White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War

When our frigate lay in Callao, on the coast of Peru—her last harbour in the Pacific—I found myself without a _grego_, or sailor’s surtout; and as, toward the end of a three yea...

Homeward bound!—harmonious sound! Were you _ever_ homeward bound?—No?—Quick! take the wings of the morning, or the sails of a ship, and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth....

Every one knows that in merchantmen the seamen are divided into watches—starboard and larboard—taking their turn at the ship’s duty by night. This plan is followed in all men-of...

It was my Quarter Watch in the top; and there I reclined on the best possible terms with my top-mates. Whatever the other seamen might have been, these were a noble set of tars,...

Here, I must frankly tell a story about Jack, which as touching his honour and integrity, I am sure, will not work against him, in any charitable man’s estimation. On this prese...

THE QUARTER-DECK OFFICERS, WARRANT OFFICERS, AND BERTH-DECK UNDERLINGS OF A MAN-OF-WAR; WHERE THEY LIVE IN THE SHIP; HOW THEY LIVE; THEIR SOCIAL STANDING ON SHIP-BOARD; AND WHAT...

Not only is the dinner-table a criterion of rank on board a man-of-war, but also the dinner hour. He who dines latest is the greatest man; and he who dines earliest is accounted...

Having glanced at the grand divisions of a man-of-war, let us now descend to specialities: and, particularly, to two of the junior lieutenants; lords and noblemen; members of th...

And here be it known—by way of introduction to what is to follow—that to a common sailor, the living on board a man-of-war is like living in a market; where you dress on the doo...

As the latter part of the preceding chapter may seem strange to those landsmen, who have been habituated to indulge in high-raised, romantic notions of the man-of-war’s man’s ch...

The feeling of insecurity concerning one’s possessions in the Neversink, which the things just narrated begat in the minds of honest men, was curiously exemplified in the case o...

Quoin, the quarter-gunner, was the representative of a class on board the Neversink, altogether too remarkable to be left astern, without further notice, in the rapid wake of th...

The allusion to the poet Lemsford in a previous chapter, leads me to speak of our mutual friends, Nord and Williams, who, with Lemsford himself, Jack Chase, and my comrades of t...

We were not many days out of port, when a rumour was set afloat that dreadfully alarmed many tars. It was this: that, owing to some unprecedented oversight in the Purser, or som...

It was about the period of the Cologne-water excitement that my self-conceit was not a little wounded, and my sense of delicacy altogether shocked, by a polite hint received fro...

To a quiet, contemplative character, averse to uproar, undue exercise of his bodily members, and all kind of useless confusion, nothing can be more distressing than a proceeding...

It was a circular mass of cork, about eight inches thick and four feet in diameter, covered with tarred canvas. All round its circumference there trailed a number of knotted rop...

It was necessary to supply the lost cooper’s place; accordingly, word was passed for all who belonged to that calling to muster at the main-mast, in order that one of them might...

I am of a meditative humour, and at sea used often to mount aloft at night, and seating myself on one of the upper yards, tuck my jacket about me and give loose to reflection. I...

Give me plenty of room to swing it in; let me swing it between two date-trees on an Arabian plain; or extend it diagonally from Moorish pillar to pillar, in the open marble Cour...

In a man-of-war at sea, the sailors have _watch and watch;_ that is, through every twenty-four hours, they are on and off duty every four hours. Now, the hammocks are piped down...

Besides the other tribulations connected with your hammock, you must keep it snow-white and clean; who has not observed the long rows of spotless hammocks exposed in a frigate’s...

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.

Who has not heard of it? Cape Horn, Cape Horn—a _horn_ indeed, that has tossed many a good ship. Was the descent of Orpheus, Ulysses, or Dante into Hell, one whit more hardy and...

Colder and colder; we are drawing nigh to the Cape. Now gregoes, pea jackets, monkey jackets reefing jackets, storm jackets, oil jackets, paint jackets, round jackets short jack...

Ere the calm had yet left us, a sail had been discerned from the fore-top-mast-head, at a great distance, probably three leagues or more. At first it was a mere speck, altogethe...

In time of peril, like the needle to the loadstone, obedience, irrespective of rank, generally flies to him who is best fitted to command. The truth of this seemed evinced in th...

It is worth mentioning here that, in nineteen cases out of twenty, a passage from the Pacific round the Cape is almost sure to be much shorter, and attended with less hardship,...

Though leaving the Cape behind us, the severe cold still continued, and one of its worst consequences was the almost incurable drowsiness induced thereby during the long night-w...

While now running rapidly away from the bitter coast of Patagonia, battling with the night-watches—still cold—as best we may; come under the lee of my white-jacket, reader, whil...

