FREEMASONS NEVER REVULGE

Bill Whelan

2024 04 16

Moses Bursey went to Carbonear from his home in Old Perlican to join the sealing fleet. The year was probably 1873, or thereabouts. He was 18 years of age.   He wanted to go sealing again. Amongst the fine fleet in Carbonear harbor was the brig Thomas Ridley, a pure sailing vessel, not a steamship.   Bursey saw Captain William Taylor at his home and asked to be taken on for the trip. Captain Taylor gave him breakfast and signed him on. Moses Bursey was a very promising young man, it seems. He carried all before him.

Then he went to the ship’s owners for his crop.    This was a pair of deck boots, an oil-skin jacket, 3 yards of canvas to make a jumper, and a pair of eye-goggles to prevent snow-blindness .

They sailed from Carbonear on the 5^th of March with a favorable southwest breeze. Crowds alongshore waved goodbye. There was much to eat that first day out, lots of bread and coffee. There was also the preparation of salt pork and duff for next day’s dinner.  Young Bursey was cheered by this. Three Master Watches picked men in turn that first day.   Bursey was proud to be picked early, in preference to others.

The Ridley brig had fine weather for the first week but then became beset in the ice when the wind came up from the ENE and pushed the ice onto the shore.   The vessel drifted south with the ice, helpless, in stormy weather.  The men soon realized that it was a gone spring.   They had missed their chance at the seals, who had by now taken to the water. It was then they decided to form a secret society.   They asked Bursey whether he would like to join the Freemasons.   He says he replied: “No, I never intend to.”   He was told then that he would be compelled to join and must be prepared to be initiated that night.

He and others were kept waiting in the galley.  After a while Bursey was ordered to the fo’c’sle by a tall man in a policeman’s coat, a high hat, and a mask. Bursey was taken to a small box and made to stand on it.  This was the box that supported the stove in normal times.  And so, of course, it was directly under the place where the stovepipe ran through the decking.  The stove had been removed.

Then they forced Bursey’s arms up through the stovepipe gap.   His wrists were grabbed swiftly and held by the captain, a very strong man.  Then there was improvised music and a chorus of all the men singing:  “Never revulge….Never revulge…”

Never Revulge is apparently a combination of Masonic pledges: Never Reveal and Never Divulge. 

Moses Bursey’s position was not comfortable.   He stood on a box with his arms held well above his head by a man he could not see. Then someone tipped icy seawater down his upstretched arms, down his sleeves, slowly at first but then more rapidly until he was wet from head to toe and his boots were full.   Meanwhile the lunatic chorus continued:  “Never revulge… Never revulge…. Never ….”

At last they let him go, gave him a hot drink and called him Brother.   He shook hands with various brothers and changed his clothes.   Then he helped initiate others, twenty in all.

Ridley had various adventures at the ice that spring but took no seals.   They were back in Carbonear by the middle of April. When Bursey left the Ridley brig, he had no money but carried bread and butter wrapped in a pocket handkerchief, a packet of tea, and a bag of dirty clothes.   With these he set out to walk the 30 miles to his home.   Although the trip to the ice had been a failure in monetary terms, he was happy.

“And was I not a Freemason?”

ends