WISE FORBEARANCE. 391 



his flute. One by one these members of the doomed ship's company appear 

 before us again : fold by fold the snowy veil wreathed over them is melted 

 from view, and the dead and gone come back to us for a little while from 

 the icy keeping of Death." 



The greater part of Fitzjames's " Journal " concerns itself naturally with 

 the writer's brother officers ; but he was a man of sympathy too wide and 

 genuine not to interest himself in the men as well. " Our men," he writes, 

 " are all fine hearty fellows, mostly north countrymen, with a few men-of- 

 war's men ;" and with this last touch we have a complete view of the per- 

 sonnel of the ship. From this point onward the entries in the " Journal " 

 refer to matters in general — ^the progress of the ships, notes on the weather, 

 and the little incidents and anecdotes that served to enliven life on ship- 

 board. A pleasing instance of the considerate, yet firm, discipline which 

 Fitzjames maintained on board the " Erebus " is of interest as supplying 

 some reason for believing that when the days of trial came the proper and 

 natural relations between the ofiicers and men were maintained throughout. 

 It was feared that on reaching Stromness some of the men might wish to 

 draw back from their engagement, and it is not customary for north-going 

 ships to allow any of the men to land there. "But two men," writes Fitz- 

 james, " wanted to see, one his wife, whom he had not seen for four years, 

 and the other his mother, whom he had not seen for seventeen ; so I let 

 them go to Kirkwall, fourteen miles off". I also allowed a man of each mess 

 to go on shore for provisions. They all came on board to their leave, but 

 finding we were not going to sea till the following morning, four men (who 

 probably had taken a leetle too much whisky) — ^among them was the little 

 old man who had not seen his wife for four years — took a small boat that 

 lay alongside, and went on shore without leave. Their absence was soon 

 discovered, and Fairholme, assisted by Baillie and somebody or other, 

 brought all on board by three o'clock in the morning. 1 firmly believe 

 each intended coming on board (if he had been sober enough), especially 

 the poor man with the wife ; but, according to the rules of the service, these 

 men should have been severely punished, one method being to stop their 

 pay, and give it to the constables or others who apprehended them. It 

 struck me, however, that the punishment is intended to prevent misconduct 

 in others, and not to revenge their individual misconduct. Men know very 

 well when they are in the wrong ; and there is clearly no chance of any 

 repetition of the offence until we get to Valparaiso or the Sandwich Islands ; 

 so I got up at four o'clock, had everybody on deck, sent Gore and the 

 sergeant of marines below, and searched the whole deck for spirits, which 

 were thrown overboard. This took two good hours ; soon after which we 

 up anchor, and made sail out. I said nothing to any of them. They evi- 

 dently expected a rowing, and the old man with the wife looked very 



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