-five feet, not only received an addition of eight or
ten feet, but was suddenly transformed into a PLANK, which was counted
as containing DOUBLE the measurement of a board of the same superficial
dimensions. Thus a board actually measuring only thirty feet was passed
off upon the unsophisticated clerk of the purchaser as a piece of lumber
measuring seventy feet. In this way Captain Turner managed, in what he
contended was the usual and proper manner among the Yankees, to make a
cargo of lumber "hold out!" Another attempt which this gentleman made
to realize a profit on merchandise greater than could be obtained by a
system of fair trading was not attended with so favorable a result.
A portion of the cargo of the Dolphin consisted of barrels of salted
provisions. This part of the cargo was not enumerated among the articles
in the manifest. Captain Turner intended to dispose of it to the
shipping in the harbor, and thus avoid the payment of the regular
duties. He accordingly sold some ten or a dozen barrels of beef
and pork, at a high price, to the captain of an English ship. The
transaction, by some unknown means, was discovered by the government
officials, who, in a very grave and imposing manner, visited the brig
with a formidable posse. They found in the hold a considerable quantity
of the salted provisions on which no duty had been paid; this they
conveyed on shore and confiscated to the use of His Majesty the King of
Great Britain. The brig also was seized, but was subsequently released
on payment of a heavy fine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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