94 ALL AFLOAT 



and safety. When national discipline is not 

 very strong ashore it has to be enforced by 

 hook or by crook afloat. The general public 

 never bothered its head much about seamen's 

 rights or wrongs in a rather ' hard ' new 

 country managing its own maritime affairs. 

 So there certainly were occasional ' hell ships ' 

 among the Bluenoses, though very rarely 

 except when there were Bluenose officers with 

 a foreign crew. 



This was quite in accordance with the 

 practice all along the coast of North America. 

 Even aboard the famous Black Ball Line of 

 Yankee transatlantic packets in the forties there 

 was plenty of ' handspike hash ' and ' belay- 

 ing-pin soup ' for shirkers or mutineers. The 

 men before the mast were mostly foreigners and 

 riff-raff Britishers ; very few were Yankees or 

 Bluenoses. Discipline had to be maintained ; 

 and it was maintained by force. But these 

 were not the real hell ships. ' Hell ships ' 

 were commonest among deepwatermen on 

 long voyages round the Horn, or among the 

 whalers when the best class of foremast hands 

 were not to be had. Many of them are much 

 more recent than is generally known ; and 

 even now they are not quite extinct. * Black 

 Taylor,' ' Devil Summers,' and ' Hell-fire 



