was completed; our wood, and water, and provisions, replenished; and,
after spending one of the happiest fortnights of my life, in one
continued round of gaiety, I prepared to leave--with tears in my eyes, I
will confess--the clear waters, bright blue skies, glorious climate, and
warm hearted community of Nassau, New Providence. Well might that old
villain Blackbeard have made this sweet spot his favourite rendezvous.
By the way, this same John Teach or Blackbeard, had fourteen wives in
the lovely island; and I am not sure but I could have picked out
something approximating to the aforesaid number myself, with time and
opportunity, from among such a galaxy of loveliness as then shone and
sparkled in this dear little town. Speaking of the pirate Blackbeard, I
ought to have related that one morning when I was at breakfast at
Mrs C----‘s, the amiable, and beautiful, and innocent girl matron ay, you
supercilious son of a sea-cook, you may turn up your nose at the
expression, but if you could have seen the burden of my song as I saw
her, and felt the elegancies of her manner and conversation as I felt
them--but let us stick to Blackbeard, if you please. We were all
comfortably seated at breakfast; I had finished my sixth egg, had
concealed a beautiful dried snapper, before which even a rizzard haddock
sank into insignificance, and was bethinking me of finishing off with a
slice of Scotch mutton-ham, when in slid Mr Bang. He was received with
all possible cordiality, and commenced operations very vigorously.
He was an amazing favourite of our hostess, (as where was he not a
favourite?) so that it was some time before he even looked my way. We
were in the midst of a discussion regarding the beauty of New
Providence, and the West India Islands in general; and I was remarking
that nature had been liberal, that the scenery was unquestionably
magnificent in the larger islands, and beautiful in the smaller; but
there were none of those heart-stirring reminiscences, none of those
thrilling electrical associations, which vibrate to the heart at
visiting scenes in Europe famous in antiquity--famous as the spot in
which recent victories had been achieved--famous even for the very
freebooters, who once held unlawful sway in the neighbourhood. “Why,
there never has flourished hereabouts, for instance, even one thoroughly
melodramatic thief.” Massa Aaron let me go on, until he had nearly
finished his breakfast. At length he fired a shot at me.
“I say, Tom, you are expatiating, I see. Nothing heart stirring, say
you? In new countries it would bother you to have old associations
certainly; and you have had your Rob Roy, I grant you, and the old
country has had her Robin Hood. But has not Jamaica had her Three
fingered Jack? Ay, a more gentlemanlike scoundrel than either of the
former. When did jack refuse a piece of yam, and a cordial from his
horn, to the wayworn man, white or black? When did he injure a woman?
When did Jack refuse food and a draught of cold water, the greatest
boon, in our ardent climate, that he could offer, to a wearied child?
Oh, there was much poetry in the poor fellow! And here, had they not
that most melodramatic (as you choose to word it) of thieves,
Blackbeard, before whom Bluebeard must for ever hide his diminished
head? Why, Bluebeard had only one wife at a time, although he murdered
five of them, whereas Blackbeard had seldom fewer than a dozen, and he
was never known to murder above three. But I have fallen in with such a
treasure! Oh, such a discovery! I have been communing with Noah
himself with an old negro, who remembers this very Blackbeard--the
pirate Blackbeard.”
“The deuce,” said I; “impossible!”
“But it is true. Why it is only ninety-four years ago since the
scoundrel flourished, and this old cock is one hundred and ten. I have
jotted it down--worth a hundred pounds. Read, my adorable Mrs C----,
read.”
“But, my dear Mr Bang,” said she, “had you not better read it yourself?”
“You, if you please,” quoth Aaron, who forthwith set himself to make the
best use of his time.
MEMOIR OF JOHN TEACH, ESQUIRE VULGARLY CALLED BLACKBEARD.
BY AARON BANGS, ESQUIRE, F.R.S.
“He was the mildest mannered man.
That ever scuttled ship, or cut a throat;
With such true breeding of a gentleman,
You never could discern his real thought.
Pity he loved adventurous life’s variety,
He was so great a loss to good society.”
John Teach, or Blackbeard, was a very eminent man--a very handsome man,
and a very devil amongst the ladies.
He was a Welshman, and introduced the leek into Nassau about the year
1718, and was a very remarkable personage, although, from some singular
imperfection in his moral constitution, he never could distinguish
clearly between meum and tuum.
He found his patrimony was not sufficient to support him; and as he
disliked agricultural pursuits as much as mercantile, he got together
forty or fifty fine young men one day, and borrowed a vessel from some
merchants that was lying at the Nore, and set sail for the Bahamas. On
his way he fell in with several West Indiamen, and, sending a boat on
board of each, he asked them for the loan of provisions and wine, and
all their gold, and silver, and clothes, which request was in every
instance but one civilly acceded to; whereupon, drinking their good
healths, he returned to his ship. In the instance where he had been
uncivilly treated, to show his forbearance, he saluted them with twenty
one guns; but by some accident the shot had not been withdrawn, so that
unfortunately the contumacious ill bred craft sank, and as Blackbeard’s
own vessel was very crowded, he was unable to save any of the crew. He
was a great admirer of fine air, and accordingly established himself on
the island of New Providence, and invited a number of elegant young men,
who were fond of pleasure cruises, to visit him, so that presently he
found it necessary to launch forth in order to borrow more provisions.
At this period he was a great dandy; and amongst other vagaries, he
allowed his beard to grow a foot long at the shortest, and then plaited
it into three strands, indicating that he was a bashaw of no common
dimensions. He wore red breeches, but no stockings, and sandals of
bullock’s hide. He was a perfect Egyptian in his curiousness in fine
linen, and his shirt was always white as the driven snow when it was
clean, which was the first Sunday of every month. In waistcoats he was
especially select; but the cut of them very much depended on the fashion
in favour with the last gentleman he had borrowed from. He never wore
any thing but a full dress purple velvet coat, under which bristled
three brace of pistols, and two naked stilettoes, only eighteen inches
long, and he had generally a lighted match fizzing in the bow of his
cocked scraper whereat he lighted his pipe, or fired off a cannon, as
pleased him.
One of his favourite amusements, when he got half slewed, was to adjourn
to the hold with his compotators, and kindling some brimstone matches,
to dance and roar, as if he had been the devil himself, until his allies
were nearly suffocated. At another time he would blow out the candles
in the cabin, and blaze away with his loaded pistols at random, right
and left, whereby he severely wounded the feelings of some of his
intimates by the poignancy of his wit, all of which he considered a most
excellent joke. But he was kind to his fourteen wives so long as he was
sober, as it is known that he never murdered above three of them. His
borrowing, however, gave offence to our government, no one can tell how;
and at length two of our frigates, the Lime and Pearl, then cruising off
the American coast, after driving him from his, stronghold, hunted him
down in an inlet in North Carolina, where, in an eight-gun schooner,
with thirty desperate fellows, he made a defence worthy of his
honourable life, and fought so furiously that he killed and wounded more
men of the attacking party than his own crew consisted of; and following
up his success, he boarded, sword in hand, the headmost of the two armed
sloops, which had been detached by the frigates, with ninety men on
board, to capture him; and being followed by twelve men and his trusty
lieutenant, he would have carried her out and out, maugre the disparity
of force, had he not fainted from loss of blood, when, falling on his
back, he died where he fell, like a hero--“His face to the sky, and his
feet to the foe” leaving eleven forlorn widows, being the fourteen
wives, minus the three that he had throttled.
“NO CHIVALROUS ASSOCIATIONS indeed! Match me such a character as this.”
We all applauded to the echo. But I must end my song, for I should
never tire in dwelling on the happy days we spent in this most
enchanting little island. The lovely blithe girls, and the hospitable
kind hearted men, and the children! I never saw such cherubs, with all
the sprightliness of the little pale-faced creoles of the West Indies,
while the healthy bloom of Old England blossomed on their cheeks.
“I say, Tom,” said Massa Aaron, on one occasion when I was rather
tedious on the subject, “all those little cherubs, as you call them, at
least the most of them, are the offspring of the cotton bales captured
in the American war.”
“The what?” said I.
