Retitled 'Poor Mercantile Jack' in collected editions of the series
As Basil Lubbock has noted, 'legislation in the days of sail gave absolute power into the hands of the sea-captain' ('The Mercantile Marine, 1830–65' in Early Victorian England, ed. G.M. Young, Vol. 1, pp. 387–88). The Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 tightened rather than eased the procedures by which an ordinary merchant sailor might formally complain of mistreatment by senior officers, to discourage the lodging of unfounded complaints. While the same Act devoted a small number of its sections to steps for the 'Protection of Seamen from Imposition' (17 & 18 Vict. Cap. 104, Sections 233–38), these applied only while seamen returning to the United Kingdom remained aboard their vessels, and the only penalties were small fines (£5 to £20).
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