voyages, till the war with Spain broke out in January 1762. Having
saved a good round sum, he equipped a privateer, and took command of
her as captain, to cruise against the French and Spaniards; but he had
not been three days at sea, when his crew mutinied, and sent him that
which is called in sea-phraseology a round-robin (a corruption of an
old French military term, the _ruban rond_, or round ribbon), in which
they wrote their names in a circle; hence none could know who was the
leader.
Arming himself with his cutlass and pistols, Glass came on deck, and
offered to fight, hand to hand, any man who conceived himself to be
wronged in any way. But the crew, knowing his personal strength, his
skill and resolution, declined the challenge. He succeeded in pacifying
them by fair words; and the capture of a valuable French merchantman
a few days after put them all in excellent humour. This gleam of
good fortune was soon after clouded by an encounter with an enemy’s
frigate, which though twice the size of his privateer, Glass resolved
to engage; and for two hours they fought broadside to broadside, till
another French vessel bore down on him, and he was compelled to strike
his colours, after half his crew had been killed and he had received a
musket-shot in the shoulder.
He remained for some time a French prisoner of war in the Antilles,
where he was treated with excessive severity; but upon being exchanged,
he resolved to embark the remainder of his fortune in another
privateer, and ‘have it out,’ as he said, with the French and Dons. But
he was again taken in action, and lost everything he had in the world.
On being released a second time, he was employed by London merchants
in several voyages to the West Indies, in command of ships that fought
their way without convoy; and according to a statement in the _Annual
Register_, he was captured no less than _seven_ times. But after
various fluctuations of fortune, when the general peace took place in
1763, he found himself possessed of two thousand guineas prize-money,
with the reputation of being one of the best merchant captains in the
Port of London.
About that time, a Company there resolved to make an attempt to form
a settlement on the west coast of Africa, by founding a harbour and
town midway between the Cape de Verd and the river Senegal. In the
London and other papers of the day we find many statements urging the
advantage of opening up the Guinea-trade; among others, a strange
letter from a merchant, who tells us he was taken prisoner in a battle
on that coast, and that when escaping he ‘crossed a forest within view
of the sea, where there lay elephants’ teeth in quantities sufficient
to load one hundred ships.’
In the interests of this new Company Glass sailed in a ship of his own
to the coast of Guinea, and selected and surveyed a harbour at a place
which he was certain might become the centre of a great trade in teak
and cam woods, spices, palm oil and ivory, wax and gold. Elated with
his success, he returned to England, and laid his scheme before the
ministry, among whom were John Earl of Sandwich, Secretary of State,
and the Earl of Hillsborough, Commissioner of Trade and Plantations.
With truly national patience and perseverance, he underwent all
the procrastination and delays of office, but ultimately obtained
an exclusive right of trading to his own harbour for twenty years.
Assisted by two merchants‒the Company would seem to have failed‒he
fitted out his ship anew, and sailed for the intended harbour; and sent
on shore a man who knew the country well, to make propositions of trade
with the natives, who put him to death the moment they saw him.
Undiscouraged by this event, Captain Glass found means to open up a
communication with the king of the country, to lay before him the
wrong that had been done, and the advantages that were certain to
accrue from mutual trade and barter. The sable potentate affected to
be pleased with the proposal, but only to the end that he might get
Glass completely into his power; but the Scotsman was on his guard, and
foiled him.
The king then attempted to poison the whole crew by provisions which he
sent on board impregnated by some deadly drug. Glass, by his previous
medical knowledge perhaps, discovered this in time; but so scarce had
food become in his vessel, that he was compelled to go with a few hands
in an open boat to the Canaries, where he hoped to purchase what he
wanted from the Spaniards.
In his absence the savages were encouraged to attack the ship in their
war-canoes; but were repulsed by a sharp musketry-fire opened upon
them by the remainder of the crew, who losing heart by the protracted
absence of the captain, quitted his fatal harbour, and sailed for the
Thames, which they reached in safety.