“The children of the American war--and I will prove it thus taking the
time from no less an authority than Hamlet, when he chose to follow the
great Dictator, Julius Caesar himself, through all the corruption of our
physical nature, until he found him stopping a beer barrel--(only
imagine the froth of one of our disinterested friend Buxton’s beer
barrels, savouring of quassia, not hop, fizzing through the clay of
Julius Caesar the Roman!)--as thus: If there had been no Yankee war,
there would have been no prize cargoes of cotton sent into Nassau; if
there had been no prize cargoes sent into Nassau, there would have been
little money made; if there had been little money made, there would have
been fewer marriages; if there had been fewer marriages, there would
have been fewer cherubs. There is logic for you, my darling.”
“Your last is a non sequitur, my dear sir,” said I, laughing. “But, in
the main, Parson Malthus is right, out of Ireland that is, after all.”
That evening I got into a small scrape, by impressing three apprentices
out of a Scotch brig, and if Mr Bang had not stood my friend, I might
have, got into serious trouble. Thanks to him, the affair was soldered.
When on the eve of sailing, my excellent friends, Messrs Bang, Gelid,
and Wagtail, determined, in consequence of letters which they had
received from Jamaica, to return home in a beautiful armed brig that was
to sail in a few days, laden with flour. I cannot well describe how much
this moved me. Young and enthusiastic as I was, I had grappled myself
with hooks of steel to Mr Bang; and now, when he unexpectedly
communicated his intention of leaving me, I felt more forlorn and
deserted than I was willing to plead to.
“My dear boy,” said he, “make my peace with Transom. If urgent business
had not pressed me, I would not have broken my promise to rejoin him;
but I am imperiously called for in Jamaica, where I hope soon to see
you.” He continued, with a slight tremor in his voice, which thrilled to
my heart, as it vouched for the strength of his regard,--“If ever I am
where you may come, Tom, and you don’t make my house your home, provided
you have not a better of your own, I will never forgive you.” He paused.
“You young fellows sometimes spend faster than you should do, and
quarterly bills are long of coming round. I have drawn for more money
than I want. I wish you would--let me be your banker for a hundred
pounds, Tom.”
I squeezed his hand. “No, no--many, many thanks, my dear sir but I
never outrun the constable. Goodbye, God bless you. Farewell, Mr
Wagtail--Mr Gelid, adieu.” I tumbled into the boat and pulled on board.
The first thing I did was to send the wine and sea stock, a most
exuberant assortment unquestionably, belonging to my Jamaica friends,
ashore; but, to my surprise, the boat was sent back, with Mr Bang’s
card, on which was written in pencil, “Don’t affront us, Captain
Cringle.” Thereupon I got the schooner under weigh, and no event worth
narrating turned up until we anchored close to the post office at
Crooked Island, two days after.
We found the Firebrand there, and the post-office mail-boat, with her
red flag and white horse in it, and I went on board the corvette to
deliver my official letter, detailing the incidents of the cruise, and
was most graciously received by my captain.
There was a sail in sight when we anchored, which at first we took for
the Jamaica packet; but it turned out to be the Tinker, friend Bang’s
flour-loaded brig; and by five in the evening our friends were all
three once more restored to us, but, alas! so far as regarded two of
them, only for a moment. Messrs Gelid and Wagtail had, on second
thoughts, it seems, hauled their wind to lay in a stock of turtle at
Crooked Island, and I went ashore with them, and assisted in the
selection from the turtle crawls filled with beautiful clear water, and
lots of fine lively fresh-caught fish, the postmaster being the turtle
merchant.
“I say, Paul, happier in the fish way here than you were at Biggleswade
eh?” said Aaron.
After we had completed our purchases, our friends went on board the
corvette, and I was invited to meet them at dinner, where the aforesaid
postmaster, a stout conch, with a square-cut coatee and red cape and
cuffs, was also a guest.
He must have had but a dull time of it, as there were no other white
inhabitants that I saw, on the island besides himself; his wife having
gone to Nassau, which he looked on as the prime city of the world, to be
confined, as he told us. Bang said, that she must rather have gone to
be delivered from confinement; and, in truth, Crooked Island was a most
desolate domicile for a lady; our friend the postmaster’s family, and a
few negroes employed in catching turtle, and making salt, and dressing
some scrubby cotton-trees, composing the whole population. In the
evening the packet did arrive, however, and Captain Transom received his
orders.
“Captain Transom, my boy,” quoth Bang towards nightfall, “the best of
friends must part--we must move--good--night--we shall be off presently
good--by”--and he held out his hand.
“Devil a bit,” said Transom; “Bang, you shall not go, neither you nor
your friends. You promised, in fact shipped with me for the cruise, and
Lady----has my word and honour that you shall be restored to her longing
eye, sound and safe--so you must all remain, and send down the flour
brig to say you are coming.”
To make a long story short, Massa Aaron was boned, but his friends were
obdurate, so we all weighed that night; the Tinker bearing up for
Jamaica, while we kept by the wind, steering for Conaives in St Domingo.
The third day we were off Cape St Nicholas, and getting a slant of wind
from the westward, we ran up the Bight of Leogane all that night, but
towards morning it fell calm; we were close in under the highland, about
two miles from the shore, and the night was the darkest I ever was out
in anywhere. There were neither moon nor stars to be seen, and the dark
clouds settled down, until they appeared to rest upon our mastheads,
compressing, as it were, the hot steamy air upon us until it became too
dense for breathing. In the early part of the night it had rained in
heavy showers now and then, and there were one or two faint flashes of
lightning, and some heavy peals of thunder, which rolled amongst the
distant hills in loud shaking reverberations, which gradually became
fainter and fainter, until they grumbled away in the distance in hoarse
murmurs, like the low notes of an organ in one of our old cathedrals;
but now there was neither rain nor wind--all nature seemed fearfully
hushed; for where we lay, in the smooth bight, there was no swell, not
even a ripple on the glasslike sea; the sound of the shifting of a
handspike, or the tread of the men, as they ran to haul on--a rope, or
the creaking of the rudder, sounded loud and distinct. The sea in our
neighbourhood was strongly phosphorescent, so that the smallest chip
thrown overboard struck fire from the water, as if it had been a piece
of iron cast on flint; and when you looked over the quarter, as I
delight to do, and tried to penetrate into the dark clear profound
beneath, you every now and then saw a burst of pale light, like a halo,
far down in the depths of the green sea, caused by the motion of some
fish, or of what Jack, no great natural philosopher, usually calls
blubbers; and when the dolphin or skip-jack leapt into the air, they
sparkled out from the still bosom of the deep dark water like rockets,
until they fell again into their element in a flash of fire. This
evening the corvette had showed no lights, and although I conjectured
she was not far from us, still I could not with any certainty indicate
her whereabouts. It might now have been about three o’clock, and I was
standing on the aftermost gun on the starboard side, peering into the
impervious darkness over the tafferel, with my dear old dog Sneezer by
my side, nuzzling and fondling after his affectionate fashion, while the
pilot, Peter Mangrove, stood within handspike length of me. The dog had
been growling, but all in fun, and snapping at me, when in a moment he
hauled off, planted his paws on the rail, looked forth into the night,
and gave a short, anxious bark, Ii e the solitary pop of the sentry’s
musket to alarm the main guard in outpost work.
Peter Mangrove advanced, and put his arm round the dog’s neck. “What
you see, my shild?” said the black pilot.
Sneezer uplifted his voice, and gave a long continuous growl.
“Ah!” said Mangrove sharply, “Massa Captain, something near we--never
doubt dat--de dog yeerie someting we can’t yeerie, and see someting we
can’t see.”
I had lived long enough never to despise any caution, from whatever
quarter it proceeded. So I listened, still as a stone. Presently I
thought I heard the distant splash of oars. I placed my hand behind my
ear, and waited with breathless attention. Immediately I saw the
sparkling dip of them in the calm black water, as if a boat, and a large
one, was pulling very fast towards us. “Look out, hail that boat,” said
I.
“Boat ahoy!” sung out the man, to whom I had spoken. No answer.
“Coming here?” reiterated the seaman. No better success. The boat or
canoe, or whatever it might be, was by this time close aboard of us,
within pistol-shot at the farthest--no time to be lost, so I hailed
myself, and this time the challenge did produce an answer.
