My life is spanned already:
...
Go with me, like good angels, to my end.
"HENRY VIII."
Danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
"TROILUS AND CRESSIDA."
I had never been able to regain the confidence and esteem of the first
lieutenant since the unfortunate affair of the mast-head. He was
certainly an excellent and a correct officer, too much so to overlook
what he considered a breach of honour. I therefore easily reconciled
myself to a separation which occurred very soon after. We chased a ship
into the Bay of Arcasson, when, as was customary, she sought safety
under a battery; and the captain, according to our custom, resolved to
cut her out. For this purpose the boats were manned and armed, and
every preparation made for the attack on the following morning. The
command of the expedition was given to the first lieutenant, who
accepted of it with cheerfulness, and retired to his bed in high
spirits, with the anticipation of the honour and profit which the dawn
of day would heap upon him. He was proverbially brave and cool in
action, so that the seamen followed him with confidence as to certain
victory. Whether any ill-omened dreams had disturbed his rest, or
whether any reflections on the difficult and dangerous nature of the
service had alarmed him, I could not tell; but in the morning we all
observed a remarkable change in his deportment. His ardour was gone; he
walked the deck with a slow and measured pace, apparently in deep
thought; and contrary to his usual manner, was silent and melancholy,
abstracted, and inattentive to the duties of the ship.
The boats prepared for the service were manned; the officers had taken
their seats in them; the oars were tossed up; the eyes of the young
warriors beamed with animation, and we waited for Mr Handstone, who
still walked the deck, absorbed in his own reflections. He was at
length recalled to a sense of his situation by the captain, who in a
tone of voice more than usually loud, asked him if he intended to take
the command of the expedition? He replied, "Most certainly;" and, with
a firm and animated step, crossed the quarter-deck, and went into his
boat.
I, following, seated myself by his side; he looked at me with a
foreboding indifference; had he been in his usual mood, he would have
sent me to some other boat. We had a long pull before we reached the
object of our intended attack, which we found moored close in shore, and
well prepared for us. A broadside of grape-shot was the first salute we
received. It produced the same effect on our men as the spur to a fiery
steed. We pulled alongside, and began to scramble up in the best manner
we could. Handstone in an instant regained all his wonted animation,
cheered his men, and with his drawn sword in his hand, mounted the
ship's side, while our men at the same time poured in volleys of
musketry, and then followed their intrepid leader.
In our boat, the first alongside, eleven men, out of twenty-four, lay
killed or disabled. Disregarding these, the lieutenant sprang up. I
followed close to him; he leaped from the bulwark in upon her deck, and
before I could lift my cutlass in his defence, fell back upon me,
knocked me down in his fall, and expired in a moment. He had thirteen
musket-balls in his chest and stomach.
I had no time to disengage myself before I was trampled on, and nearly
suffocated by the pressure of my shipmates, who, burning to gain the
prize, or to avenge our fall, rushed on with the most undaunted bravery.
I was supposed to be dead, and treated accordingly, my poor body being
only used as a stop for the gangway, where the ladder was unshipped.
There I lay fainting with the pressure, and nearly suffocated with the
blood of my brave leader, on whose breast my face rested, with my hands
crossed over the back of my head, to save my skull, if possible, from
the heels of my friends and the swords of my enemies; and while reason
held her seat, I could not help thinking that I was just as well where I
was, and that a change of position might not be for the better. About
eight minutes decided the affair, though it certainly did seem to me, in
my then unpleasant situation, much longer. Before it was over I had
fainted, and before I regained my senses the vessel was under weigh, and
out of gun-shot from the batteries.
The first moments of respite from carnage were employed in examining the
bodies of the killed and wounded. I was numbered among the former, and
stretched out between the guns by the side of the first lieutenant and
the other dead bodies. A fresh breeze blowing through the ports revived
me a little, but, faint and sick, I had neither the power nor
inclination to move; my brain was confused; I had no recollection of
what had happened, and continued to lie in a sort of stupor, until the
prize came alongside of the frigate, and I was roused by the cheers of
congratulation and victory from those who had remained on board.