Meanwhile the unfortunate captain, after landing on one of the
Canaries, presented a petition to the Spanish governor to the effect
that he might be permitted to purchase food; but that officer, inflamed
by national animosity, cruelly threw him into a dark and damp dungeon,
and kept him there without pen, ink, or paper, on the accusation that
he was a spy. Being thus utterly without means of making his case
known, he contrived another way of communicating with the external
world. One account has it that he concealed a pencilled note in a loaf
of bread which fell into the hands of the British consul; another
states that he wrote with a piece of charcoal on a ship-biscuit and
sent it to the captain of a British man-of-war that was lying off
the island, and who with much difficulty, and after being imprisoned
himself, effected the release of Glass. The latter, on being joined
by his wife and daughter, who had come in search of him, set sail for
England in 1765, on board the merchant brig _Earl of Sandwich_, Captain
Cochrane.
Glass doubtless supposed his troubles were now over; but the knowledge
that much of his property and a great amount of specie, one hundred
thousand pounds, belonging to others, was on board, induced four of
the crew to form a conspiracy to murder every one else and seize the
ship. These mutineers were respectively George Gidley, the cook, a
native of the west of England; Peter M’Kulie, an Irishman; Andrew
Zekerman, a Hollander; and Richard H. Quintin, a Londoner. On three
different nights they are stated to have made the attempt, but were
baffled by the vigilance of Captain Glass, rather than that of his
countryman, Captain Cochrane; but at eleven o’clock at night on the
30th of November 1765, it chanced, as shewn at their trial, that these
four miscreants had together the watch on deck, when the _Sandwich_ was
already in sight of the coast of Ireland; and when Captain Cochrane,
after taking a survey aloft, was about to return to the cabin, Peter
M’Kulie brained him with ‘an iron bar’ (probably a marline-spike), and
threw him overboard.
A cry that had escaped Cochrane alarmed the rest of the crew, who were
all despatched in the same manner as they rushed on deck in succession.
This slaughter and the din it occasioned roused Captain Glass, who was
below in bed; but he soon discovered what was occurring, and after
giving one glance on deck, rushed away to get his sword. M’Kulie
imagining the cause of his going back, went down the steps leading
to the cabin, and stood in the dark, expecting Glass’s return, and
suddenly seized his arms from behind; but the captain being a man of
great strength, wrenched his sword-arm free, and on being assailed by
the other three assassins, plunged his weapon into the arm of Zekerman,
when the blade became wedged or entangled. It was at length wrenched
forth, and Glass was slain by repeated stabs of his own weapon, while
his dying cries were heard by his wife and daughter‒two unhappy beings
who were ruthlessly thrown overboard and drowned.
Besides these four victims, James Pincent, the mate, and three others
lost their lives. The mutineers now loaded one of the boats with the
money, chests, and so forth, and then scuttled the _Sandwich_, and
landed at Ross on the coast of Ireland. But suspicion speedily attached
to them; they were apprehended; and confessing the crimes of which they
had been guilty, were tried before the Court of King’s Bench, Dublin,
and sentenced to death. They were accordingly executed in St Stephen’s
Green, on the 10th of October 1765.
AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE.
On a bright cold day in April 1719, a travelling carriage with three
postillions dashed, full of the importance which always attends a
fashionable well-built vehicle, into the famous but not progressive
town of Innsbruck. The carriage contained four persons, said to be
going to Loretto on pilgrimage‒the Comte and Comtesse de Cernes, with
the brother and sister of the comtesse; and as the aristocratic party
alighted at their hotel, they created some sensation among those who
clustered round the porch in the clear sharp twilight. The comtesse
and her sister were very much enveloped in furs, and wore travelling
masks, which effectually screened their faces from the vulgar gaze,
and diverted the curiosity of the homely Tyrolese to the undisguised
figures of the comte and the comtesse’s brother. The former was the
statelier of the two, but the latter was universally pronounced to
be _ein herrlicher Mensch_. There was a certain sprightly grace in
his movements which yet did not detract from the dignity essential in
those days to a gentleman, and which would have saved him from being
addressed with too great familiarity. The news soon circulated among
the loungers that the fresh arrivals were Flemings; and the pleasant
blue eyes of the comte and his brother-in-law‒though certainly not the
sprightly grace of the latter‒accorded with these floating accounts of
their origin.
