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 overtaken it.