sour wine--the juice of a few grapes, perhaps, to a pint of the juice
of water-faucets. Moreover, the sailors asked for meat, and they
gave them soup; a rascally substitute, as they well knew.

Ever since leaving home, they had been on "short allowance." At the
present time, those belonging to the boats--and thus getting an
occasional opportunity to run ashore--frequently sold their rations
of bread to some less fortunate shipmate for sixfold its real value.

Another thing tending to promote dissatisfaction among the crew was
their having such a devil of a fellow for a captain. He was one of
those horrid naval bores--a great disciplinarian. In port, he kept
them constantly exercising yards and sails, and maneuvering with the
boats; and at sea, they were forever at quarters; running in and out
the enormous guns, as if their arms were made for nothing else. Then
there was the admiral aboard, also; and, no doubt, he too had a
paternal eye over them.

In the ordinary routine of duty, we could not but be struck with the
listless, slovenly behaviour of these men; there was nothing of the
national vivacity in their movements; nothing of the quick precision
perceptible on the deck of a thoroughly-disciplined armed vessel.

All this, however, when we came to know the reason, was no matter of
surprise; three-fourths of them were pressed men. Some old merchant
sailors had been seized the very day they landed from distant
voyages; while the landsmen, of whom there were many, had been driven
down from the country in herds, and so sent to sea.

At the time, I was quite amazed to hear of press-gangs in a day of