In which, like most People who tell their own Stories, I begin with
the Histories of other People.
I have every reason to believe that I was born in the year of our Lord
1786, for more than once I put the question to my father, and he
invariably made the same reply: "Why, Jack, you were launched a few
months before the Druids were turned over to the Melpomene." I have
since ascertained that this remarkable event occurred in January 1787.
But my father always reckoned in this way: if you asked him when such an
event took place, he would reply, so many years or months after such a
naval engagement or remarkable occurrence; as, for instance, when I one
day inquired how many years he had served the King, he responded, "I
came into the sarvice a little afore the battle of Bunker's Hill, in
which we licked the Americans clean out of Boston[1]." As for Anno
Domini, he had no notion of it whatever.
[Footnote 1: I have since heard a different version of the result of
this battle.]
Who my grandfather was, I cannot inform the reader, nor is it, perhaps,
of much consequence. My father was a man who invariably looked forward,
and hated anything like retrospection: he never mentioned either his
father or his mother; perhaps he was not personally acquainted with
them. All I could collect from him at intervals was, that he served in a
collier from South Shields, and that a few months after his
apprenticeship was out, he found himself one fine morning on board of a
man-of-war, having been picked up in a state of unconsciousness, and
hoisted up the side without his knowledge or consent. Some people may
infer from this that he was at the time tipsy; he never told me so; all
he said was, "Why, Jack, the fact is when they picked me up I was quite
altogether _non pompus_." I also collected at various times the
following facts--that he was put into the mizzentop, and served three
years in the West Indies; that he was transferred to the maintop, and
served five years in the Mediterranean; that he was made captain of the
foretop, and sailed six years in the East Indies; and, at last, was
rated captain's coxswain in the "Druid" frigate, attached to the Channel
fleet cruising during the peace. Having thus condensed the genealogical
and chronological part of this history, I now come to a portion of it in
which it will be necessary that I should enter more into detail.
The frigate in which my father eventually served as captain's coxswain
was commanded by a Sir Hercules Hawkingtrefylyan, Baronet. He was very
poor and very proud, for baronets were not so common in those days. He
was a very large man, standing six feet high, and with what is termed a
considerable _bow-window_ in front; but at the same time portly in his
carriage. He wore his hair well powdered, exacted the utmost degree of
ceremony and respect, and considered that even speaking to one of his
officers was paying them a very high compliment: as for being asked to
his table, there were but few who could boast of having had that honor,
and even those few perhaps not more than once in the year. But he was,
as I have said, very poor; and moreover he was a married man, which
reminds me that I must introduce his lady, who, as the ship was on
Channel service, had lodgings at the port near to which the frigate was
stationed, and occasionally came on board to take a passage when the
frigate changed her station to the eastward or to the westward. Lady
Hercules, as we were directed to call her by Sir Hercules, was as large
in dimensions, and ten times more proud than her husband. She was an
excessive fine lady in every respect; and whenever she made her
appearance on board, the ship's company looked upon her with the
greatest awe. She had a great dislike to ships and sailors; officers she
seldom condescended to notice; and pitch and tar were her abomination.
