Chapter 14

A DRAUGHT IN A MAN-OF-WAR.

We were not many days out of port, when a rumour was set afloat
that dreadfully alarmed many tars. It was this: that, owing to
some unprecedented oversight in the Purser, or some equally
unprecedented remissness in the Naval-storekeeper at Callao, the
frigate's supply of that delectable beverage, called "grog," was
well-nigh expended.

In the American Navy, the law allows one gill of spirits per day
to every seaman. In two portions, it is served out just previous
to breakfast and dinner. At the roll of the drum, the sailors
assemble round a large tub, or cask, filled with liquid; and, as
their names are called off by a midshipman, they step up and
regale themselves from a little tin measure called a "tot." No
high-liver helping himself to Tokay off a well-polished sideboard,
smacks his lips with more mighty satisfaction than the sailor does
over this _tot_. To many of them, indeed, the thought of their
daily _tots_ forms a perpetual perspective of ravishing landscapes,
indefinitely receding in the distance. It is their great "prospect
in life." Take away their grog, and life possesses no further charms
for them. It is hardly to be doubted, that the controlling inducement
which keeps many men in the Navy, is the unbounded confidence they
have in the ability of the United States government to supply them,
regularly and unfailingly, with their daily allowance of this beverage.
I have known several forlorn individuals, shipping as landsmen, who
have confessed to me, that having contracted a love for ardent spirits,
which they could not renounce, and having by their foolish courses been
brought into the most abject poverty--insomuch that they could no longer
gratify their thirst ashore--they incontinently entered the Navy;
regarding it as the asylum for all drunkards, who might there prolong
their lives by regular hours and exercise, and twice every day quench
their thirst by moderate and undeviating doses.

When I once remonstrated with an old toper of a top-man about
this daily dram-drinking; when I told him it was ruining him, and
advised him to _stop his grog_ and receive the money for it, in
addition to his wages as provided by law, he turned about on me,
with an irresistibly waggish look, and said, "Give up my grog?
And why? Because it is ruining me? No, no; I am a good Christian,
White-Jacket, and love my enemy too much to drop his acquaintance."

It may be readily imagined, therefore, what consternation and
dismay pervaded the gun-deck at the first announcement of the
tidings that the grog was expended.

"The grog gone!" roared an old Sheet-anchor-man.

"Oh! Lord! what a pain in my