When a good deal of time had been spent, most of it indeed wasted on

this occasion, a thought occurred which every one wondered at its not

having presented itself the first moment. This was to apply to the good

lady, who could not fail of pitying and relieving such distress. A

messenger was immediately despatched with an account of our misfortune,

till whose return we employed ourselves in preparatives for our

departure, that we might have nothing to do but to swallow our breakfast

when it arrived. The tea-chest, though of no less consequence to us than

the military-chest to a general, was given up as lost, or rather as

stolen; for though I would not, for the world, mention any particular

name, it is certain we had suspicions, and all, I am afraid, fell on the

same person.

The man returned from the worthy lady with much expedition, and brought

with him a canister of tea, despatched with so true a generosity, as

well as politeness, that if our voyage had been as long again we should

have incurred no danger of being brought to a short allowance in this

most important article. At the very same instant likewise arrived

William the footman with our own tea-chest. It had been, indeed, left in

the hoy, when the other goods were re-landed, as William, when he first

heard it was missing, had suspected; and whence, had not the owner of

the hoy been unluckily out of the way, he had retrieved it soon enough

to have prevented our giving the lady an opportunity of displaying some

part of her goodness.

To search the hoy was, indeed, too natural a suggestion to have escaped

any one, nor did it escape being mentioned by many of us; but we were

dissuaded from it by my wife's maid, who perfectly well remembered she

had left the chest in the bed-chamber; for that she had never given it

out of her hand in her way to or from the hoy; but William perhaps knew

the maid better, and best understood how far she was to be believed; for

otherwise he would hardly of his own accord, after hearing her

declaration, have hunted out the hoy-man, with much pains and

difficulty.

Thus ended this scene, which begun with such appearance of distress, and

ended with becoming the subject of mirth and laughter.

Nothing now remained but to pay our taxes, which were indeed laid with

inconceivable severity. Lodging was raised sixpence, fire in the same

proportion, and even candles, which had hitherto escaped, were charged

with a wantonness of imposition, from the beginning, and placed under

the stile of oversight. We were raised a whole pound, whereas we had

only burned ten, in five nights, and the pound consisted of twenty-four.

Lastly, an attempt was made which almost as far exceeds human credulity

to believe as it did human patience to submit to. This was to make us

pay as much for existing an hour or two as for existing a whole day; and

dressing dinner was introduced as an article, though we left the house

before either pot or spit had approached the fire. Here I own my

patience failed me, and I became an example of the truth of the

observation, "That all tyranny and oppression may be carried too far,

and that a yoke may be made too intolerable for the neck of the tamest

slave." When I remonstrated, with some warmth, against this grievance,

Mrs Francis gave me a look, and left the room without making any answer.

She returned in a minute, running to me with pen, ink, and paper, in her

hand, and desired me to make my own bill; "for she hoped," she said, "I

did not expect that her house was to be dirtied, and her goods spoiled

and consumed, for nothing. The whole is but thirteen shillings. Can

gentlefolks lie a whole night at a public-house for less? If they can I

am sure it is time to give off being a landlady: but pay me what you

please; I would have people know that I value money as little as other

folks. But I was always a fool, as I says to my husband, and never knows

which side my bread is buttered of. And yet, to be sure, your honour

shall be my warning not to be bit so again. Some folks knows better than

other some how to make their bills. Candles! why yes, to be sure; why

should not travellers pay for candles? I am sure I pays for my candles,

and the chandler pays the king's majesty for them; and if he did not I

must, so as it comes to the same thing in the end. To be sure I am out

of sixteens at present, but these burn as white and as clear, though not

quite so large. I expects my chandler here soon, or I would send to

Portsmouth, if your honour was to stay any time longer. But when folks

stays only for a wind, you knows there can be no dependence on such!"

Here she put on a little slyness of aspect, and seemed willing to submit

to interruption. I interrupted her accordingly by throwing down half a

guinea, and declared I had no more English money, which was indeed

true; and, as she could not immediately change the thirty-six shilling

pieces, it put a final end to the dispute. Mrs Francis soon left the

room, and we soon after left the house; nor would this good woman see us

or wish us a good voyage.

I must not, however, quit this place, where we had been so ill-treated,

without doing it impartial justice, and recording what may, with the

strictest truth, be said in its favour.

First, then, as to its situation, it is, I think, most delightful, and

in the most pleasant spot in the whole island. It is true it wants the

advantage of that beautiful river which leads from Newport to Cowes; but

the prospect here extending to the sea, and taking in Portsmouth,

Spithead, and St Helen's, would be more than a recompence for the loss

of the Thames itself, even in the most delightful part of Berkshire or

Buckinghamshire, though another Denham, or another Pope, should unite in

celebrating it. For my own part, I confess myself so entirely fond of a

sea prospect, that I think nothing on the land can equal it; and if it

be set off with shipping, I desire to borrow no ornament from the _terra

firma_. A fleet of ships is, in my opinion, the noblest object which the

art of man hath ever produced; and far beyond the power of those

architects who deal in brick, in stone, or in marble.

When the late Sir Robert Walpole, one of the best of men and of

ministers, used to equip us a yearly fleet at Spithead, his enemies of

taste must have allowed that he, at least, treated the nation with a

fine sight for their money. A much finer, indeed, than the same expence

in an encampment could have produced. For what indeed is the best idea

which the prospect of a number of huts can furnish to the mind, but of a

number of men forming themselves into a society before the art of

building more substantial houses was known? This, perhaps, would be

agreeable enough; but, in truth, there is a much worse idea ready to

step in before it, and that is of a body of cut-throats, the supports of

tyranny, the invaders of the just liberties and properties of mankind,

the plunderers of the industrious, the ravishers of the chaste, the

murderers of the innocent, and, in a word, the destroyers of the plenty,

the peace, and the safety, of their fellow-creatures.

And what, it may be said, are these men-of-war which seem so delightful

an object to our eyes? Are they not alike the support of tyranny and

oppression of innocence, carrying with them desolation and ruin wherever

their masters please to send them? This is indeed too true; and however

the ship of war may, in its bulk and equipment, exceed the honest

merchantman, I heartily wish there was no necessity for it; for, though

I must own the superior beauty of the object on one side, I am more

pleased with the superior excellence of the idea which I can raise in my

mind on the other, while I reflect on the art and industry of mankind

engaged in the daily improvements of commerce to the mutual benefit of

all countries, and to the establishment and happiness of social life.

This pleasant village is situated on a gentle ascent from the water,

whence it affords that charming prospect I have above described. Its

soil is a gravel, which, assisted with its declivity, preserves it

always so dry that immediately after the most violent rain a fine lady

may walk without wetting her silken shoes. The fertility of the place is

apparent from its extraordinary verdure, and it is so shaded with large

and flourishing elms, that its narrow lanes are a natural grove or walk,

which, in the regularity of its plantation, vies with the power of art,

and in its wanton exuberancy greatly exceeds it.

In a field in the ascent of this hill, about a quarter of a mile from

the sea, stands a neat little chapel. It is very small, but adequate to

the number of inhabitants; for the parish doth not seem to contain above

thirty houses.

At about two miles distant from this parish lives that polite and good

lady to whose kindness we were so much obliged. It is placed on a hill

whose bottom is washed by the sea, and which, from its eminence at top,

commands a view of great part of the island as well as it does that of

the opposite shore. This house was formerly built by one Boyce, who,

from a blacksmith at Gosport, became possessed, by great success in

smuggling, of forty thousand pound. With part of this he purchased an

estate here, and, by chance probably, fixed on this spot for building a

large house. Perhaps the convenience of carrying on his business, to

which it is so well adapted, might dictate the situation to him. We can

hardly, at least, attribute it to the same taste with which he furnished

his house, or at least his library, by sending an order to a bookseller

in London to pack him up five hundred pounds' worth of his handsomest

books. They tell here several almost incredible stories of the

ignorance, the folly, and the pride, which this poor man and his wife

discovered during the short continuance of his prosperity; for he did

not long escape the sharp eyes of the revenue solicitors, and was, by

extents from the court of Exchequer, soon reduced below his original

state to that of confinement in the Fleet. All his effects were sold,

and among the rest his books, by an auction at Portsmouth, for a very

small price; for the bookseller was now discovered to have been

perfectly a master of his trade, and, relying on Mr Boyce's finding

little time to read, had sent him not only the most lasting wares of

his shop, but duplicates of the same, under different titles.

His estate and house were purchased by a gentleman of these parts, whose

widow now enjoys them, and who hath improved them, particularly her

gardens, with so elegant a taste, that the painter who would assist his

imagination in the composition of a most exquisite landscape, or the

poet who would describe an earthly paradise, could nowhere furnish

themselves with a richer pattern.

We left this place about eleven in the morning, and were again conveyed,

with more sunshine than wind, aboard our ship.

Whence our captain had acquired his power of prophecy, when he promised

us and himself a prosperous wind, I will not determine; it is sufficient

to observe that he was a false prophet, and that the weathercocks

continued to point as before.

He would not, however, so easily give up his skill in prediction. He

persevered in asserting that the wind was changed, and, having weighed

his anchor, fell down that afternoon to St Helen's, which was at about

the distance of five miles; and whither his friend the tide, in defiance

of the wind, which was most manifestly against him, softly wafted him in

as many hours.

Here, about seven in the evening, before which time we could not procure

it, we sat down to regale ourselves with some roasted venison, which was

much better drest than we imagined it would be, and an excellent cold

pasty which my wife had made at Ryde, and which we had reserved uncut to

eat on board our ship, whither we all chearfully exulted in being

returned from the presence of Mrs Francis, who, by the exact resemblance

she bore to a fury, seemed to have been with no great propriety settled

in paradise.

