THE CAPTAINS
I
Stories of the Cape Cod captains would in themselves make a volume.
One is tempted here and tempted there in choosing which should be
typical of the “brave old times,” and fears to overlook the most
significant. Among the more interesting of those who have not been
already mentioned was Elijah Cobb, born in 1768 at Brewster—the home
of deep-water sailors. From the memoir which he began to write in
old age, we know that his first voyage, presumably as cabin boy,
netted him the profit of a new suit of clothes and in money twenty
dollars which he brought home intact to his mother, “the largest
sum she had received since she became a widow.” By the time he was
twenty-five he had made several voyages as captain, had married
him a wife, and a year or two later was to run afoul of the French
Revolution. As both French and English men-of-war were making no
bones of holding up neutrals, he had cleared for Corunna: to no end,
for he was taken by a French frigate and run into the harbor of
Brest. “My vessel was there,” he writes, “but her cargo was taken
out and was daily made into soup, bread, etc., for the half-starved
populace, and without papers”—his captors had sent his papers to the
Government at Paris—“I could not substantiate my claim to the ship.”
He appealed to Paris, and had the cold comfort of hearing that “the
Government will do what is right in time.” In the meantime he was
treated courteously, and he and some of his men lodged at a hotel
at the Government’s expense. After six weeks the word came that his
case had been passed upon: “without my even learning or knowing I
was on trial. The decision, however, was so favorable that it gave
new feelings to my life.” A fair price was offered for the cargo of
flour and rice which Brest had already devoured; payment in bills of
exchange on Hamburg, fifty days after date. Cobb sent his ship away
in ballast, and set out for Paris to get his papers and his bills of
exchange.
[Illustration: THE CAP’N’S]
“In about two days I was under weigh for Paris,” writes Cobb, “with
the national courier for government. We drove Jehu-like without
stopping, except to change horses and mail, taking occasionally a
mouthful of bread and washing it down with low-priced Burgundy wine.
As to sleep I did not get one wink during the whole six hundred
and eighty-four miles. We had from ten to twelve mounted horsemen
for guard during the night, and to prove that the precaution was
necessary, the second morning after leaving Brest, just before the
guard left us, we witnessed a scene that filled us with horror: the
remains of a courier lying in the road, the master, postillion, and
five horses lying dead and mangled by it, and the mail mutilated
and scattered in all directions. However, the next stage was only
five miles and not considered dangerous, and we proceeded on. We
reached Paris on a beautiful June morning.” But here was the
beginning of fresh trouble: matters there were moving too fast for
much attention to be given a young American shipmaster in quest of
papers. Cobb writes that it was in “the bloody reign of Robespierre.
I minuted down a thousand persons that I saw beheaded by the infernal
guillotine, and probably saw as many more that I did not minute
down.” He was surfeited with horrors and despairing of his mission as
time passed swiftly on toward the termination of his fifty days of
grace, when a friendly Frenchman at his hotel advised him to appeal
direct to Robespierre, “saying that he was partial to Americans.” On
the instant a note was despatched: “An American citizen, captured by
a French frigate on the high seas, requests a personal interview and
to lay his grievances before the citizen Robespierre.” And within
an hour came the answer: “I will grant citizen Cobb an interview
to-morrow at 10 A.M. Robespierre.” The event proved Robespierre to
be sympathetic, and, moreover, that he spoke very good English. Cobb
told him of his unavailing visits to the “Office of the Twenty-third
Department.” “Go again to the office,” said Robespierre, “and tell
citizen F. T. that you come from Robespierre, and if he does not
produce your papers and finish your business immediately, he will
hear from me again in a way not so pleasing to him.” Such a message,
with the guillotine working overtime in the Place de la Concorde,
was likely to produce results, and the affair was concluded with
despatch. But Robespierre was near his eclipse; and hardly had Cobb
received his papers than, to his horror, he was to see Robespierre’s
head falling into the basket. He waited not upon the order of his
going, but fled from Paris, and arrived at Hamburg the very day
before his bills became due. “The fortunate result of this voyage
increased my fame as a shipmaster,” is his sole comment upon the
adventure, “but allowed me only a few days at home.”
He was off again in the Monsoon, a new ship then, that was to prove
a famous money-getter for more than one Cape Cod captain. His owners
gave him a valuable cargo with directions “to find a market for it in
Europe”; for certain hogsheads of rum, however, they advised Ireland.
Permission to land it there was not forthcoming. “Matters were
arranged, however,” writes Cobb, “so that between the cove of Cork
and the Scilly Islands eight hogsheads of New England rum were thrown
overboard, and a small pilot boat hove on board a bag containing
sixty-four English guineas.” Again a good sale was made at Hamburg,
but a later venture there proved more difficult of achievement than
the rum transaction on the Irish coast: for by that time the English
blockade extended to Hamburg, and he was turned back to England
where, at Yarmouth, he received permission to proceed to any port
not included in the blockade. But Cobb meant to sell his cargo in
Hamburg. He cleared for Copenhagen, landed his goods at Lübeck,
and transported them overland to Hamburg where another profitable
exchange of commodities was effected. Hardly was he at home again for
a visit at his Cape Cod farm than a messenger arrived with orders
for him to proceed to Malaga. And at Malaga he was informed that the
British Orders in Council went into force that day forbidding vessels
taking a return cargo. “Of course this would make such a cargo very
desirable,” Cobb remarks. He needed no further incentive to “manage
the affair.” “The American consul thought there would be but little
risk if I hurried, and in eight days I was ready to sail.” He made
for Gibraltar, and was promptly overhauled by a frigate. “Whereupon,”
says Cobb, “I told them the truth: that I was from Malaga bound for
Boston; that I had come there to avail myself of a clearance from a
British port and a convoy through the gut. And after I had seen the
principal, placing on the counter before his eyes a two-ounce piece
of gold, I was permitted to go with my clearance to the American
consul. A signal gun was fired that morning and I was the first to
move, being apprehensive that some incident might yet subject me to
that fatal investigation. How it was managed to clear out a cargo of
Spanish goods from Gibraltar, under the British Orders in Council,
was a subject of most intense speculation in Boston, but I had made
a good voyage for all concerned.” It is not remarkable that he was
allowed no long interval for farming before he was off again for “a
voyage to Europe.” His owners had learned to their great gain that
it was best to give Cobb the freedom of the seas and the markets
ashore. He proceeded to Alexandria, Virginia, loaded with flour that
sold well at Cadiz, and returned in ballast to Norfolk where he
found orders to load again at Alexandria. But America was now ready
to clamp down her Embargo Law which every Yankee captain worthy of
the name was prepared to evade. Mr. Randolph from Congress had sent
news of it to a ship merchant at Alexandria who passed on the word to
Cobb. “What you do must be done quickly, for the embargo will be upon
you at 10 A.M. on Sunday.” Cobb tells the story of his achievement.