“Sore boat-fruit and wegitab.”
“Shore boat, with fruit and vegetables, at this time of night--I don’t
like it,” said I. “Boatswain’s mate,--all hands--pipe away the boarders.
Cutlasses, men--quick, a piratical row--boat is close to.” And verily we
had little time to lose, when a large canoe or row--boat, pulling twelve
oars at the fewest, and carrying twenty--five men, or thereabouts, swept
up on our larboard quarter, hooked on, and the next moment upwards of
twenty unlooked--for visitors scrambled up our shallow side, and jumped
on board. All this took place so suddenly that there were not ten of my
people ready to receive them, but those ten were the prime men of the
ship.
“Surrender, you scoundrels--surrender. You have boarded a man-of-war.
Down with your arms, or we shall kill you to a man.”
But they either did not understand me, or did not believe me, for the
answer was a blow from a cutlass, which, if I had not parried with my
night-glass, which it broke in pieces, might have effectually stopped
my promotion.
“Cut them down, boarders, down with them--they are pirates,” shouted I;
“heave cold shot into their boat alongside--all hands, Mr Rousemout,” to
the boatswain, “call all hands.”
We closed. The assailants had no firearms, but they were armed with
swords and long knives, and as they fought with desperation, several of
our people were cruelly haggled; and after the first charge, the
combatants on both sides became so blended, that it was impossible to
strike a blow, without running the risk of cutting down a friend. By
this time all hands were on deck; the boat alongside had been swamped by
the cold shot that had been hove crashing through her bottom, when down
came a shower from the surcharged clouds, or waterspout--call it which
you will--that absolutely deluged the decks, the scuppers being utterly
unable to carry off the water. So long as the pirates fought in a body,
I had no fears, as, dark as it was, our men, who held together, knew
where to strike and thrust; but when the torrent of rain descended in
bucketfuls, the former broke away, and were pursued singly into various
corners about the deck, all escape being cut off from the swamping of
their boat. Still they were not vanquished, and I ran aft to the
binnacle, where a blue light was stowed away,--one of several that we
had got on deck to bum that night, in order to point out our whereabouts
to the Firebrand. I fired it, and rushing forward cutlass-in-hand, we
set on the gang of black desperadoes with such fury, that after killing
two of them outright, and wounding and taking prisoners seven, we drove
the rest overboard into the sea, where the small-armed men, who by this
time had tackled to their muskets, made short work of them, guided as
they were by the sparkling of the dark water, as they struck out and
swam for their lives. The blue light was immediately answered by
another from the corvette, which lay about a mile off; but before her
boats, two of which were immediately armed and manned, could reach us,
we had defeated our antagonists, and the rain had increased to such a
degree, that the heavy drops, as they fell with a strong rushing noise
into the sea, flashed it up into one entire sheet of fire.
We--secured our prisoners, all blacks and mulattoes, the most villainous
looking scoundrels I had ever seen, and shortly after it came on to
thunder and lighten, as if heaven and earth had been falling together.
A most vivid flash--it almost blinded me. Presently the Firebrand burnt
another blue light, whereby we saw that her maintopmast was gone close
by the cap, with the topsail, and upper spars, and yards, and gear, all
hanging down in a lumbering mass of confused wreck; she had been struck
by the levin brand, which had killed four men, and stunned several more.
By this time the cold grey streaks of morning appeared in the eastern
horizon, and soon after the day broke; and by two o’clock in the
afternoon, both corvette and schooner were at anchor at Conaives. The
village, for town it could not be called, stands on a low hot plain, as
if the washings of the mountains on the left hand side as we stood in
had been carried out into the sea, and formed into a white plateau of
sand; all was hot and stunted, and scrubby. We brought up inside of the
corvette, in three fathoms water. My superior officer had made the
private signal to come on board and dine. I dressed, and the boat was
lowered down, and we pulled for the corvette, but our course lay under
the stern of the two English ships that were lying there loading cargoes
of coffee.
“Pray, sir,” said a decent-looking man, who leant on the tafferel of
one of them--“Pray, sir, are you going on board of the Commodore?”
“I am,” I answered.
“I am invited there too, sir; will you have the kindness to say I will
be there presently?”
“Certainly--give way, men.”
Presently we were alongside the corvette, and the next moment we stood
on her deck, holystoned white and clean, with my stanch friend Captain
Transom and his officers, all in full fig, walking to and fro under the
awning, a most magnificent naval lounge, being thirty two feet wide at
the gangway, and extending fifty feet or more aft, until it narrowed to
twenty at the tafferel. We were all--the two masters of the
merchantmen, decent respectable men in their way, included--graciously
received, and sat down to an excellent dinner, Mr Bang taking the lead
as usual in all the fun; and we were just on the verge of cigars and
cold grog, when the first lieutenant came down and said that the captain
of the port had come off, and was then on board.
“Show him in,” said Captain Transom, and a tall, vulgar-looking
blackamoor, dressed apparently in the cast-off coat of a French
grenadier officer, entered the cabin with his chapeau in his hand, and a
Madras handkerchief tied round his woolly skull. He made his bow, and
remained standing near the door.
“You are the captain of the port?” said Captain Transom. The man
answered in French, that he was. “Why, then, take a chair, sir, if you
please.”
He begged to be excused and after tipping off his bumper of claret, and
receiving the Captain’s report, he made his bow and departed.
I returned to the Wave, and next morning I breakfasted on board of the
Commodore, and afterwards we all proceeded on shore to Monsieur B----‘s,
to whom Massa Aaron was known. The town, if I may call it so, had
certainly a very desolate appearance. There was nothing stirring; and
although a group of idlers, amounting to about twenty or thirty, did
collect about us on the end of the wharf, which, by the by, was terribly
out of repair, yet they all appeared ill clad, and in no way so well
furnished as the blackies in Jamaica; and when we marched up through a
hot, sandy, unpaved street into the town, the low, one-story, shabby
looking houses were falling into decay, and the streets more resembled
river-courses than thoroughfares, while the large carrion crows were
picking garbage on the very crown of the causeway, without apparently
entertaining the least fear of us, or of the negro children who were
playing close to them, so near, in fact, that every now and then one of
the urchins would aim a blow at one of the obscene birds, when it would
give a loud discordant croak, and jump a pace or two, with outspread
wings, but without taking flight. Still many of the women, who were
sitting under the small piazzas, or projecting eaves of the houses, with
their little stalls, filled with pullicate handkerchiefs, and pieces of
muslin, and ginghams for sale, were healthy-looking, and appeared
comfortable and happy. As we advanced into the town, almost every male
we met was a soldier, all rigged and well dressed, too, in the French
uniform; in fact, the remarkable man, King Henry, or Christophe,
took care to have his troops well fed and clothed in every case. On
our way we had to pass by the Commandant, Baron B----‘s house, when it
occurred to Captain Transom that we ought to stop and pay our respects;
but Mr Bang, being bound by no such etiquette, bore up for his friend
Monsieur B----‘s. As we approached the house--a long, low, one-story
building, with a narrow piazza, and a range of unglazed windows, staring
open, with their wooden shutters, like ports in a ship’s side, towards
the street--we found a sentry at the door, who, when we announced
ourselves, carried arms all in regular style. Presently a very good
looking negro, in a handsome aide-de-camp’s uniform, appeared, and, hat
in hand, with all the grace in the world, ushered us into the presence
of the Baron, who was lounging in a Spanish chair half asleep, but on
hearing us announced he rose, and received us with great amenity. He
was a fat elderly negro, so far as I could judge, about sixty years of
age, and was dressed in very wide jean trowsers, over which a pair of
well polished Hessian boots were drawn, which, by adhering close to his
legs, gave him, in contrast with the wide puffing of his garments above,
the appearance of being underlimbed, which he by no means was, being a
stout old Turk.
After a profusion of congees and fine speeches, and superabundant
assurances of the esteem in which his master King Henry held our master
King George, we made our bows and repaired to Monsieur B----‘s, where I
was engaged to dine. As for Captain Transom, he went on board that
evening to superintend the repairs of the ship.
