Sailors Talking on Watch

[Daniel]

I think I read somewhere in Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast that sailors (as opposed to officers, obviously) on the Pilgrim and the Alert were not allowed to talk to each other while they were on deck or aloft. The reason wasn't stated, although I can imagine that the officers might prefer not to have to shout over a lot of other people's voices when they needed to give an order. This would have been about 1835 or 1836.

Was there a general rule of compulsory silence aboard sailing ships dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries? Or was the rule on Dana's ships limited to America, or to the 19th century, or both? I assume the pirates would not have had such a rule; at least, I've seen no such rule in any of their articles. But would their merchant and naval contemporaries have been accustomed to having to work in silence?

Come to think of it, there's nothing about staying silent on watch in the Royal Navy Articles of War of 1757, either, so long as you don't say anything mutinous, seditious, insulting, etc.

[Silver]

the only call for silence other then a church service or the captian speaking or lights out is the drill for exercising the great guns. the second command after "take heed" is "silence". this is the british navy drill, i read somewhere that the french didn't demand silence of the gunners at the guns and there was much confusing because of it. i'll try and find that quote.

[Red Cat Jenny]

Whistling also, at sea was believed to bring great malestroms along

Curiously along with with cutting nails and trimming beards..

[Matty Bottles]

Daniel, I can't remember - did both captains forbid talking, or only the crazy one from the first part of the voyage. Because as I recall, he was an extreme example even for a captain. I can remember how he whipped the one fellow, and when the sailor started praying and crying out for Jesus, the captain said "Jesus can't help you! I'm your God now!"

That seemed a litle crazy to me.

[Daniel]

Daniel, I can't remember - did both captains forbid talking, or only the crazy one from the first part of the voyage. Because as I recall, he was an extreme example even for a captain. I can remember how he whipped the one fellow, and when the sailor started praying and crying out for Jesus, the captain said "Jesus can't help you! I'm your God now!"

That seemed a litle crazy to me.

Good question; certainly Thompson was an exceptionally brutal captain, and he did tell that man that Jesus couldn't help him.

I looked on line and dug up Dana's actual words. He was writing that he wanted to "correct a mistake prevalent among landsmen about a sailor's life," namely that seamen are "very idle at sea." As one of his counter-examples, he then wrote: "No conversation is allowed among the crew at their duty, and though they frequently do talk when aloft, or when near one another, yet they stop when an officer is nigh." (Seethis online version of Dana, at p. 16). So it seems that Dana certainly thought that the no-conversation rule was universal, or at least wanted his readers to think so.