But there are two ways of doing these things: one, which gives the men no more trouble than is absolutely unavoidable; the other, which harasses and justly provokes them.

It is not enough to say that they must submit, whether they like it or not.
They will submit, it is true; but in what temper?
and how will these men work when called upon to exert themselves, if they are habitually treated with disrespect, and exposed to needless, and even impertinent worry?
I have even heard of some crack ships, as they are termed, where the poor devils are obliged to pipe-clay their bags, to make them look white, forsooth! Why, the very idea of pipe-clay is gall and wormwood to the taste of the Johnnies.

Of late years I understand there have been introduced black painted water-proof bags, which are a great comfort to the men.

Besides keeping out wet, they require no trouble to scrub and dry, and, after all, are fully as clean, and far more useful in every respect.
To show the various sorts of outfit which the men composing a man-of-war's crew may be furnished with on first coming on board, I shall describe a scene which took place on the Leander's quarter-deck, off the Port of New York, in 1804.

We were rather short-handed in those days; and being in the presence of a blockaded enemy, and liable, at half-an-hour's warning, to be in action, we could not afford to be very scrupulous as to the ways and means by which our numbers were completed, so that able-bodied men were secured to handle the gun-tackle falls.