There was no one to meet us but Monsieur B----and his daughter, a tall
and very elegant brown girl, who had been educated in France, and did
the honours incomparably well. We sat down, Massa Aaron whispering in
my lug, that in Jamaica it was not quite the thing to introduce brown
ladies at dinner; but, as he said, “Why not? Neither you nor I are high
caste creoles--so en avant.”
Dinner was nearly over, when Baron B----‘s aide-de-camp slid into the
room. Monsieur B----rose. “Captain Latour, you are welcome--be seated.
I hope you have not dined?”
“Why no,” said the negro officer, as he drew a chair, while he exchanged
glances with the beautiful Eugenie, and sat himself down close to el
Senor Bang.
“Hillo, Quashie! Whereaway, my lad? a little above the salt, an’t you?”
ejaculated our amigo; while Pegtop, who had just come on shore, and was
standing behind his master, stared and gaped in the greatest wonderment.
But Mr Bang’s natural good breeding, and knowledge of the world,
instantly recalled him to time and circumstances; and when the young
officer looked at him, regarding him with some surprise, he bowed, and
invited him, in the best French he could muster, to drink wine. The
aide-de-camp was, as I have said, jet-black as the ace of spades, but
he was, notwithstanding, so far as figure went, a very handsome man
tall and well made, especially about the shoulders, which were
beautifully formed, and, in the estimation of a statuary, would probably
have balanced the cucumber curve of the shin; his face, however, was
regular negro-flat nose, heavy lips, fine eyes, and beautiful teeth,
and he wore two immense gold earrings. His woolly head was bound round
with a pullicate handkerchief, which we had not noticed until he took
off his laced cocked hat. His coat was the exact pattern of the French
staff uniform at the time--plain blue, without lace, except at the cape
and cuffs, which were of scarlet cloth, covered with rich embroidery.
He wore a very handsome straight sword, with steel scabbard, and the
white trowsers, and long Hessian boots, already described as part of the
costume of his general.
Mr Bang, as I have said, had rallied by this time, and with the tact of
a gentleman, appeared to have forgotten whether his new ally was black,
blue, or green, while the claret, stimulating him into self possession,
was evaporating in broken French. But his man Pegtop had been pushed
off his balance altogether; his equanimity was utterly gone. When the
young officer brushed past him, at the first go off, while he was
rinsing some glasses in the passage, his sword banged against Pegtop’s
derriere as he stooped down over his work. He started and looked round,
and merely exclaimed--“Eigh, Massa Niger, wurra dat!” But now, when,
standing behind his master’s chair, he saw the aide-de-camp consorting
with him whom he looked upon as the greatest man in existence, on terms
of equality, all his faculties were paralysed.
“Pegtop,” said I, “hand me some yam, if you please.”
He looked at me all agape, as if he had been half strangled.
“Pegtop, you scoundrel,” quoth massa Aaron, “don’t you hear what Captain
Cringle says, sir?”
“Oh yes, massa;” and thereupon the sable valet brought me a bottle of
fish sauce, which he endeavoured to pour into my wineglass. All this
while Eugenie and the aide-de-camp were playing the agreeable--and in
very good taste, too, let me tell you.
I had just drank wine with mine host, when I cast my eye along the
passage that led out of the room, and there was Pegtop dancing, and
jumping, and smiting his thigh, in an ecstasy of laughter, as he doubled
himself up, with the tears welling over his cheeks.
“Oh, Lord! Oh!--Massa Bang bow, and make face, and drink wine, and do
every ting shivil, to one dam black rascall nigger!--Oh, blackee more
worser clan me, Gabriel Pegtop----Oh, Lard!--ha! ha! ha!”--Thereupon he
threw himself down in the piazza, amongst plates and dishes and shouted
and laughed in a perfect frenzy, until Mr Bang got up, and thrust the
poor fellow out of doors, in a pelting shower, which soon so far quelled
the hysterical passion, that he came in again, grave as a judge, and
took his place behind his master’s chair once more, and every thing went
on smoothly. The aide-de-camp, who appeared quite unconscious that he
was the cause of the poor fellow’s mirth, renewed his attentions to
Eugenie; and Mr Bang, Monsieur B----, and myself, were again engaged in
conversation, and our friend Pegtop was in the act of handing a slice of
melon to the black officer, when a file of soldiers, with fixed
bayonets, stept into the piazza, and ordered arms, one taking up his
station on each side of the door. Presently another aide-de-camp,
booted and spurred, dashed after them; and, as soon as he crossed the
threshold, sung out, “Place, pour Monsieur le Baron.”
The electrical nerve was again touched--“Oh!--oh!--oh! Caramighty! here
comes anoder on dem,” roared Pegtop, sticking the slice of melon, which
was intended for Mademoiselle Eugenie, into his own mouth, to quell the
paroxysm, if possible, (while he fractured the plate on the black aide’s
skull,) and immediately blew it out again, with an explosion, and a
scattering of the fragments, as if it had been the blasting of a stone
quarry.
“Zounds, this is too much,”--exclaimed Bang, as he rose and kicked the
poor fellow out again, with such vehemence, that his skull, encountering
the paunch of our friend the Baron, who was entering from the street at
that instant, capsized him outright, and away rolled his Excellency the
General de Division, Commandant de L’Arrondissement, &c. &c. digging his
spurs into poor Pegtop’s transom, and sacring furiously, while the black
servant roared as if he had been harpooned by the very devil. The aides
started to their feet and one of them looked at Mr Bang, and touched the
hilt of his sword, grinding the word ‘satisfaction’ between his teeth,
while the other ordered the sentries to run the poor fellow, whose mirth
had been so uproarious, through. However, he got off with one or two
brogues in a very safe place; and when Monsieur B----explained how
matters stood, and that the “pauvre diable,” as the black Baron coolly
called him, was a mere servant, and an uncultivated creature, and that
no insult was meant, we had all a hearty laugh, and every thing rolled
right again. At length the Baron and his black tail rose to wish us a
good evening, and we were thinking of finishing off with a cigar and a
glass of cold grog, when Monsieur B----‘s daughter returned into the
piazza, very pale, and evidently much frightened. “Mon pere,” said she
while her voice quavered from excessive agitation--“My father--why do
the soldiers remain?”
We all peered into the dark passage, and there, true enough, were the
black sentries at their posts beside the doorway, still and motionless
as statues. Monsieur B----, poor fellow, fell back in his chair at the
sight, as if he had been shot through the heart.
“My fate is sealed--I am lost--oh, Eugenie!” were the only words he
could utter.
“No, no,” exclaimed the weeping girl, “God forbid--the Baron is a kind
hearted man--King Henry cannot--no, no--he knows you are not
disaffected, he will not injure you.”
Here one of the black aides-de-camp suddenly returned. It was the
poor fellow who had been making love to Eugenie during the
entertainment. He looked absolutely blue with dismay; his voice shook,
and his knees knocked together as he approached our host.
He tried to speak, but could not. “Oh, Pierre, Pierre,” moaned, or
rather gasped Eugenie, “what have you come to communicate? what dreadful
news are you the bearer of?” He held out an open letter to poor B----,
who, unable to read it from excessive agitation, handed it to me. It
ran thus:
“MONSIEUR LE BARON,
Monsieur--has been arrested here this morning; he is a white
Frenchman, and there are strong suspicions against him. Place his
partner M. B----under the surveillance of the police instantly. You are
made answerable for his safe custody.”
“Witness his Majesty’s hand and seal, at Sans Souci, this----”
The Count.
“Then I am doomed,” groaned poor Mr B----. His daughter fainted, the
black officer wept, and having laid his senseless mistress on a sofa, he
approached and wrung B----‘s hand. “Alas, my dear sir--how my heart
bleeds! But cheer up--King Henry is just--all may be right--all may
still be right; and so far as my duty to him will allow, you may count
on nothing being done here that is not absolutely necessary for holding
ourselves blameless with the Government.”
Enough and to spare of this. We slept on shore that night, and a very
neat catastrophe was likely to have ensued thereupon. Intending to go
on board ship at daybreak, I had got up and dressed myself, and opened
the door into the street to let myself out, when I stumbled unwittingly
against the black sentry, who must have been half asleep, for he
immediately stepped several paces back, and presenting his musket, the
clear barrel glancing in the moonlight, snapped it at me. Fortunately it
missed fire, which gave me time to explain that it was not M. B----,
attempting to escape; but that day week he was marched to the prison of
La Force, near Cape Henry, where his partner had been previously lodged;
and from that hour to this, neither of them were ever heard of. Next
evening I again went ashore, but I was denied admittance to him; and, as
my orders were imperative not to interfere in any way, I had to return
on board with a heavy heart.
