A BIG SCAMP AND A TRUE MAN--ELLIS VISITED BY HIS SWEETHEART--READS HIS
BIBLE ON BOARD SHIP--TRIALS AND PERSECUTIONS--ELLIS KNOCKS JONES DOWN--
DANGER--JONES SHIRKS AND ELLIS ENCOUNTERS IT--A CHRISTIAN WOMAN'S TEST--
A TERRIBLE PREDICAMENT--THE MIDDY SAVED BY ELLIS--AND THE SAILORS
ASCRIBE IT TO THE POWER OF PRAYER.
I was many years ago, first-lieutenant of the _Rainbow_ frigate. We
were fitting out alongside the old _Topaz_ hulk, in Portsmouth Harbour,
for the North American and West India stations, at that time united
under one command. We were nearly ready for sea, but still were a good
many hands short of our complement. For want of better, we had entered
several men, who would, I was afraid, prove but hard bargains; one
especially, who gave the name of John Jones, was a great, big, hulking
fellow, with an unpleasant expression of countenance, out of whom I
guessed but little work was to be got. The same day he joined, another
man came aboard and volunteered. He was a fine, active, intelligent
fellow. He said that his name was William Ellis, and that he had been
eight years at sea, in the merchant service. If there was little work
in Jones, there was plenty in him I saw, though he was a remarkably
quiet-looking man. He answered the questions put to him, but did not
volunteer a word about himself.
We had gone out to Spithead, and the Blue Peter was flying aloft, when a
shore boat came alongside. In the boat was a young woman, nicely,
though very plainly dressed, and a lad, who looked like her brother.
She asked leave to come on board, and inquired for William Ellis. Ellis
was aloft. His name had been loudly called along the lower deck,
before, casting his eyes below, having finished his work, they fell on
her. She gave a half-shriek of terror as she saw him, quick as
lightning, gliding down the rigging. He, in another moment, was by her
side. A blush was on his manly cheek, as he took her hand and warmly
pressed it. They talked earnestly for some time. He did not ask her to
move from the spot where they stood. At length, with a sigh, having
shaken hands with the lad, he prepared to help her into the boat. Her
last words, pronounced in a firm, though sweet voice, were, "Oh!
remember."
I was particularly struck by her quiet, modest manner, and her pleasing,
intelligent expression of countenance. We had despatches for Jamaica
and other West India Islands, which we visited in turn. Ellis
continued, as at first, one of the most quiet, well-behaved men in the
ship. Every moment of his watch below--that is to say, when off duty--
he was engaged in reading, chiefly, as I afterwards found, the Bible.
In those days, a Bible on the lower deck was a rarity, and religious
books were still less often seen. The _Rainbow_ formed no exception to
the rule, and Ellis got to be looked at with suspicion and dislike by
the greater number of the men. He was equally disliked by some of the
officers. The reason was clear--his life and example was a reproach to
them.
We had not been long in that treacherous clime before "Yellow Jack," as
sailors call the yellow fever, came on board. Numbers of our crew were
speedily down with it. Several died, and the pestilence increased. The
ship's company, as sometimes occurs, took a panic, and men who would
boldly have faced a visible enemy, trembled with dread at the thoughts
of being struck down by the fever. It was difficult to get men to
attend properly on the sick. Ellis was an exception; he immediately
volunteered for that duty, and was indefatigable in its performance. He
did more, I found; he spoke words of counsel and encouragement to the
sick and dying; he pointed out to them the Saviour, on whom looking with
repentance and faith in His all-sufficient work, they might be assured
of forgiveness.
Harry Lethbridge, a young midshipman, was among the first attacked.
Ellis carefully watched over the boy. Whenever he had performed his
other duties, he returned to the side of the hammock in which Harry lay,
bathed his face, sponged out his mouth, and gave him cooling drinks,
like the most gentle of nurses. More than once the doctor told me,
however, that he was afraid the young midshipman would slip through his
fingers, and he afterwards said that he considered it was mostly owing
to the very great attention paid to him by Ellis that he had escaped.
Ellis did more; he spoke to Harry, when his strength was returning, in a
way to touch his heart,--he told him how he had been saved from the jaws
of death by a God who loved his soul, and he showed how alone that soul
could be saved, and how freely and fully it would be saved, if he would
but accept the redemption offered him.
Notwithstanding the way Ellis had behaved during the fever, John Jones,
and men of his stamp, of whom there were many, continued to sneer at him
on account of his religion. "Any old woman, or young girl, could have
done as well as he did,--nursing a few sick men and boys: what was
that!" they said. "It didn't make him a bit more of a man."
