a packet--a
station in which so many different dispositions, habits and prejudices are
to be soothed, at the same time that a proper regard is to be had to the
safety of their persons. If any proof is wanting that the characters of
seamen in general have been formed under adverse circumstances, and
without sufficient attention, or, indeed, any attention to their real
interests, it is afforded in the fact, that the officers of the
packet-ships, men usually trained like other mariners, so easily adapt
their habits to their new situation, and become more mild, reflecting and
humane. It is very rare to hear a complaint against an officer of one of
these vessels; yet it is not easy to appreciate the embarrassments they
have frequently to encounter from whimsical, irritable, ignorant, and
exacting passengers. As a rule, the eastern men of this country make the
best packet-officers. They are less accustomed to sail with foreigners
than those who have been trained in the other ports, but acquire habits of
thought and justice by commanding their countrymen; for, of all the seamen
of the known world, I take it the most subordinate, the least troublesome,
and the easiest to govern, so long as he is not oppressed is the native
American. This, indeed, is true, both ashore and afloat, for very obvious
reasons: they who are accustomed to reason themselves, being the most
likely to submit to reasonable regulations; and they who are habituated to
plenty, are the least likely to be injured by prosperity, which causes
quite as much trouble in this world as adversity. It is this prosperity,
too suddenly acquired, which spoils most of the labouring Europeans who
emigrate; while they seldom acquire the real, frank independence of
feeling which characterizes the natives. They adopt an insolent and rude
manner as its substitute, mistaking the shadow for the substance. This
opinion of the American seamen is precisely the converse of what is
generally believed in Europe, however, and more particularly in England;
for, following out the one-sided political theories in which they have
been nurtured, disorganization, in the minds of the inhabitants of the old
world, is inseparable from popular institutions.

The early part of the season of 1826 was remarkable for the quantities of
ice that had drifted from the north into the track of European and
American ships. The Crisis, a London packet, had been missing nearly three
months when we sailed. She w