Chapter 48

PURSER, PURSER’S STEWARD, AND POSTMASTER IN A MAN-OF-WAR.

As the Purser’s steward so conspicuously figured at the unsuccessful auction of my jacket, it reminds me of how important a personage that official is on board of all men-of-war. He is the right-hand man and confidential deputy and clerk of the Purser, who intrusts to him all his accounts with the crew, while, in most cases, he himself, snug and comfortable in his state-room, glances over a file of newspapers instead of overhauling his ledgers.

Of all the non-combatants of a man-of-war, the Purser, perhaps, stands foremost in importance. Though he is but a member of the gun-room mess, yet usage seems to assign him a conventional station somewhat above that of his equals in navy rank—the Chaplain, Surgeon, and Professor. Moreover, he is frequently to be seen in close conversation with the Commodore, who, in the Neversink, was more than once known to be slightly jocular with our Purser. Upon several occasions, also, he was called into the Commodore’s cabin, and remained closeted there for several minutes together. Nor do I remember that there ever happened a cabinet meeting of the ward-room barons, the Lieutenants, in the Commodore’s cabin, but the Purser made one of the party. Doubtless the important fact of the Purser having under his charge all the financial affairs of a man-of-war, imparts to him the great importance he enjoys. Indeed, we find in every government—monarchies and republics alike—that the personage at the head of the finances invariably occupies a commanding position. Thus, in point of station, the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States is deemed superior to the other heads of departments. Also, in England, the real office held by the great Premier himself is—as every one knows—that of First Lord of the Treasury.

Now, under this high functionary of state, the official known as the Purser’s Steward was head clerk of the frigate’s fiscal affairs. Upon the berth-deck he had a regular counting-room, full of ledgers, journals, and day-books. His desk was as much littered with papers as any Pearl Street merchant’s, and much time was devoted to his accounts. For hours together you would see him, through the window of his subterranean office, writing by the light of his perpetual lamp.

Ex-officio, the Purser’s Steward of most ships is a sort of postmaster, and his office the post-office. When the letter-bags for the squadron—almost as large as those of the United States mail—arrived on board the Neversink, it was the Purser’s Steward that sat at his little window on the berth-deck and handed you your letter or paper—if any there were to your address. Some disappointed applicants among the sailors would offer to buy the epistles of their more fortunate shipmates, while yet the seal was unbroken—maintaining that the sole and confidential reading of a fond, long, domestic letter from any man’s home, was far better than no letter at all.

In the vicinity of the office of the Purser’s Steward are the principal store-rooms of the Purser, where large quantities of goods of every description are to be found. On board of those ships where goods are permitted to be served out to the crew for the purpose of selling them ashore, to raise money, more business is transacted at the office of a Purser’s Steward in one Liberty-day morning than all the dry goods shops in a considerable village would transact in a week.