From the West Indies we were sent to North America, to do away with the
effects of the fever. Knowing what a quiet man Ellis was, I was
somewhat surprised when one day, on the passage to Halifax, John Jones
came up to me on deck, fuming with rage, and preferred a formal charge
against him, for having assaulted and thrashed him. I, of course, as in
duty bound, sent for Ellis, and witnesses on both sides, to examine into
the case. Ellis appeared, hat in hand, and at once acknowledged that he
had thrashed Jones, but offered as an excuse that Jones and other men
had systematically annoyed him whenever he sat down to read the Bible,
and that at last Jones, encouraged by his previous forbearance, had
snatched up the book and made off with it, threatening to throw it
overboard. "I could bear it no longer, sir," said Ellis; "so I knocked
him over, that I might get back my Bible, and read it afterwards in
peace. Besides, sir, he said that people who read the Bible are never
worth anything, only just fit to nurse sick people, and that come a gale
of wind, or any danger, they would always be found skulking below."
"In that respect you, Jones, are wrong, and you had no business to
snatch away Ellis's Bible; but you, Ellis, broke through the rules of
discipline by knocking Jones over. You must reserve your blows for the
enemies of your country. I must therefore punish you. It is your first
offence, but it is too serious a one to be overlooked. Go below."
I inflicted as light a punishment as I well could on Ellis. After he
had undergone it, he came to me and expressed his regret at having lost
his temper, without in any way attempting to exculpate himself.
We reached Halifax, remained there a fortnight refitting, and again
sailed to cruise off the coast. Nova Scotia possesses a rocky,
forbidding shore, near which a seaman would dislike to be caught with a
gale blowing on it. One night, on a passage round to Prince Edward's
Island, we had kept closer in shore, in consequence of the fineness of
the weather, than would, under other circumstances, have been prudent.
The captain was ill below. Suddenly the wind shifted, and blew directly
on shore. I was called up, and hurrying on deck, saw at once that we
were to have a rough night of it.
The first thing to be done was to get a good offing. Accordingly I
hauled to the wind, and as it was not yet blowing very hard, I kept the
canvas on her which had previously been set. Suddenly a squall, its
approach unseen, struck the ship, and before a sheet could be started,
the main-topgallant yard was carried away, and the spar, wildly beating
about in the now furiously-blowing gale, threatened to carry away, not
only the topgallant mast, but the topmast itself. The loss of more of
our spars at such a moment might have been disastrous in the extreme.
To clear away the spar was, therefore of the greatest importance, but it
was an operation which would expose those who attempted it to the most
imminent dangers.
I sung out for volunteers. At that moment seeing Jones standing near
me, I could not help saying, "Come, my man, there's work for you; you
were boasting of your manhood the other day!" The first to spring
forward to my call was William Ellis.
"No," I answered; "I have made the offer to Jones. He ought to succeed
if any man can."
Jones looked aloft, then shook his head.
"I dare not; the man who attempts it will be sure to lose his life."
Ellis, as if anticipating the reply Jones would make, had been securing
an axe to his belt; having felt the edge to assure himself that it was
sharp. Scarcely had Jones finished speaking, than, exclaiming, "I'll
go!" he was ascending the main rigging.
I watched him with intense anxiety as long as I could see him, but he
was soon lost to sight in the gloom of night up aloft there amid the
tightening ropes, the straining mast, and the loosened sail and
shattered spar, which kept driving backwards and forwards and round and
round with terrific violence. I kept my eyes fixed on the spot where I
knew he must be. Now I thought I saw him clinging on to the rigging
with one hand, while with the other, his axe gleaming above his head, he
made stroke after stroke at the ropes by which the topgallant yard still
hung to the mast. Had he been hurled from the rigging, the ocean would
have been his tomb, for, heeling over as the ship was, he would have
fallen far to leeward. I fully expected such would be his fate; it
might be mine too, for I was determined to make the attempt if others
failed. I thought of the young woman who had visited him on board, and
of her sorrowing heart. My eye caught sight of something falling. Was
it Ellis? No! A shout rose from the crew. Down came the shattered
spar and the torn sail clear of everything, and fell into the foaming,
hissing waters, through which the frigate was forcing her way. The
topgallant mast stood uninjured. Ellis the next minute was beside me on
the deck.
"Thank you, Ellis; you did that work nobly," I said to him. "I think
that no one in future will venture to taunt you for your Bible-reading
propensities."
I was now able to send the hands aloft to shorten sail, and I fully
believe that our masts, and the ship herself, and our lives, were saved
by that act of courage. I afterwards asked Ellis how he felt when
aloft.
"That I was in the hands of God, sir," he answered. "I prayed for His
protection, and I never felt my heart more light, or my courage more
firm." [See Note.]
As may be supposed, no one after this ventured to call Ellis a milksop,
or to speak disparagingly of him in any other way. Jones sunk in public
estimation as Ellis rose, and gained great influence among the ship's
company, which he did not fail to use to their benefit. He still
further increased it by another act, which, however, was not so much a
proof of courage as of presence of mind, only the sailors declared, with
a tinge of superstition, that no other man on board could have done it.
I will mention it presently.