A boat instantly brought the surgeon and his assistants to inspect the
dead and assist the living. Murphy came along with them. He had not
been of the boarding party; and seeing my supposed lifeless corpse, he
gave it a slight kick, saying, at the same time, "Here is a young cock
that has done crowing! Well, for a wonder, this chap has cheated the
gallows."
The sound of the fellow's detested voice was enough to recall me from
the grave, if my orders had been signed: I faintly exclaimed, "You are a
liar!" which, even with all the melancholy scene around us, produced a
burst of laughter at his expense. I was removed to the ship, put to
bed, and bled, and was soon able to narrate the particulars of my
adventure; but I continued a long while dangerously ill.
The soliloquy of Murphy over my supposed dead body, and my laconic
reply, were the cause of much merriment in the ship. The midshipmen
annoyed him by asserting that he had saved my life, as nothing but his
hated voice could have awoke me from my sleep of death. The fate of the
first lieutenant was justly deplored by all of us, though I cannot deny
my Christian-like acquiescence in the will of Providence in this as well
as on a former occasion, when the witnesses of my weakness had been
removed for ever out of my way. As I saw it was impossible to regain
his good opinion, I thought it was quite as well that we should part
company. That he had a strong presentiment of his death was proved; and
though I had often heard these instances asserted, I never before had it
so clearly brought home to my senses.
The prize was called _L'Aimable Julie_, laden with coffee, cotton, and
indigo; mounted fourteen guns; had, at the commencement of the action,
forty-seven men, of whom eight were killed, and sixteen wounded. The
period of our return into port, according to our orders, happened to
coincide with this piece of good fortune, and we came up to Spithead,
where our captain met with a hearty welcome from the admiral. Having
delivered his "butcher's bill," i.e. the list of killed and wounded,
together with an account of our defects, they were sent up to the
Admiralty; and, by return of post, we were ordered to fit foreign: and
although no one on board, not even the captain, was supposed to know our
destination, the girls on the Point assured us it was the Mediterranean;
and this turned out to be the fact.
A few days only were spent in hurried preparation, during which I
continued to write to my father and mother. In return I received all I
required, which was a remittance in cash. This I duly acknowledged by a
few lines as the ship was unmooring. We sailed, and soon after arrived
without accident at Gibraltar, where we found general orders for any
ship that might arrive from England, to proceed and join the admiral at
Malta. In a few hours our provisions and water were complete; but we
were not in so much haste to arrive at Malta as we were to quit
Gibraltar--hugging the Spanish coast, in hopes of picking up something
to insure us as hearty a welcome at Valetta as we found on our last
return to Portsmouth.
Early on the second morning of our departure we made Cape de Gaete. As
the day dawned we discovered four sail in the wind's eye, and close in
shore. The wind was light, and all sail was made in chase. We gained
very little on them for many hours, and towards evening it fell calm.
The boats were then ordered to pursue them, and we set off, diverging a
little from each other's course, or, as the French would say, _deploye_,
to give a better chance of falling in with them. I was in the gig with
the master, and, that being the best running boat, we soon came up with
one of the feluccas. We fired musketry at her: but having a light
breeze, she would not bring-to. We then took good aim at the helmsman,
and hit him. The man only shifted the helm from his right hand to his
left, and kept on his course. We still kept firing at this intrepid
fellow, and I felt it was like wilful murder, since he made no
resistance, but steadily endeavoured to escape.
At length we got close under the stern, and hooked on with our
boat-hook. This the Spaniard unhooked, and we dropped astern, having
laid our oars in; but the breeze dying entirely away, we again pulled
alongside, and took possession. The poor man was still at the helm,
bleeding profusely. We offered him every assistance, and asked why he
did not surrender sooner. He replied that he was an old Castilian.
Whether he meant that an earlier surrender would have disgraced him, or
that he contemplated, from his former experience, a chance of escape to
the last moment, I cannot tell. Certain it is that no one ever behaved
better; and I felt that I would have given all I possessed to have
healed the wounds of this patient, meek, and undaunted old man, who
uttered no complaint, but submitted to his fate with a magnanimity which
would have done credit to Socrates himself. He had received four
musket-balls in his body, and, of course, survived his capture but a
very few hours.
