compos_ for the time. And though but few of them have cause to
feign intoxication, yet some individuals may be suspected of
enacting a studied part upon these occasions. Indeed--judging by
certain symptoms--even when really inebriated, some of the
sailors must have previously determined upon their conduct; just
as some persons who, before taking the exhilarating gas, secretly
make up their minds to perform certain mad feats while under its
influence, which feats consequently come to pass precisely as if
the actors were not accountable for them.

For several days, while the other quarter-watches were given liberty,
the Neversink presented a sad scene. She was more like a madhouse
than a frigate; the gun-deck resounded with frantic fights, shouts,
and songs. All visitors from shore were kept at a cable's length.

These scenes, however, are nothing to those which have repeatedly
been enacted in American men-of-war upon other stations. But the
custom of introducing women on board, in harbour, is now pretty
much discontinued, both in the English and American Navy, unless
a ship, commanded by some dissolute Captain, happens to lie in
some far away, outlandish port, in the Pacific or Indian Ocean.

The British line-of-battle ship, Royal George, which in 1782 sunk
at her anchors at Spithead, carried down three hundred English
women among the one thousand souls that were drowned on that
memorable morning.

When, at last, after all the mad tumult and contention of "Liberty,"
the reaction came, our frigate presented a very different scene.
The men looked jaded and wan, lethargic and lazy; and many an old