FORECASTLE AND CABIN 83 



their debts to the ship exceeded their lays in amount. In 

 these circumstances nine hands refused duty and complained 

 to the consul. But after a farcical trial the plaintiffs were 

 sent to the prison fort, and the master was left free to con- 

 tinue his abuses with even greater assurance than before. The 

 combination of sickening heat, filth, and effluvia caused the 

 prisoners to contract the deadly coast fever; and several died 

 in consequence. But when, some time later, the same cap- 

 tain returned to Zanzibar, the surviving invalids were again 

 placed on board the vessel, there to undergo a continuation 

 of the same outrageous treatment which had caused them to 

 make the original appeal to the consul.^® 



Such illustrations of consular discrimination, which might 

 be multiplied indefinitely, were but imperfectly offset by the 

 far smaller number of decisions which went in favor of the 

 foremast hands. Now and again, however, grave charges 

 made by seamen against their ofiicers were sustained. The 

 story of the whaling bark William Gijford affords a case in 

 point. One day in May, 1872, this vessel, with the captain 

 confined to his quarters and the crew in charge, put into the 

 port of Papiati, Society Islands. During the course of the 

 resulting consular inquiry it developed that the master had 

 abused and ill-treated his men with such long-continued re- 

 finements of cruelty that at length he was deposed and kept 

 under guard while the crew navigated the bark into the near- 

 est port. Cruel and inhuman treatment of whaling hands 

 was hardly a new story for consular ears, however; and it 

 must have surprised the captain beyond reason when this par- 

 ticular consul found that the members of the crew had acted 

 in self-defense, freed them from all legal responsibility, in- 

 cluding a possible charge of mutiny, and sent the vessel to 

 San Francisco under another master.^" 



i» See Browne, J. R., "Etchings of a Whaling Cruise," pp. 501 ff. and 373. 

 Further material regarding the relations between consuls and seamen may be 

 found in Wilkes, C, "Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition," V, pp. 490 

 et passim; Olmstead, F. A., "Incidents of a Whaling Voyage," pp. 239 and 278; 

 Davis, W. M., "Nimrod of the Sea," pp. 220-256; and Jewell, J. G., "Among 

 Our Sailors." The last-named volume, which is especially rich in concrete 

 cases, devotes a large amount of space to this particular subject. 



20 See Jewell, J. G., "Among Our Sailors." p. 137. 



