Man-of-War Life

Charles Nordhoff

• Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781848321649
• eBook ISBN: 9781473822504
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Like many a restless teenager before him, Charles Nordhoff craved excitement and in 1844, when barely 14, he managed to talk his way into the US Navy. A bookish lad who had been apprenticed to a printer, Nordhoff was better educated than most of his fellow seamen, and was well equipped to describe what became a three-year round-the-world adventure. He was lucky in his ship, USS Columbus, a large 74-gun ship of the line that had been chosen to undertake a diplomatic mission to China, and then to Japan, in an abortive attempt to open the latter to American trade. In the course of this voyage, Nordhoff was to see many countries of south-east Asia and the Far East, before crossing the Pacific, visiting South America, rounding Cape Horn, and finally returning to Norfolk, Virginia, having crossed the Equator six times. Apart from its descriptions of exotic climes, much of the interest in the book lies in a boys view of naval life and how the ship was run. The US Navy was small and followed very conservative principles, with an emphasis on discipline, routine and training that would have been familiar a century earlier. However, it was also subtly different: more humane in its treatment of the crew, less draconian in punishment, and a promoter of what would be considered Victorian moral values. The book offers a valuable and entertaining account of life in the last days of the sailing warship.

1. Why I went to sea – finding it impossible to gain a place on a merchant vessel, I ship as ‘Boy’ in the American Navy and am put aboard the receiving ship (or ‘guardo’) Experiment, Navy Yard, Philadelphia – how ‘green hands’ are fitted out.

BEING A REGULAR bookworm I went to school until I was thirteen. Then, by my own choice, I became apprenticed to a printer. Within six months, I was so weak and puny my friends began to fear I had consumption, and so I cast about for some means to recruit my health. Having read in many travel books of the invigorating and restorative power of the sea, I decided to try salt water in the capacity of a sailor. And so, supported by the works of Marryat and Cooper, and with twenty-five dollars savings, two clean shirts and a pair of socks, in September 1843, I engaged a passage on a steamer for Wheeling, Virginia, the oft-repeated saw ringing in my ears, that ‘In this country no industrious person could starve’. From there I went onwards to Baltimore where I intended to make a first trial at obtaining a situation on board ship. As to my sensations at leaving home, I can only say the feeling of satisfaction at being about to attain a cherished desire drowned out all regrets.

Arrived in Baltimore, I spent the first day in wandering about the docks, particularly watching sailors hoisting in cargo on a large vessel I took for a China ship. I listened admiringly to their songs, considered myself climbing her rigging and tall masts, then I returned to my the hotel to wait for the morrow. Next morning, at eight o’clock, I went aboard and, after looking about decks a little, walked up to a gentleman whom I had heard called ‘Captain’. I made my best bow, and informed him that I was desirous of obtaining a place as cabin boy, or sailor boy, and asked for a berth.

‘You young scamp!’ said he, You think I carry runaway boys? Don’t let me see you on this ship again!’ Without daring a word, I turned and hastened ashore, severely disappointed, as I had never contemplated the possibility of such a rebuff.

‘Never mind,’ thought I, ‘better luck next time,’ and now began to walk quays applying on board nearly every vessel. Some had, ‘too many lazy boys’ already, others, wouldn’t give a boy his grub’. Others, as soon as my head was over the rail, shouted ‘No loafing boys here!’

Having read of the kindness of the Quakers, I now considered Philadelphia, and engaged a passage in a vessel starting at 7pm that evening. By now I had but two dollars and a half remaining. I sat alone in a corner of the boat’s cabin, obliged to confess to myself that I was alone among strangers and nearly at the end of my means. On these reflections I decided I would waste no more time at present searching for a ship, but, from necessity, seek work in a printing office. Repeating once more the comforting reflection, that, ‘In America there is work for all willing hands’, I sank to sleep in my corner, murmuring a prayer to God for success on the following day.