We found, to our surprise, that this vessel, with the three others, one
of which was taken by another of our boats, were from Lima. They were
single-masted, about thirty tons burthen, twelve men each, and were
laden with copper, hides, wax, and cochineal, and had been out five
months. They were bound to Valentia, from which they were only one
day's sail when we intercepted them. Such is the fortune of war! This
gallant man, after a voyage of incredible labour and difficulty, would
in a few hours have embraced his family, and gladdened their hearts with
the produce of honest industry and successful enterprise; when, in a
moment, all their hopes were blasted by our legal murder and robbery;
and our prize-money came to our pockets with the tears, if not the
curses, of the widow and the orphan!
From some information which the captain obtained in the prize, he was
induced to stand over towards the Balearic Islands. We made Ivica, and
stood past it; then ran for Palma Bay, in the island of Majorca; here we
found nothing, to our great disappointment, and continued our course
round the island.
An event occurred here, so singular as scarcely to be credible; but the
fact is well attested, as there were others who witnessed it beside
myself. The water was smooth, and the day remarkably fine; we were
distant from the shore more than a mile and a quarter, when the captain,
wishing to try the range of the main deck guns, which were long
eighteen-pounders; ordered the gunner to elevate one of them, and fire
it towards the land. The gunner asked whether he should point the gun
at any object. A man was seen walking on the white sandy beach, and as
there did not appear to be the slightest chance of hitting him, for he
only looked like a speck, the captain desired the gunner to fire at him;
he did so, and the man fell. A herd of bullocks at this moment was seen
coming out of the woods, and the boats were sent with a party to shoot
some of them for the ship's company.
When we landed we found that the ball had cut the poor man in two; and
what made the circumstance more particularly interesting was that he was
evidently a man of consequence. He was well dressed, had on black
breeches and silk stockings; he was reading Ovid's Metamorphoses, and
still grasped the book, which I took out of his hand.
We have often heard of the miraculous powers ascribed to a chance shot,
but never could we have supposed that this devilish ball could have gone
so far, or done so much mischief. We buried the remains of the
unfortunate gentleman in the sand; and having selected two or three
bullocks out of the herd, shot them, skinned and divided them into
quarters, loaded our boat, and returned on board. I had taken the book
out of the hand of the deceased, and from his neck a small miniature of
a beautiful female. The brooch in his shirt I also brought away; and
when I gave an account to the captain of what had happened, I offered
him these articles. He returned them all to me, desired me to keep them
until I could see any of the friends of the deceased, and appeared so
much distressed at the accident, that we never mentioned it afterwards;
and in the course of the time we were together, it was nearly forgotten.
The articles remained in my possession unnoticed for many years.
Two days after, we fell in with a vessel of suspicious appearance; and
it being calm, the boats were sent in chase. They found her, on their
approach, to be a xebeque, under French colours; but these were very
soon hauled down, and showed no others. As we came within hail, they
told us to keep off, and that if we attempted to board they should fire
into us. This was not a threat likely to deter a British officer, and
particularly such fire-eaters as ours. So to it we went, and a
desperate struggle ensued, the numbers being nearly equal on both sides;
but they had the advantage of their own deck and bulwarks. We got on
board, however, and in a few minutes gained possession, with a loss on
our side, of sixteen; and on that of our opponent's of twenty-six killed
and wounded. But great was our sorrow and disappointment when we
discovered that we had shed the blood of our friends, while we had lost
our own. The vessel, it appeared, was a Gibraltar privateer; they took
us for French, our boats being fitted with tholes and grummets for the
oars in the French fashion; and we supposed them to be French from their
colours and the language in which they hailed us. In this affair we had
three officers killed or wounded, and some of our best men. The
privateer was manned by a mixed crew of all nations, but chiefly Greeks;
and although ostensibly with a commission signed by the Governor of
Gibraltar, were no doubt little scrupulous as to the colours of any
vessel they might encounter, provided she was not too strong for them.
After this unfortunate mistake we proceeded to Malta: the captain
expecting a severe rebuke from his admiral, for his rashness in sending
away his boats to attack a vessel without knowing her force.