The day following, Captain Transom and myself paid a formal I visit to
the black Baron, in order to leave no stone unturned to obtain poor
B----‘s release if we could. Mr Bang accompanied us. We found the sable
dignitary lounging in a grass hammock, (slung from corner to corner of a
very comfortless room, for the floor was tiled, the windows were
unglazed, and there was no furniture whatsoever but an old-fashioned
mahogany sideboard and three wicker chairs) apparently half-asleep, or
ruminating after his breakfast. On our being announced by a half-naked
negro servant, who aroused him, he got up and received us very kindly I
beg his lordship’s pardon, I should write graciously--and made us take
wine and biscuit, and talked and rattled; but I saw he carefully avoided
the subject which he evidently knew was the object of our visit. At
length, finding it would be impossible for him to parry it much longer
single-handed, with tact worthy of a man of fashion, he called out
“Marie! Marie!” Our eyes followed his, and we saw a young and very
handsome brown lady rise, whom we had perceived seated at her work when
we first entered, in a small dark back porch, and advance after
curtseying to us seriatim, with great elegance, as the old fat niger
introduced her to us as “Madame la Baronne.”
“His wife?” whispered Aaron; “the old rank goat!”
Her brown ladyship did the honours of the wine-ewer with the perfect
quietude and ease of a well-bred woman. She was a most lovely clear
skinned quadroon girl. She could not have been twenty; tall and
beautifully shaped. Her long coal-black tresses were dressed high on
her head, which was bound round with the everlasting Madras
handkerchief, in which pale blue was the prevailing colour; but it was
elegantly adjusted, and did not come down far enough to shade the fine
development of her majestic forehead--Pasta’s in Semiramide was not more
commanding. Her eyebrows were delicately arched and sharply defined,
and her eyes of jet were large and swimming; her nose had not utterly
abjured its African origin, neither had her lips, but, notwithstanding,
her countenance shone with all the beauty of expression so conspicuous
in the Egyptian sphinx Abyssinian, but most sweet--while her teeth were
as the finest ivory, and her chin and throat, and bosom, as if her bust
had been an antique statue of the rarest workmanship. The only
ornaments she wore were two large virgin gold ear-rings, massive yellow
hoops without any carving, but so heavy that they seemed to weigh down
the small thin transparent ears which they perforated; and a broad black
velvet band round her neck, to which was appended a large massive
crucifix of the same metal. She also wore two broad bracelets of black
velvet clasped with gold. Her beautifully moulded form was scarcely
veiled by a cambric chemise, with exceedingly short sleeves, over which
she wore a rose-coloured silk petticoat, short enough to display a
finely formed foot and ankle, with a well-selected pearl white silk
stocking, and a neat low-cut French black kid shoe. As for gown, she
had none. She wore a large-sparkling diamond ring on her marriage
finger, and we were all bowing before the deity, when our attention was
arrested by a cloud of dust at the top of the street, and presently a
solitary black dragoon sparked out from it, his accoutrements and
headpiece blazing in the sun, then three more abreast, and immediately a
troop of five-and-twenty cavaliers, or thereabouts, came thundering
down the street. They formed opposite the Baron’s house, and I will say
I never saw a better appointed troop of horse anywhere. Presently an
aide-de-camp scampered up; and having arrived opposite the door,
dismounted, and entering, exclaimed, “Les Comtes de Lemonade et
Marmalade.”--“The who?” said Mr Bang; but presently two very handsome
young men of colour, in splendid uniforms, rode up, followed by a
glittering staff, of at least twenty mounted officers. They alighted,
and entering, made their bow to Baron B----. The youngest, the Count
Lemonade, spoke very decent English, and what between Mr Bang’s and my
bad, and Captain Transom’s very good, French, we all made ourselves
agreeable. I may state here, that Lemonade and Marmalade are two
districts of the island of St Domingo, which had been pitched on by
Christophe to give titles to two of his fire--new nobility. The
grandees had come on a survey of the district, and although we did not
fail to press the matter of poor B----‘s release, yet they either had no
authority to interfere in the matter, or they would not acknowledge that
they had, so we reluctantly took leave, and went on shipboard.
“Tom, you villain,” said Mr Bang, as we stepped into the boat, “if my
eye had caught yours when these noblemen made their entree, I should
have exploded with laughter, and most likely have had my throat cut for
my pains. Pray, did his highness of Lemonade carry a punch-ladle in
his hand? I am sure I expected he of Marmalade to have carried a jelly
can? Oh, Tom, at the moment I heard them announced, my dear old mother
flitted before my mind’s eye, with the bright, well-scoured, large
brass pans in the background, as she superintended her handmaidens in
their annual preservations.”
After the fruitless interview, we weighed, and sailed for Port au
Prince, where we arrived the following evening.
I had heard much of the magnificence of the scenery in the Bight of
Leogane, but the reality far surpassed what I had pictured to myself.
The breeze, towards noon of the following day, had come up in a gentle
air from the westward, and we were gliding along before it like a spread
eagle, with all our light sails abroad to catch the sweet zephyr, which
was not even strong enough to ruffle the silver surface of the
landlocked sea, that glowed beneath the blazing midday sun, with a
dolphin here and there cleaving the shining surface with an arrowy
ripple, and a brown-skinned shark glaring on us, far down in the deep,
clear, green profound, like a water fiend, and a slow-sailing pelican
overhead, after a long sweep on poised wing, dropping into the sea like
lead, and flashing up the water like the bursting of a shell, as we
sailed up into a glorious amphitheatre of stupendous mountains, covered
with one eternal forest, that rose gradually from the hot sandy plains
that skirted the shore; while what had once been smiling fields, and
rich sugar plantations, in the long misty level districts at their
bases, were now covered with brushwood, fast rising up into one
impervious thicket; and as the Island of Conave closed in the view
behind us to seaward, the sun sank beyond it, amidst rolling masses of
golden and blood-red clouds, giving token of a goodly day to-morrow,
and gilding the outline of the rocky islet (as if to a certain depth it
had been transparent) with a golden halo, gradually deepening into
imperial purple. Beyond the shadow of the tree-covered islet, on the
left hand, rose the town of Port-au-Prince, with its long streets
rising like terraces on the gently swelling shore, while the mountains
behind it, still gold tipped in the declining sunbeams, seemed to impend
frowningly over it, and the shipping in the roadstead at anchor off the
town were just beginning to fade from our sight in the gradually
increasing darkness, and a solitary light began to sparkle in a cabin
window and then disappear, and to twinkle for a moment in the piazzas of
the houses on shore like a will-of-the-wisp, and the chirping buzz of
myriads of insects and reptiles was coming off from the island a-stem
of us, borne on the wings of the light wind, which, charged with rich
odours from the closing flowers, fanned us “like the sweet south, soft
breathing o’er a bed of violets,” when a sudden flash and a jet of white
smoke puffed out from the hill-fort above the town, the report
thundering amongst the everlasting hills, and gradually rumbling itself
away into the distant ravines and valleys, like a lion growling itself
to sleep, and the shades of night fell on the dead face of nature like a
pall, and all was undistinguishable.--When I had written thus far--it
was at Port-au-Prince, at Mr S----‘s--Mr Bang entered--“Ah! Tom--at
the log, polishing--using the plane--shaping out something for Ebony
let me see.”
Here our friend read the preceding paragraphs. They did not please him.
“Don’t like it, Tom.”
“No? Pray, why, my dear sir?--I have tried to” “Hold your tongue, my
good boy.”
“Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer,
List old ladies o’er your tea,
At description Tom’s a tailor,
When he is compared to me.
Tooral looral loo.”
