Lives Before the Mast

Richard Henry Dana’s benevolent meanderings through the slums of Halifax confirm his class position and his understanding of his duty toward those beneath him, and this understanding, along with the forecastle setting, reappeared in numerous first-person sea narratives following Two Years Before the Mast. In this section, I consider two such narratives: James Fenimore Cooper’s “edited” version of Ned Myers, or, A Life Before the Mast and Samuel Leech’s A Voice From the Main Deck, Being a Record of the Thirty Years’ Adventures of Samuel Leech. Both books appeared in 1843, with Leech’s enjoying enough popularity to be reissued into the twentieth century in as many as 18 editions. Of course, each text was written in the wake of Dana’s and capitalized on the popularity of sea narratives as well as on the countless maritime reform movements that were so popular in the 1840s. Though the books were little remarked by critics (and have been even less remarked by scholars), they reveal the power of Dana’s narrative form and

voice in shaping sea literature even as they modify the image of the sailor propounded within antebellum print culture.

Born in present-day Quebec in 1793 to a father in the British military, Edward Robert Myers was sent to school in Halifax, where he stayed until 1805. Despite being a member of the polite classes ashore and never having “done any work” as a youth, Myers tired of the floggings that he received in school and (ironically) decided to go to sea. Using a fowling piece given him by the Prince of Wales, the young Ned bribed the mate of a schooner headed for New York and secured passage out of Halifax; he would not return to Canada for nine years, and then only as a prisoner of war following his capture during the War of 1812. After passing the rest of 1805 with a New York family, Myers took to sea for good in 1806 when he signed on to serve as a boy on the Sterling. His fellow crewman on that voyage was the young James Fenimore Cooper, who, having been recently expelled from Yale, was shipping as a foremast hand (as was the custom at the time) in preparation for his career as a navy midshipman. Though Cooper would serve in the navy for only three years before beginning his literary career, Myers would live before the mast until 1840, when injuries forced him to land. In 1842, the crippled Myers met Cooper on the street in New York City and, in 1843, received a letter inviting him to Cooper’s upstate residence. On this visit to the lake country, the career sailor shared his life’s story with the legendary author and thus was born Ned Myers,Or, A Life Before the Mast, published in October of 1843.140

140 _{This history is assembled from Myers’s story as well as William S. Dudley, "Introduction" in Ned}

Myers; Or, A Life before the Mast (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989), vii-xix; William S. Dudley, "James Fenimore Cooper's Ned Myers: A Life before the Mast," The American Neptune 57, no. 4 (Fall, 1997), 323-329; Benjamin B. Griswold, "The Original "Ned Myers."," The Century XXVIII (May- October, 1884), 957.

Beyond the delight he must have felt upon reconnecting with a shipmate from long ago, Cooper had additional reasons for inviting Myers to Cooperstown. At the time, Cooper had just published Wyandotté, or the Hutted Knoll, which would be met with critical disdain. An anonymous reviewer for The Southern Quarterly Review described it as having “little or no plot” and being “one of the feeblest books that has ever issued from Cooper’s pen.”141 As a maritime writer, too, Cooper was behind the times, having not written a first-person forecastle narrative in the mode of Two Years. Given the overwhelming popularity of Dana’s recent book and Cooper’s recently sagging fortunes, that latter may have sensed that Myers’ story presented him with the opportunity to produce a factual before-the-mast narrative that could both revive his reputation and materially aid his old friend. Nonetheless, Cooper was unwilling to surrender completely the tale to its titular character, and the struggle for control of both the narrative and its messages emerges throughout the text.

Cooper’s introduction highlights his curious relationship to the tale, when he variously describes himself as both the “writer” and the “editor” of Ned’s story. In the standard apologia that begins the introduction, Cooper claims, “It is an old remark, that the life of any man, could the incidents be faithfully told, would possess interest and instruction for the general reader. The conviction of the perfect truth of this saying, has induced the writer to commit to paper, the vicissitudes, escapes, and opinions of one of his old shipmates” (NM 1). The attraction to the tale, for both Cooper and his readers, is the very unimportance of Ned’s life; he is, literally “any man” while the venerable author

141 _{Rev. of Wyandotté, or the Hutted Knoll in The Southern Quarterly Review. Vol. IV, no. 8 (October}

is there to tell his tale. This passage also highlights the importance of a “faithful” telling, which Cooper broaches in the following paragraph: “the reader will feel a natural desire to understand how far the editor can vouch for the truth of that which he has here written.” Now the editor of another man’s story (thereby remaining unaccountable for errors), Cooper explains that he “has the utmost confidence in all the statements of Ned, so far as intention is concerned” (NM 1-2, emphasis added). Cooper’s important and meaningful abdication of responsibility allows him to vouch for the intention but not the memory or knowledge of his former shipmate. He repeats himself later in the

introduction, reminding readers once again that, “the memory of Ned may occasionally fail him; and, as for his opinions, they doubtless are sometimes erroneous; but the writer has the fullest conviction that it is the intention of the Old Salt to relate nothing that he does not believe to have occurred, or to express an unjust sentiment” (NM 4).

