Certain amenities which once passed between the master and the mate of the _Lady Shore_ serve to throw an even broader light upon the origin of quarrels at sea and the methods of settling them then in vogue. The _Lady Shore_ was on the passage home from Quebec when the master one day gave certain sailing directions which the mate, who was a sober, careful seaman, thought fit to disregard on the ground that the safety of the ship would be endangered if he followed them. The master, an irascible, drunken brute, at this flew into a passion and sought to ingraft his ideas of seamanship upon the mate through the medium of a handspike, with which he caught him a savage blow "just above the eye, cutting him about three inches in length." It was in mid-ocean that this lesson in navigation was administered. By the time Scilly shoved its nose above the horizon the skipper's "down" on the mate had reached an acute stage. His resentment of the latter's being the better seaman had now deepened into hatred, and to this, as the voyage neared its end, was added growing fear of prosecution. At this juncture a man-o'-war hove in sight and signalled an inspection of hands. "Get your chest on deck, Mr. Mate," cried the exultant skipper. "You are too much master here. It is time for us to part." Taken out of the ship as a pressed man, the mate was ultimately discharged by order of the Admiralty; but the skipper had his revenge. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 583--Matthew Gill to Admiral Moorsom, 15 Jan. 1813.] A riot that occurred at King's Lynn in the year '55 affords a striking instance of the retaliatory use of the gang on shore. In the course of the disturbance mud and stones were thrown at the magistrates, who had come out to do what they could to quell it. Angered by so gross an indignity, they supplied the gang with information that led to the pressing of some sixty persons concerned in the tumult, but as these consisted mainly of "vagrants, gipsies, parish charges, maimed, halt and idiots," the magisterial resentment caused greater rejoicings at Lynn than it did at Spithead, where the sweepings of the borough were eventually deposited. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 920--Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, 8 June 1755.] There is a decided smack of the modern about the use the gang was put to by the journeymen coopers of Bristol. Considering themselves underpaid, they threatened to go on strike unless the masters raised their wages. In this they were not entirely unanimous, however. One of their number stood out, refusing to join the combine; whereupon the rest summoned the gang and had the "blackleg" pressed for his contumacy. [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1542--Capt. Barker, 20 Aug. 1808, and enclosure.]