Sir Hercules himself submitted to her dictation; and, had she lived on
board, she would have commanded the ship: fortunately for the service,
she was always very seasick when she was taking a passage, and therefore
did no mischief. "I recollect," said my father to me, "once when we were
running down to Portsmouth, where we had been ordered for provisions,
that my Lady Hercules, who was no fool of a weight, being one night
seasick in her cot, the lanyard of the cot gave way, and she came down
with a run by the head. The steward was called by the sentry, and there
was a terrible shindy. I, of course, was sent for, as I had the hanging
up of the cot. There was Sir Hercules with his shirt flapping in the
wind, and a blanket over his shoulders, strutting about in a towering
passion; there was the officer of the watch, who had been sent for by
mistake, and who was ordered to quit the cabin immediately; and there
was I, expecting to be put in irons, and have seven dozen for my
breakfast. As for Sir Hercules, he didn't know what to do; he did
nothing but storm at everybody, for my lady, with her head under the
clothes, was serving him out at no small rate. She wouldn't, she
declared, allow any man to come into the cabin to hoist her up again. So
indecent, so indelicate, so shocking--she was ashamed of Sir
Hercules--to send for the men; if they didn't leave the cabin
immediately, she'd scream and she'd faint--that she would--there was no
saying what she wouldn't do! Well, there we waited just outside until at
last Sir Hercules and my lady came to a parley. She was too sick to get
out of bed, and he was not able to hoist her up without assistance; so
being, as I suppose, pretty well tired of lying with her head three feet
lower than her heels, she consented, provided that she was properly
kivered up, to allow us to come in and put all to rights. Well, first
she made Sir Hercules throw over her his two boat cloaks, but that
wouldn't do; so he threw the green cloth from off the table, but that
warn't enough for her delicate sensibility, and she hollowed from under
the clothes for more kivering; so Sir Hercules sent for two of the
ship's ensigns, and coiled away the bunting on her till it was as high
as a haycock, and then we were permitted to come in and hoist her
ladyship up again to the battens. Fortunately it was not a slippery
hitch that had let her down by the run, but the lanyard had given way
from my lady's own weight, so my back was not scratched after all. Women
ain't no good on board, Jack, that's sartain."
But I must now introduce a more important personage than even Lady
Hercules, which is my mother. They say "like master, like man," and I
may add, "like lady, like maid." Lady Hercules was fine, but her maid
was still finer. Most people when they write their biography, if their
parents were poor, inform you that they left them a good name and
nothing else. Some parents cannot even do that; but all parents can at
all events leave their children a _pretty_ name, by taking a little
trouble at their baptism. My mother's name was Araminta, which, as my
father truly observed, was "a touch above the common." She had
originally gone into service as a nursery maid, living in her first
situation one year and nine months; in her second she remained two years
and four months; then she left to _better_ herself, and obtained the
situation of nurse in a family where she remained two years and one
month; after which Lady Hercules then having a child of a year old, she
was received into her service. At three years old the child died, and my
mother was promoted to the situation of lady's maid. This advancement
quite spoiled her; she was prouder than her mistress, and gave herself
ten times more airs, and when, at first, my father (who as coxswain was
constantly up at the house) offered to speak to her, she turned away
from him in most ineffable disdain. Now my father was at that time about
thirty years of age, and thought no small beer of himself, as the saying
goes. He was a tall, handsome man, indeed, so good-looking that they
used to call him "Handsome Jack" on board of the "Druid," and he had,
moreover, a pigtail of most extraordinary size and length, of which he
was not a little proud, as it hung down far below the waistband of his
trousers. His hair was black and glossy, and his lovelocks, as the
sailors term the curls which they wear on their temples, were of the
most insinuating description. Now, as my father told me, when he first
saw my mother with her sky-scraping cap at the back of her head, so
different from the craft in general, he was very much inclined to board
her; but when she boomed him off in that style, my father, who was
quite the rage and fancy man among the ladies of Sally Port and Castle
Rag, hauled his wind in no time, hitching up his white trousers and
turning short round on his heel so as to present his back to her
whenever they happened to meet. For a long time he gave her a wide
berth. Now this fact of my father returning her disdain had the usual
effect. At first she was very savage, and when she spoke of him to Lady
Hercules, she designated him as "that proud coxswain, who seemed to
think himself a greater man than Sir Hercules himself--with his filthy
pigtail, indeed!" My father also, when he spoke of her to the boat's
crew, termed her "that proud ---- of a lady's maid," the word not
mentionable being both canine and feminine. Thus matters went on for
some time, until my mother, by a constant survey of my father's handsome
proportions, every day thought him to be a more proper man, and a few
advances on her part at last brought them to a mutual understanding.