Liberty on the Waterfront. Paul A. Gilje

He even meddled with the cooking. The crew did not appreciate this confusion. One called him “a sneaking sort of a fellow that an englishman would have nothing to do with.” To confuse matters further, Jerboe took the starboard berth in the cabin, which was usually reserved for the captain, while the ship's master contented himself with the larboard or port berth.⁷⁹ Aboard the Thomas Russell on a voyage to the Pacific Northwest in 1798 and 1799, the presence of a supercargo and a well-connected clerk created ambiguous lines of authority. Perhaps knowing who paid the bills, the officers sided against the captain. No overt conflict erupted, but throughout the voyage the captain didnot receive the accustomed level of respect and was often the butt of jokes and snide comments.⁸⁰

      As on the Thomas Russell, the captain sometimes found himself at odds with his officers. On a voyage from the Far East, Sargent S. Day thought that his first and second mates were inept and made “a damn'd humbug of everything” and could not wait to get rid of them. Day pleaded with the wind, “Blow my sweet breeze Blow & Deliver me from Two pieces of Trash not fit to take care of Hogs much more to have charge of a Ship Deck.”⁸¹ Whaling captain Charles G. Arthur apparently had continual problems with his officers aboard the Zenas Coffin on a voyage in the late 1840s. He reported to the owners that he had to discharge the third mate “for the benefit of all concerned.” Arthur wrote a year and half later that he had discharged the first and second mate as well, declaring that he had done so “for the sake of having any kind of regularity and order on ship board.” He explained further, “I have struggled all the voyage to make things as they should be but as I find out even before we left home there was as to say a combination entered into for them always to be right and I right if I agreed with them.”⁸² Another whaling captain confronted open disobedience by officers and crew, when, contrary to everybody's interest, they refused to lower the boats in pursuit of whales. In this situation the captain had to give ground.⁸³ Even John Paul Jones had tactical disagreements with his first lieutenant, Thomas Simpson, and repeated problems with Pierre Landais who, as a subordinate in command of the Alliance during the battle between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis, failed to come to Jones's assistance.⁸⁴

      Officers, too, sometimes wrangled with one another. As a mate, Sargent S. Day also found his subalterns incompetent. While the crew refitted the rigging at sea, Day remained on the deck and sent the second mate aloft to direct the men. From Day's point of view the whole job was bungled. He confided to his log that the mast was finally painted, although the second mate allowed the men to make “a long lumber job of it.”There were other problems. Eventually everything got straightened out, “but a worse time I never see in getting up spars[.] No head aloft & nothing done right—for my part I am sick of such second mates & damn'd foolish work.”⁸⁵ Samuel Chase complained that he had some “secret enemies” aboard the whaleship Arab and declared that there was “a traitorous wretch trying to black my character with the master of the ship.”⁸⁶ Common seamen often paid for this type of backbiting. A mean-spirited first mate could easily take advantage of his authority by keeping the second mate and his watch on deck for longer than the usual four hours.⁸⁷

      The most crucial conflicts at sea, however, were between the forecastle and the quarterdeck. To prevent the captain from pushing the crew too hard, seamen ran away, organized work slow downs, and grumbled and showed disrespect. Occasionally, work stopped and blows exchanged. In extreme cases, the crew resorted to mutiny and piracy. The mere idea of these rare extreme violent acts affected shipboard behavior.⁸⁸