Clearly, Ned Myers was not as reliable or trustworthy as Cooper would have liked him to be. Unlike the narrator of Dana’s book, Myers had never been to Harvard, nor was he “fresh from Yale,” as Cooper claimed to be in 1806 (though he had in fact been

expelled in 1805).142 The privilege that Cooper and Dana enjoyed with readers regarding their presumed truthfulness was not available to Myers, and Cooper both vouches for the title character even as he distances himself from any of Ned’s missteps, lies, and

confusions. Hence, Cooper cannot decide whether he is to be the writer or the editor, making Ned Myers is such afascinating text. Though he may have wanted to transcribe the tale directly, in the fashion of the day, Cooper has both his own standards as well as a professional reputation to consider. This double-duty sometimes required him to take

action in the text, “In a few instances [Cooper] has interposed his own greater knowledge of the world between Ned's more limited experience and the narrative; but, this has been done cautiously, and only in cases in which there can be little doubt that the narrator has been deceived by appearances, or misled by ignorance” (NM 2-3). The subject of the work, to read Cooper’s introduction, is well-intentioned but also ignorant, easily misled, possessed of a failing memory, and full of erroneous opinions. A reader could rightly wonder why Cooper had chosen to publish this man’s story, or, more cynically, whether Ned Myers the sailor was truly the author of Ned Myers the book.143

Whatever the exact details of composition, the book is certainly not a hoax, for Myers’s existence and friendship with Cooper is well-documented. However, I hope to show that sailor-authors were often trapped by their marginal class position as well as by public perceptions of both their honesty and intelligence. Such circumstances are obvious in Ned Myers as Cooper must verify that Ned has earned the right to be heard; he claims that, because of “the sound and accurate moral principles that nowappear to govern [Myers’s] acts and his opinions, we find a man every way entitled to speak for himself” (NM 3, emphasis added). The irony of such a statement was apparently lost on Cooper, and his introduction ensures that before Ned’s “speaks” in the book bearing his name, the old sailor has been pushed aside and transformed into a cautionary tale as an anti-role model for Cooper’s readers. Cooper’s need to vouch for Ned helps modern readers might better understand why Dana’s text was so popular and so well-received compared to

143 _{Egan notes that interlineal manuscript comments by Cooper as well as an outline for the book itself (in}

Cooper’s hand) suggest that Cooper may have compiled the book based only on oral exchanges with Myers. If this is indeed the case, then the book can be read as an intriguing example of literary

ventriloquism rather than a text tightly controlled by its amanuensis. Egan, Gentlemen-Sailors: The First- Person Narratives of Dana, Cooper, and Melville, 159-60.

almost every other first-person sea narrative that followed it. Two Years satisfied the demand for a truthful tale and a truthful teller, and its subject (purportedly) spoke for himself. Cooper’s introduction to Ned Myers also hints at why no sailor penned a compelling counter-narrative—that is, a book that described the sailor ethic without regard to contemporary class hierarchies—to Dana’s famous book.144

Ned’s story, which begins with Cooper’s introduction, unfolds under the firm control of the editor/writer for the first several chapters, a feature due, in part, to Cooper’s early association with Myers and shared knowledge of their shared 1806 voyage aboard the Sterling as well as his knowledge of American naval history, especially during the War of 1812. Even when Cooper was not party to Ned’s exploits, though, he insinuates himself into the text via footnotes that gloss the narrative. For example, when Ned claims that Prince Edward (his father’s military commander) left Halifax in “probably about the year 1798 or 1799,” Cooper footnotes the passage with the following note: “Edward, Duke of Kent, was born November 2, 1767 and made a peer April 23, 1799; when was a little turned of one-and-thirty. It is probable that this creation took place on his return to England” (NM 8). The lofty language of Cooper’s insertion, itself a marked contrast from Myers’s more rustic speech, not only gives the reader additional information but also verifies Myers’s claim. Perhaps Cooper wants to vouch for Myers’s honesty yet again, or to vouch for his own knowledge of English history; more likely, he demonstrates his own learnedness to cement readers’ admiration and trust. Later in the same chapter, Ned cites

144 _{Hugh Egan argues that Ned Myers is a response to Dana, but that, “In Two Years, a reader must look}

through its self-conscious romantic gesture to determine its essential conservative design; in Ned Myers, a reader must look through its self-conscious conservative design to determine its essential romantic gesture.” ibid., 140. As my arguments will show, I believe that Egan overstates the romantic gesture made by Cooper in Ned Myers.

the name of a Dr. Heizer, the head of a family with which he stayed during his first sojourn to New York in 1805. Cooper footnotes the name thusly: “This is Ned’s

pronunciation; though it is probable the name is not spelt correctly. The names of Ned are taken a good deal at random; and, doubtless, are often misspelled” (NM 16).

