Waxel, as
he recovered, was afraid of tempting revolt with orders, and convened the
crew by vote to determine all that should be done. Officers and
men--there was no distinction. By March of 1742 the ground had cleared
of snow. Waxel called a meeting to suggest breaking up the packet vessel
to build a smaller craft. A vote {58} was asked. The resolution was
called, written out, and signed by every survivor, but afterward, when
officers and men set themselves to the well-nigh impossible task of
untackling the ship without implements of iron, revolt appeared among the
workers. Again Waxel avoided mutiny. A meeting was called, another vote
taken, the recalcitrants shamed down. The crew lacked more than tools.
There was no ship's carpenter. Finally a Cossack, who was afterward
raised to the nobility for his work, consented to act as director of the
building, and on the 6th of May a vessel forty feet long, thirteen beam,
and six deep, was on the stocks. All June, the noise of the planking
went on till the mast raised its yard-arms, and an eight-oared
single-master, such as the old Vikings of the North Sea used, was well
under way.
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