SAGAS OF THE SEAS
Edited by
JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH
CONTENTS
Preface
The Voyage of the Mayflower …... 3
Governor William Bradford
The Bon Homme Richard ……… 14
John Paul Jones
The Chase and the Capture …….. 21
J. Cobb
The Privateer …………………… 50
James Fenimore Cooper
The Main-Truck ………………... 65
Anonymous
The Log of the Arethusa ……….. 77
William Hussey Macey
Leviathan …………………….... 100
J. Ross Browne
An Old-Time Mate ………….... 106
Roland F. Coffin
The Gale ……………………… 112
Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
Flogging …………………….... 122
Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
The Slave Trade ……….. ……. 130
Willis J. Abbot
Ms. Found in a Bottle ………… 160
Edgar Allan Poe
"Mother Carey's Chickens" …... 174
J. Cobb
The Frozen North …………….. 189
Elisha Kent Kane
The Enchanted Valley ………... 211
Herman Melville
The Superstitious Seaman ….… 235
Thomas Gibbons
The Race it Blew ……………... 256
James B. Connolly
Riley ………………………..… 263
Hall and Nordhoff
Notes
________________
Copyright, 1924
By Dial Press, Incorporated
________________
I ploughed the land with horses
But my heart was ill at ease.
For the old seafaring men
Came to me now and then
With their sagas of the seas.
Longfellow.
PREFACE
Mr. French has assembled from late and early American days and from a various crew: he gives us the worried Pilgrims praying the gale to end, and he gives us the hard driving Gloucester fishermen praying it to hold: he swings us from the diarian records of the reporterial Dana to the fanciful pages of the creative Cooper.
Mr. French pays no attention to those who hold that this or that man must necessarily write well of the sea because he has made his living off it. Doubtless he learned early what many others have learned; which is, that a sailorman is as likely to write dull stories of the sea as a ribbon salesman is to write dull stories of department store life; and so, he takes what he wants where he finds it.
To write of the sea in only its smooth and peaceful aspect is like writing only of pallid, anemic people who never do anything but mope, or get anywhere unless it be to the bottom of their own abnormal souls. The normal, wholesome sea is not a smooth and oily one; it is a moving, restless sea, more often rough than smooth. Mr. French, thanks be to him, has given us a few bits of rough water.
Mr. French has gathered from authors who were immediately proclaimed and he has gathered from those who had to die to get their proper rating. He takes from Dana, who never had to wait a day for his celebrity, and he takes from Poe and Melville — especially Melville, thirty years dead and only now coming into his own.
I do not agree with the editor as to the merit of every selection herein. The first thing in it, — Governor Bradford's sacred but unlettered account of the Mayflower's voyage — is surely more the historical document than a masterpiece of literature; but, as I understand it, I do not have to agree with him. My job is to comment on what he has picked; and there is the added assurance, written assurance from him: "Whatever you do don't praise me — " a refreshing sentence in these days of log-rolling authors and of reviewers who pass the approving word of this or that book, conspiring to put it over, the one for the other, good or bad.
But in one thing I surely am strong for Mr. French's collection. His selections are all from American writers. Every now and then some superior critic writes a patronizing word of American sea writers, holding up this or that foreign one for our emulation. Sometimes they pick a deserving model, but too often they are but repeating archaic patter; too often it is ill-meant propaganda. What Mr. French has learned, and what so few of our literary mentors have not learned (or if they have learned it they lack the guts to say so) is that this nation of ours has produced more vigorous literature of the sea than any other nation whatever; and learning that he has chosen to make this anthology of sea writings from entirely American sources — a cheering, even a daring idea.
James B. Connolly.
Chestnut Hill,
Massachusetts,
September, 1924.
SAGAS OF THE SEAS
THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER
1620
Governor William Bradford
Of their departure from Leyden, and other things their
aboute, with their arivall at Southhamton, were they
all mete togeather, and tooke in ther provissions.
AT length, after much travell and these debats, all things were got ready and provided. A smale ship was bought[1], & fitted in Holand, which was intended as to serve to help to transport them, so to stay in ye cuntrie and atend upon fishing and shuch other affairs as might be for ye good & benefite of ye colonie when they came ther. Another was hired at London, of burden about 9. score[2]; and all other things gott in readiness. So being ready to departe, they had a day of solleme humiliation, their pastor taking his texte from Ezra 8. 21. And ther at ye river, by Ahava, I proclaimed a fast, that we might humble ourselves before our God, and seeke of him a right way for us, and for our children, and for all our substance. Upon which he spente a good parte of ye day very profitably, and suitable to their presente occasion. The rest of the time was spente in powering out prairs to ye Lord with great fervencie, mixed with abundance of tears. And ye time being come that they must departe, they were accompanied with most of their brethren out of ye citie, unto a towne sundrie miles of called Delfes-Haven, wher the ship lay ready to receive them. So they lefte ye goodly & pleasante citie, which had been ther resting place near 12. years; but they knew they were pilgrimes, & looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to ye heavens, their dearest cuntrie, and quieted their spirits. When they came to ye place they found ye ship and all things ready; and shuch of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundrie also came from Amsterdame to see them shipte and to take their leave of them. That night was spent with litle sleepe by ye most, but with freindly entertainmente & christian discourse and other reall expressions of true christian love. The next day, the wind being faire, they wente aborde, and their freinds with them, where truly dolfull was ye sight of that sade and mournfull parting; to see what sighs and sobbs and praires did sound amongst them, what tears did gush from every eye, & pithy speeches peirst each harte; that sundry of ye Dutch strangers yt stood on ye key as spectators, could not refraine from tears. Yet comfortable & sweete it was to see shuch lively and true expressions of dear & unfained love. But ye tide (which stays for no man) caling them away yt were thus loath to departe, their Revred: pastor falling downe on his knees, (and they all with him,) with watrie cheeks comended them with most fervente praires to the Lord and his blessing. And then with mutuall imbrases and many tears, they tooke their leaves one of an other; which proved to be ye last leave to many of them.