Sunday 25 January 2015

White Jacket,by,Herman Melville,[from. Ch 44]

After the master-at-arms had been adrift among the ship's company
for several weeks, and we were within a few days' sail of home,
he was summoned to the mast, and publicly reinstated in his
office as the ship's chief of police. Perhaps Captain Claret had
read the Memoirs of Vidocq, and believed in the old saying, _set
a rogue to catch a rogue_. Or, perhaps, he was a man of very
tender feelings, highly susceptible to the soft emotions of
gratitude, and could not bear to leave in disgrace a person who,
out of the generosity of his heart, had, about a year previous,
presented him with a rare snuff-box, fabricated from a sperm-
whale's tooth, with a curious silver hinge, and cunningly wrought
in the shape of a whale; also a splendid gold-mounted cane, of a
costly Brazilian wood, with a gold plate, bearing the Captain's
name and rank in the service, the place and time of his birth,
and with a vacancy underneath--no doubt providentially left for
his heirs to record his decease.
Certain it was that, some months previous to the master-at-arms'
disgrace, he had presented these articles to the Captain, with
his best love and compliments; and the Captain had received them,
and seldom went ashore without the cane, and never took snuff but
out of that box. With some Captains, a sense of propriety might
have induced them to return these presents, when the generous
donor had proved himself unworthy of having them retained; but it
was not Captain Claret who would inflict such a cutting wound
upon any officer's sensibilities, though long-established naval
customs had habituated him to scourging _the people_ upon an
emergency.
Now had Captain Claret deemed himself constitutionally bound to
decline all presents from his subordinates, the sense of
gratitude would not have operated to the prejudice of justice.
And, as some of the subordinates of a man-of-war captain are apt
to invoke his good wishes and mollify his conscience by making
him friendly gifts, it would perhaps _have_ been an excellent
thing for him to adopt the plan pursued by the President of the
United States, when he received a present of lions and Arabian
chargers from the Sultan of Muscat. Being forbidden by his
sovereign lords and masters, the imperial people, to accept of
any gifts from foreign powers, the President sent them to an
auctioneer, and the proceeds were deposited in the Treasury. In
the same manner, when Captain Claret received his snuff-box and
cane, he might have accepted them very kindly, and then sold them
off to the highest bidder, perhaps to the donor himself, who in
that case would never have tempted him again.
Upon his return home, Bland was paid off for his full term, not
deducting the period of his suspension. He again entered the
service in his old capacity.
As no further allusion will be made to this affair, it may as
well be stated now that, for the very brief period elapsing
between his restoration and being paid off in port by the Purser,
the master-at-arms conducted himself with infinite discretion,
artfully steering between any relaxation of discipline--which
would have awakened the displeasure of the officers--and any
unwise severity--which would have revived, in tenfold force, all
the old grudges of the seamen under his command.
Never did he show so much talent and tact as when vibrating in
this his most delicate predicament; and plenty of cause was there
for the exercise of his cunningest abilities; for, upon the
discharge of our man-of-war's-men at home, should he _then_ be
held by them as an enemy, as free and independent citizens they
would waylay him in the public streets, and take purple vengeance
for all his iniquities, past, present, and possible in the
future. More than once a master-at-arms ashore has been seized by
night by an exasperated crew, and served as Origen served
himself, or as his enemies served Abelard.
But though, under extreme provocation, _the people_ of a man-of-
war have been guilty of the maddest vengeance, yet, at other
times, they are very placable and milky-hearted, even to those
who may have outrageously abused them; many things in point might
be related, but I forbear.
This account of the master-at-arms cannot better be concluded
than by denominating him, in the vivid language of the Captain of
the Fore-top, as "_the two ends and middle of the thrice-laid
strand of a bloody rascal_," which was intended for a terse,
well-knit, and all-comprehensive assertion, without omission or
reservation. It was also asserted that, had Tophet itself been
raked with a fine-tooth comb, such another ineffable villain
could not by any possibility have been caught.

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