Among such a crowd of marked characters as were to be met with on board our frigate, many of whom moved in mysterious circles beneath the lowermost deck, and at long intervals f...

In men-of-war, the space on the uppermost deck, round about the main-mast, is the Police-office, Court-house, and yard of execution, where all charges are lodged, causes tried,...

Among the many who were exceedingly diverted with the scene between the Down Easter and the Lieutenant, none laughed more heartily than John, Peter, Mark, and Antone—four sailor...

There are incidental considerations touching this matter of flogging, which exaggerate the evil into a great enormity. Many illustrations might be given, but let us be content w...

If there are any three things opposed to the genius of the American Constitution, they are these: irresponsibility in a judge, unlimited discretionary authority in an executive,...

But White-Jacket is ready to come down from the lofty mast-head of an eternal principle, and fight you—Commodores and Captains of the navy—on your own quarter-deck, with your ow...

We had just slid into pleasant weather, drawing near to the Tropics, when all hands were thrown into a wonderful excitement by an event that eloquently appealed to many palates.

_No Sundays off soundings,_ indeed! No Sundays on shipboard! You may as well say there should be no Sundays in churches; for is not a ship modeled after a church? has it not thr...

In good time we were up with the parallel of Rio de Janeiro, and, standing in for the land, the mist soon cleared; and high aloft the famed Sugar Loaf pinnacle was seen, our bow...

The general usages of the American Navy are founded upon the usages that prevailed in the navy of monarchical England more than a century ago; nor have they been materially alte...

One of my principal antidotes against _ennui_ in Rio, was reading. There was a public library on board, paid for by government, and intrusted to the custody of one of the marine...

Reading was by no means the only method adopted by my shipmates in whiling away the long, tedious hours in harbour. In truth, many of them could not have read, had they wanted t...

It is in a good degree owing to the idleness just described, that, while lying in harbour, the man-of-war’s-man is exposed to the most temptations and gets into his saddest scra...

The last smuggling story now about to be related also occurred while we lay in Rio. It is the more particularly presented, since it furnishes the most curious evidence of the al...

The great guns of an armed ship have blocks of wood, called _tompions_, painted black, inserted in their muzzles, to keep out the spray of the sea. These tompions slip in and ou...

A day or two after the publication of Lemsford’s “Songs of the Sirens,” a sad accident befell a mess-mate of mine, one of the captains of the mizzen-top. He was a fine little Sc...

Some allusion has been made to the weariness experienced by the man-of-war’s-men while lying at anchor; but there are scenes now and then that serve to relieve it. Chief among t...

As the Purser’s steward so conspicuously figured at the unsuccessful auction of my jacket, it reminds me of how important a personage that official is on board of all men-of-war...

While lying in the harbour of Callao, in Peru, certain rumours had come to us touching a war with England, growing out of the long-vexed Northeastern Boundary Question. In Rio t...

I have said that I must pass over Rio without a description; but just now such a flood of scented reminiscences steals over me, that I must needs yield and recant, as I inhale t...

We had not lain in Rio long, when in the innermost recesses of the mighty soul of my noble Captain of the Top—incomparable Jack Chase—the deliberate opinion was formed, and rock...

It was the next morning after matchless Jack’s interview with the Commodore and Captain, that a little incident occurred, soon forgotten by the crew at large, but long remembere...

It has been said that some midshipmen, in certain cases, are guilty of spiteful practices against the man-of-war’s-man. But as these midshipmen are presumed to have received the...

Whenever, in intervals of mild benevolence, or yielding to mere politic dictates, Kings and Commodores relax the yoke of servitude, they should see to it well that the concessio...

A very general modern impression seems to be, that, in order to learn the profession of a sea-officer, a boy can hardly be sent to sea too early. To a certain extent, this may b...

While we lay in Rio, we sometimes had company from shore; but an unforeseen honour awaited us. One day, the young Emperor, Don Pedro II., and suite—making a circuit of the harbo...

I Beg their Royal Highnesses’ pardons all round, but I had almost forgotten to chronicle the fact, that with the Emperor came several other royal Princes—kings for aught we knew...

As we were somewhat short-handed while we lay in Rio, we received a small draft of men from a United States sloop of war, whose three years’ term of service would expire about t...

The conduct of Mandeville, in claiming the acquaintance of the First Lieutenant under such disreputable circumstances was strongly contrasted by the behaviour of another person...

There was a seaman belonging to the fore-top—a mess-mate, though not a top-mate of mine, and no favourite of the Captain’s,—who, for certain venial transgressions, had been proh...

Cadwallader Cuticle, M. D., and Honorary Member of the most distinguished Colleges of Surgeons both in Europe and America, was our Surgeon of the Fleet. Nor was he at all blind...

It seems customary for the Surgeon of the Fleet, when any important operation in his department is on the anvil, and there is nothing to absorb professional attention from it, t...

