Chapter 54 - Page 2

staple of my matter; I have taken an oath to keep afloat to the
last letter of my narrative.

Had they all been as punctual as Jack Chase's party, the whole
quarter-watch of liberty-men had been safe on board the frigate
at the expiration of the twenty-four hours. But this was not the
case; and during the entire day succeeding, the midshipmen and
others were engaged in ferreting them out of their hiding-places on
shore, and bringing them off in scattered detachments to the ship.

They came in all imaginable stages of intoxication; some with
blackened eyes and broken heads; some still more severely
injured, having been stabbed in frays with the Portuguese
soldiers. Others, unharmed, were immediately dropped on the gun-
deck, between the guns, where they lay snoring for the rest of
the day. As a considerable degree of license is invariably
permitted to man-of-war's-men just "off liberty," and as man-of-
war's-men well know this to be the case, they occasionally avail
themselves of the privilege to talk very frankly to the officers
when they first cross the gangway, taking care, meanwhile, to
reel about very industriously, so that there shall be no doubt
about their being seriously intoxicated, and altogether _non
compos_ for the time. And though but few of them have cause to
feign intoxication, yet some individuals may be suspected of
enacting a studied part upon these occasions. Indeed--judging by
certain symptoms--even when really inebriated, some of the
sailors must have previously determined upon their conduct; just
as some persons who, before taking the exhilarating gas, secretly
make up their minds to perform certain mad feats while under its
influence, which feats consequently come to pass precisely as if
the actors were not accountable for them.

For several days, while the other quarter-watches were given liberty,
the Neversink presented a sad scene. She was more like a madhouse
than a frigate; the gun-deck resounded with frantic fights, shouts,
and songs. All visitors from shore were kept at a cable's length.

These scenes, however, are nothing to those which have repeatedly
been enacted in American men-of-war upon other stations. But the
custom of introducing women on board, in harbour, is now pretty
much discontinued, both in the English and American Navy, unless
a ship, commanded by some dissolute Captain, happens to lie in
some far away, outlandish port, in the Pacific or Indian Ocean.

The British line-of-battle ship, Royal George, which in 1782 sunk
at her anchors at Spithead, carried down three hundred English
women among the one thousand souls that were drowned on that
memorable morning.

When, at last, after all the mad tumult and contention of