Walter Strale was of German descent; his parents, as we have seen,
resided for a time in Virginia, and it was during this period that
Walter was born. When he was about fourteen years of age, his father
determined to remove to France, and establish a mercantile house in
Paris. Mr. Strale, however, was unwilling to educate his son in that
gay metropolis; and though by no means strict in matters of religion,
he felt a deep solicitude that the morals of his child might be
preserved. It was at one time his purpose to leave him in Virginia,
among some highly valued and judicious friends; but as the means of
education were very imperfect in that region, he wisely determined
to send him to Boston, where he knew his studies would be carefully
superintended, and his morals effectually guarded.
It was difficult, after all, to understand fully the motives of Mr.
Strale, in sending his son to so rigid a school of morals. He was a
high churchman, and had a thorough contempt for what he called the
superstitions and austerities of the Puritans. It is probable the
extremely volatile temper of Walter made it necessary to place him
under careful restraints and a rigid discipline, and Mr. Strale, who
was a man of excellent sense, perceiving the advantages of a New
England education, was willing, for the sake of its fidelity, to
overlook its seeming bigotry and austerity; for with all his contempt
for the Puritan sect, he was ready to acknowledge, that on the score of
integrity and good morals, no people on earth could rival them.
On the morning of the twenty-fourth of June, 1685, Walter embarked at
James River, on board the _Sea Gull_, a beautiful schooner, under the
command of Capt. Wing, who was a shrewd trader, as well as a skilful
seaman, and had for some time past kept up a regular intercourse
between Virginia and the New England colonies. He was of course well
known to Mr. Strale, who was entirely satisfied in committing Walter
to his care. Mrs. Strale was careful to furnish, her son with every
convenience and luxury which maternal care could provide, and his
father sent with him a negro servant, named Pompey, the most faithful
of all his domestics, and who might in an important sense be called the
steward of his house: he presided over sundry departments of domestic
economy, and no one on the plantation was more jealous of his rights,
or displayed in a higher degree, the pride and authority of station;
yet Pompey professed to be a thorough democrat, and insisted that
all men were born free and equal: he could never solve the problems
and mathematics of slavery, yet as he required the strict obedience
of those under his control, he thought it no more than right to be
submissive, in his turn, to the mandates and discipline of his master.
Pompey's theory of universal liberty exposed him to much censure from
his fellow slaves, for he was in fact a tyrant on as large a scale
as circumstances would permit. Whenever he had a chance to exercise
his love of power, Pompey assumed the kingly prerogative, and claimed
for his opinions the supremacy of law; if any one questioned his
authority, or chose to plead his natural rights, Pompey assured him
that democracy always consulted the general good, and as power must
reside somewhere, it was natural to suppose that he who possessed it
knew best how and when it was proper to exercise it.
There was another circumstance which gave Pompey a little extra
consequence: in consideration of his fidelity, he was assured that if
he continued faithful till Master Walter was educated, he should then
receive his freedom. This period was now approaching, and he thought
it no harm to take a little of his future liberty in advance; but he
often misjudged in regard to the extent of his privilege, and was of
course subjected to some slight rebukes, which occasionally left marks
on his person, not at all to his credit. If there was any thing to
which Pompey had a mortal aversion, it was to the cane or the lash:
not, as he said, that he minded the pain,--but they always disfigured a
gentleman, and his freedom would not be worth having, if he carried on
his person such tokens of his vassalage and debasement.
The first impressions of a sea life are uniformly disagreeable. The
pleasant dreams which gather over the mind, in its views of distant
countries, changing latitudes, and the thousand forms of beauty which
flit through the air, or skim over the water, are dispelled by a
single hour's experience, and perish at the first touches of reality.
It was so with Strale. He had no proper notion of the unsettled life
of a sailor: the splendid visions which hung over the future, were
soon scattered by the fatal sea-sickness, and the retreating phantoms
thronged around the scenes of home, and invested every locality with
the same beauty which at first beckoned him away; but there was no hope
of return: the fine southern breezes were wafting him to a strange
land, of which he had few correct notions, and whose customs and
habits, however repugnant to his feelings, must be adopted as his own.
For two days our little hero was struggling with all the demons of
sea-sickness, homesickness, and the remembrances of past enjoyments;
but his mind was too buoyant to continue long under this depression. On
the third day he appeared on deck; and as the graceful schooner with
fine breezes and under a cloud of canvass was gliding on her path, the
bright and the beautiful again adorned the prospect, and restored the
pleasures which had been so suddenly and rudely dispersed. He was now
able to climb the mast, and take his post on its highest elevation.
