Chapter 67

WHITE-JACKET ARRAIGNED AT THE MAST.

When with five hundred others I made one of the compelled
spectators at the scourging of poor Rose-water, I little thought
what Fate had ordained for myself the next day.

Poor mulatto! thought I, one of an oppressed race, they degrade
you like a hound. Thank God! I am a white. Yet I had seen whites
also scourged; for, black or white, all my shipmates were liable
to that. Still, there is something in us, somehow, that in the
most degraded condition, we snatch at a chance to deceive
ourselves into a fancied superiority to others, whom we suppose
lower in the scale than ourselves.

Poor Rose-water! thought I; poor mulatto! Heaven send you a
release from your humiliation!

To make plain the thing about to be related, it needs to repeat
what has somewhere been previously mentioned, that in _tacking
ship_ every seaman in a man-of-war has a particular station
assigned him. What that station is, should be made known to him
by the First Lieutenant; and when the word is passed to _tack_ or
_wear_, it is every seaman's duty to be found at his post. But
among the various _numbers and stations_ given to me by the
senior Lieutenant, when I first came on board the frigate, he had
altogether omitted informing me of my particular place at those
times, and, up to the precise period now written of, I had hardly
known that I should have had any special place then at all. For
the rest of the men, they seemed to me to catch hold of the first
rope that offered, as in a merchant-man upon similar occasions.
Indeed, I subsequently discovered, that such was the state of
discipline--in this one particular, at least--that very few of
the seamen could tell where their proper stations were, at
_tacking or wearing_.

"All hands tack ship, ahoy!" such was the announcement made by the
boatswain's mates at the hatchways the morning after the hard fate of
Rose-water. It was just eight bells--noon, and springing from my white
jacket, which I had spread between the guns for a bed on the main-deck,
I ran up the ladders, and, as usual, seized hold of the main-brace,
which fifty hands were streaming along forward. When _main-top-sail
haul!_ was given through the trumpet, I pulled at this brace with such
heartiness and good-will, that I almost flattered myself that my
instrumentality in getting the frigate round on the other tack, deserved
a public vote of thanks, and a silver tankard from Congress.

But something happened to be in the way aloft when the yards swung
round; a little confusion ensued; and, with anger on his brow, Captain
Claret came forward to see what occasioned it. No one to let go the
weather-lift of the main-yard! The rope was cast off,