The Sun.
London, England, 1839-02-25 00:00:00

A CHAFFER FROM THE FORTHCOMING WORK OF CAPTAIN

MARRYAT'S ON AMERICA

It may be inferred that 1 natur,lly direct& d my at-
tention to everything connected with the Au?erican
marine, and circumstances eventually induced me to
search much more minutely into particulars than at first
I had intended to do.

'File present force of the American Navy is rated as
follows :

SHIPS OF THE LINE.

01 120 guns ... •••
80 guns ...
74 guns ...
Total
FRIGATES (13T CLASS.)

-11

0154 guns ...
44 guns ...
Total •••
FRIOATFS (2d CLASS.)
Of 36 guns ...

SLOOPS.

Of 20 guns
18 guns
Total

SCHOONERS

OP 10 guns ...
Others ..
Total

-15

-15

... -13

Grand total ••• 56
The ratings of these vessels will, however, very much
mislead people as to the real strength of the armament.
The 74's and 80's are in weight of broadside equal to
most three-decked ships ; the first class frigates arc
double banked of the scantling, and carrying the com-
pkment of men of our 74•5. 'rue sloops are equally
powerful in proportion to their ratings, most of them car-
r)ing long guns. Although flush vessels, they are little
interior to a 38• gun frigate in scantling and are much too
powerful for any that we have in our service under the
same denomination of rating.

It is impossible not to be struck with the beautiful
architecture in most of these vessels. The Pennsyl-
vania, rated 120 guns, on four decks, carrying 146, is not
by any means so perfect as some of the line-of-battle
ships. The Ohio is, as far as I am a judge, the per-
fection of a ship of the line. But in every class you
cannot but admire the superiority of the models and
workmanship. The dockyards in America are small,
and not equal to what they may eventually require.
They certainly do not require such establishments or
such storehouses as we have, as their timber and hemp
are at hand when required ; but they are very deficient
both in dry and wet docks. Properly speaking, they
have no great naval depot. This arises from the jealous
feeling existing between the several States. A Bill
brought into Congress to expend so many thousand
dollars upon the dockyard at Boston, in Massachusetts,
would be immediately opposed by the State of New
York, and an amendment proposed to transfer the works
intended to their dockyard at Brooklyn. The other
States who possess dockyards would also assert their
right, and thus they will all fight for their respective
establishments until the Bill is lost, and the bone of con-
tention falls to the ground.
It is remarkable that along the whole of the eastern
coast of America, from Halifax in Nova Scotia down to
Pensacola in the Gulf of Mexico, there is not one good
open harbour. The majority of the American harbours
are barred at the entrance; so as to preclude a fleet
running out and in to manceuvre at pleasure ; indeed,

if the tide does not serve, there are few of them in which
a line-of-battle ship, hard pressed, could take refuge. A
good spacious harbour, easy of access, like that of Hali-
fax in Nova Scotia, is one of the few, perhaps the only,
natural advantage wanting in the United States.
The American navy list is as follows :
Captains or Commodores 5O
MasterE. Commandant
Lieutenants 279
Surgeons
Passed Assistant- Surgeons
Assistant- Surgeons
Pursers
Chaplains
Passed Midshipmen
Midshipmen 227
Sailing Masters
Sailmakers
Boatswains
Gunners
Carpenters
The pay of these officers is on the following scale. It
must be observed, that they do not use the term " half-
pay," but when unemployed, the officers are either at-
tached to the various dockyards, or are on leave. I have
reduced the sums paid into English money, that they
may be better understood by the reader :
Senior Captain, on service £96o
On leave . 730, i. e. half pay.
Captains, squadron service
Navy yard and other duty 730
Off duty
Commanders, on service

