(MDMD Chapter 4) What the Seahorse Saw

[John Bailey]

You like boats? http://www.boat-links.com/linklists/boatlink-19.html

Well, there are many many references to the Seahorse as a, well, a horse 
here. It shrieks hoarsely, it’s a ‘jackass’ frigate, it throws itself like a 
tethered beast against it’s anchor cables, and so on. And of course, there’s 
the name, and the motto.

That’s all nice. It was also a real vessel, but was it the same Seahorse 
that carried Horatio Nelson to the East Indies a couple of decades later? 
Not a naval history buff myself.

http://www.boston.com/news/packages/sailboston/stories/before_the_mast+.shtml

Part of the following quote is mentioned in this chapter: ''No man will be a 
sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself in jail,'' Samuel Johnson 
said at mid-century, ''for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the 
chance of being drowned. A man in a jail has more room, better food and 
commonly better company.'' It certainly sounds like an accurate description, 
and to be honest, Pynchon doesn’t go as far as he could have in painting the 
terrible conditions of shipboard life, in which there’s a lot more to worry 
about than ‘slipping in goat shit’.

(From the above page) “Nelson's early naval service gives a good indication 
of the frequency with which masters resorted to the lash; during his 18 
months aboard the frigate Seahorse, the teenage seaman saw men flogged on at 
least 200 occasions. Naval records show that in 1810, 31 members of the ship 
Alfred were flogged for different offenses on the same day.” Makes Capt. 
Smith look like a kindly old Reverend doesn’t it, Reverend. Of course, 
something may have been omitted in the retelling, but then floggings are the 
kind of thing that spell Storytelling Gold, at least to these twins.


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