Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1887 — Ships of Yore. [ARTICLE]

Ships of Yore.

There was a poetry in the dress of the people wh& had the handling of the big Indian ships which you will not get out of the brass buttons and two-penny cuff rings of the contemporary skipper and mate. Nowadays it is almost impossible to tell the difference between the rigs of the mercantile captain, the dockmaster, the customs man, and the harbor master. But what do you say to a blue coat, black velvet lapels, cuffs and collars, with a bright gold embroidery, waistcoat and breeches of deep buff, the buttons of yellow gilt, cocked hats, side arms, and so forth? What dress has done for romance ashore we know. Pull off the feathered hats and high boots, the magnificent doublets and diamond buckles of many of those gentlemen of olden times, who show very stately in history, and button them up in the plain frock coat of. to-day, and who knows but you might be diverted with a procession of very insignificant objects*'? In the poetical days of the sea profession the ships very honestly deserved the dignity they got from the gilded and velvety figures that sparkled on their quarter decks. Over do nobler fabrics of wood did the red ensign ever fly. They were manned like a line of battle ship. Observe this resolution arrived at by the Court of Directors, held the 19th of October, 1791: “That a ship of 900 tons do carry 110 men; 1,000 tons, 120: 1,100 tons, 125; 1,200 tons, 130 men.” Were not these fine times for Jack? How many of a crew goes to the manning of a 1,200-ton ship nowadays? And it is proper to note that of these 130 men there were only ten servants—a captain’s steward, ship’s steward, and men to attend to the mate, surgeon, boatswain, gunner, and carpenter. Contrast these with the number of waiters who swell the ship’s company of our 5,000-ton mail-boats. Those vessels went armed, too, as befitted the majesty of the bunting under which old Dance had gloriously licked Johnny Crapaud. The larger among them carried thirty-eight eighteen-poun-ders; they were all furnished with boarding nettings half-mast high and close round the quarters. The chaps in the tops were armed with swivels, musquetoons, and pole axes. In those romantic times the merchantman saw to himself. There were no laminated plates formed of iron one remove from the oak betwixt him and the bottom of the ocean; he sailed in hearts of oak, and the naval page of his day resounds with his thunder. The’spirit of that romantic period penetrated the ladies who were passengers. — Exchange.