White-Jacket
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WHITE-JACKET
At the gangway, the Emperor was received by our Commodore in person, arrayed in his most resplendent coat and finest French epaulets. His servant had devoted himself to polishing every button that morning with rotten-stone and rags – your sea air is a sworn foe to metallic glosses; whence it comes that the swords of sea-of- ficers have, of late, so rusted in their scabbards that they are with difficulty drawn.
It was a fine sight to see this Emperor and Commodore complimenting each other. Both were chapeaux-de-bras, and both continually waved them. By instinct, the Emperor knew that the venerable personage before him was as much a monarch afloat as he himself was ashore. Did not our Commodore carry the sword of state by his side? For though not borne before him, it must have been a sword of state, since it looked far to lustrous to have been his fighting sword. That was naught but a limber steel blade, with a plain, serviceable handle, like the handle of a slaughter-house knife.
Who ever saw a star when the noon sun was in sight? But you seldom see a king without satellites. In the suite of the youthful Emperor came a princely train; so brilliant with gems, that they seemed just emerged from the mines of the Rio Belmonte.
You have seen cones of crystallised salt? Just so flashed these Portuguese Barons, Marquises, Viscounts, and Counts. Were it not for their titles, and being seen in the train of their lord, you would have sworn they were eldest sons of jewelers all, who had run away with their fathers’ cases on their backs.
Contrasted with these lamp-lustres of Barons of Brazil, how waned the gold lace of our barons of the frigate, the officers of the gun-room! and compared with the long, jewel-hilted rapiers of the Marquises, the little dirks of our cadets of noble houses – the middies – looked like gilded tenpenny nails in their girdles.
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But there they stood! Commodore and Emperor, Lieutenants and Marquises, middies and pages! The brazen band on the poop struck up; the marine guard presented arms; and high aloft, looking down on this scene, all the people vigorously hurraed. A top-man next me on the main-royal-yard removed his hat, and diligently manipulated his head in honour of the event; but he was so far out of sight in the clouds, that this ceremony went for nothing.
A great pity it was, that in addition to all these honours, that admirer of Portuguese literature, Viscount Strangford, of Great Britain – who, I believe, once went out Ambassador Extraordinary to the Brazils – it was a pity that he was not present on this occasion, to yield his tribute of “A Stanza to Braganza!” For our royal visitor was an undoubted Braganza, allied to nearly all the great families of Europe. His grandfather, John VI., had been King of Portugal; his own sister, Maria, was now its queen. He was, indeed, a distinguished young gentleman, entitled to high consideration, and that consideration was most cheerfully accorded him.
He wore a green dress-coat, with one regal morning-star at the breast, and white pantaloons. In his chapeau was a single, bright, golden-hued feather of the Imperial Toucan fowl, a magnificent, omnivorous, broad-billed bandit bird of prey, a native of Brazil. Its perch is on the loftiest trees, whence it looks down upon all humbler fowls, and, hawk-like, flies at their throats. The Toucan once formed part of the savage regalia of the Indian caciques of the country, and upon the establishment of the empire, was symbolically retained by the Portuguese sovereigns.
His Imperial Majesty was yet in his youth; rather corpulent, if anything, with a care-free, pleasant face, and a polite, indifferent, and easy address. His manners, indeed, were entirely unexceptionable.
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Now here, thought I, is a very fine lad, with very fine prospects before him. He is supreme Emperor of all these Brazils; he has no stormy night-watches to stand; he can lay abed of mornings just as long as he pleases. Any gentleman in Rio would be proud of his personal acquaintance, and the prettiest girl in all South America would deem herself honoured with the least glance from the acutest angle of his eye.
Yes: this young Emperor will have a fine time of this life, even so long as he condescends to exist. Every one jumps to obey him; and see, as I live, there is an old nobleman in his suit – the Marquis d’Acarty they call him, old enough to be his grandfather – who, in the hot sun, is standing bareheaded before him, while the Emperor carries his hat on his head.
“I suppose that old gentleman, now,” said a young New England tar beside me, “would consider it a great honour to put on his Royal Majesty’s boots; and yet, White-Jacket, if yonder Emperor and I were to strip and jump overboard for a bath, it would be hard telling which was of the blood royal when we should once be in the water. Look you, Don Pedro II.,” he added, “how do you come to be Emperor? Tell me that. You cannot pull as many pounds as I on the main-topsail-halyards; you are not as tall as I: your nose is a pug, and mine is a cut-water; and how do you come to be a ‘brigand,’ with that thin pair of spars? A brigand, indeed!”
“Braganza, you mean,” said I, willing to correct the rhetoric of so fierce a republican, and, by so doing, chastise his censoriousness.
“Braganza! bragger it is,” he replied; “and a bragger, indeed. See that feather in his cap! See how he struts in that coat! He may well wear a green one, top-mates – he’s a green-looking swab at the best.”
