“So end all our bright prospects, blasted by a gang of miscreants, who certainly can have no regard for humanity so long as they continue to foster their so-called peculiar institution, which is now destroying our country.”
I love to think that our noble ship, with her long record of good service and uniform success, attractive and beloved in her life, should have passed, at her death, into the lofty regions of international jurisprudence and debate, forming a part of the body of the “Alabama Claims”; that, like a true ship, committed to her element once for all at her launching, she perished at sea, and, without an extreme use of language, we may say, a victim in the cause of her country.
Endnotes
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Mr. Cooper. James Fenimore Cooper, 1789–1851, was the first American novelist to attract wide attention. His Indian stories were based upon knowledge gained from residence in a frontier settlement in New York State. Like Dana, he left college to ship before the mast. His experiences as a sailor furnished him with material for several novels of the sea. Of these The Pilot was published in 1823; The Red Rover in 1828. —Keyes ↩
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Mr. Ames. Nathaniel Ames, died 1835, was a publisher and author. His Mariner’s Sketches appeared in 1830; Nautical Reminiscences, in 1832. —Keyes ↩
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Dress-coat … at Cambridge. The requirement of a specific undergraduate costume is today unknown in American colleges. When the custom was abandoned, or how it originated, seems difficult to determine. In this connection a letter from Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who probably knows more concerning Harvard traditions than any one else, is well worth quoting:—
“My impression is,” he says, “that we were required to wear a dress-coat to chapel on Sundays; but have no recollection of kid gloves or silk cap. You do not speak of the insignia of the four classes - that the Sophomores wore one black stripe on the sleeve, Juniors two, and Seniors three, the Freshmen not having any at all. These things could not have been very strictly inspected at morning prayers, for I remember my schoolmate, William Story, going down before me to morning prayers, wearing a camlet cloak entirely torn down in the middle, from neck to heels. I remember also Edward Everett Hale coming down from his room in the upper story of Massachusetts, when the bell was almost at its last stroke, having, as we Freshmen said, jumped out of bed, thrown all his clothes over the banister, and jumped into them on the way down. … Dana after his return from sea … became rather a swell than otherwise.”
In response to inquiry, Rev. Dr. J. S. T. Coolidge, Harvard’s oldest alumnus, and a member of the class below Dana, writes, “We were obliged to appear on Sundays and all public functions in a dress-coat—nothing about caps and nothing about gloves.” —Keyes ↩
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Jack tar. Both “jack” and “tar” are used to denote a sailor. Occasionally the two terms are used together. —Keyes ↩
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Neptune. The Roman god of the sea. —Keyes ↩
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Hove in sight. Came into view. The term is derived from the laboring motion of a ship on the waves. —Keyes ↩
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Stood … watch. Went on duty. A ship’s officers and crew are separated into two divisions or watches, serving alternate periods of four hours each. See this paragraph. They are known as port watch and starboard watch; the one occupying the left side of the forecastle, the other, the right side. —Keyes ↩
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Beating. Sailing against the wind by means of a zigzag course. —Keyes ↩
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Roads. An open place, not a harbor, where ships may ride at anchor. —Keyes ↩
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Boatswain. A subordinate ship’s officer whose chief duty is to call the crew together for duty. —Keyes ↩
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Windlass. A hoisting apparatus, used on ships for heaving the anchor. —Keyes ↩
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Ground swell. A broad heaving of the sea. —Keyes ↩
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Larboard. Larboard and starboard were formerly the nautical terms for left and right. Owing to their similarity in sound, the words were liable to confusion. Present usage has substituted “port” for “larboard.” —Keyes ↩
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Lookout. A position on the mast of a ship giving a wide view of the ocean. The term is likewise applied to the man occupying the position. —Keyes ↩
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Quarterdeck, situated in the rear part of the ship and reserved to officers. —Keyes ↩
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Forecastle. That part of the upper deck of a ship where the sailors eat and sleep. —Keyes ↩
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Trim the yards. Turn the sails closer to the wind. —Keyes ↩
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Gulf Stream. A warm ocean current flowing from the Gulf of Mexico northward along the coast of the United States. —Keyes ↩
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Eight bells. Eight o’clock. The twelve hours of the sailor’s day are divided into three watches of four hours each. In each, the half-hours are indicated by the strokes of a bell. Thus, half after midnight is one bell; four o’clock is eight bells; half after four, one bell; eight o’clock, eight bells. —Keyes ↩
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Leeward. The side toward which the wind blows. —Keyes ↩
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All hands, ahoy! All hands on deck. In case of storm or other unusual circumstance when the entire crew is needed to operate the vessel, a sailor