Fortunately for him, the admiral was not there; and before we met him,
the number of prizes we had taken was found sufficient in his eyes to
cover our multitude of sins, so the affair blew over.
While we lay in Malta Harbour, my friend Murphy fell overboard one
night, just after all the boats were hoisted in; he could not swim, and
would have been drowned if I had not jumped overboard and held him up
until a boat was lowered down to our assistance. The officers and
ship's company gave me more credit for this action than I really
deserved. To have saved any person under such circumstances, they said,
was a noble deed; but to risk my life for a man who had always, from my
first coming into the ship, been my bitterest enemy, was more than they
could have expected, and was undoubtedly the noblest revenge that I
could have taken. But they were deceived--they knew me not: it was my
vanity, and the desire of oppressing my enemy under a weight of
obligation, that induced me to rush to his rescue; moreover, as I stood
on the gangway witnessing his struggles for life, I felt that I was
about to lose all the revenge I had so long laid up in store; in short,
I could not spare him, and only saved him, as a cat does a mouse, to
torment him.
Murphy acknowledged his obligations, and said the terrors of death were
upon him; but in a few days forgot all I had done for him, consummated
his own disgrace, and raised my character on the ruins of his own. On
some frivolous occasion he threw a basin of dirty water in my face as I
passed through the steerage; this was too good an opportunity to gratify
my darling passion. I had long watched for an occasion to quarrel with
him; but as he had been ill during our passage from Gibraltar to Malta,
I could not justify any act of aggression. He had now recovered, and
was in the plentitude of his strength, and I astonished him by striking
the first blow. A set-to followed; I brought up all my scientific
powers in aid of my strength and the memory of former injuries. I must
do him the justice to say he never showed more game--but he had
everything to contend for; if I was beaten I was only where I was
before, but with him the case would have been different. A fallen
tyrant has no friends. Stung to madness by the successful hits I
planted in his face, he lost his temper, while I was cool; he fought
wildly, I stopped all his blows, and paid them with interest. He stood
forty-three rounds, and then gave in with his eyes bunged up and his
face so swollen and so covered with blood, as not to be known by his
friends, if he had had any.
I had hardly a mark; most of our midshipmen were absent in prizes; but
the two seniors of our berth, an old master's mate past promotion, and
the surgeon's assistant, who had held my wrist when I was cobbed, were
present as the supporters of Murphy during the combat. I always
determined, whenever I gained a battle, to follow it up. The shouts of
victory resounded in the berth--the youngsters joined with me in songs
of triumph, and gave great offence to the trio. The young Esculapius, a
white-faced, stupid, pock-marked, unhealthy-looking man, was fool enough
to say that although I had beaten Murphy, I was not to suppose myself
master of the berth. I replied to this only by throwing a biscuit at
his head, as a shot of defiance; and, darting on him before he could get
his legs from under the table, I thrust my fingers into his neckcloth,
which I twisted so tightly, that I held him till he was nearly choked,
giving his head, at the same time, two or three good thumps against the
ship's side.
Finding that he grew black in the face, I let him go, and asked if he
required any further satisfaction, to which he replied in the negative,
and from that day he was always dutiful and obedient to me. The old
superannuated mate, a sturdy merchant seaman, seemed greatly dismayed at
the successive defeats of his allies, and I believe would have gladly
concluded a separate peace. He had never offered to come to the
assistance of the doctor, although appealed to in the most pitiable
gestures. This I observed with secret pleasure, and would the more
willingly have given him a brush, as I saw he was disinclined to make
the attempt. I was, however, determined to be at the head of the mess.
At twelve o'clock that night I was relieved from the first watch, and
coming down I found the old mate in a state of beastly intoxication.
Thus he went to his hammock, and fell asleep. While he lay "dormant," I
took a piece of lunar caustic, which I wetted, and drew stripes and
figures all over his weather-beaten face, increasing his natural
ugliness to a frightful degree, and made him look very like a New
Zealand warrior. The next morning, when he was making his toilet, my
party were all ready prepared for the _eclaircissement_. He opened his
little dirty chest, and having strapped an old razor, and made a lather
in a wooden soap-box which bore evident marks of the antique, he placed
a triangular piece of a looking-glass against the reclining lid of the
chest, and began the operation of shaving. His start back with horror,
when he beheld his face, I shall never forget: it outdid the young
Roscius, when he saw the ghost of Hamlet. Having wetted his forefinger
with his tongue, the old mate tried to remove the stain of the caustic,
but the "damned spot" still remained, and we, like so many young imps,
surrounded him, roaring with laughter.