“Hush, Jonathan,” said I; “there’s the First Duff looking up. Be still! the Emperor will hear you;” and I put my hand on his mouth.
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“Take your hand away, White-Jacket,” he cried; “there’s no law up aloft here. I say, you Emperor – you greenhorn in the green coat, there – look you, you can’t raise a pair of whiskers yet; and see what a pair of homeward-bounders I have on my jowls! Don Pedro, eh? What’s that, after all, but plain Peter – reckoned a shabby name in my country. Damn me, White-Jacket, I wouldn’t call my dog Peter!”
“Clap a stopper on your jaw-tackle, will you?” cried Ringbolt, the sailor on the other side of him. “You’ll be getting us all into darbies for this.”
“I won’t trice up my red rag for nobody,” retorted Jonathan. “So you had better take a round turn with yours, Ringbolt, and let me alone, or I’ll fetch you such a swat over your figure-head, you’ll think a Long Wharf truck-horse kicked you with all four shoes on one hoof! You Emperor – you counter-jumping son of a gun – cock your weather eye up aloft here, and see your betters! I say, top-mates, he ain’t any Emperor at all – I’m the rightful Emperor. Yes, by the Commodore’s boots! they stole me out of my cradle here in the palace of Rio, and put that green-horn in my place. Ay, you timber-head, you, I’m Don Pedro II., and by good rights you ought to be a main-top- man here, with your fist in a tar-bucket! Look you, I say, that crown of yours ought to be on my head; or, if you don’t believe that, just heave it into the ring once, and see who’s the best man.”
“What’s this hurra’s nest here aloft?” cried Jack Chase, coming up the t’-gallant rigging from the top-sail yard. “Can’t you behave yourself, royal-yard-men, when an Emperor’s on board?”
“It’s this here Jonathan,” answered Ringbolt; “he’s been blackguarding the young nob in the green coat, there. He says Don Pedro stole his hat.”
“How?”
“Crown, he means, noble Jack,” said a top-man.
“Jonathan don’t call himself an Emperor, does he?” asked Jack.
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“Yes,” cried Jonathan; “that greenhorn, standing there by the Commodore, is sailing under false colours; he’s an impostor, I say; he wears my crown.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Jack, now seeing into the joke, and willing to humour it; “though I’m born a Briton, boys, yet, by the mast! these Don Pedros are all Perkin Warbecks. But I say, Jonathan, my lad, don’t pipe your eye now about the loss of your crown; for, look you, we all wear crowns, from our cradles to our graves, and though in double-darbies in the brig, the Commodore himself can’t unking us.”
“A riddle, noble Jack.”
“Not a bit; every man who has a sole to his foot has a crown to his head. Here’s mine;” and so saying, Jack, removing his tarpaulin, exhibited a bald spot, just about the bigness of a crown-piece, on the summit of his curly and classical head.
CHAPTER LVII
THE EMPEROR REVIEWS THE PEOPLE AT QUARTERS
I Beg their Royal Highnesses’ pardons all round, but I had almost forgotten to chronicle the fact, that with the Emperor came several other royal Princes – kings for aught we knew – since it was just after the celebration of the nuptials of a younger sister of the Brazilian monarch to some European royalty. Indeed, the Emperor and his suite formed a sort of bridal party, only the bride herself was absent.
The first reception over, the smoke of the cannonading salute having cleared away, and the martial outburst of the brass band having also rolled off to leeward, the people were called down from the yards, and the drum beat to quarters.
To quarters we went; and there we stood up by our iron bulldogs, while our royal and noble visitors promenaded along the batteries, breaking out into frequent exclamations at our warlike array, the extreme neatness of our garments, and, above all, the extraordinary polish of the bright-work about the great guns, and the marvellous whiteness of the decks.
“Que gosto!” cried a Marquis, with several dry goods samples of ribbon, tallied with bright buttons, hanging from his breast.
“Que gloria!” cried a crooked, coffee-coloured Viscount, spreading both palms.
“Que alegria!” cried a little Count, mincingly circumnavigating a shot-box.
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“Que contentamento he o meu!” cried the Emperor himself, complacently folding his royal arms, and serenely gazing along our ranks.
Pleasure, Glory, and Joy – this was the burden of the three noble courtiers. And very pleasing indeed – was the simple rendering of Don Pedro’s imperial remark.
“Ay, ay,” growled a grim rammer-and-sponger behind me; “it’s all devilish fine for you nobs to look at; but what would you say if you had to holy-stone the deck yourselves, and wear out your elbows in polishing this cursed old iron, besides getting a dozen at the gangway, if you dropped a grease-spot on deck in your mess? Ay, ay, devilish fine for you, but devilish dull for us!”
In due time the drums beat the retreat, and the ship’s company scattered over the decks.