“It was now Friday P.M. We had about a hundred tons of ballast on
board which must be removed, and upwards of three thousand barrels
of flour to take in and stow away, provisions, wood, and water to
take on board, a crew to ship, and get to sea before the embargo
took possession. I found that we could get one supply of flour
from a block of stores directly alongside the ship, and by paying
three-eighths of a dollar extra, we had liberty if stopped by the
embargo to return it.” But Cobb meant to regain for his employers
that three-eighths of a dollar, and the tidy additional profit that
was to be made on a cargo of American flour at Cadiz. “Saturday
morning was fine weather. About sunrise I went to the ‘lazy corner’
so called, and pressed into service every negro that came upon the
stand and sent them on board the ship, until I thought there were
as many as could work. I then visited the sailors’ boarding-houses,
where I shipped my crew, paid the advance to their landlords, and
received their obligations to see each sailor on board at sunrise
next morning. It had now got to be about twelve o’clock, and the ship
must be cleared at the custom house before one. ‘Why Cobb,’ said the
collector there, ‘what’s the use of clearing the ship? You can’t get
away. The embargo will be here at ten o’clock to-morrow morning. And
even if you get your ship below, I shall have boats out that will
stop you before you get three leagues to sea.’ Said I, ‘Mr. Taylor,
will you be so kind as to clear my ship?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said he. And
accordingly the ship was cleared and I returned on board and found
everything going on well. Finally, to shorten the story, at nine that
evening we had about three thousand and fifty barrels of flour, one
longboat on board in the chocks, water, wood and provisions on board
and stowed, a pilot engaged, and all in readiness for the sea.” The
tide served at eight in the morning, the sailors were aboard, the
pilot had come, and down the narrow, winding river they started with
a fair wind that helped them on the first leg of their journey. But
at Hampton Roads, in a dead calm, the government boat hove in sight.
“Well,” said Cobb to his mate, “I fear we are gone.” But it was never
his way to give up hope while a move in the game remained to him:
when the boat was so near that with his glass he could descry the
features of its crew, a breeze came puffing along, and he made for
sea. In about ten minutes the boat gave up the chase, Mr. Taylor, of
Alexandria, satisfied, no doubt, that he had discharged his duty.
Cobb gave the first notice of the embargo at Cadiz. “The day before
I sailed,” he writes, “I dined with a large party at the American
consul’s and, it being mentioned that I was to sail next day, I
was congratulated by a British officer on the safety of our flag.
Well, I thought the same, when at the time war between England and
America was raging. I sailed from Cadiz on the twenty-fifth of July,
1812, bound for Boston, and I never felt safer on account of enemies
on the high seas.” But for once his confidence was not justified.
Hardly had he entered the Grand Banks than he was overhauled by an
English cruiser, with whose captain he proceeded to bargain on the
point of ransom for his ship. “What will you give for her,” asked
the Britisher, “in exchange for a clear passport into Boston?” “Four
thousand dollars,” replied Cobb at a venture. “Well,” said the other,
“give us the money.” “Oh, thank you,” said Cobb, “if it were on
board, you’d take it without the asking. I’ll give you a draft on
London.” “No, cash, or we burn the ship.” “Well,” said Cobb coolly,
“you’ll not burn me in her, I hope.” The upshot was that a prize
crew was put aboard, and Cobb had the pleasure of being convoyed by
the frigate into Saint John’s, where he joined a company of about
twenty Yankee masters of ships and their officers, at the so-called
“Prisoners’ Hall.” Twenty-seven American prize ships were in port;
and in a few days the Yankee prize Alert came in, with a British
crew and American officers, under the protection of a cartel flag,
to treat for an exchange of prisoners. The old admiral of the port
was in a rage because of the irregularity of making the cartel on the
high seas. “I’m likely to join you here,” said the Yankee captain to
his countrymen at Prisoners’ Hall. However, in a few moments along
came a note from the admiral saying that “he found that the honor of
the British officers was pledged for the fulfilling of the contract,
and as he knew his government always redeemed the pledges of its
officers, he would receive the [British] officers and crew on the
Alert, and would give in exchange every American prisoner in port
(there were two to one) and we must be off in twenty-four hours. Now
commenced a scene of confusion and bustle. The crew of the cartel
were soon landed, and the Americans as speedily took possession.”
At twelve midnight, in due course of time thereafter, Captain Cobb
arrived at his home, and tapped on the window of a downstairs bedroom
where he knew his wife to be sleeping. At first she thought it a twig
of the sweetbriar bush. Then, “‘Who is there?’ cried she. ‘It is I,’
said I. ‘Well, what do you want?’ ‘To come in.’ ‘For what?’ said she.
Before I could answer I heard my daughter, who was in bed with her,
say, ‘Why, ma, it’s pa.’ It was enough. The doors flew open, and the
greetings of affection and consanguinity multiplied upon me rapidly.
Thus in a moment was I transported to the greatest earthly bliss a
man can enjoy, viz: to the enjoyment of the happy family circle.”
With these cheerful words Mr. Cobb ends his record. For a year or
two thereafter he remained at home, and then was off again to sea.
In 1819 and 1820 he made trips to Africa, and on the second voyage
returned with so much fever aboard that the ship, as a means to
disinfecting it, was sunk at the wharf. Then he retired from sea—he
had built a fine Georgian house in 1800—and filled many offices
ashore. His youth was crammed with adventure; he followed the sea
longer than some of his mates; yet at the age of fifty-two, when
he left it with a modest fortune, he showed as much zest in the
management of more humdrum affairs: in due sequence he was town
clerk, treasurer, inspector-general, representative to the General
Court, senator, justice of the peace, and brigadier-general in the
militia; no town committee seems to have been complete without him;
he was a steadfast member of the liberal church which had taken
possession of the old North Parish. And on one of those foreign
voyages he had had painted a portrait of himself: a gallant,
high-bred youth, with “banged” hair and curls, in Directoire dress,
rolling collar, muslin stock and frills. The lovely colors of the
old pastel hold their own, the soft blue of the surtout, the keen
eyes, the handsome, alert face. A young man who knew something of his
worth, Captain Cobb, and a young man who made exceptional opportunity
to put that worth to the test.
