paying our husbands!"

Essentially a creature of contradictions, the sailor rarely, if he
could avoid it, steered the course laid down for him, and in nothing
perhaps was this idiosyncrasy so glaringly apparent as in his
behaviour as his country's creditor. He "would get to London if he
could." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 2732--Capt. Young, 12
Dec. 1742.] "An unaccountable humour" impelled him "to quit His
Majesty's service without leave." [Footnote: _Admiralty Records_
1. 480--Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts, 12 Sept. 1746.] Once the
whim seized him, no ties of deferred pay or prize-money had power to
hold him back. The one he could obtain on conditions; the other he
could dispose of at a discount which, though ruinously heavy, still
left him enough to frolic on.

The weapon of deferred pay was thus a two-edged one. If it hurt the
sailor, it also cut the fingers of those who employed it against him.
So exigent were the needs of the service, he could "run" with
impunity. For if he ran whilst his pay was in arrears, he did so with
the full knowledge that, barring untimely recapture by the press-gang,
he would receive a free pardon, together with payment of all dues, on
the sole condition, which he never kept if he could help it, of
returning to his ship when his money was gone. He therefore deserted
for two reasons: First, to obtain his pay; second, to spend it.

The penalty for desertion, under a well-known statute of George I.,
[Footnote: 13 George I., art. 7.] was death by hanging. As time went
on, however, discipline in this respect suffered a grave relapse, and
fear of the halter no longer served to check the continual exodus from
the fleet. If the runaway sailor were taken, "it would only be a