4A

25
22

Navy-yard and other duty 440 ampay.
On leave
Lieutenants commanding 3BO
Navy-yard and other duty 315, half-pay.
Waiting orders
Surgeons, according to their length
of servitude, from
To
and half-pay in proportion.
Assistant- Surgeons, from
To 250
Chaplains—Sea service
On leave
Passed midshipmen-duty
Waiting orders 125, half-pay.
Midshipmen—Sea service 83
Navy-yard and other duty 72
Leave
Sailingmasters—Ships of the line 228
Other duty
Leave 156, half-pay.
Boatswains, carpenters, sail-
makers, and gunners—Ships
of the line 156
Frigate
Other duty
On Leave 75, half-pay.
It will be perceived by the above Eat, how very much

better all classes in the American service are paid in
comparison with those in our service. But let it not be
supposed that this liberality.is a matter of choice on the
part of the American Government ; on the contrary, it
is one of necessity. There never was, nor ever will be,
anything like liberality under a democratic form of Go.
vernment. The navy is a favourite service, it is true,
but the officers of the American navy have not one
cent more than they are entitled to, or absolutely require.
In a country like America, where any one by industry
and application may become an independent, if not a
wealthy man, in a few years, it would be impossible for
the Government to procure officers if they were not
tolerably paid—no parents would permit their chil-
dren to enter the service unless they were enabled
to keep up a respectable appearance by their allowances ;
and in America every thing, to the annuitant or per-
son not making money, and living upon his income, is
much dearer than with us. The Government, there-
fore, are obliged to viy them, or young men would not
embark in the the profession ; for it is not in America
as it is with us, every department filled up, and no
room for those who would crowd in ; so that in the
eagerness to obtain respectable employment, emolument
becomes a secondary consideration. It may, however,
be worth while to put in juxtaposition the sums paid to
officers of respective ranks in the two navies of England
and America :

Officers. Amer'ca. EnglaM
Half-pay Post Captains, senior on leave,
corresponding to Commodore or Rear-
Admiral in England 730 456
Post Captains off duty (that is, duty on

_
shore)

On leave
Commanders, off sea duty
In yards, and on leave 3BO 155
Lieutenants—Shore duty

Waiting orders, or on leave 250 90
Passed Midshipmen—Full-pay
Half-pay
Midshipmen—Full-pay
Half-pay
. .

My object in making the comparison between the two
services is not with an invidious feeling. More ex-
pensive as America certainly is, still the disproportion is
such as must create surprise, and if it requires such a
sum for an American officer to support himself in a cre-
ditable and gentlemanlike manner, what can be expected
from the English officer with his miserable pittance,
which is totally inadequate for his rank and station
Notwithstanding which, our officers do keep up their
appearance as gentlemen, and those who have no half-
pay support themselves ; and I point this out, that when
Mr. Hume or other gentlemen clamour against the ex-
pense of our naval force, they may not be ignorant
of one filet, which is, that not only on half-pay, but
when on active service, one-half at least of the ex-
penses necessarily incerred by our officers to support
themselves according to their rank, and to entertain and
keep their ships in proper order, is, three times out of
four, paid out of their own pockets, or those of their
relatives, and that without complaint, as long as they
are not checked in their legitimate claims to promotion
During my sojourn in the United States,' became
acquainted with a large portion of the senior officers
of the American navy, and I found them gifted, gen-
tlemanlike, and liberal. With them I could con-
verse freely upon all points relative to the last war,
and always found them ready to admit all that could
be expected. The American naval officers certainly
form a strong contrast with the majority of their coun-
trymen, and prove, by their enlightened and liberal
ideas, how much the Americans in general would be
improved if they had had the same means of compari-
son with other countries which the naval officers by
their profession have obtained. Their partial successes
during the late war were often the theme of discourse,
and conducted with candour and frankness on both sides,
No unpleasant feeling was ever raised by any argument
with them on the su'iject, while the question raised
among their " free and enlightened" brother citizens who
knew nothing. of the rn tter Was certain to bring down
me such a torrela of bombast, falsehood, and
ss required ail ;ay pitaosophy to put up with

JDAY,-

apparent indifference. But I must now take my leave
of the American navy to refer to their merchant marine.
Before I went to the United States, I was aware that
a large proportion of our seamen were in their employ.
I knew that the whole line of packets, which is very ex-
tensive, was manned by British seamen, but it was not
until I arrived in the States that I discovered the real
state of the case.