Walter was always on the look-out for adventure, and the novelties of
the sea began to occupy his mind, and invest the objects around him
with unwonted attractions. Moreover, Capt. Wing, like other seamen,
was graphic in his descriptions of hair-breadth escapes, and was never
at a loss for some real or invented tale of wonders. This was an
unfailing source of amusement, and Walter listened to his narratives
with enthusiasm and delight: he longed for some experience in the same
school; he wished to be familiar with dangers, to conquer whatever
element might oppose him, and to be in all respects the master of his
own destiny.
'There is no character like that of a sailor, Walter,' said Capt. Wing,
as they were sitting together near the companion-way, after dinner; 'he
is a cook, a seamstress, a washwoman, a gentleman, a philosopher, and
an astronomer.'
'You judge from your own crew,' said Walter, 'for you have trained
them to all these different characters; but as to the mass of seamen,
you might safely add, they are spendthrifts, drunkards, and fools.'
'You are an ignorant boy, Strale. Do you not know there are as many
spendthrifts, rowdies, and scoundrels, on shore, in proportion to their
numbers, as on the sea? They have a better chance to keep out of sight,
and there is a little more refinement in their vices; but after all,
the sailor has more good qualities to counterbalance his bad ones:
he is grievously slandered by all sorts of men; as a body they are
faithful, obedient, patient and generous, and when you take into view
their sufferings and temptations, it is wonderful they do so well.'
'The name of a sailor was once full of terror to me,' returned Walter,
'for in every narrative of piracy I have read, they are fearful agents,
and seem to commit murder with as little scrapie as if it were lawful
business.'
'So you have judged of the sailor's character from the worst portraits
you can find. This is not fair, Walter: if you take this method with
landsmen, you will dread them as much as you do the sailor. What do
you think of those land pirates, who decoy seamen into their dens of
wickedness, and then turn them houseless and penniless upon the world?
There are good and bad in all classes: when you are older, you will do
justice to the sailor.'
'I would do it now, Capt. Wing. My judgment was hasty and my language
rash; my observation must be more extended before I can be a competent
judge in this matter; but in the variety of character you have given
the sailor, you have placed things so much at opposites, that I must
ask you to unriddle the paradox.'
'The necessities of the sailor,' returned Capt. Wing, 'have made
him a little of every thing. You can well enough understand why he
acts the tailor or the cook, but you cannot connect these humble
offices with the higher qualities of the gentleman and philosopher.
Now here is Le Moine--our French steward; no one can be more skilful
in his office, and yet that lad can tell you the name of every
prominent constellation, and with the proper instruments he can
measure his latitude with unfailing accuracy. The same is true of
many other seamen, upon whom a careless observer might turn an eye of
indifference or contempt. But look, Walter! the clouds are heaving up
in the west; we shall have a thunder squall, and you will now see how
the Sea Gull dances on the water. That is the black flag,' continued
Wing, addressing Roberts, the mate; 'there are pirates in the clouds
as well as on the water, and old Neptune gets all the plunder; but the
wind is fair, and we can run half an hour before we are overhauled.'
'It grows dark already, and the wind lulls,' said Roberts; 'this
sky-scraper will board us directly.'
'Let him come,' said Wing; 'he is one of my old acquaintance, but his
dress is darker than usual, and he looks more rough and surly than is
his wont.'
The wind had now died away, and there was a perfect calm on the water;
the Sea Gull was flapping her wings, but had no onward motion. In a
few moments the cloud suddenly expanded, and stretched a curtain of
terrific blackness from the western limit of the horizon to the extreme
north; the air was now excessively sultry, and an ominous silence and
gloom hung over the water; it was presently interrupted by a sharp
flash of lightning, followed by a deafening peal of thunder. 'Get up
the chain, Mr. Roberts,' said Wing; 'the lightning will soon be in
chase of us, and we must throw it overboard.' The chain was instantly
run up to the mast head, and its lower extremity hung over the
tafferel; the sails were furled, except the foresail, which was closely
reefed, and under a light breeze the schooner again made some headway.