I boldly told him that he bore my marks as well as Murphy and the
doctor; and I added, with a degree of cruel mockery which might have
been spared, that I thought it right to put all my servants in black
to-day. I asked whether he was contented with the arrangement, or
whether he chose to appeal against my decree; he signified that he had
no more to say.
Thus, in twenty-four hours, I had subdued the great allies who had so
long oppressed me. I immediately effected a revolution; dismissed the
doctor from the office of caterer, took the charge on myself, and
administered the most impartial justice. I made the oldsters pay their
mess, which they had not correctly done before; I caused an equal
distribution of all luxuries, from which the juniors had till then been
debarred; and I flatter myself I restored, in some degree, the golden
age in the cockpit. There were no more battles, for there was no hope
of victory on their part, nor anything to contend for on mine. I never
took any advantage of my strength further than to protect the
youngsters. I proved by this that I was not quarrelsome, but had only
struggled for my own emancipation--that gained, I was satisfied. My
conduct was explained to the captain and the officers; and being fully
and fairly discussed, did me great service. I was looked upon with
respect, and treated with marks of confidence not usual towards a person
so young.
We left Malta, expecting to find our commander-in-chief off Toulon; but
it seldom happens that the captain of a frigate is in any hurry to join
his admiral, unless charged with despatches of importance. This not
being our case, we somehow or other tumbled down the Mediterranean
before a strong Levanter, and then had to work back again along the
coast of Spain and France. It is an ill wind, they say, that blows
nobody good; and we found it so with us; for off Toulon, in company with
the fleet, if we did take prizes they became of little value, because
there were so many to share them. Our captain, who was a man of the
most consummate _ruse de guerre_ I ever saw or heard of, had two reasons
for sending his prizes to Gibraltar. The first was, that we should, in
all probability, be sent down there to receive our men, and have the
advantage of the cruise back; the second, that he was well aware of the
corrupt practices of the Admiralty-Court at Malta.
All the vessels, therefore, which we had hitherto captured, were sent to
Gibraltar for adjudication, and we now added to their number. We had
the good fortune to take a large ship laden with barilla, and a brig
with tobacco and wine. The charge of the last I was honoured with: and
no prime minister ever held a situation of such heavy responsibility
with such corrupt supporters. So much was the crew of the frigate
reduced by former captures and the unlucky affair with the Maltese
privateer, that I was only allowed three men. I was, however, so
delighted with my first command, that, I verily believe, if they had
only given me a dog and a pig I should have been satisfied.
The frigate's boat put us on board. It blew fresh from the eastward,
and I instantly put the helm up, and shaped my course for the old rock.
The breeze soon freshened into a gale; we ran slap before it, but soon
found it necessary to take in the top-gallant sails. This we at last
accomplished, one at a time. We then thought a reef or two in the
topsails would be acceptable; but that was impossible. We tried a
Spanish reef, that is, let the yards come down on the cap; and she flew
before the gale, which had now increased to a very serious degree. Our
cargo of wine and tobacco was, unfortunately, stowed by a Spanish and
not a British owner. The difference was very material to me. An
Englishman, knowing the vice of his countrymen, would have placed the
wine underneath, and the tobacco above. Unfortunately it was, in this
instance, the reverse, and my men very soon helped themselves to as much
as rendered them nearly useless to me, being more than half seas over.
We got on pretty well, however, till about two o'clock in the morning,
when the man at the helm, unable to wake the other two seamen to fetch
him a drop, thought he might trust the brig to steer herself for a
minute, while he quenched his thirst at the wine-cask: the vessel
instantly broached to, that is, came with her broadside to the wind and
sea, and away went the mainmast by the board. Fortunately, the foremast
stood. The man who had just quitted the helm had not time to get drunk,
and the other two were so much frightened that they got sober.