Contemporary reviewer Benjamin Blake was miffed by Cooper’s many intrusions, writing, “It would be curious to ascertain how often Mr. Cooper is referred to and spoken of as the Editor…Don’t forget to honor the Editor. Oh! no.”145

Though his “editorial” intrusions give him entré into all of Myers’s life story, Cooper becomes a character in the second and third chapters when Myers narrates their

Sterling voyage. Myers’s descriptions of this first voyage are by far the most descriptive (and lengthy) of any in his book, which suggests that Cooper had a great deal to do with jogging Ned’s memory. Moreover, many of the incidents Myers narrates have the sixteen-year-old Cooper at their center. For instance, Myers describes Cooper’s relationship with an old sailor named Bill:

He had taken a great liking to Cooper, whom he used to teach how to knot and splice, and other niceties of the calling, and Cooper often took him ashore with him, and amused him with historical anecdotes of the different places we visited. In short, the intimacy between them was as great as well could be, seeing the difference in the educations and ages. (NM 33)

Thus, the writer/editor of Ned Myers’s story is revealed to be both a generous and friendly shipmate with credibility as a before the mast sailor. Cooper’s relationship to Myers himself is also featured on a couple of occasions, as it is when Myers narrates his rescue from drowning by his young friend. “Had not Cooper accidentally appeared, just

145 _{Benjamin Blake Minor, "Rev. of Ned Myers; Or, A Life before the Mast," The Southern Literary}

as he did, Ned Myers's yarn would have ended with this paragraph,” claims the aged sailor, who here makes use of the third person for the first time in the text.

This back-and-forth struggle for authority and control eventually diminishes as Cooper’s admonitory voice can speak neither from experience nor firsthand knowledge concerning Myers’s later career. Nonetheless, the division between the aristocratic man of letters and the impoverished and crippled sailor remains evident in Myers’s

discussions of both revelry and regret. The revelry to which Myers refers was the theft of several gallons of whiskey, which he claims to have undertaken “more by the love of mischief, and a weak desire to have it said I was foremost in such an exploit, than from any mercenary motive” (NM 64). This episode ashore, Myers suggests, shows readers “the recklessness of sailors,” but these youthful capers and Myers’s motivation make the affair seem like little more than a schoolboy antic (NM 63).

The same frolicking tone dominates his narration of another war story, this one coming when his ship, the Julia, was captured and the injured Myers ventured below the deck to seek treatment:

A party of English was below, and some of our men having joined them, the heads were knocked out of two barrels of whiskey. The kids and bread-bags were procured, and all hands, without distinction of country, sat down to enjoy themselves. Some even began to sing, and, as for good- fellowship, it was just as marked, as it would have been in a jollification ashore. (NM 99)

This moment is one of many in Myers’s story that illuminate a particular feature of the sailor ethic; in this case, a sense of occupational fellowship trumps national association as men who had moments before been attacking one another sit and enjoy a drink. Though the fun is soon stopped by officers (quite reasonably) bent on enforcing order, the “good fellowship” that Myers remembers lives on for many years. The unlikely, ad-hoc quality

of the jollification makes it worth remarking, and this very sort of momentary meeting typified sailor recreation and community in the nineteenth century. Sailors understood better than most how suddenly life could be altered or ended by weather, war, or whim and they took advantage of their spare moments to forge connections with their fellows.

Myers was still living among his fellow seamen as a resident of Sailors’ Snug Harbor when he met with Cooper, and Myers maintained that he continued to “love the seas” after his sailing years had passed (NM 5). Most likely, he enjoyed the chance to relive the chance meetings, hurried happiness, and foolish exploits of his seagoing years by telling Cooper his life story. As Myers and Cooper were both aware, however, the pleasures of seafaring life were almost always attended by challenges and tragedies; for Myers, one of those tragedies was alcoholism.146 _{Myers’s embarrassment over his} drinking and other moral failures is on display throughout his story; he consistently repents of his former actions in an effort to appear before readers as a qualified moral guide. This tone dominated many sea narratives of the period which, like Dana’s, sought both to raise public awareness of sailors’ plight and to highlight the fact that misguided sailors were in fact redeemable. So common was this narrative move that reviewer Benjamin Minor wrote, “We have neither time, nor space, nor inclination to rewrite Ned’s history. Suffice it to say…he became a great rogue and an abandoned sot; and was a pretty genuine scamp. Of all this, however, he has repented and now preaches very

146 _{Though he was devoted Christian and a temperance man when he met Cooper in 1843, Myers began}

drinking again a few years later and died in 1849, due in large part to his alcoholism. See Dudley,

good morality, especially to sailors.”147 _{Clearly no fan of Cooper’s book, Minor has also} heard the same story before and finds its repetition unnecessary.

To Cooper and/or Myers, however, this moral component was the most important aspect of book. Myers registers his embarrassment over his immoral past throughout his story, and he consistently repents of his former actions in an effort to appear before readers as a qualified moral guide. Describing the caper ashore during the War of 1812, Myers claims, “I ought to feel ashamed, and do feel ashamed of what occurred that night; but I must relate it, lest I feel more ashamed for concealing the truth. We had spliced the main-brace pretty freely throughout the day, and the pull I got in the grocery just made me ripe for mischief” (NM 63). Later, as a prisoner on Melville Island in Halifax harbor