Chapter 28

HE GOES TO SUPPER AT THE SIGN OF THE BALTIMORE CLIPPER

In the afternoon our pilot was all alive with his orders; we hove up the
anchor, and after a deal of pulling, and hauling, and jamming against
other ships, we wedged our way through a lock at high tide; and about
dark, succeeded in working up to a berth in Prince's Dock. The hawsers
and tow-lines being then coiled away, the crew were told to go ashore,
select their boarding-house, and sit down to supper.

Here it must be mentioned, that owing to the strict but necessary
regulations of the Liverpool docks, no fires of any kind are allowed on
board the vessels within them; and hence, though the sailors are
supposed to sleep in the forecastle, yet they must get their meals
ashore, or live upon cold potatoes. To a ship, the American merchantmen
adopt the former plan; the owners, of course, paying the landlord's
bill; which, in a large crew remaining at Liverpool more than six weeks,
as we of the Highlander did, forms no inconsiderable item in the
expenses of the voyage. Other ships, however--the economical Dutch and
Danish, for instance, and sometimes the prudent Scotch--feed their
luckless tars in dock, with precisely the same fare which they give them
at sea; taking their salt junk ashore to be cooked, which, indeed, is
but scurvy sort of treatment, since it is very apt to induce the scurvy.
A parsimonious proceeding like this is regarded with immeasurable
disdain by the crews of the New York vessels, who, if their captains
treated them after that fashion, would soon bolt and run.

It was quite dark, when we all sprang ashore; and, for the first time, I
felt dusty particles of the renowned British soil penetrating into my
eyes and lungs. As for stepping on it, that was out of the question, in
the well-paved and flagged condition of the streets; and I did not have
an opportunity to do so till some time afterward, when I got out into
the country; and then, indeed, I saw England, and snuffed its immortal
loam-but not till then.

Jackson led the van; and after stopping at a tavern, took us up this
street, and down that, till at last he brought us to a narrow lane,
filled with boarding-houses, spirit-vaults, and sailors. Here we stopped
before the sign of a Baltimore Clipper, flanked on one side by a gilded
bunch of grapes and a bottle, and on the other by the British Unicorn
and American Eagle, lying down by each other, like the lion and lamb in
the millennium.--A very judicious and tasty device, showing a delicate
apprehension of the propriety of conciliating American sailors in an
English boarding-house; and yet in no way derogating from the honor and
dignity of England, but placing the two nations, indeed, upon a footing
of perfect equality.