Next morning, at the appointed hour, the surgeons arrived in a body. They were accompanied by their juniors, young men ranging in age from nineteen years to thirty. Like the sen...

When the second cutter pulled about among the ships, dropping the surgeons aboard the American men-of-war here and there—as a pilot-boat distributes her pilots at the mouth of t...

We lay in Rio so long—for what reason the Commodore only knows—that a saying went abroad among the impatient sailors that our frigate would at last ground on the beef-bones dail...

After the race (our man-of-war Derby) we had many days fine weather, during which we continued running before the Trades toward the north. Exhilarated by the thought of being ho...

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.

Let us forget the scourge and the gangway a while, and jot down in our memories a few little things pertaining to our man-of-war world. I let nothing slip, however small; and fe...

The training-days, or general quarters, now and then taking place in our frigate, have already been described, also the Sunday devotions on the half-deck; but nothing has yet be...

Besides general quarters, and the regular morning and evening quarters for prayers on board the Neversink, on the first Sunday of every month we had a grand “_muster round the c...

As the Articles of War form the ark and constitution of the penal laws of the American Navy, in all sobriety and earnestness it may be well to glance at their origin. Whence cam...

“HEREIN ARE THE GOOD ORDINANCES OF THE SEA, WHICH WISE MEN, WHO VOYAGED ROUND THE WORLD, GAVE TO OUR ANCESTORS, AND WHICH CONSTITUTE THE BOOKS OF THE SCIENCE OF GOOD CUSTOMS.”—_...

Mention has been made that the game of draughts, or checkers, was permitted to be played on board the Neversink. At the present time, while there was little or no shipwork to be...

The whole of our run from Rio to the Line was one delightful yachting, so far as fine weather and the ship’s sailing were concerned. It was especially pleasant when our quarter-...

Never was there better company than ever-glorious Jack. The things which most men only read of, or dream about, he had seen and experienced. He had been a dashing smuggler in hi...

When wearied with the tumult and occasional contention of the gun-deck of our frigate, I have often retreated to a port-hole, and calmed myself down by gazing broad off upon a p...

After running with a fine steady breeze up to the Line, it fell calm, and there we lay, three days enchanted on the sea. We were a most puissant man-of-war, no doubt, with our f...

It was on the first day of the long, hot calm which we had on the Equator, that a mess-mate of mine, by the name of Shenly, who had been for some weeks complaining, at length we...

Shenly, my sick mess-mate, was a middle-aged, handsome, intelligent seaman, whom some hard calamity, or perhaps some unfortunate excess, must have driven into the Navy. He told...

Just before daybreak, two of the sail-maker’s gang drew near, each with a lantern, carrying some canvas, two large shot, needles, and twine. I knew their errand; for in men-of-w...

Quarters over in the morning, the boatswain and his four mates stood round the main hatchway, and after giving the usual whistle, made the customary announcement—“_All hands bur...

Upon examining Shenly’s bag, a will was found, scratched in pencil, upon a blank leaf in the middle of his Bible; or, to use the phrase of one of the seamen, in the midships, at...

In our man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goes overboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, curses mix with tears; and the sigh and the sob furnis...

The allusion to one of the ship’s barbers in a previous chapter, together with the recollection of how conspicuous a part they enacted in a tragical drama soon to be related, le...

The preceding chapter fitly paves the way for the present, wherein it sadly befalls White-Jacket to chronicle a calamitous event, which filled the Neversink with long lamentatio...

Though many heads of hair were shorn, and many fine beards reaped that day, yet several still held out, and vowed to defend their sacred hair to the last gasp of their breath. T...

“Sir,” said the Captain of the Forecastle, “did old Ushant ever refuse doing his duty? did he ever yet miss his muster? But, sir, old Ushant’s beard is his own!”

The flogging of an old man like Ushant, most landsmen will probably regard with abhorrence. But though, from peculiar circumstances, his case occasioned a good deal of indignati...

Bur the floggings at the gangway and the floggings through the fleet, the stealings, highway robberies, swearings, gamblings, blasphemings, thimble-riggings, smugglings, and tip...

“The gallows and the sea refuse nothing,” is a very old sea saying; and, among all the wondrous prints of Hogarth, there is none remaining more true at the present day than that...

There is a fable about a painter moved by Jove to the painting of the head of Medusa. Though the picture was true to the life, yet the poor artist sickened at the sight of what...

Already has White-Jacket chronicled the mishaps and inconveniences, troubles and tribulations of all sorts brought upon him by that unfortunate but indispensable garment of his....

And now that the white jacket has sunk to the bottom of the sea, and the blessed Capes of Virginia are believed to be broad on our bow—though still out of sight—our five hundred...