After changing from boat to cars, and then to another boat, we arrived at Philadelphia at 4am. As soon as it was light, I took up my bundle, and, walking up Dock Street, saw on the corner of Third a sign, Daily Sun, and under the bulletin board, ‘Boy Wanted – Apply Within’. I walked up the front steps and into the office, and asked a gentleman there about the vacancy. After catechising me concerning my abilities, he concluded to take me on trial, with the promise of a permanent situation if I proved trustworthy. Learning that I had only that morning arrived in the city, and was a perfect stranger, he kindly procured me a boarding place with a gentlemen also engaged in the office, and under whose hospitable roof I found a good home for the remainder of my stay.

That evening I was inducted into my new post, that of ‘printer’s devil’, or boy of all work. This was from 6pm until the time of going to press, generally about midnight. The money from this being arranged to pay my board, to defray other expenses, I set type during the daytime, earning up to four dollars per week. I was thus, through the kindness of strangers, now in a situation where I was able to provide abundantly for all my wants, and resolved to render myself worthy of this kindness by upright, steady conduct until I succeeded in obtaining a place on board ship.

My desire to become a sailor continued as strong as ever, and I generally spent my Saturday afternoons among the shipping, occasionally seeking a berth, but invariably without success. These rebuffs served to convince me of a fact I now offer to any youth wishing to go to sea, viz: that it is almost impossible for a boy, unaided by outside influence, to obtain a place on board a merchant vessel, because this class of vessels is inevitably poorly manned, carrying ‘no more cats than can catch mice’ – that is, no more men than are sufficient to do the work. And so captains, therefore, will not encumber themselves with green hands, who would be worthless until able to accomplish their duties. As well, English merchant vessels are compelled by law to carry a certain number of apprentices. These receive little pay, hard fare, and the severest of treatment. They are, therefore, always anxious to run away to American vessels. Here they are generally well received, because, although in general far less intelligent than American lads, they are inured to labour and, consequently, much more useful, and therefore fill almost every vacant place in American vessels.

About this time, a paragraph appeared in the press to the effect that the United States ship Columbus (74 guns), Commodore Biddle, was commissioning for a voyage to China and Japan, to return via Cape Horn after circumnavigating the globe. Furthermore, the Naval Rendezvous was now shipping hands for this vessel. Here was what I was waiting for! Shades of Magellan and Cook! Consulting a directory, I found that the Rendezvous was on Front Street. I immediately went there, only to be told that they were not yet shipping ‘boys’. Calling back a few days later, I was now informed sufficient boys were already enlisted, and even if they were shipping, I would need to be accompanied by parents, or a guardian.

Frankly laying my case before the recruiting officer he listened impatiently, then said gruffly, ‘You’re too late. Nor would we dare ship you without a special order from Commodore Elliott,’ (Commandant of the Navy Yard).

I now set my wits to work. There existed at that time in Philadelphia a great deal of political excitement arising out of recent Native American riots. The Sun was the organ of the Native American party, and its editor, Mr Lewis C Levin, had just been elected member of Congress, and was an intimate friend of Elliott who was often about our office, and who would, I was sure, grant any request of Levin. Part of my daily duty was to carry to Levin the daily proof sheets for his final revision. I would sit in his apartment while he was looking over the proofs, waiting on any instructions he might desire to send back to the office. Waiting until a day when he was in high good humour, having just pitched into foreigners to his entire satisfaction, I laid my case before him – how I needed a written permission from Elliott to help me enlist, and asked, as a very great favour, if Levin would give me a few lines to the commodore.

Levin, who knew nothing of me beyond the fact that I was the office boy, but who like all politicians was too anxious a seeker after popularity to indulge in a point-blank refusal even to a boy, wrote as follows: ‘Dear Commodore, The bearer, our office boy, desires to ship on the Columbus. Please give him a talking to.’

A few days later I found Elliott alone in Levin’s ‘sanctum’, and put the note into his hand. After reading it over, he said, ‘You young scoundrel! Want to ruin yourself, do you? Haven’t you a father or mother?’