“Attend--brevity is the soul of wit,--ahem. Listen how I shall crush
all your lengthy yam into an eggshell. ‘The Bight of Leogane is a
horseshoe--Cape St Nicholas is the caulker on the northern heel Cape
Tiberoon, the ditto on the south--Port-au-Prince is the tip at the toe
towards the east--Conaives, Leogane, Petit Trouve, &c. &c. &c. are the
nails, and the Island of Gonave is the frog.’ Now every human being who
knows that a horse has four legs and a tail--of course this includes all
the human race, excepting tailors and sailors--must understand this at
once; it is palpable and plain, although no man could have put it so
perspicuously, excepting my friend William Cobbettt or myself. By the
way, speaking of horses, that blood thing of the old Baron’s nearly gave
you your quietus t’other day, Tom. Why will you always pass the flank
of a horse in place of going ahead of him, to use your own phrase?
Never ride near a led horse on passing when you can help it; give him a
wide berth, or clap the groom’s corpus between you and his heels; and
never, never go near the croup of any quadruped bigger than a cat, for
even a cow’s is inconvenient, when you can by any possibility help it.”
I laughed--“Well, well, my dear sir--but you undervalue my equestrian
capability somewhat too, for I do pretend to know that a horse has four
legs and a tail.”
There was no pleasing Aaron this morning, I saw.
“Then, Tummas, my man, you know a deuced deal more than I do. As for
the tail, conceditur--but devilish few horses have four legs nowadays,
take my word for it. However, here comes Transom; I am off to have a
lounge with him, and I will finish the veterinary lecture at some more
convenient season. Tol lol de rol.”--Exit singing.
The morning after this I went ashore at daylight, and, guided by the
sound of military music, proceeded to the Place Republicain, or square
before President Petion’s palaces where I found eight regiments of foot
under arms, with their bands playing, and in the act of defiling before
General Boyer who commanded the arrondissement. This was the garrison
of Port-au-Prince, but neither the personal appearance of the troops,
nor their appointments, were at all equal to those of King Henry’s well
dressed and well drilled cohorts that we saw at Conaives. The
President’s guards were certainly fine men, and a squadron of dismounted
cavalry, in splendid blue uniforms, with scarlet trowsers richly laced,
might have vied with the elite of Nap’s own, barring the black faces.
But the materiel of the other regiments was not superfine, as M. Boyer,
before whom they were defiling, might have said.
I went to breakfast with Mr S----, one of the English merchants of the
place, a kind and most hospitable man; and under his guidance, the
Captain, Mr Bang, and I, proceeded afterwards to call on Petion.
Christophe, or King Henry, had some time before retired from the siege
of Port-au-Prince, and we found the town in a very miserable state.
Many of the houses were injured from shot; the President’s palace, for
instance, was perforated in several places, which had not been repaired.
In the antechamber you could see the blue heavens through the shot
holes in the roof.--“Next time I come to court, Tom,” said Mr Bang, “I
will bring an umbrella.” Turning out of the parade, we passed through a
rickety, unpainted open gate, in a wall about six feet high; the space
beyond was an open green or grass-plot, parched and burned up by the
sun, with a common fowl here and there fluttering and hotching in the
hole she had scratched in the and soil; but there was neither sentry nor
servant to be seen, nor any of the usual pomp and circumstance about a
great man’s dwelling. Presently we were in front of a long, low, one
story building, with a flight of steps leading up into an entrance hall,
furnished with several gaudy sofas, and half-a-dozen chairs with a
plain wooden floor, on which a slight approach to the usual West India
polish had been attempted, but mightily behind the elegant domiciles of
my Kingston friends in this respect. In the centre of this room stood
three young officers, fair mulattoes, with their plumed cocked-hats in
their hands, and dressed very handsomely in French uniforms; and it
always struck me as curious, that men who hated the very name of
Frenchman, as the devil hates holy water, should copy all the customs
and manners of the detested people so closely. I may mention here once
for all, that Petion’s officers, who, generally speaking, were all men
of colour, and not negroes, were as much superior in education, and, I
fear I must say, in intellect, as they certainly were in personal
appearance, to the black officers of King Henry, as his soldiery were
superior to those of the neighbouring black republic.
“Ah, Monsieur S----, comment vous portez vous? je suis bien aise de vous
voir,” said one of the young officers; “how are you, how have you been?”
“Vous devenez tout a fait rare,” quoth a second. “Le President will be
delighted to see you. Why, he says he thought you must have been dead,
and les messieurs La....”
“Who?--introduce us.”
It was done in due form--the Honourable Captain Transom, Captain Cringle
of his Britannic Majesty’s schooner, Wave, and Aaron Bang, Esquire. And
presently we were all as thick as pickpockets.
“But come, the President will be delighted to see you.” We followed the
officer who spoke, as he marshalled us along, and in an inner chamber,
wherein there were also several large holes in the ceiling through which
the sun shone, we found President Petion, the black Washington, sitting
on a very old ragged sofa, amidst a confused mass of papers, dressed in
a blue military undress frock, white trowsers, and the everlasting
Madras handkerchief bound round his brows. He was much darker than I
expected to have seen him, darker than one usually sees a mulatto, or
the direct cross between the negro and the white, yet his features were
in no way akin to those of an African. His nose was as high, sharp, and
well defined as that of any Hindoo I ever saw in the Hoogly, and his
hair was fine and silky. In fact, dark as he was, he was at least three
removes from the African; and when I mention that he had been long in
Europe--he was even for a short space acting adjutant general of the
army of Italy with Napoleon--his general manner, which was extremely
good, kind and affable, was not matter of so much surprise.
He rose to receive us with much grace, and entered into conversation
with all the ease and polish of a gentleman--“le me porte assez bien
aujourd’hui; but I have been very unwell, M. S----, so tell me the
news.” Early as it was, he immediately ordered in coffee; it was brought
by two black servants, followed by a most sylph-like girl, about twelve
years of age, the President’s natural daughter; she was fairer than her
father, and acquitted herself very gracefully. She was rigged, pin for
pin, like a little woman, with a perfect turret of artificial flowers
twined amongst the braids of her beautiful hair; and although her neck
was rather overloaded with ornaments, and her poor little ears were
stretching under the weight of the heavy gold and emerald earrings,
while her bracelets were like manacles, yet I had never seen a more
lovely little girl. She wore a frock of green Chinese crape, beneath
which appeared the prettiest little feet in the world.
We were invited to attend a ball in the evening, given in honour of the
President’s birthday, and after a sumptuous dinner at our friend
M. S----‘s, we all adjourned to the gay scene. There was a company of
grenadiers of the President’s guard, with their band, on duty in front
of the palace, as a guard of honour; they carried arms as we passed, all
in good style; and at the door we met two aides-de-camp in full dress,
one of whom ushered us into an anteroom, where a crowd of brown, with a
sprinkling of black ladies, and a whole host of brown and black
officers, with a white foreign merchant here and there, were drinking
coffee, and taking refreshments of one kind or another. The ladies were
dressed in the very height of the newest Parisian fashion of the day
hats and feathers, and jewellery, real or fictitious, short sleeves, and
shorter petticoats fine silks, and broad blonde trimmings and flounces,
and low-cut corsages--some of them even venturing on rouge, which gave
them the appearance of purple dahlias; but as to manner, all lady-like
and proper; while the men, most of them militaires, were as fine as gold
and silver lace, and gay uniforms, and dress-swords could make them
and all was blaze, and sparkle, and jingle; but the black officers, in
general, covered their woolly pates with Madras handkerchiefs, as if
ashamed to show them, the brown officers alone venturing to show their
own hair. Presently a military band struck up with a sudden crash in
the inner-room, and the large folding doors being thrown open, the
ballroom lay before us, in the centre of which stood the President,
surrounded by his very splendid staff, with his daughter on his arm. He
was dressed in a plain blue uniform, with gold epaulets, and acquitted
himself extremely well, conversing freely on European politics, and
giving his remarks with great shrewdness, and a very peculiar naivete.