During my occasional residence at New York, I was
surprised to find myself so constantly called upon by
English seamen who had served under me in the dif-

ferent ships I had commanded since the peace. Every
day seven or eight would call upon me, touch their hats,
awl remind me in what ships and in what capacity they
had done their duty. I had frequent conversations with
them, and found out that their own expression, " We
are all here, Sir," was strictly true. To the why and
wherefore, the answer was invariably the same—" 18 dol-
lars a month, Sir." Some of them, I recollect, told
me that they were going down to New Orleans because
the sickly season was coming on, and during the time
that the yellow fever raged they had always had a great
advance of wages, sometimes as high as 30 dollars per
month. I did not attempt to dissuade them ; they
were just as right to risk their lives from contagion at
30 dollars a month as to stand and be fired at at Is.
a day. The circumstance of so many of my own men
being in American ships, and their assertion that there
were no other sailors than English in New York, in-
duced me to enter very minutely into my investigation,
of which the following are the results.
The United States, correctly speaking, have no com-
mon seamen, or seamen bred up as apprentices before
the mast ; indeed, a little reflection will point out how
unlikely it is that she ever should have, or should have
had ; for who would submit to such a dog's life at the
hest, or what parent would consent that his children
should wear Out an .existence of hardship and depen-
dence, when they can so easily render them independent
on shore ? The same period of time requisite for a man
to learn his duty as an able seaman, and be qualified for
the pittance of eighteen dollars per month, would be
sufficient to establish a young man as an independent or
even wealthy landowner, factor, or merchant on shore.
That there are classes in America -who do go to sea is
ccrtain, and who and what these are I shall hereafter
point out ; but it may be positively asserted, that, unless
by escaping from his parents at an early age, awl before
his education is complete, he becomes, as it were, lost ;
there is no instance of a white boy being sent out
to sea, to be brought up as a 'fore•mast man in the
United States of America.
The whole amount of tonnage of the American mer-
cantile marine may be taken in round numbers at
2,000,000 tons, which may be subdivided as follows :
REGISTERED. Tons.
Foreign Trade
\Vhale Fishery

EVENING EDITIONr,-

Bltt' . '\ 25, 1839.

Haying sigsed this doeum, nt, and it being publicly
registered, he becomes a citizen, and may be sworn to
as such by any captain of a merchant vessel or man-of-
war, if is so required.
Now there are two points ascertained from the above
remarks.
1. That Americaalways has obtained, and for a long
period to come, will obtain her seamen altogether from
Great Britain.
2. That the seamen can be naturalized immediately,
and become American seamen by law.
To which we may add—
Th it under present circumstances, England is under
the necessity of raising seamen not only for her own
navy, but also for the Americans ; and that in propor-
tio❑ as the commerce and shipping of America shall
increase, so Kill the demand upon us become more
onerous ; and that should we fail in producing the num-
ber of seamen necessary for both services, the Americans
will always be full manned, and any defalcation mtht
fall upon ourselves.
And it may be added, that in all easel, the Ameri-
cans have the choice and refusal of our men ; and
therefore, they have invariably all the prime and best
seamen which we have raised.
The cause of this is simple and well known : it is
the difference between the wages paid in the merchant
vessels of the two nations :
American ships, per month £3 10
British ships ditto 2 2to £2 10
American men-of-war 2 0
British men-of-war
It mill be observed, that in the American men-of-war
the able seamen's pay is only 21. ; the consequence is,
that they remain for months in port Without being able
to obtain men.
Bat we must pass by this cause, and now look to the
cause of the cause, or in other words, how it is that the
Americans are able to give such high wages to our
seamen as to select any number of our best men for
their sera ice, and how it is that they can compete with,
and even un ler-bid, our merchant vessels in freight
at the same time that thy sail them at a greater ex-
pense.

