of making sail, the crew became impatient, and there
was a good deal of talking and consultation together
on the forecastle. They had been beaten out with
the exposure and hardship, and impatient to get out
of it, and this unaccountable delay was more than
they could bear in quietness, in their excited and
restless state. Some said the captain was frightened,—
completely cowed by the dangers and difficulties that
surrounded us, and was afraid to make sail; while others
said that in his anxiety and suspense he had made
a free use of brandy and opium, and was unfit for
his duty. The carpenter, who was an intelligent
man, and a thorough seaman, and had great influence
with the crew, came down into the forecastle, and tried
to induce them to go aft and ask the captain why he
did not run, or request him, in the name of all hands,
to make sail. This appeared to be a very reasonable
request, and the crew agreed that if he did not make
sail before noon they would go aft. Noon came,
and no sail was made. A consultation was held
again, and it was proposed to take the ship from the
captain and give the command of her to the mate, who
had been heard to say that if he could have his way
the ship would have been half the distance to the
Cape before night,— ice or no ice.
And so irritated and impatient had the crew become,
that even this proposition, which was open mutiny,
was entertained, and the carpenter went to his berth,
leaving it tacitly understood that something serious
would be done if things remained as they were many
hours longer. When the carpenter left, we talked
it all over, and I gave my advice strongly against
it. Another of the men, too, who had known something
of the kind attempted in another ship by a crew who
were dissatisfied with their captain, and which was
followed with serious consequences, was opposed to
it. Stimson, who soon came down, joined us, and
we determined to have nothing to do with it.
By these means the crew were soon induced to give
it up for the present, though they said they would
not lie where they were much longer without knowing
the reason.
The affair remained in this state until four o’clock,
when an order came forward for all hands to come aft
upon the quarter-deck. In about ten minutes they
came forward again, and the whole affair had been
blown. The carpenter, prematurely, and without
any authority from the crew, had sounded the mate as
to whether he would take command of the ship, and
intimated an intention to displace the captain; and
the mate, as in duty bound, had told the whole to
the captain, who immediately sent for all hands aft.
Instead of violent measures, or, at least, an outbreak
of quarter-deck bravado, threats, and abuse, which
they had every reason to expect, a sense of common
danger and common suffering seemed to have tamed his
spirit, and begotten in him something like a humane
fellow-feeling; for he received the crew in a manner
quiet, and even almost kind. He told them what