The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1876-02-23
THE AMERICAN SAILOR.
The Story Of the Schooner Jefferson Borden
---snilors Driven to Mutiny by their
nHcara

---suiIors Driven to Mutiny BY their
Onlcers.
The New York Times has the follow
ing interesting article on sailors and
their treatment, naming the case OF the
Jefferson Borden as an example {:
The crew OF the American schooner
Jefferson Borden, which recently put
into Aberdeen in distress after voyage
OF sixty-seven days in crossing the At
lantic, have signed statement that they
we're cruelty treated by the captain; that
they were not supplied with sufficient
food; that their wages were kept from
them, and that in their opinion the
mutiny which made the name OF the
Jefferson Borden notorious was caused
by the brutal conduct of her captain.
It is not many months since this same
schooner arrived at an English port with
several terribly wounded Sailors who
were Immediately thrown into prison to
be tried for mutiny and murder. The
captain asserted that without any cause
they had mutinied and killed his subor-
dinate officers, and that he had driven
them with his revolver into the house on
deck, where he penned them up and
shot at them through the window until
they were willing to surrender. The
mutineers admitted that they had killed
the mates and had intended to kill the
captain, but asserted that they had been
treated with such outrageous cruelty
that no resource but mutiny WIS left
to them. Little credit. however, was
given to their story, and public opinion
decided that they were bloodthirsty
wretches, who deserved the severest
punishment the law could infict.
Now that the captain of the Jefferson
Borden is again charged with brutality
toward his sailors, It is possible that
there may be change of opinion as to
the nature of the original mutiny. 1t
is, unfortunately, true that the sailors
who are sold by American shipping mas
ters to American captains are far more
degraded and brutalized than were the
most wretched of the slaves in the
Louisiana sugar fields. But however
capable of murder and robbery sailor
in the Atlantic trade may be, he is per-
fectly aware that unsuccessful mutiny
means death from the captains revolver,
and that o successful mutiny means
death on the gallows if he succeeds in
reaching an American or q European
port. He therefore submits to almost
any degree of cruelty rather than resort
to the hopeless remedy of mutiny, and it
is this certainty that the sailor will not
strike back which encourages brutal
captains to Cypress and maltreat their
men. When the crew of the Jefferson
Borden mutinied, they knew that if they
succeeded in capturing the vessel, they
would have to bring her into port,
or else to scuttle her and land in the
small boat. In either case their arrest
would Immediately follow, and their
punishment would be nearly inevitable.
It takes an enormous amount Of il-treat-
ment to inspire the sodden, spiritless
wretches of the forecastle with sufficient
recklessness to risk battle with we'll
armed officers fought under the shadow
of the gallows, and that the crew OF the
jefferson Borden ran this risk can hard
ly be explained except on the SUPPOSE
ton that their treatment had been ex--
cruel. The fact that another
crew has made complaints closely resem
bling those made by the mutineers
against the same captain ought to lead
to a searching Investigation into the
mans method of managing sailors.
In former years philanthropic people
occasionally made efforts to improve
the condition of our sailors. We do
not hear much of such efforts at the
present day, since it seems to have been
quietly assumed that the American sailor
has vanished with the decline of Ameri-
can commerce. On the contrary, he
has only sunk little lower, with the
decline of the demand for his services.
1t is not probable that the present race
of sailors can be materially improved,
but we certainly ought to find out some
way by which to induce honest, sober,
md Intelligent young men to enter the
service. Meanwhile, because
sailors are as class more ignorant and
degraded than landsmen can we'll i'm.
agine them to be, it does not follow that
they are to be treated like brutes. 10
permit captain to drive men into mu-
tiny, and then hang them for their
crime, while the crime of the captain
goes unpunished. is the surest way to
keep al men out OF the service who
have not utterly lost all manhood and oil
hope.