The sailors.
The commerce of the world is estimated to require three million six hundred thousand able- bodied men to be constantly traversing the ocean, of whom seven thousand five hundred die every year.
What an amazing movement!
How few of those who enjoy the fruits of commerce think of the vast army that is ever moving on to achieve its triumphs.
Great cities are built up; manufacturing towns spring, like mushrooms, from what was yesterday a wilderness; population redoubles; national wealth assumes vast proportions, yet the agencies which produce these marvellous results are almost as completely hidden from view as the coral insects which, in the fluctuating waves, find material for solid and permanent creations, and compel the deep itself to offer a foothold and habitation to man.
Traversing the globe of waters day and night — never resting, never sleeping — moves on the great Army of Commerce, larger than the army of
Xerxes, larger than the combined armies of
Europe and
America at this day. This immense force is made up of men who have, in general, no habitation but the ship; who have no sweet and permanent home associations, who pass their existence under the iron discipline of the seas, varied occasionally by the fierce license of the shore.
Exposed to arctic cold and tropic heat, battling forever with storms and perils, the life of each and all separated by only a thin plank from death, deprived of the consolations of religious worship and the humanizing influences of woman's society, there is no vocation of mankind which appears to be so destitute of all that gives security, happiness and refinement to existence.
We have often wondered that the Philanthropy of the Age which roams over the face of the earth like a roaring lion, seeking aliment for its voracious benevolence, does not direct its attention towards these four millions of the human race, who present such a wide and fruitful field for the display of its amiable and beneficent propensities.
We might expect those rugged millions, in the ranks of commerce, who are exposed to such perpetual hardships and dangers; those men who, while building up civilization, are bereft of all civilizing influences, to be the most reckless, brutalized and miserable of mankind.
Reckless they generally are, and sometimes brutalized, yet there are virtues peculiar to seamen which seem to be struck out by their very collision with peril and privation, and which flash out like the phosphorescent waves that at night break about the bows of their ships in sparkling showers.
Amidst a multitude of sins, generosity courage, humanity, remain intact, and there is in the roughest sailor's heart a soft place, where the love of mother and of sweetheart lies nestled, and survives long voyages and cruel oppression, and spreads its dove-like plumage, bright and unruffled, at the first sight of land.
The profound and disinterested sympathy of sailors with human suffering, in all its shapes, the readiness which they exhibit to peril, and even surrender, their own lives for the deliverance of others, is scarcely to be accounted for on any principle of human action.
The memorable wreck of the brig
Somers, (the scene of
Mackenzie's slaughter of young
Spencer and others,) is only one illustration of the remarkable qualities of the men who "go down to the sea in ships." On that occasion, the brig was capsized by a squall, and the few boats which could be got clear of the vessel would only accommodate the officers and a small portion of the crew.
The men cheerfully permitted the officers to occupy the boats, and so far from having any contest with each other for the remaining places, one of them, a large man, who had obtained a seat in a boat, upon being told that he occupied the room of two men, promptly, and without a murmur, returned to the sinking vessel, where he and the rest of his comrades went down calmly and unresisting to their deaths.
Is it not wonderful that the civilized world, which owes its comforts, luxuries, wealth and power to the hardihood, labors and sacrifices of such a class of men, has never yet organized measures, at all adequate to the end, for the promotion of their physical, intellectual and moral welfare?