I frequently spoke to Ellis in a way an officer cannot venture to do,
except to a well-tried man. One day I asked him if he did not wish to
write to his wife, as I had the opportunity of sending letters.
"I am not married, sir," he answered, calmly. "That young woman you
saw, sir, Mary Summers, has promised to marry me when I get back, if I
can prove to her that I have acted all the time I have been away like a
Christian man. It's a long story too, and I won't trouble you with it
now; only Mary has very strong notions, and very right notions too. I
wasn't once what I now try to be. I was altogether careless about
religion. I fell in love with Mary, and tried my best to appear good,
and so far succeeded that I won her love. When, however, she found out
what I really was she said that nothing would induce her to marry me
unless I was a Christian. She gave me books and I read them, and I read
the Bible as I had never read it before, and she talked to me till I
thought that I was what she wanted me to be; but she said that people
couldn't tell what they really were till they were out in the busy world
and tried, and that I must be tried before she could venture to marry
me. At first I thought her terms very hard; but I do assure you, sir,
when I came to know more of the Gospel I felt that they were wise and
just. It's a very different thing to appear all right and correct, and
to feel very good too, in a quiet village, with a religious, sensible
young woman to watch over one, than to keep straight aboard a man-of-war
among a number of godless associates. In one case a man may almost
forget the necessity of earnest prayer. I do assure you sir, I have
felt aboard here that I could not get on an hour without it."
Reader, remember these words of Ellis. Consider how you will act when
you are tried and tempted. Satan often lets people alone when he finds
them in an easy position, that they may grow conceited of their own
strength. Never cease praying that you may see his wiles, and that,
through the Holy Spirit, you may be enabled to resist them, but never,
never trust to your own strength, or you will be sure to fall.
Some two years after this, when Harry Lethbridge had grown into a fine
young man, promising to be as smart an officer as any in the navy, we
were on our passage between the northern and southern portions of our
station, when we were caught in as heavy a gale as I ever experienced--a
complete hurricane. It came down on us so suddenly that it required all
hands to shorten sail as smartly as they could do. Among those who
sprang aloft when the hands were turned up was Harry Lethbridge, whose
station was the foretop. The post of honour among seamen in reefing
sails is the weather earing. [Note. An earing is a rope to haul up the
outer part of a sail.] Thus when the fore-topsail was to be reefed,
Harry eagerly sought, and was the first man out on, the yard-arm. While
reefing the sail, on hauling out the earing, from the strength of the
wind, and from his anxiety to get it done quickly, he did not haul the
first turn sufficiently taut. After taking the second, and getting a
good pull on it, the first earing rendered suddenly, and, losing his
balance, he fell over the yard. Those who saw him as I did thought he
was gone, but no; as he fell he had kept hold of the earing, and there
he hung, suspended by it about nine feet below the yard-arm and full
sixty from the deck, though, of course, far outside it, that is to say,
over the boiling ocean.
Those on deck looked up, almost paralysed with the terrible spectacle.
His destruction seemed inevitable. His hands were giving way. He
caught the rope in his teeth, and thus he hung suspended, alive and
strong, with the joyous spirits and anticipations of youthful manhood,
and yet with death as it were gaping for him. The man nearest to him on
the yard threw towards him the end of a rope, but it was blown away to
leeward out of his reach. The captain instantly directed that a running
bowline knot should be made round the earing, and thus lowered over his
head; but his voice was drowned by the gale. Cries of horror escaped
from the lips of all who saw him. "A man overboard! a man overboard!"
was shouted out, for every one expected to see him fall into the sea.
William Ellis had never taken his eye off him. I saw him hurry forward.
Poor Harry could hold on no longer. His hands relaxed their gripe of
the rope, his teeth gave way, he fell. As he did so, the ship lurched
heavily to leeward and he came towards the forecastle. Ellis sprang
forward, and as Harry's feet touched the deck, caught him in his arms.
The midshipman's life was preserved, and the only injury he received was
the fracture of one of his ankle-bones. [Note. The whole of this
account is fact, without the slightest alteration.] "He's the only man
who could have done it, though," I afterwards heard some of the seamen
remark. "He prayed that he might do it, and he did it, do ye see."
Even the irreligious often acknowledge the efficacy of the prayers of
Christian men.
William Ellis persevered in his Christian course till the ship was paid
off, when I saw his Mary, who had come to Portsmouth to welcome him.
They married; he obtained a warrant as a gunner, and some years
afterwards, through the influence of Harry Lethbridge, got a good
appointment on shore. The young midshipman, feeling that his life had,
through God's mercy, been preserved that he might do Him service, became
a thorough Christian, in practice as well as in name, and a first-rate
officer; while Ellis continued as he had begun, aided and encouraged, I
have no doubt, by his excellent wife, to the end of his life.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note. This account was given to the author by the late Admiral
Saumarez, and the words are to the best of his recollection those used
by the man who performed the act recorded.