Some of the officers now assumed the part of cicerones, to show the distinguished strangers the bowels of the frigate, concerning which several of them showed a good deal of intelligent curiosity. A guard of honour, detached from the marine corps, accompanied them, and they made the circuit of the berth-deck, where, at a judicious distance, the Emperor peeped down into the cable-tier, a very subterranean vault.
The Captain of the Main-Hold, who there presided, made a polite bow in the twilight, and respectfully expressed a desire for His Royal Majesty to step down and honour him with a call; but, with his handkerchief to his Imperial nose, his Majesty declined. The party then commenced the ascent to the spar-deck; which, from so great a depth in a frigate, is something like getting up to the top of Bunker Hill Monument from the basement.
While a crowd of people was gathered about the forward part of the booms, a sudden cry was heard from below; a lieutenant came running forward to learn the cause, when an old sheet-anchor-man,
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standing by, after touching his hat hitched up his waistbands, and replied, “I don’t know, sir, but I’m thinking as how one o’ them ‘ere kings has been tumblin’ down the hatchway.”
And something like this it turned out. In ascending one of the narrow ladders leading from the berth-deck to the gun-deck, the Most Noble Marquis of Silva, in the act of elevating the Imperial coat-tails, so as to protect them from rubbing against the newlypainted combings of the hatchway, this noble marquis’s sword, being an uncommonly long one, had caught between his legs, and tripped him head over heels down into the fore-passage.
“Onde ides?” (where are you going?) said his royal master, tranquilly peeping down toward the falling Marquis; “and what did you let go of my coat-tails for?” he suddenly added, in a passion, glancing round at the same time, to see if they had suffered from the unfaithfulness of his train bearer.
“Oh, Lord!” sighed the Captain of the Fore-top, “who would be a Marquis of Silva?”
Upon being assisted to the spar-deck, the unfortunate Marquis was found to have escaped without serious harm; but, from the marked coolness of his royal master, when the Marquis drew near to apologise for his awkwardness, it was plain that he was condemned to languish for a time under the royal displeasure.
Shortly after, the Imperial party withdrew, under another grand national salute.
CHAPTER LVIII
A QUARTER-DECK OFFICER
BEFORE THE MAST
As we were somewhat short-handed while we lay in Rio, we received a small draft of men from a United States sloop of war, whose three years’ term of service would expire about the time of our arrival in America.
Under guard of an armed Lieutenant and four midshipmen, they came on board in the afternoon. They were immediately mustered in the starboard gangway, that Mr. Bridewell, our First Lieutenant, might take down their names, and assign them their stations.
They stood in a mute and solemn row; the officer advanced, with his memorandum-book and pencil.
My casual friend, Shakings, the holder, happened to be by at the time. Touching my arm, he said, “White-Jacket, this here reminds me of Sing-Sing, when a draft of fellows in darbies, came on from the State Prison at Auburn for a change of scene like, you know!”
After taking down four or five names, Mr. Bridewell accosted the next man, a rather good-looking person, but, from his haggard cheek and sunken eye, he seemed to have been in the sad habit, all his life, of sitting up rather late at night; and though all sailors do certainly keep late hours enough – standing watches at midnight – yet there is no small difference between keeping late hours at sea and keeping late hours ashore.
“What’s your name?” asked the officer, of this rather rakishlooking recruit.
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“Mandeville, sir,” said the man, courteously touching his cap. “You must remember me, sir,” he added, in a low, confidential tone, strangely dashed with servility; “we sailed together once in the old Macedonian, sir. I wore an epaulet then; we had the same state-room, you know, sir. I’m your old chum, Mandeville, sir,” and he again touched his cap.
“I remember an offi cer by that name,” said the First Lieutenant, emphatically, “and I know you, fellow. But I know you henceforth for a common sailor. I can show no favouritism here. If you ever violate the ship’s rules, you shall be flogged like any other seaman. I place you in the fore-top; go forward to your duty.”
It seemed this Mandeville had entered the Navy when very young, and had risen to be a lieutenant, as he said. But brandy had been his bane. One night, when he had the deck of a line-of-battle ship, in the Mediterranean, he was seized with a fit of mania-a-potu, and being out of his senses for the time, went below and turned into his berth, leaving the deck without a commanding officer. For this unpardonable offence he was broken.
Having no fortune, and no other profession than the sea, upon his disgrace he entered the merchant-service as a chief mate; but his love of strong drink still pursuing him, he was again cashiered at sea, and degraded before the mast by the Captain. After this, in a state of intoxication, he re-entered the Navy at Pensacola as a common sailor. But all these lessons, so biting-bitter to learn, could not cure him of his sin. He had hardly been a week on board the Neversink, when he was found intoxicated with smuggled spirits. They lashed him to the gratings, and ignominiously scourged him under the eye of his old friend and comrade, the First Lieutenant.
This took place while we lay in port, which reminds me of the circumstance, that when punishment is about to be inflicted in harbour, all strangers are ordered ashore; and the sentries at the side have it in strict charge to waive off all boats drawing near.