A contemporary of Cobb’s was Freeman Foster, born in 1782 at Brewster
before its historic division from Harwich. At the age of ten he
was off on fishing-voyages with his father, who had been a whaler;
at fourteen he had begun to work his way up to the quarter-deck of
the merchant service; his schooling was acquired in the intervals
ashore. Curiously, in all his seafaring, he never crossed the “Line,”
but cruised between Boston, New Orleans, and the West Indies,
the Russian ports of Archangel and Kronstadt, and to Elsinore. At
fifty-five he retired to his farm, and in the Embargo War served as
an officer in the militia under his neighbor General Cobb. He had
been a robust boy and grew to be a mighty man, well over six feet
in height and broad in proportion. He had a family of ten children;
and his record tallies with that of many another old sea-captain:
he “left behind him a reputation for strict integrity and sturdy
manhood.”
Jeremiah Mayo, of Brewster, born in 1786, was one of nine huge
brothers who were said to measure, in the aggregate, something like
fifty-five feet. His father meant to make a blacksmith of him, with
fishing-voyages, in the season, as relaxation. At sixteen he had a
forge of his own in his father’s shop and could shoe all the horses
that were brought there. But Jeremiah had no notion of confining his
adventures to shoeing horses and catching fish, and at eighteen he
was off for a voyage to Marseilles when, for his ability, he received
two dollars a month more than any other sailor aboard. On his next
voyage to Malaga, Leghorn, Alicante, and Marseilles, his ship, the
Industry, was attacked off Gibraltar by the Algerines and escaped
with some casualties, among them a flesh wound for Jeremiah. The
captain, Gamaliel Bradford, with his leg shot away, had to be left
in hospital at Lisbon. On his third voyage he and a young cousin
were first and second mate and, the captain falling ill, the two
lads, each only nineteen, had to take the ship by the dangerous
“north-about” through the Hebrides from Amsterdam to Cadiz; and
on a second voyage with the same captain, who seems to have been
one of faint heart and would have given up the ship when she sprung
a leak, Mayo took her safely to port, and at Bordeaux, where she
was sold, sailed her for the French buyers to a Breton port with a
cargo of claret, worth there twice its value at Bordeaux. By skilful
manœuvre he evaded the British patrol, landed his precious cargo,
and returned safely to Bordeaux where he shipped with a Yankee
captain, with a cargo of Médoc, for Spain. He arrived at Corunna
a few days after the historic battle there, and on a later voyage
remembers seeing the monument erected to Sir John Moore. In the
Embargo War he was captured by an English frigate, and if the wind
had not failed him would have turned the tables by bowling the prize
crew into Baltimore as prisoners. “And I wouldn’t have blamed you if
you had,” he remembered as the sportsmanlike comment of his captor.
Immediately after the battle of Waterloo he was at Havre, where he
was approached by an agent of Napoleon with a proposition to take
the emperor to America. He promptly accepted the hazard, and was
disappointed when he heard Napoleon had been taken; had Napoleon been
able to reach the Sally, he might have escaped Saint Helena, for she
was not spoken from Havre to Boston. Mayo greatly admired Napoleon,
and had seen him a-horseback at Bayonne when he was landing his army
for Spain; at Paris, in 1815, he heard the shots in the Luxembourg
Gardens when Ney was executed; he remembers seeing Lafayette driving
away from the Hall of Assembly. His vessel had been one of the first
to enter a British port after the War of 1812, and the captain of
an English frigate there sent him an invitation to dine and took
occasion to express admiration of the American fighting quality on
the seas. Mayo retired in good time to his comfortable forty-acre
farm in Brewster, but by no means to inactivity. He was justice
of the peace and well read in the law, a licensed auctioneer, a
skilful surveyor and draughtsman, and was president of the Marine
Insurance Company. It was remembered that he had “rare conversational
powers,” which were well employed, we may suppose, in depicting the
scenes of his eventful life. Mayo was as handsome a man as Cobb, his
portrait showing a fine, spirited profile, with aggressive nose and a
beautifully arched setting of the eye. He must have been magnificent
with his six feet four of height.
Until the end of the clipper-ship era, Brewster was famous for its
deep-water sailors, and at one time no less than sixty captains
hailed its little farms as home. In the later period one of them was
to rival the adventures of Robinson Crusoe and also of Mrs. Lecks and
Mrs. Aleshine. One suspects, even, that Stockton may have heard the
story. His fine clipper ship, the Wild Wave, fifteen hundred tons,
with a crew of thirty all told, and ten passengers, San Francisco
to Valparaiso, was wrecked on Oeno, a coral island of the Pacific
about half a mile in circumference. Passengers and crew, provisions
and sails for tents were safely landed. Water they found by digging
for it. But Josiah Knowles was not the man to remain inert, and
after two weeks he took a ship’s boat, the mate and five men, and
his treasure chest of eighteen thousand dollars in gold, and set
out for Pitcairn’s Island which he knew to be distant some hundred
miles. Safely there, he found to his amazement the island deserted
and the inhabitants decamped to Norfolk Island, a notice to that
effect, for the benefit of possible callers, posted in several of
the houses. They had left behind them much possible provision in the
way of sheep, goats, bullocks, and poultry, and there was plenty of
tropical fruit such as oranges, bananas, breadfruit, and cocoanuts.
But it was plain that the voyage must be continued if Knowles was to
rescue his companions marooned at Oeno, and he himself be returned
to civilization. By ill luck their boat, shortly after they had
landed, was stove in on a reef, and their first care was to replace
it. They found six axes, one hammer, and a few other tools, and some
of the houses were burned to obtain nails and iron. The timber had
to be felled and hewed as best could be; and their boat, the John
Adams, was launched July 23, a little more than four months after
the wreck at Oeno. The ensign of the new craft was fashioned from
the red hangings of the chapel pulpit, an old shirt, and some blue
overalls. All being ship-shape and in order, Captain Knowles again
set sail with his gold, the mate and two men, and “the wind being
unfavourable” headed for the Marquesas. Their destination was Tahiti,
fifteen hundred miles distant. Three of his men had preferred the
comfortable solitude of Pitcairn’s Island to such an adventure.
