granted that there are reasons for all these
things that a gentleman from Parliament
could show to us, just as we could show to
him what manner of life we lead; and not
to be too bold in finding fault with legislation,
I will just make an end of what I want
to say by giving a short account of how we
work on board a merchant vessel, having
shown already how we eat and sleep and
lodge.

From daylight to dark we are all busily
employed. The sails, spars, and rigging are
always being overhauled and made right,
as we sail from port to port; in fine weather
not an idle minute is permitted. We count
our time, as landsmen know, by bells, one
bell being half-an-hour. Each twenty-four
hours contains seven watches; five watches
of four hours, or eight bells each, and two
dog-watches, of two hours or four bells.
These last come between four and eight o'clock
of afternoons. The crew is then divided into
two equal sets, called the starboard and the
larboard watch. The starboard watch is
under the orders of the captain and second
mate, the larboard watch under the first mate
and perhaps a third mate or a boatswain.
Those are the men, and those are the hours,
and the supposition is that the two sets of men
relieve each other every four hours, except
during the dog-watches, when they shift their
order, to the end that the same men may not
always have the same watches to keep. That
is the supposition, which allows for every man
on board the vessel twelve hours of work on
deck, and twelve hours for rest, food, and
sleep below. In practice we have nothing of
the sort; ships must be well manned that can
afford to be content with twelve hours a day
of work out of the sailor. The afternoon
watch, from noon until four o'clock, and the
first dog-watch, from four to six, are kept by
all hands, except in very rough weather. The
consequence of this is, that the men who have
stood the middle night-watch from midnight
until four in the morning, turn in for four
hours, and at eight o'clock must be on deck
again to take their turn from eight to twelve;
but after twelve all hands are kept on deck
till six, so that the men who have kept the
middle night-watch work all day from eight to
six, except only by an hour allowed them for
their dinner. At six o'clock they get short
rest, because the rotation being changed, they
turn in only for the dog-watch until eight,
and then must come on deck to go on keeping
watch till midnight. Thus each half of the
crew takes turn with a day of extra labour,
in which there are eighteen hours of duty and
six hours of rest, those hours of rest not being
in one heap but in two separate portions, one
of four and one of two hours only. Even
these snatches of sleep are liable to be interupted
by a sudden rise of wind, and that
unwelcome cry that it blows to us: " All
ha-a-ands reef topsails! Tumble up, there!
tumble up!"

In the succeeding twenty-four hours, the
men that have been overworked get twelve
hours on deck and twelve below. The average
rest allowed to the sailor is therefore about
nine hours a day, in which he must get
through his sleep, meals, washing, clothes-
mending, and other necessary occupations.
This allowance would be little enough if it
were given in a lump; but it is made
more insufficient of course when it is cut up
into slices, which, of necessity, are again
subject to so many interruptions and deductions.
In nearly all ships, American as well
as English, this division of time and labour
is adopted. It wears us out; it uses us up
too fast; and many an accident that has
resulted from a drowsy look-out, or a discontented
crew, may make it doubtful whether
the plan is always, so much as it appears to
be, a source of gain to the owner on each
voyage. Some masters refuse to their hands
even the forenoon watch below, and keep the
men on deck twenty hours one day, and fourteen
hours the next. If any forecastle man
could get into Parliament from one of these
All Hands Crafts, I reckon he would bring
them in a sweeping Ten Hours Bill. Sea
air has need to be wholesome. There is little
else good for the health of a sailor in an
English trading ship.

I never saw any other system of work followed
on board ship, except once when I was
in a Sydney whaler, and we formed a plan of
our own in the forecastle, and got leave to
have it tried. We divided the twenty-four
hours into three watches of eight hours each,
and the plan, while it allowed us our full
share of rest and sleep, gave perfect satisfaction
to the master; we returned to port after
a very hard season in sound health and in
good spirits, without having had one case of
sickness among us all the while we were
away. And all the voyage we reckoned
ourselves rather a jolly crew, and pulled together
with a will, when there was extra work to do.

A ship is often in the best possible trim
after she has been two or three months at
sea. Every chafe has been perfectly served
with spun-yarn, or protected by rope mats or
"Scotchmen" (slips of wood or bamboo). The
old sails are all mended, the rigging has been
completely overhauled, and shrouds and stays
set up taut. The yards are painted, the
masts scraped and varnished, and the decks
have been holystoned until the heads of the
copper bolts glisten like overgrown sovereigns
that might have been dropped upon the clean
white planks. Every inch of standing rigging
shines with " Stockholm; " the bends
and anchors are blacked, the sides painted in
grinning Quaker port-holes, and the boatswain's
locker is full over the brim with the
work of the men's hands in the shape of
gaskets, man-ropes, chafing gear, grafted
strops, fancy yoke-lines, huge balls of marlin,
house-line, spun-yarn, and other blue water
manufactures. Then comes the season or