Tills has been occasioned partly from circumstances,
and partly from a series of mismanagement on our part,
and partly from the fear of impressment ; but the prin-
cipal cause may be ascribed to the former paculiarly
un-
scientific mode of calculating the tonnage of our vessels,
the error of which system induced the merchants to
build their ships so as to evade the heavy Channel and
river duties, and thus all the first principles of naval ar-
chitecture were disregarded, and the sailing properties of
vessels considered of no consequence.
The fact is, that we have over-taxed our shipping to
carry as much freight as possible, and at the same time
to pay as few of the onerous duties. Our mercantile
shipping generally assume more the form of floating
boxes of merchandise than sailing vessels, and by the
false method of measuring the tonnage they were en-
abled to carry 600 tons, when by measurement they
were only taxed as being of the burthen of 400 tons ;
but every increase of tonnage thus surreptitiously ob-
tained was accompanied with a decrease in the sailing
properties of the vessels. Circumstances, however, ren-
dered this of less importance during the war, as few ves-
sels ran without the protection of a convoy, and it must
be also observed that vessels being employed in one
trade only, such as the West India, Canada, Mediter-
ranean, &c., their voyages during the year were limited,
and they were for a certain portion of the year unem-
ployed.
During the war the fear of impressment was cer-
tainly a strong inducement for our seamen to enter into
the American vessels, and naturalize themselves as
American subjects, but they were also stimulated even
at that period by higher wages, as they are now that the
fear of impressment no longer operates upon them.
It appears, then, that from various causes our mer-
chant vessels have lost their sailing properties, while the
Americans are the fastest sailors in the world ; and it is
for that reason, and no other, that, although sailing at
a much greater expense, the Americans can afford to
outbid us, and take all our best seamen.
An American vessel is ia no particular trade, she is
ready and willing to take freight anywhere when offered.
She sails so fast that she can make three voyages while
one of our vessels can make but two ; consequently she
has the preference as being the better manned and giving
the quickest return to the merchant, and as she re-
ceives three freights while the English vessel only re-
ceives two, it is clear that the extra freight will more
than compensate for the extra expense that the vessel
sails at in consequence of paying extra wages to the
seamen. Add to this, that the captains, generally
speaking, being better paid are better informed and more
active men, that they get through their work with
fewer hands from having all the picked seamen, and that
the activity on board is followed up and supported by an
equal activity on the part of the agents and factors on
shore, and you have the true cause why America can
afford to pay and secure for herself all our best seamen.
One thing is evident, that it is a mere question of
pounds, shillings, and pence between us and America,
and that the same men who now serve in the American
service would, if our wages were higher thin those
offered by America, immediately return to us and leave
her destitute.
That it would be worth the while of this country, in
case of a war with the United States, to offer 41.
a-head to able seamen is mot certain. It would
swell the naval estimate, but it would shorten the
duration of the war, and in the end would pro-
bably be the saving of many millions. But the
question is, cannot and ought not something to be done,
now in time of peace, to relieve our mercantile shipping
• interest, and hold out a bounty for a return to those
true principles of naval architecture, the deviation
from which has now proved to be attended with such
serious consequences.
Fast sailing va ssels will always be able to pay higher
wages• than others, as what they lose in increase of
daily expense, they will gain by the short time in
which the voyage is accomplished ; but it is by encou-
ragement alone that we can expect that the change
will take place. Surely some of tho onerous duties
imposed by the Trinity House might be removed, not
from the present class of vessels, as upon those
built hereafter with first-rate sailing propertii s ; and,
indeed, it is to be questioned whether, now that Green-
wich Hospital has become so enormously wealthy, and
has so few- pensioners to support, the charges of lights,
&c., ought not to be put upon her, and thus the mer-
cantile navy be relieved. These, however, are con-
siderations which must be attended with a much fuller
investigation) than I have the means of obtaining ; but
these,are considerations of vital importance to our ma-
ritime superiority, and as such should he immediately
weighed by the Government of Great Britain, and a
Committee be appointed fur the purpose.