_Friday, July 24._--As we passed by Spithead on the preceding evening we

saw the two regiments of soldiers who were just returned from Gibraltar

and Minorca; and this day a lieutenant belonging to one of them, who was

the captain's nephew, came to pay a visit to his uncle. He was what is

called by some a very pretty fellow; indeed, much too pretty a fellow at

his years; for he was turned of thirty-four, though his address and

conversation would have become him more before he had reached twenty. In

his conversation, it is true, there was something military enough, as it

consisted chiefly of oaths, and of the great actions and wise sayings of

Jack, and Will, and Tom of our regiment, a phrase eternally in his

mouth; and he seemed to conclude that it conveyed to all the officers

such a degree of public notoriety and importance that it intitled him,

like the head of a profession, or a first minister, to be the subject of

conversation among those who had not the least personal acquaintance

with him. This did not much surprise me, as I have seen several examples

of the same; but the defects in his address, especially to the women,

were so great that they seemed absolutely inconsistent with the

behaviour of a pretty fellow, much less of one in a red coat; and yet,

besides having been eleven years in the army, he had had, as his uncle

informed me, an education in France. This, I own, would have appeared to

have been absolutely thrown away had not his animal spirits, which were

likewise thrown away upon him in great abundance, borne the visible

stamp of the growth of that country. The character to which he had an

indisputable title was that of a merry fellow; so very merry was he that

he laughed at everything he said, and always before he spoke. Possibly,

indeed, he often laughed at what he did not utter, for every speech

begun with a laugh, though it did not always end with a jest. There was

no great analogy between the characters of the uncle and the nephew, and

yet they seemed intirely to agree in enjoying the honour which the

red-coat did to his family. This the uncle expressed with great pleasure

in his countenance, and seemed desirous of shewing all present the

honour which he had for his nephew, who, on his side, was at some pains

to convince us of his concurring in this opinion, and at the same time

of displaying the contempt he had for the parts, as well as the

occupation, of his uncle, which he seemed to think reflected some

disgrace on himself, who was a member of that profession which makes

every man a gentleman. Not that I would be understood to insinuate that

the nephew endeavoured to shake off or disown his uncle, or indeed to

keep him at any distance. On the contrary, he treated him with the

utmost familiarity, often calling him Dick, and dear Dick, and old Dick,

and frequently beginning an oration with D----n me, Dick.

All this condescension on the part of the young man was received with

suitable marks of complaisance and obligation by the old one; especially

when it was attended with evidences of the same familiarity with general

officers and other persons of rank; one of whom, in particular, I know

to have the pride and insolence of the devil himself, and who, without

some strong bias of interest, is no more liable to converse familiarly

with a lieutenant than of being mistaken in his judgment of a fool;

which was not, perhaps, so certainly the case of the worthy lieutenant,

who, in declaring to us the qualifications which recommended men to his

countenance and conversation, as well as what effectually set a bar to

all hopes of that honour, exclaimed, "No, sir, by the d--I hate all

fools--No, d----n me, excuse me for that. That's a little too much, old

Dick. There are two or three officers of our regiment whom I know to be

fools; but d----n me if I am ever seen in their company. If a man hath a

fool of a relation, Dick, you know he can't help that, old boy."

Such jokes as these the old man not only took in good part, but glibly

gulped down the whole narrative of his nephew; nor did he, I am

convinced, in the least doubt of our as readily swallowing the same.

This made him so charmed with the lieutenant, that it is probable we

should have been pestered with him the whole evening, had not the north

wind, dearer to our sea-captain even than this glory of his family,

sprung suddenly up, and called aloud to him to weigh his anchor.

While this ceremony was performing, the sea-captain ordered out his boat

to row the land-captain to shore; not indeed on an uninhabited island,

but one which, in this part, looked but little better, not presenting us

the view of a single house. Indeed, our old friend, when his boat

returned on shore, perhaps being no longer able to stifle his envy of

the superiority of his nephew, told us with a smile that the young man

had a good five mile to walk before he could be accommodated with a

passage to Portsmouth.

It appeared now that the captain had been only mistaken in the date of

his prediction, by placing the event a day earlier than it happened; for

the wind which now arose was not only favourable but brisk, and was no

sooner in reach of our sails than it swept us away by the back of the

Isle of Wight, and, having in the night carried us by Christchurch and

Peveral-point, brought us the next noon, _Saturday, July 25_, off the

island of Portland, so famous for the smallness and sweetness of its

mutton, of which a leg seldom weighs four pounds. We would have bought a

sheep, but our captain would not permit it; though he needed not have

been in such a hurry, for presently the wind, I will not positively

assert in resentment of his surliness, shewed him a dog's trick, and

slily slipt back again to his summer-house in the south-west.

The captain now grew outrageous, and, declaring open war with the wind,

took a resolution, rather more bold than wise, of sailing in defiance of

it, and in its teeth. He swore he would let go his anchor no more, but

would beat the sea while he had either yard or sail left. He accordingly

stood from the shore, and made so large a tack that before night, though

he seemed to advance but little on his way, he was got out of sight of

land.

Towards the evening the wind began, in the captain's own language, and

indeed it freshened so much, that before ten it blew a perfect

hurricane.

The captain having got, as he supposed, to a safe distance, tacked again

towards the English shore; and now the wind veered a point only in his

favour, and continued to blow with such violence, that the ship ran

above eight knots or miles an hour during this whole day and tempestuous

night till bed-time. I was obliged to betake myself once more to my

solitude, for my women were again all down in their sea-sickness, and

the captain was busy on deck; for he began to grow uneasy, chiefly, I

believe, because he did not well know where he was, and would, I am

convinced, have been very glad to have been in Portland-road, eating

some sheep's-head broth.

Having contracted no great degree of good-humour by living a whole day

alone, without a single soul to converse with, I took but ill physic to

purge it off, by a bed-conversation with the captain, who, amongst many

bitter lamentations of his fate, and protesting he had more patience

than a Job, frequently intermixed summons to the commanding officer on

the deck, who now happened to be one Morrison, a carpenter, the only

fellow that had either common sense or common civility in the ship. Of

Morrison he enquired every quarter of an hour concerning the state of

affairs: the wind, the care of the ship, and other matters of

navigation. The frequency of these summons, as well as the solicitude

with which they were made, sufficiently testified the state of the

captain's mind; he endeavoured to conceal it, and would have given no

small alarm to a man who had either not learnt what it is to die, or

known what it is to be miserable. And my dear wife and child must pardon

me, if what I did not conceive to be any great evil to myself I was not

much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them; in truth, I have

often thought they are both too good and too gentle to be trusted to the

power of any man I know, to whom they could possibly be so trusted.

Can I say then I had no fear? indeed I cannot. Reader, I was afraid for

thee, lest thou shouldst have been deprived of that pleasure thou art

now enjoying; and that I should not live to draw out on paper that

military character which thou didst peruse in the journal of yesterday.

From all these fears we were relieved, at six in the morning, by the

arrival of Mr Morrison, who acquainted us that he was sure he beheld

land very near; for he could not see half a mile, by reason of the

haziness of the weather. This land he said was, he believed, the

Berry-head, which forms one side of Torbay: the captain declared that it

was impossible, and swore, on condition he was right, he would give him

his mother for a maid. A forfeit which became afterwards strictly due

and payable; for the captain, whipping on his night-gown, ran up without

his breeches, and within half an hour returning into the cabin, wished

me joy of our lying safe at anchor in the bay.

_Sunday, July 26._--Things now began to put on an aspect very different

from what they had lately worn; the news that the ship had almost lost

its mizen, and that we had procured very fine clouted cream and fresh

bread and butter from the shore, restored health and spirits to our

women, and we all sat down to a very chearful breakfast.

But, however pleasant our stay promised to be here, we were all desirous

it should be short: I resolved immediately to despatch my man into the

country to purchase a present of cider, for my friends of that which is

called Southam, as well as to take with me a hogshead of it to Lisbon;

for it is, in my opinion, much more delicious than that which is the

growth of Herefordshire. I purchased three hogsheads for five pounds ten

shillings, all which I should have scarce thought worth mentioning, had

I not believed it might be of equal service to the honest farmer who

sold it me, and who is by the neighbouring gentlemen reputed to deal in

the very best; and to the reader, who, from ignorance of the means of

providing better for himself, swallows at a dearer rate the juice of

Middlesex turnip, instead of that Vinum Pomonæ which Mr Giles Leverance

of Cheeshurst, near Dartmouth in Devon, will, at the price of forty

shillings per hogshead, send in double casks to any part of the world.

Had the wind been very sudden in shifting, I had lost my cider by an

attempt of a boatman to exact, according to custom. He required five

shillings for conveying my man a mile and a half to the shore, and four

more if he staid to bring him back. This I thought to be such

insufferable impudence that I ordered him to be immediately chased from

the ship, without any answer. Indeed, there are few inconveniences that

I would not rather encounter than encourage the insolent demands of

these wretches, at the expence of my own indignation, of which I own

they are not the only objects, but rather those who purchase a paultry

convenience by encouraging them. But of this I have already spoken very

largely. I shall conclude, therefore, with the leave which this fellow

took of our ship; saying he should know it again, and would not put off

from the shore to relieve it in any distress whatever.

It will, doubtless, surprise many of my readers to hear that, when we

lay at anchor within a mile or two of a town several days together, and

even in the most temperate weather, we should frequently want fresh

provisions and herbage, and other emoluments of the shore, as much as if

we had been a hundred leagues from land. And this too while numbers of

boats were in our sight, whose owners get their livelihood by rowing

people up and down, and could be at any time summoned by a signal to our

assistance, and while the captain had a little boat of his own, with men

always ready to row it at his command.

This, however, hath been partly accounted for already by the imposing

disposition of the people, who asked so much more than the proper price

of their labour. And as to the usefulness of the captain's boat, it

requires to be a little expatiated upon, as it will tend to lay open

some of the grievances which demand the utmost regard of our

legislature, as they affect the most valuable part of the king's

subjects--those by whom the commerce of the nation is carried into

execution.

Our captain then, who was a very good and experienced seaman, having

been above thirty years the master of a vessel, part of which he had

served, so he phrased it, as commander of a privateer, and had

discharged himself with great courage and conduct, and with as great

success, discovered the utmost aversion to the sending his boat ashore

whenever we lay wind-bound in any of our harbours. This aversion did not

arise from any fear of wearing out his boat by using it, but was, in

truth, the result of experience, that it was easier to send his men on

shore than to recal them. They acknowledged him to be their master while

they remained on shipboard, but did not allow his power to extend to the

shores, where they had no sooner set their foot than every man became

_sui juris_, and thought himself at full liberty to return when he

pleased. Now it is not any delight that these fellows have in the fresh

air or verdant fields on the land. Every one of them would prefer his

ship and his hammock to all the sweets of Arabia the Happy; but,

unluckily for them, there are in every seaport in England certain houses

whose chief livelihood depends on providing entertainment for the

gentlemen of the jacket. For this purpose they are always well furnished

with those cordial liquors which do immediately inspire the heart with

gladness, banishing all careful thoughts, and indeed all others, from

the mind, and opening the mouth with songs of chearfulness and

thanksgiving for the many wonderful blessings with which a sea-faring

life overflows.

