Such performances exemplify the ideals that still obtained—were in full force—in the navy as first I knew it. In the ship in which the gunner and I were then serving, it was our common performance to "Up topgallant-masts and yards, and loose sail to a bowline," in three minutes and a half from the time the topmen and the masts started aloft together from the deck. For this time I can vouch myself, and we did it fairly, too; though I dare say we would have hesitated to carry the sails in a stiff breeze without a few minutes more. It was a very dramatic and impressive performance. The band, with drum and fife, was part of it. When all was reported ready from the three masts—but not before—it was permitted to be eight o'clock. The drums gave three rolls, the order "Sway across, let fall," was given, the yards swung into their places, the sails dropped and were dragged out by their bowlines to facilitate their drying, the bell struck eight, the flag was hoisted, and close on the drums followed the band playing the "Star-Spangled Banner," while the ship's company went to breakfast. It was the transformation scene of a theatre; within five minutes the metamorphosis was complete. There was doubtless a flavor of the circus about it all, but it was a wholesome flavor and tonicked the professional appetite. Yes, and the natural appetite, too; your breakfast tasted better, especially if some other ship had got into trouble with one of her yards or sails. "Did you see what a mess the – made of fore-topgallant-yard this morning?" An old boatswain's mate of the ship used to tell me one of his "last-cruise" stories, of when he "was in the Delaware, seventy-four, up the Mediterranean, in 1842." Of course, the Delaware had beaten the Congress's time; the last ship always did. Then he would add: "I was in the foretop in those days, and had the fore-topgallant-yard; and if one of us fellows let his yard show on either side of the mast before the order 'Sway across,' we could count on a dozen when we got down just as sure as we could count on our breakfast." Flogging was not abolished until about 1849. No wonder men were jolly when they could be, without worrying about to-morrow's headache.
Part of the preparation was to let the captain know beforehand that it was eight o'clock, and get his authority that it might be so; subject always to the yet higher authority that the yards and sails were ready. If they were not, so much the worse for eight o'clock. It had to wait quite as imperatively as the sun did for Joshua. Sunset, when the masts and yards came down, was equally under bonds; it awaited the pleasure of the captain or admiral. Indeed, in my time a story ran of a court-martial at a much earlier day, sitting in a capital case. By law, each day's session must end by sundown. On the occasion in question, sundown was reported to the admiral—or, rather, commodore; we had no admirals then. He sent to know how soon the court could finish. The reply was, in about fifteen minutes. "Tell the officer of the deck not to make it sundown until he hears from me;" and, in defiance of the earth's movement, the colors were kept flying in attestation that the sun was up. One other hour of the twenty-four, noon, was brought in like manner to the captain's attention, and required his action, but it was treated with more deference; recognition rather than authority was meted to it, and it was never known to be tampered with. The circumstance of the sun's crossing the ship's meridian was unique in the day; and the observation of the fact, which drew on deck all the navigating group with their instruments, establishing the latitude immediately and precisely, was of itself a principal institution of the ship's economy. Such claims were not open to trifling; and were there not also certain established customs, almost vested interests, such as the seven-bell nip, cocktail or otherwise, connected with the half-hour before, when "the sun was over the fore-yard"? I admit I never knew whence the latter phrase originated, nor just what it meant, but it has associations. Like sign language, it can be understood.
I was myself shipmate, as they say, with most of this sort of thing; for with its good points and its bad it did not disappear until the War of Secession, the exigencies of which drove out alike the sails and the sailor. The abolition of the grog ration in 1862 may be looked upon as a chronological farewell to a picturesque past. We did not so understand it. Contemporaries are apt to be blind to bloodless revolutions. Had we seen the full bearing, perhaps there might have been observed a professional sundown, in recognition of the fact that the topgallant-yards had come down for the last time, ending one professional era. A protest was recorded by one eccentric character, a survival whom Cooper unfortunately never knew, who hoisted a whiskey demijohn at the peak of his gunboat—the ensign's allotted place. To the admiral's immediate demand for an explanation, he replied that that was the flag he served under; but he was one of those to whom all things are forgiven. The seaman remains, and must always remain while there are seas to cross and to rule; but the sailor, in his accomplishments and in his defects, began then to depart, or to be evolutionized into something entirely different. I am bound to admit that in the main the better has survived, but, now that such hairs as I have are gray, I may be permitted to look back somewhat wistfully and affectionately on that which I remember a half-century ago; perhaps to sympathize with the seamen of the period, who saw themselves swamped out of sight and influence among the vast numbers required by the sudden seven or eight fold expansion of the navy for that momentous conflict. Occasionally one of these old salts, mournful amid his new environment, would meet me, and say, "Ah! Mr. Mahan, the navy isn't what it was!" True, in 1823, Lord St. Vincent, then verging on ninety, had made the same remark to George IV.; and I am quite sure, if the aged admiral had searched his memory, he could have recalled it in the mouth of some veteran of 1750. The worst of it is, this is perennially true. From period to period the gain exceeds, but still there has been loss as well; and to sentiment, ranging over the past, the loss stands more conspicuous. "Memory reveals every rose, but secreteth its thorn."
This is the more apparent when the change has been sudden, or on such a scale as to overwhelm, by mere bulk, that subtle influence for which we owe to the French the name of esprit de corps. It is the breath of the body, the breath of life. Before the War of Secession our old friends the marines had a deserved reputation for fidelity, which could not survive the big introduction of alien matter into the "corps." I remember hearing an officer of long service say that he had known but a single instance of a marine deserting;