The pretty Tyrolese hostess, whose face was so charmingly set off
by the trim smartness of her velvet bodice and scarlet petticoat,
together with various silver chains, gleefully returned to her parlour
and her burly good-tempered husband, after attending the ladies to
their apartments. She had seen the Comtesse de Cernes without her furs
and travelling mask, dressed in lilac camlet turned up with silk; so
handsome, so gracious, so talkative, that the hostess thought she must
be French; for the hostess had seen plenty of French people before
now, besides Flemings. The comtesse was dark-haired and dark-eyed; her
sister, who had also divested herself of her mask, did not equal her in
appearance. Every one at the inn was glad that the amiable party from
Flanders were going to rest there four days.
Their supper was ordered in a private room, where the host and hostess
waited on them in person, and consequently had the best of it with
the loungers afterwards. The two gentlemen were in good spirits, and
the hostess thought their talk none the less amusing for being in a
language which she did not understand. Their laughing looks and easy
action conveyed to her mind a sufficient sense of fun to make her fair
face shine placidly in sympathy. Altogether they were the liveliest
Flemings she had ever seen; and their good-humour seemed to be shared
by the three postillions, two of whom were Walloons and one Italian,
and who were making themselves very popular among the _habitués_ of the
inn.
‘Well, this is a pleasant little town of yours, _mes amis_,’ said the
vivacious Walloon outrider, who contrasted strikingly with his great,
tall, quietly smiling companion. ‘One could die of ennui here as well
as at Liege.’
‘No, you could not,’ returned a long spare poetic Tyrolese, who spent
most of his evenings at the inn, but never drank; notwithstanding which
peculiarity he and the host were warm friends. ‘We mountain-folk are
not dull; our hills and our torrents permit of no dullness.’
‘Very well perhaps for you who are born to it, to hang by your eyelids
on rocky ledges, or balance yourselves over what are called in verses
the silver threads of waterfalls, in pursuit of an undoubtedly clever
and pretty little animal; but all that would be dull work to us. And
then you have not a _noblesse_. What should we do without ours? There
would be no one to whom one could be postillion.’
‘We are our own _noblesse_,’ said the spare poetic Tyrolese.
‘And you cannot say, Claude,’ observed the tall Walloon, ‘that
Innsbruck is without _noblesse_ at the present moment; nay more, it
contains royalty in the shape of two captive princesses!’
‘One of them the grand-daughter of the hero who saved this empire from
the Turks, for which the Emperor now keeps her in durance.’
‘Take care, Monsieur,’ said the host (he pronounced ‘Monsieur’
execrably); ‘we are all the Kaiser’s loyal subjects here in Tyrol.’
‘Pardon, _mein Wirth_,’ replied Claude, who pronounced German as badly
as the host did French. ‘You know we men who run about the world laugh
at everything, and too often let our tongues run faster than our feet.’
‘And after all,’ observed the Italian, ‘it is doing the young princess
no bad turn to prevent her marrying a prince out of place, who is not
likely to recover his situation.’
The Flemings spent the few days of their sojourn at Innsbruck in
visiting the churches and seeing what was to be seen in the town.
The Comtesse de Cernes’s brother was the busiest of the party. On
the morning after his arrival he met in a church porch a rather
impish-looking boy in the dress of a ‘long-haired page,’ and the
two held a brief colloquy. To this stylish page, in whom the rather
shapeless Slavonic type of countenance was widened out by smiles of
assurance, the gentleman from Flanders delivered a letter, together
with a wonderful snuff-box, cut out of a single turquoise, ‘for his
mistress to look at.’ On the three remaining days likewise the two met
in different spots; the boy restored the snuff-box, and brought some
letters written in a fashionable pointed hand, in return for those with
which the Fleming had intrusted him.
The party were to set out on their southward way at two o’clock on the
morning of the 28th of April. The evening of the 27th was overshadowed
by clouds, driven by a sharp north-east wind. Notwithstanding the
aspects of the weather, the brother of the Comtesse de Cernes, standing
in the midst of his little party in their private room, donned his
cocked-hat and surtout.
‘Well, Wogan,’ said the comte, ‘if practice makes perfect, you are a
professor in the art of effecting escapes. After having burst your way
out of Newgate, and been valued at five hundred English guineas (much
below your worth of course), and cooled yourself for some hours on
the roof of a London house, and reached France safely after all, you
ought to be able to abstract a young lady from the careless custody of
Heister and his sentinels.’
