faction than the sailor does over this _tot_. To many of them,
indeed, the thought of their daily _tots_ forms a perpetual perspective
of ravishing landscapes, indefinitely receding in the distance. It is
their great "prospect in life." Take away their grog, and life
possesses no further charms for them. It is hardly to be doubted, that
the controlling inducement which keeps many men in the Navy, is the
unbounded confidence they have in the ability of the United States
government to supply them, regularly and unfailingly, with their daily
allowance of this beverage. I have known several forlorn individuals,
shipping as landsmen, who have confessed to me, that having contracted
a love for ardent spirits, which they could not renounce, and having by
their foolish courses been brought into the most abject
poverty--insomuch that they could no longer gratify their thirst
ashore--they incontinently entered the Navy; regarding it as the asylum
for all drunkards, who might there prolong their lives by regular hours
and exercise, and twice every day quench their thirst by moderate and
undeviating doses.

When I once remonstrated with an old toper of a top-man about this
daily dram-drinking; when I told him it was ruining him, and advised
him to _stop his grog_ and receive the money for it, in addition to his
wages as provided by law, he turned about on me, with an irresistibly
waggish look, and said, "Give up my grog? And why? Because it is
ruining me? No, no; I am a good Christian, White-Jacket, and love my
enemy too much to drop his acquaintance."

It may be readily imagined, therefore, what consternation and dismay
pervaded the gun-deck at the first announcement of the tidings that the
grog was expended.

"The grog gone!" roared an old Sheet-anchor-man.

"Oh! Lord! what a pain in my stomach!" cried a Main-top-man.

"It's worse than the cholera!" cried a man of the After-guard.

"I'd sooner the water-casks would give out!" said a Captain of the Hold.

"Are we ganders and geese, that we can live without grog?" asked a
Corporal of Marines.

"Ay, we must now drink with the ducks!" cried a Quarter-master.

"Not a tot left?" groaned a Waister.

"Not a toothful!" sighed a Holder, from the bottom of his boots.

Yes, the fatal intelligence proved true. The drum was no longer heard
rolling the men to the tub, and deep gloom and dejection fell like a
cloud. The ship was like a great city, when some terrible calamity has
ove