All the work of rigging, sail-making, scraping, painting, and keeping a ship in perfect repair was done in port instead of at sea, as was the habit in the China and California clippers, and the lore and training of the real deep-water sailor became superfluous.
The crew of a packet made sail or took it in with the two-fisted mates to show them how.
From these conditions was evolved the "Liverpool packet rat," hairy and wild and drunken, the prey of crimps and dive-keepers ashore, brave and toughened to every hardship afloat, climbing aloft in his red shirt, dungaree breeches, and sea-boots, with a snow-squall whistling, the rigging sheathed with ice, and the old ship burying her bows in the thundering combers.

It was the doctrine of his officers that he could not be ruled by anything short of violence, and the man to tame and hammer him was the "bucko" second mate, the test of whose fitness was that he could whip his weight in wild cats.

When he became unable to maintain discipline with fists and belaying-pins, he was deposed for a better man.
Your seasoned packet rat sought the ship with a hard name by choice.
His chief ambition was to kick in the ribs or pound senseless some invincible bucko mate.

There was provocation enough on both sides.
Officers had to take their ships to sea and strain every nerve to make a safe and rapid passage with crews which were drunk and useless when herded aboard, half of them greenhorns, perhaps, who could neither reef nor steer.

Brutality was the one argument able to enforce instant obedience among men who respected nothing else.