As for his daughter, however much she might appear to have been
overdressed in the morning, she was now simple in her attire as a little
shepherdesses plain white muslin frock, white sash, white shoes, white
gloves, pearl ear-rings and necklace, and a simple, but most beautiful,
camilla japonica in her hair. Dancing now commenced, and all that I
shall say is, that before I had been an hour in the room, I had
forgotten whether the faces around me were black, brown, or white; every
thing was conducted with such decorum. However, I could see that the
fine jet was not altogether the approved style of beauty, and that many
a very handsome woolly-headed belle was destined to ornament the walls,
until a few of the young white merchants made a dash amongst them, more
for the fun of the thing, as it struck me, than any thing else, which
piqued some of the brown officers, and for the rest of the evening
blackee had it hollow. And there was friend Aaron waltzing with a very
splendid woman, elegantly dressed, but black as a coal, with long kid
gloves, between which and the sleeve of her gown, a space of two inches
of the black skin, like an ebony armlet, was visible; while her white
dress, and rich white satin hat, and a lofty plume of feathers, with a
pearl necklace and diamond earrings, set off her loveliness most
conspicuously. At every wheel round Mr Bang slewed his head a little on
one side, and peeped in at one of her bright eyes, and then tossing his
cranium on t’other side, took a squint in at the other, and then cast
his eyes towards the roof, and muttered with his lips as if he had been
shot all of a heap by the blind boy’s but-shaft; but every now and then
as we passed, the rogue would stick his tongue in his cheek, yet so
slightly as to be perceptible to no one but myself. After this heat,
Massa Aaron and myself were perambulating the ballroom, quite satisfied
with our own prowess and I was churming to myself, “Voulez vous dansez,
mademoiselle”--“De tout mon coeur,” said a buxom brown dame, about
eighteen stone by the coffee-mill in St James’s Street. That devil
Aaron gave me a look that I swore I would pay him for, the villain; as
the extensive mademoiselle, suiting the action to the word, started up,
and hooked on, and as a cotillion had been called, there I was, figuring
away most emphatically, to Bang and Transom’s great entertainment. At
length the dance was at an end, And a waltz was once more called, and
having done my duty, I thought I might slip out between the acts; so I
offered to hand my solid armful to her seat--“Certainement vouz pouvez
bien restez encore un moment.”
The devil confound you and Aaron Bang, thought I--but waltz I must, and
away we whirled until the room spun round faster than we did, and when I
was at length emancipated, my dark fair and fat one whispered, in a
regular die-away, “J’espere vous revoir bientot.” All this while there
was a heavy firing of champagne and other corks, and the fun grew so
fast and furious, that I remembered very little more of the matter,
until the morning breeze whistled through my muslin curtains, or
musquitto net, about noon on the following day.
I arose, and found mine host setting out to bathe at Madame Le Clerc’s
bath, at Marquesan. I rode with him; and after a cool dip we breakfasted
with President Petion at his country-house there, and met with great
kindness. About the house itself there was nothing particularly to
distinguish it from many others in the neighbourhood; but the little
statues, and fragments of marble steps, and detached portions of old
fashioned wrought-iron railing, which had been grouped together, so as
to form an ornamental terrace below it, facing the sea, showed that it
had been a compilation from the ruins of the houses of the rich French
planters, which were now blackening in the sun on the plain of Leogane.
A couple of Buenos Ayrean privateers were riding at anchor in the bight
just below the windows, manned, as I afterwards found, by Americans.
The President, in his quiet way, after contemplating them through his
glass, said, “Ces pavilions sont bien neuf.”
The next morning, as we were pulling in my gig, no less a man than Massa
Aaron steering, to board the Arethusa, one of the merchantmen lying at
anchor off the town, we were nearly run down by getting athwart the bows
of an American schooner standing in for the port. As it was, her
cutwater gave us so smart a crack that I thought we were done for; but
our Palinurus, finding he could not clear her, with his inherent self
possession put his helm to port, and kept away on the same course as the
schooner, so that we got off with the loss of our two larboard oars,
which were snapped off like parsnips, and a good heavy bump that nearly
drove us into staves.
“Never mind, my dear sir, never mind,” said I; “but hereafter listen to
the old song:”
‘Steer clear of the stem of a sailing ship.’
“Massa Aaron was down on me like lightning”
“Or the stern of a kicking horse, Tom.”
While I continued--
‘Or you a wet jacket may catch, and a dip.’
He again cleverly clipped the word out of my mouth,
“Or a kick on the croup, which is worse, Tom.”
“Why, my dear sir, you are an improvisatore of the first quality.”
We rowed ashore, and nothing particular happened that day, until we sat
down to dinner at Mr S--‘s. We had a very agreeable party. Captain
Transom and Mr Bang were, as usual, the life of the company; and it was
verging towards eight o’clock in the evening, when an English sailor,
apparently belonging to the merchant service, came into the piazza, and
planted himself opposite to the window where I sat.
He made various nautical salaams, until he had attracted my attention.
“Excuse me,” I said to Mr S----, “there is some one in the piazza
wanting me.” I rose.
“Are you Captain Transom?” said the man.
“No, I am not. There is the Captain; do you want him?”
“If you please, sir,” said the man.
I called my superior officer into the narrow dark piazza.
“Well, my man,” said Transom, “what want you with me?”
“I am sent, sir, to you from the Captain of the Haytian ship, the E----,
to request a visit from you, and to ask for a prayer book.”
“A what?” said Transom.
“A prayer book, sir. I suppose you know that he and the Captain of that
other Haytian ship, the P----, are condemned to be shot tomorrow
morning.”
“I know nothing of all this,” said Transom. “Do you, Cringle?”
“No, sir,” said I.
“Then let us adjourn to the dining room again; or, stop, ask Mr S----and
Mr Bang to step-here for a moment.”
They appeared; and when Transom explained the affair, so far as
consisted with his knowledge, Mr S----told us that the two unfortunates
in question were, one of them, a Guernsey man, and the other a man of
colour, a native of St Vincent’s, whom the President had promoted to the
command of two Haytian ships that had been employed in carrying coffee
to England; but on their last return voyage, they had introduced a
quantity of base Birmingham coin into the Republic; which fact having
been proved on their trial, they had been convicted of treason against
the state, condemned, and were now under sentence of death; and the
government being purely military, they were to be shot tomorrow morning.
A boat was immediately sent on board, the messenger returned with a
prayer book; and we prepared to visit the miserable men.
Mr Bang insisted on joining us--ever first where misery was to be
relieved--and we proceeded towards the prison. Following the sailor,
who was the mate of one of the ships, presently we arrived before the
door of the place where the unfortunate men were confined. We were
speedily admitted; but the building had none of the common appurtenances
of a prison. There were neither long galleries, nor strong ironbound
and clamped doors, to pass through; nor jailers with rusty keys
jingling; nor fetters clanking; for we had not made two steps past the
black grenadiers who guarded the door, when a sergeant showed us into a
long ill-lighted room, about thirty feet by twelve--in truth, it was
more like a gallery than a room--with the windows into the street open,
and no precautions taken, apparently at least, to prevent the escape of
the condemned. In truth, if they had broken forth, I imagine the kind
hearted President would not have made any very serious enquiry as to the
how.
There was a small rickety old card table, covered with tattered green
cloth, standing in the middle of the floor, which was composed of dirty
unpolished pitch pine planks, and on this table glimmered two brown wax
candles, in old fashioned brass candlesticks. Between us and the table,
forming a sort of line across the floor, stood four black soldiers, with
their muskets at their shoulders, while beyond them sat, in old
fashioned armchairs, three figures, whose appearance I never can forget.
The man fronting us rose on our entrance. He was an uncommonly handsome
elderly personage; his age I should guess to have been about fifty. He
was dressed in white trowsers and shirt, and wore no coat; his head was
very bald, but he had large and very dark whiskers and eyebrows, above
which towered a most splendid forehead, white, massive, and spreading.
His eyes were deep-set and sparkling, but he was pale, very pale, and
his fine features were sharp and pinched. He sat with his hands clasped
together, and resting on the table, his fingers twitching to and fro
convulsively, while his under jaw had dropped a little, and from the
constant motion of his head, and the heaving of his chest, it was clear
that he was breathing quick and painfully.