But fortune favored the daring, and on August 4 they made Nukahiva,
where, by extraordinary luck, for no American ship had called at the
island in the previous five years, they found the Yankee sloop-of-war
Vandalia. Next morning, with his usual promptness, Knowles sold
his boat to the island missionary, and was off on the Vandalia
which sailed for the rescue of the marooned on Oeno and Pitcairn’s,
dropping Knowles and his men at Tahiti. The mate joined the Vandalia
as an officer. Knowles, at Tahiti, was offered passage on a French
frigate to Honolulu, where he found an American barque loading for
San Francisco and arrived there the middle of September. He found
letters from home, but could carry news there as quickly as it could
be sent, as there was no communication overland then except by pony
express. Sailing for New York _via_ Panama, he arrived there late in
October and telegraphed home, where he had long been given up for
lost. Fourteen years later, in his ship, the Glory of the Seas, he
stopped at Pitcairn’s Island, now restored as the habitation of man,
was received royally by the Governor and natives, and speeded on his
way by the entire population, each bearing a gift—the island fruits,
ducks, chickens, even sheep, “enough,” said he, “to load a boat.”
Some years later he retired from sea to live in San Francisco, where
the Governor of Pitcairn’s Island, whenever he came to town, made his
headquarters at the home of Captain Knowles.
One could go on indefinitely recounting the adventures of these men,
among them many pioneers in one part of the world or another. A
Brewster sailor went to Oregon in 1846, and a few years later sold
out his frame house and saw and grist mill to his brother, while
he himself, from 1854 to 1858, carried cargoes of ship-spars from
Puget Sound to China, the first cargoes to Hong Kong. In 1794, John
Kenrick, commanding the Columbia Redivivia, with the sloop Lady
Washington as tender, was the first American master to circle the
globe. He rounded the Horn and sailed up the coast to the Columbia
River, which he is said to have named from his ship. That he gave
over to his mate, Robert Gray, with instructions to explore the
river, while he himself rigged his tender as a brig and crossed the
Pacific, swinging around home again by way of the East Indies and
“the Cape.” Earlier than that the Stork of Boston, under a Yarmouth
captain, is said to have been the first to carry the American flag
around the Cape of Good Hope; and Brewster captains were the first to
fly the American merchant flag in the White Sea. A Brewster man, in
1852, carried the first load of ice, and a frame house for storing
it, to Iquique. This idea of sending ice to the tropics was to net
thousands of per cent profit. This same master carried, and placed,
the great gun named the “swamp angel” that was expected to retake
Fort Sumter, and he transported troops for Butler. In 1870 also, he
carried a valuable cargo of war material to the French at Brest; and
on the return voyage shipped, at London, many passengers and a lot
of animals for Barnum’s circus. They were so delayed on the homeward
passage that their provisions were nearly exhausted and, as it was,
several trained ponies and goats were sacrificed to feed the more
valuable lions and tigers. Collins, of Truro, was a blockade-runner
in 1812, sailing open boats from the lower Cape towns to Boston, but
was captured in his first venture on the deep sea. Later he was in
the coasting trade up and down as far as Mexico, and had many medals
for rescue at sea; later still he established the famous Collins
Line. Hallett, of Barnstable, who died in 1849, was a pioneer in this
coasting trade, and also as a saver of souls: for he raised the first
Bethel flag for seamen’s worship in New York and in Boston. He was a
“professor” from his twentieth year, and was said to be “singularly
gifted in prayer and exhortation.” In 1808 he built the Ten Sisters,
the most noted packet for years running between New York and Boston.
Rider, of Truro, who combined with seafaring the trade of carpenter,
went West in 1837, and built “the first boat to navigate the Illinois
River by mule power,” and afterwards built other famous river boats.
A Barnstable captain transported Mark Twain on the first leg of his
“Innocents Abroad” expedition; another was master of the beautiful
Gravina, named from the admiral in command of the Spanish reserves at
Trafalgar, which on her maiden voyage, New York to Shanghai, took out
some of Bishop Boone’s missionaries. A Brewster man made a fortune by
establishing a stage-line to the Australian gold-fields.
It was natural that, in 1849, the Cape Cod men should be among the
first to start for California; and it is interesting, also, that
the majority of them, at least, in time returned to their life at
sea. A Barnstable captain, Harris, who had received a medal from the
Admiralty for saving a British crew in the North Sea, sailed, with
his son, for San Francisco, where their brig was abandoned at the
water-front and was used as an eating-house. Captain Harris, in due
course, returned to Barnstable, and became sheriff of the county.
There is testimony that he was “always young in spirit: it was a
pleasure to see him dance, for he showed us more fancy steps and
more of the old ways of dancing than we had ever seen.” Cape sailors
were more apt to man the clippers than hunt for gold. A Hyannis
captain remembered that an owner once said to him when he was looking
for a berth: “The new clipper ship Spit-fire is lading for San
Francisco and the cap’n’s a driver. He wants a mate can jump over the
fore-yard every morning before breakfast.” “I’m his man,” retorted
the seaman, “if it’s laid on the deck.” He shipped forthwith, and
had a passage of one hundred and two days to San Francisco. A group
of eight Brewster men and four from Boston combined seamanship and
gold-hunting by buying a brig of a hundred and twenty tons and
manning it themselves. They elected their officers, the rest of the
owners going as common sailors. “We were all square-rig sailors
except Ben Crocker,” writes one of the “seamen,” “and he was made
cap’n of the main boom, as the square-rig sailors were afraid of it.”
The cook worked his passage out, and there were six passengers; all
ate together in the cabin. In a hundred and forty-seven days they
made San Francisco, where they sold the brig for half what she cost
them, and “each man took his own course.” There is no record that any
of them made a fortune.
One Forty-Niner, sailing for “Frisco,” was lured by richer tales of
gold to Australia, whither he worked his passage only to be wrecked
on the coast, and turning short-about for a trading voyage among
the Pacific islands was again wrecked, and in the lapse of time
mourned as dead by his family. But in a year or so news of him came
from the Carolines, where he had become virtual king of one of the
islands, married the chief’s daughter, taught the natives the uses of
civilization in respect of houses, clothing, and the sanctity of the
marriage tie, and was building up a pretty trade in tortoise-shell,
cocoa oil, and hogs. For nearly ten years he ruled his little
kingdom, and then was killed by jealous invaders from another island
who, worsted in battle, were literally torn limb from limb by his
enraged people, and thrown to the sharks, thereby losing not only
life here, but all hope of the hereafter.