For my own part, however whimsical it may appear, I confess I have

thought the strange story of Circe in the Odyssey no other than an

ingenious allegory, in which Homer intended to convey to his countrymen

the same kind of instruction which we intend to communicate to our own

in this digression. As teaching the art of war to the Greeks was the

plain design of the Iliad, so was teaching them the art of navigation

the no less manifest intention of the Odyssey. For the improvement of

this, their situation was most excellently adapted; and accordingly we

find Thucydides, in the beginning of his history, considers the Greeks

as a sett of pirates or privateers, plundering each other by sea. This

being probably the first institution of commerce before the Ars

Cauponaria was invented, and merchants, instead of robbing, began to

cheat and outwit each other, and by degrees changed the Metabletic, the

only kind of traffic allowed by Aristotle in his Politics, into the

Chrematistic.

By this allegory then I suppose Ulysses to have been the captain of a

merchant-ship, and Circe some good ale-wife, who made his crew drunk

with the spirituous liquors of those days. With this the transformation

into swine, as well as all other incidents of the fable, will notably

agree; and thus a key will be found out for unlocking the whole mystery,

and forging at least some meaning to a story which, at present, appears

very strange and absurd.

Hence, moreover, will appear the very near resemblance between the

sea-faring men of all ages and nations; and here perhaps may be

established the truth and justice of that observation, which will occur

oftener than once in this voyage, that all human flesh is not the same

flesh, but that there is one kind of flesh of landmen, and another of

seamen.

Philosophers, divines, and others, who have treated the gratification of

human appetites with contempt, have, among other instances, insisted

very strongly on that satiety which is so apt to overtake them even in

the very act of enjoyment. And here they more particularly deserve our

attention, as most of them may be supposed to speak from their own

experience, and very probably gave us their lessons with a full stomach.

Thus hunger and thirst, whatever delight they may afford while we are

eating and drinking, pass both away from us with the plate and the cup;

and though we should imitate the Romans, if, indeed, they were such

dull beasts, which I can scarce believe, to unload the belly like a

dung-pot, in order to fill it again with another load, yet would the

pleasure be so considerably lessened that it would scarce repay us the

trouble of purchasing it with swallowing a bason of camomile tea. A

second haunch of venison, or a second dose of turtle, would hardly

allure a city glutton with its smell. Even the celebrated Jew himself,

when well filled with calipash and calipee, goes contentedly home to

tell his money, and expects no more pleasure from his throat during the

next twenty-four hours. Hence I suppose Dr South took that elegant

comparison of the joys of a speculative man to the solemn silence of an

Archimedes over a problem, and those of a glutton to the stillness of a

sow at her wash. A simile which, if it became the pulpit at all, could

only become it in the afternoon.

Whereas in those potations which the mind seems to enjoy, rather than

the bodily appetite, there is happily no such satiety; but the more a

man drinks, the more he desires; as if, like Mark Anthony in Dryden, his

appetite encreased with feeding, and this to such an immoderate degree,

_ut nullus sit desiderio aut pudor aut modus_. Hence, as with the gang

of Captain Ulysses, ensues so total a transformation, that the man no

more continues what he was. Perhaps he ceases for a time to be at all;

or, though he may retain the same outward form and figure he had before,

yet is his nobler part, as we are taught to call it, so changed, that,

instead of being the same man, he scarce remembers what he was a few

hours before. And this transformation, being once obtained, is so easily

preserved by the same potations, which induced no satiety, that the

captain in vain sends or goes in quest of his crew. They know him no

longer; or, if they do, they acknowledge not his power, having indeed

as entirely forgotten themselves as if they had taken a large draught of

the river of Lethe.

Nor is the captain always sure of even finding out the place to which

Circe hath conveyed them. There are many of those houses in every

port-town. Nay, there are some where the sorceress doth not trust only

to her drugs; but hath instruments of a different kind to execute her

purposes, by whose means the tar is effectually secreted from the

knowledge and pursuit of his captain. This would, indeed, be very fatal,

was it not for one circumstance; that the sailor is seldom provided with

the proper bait for these harpies. However, the contrary sometimes

happens, as these harpies will bite at almost anything, and will snap at

a pair of silver buttons, or buckles, as surely as at the specie itself.

Nay, sometimes they are so voracious, that the very naked hook will go

down, and the jolly young sailor is sacrificed for his own sake.

In vain, at such a season as this, would the vows of a pious heathen

have prevailed over Neptune, Æolus, or any other marine deity. In vain

would the prayers of a Christian captain be attended with the like

success. The wind may change how it pleases while all hands are on

shore; the anchor would remain firm in the ground, and the ship would

continue in durance, unless, like other forcible prison-breakers, it

forcibly got loose for no good purpose.

Now, as the favour of winds and courts, and such like, is always to be

laid hold on at the very first motion, for within twenty-four hours all

may be changed again; so, in the former case, the loss of a day may be

the loss of a voyage: for, though it may appear to persons not well

skilled in navigation, who see ships meet and sail by each other, that

the wind sometimes east and west, north and south, backwards and

forwards, at the same instant; yet, certain it is that the land is so

contrived, that even the same wind will not, like the same horse, always

bring a man to the end of his journey; but, that the gale which the

mariner prayed heartily for yesterday, he may as heartily deprecate

to-morrow; while all use and benefit which would have arisen to him from

the westerly wind of to-morrow may be totally lost and thrown away by

neglecting the offer of the easterly blast which blows to-day.

Hence ensues grief and disreputation to the innocent captain, loss and

disappointment to the worthy merchant, and not seldom great prejudice to

the trade of a nation whose manufactures are thus liable to lie unsold

in a foreign warehouse, the market being forestalled by some rival whose

sailors are under a better discipline. To guard against these

inconveniences the prudent captain takes every precaution in his power;

he makes the strongest contracts with his crew, and thereby binds them

so firmly, that none but the greatest or least of men can break through

them with impunity; but for one of these two reasons, which I will not

determine, the sailor, like his brother fish the eel, is too slippery to

be held, and plunges into his element with perfect impunity.

To speak a plain truth, there is no trusting to any contract with one

whom the wise citizens of London call a bad man; for, with such a one,

though your bond be ever so strong, it will prove in the end good for

nothing.

What then is to be done in this case? What, indeed, but to call in the

assistance of that tremendous magistrate, the justice of peace, who can,

and often doth, lay good and bad men in equal durance; and, though he

seldom cares to stretch his bonds to what is great, never finds anything

too minute for their detention, but will hold the smallest reptile

alive so fast in his noose, that he can never get out till he is let

drop through it.

Why, therefore, upon the breach of those contracts, should not an

immediate application be made to the nearest magistrate of this order,

who should be empowered to convey the delinquent either to ship or to

prison, at the election of the captain, to be fettered by the leg in

either place?

But, as the case now stands, the condition of this poor captain without

any commission, and of this absolute commander without any power, is

much worse than we have hitherto shewn it to be; for, notwithstanding

all the aforesaid contracts to sail in the good ship the Elizabeth, if

the sailor should, for better wages, find it more his interest to go on

board the better ship the Mary, either before their setting out or on

their speedy meeting in some port, he may prefer the latter without any

other danger than that of "doing what he ought not to have done,"

contrary to a rule which he is seldom Christian enough to have much at

heart, while the captain is generally too good a Christian to punish a

man out of revenge only, when he is to be at a considerable expense for

so doing. There are many other deficiencies in our laws relating to

maritime affairs, and which would probably have been long since

corrected, had we any seamen in the House of Commons. Not that I would

insinuate that the legislature wants a supply of many gentlemen in the

sea-service; but, as these gentlemen are by their attendance in the

house unfortunately prevented from ever going to sea, and there learning

what they might communicate to their landed brethren, these latter

remain as ignorant in that branch of knowledge as they would be if none

but courtiers and fox-hunters had been elected into parliament, without

a single fish among them. The following seems to me to be an effect of

this kind, and it strikes me the stronger as I remember the case to have

happened, and remember it to have been dispunishable. A captain of a

trading vessel, of which he was part owner, took in a large freight of

oats at Liverpool, consigned to the market at Bearkey: this he carried

to a port in Hampshire, and there sold it as his own, and, freighting

his vessel with wheat for the port of Cadiz, in Spain, dropt it at

Oporto in his way; and there, selling it for his own use, took in a

lading of wine, with which he sailed again, and, having converted it in

the same manner, together with a large sum of money with which he was

intrusted, for the benefit of certain merchants, sold the ship and cargo

in another port, and then wisely sat down contented with the fortune he

had made, and returned to London to enjoy the remainder of his days,

with the fruits of his former labours and a good conscience.

The sum he brought home with him consisted of near six thousand pounds,

all in specie, and most of it in that coin which Portugal distributes so

liberally over Europe.

He was not yet old enough to be past all sense of pleasure, nor so

puffed up with the pride of his good fortune as to overlook his old

acquaintances the journeymen taylors, from among whom he had been

formerly pressed into the sea-service, and, having there laid the

foundation of his future success by his shares in prizes, had afterwards

become captain of a trading vessel, in which he purchased an interest,

and had soon begun to trade in the honourable manner above mentioned.

The captain now took up his residence at an ale-house in Drury-lane,

where, having all his money by him in a trunk, he spent about five

pounds a day among his old friends the gentlemen and ladies of those

parts.

The merchant of Liverpool, having luckily had notice from a friend

during the blaze of his fortune, did, by the assistance of a justice of

peace, without the assistance of the law, recover his whole loss. The

captain, however, wisely chose to refund no more; but, perceiving with

what hasty strides Envy was pursuing his fortune, he took speedy means

to retire out of her reach, and to enjoy the rest of his wealth in an

inglorious obscurity; nor could the same justice overtake him time

enough to assist a second merchant as he had done the first.

