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This address ought to be read by all British shipowners and ship-masters. They possess ample means of preventing the approach of the scurvy, and yet numerous vessels, even at the present day, return home with a portion of their crews suffering from that fearful scourge.
Ship-masters, innkeepers, and stablers, were responsible for the luggage and effects of travellers intrusted to their care, which policy is now adopted in both Europe and America, on the ground that if they were not held strictly to their charge, being not a very reputable class of men in ancient times, they might be in league with thieves.
But it did not; for a long while no cargoes arrived; of those that were dispatched, some were run away with by dishonest ship-masters, some were lost at sea, others were captured by the English, so that Franklin sadly remarked that the chief result was that the enemy had been supplied with these articles for nothing. But he preserved his resolute cheerfulness.
None of the hardships they had to endure in the first bitter years of their new life caused them more annoyance than their deprivation of their beloved malt liquors. This deprivation began even at the very landing. They were forced to depend on the charity of the ship-masters for a draught of beer on board ship, drinking nothing but water ashore.
Back of them all lay a substantial fact, and on that he relied for his supply of men. There was somehow a magic in the boom of a naval gun that had its due effect upon most ship-masters. They brought-to, however reluctantly, and awaited the pleasure of the gang. But the sailor had still to be reckoned with.
The current in the Pacific Ocean runs very strong to the north-west in the neighbourhood of the Barrier; and this current is often forgotten or not sufficiently allowed for by ship-masters the night before they expect to make the reef.
Next came the retired ship-masters, living in villas named after their last commands, and skippers still at sea, their wives watching each other like cats at church on Sunday. Then, in tiny semi-detached brick boxes up narrow streets behind all these you would find mates and engineers packed like sardines. Their families, I mean.
So saying, I climbed down into Julius Caesar's boat again, and ten minutes later was landed upon the wharf. It was by this time drawing well on toward noon, or "second breakfast" time; so I shaped a course for Mammy Williamson's in the first place; and there, sure enough, I came upon my old skipper and Comben, seated at table among a number of other ship-masters and a sprinkling of civilians.
From my own observation, and what I have heard from others who have passed through Torres' Straits on various occasions, it appears to me, that a great proportion of this loss of property arises from carelessness on the part of ship-masters.
One John Walley, a respectable citizen of Barnstable, was made second in command with the modest rank of major; and a sufficient number of ship-masters, merchants, master mechanics, and substantial farmers, were commissioned as subordinate officers. About the middle of July, the committee charged with the preparations reported that all was ready. Still there was a long delay.
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