‘I shall be ashamed if I fail, after wringing from Prince Sobieski his
consent to the attempt, and after his giving me the Grand Vizier’s
snuff-box; but I always find that doing things for other people is more
difficult than doing them for one’s self.’
‘I should say she was a clever girl,’ remarked the comte, ‘and her page
a clever page.’
‘I wonder if Jannetton is ready?’ said the comtesse, retiring into
the bedroom occupied by the ladies, whence she soon emerged with her
sister, who wore her paletot, and was smiling sufficiently to shew two
rows of exquisitely white teeth. The comtesse on the contrary seemed
somewhat affected. ‘_Adieu, Jannetton, mais au revoir._ There will be
no danger to you, and the Archduchess will take care that you join me
in Italy.’
Jannetton vowed she had no fears; and went forth into the deepening
twilight, being shortly afterwards followed by the gentleman in
cocked-hat and surtout. Curiosity did not now dog the Flemish
pilgrims, as it had done while they were altogether novelties, and the
adventurers slipped out unobserved. Meanwhile the ‘long-haired page’
was busy at one of the side-doors of the castle, where he was often
wont to converse with the sentinel on duty.
‘I don’t envy you your trade, Martin,’ he said, standing within the
porch, to the hapless soldier pacing up and down in the keen wind.
‘Glory is one thing and comfort another; but after all, very often no
one hears of the glory, whereas the comfort is a tangible benefit. With
the wind in the north-east and a snow-storm beginning, I at least would
rather be comfortable than glorious.’
‘A man who has seen campaigns thinks but little of a snow-storm, Herr
Konska.’
‘But they generally put you into winter-quarters,’ said Konska, not
wishing the sentinel to pique himself on his hardihood.
‘No matter; a soldier learns what hardship is. I wish you could see a
shot-and-shell storm instead of a snow-storm, or a forest of bayonets
poked into your face by those demons of Irish in the French service.’
‘Well, I say it is a shame not to treat you men better who have braved
all that. See here; there is not even a sentry-box where you can nurse
your freezing feet. Ugh!’ And Konska withdrew, presumably to warmer
regions, while the soldier preserved a heroic appearance as he paced
shivering on his narrow beat. But a few minutes later Konska, stealing
back to the door, saw that his martial friend was no longer at his
post. The impish page pointed for a moment in ecstasy to a tavern
temptingly visible from the sentry’s beat. Then he darted back in
delight to whence he came.
While the snow-clouds were gathering over Innsbruck, and before the
Flemish chevalier had put on his surtout, two ladies conversed in low
tones in a chamber of the castle, of which General Heister was then the
commandant. Only one lady was visible; rather elderly, very stately,
and somewhat careworn in appearance. But that the other speaker was of
gentle sex and rank might be presumed from the tones of a voice which
issued from the closed curtains of the bed. It might even be the voice
of a young girl.
‘I hope you will not get into trouble, mamma,’ said the mysterious
occupier of the bed.
‘Hardly, if you write a proper letter on the subject of your departure,
as the Chevalier Wogan advises. You must cover my complicity by begging
my pardon.’
‘I am afraid you must write it yourself, mamma, as I am _hors de
combat_.’
‘That would not be to the purpose, my dear child: the general would
know my handwriting. I will push a table up to you; no one will
disturb us now till your substitute comes.’ She carried a light table,
furnished with inkstand and _papetière_ to the side of the bed, and
made an aperture in the curtains, whence emerged the rosy bright-eyed
face of a girl‒who certainly did not look the invalid she otherwise
appeared to be‒and a white hand with an aristocratic network of blue
veins.
‘Will that do, mamma?’ she asked, after covering a page with writing
equally elegant and difficult to read. ‘Have I apologised and stated my
reasons for going, eloquently enough? Oh, how I hope that I shall some
day be a queen in my own capital, and that you and papa will come and
live there!’