This was a very extraordinary case, and the more so as the ingenious

gentleman had steered entirely clear of all crimes in our law.

Now, how it comes about that a robbery so very easy to be committed, and

to which there is such immediate temptation always before the eyes of

these fellows, should receive the encouragement of impunity, is to be

accounted for only from the oversight of the legislature, as that

oversight can only be, I think, derived from the reasons I have assigned

for it.

But I will dwell no longer on this subject. If what I have here said

should seem of sufficient consequence to engage the attention of any man

in power, and should thus be the means of applying any remedy to the

most inveterate evils, at least, I have obtained my whole desire, and

shall have lain so long wind-bound in the ports of this kingdom to some

purpose. I would, indeed, have this work--which, if I should live to

finish it, a matter of no great certainty, if indeed of any great hope

to me, will be probably the last I shall ever undertake--to produce some

better end than the mere diversion of the reader.

_Monday._--This day our captain went ashore, to dine with a gentleman

who lives in these parts, and who so exactly resembles the character

given by Homer of Axylus, that the only difference I can trace between

them is, the one, living by the highway, erected his hospitality chiefly

in favour of land-travellers; and the other, living by the water-side,

gratified his humanity by accommodating the wants of the mariner.

In the evening our commander received a visit from a brother bashaw, who

lay wind-bound in the same harbour. This latter captain was a Swiss. He

was then master of a vessel bound to Guinea, and had formerly been a

privateering, when our own hero was employed in the same laudable

service. The honesty and freedom of the Switzer, his vivacity, in which

he was in no respect inferior to his near neighbours the French, the

aukward and affected politeness, which was likewise of French

extraction, mixed with the brutal roughness of the English tar--for he

had served under the colours of this nation and his crew had been of the

same--made such an odd variety, such a hotchpotch of character, that I

should have been much diverted with him, had not his voice, which was as

loud as a speaking-trumpet, unfortunately made my head ach. The noise

which he conveyed into the deaf ears of his brother captain, who sat on

one side of him, the soft addresses with which, mixed with aukward bows,

he saluted the ladies on the other, were so agreeably contrasted, that a

man must not only have been void of all taste of humour, and insensible

of mirth, but duller than Cibber is represented in the Dunciad, who

could be unentertained with him a little while; for, I confess, such

entertainments should always be very short, as they are very liable to

pall. But he suffered not this to happen at present; for, having given

us his company a quarter of an hour only, he retired, after many

apologies for the shortness of his visit.

_Tuesday._--The wind being less boisterous than it had hitherto been

since our arrival here, several fishing-boats, which the tempestuous

weather yesterday had prevented from working, came on board us with

fish. This was so fresh, so good in kind, and so very cheap, that we

supplied ourselves in great numbers, among which were very large soles

at fourpence a pair, and whitings of almost a preposterous size at

ninepence a score.

The only fish which bore any price was a john dorée, as it is called. I

bought one of at least four pounds weight for as many shillings. It

resembles a turbot in shape, but exceeds it in firmness and flavour. The

price had the appearance of being considerable when opposed to the

extraordinary cheapness of others of value, but was, in truth, so very

reasonable when estimated by its goodness, that it left me under no

other surprise than how the gentlemen of this country, not greatly

eminent for the delicacy of their taste, had discovered the preference

of the dorée to all other fish: but I was informed that Mr Quin, whose

distinguishing tooth hath been so justly celebrated, had lately visited

Plymouth, and had done those honours to the dorée which are so justly

due to it from that sect of modern philosophers who, with Sir Epicure

Mammon, or Sir Epicure Quin, their head, seem more to delight in a

fish-pond than in a garden, as the old Epicureans are said to have done.

Unfortunately for the fishmongers of London, the dorée resides only in

those seas; for, could any of this company but convey one to the temple

of luxury under the Piazza, where Macklin the high-priest daily serves

up his rich offerings to that goddess, great would be the reward of that

fishmonger, in blessings poured down upon him from the goddess, as great

would his merit be towards the high-priest, who could never be thought

to overrate such valuable incense.

And here, having mentioned the extreme cheapness of fish in the

Devonshire sea, and given some little hint of the extreme dearness with

which this commodity is dispensed by those who deal in it in London, I

cannot pass on without throwing forth an observation or two, with the

same view with which I have scattered my several remarks through this

voyage, sufficiently satisfied in having finished my life, as I have

probably lost it, in the service of my country, from the best of

motives, though it should be attended with the worst of success. Means

are always in our power; ends are very seldom so.

Of all the animal foods with which man is furnished, there are none so

plenty as fish. A little rivulet, that glides almost unperceived through

a vast tract of rich land, will support more hundreds with the flesh of

its inhabitants than the meadow will nourish individuals. But if this be

true of rivers, it is much truer of the seashores, which abound with

such immense variety of fish that the curious fisherman, after he hath

made his draught, often culls only the daintiest part and leaves the

rest of his prey to perish on the shore.

If this be true it would appear, I think, that there is nothing which

might be had in such abundance, and consequently so cheap, as fish, of

which Nature seems to have provided such inexhaustible stores with some

peculiar design. In the production of terrestrial animals she proceeds

with such slowness, that in the larger kind a single female seldom

produces more than one a-year, and this again requires three, four, or

five years more to bring it to perfection. And though the lesser

quadrupeds, those of the wild kind particularly, with the birds, do

multiply much faster, yet can none of these bear any proportion with the

aquatic animals, of whom every female matrix is furnished with an annual

offspring almost exceeding the power of numbers, and which, in many

instances at least, a single year is capable of bringing to some degree

of maturity.

What then ought in general to be so plentiful, what so cheap, as fish?

What then so properly the food of the poor? So in many places they are,

and so might they always be in great cities, which are always situated

near the sea, or on the conflux of large rivers. How comes it then, to

look no farther abroad for instances, that in our city of London the

case is so far otherwise that, except that of sprats, there is not one

poor palate in a hundred that knows the taste of fish?

It is true indeed that this taste is generally of such excellent flavour

that it exceeds the power of French cookery to treat the palates of the

rich with anything more exquisitely delicate; so that was fish the

common food of the poor it might put them too much upon an equality with

their betters in the great article of eating, in which, at present, in

the opinion of some, the great difference in happiness between man and

man consists. But this argument I shall treat with the utmost disdain:

for if ortolans were as big as bustards, and at the same time as plenty

as sparrows, I should hold it yet reasonable to indulge the poor with

the dainty, and that for this cause especially, that the rich would soon

find a sparrow, if as scarce as an ortolan, to be much the greater, as

it would certainly be the rarer, dainty of the two.

Vanity or scarcity will be always the favourite of luxury; but honest

hunger will be satisfied with plenty. Not to search deeper into the

cause of the evil, I should think it abundantly sufficient to propose

the remedies of it. And, first, I humbly submit the absolute necessity

of immediately hanging all the fishmongers within the bills of

mortality; and, however it might have been some time ago the opinion of

mild and temporizing men that the evil complained of might be removed

by gentler methods, I suppose at this day there are none who do not see

the impossibility of using such with any effect. _Cuncta prius tentanda_

might have been formerly urged with some plausibility, but _cuncta prius

tentata_ may now be replied: for surely, if a few monopolizing

fishmongers could defeat that excellent scheme of the Westminster

market, to the erecting which so many justices of peace, as well as

other wise and learned men, did so vehemently apply themselves, that

they might be truly said not only to have laid the whole strength of

their heads, but of their shoulders too, to the business, it would be a

vain endeavour for any other body of men to attempt to remove so

stubborn a nusance.

If it should be doubted whether we can bring this case within the letter

of any capital law now subsisting, I am ashamed to own it cannot; for

surely no crime better deserves such punishment; but the remedy may,

nevertheless, be immediate; and if a law was made at the beginning of

next session, to take place immediately, by which the starving thousands

of poor was declared to be felony, without benefit of clergy, the

fishmongers would be hanged before the end of the session.

A second method of filling the mouths of the poor, if not with loaves at

least with fishes, is to desire the magistrates to carry into execution

one at least out of near a hundred acts of parliament, for preserving

the small fry of the river of Thames, by which means as few fish would

satisfy thousands as may now be devoured by a small number of

individuals. But while a fisherman can break through the strongest

meshes of an act of parliament, we may be assured he will learn so to

contrive his own meshes that the smallest fry will not be able to swim

through them.

Other methods may, we doubt not, be suggested by those who shall

attentively consider the evil here hinted at; but we have dwelt too long

on it already, and shall conclude with observing that it is difficult to

affirm whether the atrocity of the evil itself, the facility of curing

it, or the shameful neglect of the cure, be the more scandalous or more

astonishing.

After having, however, gloriously regaled myself with this food, I was

washing it down with some good claret with my wife and her friend, in

the cabin, when the captain's valet-de-chambre, head cook, house and

ship steward, footman in livery and out on't, secretary and fore-mast

man, all burst into the cabin at once, being, indeed, all but one

person, and, without saying by your leave, began to pack half a hogshead

of small beer in bottles, the necessary consequence of which must have

been either a total stop to conversation at that chearful season when it

is most agreeable, or the admitting that polyonymous officer aforesaid

to the participation of it. I desired him therefore to delay his purpose

a little longer, but he refused to grant my request; nor was he

prevailed on to quit the room till he was threatened with having one

bottle to pack more than his number, which then happened to stand empty

within my reach.

With these menaces he retired at last, but not without muttering some

menaces on his side, and which, to our great terror, he failed not to

put into immediate execution.

Our captain was gone to dinner this day with his Swiss brother; and,

though he was a very sober man, was a little elevated with some

champagne, which, as it cost the Swiss little or nothing, he dispensed

at his table more liberally than our hospitable English noblemen put

about those bottles, which the ingenious Peter Taylor teaches a led

captain to avoid by distinguishing by the name of that generous liquor,

which all humble companions are taught to postpone to the flavour of

methuen, or honest port.

While our two captains were thus regaling themselves, and celebrating

their own heroic exploits with all the inspiration which the liquor, at

least, of wit could afford them, the polyonymous officer arrived, and,

being saluted by the name of Honest Tom, was ordered to sit down and

take his glass before he delivered his message; for every sailor is by

turns his captain's mate over a cann, except only that captain bashaw

who presides in a man-of-war, and who upon earth has no other mate,

unless it be another of the same bashaws.

