FORECASTLE AND CABIN 59 



cent for the inexperienced men was also reached by Lieutenant 

 Wilkes in an independent estimate made several years 

 before/" 



But inexperience was by no means the worst characteristic 

 exhibited in the forecastles. Irresponsibility, vice, depravity, 

 and criminality were also heavily represented. All too often 

 the foremast hands came from the dregs of shore life. They 

 were "made up to a great degree, and, of course, with some 

 honorable exceptions, of the very refuse of humanity, gathered 

 from every quarter, escaped from poor-houses and prisons, or 

 gleaned from the receptacle of vagrancy and lazar-house cor- 

 ruption." ^^ Virtually all other contemporary accounts of 

 whaling life agree in placing similar emphasis upon the de- 

 generate and deteriorated character of large sections of the 

 crews. 



This heavy dilution of the labor supply with inexperienced 

 and degenerate elements brought about a notable decrease in 

 both efficiency and morality. Closer supervision and more re- 

 lentless driving were practised in an effort to secure the ade- 

 quate performance of necessary tasks. In consequence the 

 gulf between officers and men widened materially. Brutality 

 and tyrannical abuse on the one hand were met by sullenness 

 and growling discontent on the other. The average crew 

 came to be composed of three main portions, viz., the green 

 hands, the able and ordinary seamen, and the nondescript re- 

 cruits picked up at the Azores and in the Pacific. And in- 

 efficiency and friction resulted both from the inexperience of the 

 new men and from the resentment radiating from the more 

 sophisticated hands to all the occupants of the forecastle. 



Due to the necessity of stricter supervision of these less 

 capable crews, the character of the officers escaped the lower- 

 ing process to a marked degree. In their personal qualities, 

 unfortunately, many masters and mates were harsh, brutal, 

 profane, ignorant, and tyrannical. A few were intelligent 

 gentlemen in the best sense of the termj while others were 



entitled, "Speech on the Tariff, with Statistical Tables of the Whale Fishery." 

 See pp. 9 and 13. 



10 Wilkes, C, "Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition," V, p. 485. 



11 Cheever, H. T., "The Whale and His Captors," p. 304. This work was 

 published in 1850. 