The mamma sighed, as swift imagination presented to her mind all the
obstacles to so glorious a consummation; but she expressed herself well
satisfied with the letter, which she placed on the toilet table. ‘I
shall leave you now,’ she said; ‘you will find me in my room when you
wish to bid me farewell.’ She spoke with a certain stately sadness as
she left the apartment. The next person who entered it was the Comtesse
de Cernes’s sister in her paletot, with a hood drawn forward over her
face. She only said: ‘_Que votre Altesse me pardonne!_’ (Pardon me,
your Highness.)
Instantly the curtains divided once more, and the whole radiant vision
of the mysterious invalid, clad in a dressing-gown richly trimmed with
French lace, and shewing a face sparkling with animation, sprang forth
laughing: ‘You are the substitute?’
‘Yes, your Highness!’
‘I am sure I thank you very heartily, as well as Madame Misset and the
Chevalier Wogan, and all the kind and loyal friends who are taking so
much trouble for my consort and for me. The Archduchess will take good
care of you, Jannetton.’
Jannetton again shewed her teeth in a courtly smile as she courtesied
deeply. She was already persuaded that she would be well cared for, in
reward for the mysterious services she had come to render the captive
lady. She disencumbered herself of her paletot, and looked amazingly
like a very neat French waiting-maid until she had bedizened herself in
the young lady’s beautifully worked dressing-gown. Then she speedily
disappeared behind the curtains of the bed; while the invalid, wrapping
herself in the paletot, rushed into the next room to embrace with
tears and smiles her anxious mamma, who said but little, and was now
only eager to hurry her away. There too she took possession of her
page, and a small box which was to accompany her flight down the dark
staircases. ‘Your Highness will find all safe,’ said the solemn page,
who was careful to suppress outer signs of his innate roguishness in
the presence of his mistresses.
‘The sentinel will not know me?’ said the young lady.
‘I am sure that he will not. Even if by chance he should look out from
the window of the tavern where he is now ensconced, it is not very
likely that he would know your Highness.’
The black clouds which obscured the blueness of the April night had
broken forth into a lashing storm of hail and wind before the young
girl and the page sallied forth into the darkness. She could hardly
keep her footing in the wet deserted streets; her hood was blown back,
and her fair hair became dangerously visible; her paletot was splashed
with the mud thrown up by her tread, and battered with hail; still she
laughed at all difficulties, for a hero’s blood flowed in her veins,
and now and then steadied herself by a touch on the page’s shoulder as
they floundered on. At the corner of a street they suddenly came upon
a dark figure, whose first appearance as it crossed her path caused
the fugitive to start back in some alarm. But it was only the Comtesse
de Cernes’s brother; and the young lady’s mind was relieved when with
a swift grace he bent for a moment over her hand with the words: ‘My
princess, soon to be my sovereign, accept the homage, even in a dark
street and a hail-storm, of your loyal servant, Charles Wogan.’
‘Oh, my protector and good angel! is it indeed you?’ replied the young
lady. ‘Be assured that I would gladly go through many dark streets and
hail-storms to join my consort!’
And certainly this was a generous expression to use concerning a
consort whom she had never seen. She and the Flemish chevalier were
apparently old friends; and he had soon conducted her to the inn, which
the page Konska, however, was not to enter with his mistress; he was
to wait in a sheltered archway until the Comte de Cernes’s travelling
carriage should pick him up on its way out of Innsbruck in the darkness
of early morning. With a grimace he departed for this covert, while
his mistress was hurried into the warm atmosphere of the Comtesse de
Cernes’s bedroom, where that would-be Loretto pilgrim knelt and kissed
her hand. But better even than loyal kisses were the bright wood-fire,
the posset, and the dry clothes which also awaited her in this room.
‘And you are Madame Misset, the noble Irish lady of whom my good angel
Wogan speaks in his letters! How can I thank you for the trouble you
take for me! I regard him quite in the place of my papa. But you all
seem to be as good as he is!’
‘Madame,’ replied the lady thus addressed, with all the loyalty of
eighteenth-century speech, ‘your Highness knows that it is a delight
to a subject to serve such a sovereign as our gracious prince; and all
that I have done is at my husband’s bidding.’
‘With such subjects, I am sure it will not be long before he regains
his throne. Ah, this delightful fire! Do you know, Madame, it is
snowing and hailing outside as if it were January!’