Tom had no sooner swallowed his draught than he hastily began his

narrative, and faithfully related what had happened on board our ship;

we say faithfully, though from what happened it may be suspected that

Tom chose to add perhaps only five or six immaterial circumstances, as

is always I believe the case, and may possibly have been done by me in

relating this very story, though it happened not many hours ago.

No sooner was the captain informed of the interruption which had been

given to his officer, and indeed to his orders, for he thought no time

so convenient as that of his absence for causing any confusion in the

cabin, than he leapt with such haste from his chair that he had like to

have broke his sword, with which he always begirt himself when he walked

out of his ship, and sometimes when he walked about in it; at the same

time, grasping eagerly that other implement called a cockade, which

modern soldiers wear on their helmets with the same view as the antients

did their crests--to terrify the enemy, he muttered something, but so

inarticulately that the word _damn_ was only intelligible; he then

hastily took leave of the Swiss captain, who was too well bred to press

his stay on such an occasion, and leapt first from the ship to his

boat, and then from his boat to his own ship, with as much fierceness

in his looks as he had ever expressed on boarding his defenceless prey

in the honourable calling of a privateer.

Having regained the middle deck, he paused a moment while Tom and others

loaded themselves with bottles, and then descending into the cabin

exclaimed with a thundering voice, "D--n me, why arn't the bottles stoed

in, according to my orders?"

I answered him very mildly that I had prevented his man from doing it,

as it was at an inconvenient time to me, and as in his absence, at

least, I esteemed the cabin to be my own. "Your cabin!" repeated he many

times; "no, d----n me! 'tis my cabin. Your cabin! d----n me! I have brought

my hogs to a fair market. I suppose indeed you think it your cabin, and

your ship, by your commanding in it; but I will command in it, d----n me!

I will shew the world I am the commander, and nobody but I! Did you

think I sold you the command of my ship for that pitiful thirty pounds?

I wish I had not seen you nor your thirty pounds aboard of her." He then

repeated the words thirty pounds often, with great disdain, and with a

contempt which I own the sum did not seem to deserve in my eye, either

in itself or on the present occasion; being, indeed, paid for the

freight of ---- weight of human flesh, which is above fifty per cent.

dearer than the freight of any other luggage, whilst in reality it takes

up less room; in fact, no room at all.

In truth, the sum was paid for nothing more than for a liberty to six

persons (two of them servants) to stay on board a ship while she sails

from one port to another, every shilling of which comes clear into the

captain's pocket. Ignorant people may perhaps imagine, especially when

they are told that the captain is obliged to sustain them, that their

diet at least is worth something, which may probably be now and then so

far the case as to deduct a tenth part from the neat profits on this

account; but it was otherwise at present; for when I had contracted with

the captain at a price which I by no means thought moderate, I had some

content in thinking I should have no more to pay for my voyage; but I

was whispered that it was expected the passengers should find themselves

in several things; such as tea, wine, and such like; and particularly

that gentlemen should stowe of the latter a much larger quantity than

they could use, in order to leave the remainder as a present to the

captain at the end of the voyage; and it was expected likewise that

gentlemen should put aboard some fresh stores, and the more of such

things were put aboard the welcomer they would be to the captain.

I was prevailed with by these hints to follow the advice proposed; and

accordingly, besides tea and a large hamper of wine, with several hams

and tongues, I caused a number of live chickens and sheep to be conveyed

aboard; in truth, treble the quantity of provisions which would have

supported the persons I took with me, had the voyage continued three

weeks, as it was supposed, with a bare possibility, it might.

Indeed it continued much longer; but as this was occasioned by our being

wind-bound in our own ports, it was by no means of any ill consequence

to the captain, as the additional stores of fish, fresh meat, butter,

bread, &c., which I constantly laid in, greatly exceeded the

consumption, and went some way in maintaining the ship's crew. It is

true I was not obliged to do this; but it seemed to be expected; for the

captain did not think himself obliged to do it, and I can truly say I

soon ceased to expect it of him. He had, I confess, on board a number of

fowls and ducks sufficient for a West India voyage; all of them, as he

often said, "Very fine birds, and of the largest breed." This I believe

was really the fact, and I can add that they were all arrived at the

full perfection of their size. Nor was there, I am convinced, any want

of provisions of a more substantial kind; such as dried beef, pork, and

fish; so that the captain seemed ready to perform his contract, and

amply to provide for his passengers. What I did then was not from

necessity, but, perhaps, from a less excusable motive, and was by no

means chargeable to the account of the captain.

But, let the motive have been what it would, the consequence was still

the same; and this was such that I am firmly persuaded the whole pitiful

thirty pounds came pure and neat into the captain's pocket, and not only

so, but attended with the value of ten pound more in sundries into the

bargain. I must confess myself therefore at a loss how the epithet

_pitiful_ came to be annexed to the above sum; for, not being a pitiful

price for what it was given, I cannot conceive it to be pitiful in

itself; nor do I believe it is thought by the greatest men in the

kingdom; none of whom would scruple to search for it in the dirtiest

kennel, where they had only a reasonable hope of success.

How, therefore, such a sum should acquire the idea of pitiful in the

eyes of the master of a ship seems not easy to be accounted for; since

it appears more likely to produce in him ideas of a different kind. Some

men, perhaps, are no more sincere in the contempt for it which they

express than others in their contempt of money in general; and I am the

rather inclined to this persuasion, as I have seldom heard of either who

have refused or refunded this their despised object. Besides, it is

sometimes impossible to believe these professions, as every action of

the man's life is a contradiction to it. Who can believe a tradesman who

says he would not tell his name for the profit he gets by he selling

such a parcel of goods, when he hath told a thousand lies in order to

get it?

Pitiful, indeed, is often applied to an object not absolutely, but

comparatively with our expectations, or with a greater object: in which

sense it is not easy to set any bounds to the use of the word. Thus, a

handful of halfpence daily appear pitiful to a porter, and a handful of

silver to a drawer. The latter, I am convinced, at a polite tavern, will

not tell his name (for he will not give you any answer) under the price

of gold. And in this sense thirty pound may be accounted pitiful by the

lowest mechanic.

One difficulty only seems to occur, and that is this, how comes it that,

if the profits of the meanest arts are so considerable, the professors

of them are not richer than we generally see them? One answer to this

shall suffice. Men do not become rich by what they get, but by what they

keep. He who is worth no more than his annual wages or salary, spends

the whole; he will be always a beggar let his income be what it will,

and so will be his family when he dies. This we see daily to be the case

of ecclesiastics, who, during their lives, are extremely well provided

for, only because they desire to maintain the honour of the cloth by

living like gentlemen, which would, perhaps, be better maintained by

living unlike them.

But, to return from so long a digression, to which the use of so

improper an epithet gave occasion, and to which the novelty of the

subject allured, I will make the reader amends by concisely telling him

that the captain poured forth such a torrent of abuse that I very

hastily and very foolishly resolved to quit the ship. I gave immediate

orders to summon a hoy to carry me that evening to Dartmouth, without

considering any consequence. Those orders I gave in no very low voice,

so that those above stairs might possibly conceive there was more than

one master in the cabin. In the same tone I likewise threatened the

captain with that which, he afterwards said, he feared more than any

rock or quicksand. Nor can we wonder at this when we are told he had

been twice obliged to bring to and cast anchor there before, and had

neither time escaped without the loss of almost his whole cargo.

The most distant sound of law thus frightened a man who had often, I am

convinced, heard numbers of cannon roar round him with intrepidity. Nor

did he sooner see the hoy approaching the vessel than he ran down again

into the cabin, and, his rage being perfectly subsided, he tumbled on

his knees, and a little too abjectly implored for mercy.

I did not suffer a brave man and an old man to remain a moment in this

posture, but I immediately forgave him.

And here, that I may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my own praises,

I do utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. Neither did the

greatness of my mind dictate, nor the force of my Christianity exact,

this forgiveness. To speak truth, I forgave him from a motive which

would make men much more forgiving if they were much wiser than they

are, because it was convenient for me so to do.

_Wednesday._--This morning the captain drest himself in scarlet in order

to pay a visit to a Devonshire squire, to whom a captain of a ship is a

guest of no ordinary consequence, as he is a stranger and a gentleman,

who hath seen a great deal of the world in foreign parts, and knows all

the news of the times.

[Illustration: _He abjectly implored for mercy_]

The squire, therefore, was to send his boat for the captain, but a most

unfortunate accident happened; for, as the wind was extremely rough and

against the hoy, while this was endeavouring to avail itself of great

seamanship in hawling up against the wind, a sudden squall carried

off sail and yard, or at least so disabled them that they were no longer

of any use and unable to reach the ship; but the captain, from the deck,

saw his hopes of venison disappointed, and was forced either to stay on

board his ship, or to hoist forth his own long-boat, which he could not

prevail with himself to think of, though the smell of the venison had

had twenty times its attraction. He did, indeed, love his ship as his

wife, and his boats as children, and never willingly trusted the latter,

poor things! to the dangers of the seas.

To say truth, notwithstanding the strict rigour with which he preserved

the dignity of his station, and the hasty impatience with which he

resented any affront to his person or orders, disobedience to which he

could in no instance brook in any person on board, he was one of the

best natured fellows alive. He acted the part of a father to his

sailors; he expressed great tenderness for any of them when ill, and

never suffered any the least work of supererogation to go unrewarded by

a glass of gin. He even extended his humanity, if I may so call it, to

animals, and even his cats and kittens had large shares in his

affections. An instance of which we saw this evening, when the cat,

which had shewn it could not be drowned, was found suffocated under a

feather-bed in the cabin. I will not endeavour to describe his

lamentations with more prolixity than barely by saying they were

grievous, and seemed to have some mixture of the Irish howl in them.

Nay, he carried his fondness even to inanimate objects, of which we have

above set down a pregnant example in his demonstration of love and

tenderness towards his boats and ship. He spoke of a ship which he had

commanded formerly, and which was long since no more, which he had

called the Princess of Brazil, as a widower of a deceased wife. This

ship, after having followed the honest business of carrying goods and

passengers for hire many years, did at last take to evil courses and

turn privateer, in which service, to use his own words, she received

many dreadful wounds, which he himself had felt as if they had been his

own.

