Thirty Years From Home; or, a Voice From the Main Deck: Being the Experience of Samuel LeechLeech, Samuel
History
Thirty Years From Home; or, a Voice From the Main Deck: Being the Experience of Samuel Leech
Leech, Samuel
Adventure and adventurers; Leech, Samuel, 1798-1848; Sailors; United States -- History -- War of 1812 -- Personal narratives
The men are distributed in all parts of the vessel; those in the
tops are called fore-top-men, main-top-men, and mizzen-top-men,
with two captains to each top, one for each watch. These top-men
have to loose, take in, reef and furl the sails aloft, such as
the top-gallant sails, top-sails, top-gallant royal, and top-sail
studding-sails. Others are called forecastle men, waisters, and the
after-guard; these have to loose, tend, and furl the courses, that
is, the fore-sail, the main-sail and lower studding-sails; they
also have to set the jib, flying-jib, and spanker; the after-guard
have a special charge to coil up all ropes in the after part of
the ship. Others are called _scavengers_; these, as their not very
attractive name imports, have to sweep and pick up the dirt that
may chance to gather through the day, and throw it overboard.
Then come the boys, who are mostly employed as servants to the
officers. Our captain had a steward and a boy; these acted as his
domestic servants in his large and stately cabin, which, to meet
the ideas of landsmen, may be called his house. The lieutenants,
purser, surgeon, and sailing-master, had each a boy; they, together
with the two lieutenants of marines, who were waited upon by two
marines, form what is called the ward-room officers. The ward-room
is a large cabin, (I mean large for a ship, of course,) below the
captain’s, where they all mess together; aft of this cabin is a
smaller one, which serves as a species of store-room. Besides
these accommodations, every ward-room officer has his state-room,
containing his cot, wash-stand, writing-desk, clothes, etc. The
gunner, boatswain, and some others, are also allowed a boy; and a
man and boy are appointed to be the servants of a certain number of
midshipmen.
Another arrangement is that of forming the ship’s company into
watches. The captain, first lieutenant, surgeon, purser, boatswain,
gunner, carpenter, armorer, together with the stewards and boys, are
excused from belonging to them, but are liable to be called out to
take in sail; some of the last mentioned are called _idlers_. All
others are in watches, called the larboard and starboard watches.
Stations are also assigned at the guns, to the whole crew. When at
sea, the drummer beats to quarters every night. This beat, by which
the men are summoned to quarters, is a regular tune. I have often
heard the words sung which belong to it; this is the chorus:
“Hearts of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men,
We always are ready, steady, boys, steady,
To fight and to conquer again and again.”
At the roll of this evening drum, all hands hurry to the guns. Eight
men and a boy are stationed at each gun, one of whom is captain of
the gun, another sponges and loads it, the rest take hold of the side
tackle-falls, to run the gun in and out; while the boy is employed in
handing the cartridges, for which he is honored with the singularly
euphonious cognomen of powder-monkey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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