The missionary brig Morning Star had often touched at King John’s
Island, and generous testimony was offered that “John Higgins of
Brewster has done more towards civilizing these natives than any
missionary could have done.” And no less than three Yarmouth captains
had at one time or another commanded the several succeeding vessels
of the Board of Missions, all of which were named the Morning Star.
There are records enough of mutiny and fire and of disaster other
than shipwreck at sea—the captain wounded and his wife quelling
the insurgents; a coal cargo afire in the South Pacific, the crew
taking to the boats to make the Marquesas twenty-one hundred miles
distant; a captain “subduing a fire in his cargo of coals,” outward
bound to Singapore, and receiving a gold watch as a reward from the
underwriters for saving the ship. A Brewster captain and his mate,
“taking the sun” in a stiff northwest gale, were swept overboard by
a heavy sea, the mate to his death, but the captain, quick of wit,
grasping a rope as he went overboard, took a double turn round his
arm; the wheelman saw him, the watch ran aft and hauled him in so
badly wrenched he could not stand, but with sufficient spirit to be
lashed to the deck-house and command the vessel through the tail of
the storm. A Barnstable captain in the Mediterranean service was
fatally stabbed by a Malayan sailor, who jumped overboard and swam
ashore, and the captain lived long enough to reach home. On the
Sunshine, Melbourne to Callao, one of the crew poisoned the officers,
who all recovered except the captain, another Barnstable man.
Nearly a hundred years ago now, the brig Polly, under command of
Captain William Cazneau, and with two Dennis men, accomplished
seamen both, among the crew, sailed from Boston. Just south of the
Gulf Stream she ran into a fierce gale that laid her on her beam
ends, and in order to right her the masts were cut away. Loaded with
lumber, she could not sink, and as if invisible she floated unseen,
exposed to every caprice of wind and weather, in and out of the most
frequented trade-routes of the sea. Provisions and water exhausted,
one by one the crew died until only the captain and an Indian cook
were left. They ate barnacles which by now were thick enough on the
ship’s side, obtained fire by the old Indian device of rubbing two
sticks together, and water by distillation. For one hundred and
ninety days they managed to keep themselves alive until at last a
ship sighted them; and the captain, in further proof of an iron
constitution, lived to the good age of ninety-seven.
In 1855 the Titan, commanded by a young Brewster captain who lived on
through the first decade of the twentieth century, alert and active
in the public service to the end of his long life, was chartered by
the French Government to transport troops to the Crimea. For two
years he cruised back and forth through the Mediterranean in such
service, and then, home again, took from New Orleans to Liverpool the
largest cargo of cotton that had ever been carried, and was nearly
wrecked making port in a stiff gale. Refitted and made seaworthy, she
took out over a thousand passengers to Melbourne, thence proceeded
to Callao for a cargo of guano for London; but homeward bound, she
sprung a leak in the South Atlantic and had to be abandoned some
eleven hundred miles off the coast of Brazil. Sails were set and all
took to the boats which, provisioned with biscuit, canned meats,
jam, and none too much water, were moored to the ship that she might
serve them as long as might be safe. Next morning the captain and
an officer boarded her, saw there was no hope for her, returned to
the boats, and cast off. They knew there was an island, Tristan
d’Acunha, somewhere north of them, but as it was “too small to hit,”
they decided to make for the mainland. But they were in the “belt of
calms,” which might extend for ten miles or a hundred and ten, and
oars must come before sails. As the men bent to their work, one cried
out to look at the old Titan. A slight breeze aloft catching her
sails, she had righted and seemed to be following them; but even as
they looked, and wondered, she careened two or three times and went
down. In a shorter time than might have been hoped, they were picked
up, by a Frenchman bound for Havre who refused to interrupt his
voyage for their convenience; but being provisioned for a small crew
and the Titan’s men numbering fifty-three, he was soon glad to land
them at Pernambuco. This same captain told of a voyage from Australia
to Hong Kong when he was sailing by some old charts, “seventeen
hundred and something”—the “English Pilot” for a guess—wherein
certain islands were sketched in as “uncertain.” They were running
into this region on a beautiful moonlight night, and the captain and
a passenger he was carrying went aloft and smoked, and watched, until
past midnight. But at two he was called up again, and there directly
over the bow were palm-trees thick in the moonlight. They had grazed,
and cleared, the island of Monte Verde, some twenty miles in length,
which of course was charted on the more modern maps of the day. And
it was in this same southern sea that he once ran in and out of a
hurricane. He could have veered out of its path, but he was in his
rash youth, and the fringe of it giving a good breeze, he reefed
up and went flying ahead under bare poles, through a tremendous
gale that soon had him at its will. Suddenly, like a flash, there
was entire calm, and stillness save for the distant roaring of the
hurricane: he realized that he had got into the very centre of it,
which travels ahead only some twelve miles an hour, but whirls round
and round with incredible velocity. He knew that he had somehow to
drive his ship out of the vortex that was sure to suck him down, and
again through the outer turmoil—booming like thunder, flattening the
boat on her beam ends—he, making sure the end had come, but driving
her on, again won through, and the boat righting herself, continued
on her way. The captain never again wooed the favoring breeze of a
hurricane.
The very names of their ships stir the imagination: the Light Foot,
the Chariot of Fame, the Chispa, the Rosario, named for the wife
of an owner who had been a captain in his day and had loved and
won a Spanish beauty. The Whirlwind and Challenger were famous
clipper ships; and one man commanded successively the Undaunted, the
Kingfisher, the Monsoon and Mogul and Ocean King, and the steamers
Zenobia and Palmyra—and Edward Everett. There was the Young Turk
and Santa Claus, the Tally Ho, the Expounder and Centaur and Cape
Cod; the Agenor and Charmer and Valhalla, the Shooting Star and
the Flying Dragon, the Altof Oak, and, quaintly, the Rice Plant;
the Oxenbridge and Kedar. Some ships were so famous that when their
day was done, they passed down their names to ships of a younger
generation than theirs. Masters changed from one ship to another, and
discussion as to how this captain and that handled the Expounder or
Monsoon on such or such a voyage filled many a long evening of their
old age at home.