_Thursday._--As the wind did not yesterday discover any purpose of

shifting, and the water in my belly grew troublesome and rendered me

short-breathed, I began a second time to have apprehensions of wanting

the assistance of a trochar when none was to be found; I therefore

concluded to be tapped again by way of precaution, and accordingly I

this morning summoned on board a surgeon from a neighbouring parish, one

whom the captain greatly recommended, and who did indeed perform his

office with much dexterity. He was, I believe, likewise a man of great

judgment and knowledge in the profession; but of this I cannot speak

with perfect certainty, for, when he was going to open on the dropsy at

large and on the particular degree of the distemper under which I

laboured, I was obliged to stop him short, for the wind was changed, and

the captain in the utmost hurry to depart; and to desire him, instead of

his opinion, to assist me with his execution.

I was now once more delivered from my burthen, which was not indeed so

great as I had apprehended, wanting two quarts of what was let out at

the last operation.

While the surgeon was drawing away my water the sailors were drawing up

the anchor; both were finished at the same time; we unfurled our sails

and soon passed the Berry-head, which forms the mouth of the bay.

We had not however sailed far when the wind, which had, though with a

slow pace, kept us company about six miles, suddenly turned about, and

offered to conduct us back again; a favour which, though sorely against

the grain, we were obliged to accept.

Nothing remarkable happened this day; for as to the firm persuasion of

the captain that he was under the spell of witchcraft, I would not

repeat it too often, though indeed he repeated it an hundred times every

day; in truth, he talked of nothing else, and seemed not only to be

satisfied in general of his being bewitched, but actually to have fixed

with good certainty on the person of the witch, whom, had he lived in

the days of Sir Matthew Hale, he would have infallibly indicted, and

very possibly have hanged, for the detestable sin of witchcraft; but

that law, and the whole doctrine that supported it, are now out of

fashion; and witches, as a learned divine once chose to express himself,

are put down by act of parliament. This witch, in the captain's opinion,

was no other than Mrs Francis of Ryde, who, as he insinuated, out of

anger to me for not spending more money in her house than she could

produce anything to exchange for, or any pretence to charge for, had

laid this spell on his ship.

Though we were again got near our harbour by three in the afternoon, yet

it seemed to require a full hour or more before we could come to our

former place of anchoring, or berth, as the captain called it. On this

occasion we exemplified one of the few advantages which the travellers

by water have over the travellers by land. What would the latter often

give for the sight of one of those hospitable mansions where he is

assured _that there is good entertainment for man and horse_; and where

both may consequently promise themselves to assuage that hunger which

exercise is so sure to raise in a healthy constitution.

At their arrival at this mansion, how much happier is the state of the

horse than that of the master! The former is immediately led to his

repast, such as it is, and, whatever it is, he falls to it with

appetite. But the latter is in a much worse situation. His hunger,

however violent, is always in some degree delicate, and his food must

have some kind of ornament, or, as the more usual phrase is, of

dressing, to recommend it. Now all dressing requires time, and

therefore, though perhaps the sheep might be just killed before you came

to the inn, yet in cutting him up, fetching the joint, which the

landlord by mistake said he had in the house, from the butcher at two

miles' distance, and afterwards warming it a little by the fire, two

hours at least must be consumed, while hunger, for want of better food,

preys all the time on the vitals of the man.

How different was the case with us! we carried our provision, our

kitchen, and our cook with us, and we were at one and the same time

travelling on our road, and sitting down to a repast of fish, with which

the greatest table in London can scarce at any rate be supplied.

_Friday._--As we were disappointed of our wind, and obliged to return

back the preceding evening, we resolved to extract all the good we could

out of our misfortune, and to add considerably to our fresh stores of

meat and bread, with which we were very indifferently provided when we

hurried away yesterday. By the captain's advice we likewise laid in some

stores of butter, which we salted and potted ourselves, for our use at

Lisbon, and we had great reason afterwards to thank him for his advice.

In the afternoon I persuaded my wife, whom it was no easy matter for me

to force from my side, to take a walk on shore, whither the gallant

captain declared he was ready to attend her. Accordingly the ladies set

out, and left me to enjoy a sweet and comfortable nap after the

operation of the preceding day.

Thus we enjoyed our separate pleasures full three hours, when we met

again, and my wife gave the foregoing account of the gentleman whom I

have before compared to Axylus, and of his habitation, to both which she

had been introduced by the captain, in the stile of an old friend and

acquaintance, though this foundation of intimacy seemed to her to be no

deeper laid than in an accidental dinner, eaten many years before, at

this temple of hospitality, when the captain lay wind-bound in the same

bay.

_Saturday._--Early this morning the wind seemed inclined to change in

our favour. Our alert captain snatched its very first motion, and got

under sail with so very gentle a breeze that, as the tide was against

him, he recommended to a fishing hoy to bring after him a vast salmon

and some other provisions which lay ready for him on shore.

Our anchor was up at six, and before nine in the morning we had doubled

the Berry-head, and were arrived off Dartmouth, having gone full three

miles in as many hours, in direct opposition to the tide, which only

befriended us out of our harbour; and though the wind was perhaps our

friend, it was so very silent, and exerted itself so little in our

favour, that, like some cool partisans, it was difficult to say whether

it was with us or against us. The captain, however, declared the former

to be the case during the whole three hours; but at last he perceived

his error, or rather, perhaps, this friend, which had hitherto wavered

in chusing his side, became now more determined. The captain then

suddenly tacked about, and, asserting that he was bewitched, submitted

to return to the place from whence he came. Now, though I am as free

from superstition as any man breathing, and never did believe in

witches, notwithstanding all the excellent arguments of my lord

chief-justice Hale in their favour, and long before they were put down

by act of parliament, yet by what power a ship of burthen should sail

three miles against both wind and tide, I cannot conceive, unless there

was some supernatural interposition in the case; nay, could we admit

that the wind stood neuter, the difficulty would still remain. So that

we must of necessity conclude that the ship was either bewinded or

bewitched.

The captain, perhaps, had another meaning. He imagined himself, I

believe, bewitched, because the wind, instead of persevering in its

change in his favour, for change it certainly did that morning, should

suddenly return to its favourite station, and blow him back towards the

bay. But, if this was his opinion, he soon saw cause to alter; for he

had not measured half the way back when the wind again declared in his

favour, and so loudly, that there was no possibility of being mistaken.

The orders for the second tack were given, and obeyed with much more

alacrity than those had been for the first. We were all of us indeed in

high spirits on the occasion; though some of us a little regretted the

good things we were likely to leave behind us by the fisherman's

neglect; I might give it a worse name, for he faithfully promised to

execute the commission, which he had had abundant opportunity to do; but

_nautica fides_ deserves as much to be proverbial as ever _Punica fides_

could formerly have done. Nay, when we consider that the Carthaginians

came from the Phenicians, who are supposed to have produced the first

mariners, we may probably see the true reason of the adage, and it may

open a field of very curious discoveries to the antiquarian.

We were, however, too eager to pursue our voyage to suffer anything we

left behind us to interrupt our happiness, which, indeed, many

agreeable circumstances conspired to advance. The weather was

inexpressibly pleasant, and we were all seated on the deck, when our

canvas began to swell with the wind. We had likewise in our view above

thirty other sail around us, all in the same situation. Here an

observation occurred to me, which, perhaps, though extremely obvious,

did not offer itself to every individual in our little fleet: when I

perceived with what different success we proceeded under the influence

of a superior power, which, while we lay almost idle ourselves, pushed

us forward on our intended voyage, and compared this with the slow

progress which we had made in the morning, of ourselves, and without any

such assistance, I could not help reflecting how often the greatest

abilities lie wind-bound as it were in life; or, if they venture out and

attempt to beat the seas, they struggle in vain against wind and tide,

and, if they have not sufficient prudence to put back, are most probably

cast away on the rocks and quicksands which are every day ready to

devour them.

It was now our fortune to set out _melioribus avibus_. The wind

freshened so briskly in our poop that the shore appeared to move from us

as fast as we did from the shore. The captain declared he was sure of a

wind, meaning its continuance; but he had disappointed us so often that

he had lost all credit. However, he kept his word a little better now,

and we lost sight of our native land as joyfully, at least, as it is

usual to regain it.

_Sunday._--The next morning the captain told me he thought himself

thirty miles to the westward of Plymouth, and before evening declared

that the Lizard Point, which is the extremity of Cornwall, bore several

leagues to leeward. Nothing remarkable passed this day, except the

captain's devotion, who, in his own phrase, summoned all hands to

prayers, which were read by a common sailor upon deck, with more devout

force and address than they are commonly read by a country curate, and

received with more decency and attention by the sailors than are usually

preserved in city congregations. I am indeed assured, that if any such

affected disregard of the solemn office in which they were engaged, as I

have seen practised by fine gentlemen and ladies, expressing a kind of

apprehension lest they should be suspected of being really in earnest in

their devotion, had been shewn here, they would have contracted the

contempt of the whole audience. To say the truth, from what I observed

in the behaviour of the sailors in this voyage, and on comparing it with

what I have formerly seen of them at sea and on shore, I am convinced

that on land there is nothing more idle and dissolute; in their own

element there are no persons near the level of their degree who live in

the constant practice of half so many good qualities. They are, for much

the greater part, perfect masters of their business, and always

extremely alert, and ready in executing it, without any regard to

fatigue or hazard. The soldiers themselves are not better disciplined

nor more obedient to orders than these whilst aboard; they submit to

every difficulty which attends their calling with chearfulness, and no

less virtues and patience and fortitude are exercised by them every day

of their lives.

All these good qualities, however, they always leave behind them on

shipboard; the sailor out of water is, indeed, as wretched an animal as

the fish out of water; for though the former hath, in common with

amphibious animals, the bare power of existing on the land, yet if he be

kept there any time he never fails to become a nuisance.