The whole atmosphere was now veiled in blackness, and as if conscious
that some terrible convulsion was at hand, the crew of the schooner
stood at their posts in perfect silence, while Capt. Wing paced the
deck, with that hurried and tremulous motion, which indicated the
anxiety that oppressed him. A few drops of rain now fell on the deck
and the surrounding ocean. Another and more vivid gleam of lightning,
followed by rapid and still fiercer flashes, announced that the crisis
was at hand. The next moment the little Sea Gull was enveloped in a
blaze of lurid fire, and she staggered under a shock, which but for the
chain at the mast head, would have sent her to the bottom; at the same
moment, the roar of the hurricane was heard in the distance, and before
the panic occasioned by the lightning had subsided, the foresail was
torn from the bolt ropes, and scattered in shreds upon the sea,--and
in a cloud of tempest and foam, the Sea Gull was rushing through the
water, at the rate of ten knots per hour. The sea and sky were now
mingled together in wild and terrible uproar; the constant blaze of
lightning, the rapid peals of thunder, the trembling and creaking of
the schooner as she dashed on her way, presented a scene which startled
and overawed even her daring and experienced commander. But the crisis
was soon past, and in the course of forty minutes the violence of the
squall was over, and before sunset the Sea Gull, with no other damage
than the loss of her foresail, was gliding over the water, with a
pleasant breeze from the south.
'I am willing to grapple with anything but lightning,' said Wing,
'thanks to the chain we sent up; but for that, Walter, we should have
slept to night in the ocean.'
'I must go beyond second causes, Capt. Wing, for such a wonderful
deliverance as this; our gratitude is due to a higher Power, and I
would never forget it.'
'A sailor's gratitude, Walter, does not often express itself in words,
but its impulses are not the less strong because they are invisible.'
'They are transient, however,' said Walter, 'and the occasion that
gives them birth is forgotten as a dream. Gratitude must be a steady
principle, and not a blind emotion; its fruits must be visible in the
life.'
'We sailors,' said Wing, 'are not preachers; we do not study the items
of theology; if we did, we should be poor navigators. You are a boy,
Strale, and have seen little of the world; a few more tramps over its
rough surface, and you will think nothing of these narrow escapes.'
Walter did not reply, but resting on the tafferel, and casting his eye
over the fading light of a gorgeous sunset, he traced the beautiful
images of a better land, and breathed an earnest prayer that he might
be fitted to enter at last upon its pure and everlasting felicities.
No other incident of importance occurred, and on the evening of
the third of July, the schooner was moored by the side of a little
island off the harbor of Boston. The boat landed Walter and some of
the crew by the side of a fine rivulet which flowed from the rock.
The quiet evening soon gathered around, and was occupied in grateful
recollections of the past, and bright anticipations of the morrow. The
antiquary may be interested to know that all which remains of that
green spot where Roberts and the young Virginian rambled by moonlight,
may be found in the rocks now called 'the Hardings.'
At sunrise on the following morning, the fourth of July, the Sea Gull
was again under way. The day was fine, with a clear sky and a soft
southern breeze. The schooner glided among the beautiful islands of the
inner harbor, which were then filled with trees, and vocal with the
songs of birds. It was not, as now, covered by vessels of every name
and from every clime, but along its still waters the little galley with
oars, the fisherman's skiff, and now and then the white pinions of some
taller bark, were seen to move over its silence and solitude; neither
did that halo of glory which now circles the birth-day of freedom
kindle the patriot's ardor; nor did the stripes and stars wave on the
green hills, nor the merry peal of bells go up with the rejoicings of
a liberated nation; yet the elements of all this glory were there, and
many a prophetic eye even then discerned its dawn upon the mystic
horizon of the future.
As the vessel approached the town, the eye of Walter roamed in delight
among the varied scenery which adorned the prospect. The islands with
their forests, the bay, the blue mountains on the left, were reposing
in the beauty of the morning, and the youthful fancy of Strale threw
around them a thousand visions of future bliss. On the west the tower
of Harvard Hall rose in the distance, shadowing forth that eminence
and literary fame, which have since adorned that noble institution.
In a few moments, the town with its white edifices, the spires of its
churches, its trees and gardens, which had for some time appeared in
beautiful outline, were displayed in distinct groups and figures; and
Walter, who had till then seen only a few scattered habitations, gazed
with intense gratification on the miniature city, as it stretched its
little outposts, its convenient and spacious wharf, its thirty sail of
merchantmen and coasters, and its eight hundred buildings, with all the
attractions of novelty on his eye.
The beauty of the day, the mild breathings of summer, and the carol
of innumerable birds, were but the emblems of that sublimer glory,
which in after times rested on the birth-day of freedom. The fathers
of those times sleep in the dust. The sons, too, are silent as the
fathers; but on the ears of the third generation the hymn of liberty
poured its strains of gladness, and the name of Washington was borne on
every breeze and enshrined in every patriot's heart. That name will be
revered as long as Virtue herself shall be loved and honored; and in
any future struggle for liberty, his grateful country will interweave
with every fold of her star spangled banner, the beautiful motto:
'He led the fathers and inspires the sons.'