We cleared the wreck as well as we could, got her before the wind again,
and continued on our course. But a British sailor, the most daring of
all men, is likewise the most regardless of warning or of consequences.
The loss of the mainmast, instead of showing my men the madness of their
indulgence in drink, turned the scale the opposite way. If they could
get drunk with two masts, how much more could they do so with one, when
they had only half as much sail to look after? With such a rule of
three there was no reasoning; and they got drunk, and continued drunk
during the whole passage.
Good luck often attends us when we don't deserve it:
"The sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,"
as Dibdin says, has an eye upon us. I knew we could not easily get out
of the Gut of Gibraltar without knowing it; and accordingly, on the
third day after leaving the frigate, we made the rock early in the
morning, and, by two o'clock, rounded Europa Point. I had ordered the
men to bend the cable, and, like many other young officers, fancied it
was done because they said it was, and because I had ordered it. It
never occurred to me to go and see if my orders had been executed;
indeed, to say the truth, I had quite as much as I could turn my hand
to: I was at the helm from twelve o'clock at night till six in the
morning, looking out for the land; and when I ordered one of the men to
relieve me, I directed him how to steer, and fell into a profound sleep,
which lasted till ten o'clock; after which I was forced to exert the
whole of my ingenuity in order to fetch into the Bay, and prevent being
blown through the Gut; so that the bending of the cable escaped my
memory until the moment I required the use of the anchor.
As I passed under the stern of one of the ships of war in the Bay, with
my prize colours flying, the officer on deck hailed me, and said I "had
better shorten sail." I thought so too, but how was this to be done?
My whole ship's company were too drunk to do it, and though I begged for
some assistance from his Majesty's ship, it blew so fresh, and we passed
so quickly, that they could not hear me, or were not inclined.
Necessity has no law. I saw among the other ships in the bay a great
lump of a transport, and I thought she was much better able to bear the
concussion I intended for her than any other vessel; because I had heard
then, and have been made sure of it since, that her owners (like all
other owners) were cheating the government out of thousands of pounds a
year. She was lying exactly in the part of the Bay assigned for the
prizes; and as I saw no other possible mode of "bringing the ship to
anchor," I steered for "the lobster smack," and ran slap on board of
her, to the great astonishment of the master, mate, and crew.
The usual expletives, a volley of oaths and curses on our lubberly
heads, followed the shock. This I expected, and was as fully prepared
for as I was for the fall of my foremast, which, taking the foreyard of
the transport, fell over the starboard quarter and greatly relieved me
on the subject of shortening sail. Thus, my pretty brig was first
reduced to a sloop and then to a hulk; fortunately her bottom was sound.
I was soon cut clear of the transport, and called out in a manly voice,
"Let go the anchor."
This order was obeyed with promptitude: away it went sure enough; but
the devil a cable was there bent to and my men being all stupidly drunk,
I let my vessel drift athwart-hawse of a frigate; the commanding officer
of which, seeing I had no other cable bent, very kindly sent a few hands
on board to assist me; and by five o'clock I was safely moored in the
Bay of Gibraltar, and walked my quarter-deck as high in my own
estimation as Columbus, when he made the American islands.
But short, short was my power! My frigate arrived the next morning.
The captain sent for me, and I gave him an account of my voyage and my
disasters; he very kindly consoled me for my misfortune; and so far from
being angry with me for losing my masts, said it was wonderful, under
all circumstances, how I had succeeded in saving the vessel. We lay
only a fortnight at Gibraltar, when news arrived that the French had
entered Spain, and very shortly after orders came from England to
suspend all hostilities against the Spaniards. This we thought a bore,
as it almost annihilated any chance of prize-money; at the same time
that it increased our labours and stimulated our activity in a most
surprising manner, and opened scenes to us far more interesting than if
the war with Spain had continued.
We were ordered up to join the admiral off Toulon, but desired to look
into the Spanish port of Carthagena on our way, and to report the state
of the Spanish squadron in that arsenal. We were received with great
politeness by the governor and the officers of the Spanish fleet lying
there. These people we found were men of talent and education; their
ships were mostly dismantled, and they had not the means of equipping
them.