‘No, sir.’

‘And want to go to sea?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You ought to be sent to the House of Correction.’ This not being an argument, but an assertion, I made no answer. Now the commodore turned back to his political papers, while I stood silently by his chair. Seeing I made no move to go away he finally said, but in a kinder tone of voice, ‘Look here, my lad, get this crazy notion out of your head. Learn your trade, study your books, grow to be a useful man. If you go to sea, you will be nothing all your life but a vagabond, drunken seaman, a dog for every one to kick.’ Getting up to leave, he added, ‘You don’t want to be a dirty, drunken old sailor, who can’t be admitted into decent society. Be content. Let those who are bigger fools go to sea. … Look at me, I have been a naval officer all my life, which is more than you would ever get to be. But see what a miserable Old Hunks I am. Boy, if I had a dozen sons, I would see them all in their graves rather than to sea.’

With these words he went, leaving me almost despairing of accomplishing my object. But after two or three days, I again waylaid him, telling him that after considering all he had said, I was still inclined seaward, and would he therefore please write the few necessary words to the recruiting officer. I laid before him paper and pen, and put on my most beseeching look.

‘Confound the boy!’ said he, ‘I suppose I shall have to do what he wants.’ He then wrote: ‘Officer of the Naval Rendezvous will ship the bearer – a boy – Com C Elliott.’ Then threw it to me. I thanked him; he told me to‘Go to the devil!’

Instead I went to the Rendezvous. The shipping officer was standing at the door and, at the sight of my too-well-known face, turned impatiently into the room. I followed him in.

He looked round and said pettishly: ‘Boy, I’ve told you a dozen times that we can’t ship you! Let me see you no more!’ I handed him Elliott’s note. He looked at it, then me, then it again. Then politely asked me to take a seat. ‘This alters the case, my lad,’ said he, in the tone of a gentleman (one I had not heard before), ‘So your father is acquainted with Commodore Elliott?’

I mechanically said,‘Yes.’

But he did not hear me, for I possessed the magic signet before which all doors fly open, all difficulties vanish. The Articles of Agreement were read over to me in a monotonous drawl, and I was asked, if, of my own free will, I proposed to sign them. Then, at the tinkling of a small bell, I walked into an adjoining room where a naval doctor examined me. A report, in lead pencil, of the result was placed in my hands. This I rendered up to the man of the drawl, who then asked me if I was fully aware of all the responsibilities I was about to take upon myself, and would I swear to submit to the rules and regulations laid down for the government of seamen in the United States Navy. Then he told me to ‘touch the pen’, while he very ingeniously wrote my name for me, a matter I could have performed much more satisfactorily myself. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘You belong to Uncle Sam. So! When will you go on board?’

I answered, ‘Immediately!’ and received a paper certifying that I was shipped on that day as a ‘First-Class Boy’, for general service in the Navy of the United States at wages of eight dollars per month, and would immediately receive three months’ advance, with which to be ‘fitted out’. That is, each non-commissioned officer, seaman, landsman, or boy, receives, on entering the United States Navy, money to defray the expenses of uniform, clothing, bedding, etc, all of which items are to meet Navy regulations.

Old men-of-war’s men, if sober, generally take this advance money into their own possession and with it procure the necessary articles. Drunken sailors and green hands (as I was) fall to speculators in slop clothing who loaf about the Rendezvous looking for customers to cheat. This, in a manner, being winked at as these thieves, in turn, are understood to stand security for the delivery on board of the new recruit.

However, to see that all is ostensibly done fair and above board, it is provided that the master-at-arms shall, on the rendering on board of the recruit, examine this clothing to see that the requisite number of pieces – the quantity is there. So far, so good. But, unfortunately for poor ‘greeny’, the quality of the clothing is not made a matter of regulation. So the slop-seller, while furnishing faithfully the number of articles specified, provides them of such stuff which, it is safe to say, cannot be found anywhere else than in the establishments of these thieving outfitters. These articles, which may be of interest, are, to wit: ‘One blue cloth mustering jacket, one pair blue cloth mustering trousers, two white duck frocks (called shirts on shore) with blue collars, two pair white duck trousers, two blue flannel shirts, one pea-jacket (overcoat), two pair cotton socks, two pair woollen socks, one pair pumps, one pair shoes, one black tarpaulin hat, one mattress and mattress cover, two blankets, one pot, pan, spoon, and knife, and one clothes bag.’

