30 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
[October, 
queues, and, in a thousand other respects, are different from what 
they were an age ago ; and the antique custom just alluded to, a 
relic of heathen superstition, without even the merit of classical 
embellishment to recommend, it, may be well dispensed with, as it 
must often do harm, and cannot, in any possible instance, be pro- 
ductive of good. 
In an age like the present, distinguished for the march of im- 
provement, and replete with discovery and advancement in every 
department of human science and knowledge ; when a single day 
produces results which years could not have formerly effected, it 
cannot be expected that the sailor alone should remain uninflu- 
enced by the revolutions which every thing else in the moral 
universe is perpetually undergoing. The changes which have 
been wrought in his manners and customs, have been most un- 
que-stionably for the better. 
In illustration of this remark, it may be here mentioned, that, 
during the passage from New-York, great attention had been paid 
to drill the men in the exercise of the great guns. Every day, 
when the weather would permit, these exercises were performed; 
and, once a week, all went to general quarters, when all the exer- 
cises and mancBUvring of a regular attack and defence were car- 
ried through with the same precision as if the frigate were en- 
gaged in a real action with an enemy. A division of one hundred 
and fifty men, at this time, also, were being drilled to the use of 
the musket; and they evinced a readiness in the acquisition of 
this irew species of seamanship, not to have been expected, from 
the generally supposed repugnance, on the part of Jack Tar, to 
the use of small arms ; or to the acqviirement of any accomplish- 
ment which more properly appertains to the soldier. 
It is not strange, that, in the olden time, when sailors were 
dragged by force into involuntary servitude on board ships-of- 
war, and performed their allotted duties only at the point of the 
bayonet, that strong dislike should have been engendered against 
those who were mere tools in the hands of others, to enforce the 
observance of regulations to which they had never willingly sub- 
scribed. Shipping articles, in those days, were mere mockeries, 
and the marines were relied on to hold the sailors in bondage. It 
required time to smooth such asperities in the human breast, and 
hence, no doubt, arose the prejudice of the sailor to the life, char- 
