Chapter 23

THEATRICALS IN A MAN-OF-WAR.

The Neversink had summered out her last Christmas on the Equator;
she was now destined to winter out the Fourth of July not very
far from the frigid latitudes of Cape Horn.

It is sometimes the custom in the American Navy to celebrate this
national holiday by doubling the allowance of spirits to the men;
that is, if the ship happen to be lying in harbour. The effects
of this patriotic plan may be easily imagined: the whole ship is
converted into a dram-shop; and the intoxicated sailors reel
about, on all three decks, singing, howling, and fighting. This
is the time that, owing to the relaxed discipline of the ship,
old and almost forgotten quarrels are revived, under the stimulus
of drink; and, fencing themselves up between the guns--so as to
be sure of a clear space with at least three walls--the
combatants, two and two, fight out their hate, cribbed and
cabined like soldiers duelling in a sentry-box. In a word, scenes
ensue which would not for a single instant be tolerated by the
officers upon any other occasion. This is the time that the most
venerable of quarter-gunners and quarter-masters, together with
the, smallest apprentice boys, and men never known to have been
previously intoxicated during the cruise--this is the time that
they all roll together in the same muddy trough of drunkenness.

In emulation of the potentates of the Middle Ages, some Captains
augment the din by authorising a grand jail-delivery of all the
prisoners who, on that auspicious Fourth of the month, may happen
to be confined in the ship's prison--"_the brig_."

But from scenes like these the Neversink was happily delivered.
Besides that she was now approaching a most perilous part of the
ocean--which would have made it madness to intoxicate the
sailors--her complete destitution of _grog_, even for ordinary
consumption, was an obstacle altogether insuperable, even had the
Captain felt disposed to indulge his man-of-war's-men by the most
copious libations.

For several days previous to the advent of the holiday, frequent
conferences were held on the gun-deck touching the melancholy
prospects before the ship.

"Too bad--too bad!" cried a top-man, "Think of it, shipmates--a
Fourth of July without grog!"

"I'll hoist the Commodore's pennant at half-mast that day,"
sighed the signal-quarter-master.

"And I'll turn my best uniform jacket wrong side out, to keep
company with the pennant, old Ensign," sympathetically responded
an after-guard's-man.

"Ay, do!" cried a forecastle-man. "I could almost pipe my eye to
think on't."

"No grog on de day dat tried men's