II
As captains grew toward middle age, and the children were old enough
to be left at home with relatives or put into boarding-school, their
wives not infrequently accompanied them on the long voyages “to some
port or ports in Europe at the discretion of the captain,” as his
orders might cite; or farther afield to “Bombay and such ports in
the East Indies or China as the captain may determine, the voyage
not to exceed two years”—or a longer matter when profit was found
in cruising back and forth between the Indies and the ports “down
under.” But wherever the port might be, there were sure to be Yankee
ships, and many were the visits between ship and ship, commanded,
perhaps, by old neighbors at home; more formal festivities ashore
were offered by consignees, or the American consul, or a foreign
acquaintance that was renewed from voyage to voyage.
In 1844 a Barnstable captain wrote from France: “Dunkirk and Bordeaux
are fine places and contain many curiosities to us. We had more
invitations to dine than we wished as the dinners in this country
are very lengthy, say from three to four hours before you rise from
the table, and then not dry. To-day we have been to the Bordeaux
Mechanical Exposition or Fair, and it is splendid. There are nine
American vessels here, and five of the captains have their wives.”
These Barnstable captains and their families, when in New York, used
to stop at a hotel opposite Fulton Ferry, and when they went uptown
of an evening to the Crystal Palace or the theatre or opera, they
would charter a special Fulton Ferry ’bus for the journey. And if the
voyage began with an American port of call, at New Orleans, we will
say, there was plenty of gayety—balls, theatre-parties, opera, and
oyster-suppers—and more than once a young shipmaster was captivated
by the bright eyes of some Southern beauty.
A long voyage to Australia and India was another matter. The diary
and “letters home” of a captain and his wife could tell us that;
and while not brilliant in themselves, such records give us the
atmosphere of these old times as could perhaps nothing else. On a
February 16, some sixty years ago, a captain writes to his children
who were in boarding-school: “We have had a very long and dull
passage, with many calms and head winds, and are only to the equator
and thirty-nine days out. It has tried my patience pretty well; but I
can’t make winds or weather.” His wife was with him, and he was also
taking a passenger on this voyage to Australia. “It is very warm and
fine after a few days of hard rain when we caught plenty of water so
we can wash as much as we like, and clothes belonging to all hands
are hung out drying all over the ship. While I am writing the rest
are reading and sitting around the cabin with as little clothing on
as possible. I imagine you at church, muffled up in cloaks and furs,
listening to a good sermon while we have to do our own preaching.
If I’d had a letter ready a few days ago, I could have sent it by a
barque bound up to New York which I spoke. Yet it would have been
difficult, as it was in the evening and I could not understand
who she was, and don’t know that she understood our name. Mother
busies herself sewing when she feels like it, and reads the rest
of the time. I must bid you good-morning now and attend to getting
an observation and see where we are.” On February 28 he continues
the letter: “I am now about where I expect to pass the Sunrise, if
nothing has happened to her. I look for her every day. I don’t know
what poor Freeman would say if we should meet them.” Freeman was the
oldest son who had insisted on going to sea to “toughen” himself in
a losing fight with “consumption”; and here on the wide stretches of
the southern seas his father hoped to have word with him. “Mother is
sewing on old clothes of some sort,” he went on to tell them, “and if
she is well I think she will have time to mend all up. Time passes
rapidly, but I often think of our little home being shut up and how
many happy days we spent there, and hope we may all live to spend
many more.” He ends his week’s stint of writing with some excellent
moral advice. March 3: “We are now going for the Cape of Good Hope
with a moderate breeze and good weather. Mother has been washing a
little, and is now much taken up with some story she is reading. I
suppose it is washing day at home, and I fancy Mrs. Lincoln hanging
her clothes in our yard.” March 15: “Good-morning, my dear children.
I wish I could hear you answer to it, but thousands of miles now
separate us and every day still more. We are now abreast of the
Cape, and have had some rough weather since I wrote last. Mother is
first-rate, and can eat as much salt junk as any of us. To-day she is
ironing a little, and I have been pitching quoits with the passenger
for exercise. We see nothing but the blue sea now, not a vessel or
anything else but some birds. We caught an albatross the other day,
but we let him go again as it seemed cruel to deprive him of his
liberty. We have got through all our hot weather, and I expect we
shall soon want a fire while you will be having the spring—the green
grass and the trees putting forth their beauty, and I hope you will
enjoy it well. I shall not write any more until I arrive. Be good
children is the sincere wish of your own dear Father.”
On April 25 Mother writes Nancy a letter of anxious instructions
as to closing the house after vacation; because she is at the
Antipodes, Mother is no less the careful housewife. “Take good care
of the carpets; you need do nothing about the winter bedclothes,
they are all safe. Be sure that the skylight is secure, and if it
leaks more than usual get Mr. Snow to repair it. If necessary, put
more platters to catch the water. Have the boys attend to the
underpinning of the house so that the rats or skunks cannot get in;
and tell them I wish they would paint my boxes and buckets. I wish
them light-colored, and put them on the old table and in the sink to
dry. You will find some gooseberry and currant preserve in the cellar
which you can dispose of. Do not disturb a jar in the dining-room
closet. When Freeman arrives have his sea-clothes put in the barn.
Take good care of Clanrick’s overcoat. If it is wet, see that it
is dried as soon as possible, and if torn mend it immediately. You
know it must last him another winter for his best. Do not forget
to wear your rubbers”—and so on. They were entering Melbourne Bay,
and Mother, having unburdened her mind of its care, was now free to
close her letter, which, as a steamer was sailing next day, would be
sent back by the doctor, “who will board us this afternoon.” “The
boys [members of the crew, and neighbors at home] will not probably
send letters this time. You will receive this a month sooner than
you anticipated. Give my love to grandmother. I often think of her,
and hope she will not go to her old home to live alone. Tell her
father will see that her board is paid. She need not give herself any
uneasiness about that. I must now bid you good-bye with much love
from your affectionate Mother.”