THE YOUTH OF SIIAKSPEARE.—We are
requested to !tate that the New Work entitled " The
Youth of Shakspcare," by the author of " Shakspeare
and his Friends," in three volumes, post Bvo., is published
this day, by Mr. Colburn, of Great Marlborough-street,
and may now now be had at all the Libraries. Mr. Col-
burn has also just published "A Voice from Arne,
rica to England," by an American Gentleman, in one
volume, 8v0_... Agents f.,r Scotland, Messrs. Bell and

l3radfuto, Edinburgh ; for Ireland, Mr. John Cumming
Dub' .11.

Cottle-LAWS.--Lord Brougham grappled with
the suhject in his usual masterly and comprehensive style,
and adduced facts and reasonings to show the evil working
of the present system, that might well put to shame
those who had the dishonesty to bring forward his Lord-
ship as a witness to prove that the Corn-laws are
" the best laws that human wisdom could devise."

His Lordship took a view of the subject such as we
have frequently endeavoured to impress upon our
readers—namely, that a free trade in Corn would not
materially lower the price of grain from what we have had
it in seasons of plenty—that foreign wheat cannot be
brought into this country at anything like so cheap a rate
as has been represented by those who have an interest in
deceiving and alarming the farmer; and thrt the advan-
tages to he derived from a change of the system, would be
steadiness of price, abundant supply, and a vastly increased
demand for our manufactures.—Carlisle Journal.

How TO KEEP A SECRET.--We alluded some
what darkly a fortnight ago to a new dramatic production
which has been sent to this country from the United States.
We are not yet at liberty to give the name of the writer,
but it is well known and much admired in this country, and
was until recently that of a family of the greatest emi-
nence on the stage. Some people think that m3stery in
such cases is useful, and we are not warranted in being the
first to break through it. The play, which is of a serious
character, has been handed about from friend to friend,
and from critic to ethic, in this country, during the lest
month, and there is but one opinion regarding its extra-
ordinary merits, though there is at least one questionable
scene, which some think might risk its successful perform-
ance. We are not at all of this opinion, for we are sure it
would be gladly welcomed and well received by an English
audience. As we before mentioned, Macready is waiting
for further instructions on the subject, from the other side
of the Atlantic.—Observer. [N.B.—The dramatic
writer here alluded to with so much absurd mystery 'is
Mrs. Butler, late Miss Fanny Kemblc.]
IMPROVED MODE OF LIGHTING SHOPS.—
A great improvement in the principle of lighting shop windows
been introduced, and is gradually but generally extending throug
out the metrrprilis, and will, there is little doubt, be ultimately ui
vcrsally adopted. The Object to be effected in lighting up a shop
window should be to show off the goods to the best advantage, but
the old plan of lighting appears to disregard this altogether, and it
would seem as if the object to be attained was merely to exhibit a
brilliant display of light to dazzle the eyes of the spectators, and
prevent them from seeing the goods. On the Lew syst,..im, however,
the light is placed above the level of the spectator's eyes, and being
thus thrown from an elevated point upon the goods, it is reflected from
them, exhibiting to the spectator their various forms and hues in the
most ^ttractive manner. The direct ray of the gas-lights should be
screened from the eye, but the plan sometimes adopted of placing
a ground-glass shade over the burners greatly diminishes the quan-
tity of light, without softening the general effect. In some in-
stances gas-lamps are placed outside the shop windows, but this plan
seems'to be carrying out the new principle to excess, and greatly
disfigures the general appearance of the windows, without attaining
any adequate advantage.
FREE LABOUR.—It is useless to exclaim at the
want of labourers, when we see every ship for the Australian new
colonies filled with passengers, chiefly of that class. The Adelaide,
for Port Philip, small as the is, had forty-three, and there are hun-
dreds of applications to the owners of vessels in that trade! Talk
of " invnigration" indeed, and paying for it too! Every individual
coming here, who brings not with him the means of obtaining his
own food, is a dead weight upon the colonr—Murray's Revicte.