Tucker next addressed himself to the ship’s company in terms nearly as follow:
“My lads,– You have now been under my command between five and six years; and during that time you must have observed that I have ever made it a study, as it was my duty, always to get for you the best provisions that could possibly be procured; I need not add, that it has always afforded me the most heartfelt satisfaction so to do, and to see you comfortable and happy: the meat that you have refused to eat for the last four days, and which your captain and officers have eaten, was the only substitute for salt provisions that could be obtained in the Pacific; I believe that I have been brought up from my birth to eat as delicate food as any of you, yet I have made four dinners on that which you do not think good enough for you, and I most fervently pray to God to grant that I may never fare worse than I have this day done on that very beef. It is far from my intention to compel you to eat it, if you prefer dining on biscuit and grog; but if you expect that I will allow the salt provisions now in the hold to be used until we arrive in those high latitudes where this beef cannot be preserved, you are very much mistaken:– return to your various duties.”
This firmness on the part of Captain Tucker was productive of the desired effect: next day the beef was demanded by every mess, immediately after piping to dinner, and the men continued to eat it until their arrival at the Sandwich Islands, where a stock of excellent pork was procured for general use. It must be allowed by all who have any knowledge in these matters, that prompt, determined, and decisive conduct is absolutely necessary in such cases; but justice demands that we should not attribute the conduct of the Cherub’s crew, on the above occasion, to a mutinous spirit, but merely to the disgust occasioned by the beef’s intolerable smell when moistened by the rain. Their attachment to Captain Tucker may be fairly inferred from what we have stated in the first paragraph at p. 426.
Captain Tucker was severely wounded in both legs at the commencement of the action with the United States’ frigate Essex, off Valparaiso, Mar. 28, 1814, the official account of which will be found at p. 861 et seq. of Vol II. Part II. On that occasion he returned upon deck the moment his wounds were dressed, and continued there, “using every exertion against the baffling winds and occasional calms, to close near