And of course Mother had been keeping a Daily Journal, a copy of
which, from time to time, she sent the children. “Just fifteen weeks
from the time we left Boston we saw King’s Island,” she writes of
the end of their voyage. “It was a joyful sound to me when I heard
the cry from aloft of Land Ho. I was almost tempted to go aloft
as I had not caught a glimpse of land or even a rock since I left
home. Soon after, I could see the high hills from the deck which are
about one hundred and eighty miles from Melbourne. The next evening
we saw the light, but the wind being fresh ahead we could not gain
much, which was rather trying as we were anxious to get in. The
twenty-eighth we took a pilot, and as I had an opportunity to send my
letters I felt quite reconciled to my situation, it being beautiful
weather and fine scenery. The land on both sides of us is covered
with trees and shrubbery, fresh like ours in June, although autumn
here. Arrived at our anchorage about two o’clock, and lots of people
called aboard, Mr. Osborn, our consignee, among them. He invited us
to go to church with him on Sunday and dine with him and go to the
Botanic Gardens, and we accepted. The Gardens are beautiful almost
beyond description”—but she does describe them, and charmingly too,
and the birds there, and the waterfowl, “the plumage of which is
superb.” And she notes that the Yarra Yarra River is “not half as
wide as our pond.” “We called also at Mr. Smith’s, a brother of our
former minister. He has a very pretty place and gave me a very pretty
bouquet. We returned to the ship about sunset very much pleased with
my first day in Melbourne. Next morning we were taken up to the
wharf, and I am glad to be here where I can come and go as I please.
Father is busy, and I have been unpacking and arranging my clothes,
room, etc. I have got my cabin carpeted and it looks quite nice.
Mr. Sinclair, our passenger, called this morning, and brought me
some apples and pears and grapes—a great treat. 29th: I intended to
have gone to Melbourne shopping, but received an invitation from Mr.
Osborn to go to tea and the opera in the evening. Some of the singing
was good and the scenery was beautiful. I cannot compare it with
American opera as I never went but once in my life and have forgotten
about that. This is a great place for opera and theatre-going people,
as well as spirit-drinking people. May 1st: To-day I presume you go
a-Maying.” And now Mother had her shopping expedition, and notes that
cotton cloth is cheaper than at home. “I find our last year’s goods
and styles just received here, and of about the same price.” Like
other Americans in foreign lands she is a little nettled that “they
know in a moment I am an American.” The next week being rainy, she
did little but “make a few calls upon some English ladies”; and then
came a day spent at South Yarra with “the first American lady I had
seen since I left home. I was delighted to see one home face, and she
seemed as happy to see me. We were not long getting acquainted, and
our tongues ran fast I can assure you. I informed her of the latest
fashions, while she told me of the points of interest I should visit.
They have a beautiful garden and I took lots of slips, and hope
to fetch some of the plants home.” With the wife of a Newburyport
captain she “went to Melbourne to see what there was to be seen,”
and there was more gayety afoot. “You will think me dissipating
largely in going to operas and theatres. I think I am, indeed, but as
I have no particular regard for such amusement do not think I shall
be injured by going.” And she did certainly “see what there was to
be seen.” Nothing escaped Mother’s observant eye. “I cannot begin to
tell you of it in a letter,” she writes, “but will leave it till some
winter evening when seated around our little light-stand at home. But
I am resolved to see something of the world while I can.”
And on May 20, it was up anchor, and off again: “It seemed almost
like getting home and we soon got under weigh and bid farewell to
Melbourne. We have two gentlemen passengers for Calcutta, and I hope
we shall have a quick passage. I have enjoyed myself, and have often
wished you were with me to enjoy the pleasures too. Perhaps some day
you may do so, if you, Nancy, catch a sea-captain; and you, Clanrick,
may be a merchant here. I must now bid you good-night, with much love
and kisses from Father and Mother.” The letter was off to them by the
pilot, and Father and Mother for Calcutta where their visit was not
as pleasant as at Melbourne. Father and many of the crew were ill.
“I was very anxious indeed,” writes Mother to the children, “and was
thankful to have some home friends near. Captains Dunbar and Crowell
were very kind. They have done all of Father’s business they possibly
could so that he need not get overdone.” The sick boys among the
crew are a particular anxiety: “They are so careless and imprudent
of themselves that I fear we shall not bring them all home with us.
They will not hear to reason, but will eat everything which comes to
hand and sleep in the open air which is enough to kill any one. But
the doctor says they will soon be well after getting to sea. We are
obliged to wait for a steamer as by Father’s being ill we lost our
turn; but I have just heard that one is engaged to take us down river
Friday. I have formed some very pleasant acquaintances here, but have
not met any American ladies. Captain Knowles and wife, and a Captain
Smith, wife, and daughter have just arrived. I am sorry not to see
them. Father is still better, and is now eating his dinner of chicken
soup and toast bread after which he will ride down and see his
consignee. Do not give yourself any uneasiness, but take good care of
yourselves. I must now leave you in the hands of Him Who ever watches
over us, and trust He will preserve us all and restore us soon to our
loved home.”
Did Mother feel that the best of their voyaging was over? When Father
returned to the ship that night, he had a letter “containing sad
news from Freeman,” their lad who had thought to conquer the dread
white plague by the hardships of a seaman’s life, and who was ill at
Valencia. But Mother was not one to spend the long weeks of their
return voyage to Melbourne in useless repining, and her Diary shows
her alert, as ever, to “see what there was to see.” They made slow
progress out to sea, as the weather was hot and calm. “It is very
tedious to be lying here, although we have company near us. To-day
we saw what we supposed to be the Ghats Mountains on the eastern
coast of Hindustan.” And steadily, week after week, they nosed
their way southward again, and on October 26 she could write: “It
has been really cold this week, about like the weather at home this
season. I sit up on deck all the morning, and have been very busy
this week turning my silk dress.” It was rough weather the last leg
of their journey, “the ship rolled terribly”; and Mother was none
too good a sailor. When they hove to at Port Philip Light to take on
the pilot, they received orders to proceed to Sydney to discharge
their cargo. And there was a letter from his captain, one of their
old neighbors at home, confirming their worst fears in regard to
Freeman. He had died at Valencia, and was buried there, even as
Mother had been praying that another year might see them all united
at the old home. There was no time to be spent in idle lamentation,
and as Father must go to Melbourne, so would she go also to be near
him. They landed, rode by stage twenty miles to Geelong through “a
very dreary country,” thence by railway to Melbourne where they were
disappointed not to find letters from home at the consul’s, nor was
their friend Mr. Osborn to be found that day; but they breakfasted
with him the next morning, when Father accomplished his business, and
by afternoon they were on the wearisome journey back to Geelong and
Queen’s Cliff where the ship was moored. Indomitable Mother writes:
“It was a beautiful morning and I enjoyed the ride.” She had learned
the subtlest use of life: to miss none of its beauty, though the
heart were breaking. That night, before they sailed for Sydney, she
wrote the two forlorn children at home—a long letter, with the high
heart of courage, knowing that it might be months before they should
receive it and the first sting of their sorrow be past: a letter full
of Christian resignation and of comfort.