It is a matter of curiosity, as well as a striking instance of the pursuit of the dollar, to see how faithfully this list could be copied, without one item coming up to desired standards. For instance, the blue jacket and trousers, used only for mustering on special occasions, are supposed to be made of very fine cloth. Those with which I was furnished by my friend, the Jew, were made of rusty-looking serge, described by an old salt as ‘dogs hair and oakum, at three pence an armful’, adding that a bull mastiff might be flung ‘between any two threads of it’. The white duck frocks and trousers were made of a yellow bagging so coarse it would scarcely hold peas, and which was warranted not to last beyond the first washing. Instead of the ‘neat’ black silk neckerchief and shining pumps (articles of dress in the excellence of which a true man-of-war’s man greatly delights), green recruits are furnished with a rusty bamboo rag, and shoes made of varnished brown paper, both of which would vanish before damp salt air as mist does before a bright sun. And in place of the neat tarpaulin hat, hard and heavy as a brick, smooth and glossy as though made of glass (and the crowning glory of a man-of-war man’s costume) was a miserable featherweight of lacquered straw. To complete the list came the mattress, a coarse sack, loosely stuffed with a mixture of straw, shavings and old rags, and the blankets, which could serve as a riddle for peas: the entire assortment being worth nothing except to old Robyeknow himself – for whom they probably cost about three dollars.

After placing all these in a furniture car, I was now driven down to the United States Navy Receiving Ship (or ‘guardo’) Experiment, lying off the Navy Yard, Philadelphia.

2. Life on board a guardo – I learn to fall out of a hammock – the draft is made up for New York and the Columbus – adventures on route – on board the Columbus I am taken ill, put in the sickbay, given up for dead.

ARRIVED ON BOARD I was first presented to the officer of the deck, to whom I made a polite bow, receiving in return an outrageous grin. I was taken below by the master-at-arms, who, having turned out the contents of my clothes bag on deck, kicked them over with a practised foot before pronouncing them, ‘All right.’ I was then told where to put my bag, where to put my bedding (the straw sack), and finally where to put myself.

Now I was shown ‘for’d’. Here I found assembled, some standing, some sitting, some lying down, one reading, several sewing, and the balance either spinning yarns or asleep, about two dozen regular old tars. They all, but one or two, bore about them the marks of recent excesses, and smelt strongly of bad liquor – smuggled on board, I learned later, in considerable quantities. Leaving out the liquor, they were fine, bronzed, weather-beaten looking fellows, with broad shoulders and well-knit, massive frames. I took a seat on a shot box, at a little distance, until presently, one of the more sober approached, saying, ‘Well, boy. Shipped have you?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I answered.

‘Better have hung yourself,’ growled another.

‘Leave him alone,’ retorted the first. ‘You’ll frighten him to death. Who got you to ship, my lad?’

‘Nobody I wanted to be a sailor.’

‘Well, you’ve come to a rather out of the way place to learn that,’ he said, then added, ‘But when you’re green you have to suffer.’

After some further conversation, in which my personal appearance, as well as my desire to become a sailor, were pretty freely commented on, my friend, the master-at-arms, arrived once more and placed in my hands an oblong strip of stout canvas, having a number of strings tied to each end, and informed me this was my hammock. I had read of sailors and hammocks, but before this had no proper idea of the article. As I was holding it in my hands, with a puzzled air, the old sailor who had first spoken to me took me to the lower deck, and showed me a number of hooks set into the overhead beams and carlings. The little strings before mentioned – the ‘clews’ – I found were to be used to suspend the hammock between two of the hooks, making a swinging bedstead at an altitude of about four feet above the deck. Once slung, into it I placed my rag-and-shaving mattress, and dog’s-hair blankets, and the affair was now pronounced ready for my occupancy.

