The remedy, to be effectual, must touch the seaman's calling. It is of
no use to appeal to his better nature, if he hasn't any. If you make a
drudge and a beast of him, you can't do him much good by preaching at
him. The working of the present system is, that there are afloat a set
of fellows who are a sort of no-countrymen. Like the beach-combers of
the Pacific, they have neither country, home, nor friends, and are as
different from the old class of American sailors as the _condottiere_
from the loyal soldier. Let the navigation-laws be enforced first of
all, and see that the due proportion of the crews of every ship be
native-born. Let the custom-house protections be no longer the farce
they are,--where a man who talks of "awlin haft the main tack" is set
down as a native of Martha's Vineyard, and his messmate, who couldn't
say "peas" without betraying County Cork, is permitted to hail from the
interior of Pennsylvania. Let the ship-owners combine (it is for their
interest) to do away with the whole body of shipping-agents, middlemen,
and land-sharks. Jack will take his pleasure ashore,--you can't help
that; and perhaps so would you, Sir, after six months of "old horse"
and stony biscuit, with a leaky forecastle and a shorthanded crew.
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