And day by day, recording time by latitude and longitude at sea,
ashore by day and month, she set down in the Journal for the interest
of their later reading, what she did and what she saw. Wilson’s
Point, as they beat round to Sydney in head winds and heavy seas,
“would be a terrible place to be shipwrecked,” she thought. And at
Sydney she enjoyed things, as she could, noting the weather—there
had been no rain to speak of for sixteen months—living on shipboard,
but taking many excursions and meeting pleasant people ashore, and
remembering the sermons at the English church, and the markets, and
the shops; and again, one afternoon, alone, “I went a-cruising to
see what I could see”—among other things, in the Public Gardens,
“some beautiful plants in the greenhouses. The greatest variety of
fuchsia I ever saw, and the gardener gave me some slips to take home.
There were lots of birds and animals there, and I saw a kangaroo.”
And some friends took them out to Botany Bay. “It was a terrible
road and dreary country through which we passed, but there was a
beautiful garden adjoining the hotel and I walked on the beach and
got a few shells. Saw some wild animals, and returned to Sydney at
seven o’clock. I enjoyed it very much.” There is the constant note.
Delayed in their sailing by storms, they had Christmas dinner at the
consul’s: “a very nice dinner consisting of roasted goose, boiled
turkey, boiled ham, cabbage, string beans, and potatoes.” After this
mighty meal the company took steamer for “a resort for pleasure
parties where there is a place called the Fairy Bower which is very
beautiful. The winding way to it is over rocks and through the Bush.
There is a public house there in front of which is the Bay and on
either side and at the back are high rocky hills. There are lovely
shells on the beach. It is a very romantic spot.”
On the twenty-sixth, “Boxing Day at Sydney,” she writes, they sailed
early, and by afternoon “it blew very fresh and I was obliged to
go to bed, being a little seasick.” On the eighth, in a fair wind,
she remembers that it is just a year since they left Boston. On the
nineteenth they were rounding Cape Leeuwin, and after a week of heavy
swell and variable winds “we took the trades. Very pleasant and
fine steady trades, which we appreciate.” So through fair weather
and storms, starlight nights and sultry days, they came to Calcutta
once more, and the steamer took them upstream, and their old friends
welcomed them.
And there, incredibly, plucky little Mother, who could not have
believed that she would not be in the world to serve any one of
them while they had need of her, sickened with the deadly cholera
and died. And Father, heartsick and alone, is sailing southward
once more, this time for home. As the pilot takes him downstream,
he is writing the son and daughter at Cape Cod. “I am seated here
alone in my cabin where your mother and I have spent many pleasant
hours and taken sweet counsel together, with everything around me
to remind me of her. Here sets her chair, and there her trunk and
clothes and everything as she left it.” (We wonder if the “slips”
she had taken at Melbourne and Sydney are blooming yet.) “Oh, my
dear, dear children, how much I have to feel and suffer. Your mother
was thinking much of coming home to you again, but her spirit is
with those in heaven. She spoke much of Nancy and Clanrick before
she died, and said be sure to give Nancy my watch, and buy one for
Clanrick and tell him it was his mother’s request. I hope you will
find a home at the Cape somewhere till my return. Clanrick, be a good
boy and kind to your sister; and try to cheer one another up in your
heavy affliction. I soon expect to discharge the pilot. Good-morning,
my dear children. God bless you. Your own afflicted Father.”
Father seems to have been of no such indomitable fibre as Mother.
Perhaps for too many decades the sea had had its will of him, and for
too many times, before this last voyage that had been so beautifully
companioned, he had suffered the loneliness of long months afloat.
Yet Father, in his youth, had been one of the gayest lads in town;
within an hour of his arrival from sea, he was in and out of every
house there, with a joke for the old ladies, and a new story for the
cap’ns, a song for the girls, and a new style for the lads. Then he
had taken on a steady pilot in Susan, his wife, and had steered
straight through all their years together. He adored his children,
and gave them perhaps more pleasures than he could well afford; for
somehow, although he was an able captain and trader, riches had
never come his way. Men said he was a free-spender, and ought to
have saved. And now, in his broken state, after a few weeks with the
children in the old home among the willows and lilacs, he must be off
again to earn money for them all, this time on a coasting voyage,
Boston to “New-Orleens.” And at sea, with far too much time for
reflection, he is writing his loved daughter: “I hoped I never should
be drifting about the ocean again, but here I am, and no one but my
Heavenly Father knows what my destiny is. When I look back on the
past two years, it seems all a dream: our dear Freeman pining away in
a foreign land, and longing to get home once more, poor boy. And your
mother in her last moments perfectly calm and serene, not one murmur
or complaint. I have tried to bear up the best I could, but it has
been dreadful hard. Perhaps I do not realize my blessings, but I do
have many—I’ve been restored to health better than I ever expected to
be, and I have two fine children, and can make me a comfortable home.”
Poor tender-hearted Father, struggling to count his “blessings.” The
voyage to “New-Orleens” was not one of his most prosperous, he had
lost the magic touch of success; nor was health as firmly restored as
he supposed: that old fever at Calcutta, the sorrows that followed,
had broken more than his spirit, and he returned only in time to
die at home—happy, at the last, to have made that familiar haven.
And fortunate beyond many of his fellows. For there was a reverse to
the old tales of daring and adventure; and many a man, long before
age should cool the ardors of his hot-blooded youth, had died in a
foreign port, or on shipboard; and many a memorial stone records
that such a one died at Panama or Madras or Bassein, at Sourbaya
or Batavia or Truxillo, or at Aden. And there is the longer list
of those “lost at sea,” when wives and sweethearts waited through
heartsick months and years for the word that never came. Yet those
at sea and those ashore found their strength in the old faith: “Ye
see when the mariner is entered his ship to saile on the troublous
sea, how he is for a while tossed in the billows of the same, but yet
in hope that he shall come to the quiet haven, he beareth in better
comfort the perils which he feeleth; so am I now toward this sayling:
and whatsoever stormes I shall feele, yet shortly after shall my ship
be in the haven, as I doubt not thereof by the grace of God, desiring
you to helpe me with your prayers to the same effect.”