The figure on his right hand was altogether a more vulgar-looking
personage. He was a man of colour, his caste being indicated by his
short curly black hair, and his African descent vouched for by his
obtuse features; but he was composed and steady in his bearing. He was
dressed in white trowsers and waistcoat, and a blue surtout; and on our
entrance he rose, and remained standing. But the person on the elder
prisoner’s left hand riveted my attention more than either of the other
two. She was a respectable looking, little, thin woman, but dressed
with great neatness, in a plain black silk gown. Her sharp features
were high and well formed; her eyes and mouth were not particularly
noticeable, but her hair was most beautiful--her long shining auburn
hair--although she must have been forty years of age, and her skin was
like the driven snow. When we entered, she was seated on the left hand
of the eldest prisoner, and was lying back on her chair, with her arms
crossed on her bosom, her eyes wide open, and staring upwards towards
the roof, with the tears coursing each other down over her cheeks, while
her lower jaw had fallen down, as if she had been dead--her breathing
was scarcely perceptible--her bosom remaining still as a frozen sea, for
the space of a minute, when she would draw a long breath, with a low
moaning noise, to which succeeded a convulsive crowing gasp, like a
child in the hooping-cough, and all would be still again.
At length Captain Transom addressed the elder prisoner. “You have sent
for us, Mr----what can we do for you, in accordance with our duty as
English officers?”
The poor man looked at us with a vacant stare--but his fellow sufferer
instantly spoke. “Gentlemen, this is kind--very kind. I sent my mate
to borrow a prayer book from you, for our consolation now must flow from
above--man cannot comfort us.”
The female, who was the elder prisoner’s wife, suddenly leant forward in
her chair, and peered intently into Mr Bang’s face “Prayer book,” said
she--“prayer book--why, I have a prayer book I will go for my prayer
book”--and she rose quickly from her seat,
“Restez”--quoth the black sergeant--the word seemed to rouse her--she
laid her head on her hands, on the table, and sobbed out as if her heart
were bursting--“Oh God! oh God! is it come to this--is it come to this?”
the frail table trembling beneath her, with her heart crushing emotion.
His wife’s misery now seemed to recall the elder prisoner to himself.
He made a strong effort, and in a great degree recovered his composure.
“Captain Transom,” said he, “I believe you know our story. That we have
been justly condemned I admit, but it is a fearful thing to die,
Captain, in a strange country, and by the hands of these barbarians, and
to leave my own dear”--Here his voice altogether failed him--presently
he resumed. “The Government have sealed up my papers and packages, and
I have neither Bible nor prayer book--will you spare us the use of one,
or both, for this night, sir?”
The Captain said, he had brought a prayer book, and did all he could to
comfort the poor fellows. But, alas! their grief “knew not
consolation’s name.”
Captain Transom read prayers, which were listened to by both of the
miserable men with the greatest devotion, while all the while, the poor
woman never moved a muscle, every faculty appearing to be once more
frozen up by grief and misery. At length, the elder prisoner again
spoke. “I know I have no claim on you, gentlemen; but I am an Englishman
at least I hope I may call myself an Englishman, and my wife there is
an Englishwoman--when I am gone oh, gentlemen, what is to become of her?
If I were but sure that she would be cared for, and enabled to return
to her friends, the bitterness of death would be past.” Here the poor
woman threw herself round her husband’s neck, and gave a shrill sharp
cry, and relaxing her hold, fell down across his knees, with her head
hanging back, and her face towards the roof, in a dead faint. For a
minute or two, the husband’s sole concern seemed to be the condition of
his wife.
“I will undertake that she shall be sent safe to England, my good man,”
said Mr Bang.
The felon looked at him--drew one hand across his eyes, which were misty
with tears, held down his head, and again looked up at length he found
his tongue. “That God who rewardeth good deeds here, that God whom I
have offended, before whom I must answer for my sins by daybreak to
morrow, will reward you--I can only thank you.” He seized Mr Bang’s hand
and kissed it.
With heavy hearts we left the miserable group, and I may mention here,
that Mr Bang was as good as his word, and paid the poor woman’s passage
home, and, so far as I know, she is now restored to her family.
We slept that night at Mr S----‘s, and as the morning dawned we mounted
our horses, which our worthy host had kindly desired to be ready, in
order to enable us to take our exercise in the cool of the morning. As
we rode past the Place d’armes, or open space in front of the
President’s palace, we heard sounds of military music, and asked the
first chance passenger what was going on. “Execution militaire; or
rather,” said the man, “the two sea captains, who introduced the base
money, are to be shot this morning--there against the rampart.” Of the
fact we were aware, but we did not dream that we had ridden so near the
whereabouts.
“Ay, indeed?”--said Mr Bang. He looked towards the Captain. “My dear
Transom, I have no wish to witness so horrible a sight, but still--what
say you--shall we pull up, or ride on?”
The truth was that Captain Transom and myself were both of us desirous
of seeing the execution--from what impelling motive, let learned
blockheads, who have never gloated over a hanging, determine; and
quickly it was determined that we should wait and witness it.
First advanced a whole regiment of the President’s guards, then a
battalion of infantry of the line, close to which followed a whole bevy
of priests clad in white, which contrasted conspicuously with their
brown and black faces. After them marched two firing parties of twelve
men each, drafted indiscriminately, as it would appear, from the whole
garrison; for the grenadier cap was there intermingled with the glazed
shako of the battalion company, and the light morion of the dismounted
dragoon. Then came the prisoners. The elder culprit, respectably
clothed in white shirt, waistcoat, and trowsers, and blue coat, with an
Indian silk yellow handkerchief bound round his head. His lips were
compressed together with an unnatural firmness, and his features were
sharpened like those of a corpse. His complexion was ashy blue. His
eyes were half shut, but every now and then he opened them wide, and
gave a startling rapid glance about him, and occasionally he staggered a
little in his gait. As he approached the place of execution, his
eyelids fell, his under-jaw dropped, his arms hung dangling by his side
like empty sleeves; still he walked on, mechanically keeping time, like
an automaton, to the measured tread of the soldiery. His fellow
sufferer followed him. His eye was bright, his complexion healthy, his
step firm, and he immediately recognised us in the throng, made a bow to
Captain Transom, and held out his hand to Mr Bang, who was nearest to
him, and shook it cordially. The procession moved on. The troops
formed into three sides of a square, the remaining one being the earthen
mound, that constituted the rampart of the place. A halt was called.
The two firing parties advanced to the sound of muffled drums, and
having arrived at the crest of the glacis, right over the counterscarp,
they halted on what, in a more regular fortification, would have been
termed the covered way. The prisoners, perfectly unfettered, advanced
between them, stepped down with a firm step into the ditch, led each by
a grenadier. In the centre of it they turned and kneeled, neither of
their eyes being bound. A priest advanced, and seemed to pray with the
brown man fervently; another offered spiritual consolation to the
Englishman, who seemed now to have rallied his torpid faculties, but he
waved him away impatiently, and taking a book from his bosom, seemed to
repeat a prayer from it with great fervour. At this very instant of
time, Mr Bang caught his eye. He dropped the book on the ground, placed
one hand on his heart, while he pointed upwards towards heaven with the
other, calling out in a loud clear voice, “Remember!” Aaron bowed. A
mounted officer now rode quickly up to the brink of the ditch, and
called out, “Depechez.”
The priests left the miserable men, and all was still as death for a
minute. A low solitary tap of the drum--the firing parties came to the
recover, and presently taking the time from the sword of the staff
officer who had spoken, came down to the present, and fired a rattling,
straggling volley. The brown man sprang up into the air three or four
feet, and fell dead; he had been shot through the heart; but the white
man was only wounded, and had fallen, writhing, and struggling, and
shrieking, to the ground. I heard him distinctly call out, as the
reserve of six men stepped into the ditch, “Dans la tete dans la tete.”
One of the grenadiers advanced, and, putting his musket close to his
face, fired. The ball splashed into his skull, through the left eye,
setting fire to his hair and clothes, and the handkerchief bound round
his head, and making the brains and blood flash up all over his face,
and the person of the soldier who had given him the coup de grace.
A strong murmuring noise, like the rushing of many waters, growled
amongst the ranks and the surrounding spectators, while a short sharp
exclamation of horror every now and then gushed out shrill and clear,
and fearfully distinct above the appalling monotony.
The miserable man stretched out his legs and arms straight and rigidly,
a strong shiver pervaded his whole frame, his jaw fell, his muscles
relaxed, and he and his brother in calamity became a portion of the
bloody clay on which they were stretched.