The ship having had a good deal of motion since she was last under

sail, our women returned to their sickness, and I to my solitude;

having, for twenty-four hours together, scarce opened my lips to a

single person. This circumstance of being shut up within the

circumference of a few yards, with a score of human creatures, with not

one of whom it was possible to converse, was perhaps so rare as scarce

ever to have happened before, nor could it ever happen to one who

disliked it more than myself, or to myself at a season when I wanted

more food for my social disposition, or could converse less wholesomely

and happily with my own thoughts. To this accident, which fortune opened

to me in the Downs, was owing the first serious thought which I ever

entertained of enrolling myself among the voyage-writers; some of the

most amusing pages, if, indeed, there be any which deserve that name,

were possibly the production of the most disagreeable hours which ever

haunted the author.

_Monday._--At noon the captain took an observation, by which it appeared

that Ushant bore some leagues northward of us, and that we were just

entering the bay of Biscay. We had advanced a very few miles in this bay

before we were entirely becalmed: we furled our sails, as being of no

use to us while we lay in this most disagreeable situation, more

detested by the sailors than the most violent tempest: we were alarmed

with the loss of a fine piece of salt beef, which had been hung in the

sea to freshen it; this being, it seems, the strange property of

salt-water. The thief was immediately suspected, and presently

afterwards taken by the sailors. He was, indeed, no other than a huge

shark, who, not knowing when he was well off, swallowed another piece of

beef, together with a great iron crook on which it was hung, and by

which he was dragged into the ship.

I should scarce have mentioned the catching this shark, though so

exactly conformable to the rules and practice of voyage-writing, had it

not been for a strange circumstance that attended it. This was the

recovery of the stolen beef out of the shark's maw, where it lay

unchewed and undigested, and whence, being conveyed into the pot, the

flesh, and the thief that had stolen it, joined together in furnishing

variety to the ship's crew.

During this calm we likewise found the mast of a large vessel, which the

captain thought had lain at least three years in the sea. It was stuck

all over with a little shell-fish or reptile, called a barnacle, and

which probably are the prey of the rock-fish, as our captain calls it,

asserting that it is the finest fish in the world; for which we are

obliged to confide entirely to his taste; for, though he struck the fish

with a kind of harping-iron, and wounded him, I am convinced, to death,

yet he could not possess himself of his body; but the poor wretch

escaped to linger out a few hours with probably great torments.

In the evening our wind returned, and so briskly, that we ran upwards of

twenty leagues before the next day's [_Tuesday's_] observation, which

brought us to lat. 47° 42´. The captain promised us a very speedy

passage through the bay; but he deceived us, or the wind deceived him,

for it so slackened at sunset, that it scarce carried us a mile in an

hour during the whole succeeding night.

_Wednesday._--A gale struck up a little after sun-rising, which carried

us between three and four knots or miles an hour. We were this day at

noon about the middle of the bay of Biscay, when the wind once more

deserted us, and we were so entirely becalmed, that we did not advance a

mile in many hours. My fresh-water reader will perhaps conceive no

unpleasant idea from this calm; but it affected us much more than a

storm could have done; for, as the irascible passions of men are apt to

swell with indignation long after the injury which first raised them is

over, so fared it with the sea. It rose mountains high, and lifted our

poor ship up and down, backwards and forwards, with so violent an

emotion, that there was scarce a man in the ship better able to stand

than myself. Every utensil in our cabin rolled up and down, as we should

have rolled ourselves, had not our chairs been fast lashed to the floor.

In this situation, with our tables likewise fastened by ropes, the

captain and myself took our meal with some difficulty, and swallowed a

little of our broth, for we spilt much the greater part. The remainder

of our dinner being an old, lean, tame duck roasted, I regretted but

little the loss of, my teeth not being good enough to have chewed it.

Our women, who began to creep out of their holes in the morning, retired

again within the cabin to their beds, and were no more heard of this

day, in which my whole comfort was to find by the captain's relation

that the swelling was sometimes much worse; he did, indeed, take this

occasion to be more communicative than ever, and informed me of such

misadventures that had befallen him within forty-six years at sea as

might frighten a very bold spirit from undertaking even the shortest

voyage. Were these, indeed, but universally known, our matrons of

quality would possibly be deterred from venturing their tender offspring

at sea; by which means our navy would lose the honour of many a young

commodore, who at twenty-two is better versed in maritime affairs than

real seamen are made by experience at sixty.

And this may, perhaps, appear the more extraordinary, as the education

of both seems to be pretty much the same; neither of them having had

their courage tried by Virgil's description of a storm, in which,

inspired as he was, I doubt whether our captain doth not exceed him.

In the evening the wind, which continued in the N.W., again freshened,

and that so briskly that Cape Finisterre appeared by this day's

observation to bear a few miles to the southward. We now indeed sailed,

or rather flew, near ten knots an hour; and the captain, in the

redundancy of his good-humour, declared he would go to church at Lisbon

on Sunday next, for that he was sure of a wind; and, indeed, we all

firmly believed him. But the event again contradicted him; for we were

again visited by a calm in the evening.

But here, though our voyage was retarded, we were entertained with a

scene, which as no one can behold without going to sea, so no one can

form an idea of anything equal to it on shore. We were seated on the

deck, women and all, in the serenest evening that can be imagined. Not a

single cloud presented itself to our view, and the sun himself was the

only object which engrossed our whole attention. He did indeed set with

a majesty which is incapable of description, with which, while the

horizon was yet blazing with glory, our eyes were called off to the

opposite part to survey the moon, which was then at full, and which in

rising presented us with the second object that this world hath offered

to our vision. Compared to these the pageantry of theatres, or splendour

of courts, are sights almost below the regard of children.

We did not return from the deck till late in the evening; the weather

being inexpressibly pleasant, and so warm that even my old distemper

perceived the alteration of the climate. There was indeed a swell, but

nothing comparable to what we had felt before, and it affected us on the

deck much less than in the cabin.

_Friday._--The calm continued till sun-rising, when the wind likewise

arose, but unluckily for us it came from a wrong quarter; it was

S.S.E., which is that very wind which Juno would have solicited of

Æolus, had Æneas been in our latitude bound for Lisbon.

The captain now put on his most melancholy aspect, and resumed his

former opinion that he was bewitched. He declared with great solemnity

that this was worse and worse, for that a wind directly in his teeth was

worse than no wind at all. Had we pursued the course which the wind

persuaded us to take we had gone directly for Newfoundland, if we had

not fallen in with Ireland in our way. Two ways remained to avoid this;

one was to put into a port of Galicia; the other, to beat to the

westward with as little sail as possible: and this was our captain's

election.

As for us, poor passengers, any port would have been welcome to us;

especially, as not only our fresh provisions, except a great number of

old ducks and fowls, but even our bread was come to an end, and nothing

but sea-biscuit remained, which I could not chew. So that now for the

first time in my life I saw what it was to want a bit of bread.

The wind however was not so unkind as we had apprehended; but, having

declined with the sun, it changed at the approach of the moon, and

became again favourable to us, though so gentle that the next day's

observation carried us very little to the southward of Cape Finisterre.

This evening at six the wind, which had been very quiet all day, rose

very high, and continuing in our favour drove us seven knots an hour.

This day we saw a sail, the only one, as I heard of, we had seen in our

whole passage through the bay. I mention this on account of what

appeared to me somewhat extraordinary. Though she was at such a distance

that I could only perceive she was a ship, the sailors discovered that

she was a snow, bound to a port in Galicia.

_Sunday._--After prayers, which our good captain read on the deck with

an audible voice, and with but one mistake, of a lion for Elias, in the

second lesson for this day, we found ourselves far advanced in 42°, and

the captain declared we should sup off Porte. We had not much wind this

day; but, as this was directly in our favour, we made it up with sail,

of which we crowded all we had. We went only at the rate of four miles

an hour, but with so uneasy a motion, continually rolling from side to

side, that I suffered more than I had done in our whole voyage; my

bowels being almost twisted out of my belly. However, the day was very

serene and bright, and the captain, who was in high spirits, affirmed he

had never passed a pleasanter at sea.

The wind continued so brisk that we ran upward of six knots an hour the

whole night.

_Monday._--In the morning our captain concluded that he was got into

lat. 40°, and was very little short of the Burlings, as they are called

in the charts. We came up with them at five in the afternoon, being the

first land we had distinctly seen since we left Devonshire. They consist

of abundance of little rocky islands, a little distant from the shore,

three of them only shewing themselves above the water.

Here the Portuguese maintain a kind of garrison, if we may allow it that

name. It consists of malefactors, who are banished hither for a term,

for divers small offences--a policy which they may have copied from the

Egyptians, as we may read in Diodorus Siculus. That wise people, to

prevent the corruption of good manners by evil communication, built a

town on the Red Sea, whither they transported a great number of their

criminals, having first set an indelible mark on them, to prevent their

returning and mixing with the sober part of their citizens.

These rocks lie about fifteen leagues north-west of Cape Roxent, or, as

it is commonly called, the Rock of Lisbon, which we past early the next

morning. The wind, indeed, would have carried us thither sooner; but the

captain was not in a hurry, as he was to lose nothing by his delay.

_Tuesday._--This is a very high mountain, situated on the northern side

of the mouth of the river Tajo, which, rising about Madrid, in Spain,

and soon becoming navigable for small craft, empties itself, after a

long course, into the sea, about four leagues below Lisbon.

On the summit of the rock stands a hermitage, which is now in the

possession of an Englishman, who was formerly master of a vessel trading

to Lisbon; and, having changed his religion and his manners, the latter

of which, at least, were none of the best, betook himself to this place,

in order to do penance for his sins. He is now very old, and hath

inhabited this hermitage for a great number of years, during which he

hath received some countenance from the royal family, and particularly

from the present queen dowager, whose piety refuses no trouble or

expence by which she may make a proselyte, being used to say that the

saving one soul would repay all the endeavours of her life.

Here we waited for the tide, and had the pleasure of surveying the face

of the country, the soil of which, at this season, exactly resembles an

old brick-kill, or a field where the green sward is pared up and set a

burning, or rather a smoaking, in little heaps to manure the land. This

sight will, perhaps, of all others, make an Englishman proud of, and

pleased with, his own country, which in verdure excels, I believe, every

other country. Another deficiency here is the want of large trees,

nothing above a shrub being here to be discovered in the circumference

of many miles.