‘See if you can jump in,’ my mentor now advised.

A match-tub was brought for me to stand on, I was told to catch onto two of the hooks overhead, give my body a swing, and alight in the hammock.

‘As easy as eating soft tack and butter,’ said the old sailor, demonstrating it was. Then all stood clear. Holding my breath tightly, I began hoisting myself, but touching the side of the hammock, it slipped from under me, and I went right over it, and landed on the deck, on the other side, with a thump.

Try again!’ was the word. I did so, and with the help of a lift, succeeded in placing myself fairly in my bed. I was next shown how to ‘tie’ or ‘lash it’ up, and where to ‘stow’ it.

It was now suppertime, the cook calling, ‘Come and get your tea!’

Taking my pot, pan and spoon I proceeded to the galley. Here each individual was served w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editorial note
• Introduction
• 1 Why I went to sea – finding it impossible to gain a place on a merchant vessel, I ship as ‘Boy’ in the American Navy and am put aboard the receiving ship (or ‘guardo’) Experiment, Navy Yard, Philadelphia – how ‘green hands’ are fitted out.
• 2 Life on board a guardo – I learn to fall out of a hammock – the draft is made up for New York and the Columbus – adventures on route – on board the Columbus I am taken ill, put in the sickbay, given up for dead.
• 3 To sea at last, 4 June 1844 as we begin our three year cruise – hunting down a ‘mess’ – account of the Columbus: her crew; their duties.
• 4 First days and nights at sea – the commander’s cure for ‘chewing tobacco’ – a grand row in the boys’ mess – breaking in green hands – all hands’ to muster. Every man his own washerwoman – a word concerning thieving on board ship – the northeast trades – sailors turn tailors – the doldrums – chasing the wind.
• 5 Arrival at Rio – life in port – ‘dumps’, the currency of the bumboats, fifty to the dollar – I taste a banana for the first time – depart Rio.
• 6 Once clear of Rio the whole crew summoned to witness floggings – the southeast trades as we head for Java – a gale off the Cape of Good Hope – St Paul’s and New Amsterdam Islands – return to fine weather – water spouts.
• 7 Java Head – Batavia – sail for China – sea-serpents – becalmed off Borneo we almost drift ashore to a warm native welcome – running short of water, some chose to drink from the sea, Commodore Biddle’s cure for this: half-a-dozen apiece – weevily and wormy bread – water that cannot be approached until having stood for two hours.
• 8 Death of a lieutenant – funeral at sea – burial of an officer and a foremast hand contrasted – China: Macao and Canton – Chinese forts and junks – the Tartars and their duckboats – visit to Manila – the cholera comes on board – return to Macao – Amoy and Chusan: the crew petition for ‘Liberty’ and are refused – we hear of America’s war with Mexico.
• 9 We ‘Boys’ given time ashore – a Chinese farm – sail for Japan – Yeddo Bay – incidents of our stay and Japanese espionage – towed out of the harbour by Japanese boats who wish only to see our backs.
• 10 The Sandwich Islands – Honolulu – labours of the missionary – leave for the South America coast.
• 11 Valparaiso (the Vale of Paradise) – two Sundays in one week – foremast hands now granted their first liberty of the cruise – Jack ashore – lassoing a sailor – we watch Judas being hung in Callao – California where an abundance of beef means I cannot face a soup bone for the rest of my life – horrible story of Mormon settlers coming west to San Francisco.
• 12 Homeward-bound – goodbye to California – Valparaiso once more – another ‘Liberty’ and its bloody consequences.
• 13 Leaving Rio – the last passage – Norfolk, Virginia – paid off – having had my surfeit of bondage I determine to ship next voyage in the merchant marine.
• Notes