A regulation of the port
forbids any ballast to be thrown overboard; accordingly, our long-boat
was lined inside with rough boards and brought alongside the
gangway, but where one tub-full went into the boat, twenty went
overboard. This is done by every vessel, for the ballast can make
but little difference in the channel, and it saves more than a week of
labor, which would be spent in loading the boats, rowing them to the
point, and unloading them. When any people from the Presidio were on
board, the boat was hauled up and ballast thrown in; but when the
coast was clear, she was dropped astern again, and the ballast fell
overboard. This is one of those petty frauds which every vessel
practises in ports of inferior foreign nations, and which are lost
sight of, among the countless deeds of greater weight which are hardly
less common. Fortunately a sailor, not being a free agent in work
aboard ship, is not accountable; yet the fact of being constantly
employed, without thought, in such things, begets an indifference to
the rights of others.
Friday, and a part of Saturday, we were engaged in this work,
until we had thrown out all but what we wanted under our cargo on
the passage home; when, as the next day was Sunday, and a good day for
smoking ship, we cleared everything out of the cabin and forecastle,
made a slow fire of charcoal, birch bark, brimstone, and other
matters, on the ballast in the bottom of the hold, calked up the
hatches and every open seam, and pasted over the cracks of the
windows, and the slides of the scuttles, and companionway.
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