At this place we took a pilot on board, who, being the first Portuguese

we spoke to, gave us an instance of that religious observance which is

paid by all nations to their laws; for, whereas it is here a capital

offence to assist any person in going on shore from a foreign vessel

before it hath been examined, and every person in it viewed by the

magistrates of health, as they are called, this worthy pilot, for a very

small reward, rowed the Portuguese priest to shore at this place, beyond

which he did not dare to advance, and in venturing whither he had given

sufficient testimony of love for his native country.

We did not enter the Tajo till noon, when, after passing several old

castles and other buildings which had greatly the aspect of ruins, we

came to the castle of Bellisle, where we had a full prospect of Lisbon,

and were, indeed, within three miles of it.

Here we were saluted with a gun, which was a signal to pass no farther

till we had complied with certain ceremonies which the laws of this

country require to be observed by all ships which arrive in this port.

We were obliged then to cast anchor, and expect the arrival of the

officers of the customs, without whose passport no ship must proceed

farther than this place.

Here likewise we received a visit from one of those magistrates of

health before mentioned. He refused to come on board the ship till every

person in her had been drawn up on deck and personally viewed by him.

This occasioned some delay on my part, as it was not the work of a

minute to lift me from the cabin to the deck. The captain thought my

particular case might have been excused from this ceremony, and that it

would be abundantly sufficient if the magistrate, who was obliged

afterwards to visit the cabin, surveyed me there. But this did not

satisfy the magistrate's strict regard to his duty. When he was told of

my lameness, he called out, with a voice of authority, "Let him be

brought up," and his orders were presently complied with. He was,

indeed, a person of great dignity, as well as of the most exact

fidelity in the discharge of his trust. Both which are the more

admirable as his salary is less than thirty pounds English per annum.

Before a ship hath been visited by one of those magistrates no person

can lawfully go on board her, nor can any on board depart from her. This

I saw exemplified in a remarkable instance. The young lad whom I have

mentioned as one of our passengers was here met by his father, who, on

the first news of the captain's arrival, came from Lisbon to Bellisle in

a boat, being eager to embrace a son whom he had not seen for many

years. But when he came alongside our ship neither did the father dare

ascend nor the son descend, as the magistrate of health had not yet been

on board.

Some of our readers will, perhaps, admire the great caution of this

policy, so nicely calculated for the preservation of this country from

all pestilential distempers. Others will as probably regard it as too

exact and formal to be constantly persisted in, in seasons of the utmost

safety, as well as in times of danger. I will not decide either way, but

will content myself with observing that I never yet saw or heard of a

place where a traveller had so much trouble given him at his landing as

here. The only use of which, as all such matters begin and end in form

only, is to put it into the power of low and mean fellows to be either

rudely officious or grossly corrupt, as they shall see occasion to

prefer the gratification of their pride or of their avarice.

Of this kind, likewise, is that power which is lodged with other

officers here, of taking away every grain of snuff and every leaf of

tobacco brought hither from other countries, though only for the

temporary use of the person during his residence here. This is executed

with great insolence, and, as it is in the hands of the dregs of the

people, very scandalously; for, under pretence of searching for tobacco

and snuff, they are sure to steal whatever they can find, insomuch that

when they came on board our sailors addressed us in the Covent-garden

language: "Pray, gentlemen and ladies, take care of your swords and

watches." Indeed, I never yet saw anything equal to the contempt and

hatred which our honest tars every moment expressed for these Portuguese

officers.

At Bellisle lies buried Catharine of Arragon, widow of prince Arthur,

eldest son of our Henry VII., afterwards married to, and divorced from,

Henry VIII. Close by the church where her remains are deposited is a

large convent of Geronymites, one of the most beautiful piles of

building in all Portugal.

In the evening, at twelve, our ship, having received previous visits

from all the necessary parties, took the advantage of the tide, and

having sailed up to Lisbon cast anchor there, in a calm and moonshiny

night, which made the passage incredibly pleasant to the women, who

remained three hours enjoying it, whilst I was left to the cooler

transports of enjoying their pleasures at second-hand; and yet, cooler

as they may be, whoever is totally ignorant of such sensation is, at the

same time, void of all ideas of friendship.

_Wednesday._--Lisbon, before which we now lay at anchor, is said to be

built on the same number of hills with old Rome; but these do not all

appear to the water; on the contrary, one sees from thence one vast high

hill and rock, with buildings arising above one another, and that in so

steep and almost perpendicular a manner, that they all seem to have but

one foundation.

As the houses, convents, churches, &c., are large, and all built with

white stone, they look very beautiful at a distance; but as you

approach nearer, and find them to want every kind of ornament, all idea

of beauty vanishes at once. While I was surveying the prospect of this

city, which bears so little resemblance to any other that I have ever

seen, a reflexion occurred to me that, if a man was suddenly to be

removed from Palmyra hither, and should take a view of no other city, in

how glorious a light would the antient architecture appear to him! and

what desolation and destruction of arts and sciences would he conclude

had happened between the several æras of these cities!

I had now waited full three hours upon deck for the return of my man,

whom I had sent to bespeak a good dinner (a thing which had been long

unknown to me) on shore, and then to bring a Lisbon chaise with him to

the sea-shore; but it seems the impertinence of the providore was not

yet brought to a conclusion. At three o'clock, when I was, from

emptiness, rather faint than hungry, my man returned, and told me there

was a new law lately made that no passenger should set his foot on shore

without a special order from the providore, and that he himself would

have been sent to prison for disobeying it, had he not been protected as

the servant of the captain. He informed me likewise that the captain had

been very industrious to get this order, but that it was then the

providore's hour of sleep, a time when no man, except the king himself,

durst disturb him.

To avoid prolixity, though in a part of my narrative which may be more

agreeable to my reader than it was to me, the providore, having at last

finished his nap, dispatched this absurd matter of form, and gave me

leave to come, or rather to be carried, on shore.

What it was that gave the first hint of this strange law is not easy to

guess. Possibly, in the infancy of their defection, and before their

government could be well established, they were willing to guard against

the bare possibility of surprise, of the success of which bare

possibility the Trojan horse will remain for ever on record, as a great

and memorable example. Now the Portuguese have no walls to secure them,

and a vessel of two or three hundred tons will contain a much larger

body of troops than could be concealed in that famous machine, though

Virgil tells us (somewhat hyperbolically, I believe) that it was as big

as a mountain.

About seven in the evening I got into a chaise on shore, and was driven

through the nastiest city in the world, though at the same time one of

the most populous, to a kind of coffee-house, which is very pleasantly

situated on the brow of a hill, about a mile from the city, and hath a

very fine prospect of the river Tajo from Lisbon to the sea.

Here we regaled ourselves with a good supper, for which we were as well

charged as if the bill had been made on the Bath-road, between Newbury

and London.

And now we could joyfully say,

Egressi optata Troes potiuntur arena.

Therefore, in the words of Horace,

--hic Finis chartæque viæque.

END OF VOL. I.

BALLANTYNE PRESS: EDINBURGH AND LONDON

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Some doubt whether this should not be rather 1641, which is a date

more agreeable to the account given of it in the introduction: but then

there are some passages which seem to relate to transactions infinitely

later, even within this year or two. To say the truth there are

difficulties attending either conjecture; so the reader may take which

he pleases

[B] Eyes are not perhaps so properly adapted to a spiritual substance;

but we are here, as in many other places, obliged to use corporeal terms

to make ourselves the better understood.

[C] This is the dress in which the god appears to mortals at the

theatres. One of the offices attributed to this god by the ancients, was

to collect the ghosts as a shepherd doth a flock of sheep, and drive

them with his wand into the other world.

[D] Those who have read of the gods sleeping in Homer will not be

surprized at this happening to spirits.

[E] A particular lady of quality is meant here; but every lady of

quality, or no quality, are welcome to apply the character to

themselves.

[F] We have before made an apology for this language, which we here

repeat for the last time; though the heart may, we hope, be

metaphorically used here with more propriety than when we apply those

passions to the body which belong to the soul.

[G] That we may mention it once for all, in the panegyrical part of this

work some particular person is always meant: but, in the satirical,

nobody.

[H] These ladies, I believe, by their names, presided over the

_leprosy_, _king's-evil_, and _scurvy_.

[I] This silly story is told as a solemn truth (_i.e._, that St James

really appeared in the manner this fellow is described) by Mariana, I.

7, §78.

[J] Here part of the manuscript is lost, and that a very considerable

one, as appears by the number of the next book and chapter, which

contains, I find, the history of Anna Boleyn; but as to the manner in

which it was introduced, or to whom the narrative is told, we are

totally left in the dark. I have only to remark, that this chapter is,

in the original, writ in a woman's hand: and, though the observations in

it are, I think, as excellent as any in the whole volume, there seems to

be a difference in style between this and the preceding chapters; and,

as it is the character of a woman which is related, I am inclined to

fancy it was really written by one of that sex.

[K] Here ends this curious manuscript; the rest being destroyed in

rolling up pens, tobacco, &c. It is to be hoped heedless people will

henceforth be more cautious what they burn, or use to other vile

purposes; especially when they consider the fate which had likely to

have befallen the divine Milton, and that the works of Homer were

probably discovered in some chandler's shop in Greece.

[L] At Lisbon.

[M] A predecessor of mine used to boast that he made one thousand pounds

a-year in his office; but how he did this (if indeed he did it) is to me

a secret. His clerk, now mine, told me I had more business than he had

ever known there; I am sure I had as much as any man could do. The truth

is, the fees are so very low, when any are due, and so much is done for

nothing, that, if a single justice of peace had business enough to

employ twenty clerks, neither he nor they would get much by their

labour. The public will not, therefore, I hope, think I betray a secret

when I inform them that I received from the Government a yearly pension

out of the public service-money; which, I believe, indeed, would have

been larger had my great patron been convinced of an error, which I have

heard him utter more than once, that he could not indeed say that the

acting as a principal justice of peace in Westminster was on all

accounts very desirable, but that all the world knew it was a very

lucrative office. Now, to have shewn him plainly that a man must be a

rogue to make a very little this way, and that he could not make much by

being as great a rogue as he could be, would have required more

confidence than, I believe, he had in me, and more of his conversation

than he chose to allow me; I therefore resigned the office and the

farther execution of my plan to my brother, who had long been my

assistant. And now, lest the case between me and the reader should be

the same in both instances as it was between me and the great man, I

will not add another word on the subject.