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Captain Delano liked neither the Spaniard nor the slavetrade, but it was his duty to help fellow seamen in distress; so he cleared for action and ordered two boats away to attend to the matter. The chief mate, Rufus Low, was in charge, and a gallant sailor he showed himself.
The official agent of the American Government, for the protection of seamen, upon quitting his post in London in 1802, wrote that he had transferred to his successor "A list of 597 seamen, where answers have been returned to me, stating that, having no documents to prove their citizenship, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty could not consent to their discharge."
To all this I joyously assented; for besides the affection I now felt for Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not fail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant of the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as known to merchant seamen.
A loud shout from the forecastle of the Windsor Castle announced that the English seamen were but too well aware of their desperate situation, and that they hailed the misfortune of the Frenchmen as their deliverance. That will do; she's paying off. Man your guns; half a dozen broadsides, and it's all our own."
We may perhaps deduce from this fact, that the concentration of energy caused by the removal to Tyre of the best elements in the population of Sidon gave a stimulus to enterprise, and caused longer voyages to be undertaken, and greater dangers to be affronted by the daring seamen of the Syrian coast than had ever been ventured on before.
Most of the seamen and troops on board it were inexperienced and undisciplined; and the ships themselves were not to be compared, with regard to the union of lightness and strength, with the Roman vessels, as they were now built. Besides, the Romans trusted entirely to themselves the Carthaginians, in some measure, to their allies or to hired seamen.
For the size of the steamer, she seemed to be manned by a very large crew; but the letter he had received from his father that morning informed him that the greater part of the crew of the Bronx had been transferred to other vessels upon more active service, and that a large number of seamen were to be sent immediately to reinforce the squadron.
The master and seamen of the ship and the emigrants evidently felt for us, by the exclamations we heard them utter. They quickly fitted slings, which were lowered to hoist us up, and the seamen came into the boat to help us. One after the other we were conveyed on board, and at once carried below. Not one of us could have stood, had it been to save our lives.
"I am ashamed of you, lads," he exclaimed; "you call yourselves British seamen, and yet upset all discipline, and act the part of rascally buccaneers who turn against their officers the moment they have anything to complain of." He said a good deal more in the same strain, but the men would scarcely listen to him.
Even so, visiting the city was permitted to only a few selected men of the foremast hands. The habits of the seamen were still those of a generation before, and drink, with its consequent reckless exposure, was a right-hand man to Yellow Jack.
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