twenty-three years ago and upwards; he was a good sailor, but had fits
of melancholy, and then would talk of dying and a future state. I have
often told him that our days were fixed, and he blamed me for saying so.
I remember somebody larking in the top, and he, Martin, fell, catching
the hair of the sailor in his way; he actually tore off a portion of his
scalp; he saved himself by clinging to the cross-trees. He quarrelled
with and fought a man named Dobson, who died in Greenwich Hospital some
years since. They sat across a bench and fought. Martin was beaten. He
was laughed into this quarrel."
Martin gives the following account of his escape:--
"Being on the main yard, and losing my balance, I found myself falling;
there seemed nothing to save me from being dashed to pieces. The loose
end of the tracing line, about an inch thick, was hanging near me. I got
it round my left hand, and grasping it with my right, the swing of the
rope, together with my weight, threw me overboard, and I remained
suspended by my arm, within a few feet of the sea, until my shipmates
came to my assistance; and I praised God that I received no material
injury, except my arm being a little wrenched by my weight. Again,
falling by accident out of a gun-port, my shipmates succeeded in
rescuing me when not able to help myself. And being on the
top-gallant-yard, the topping-lift broke, and the end I was on went down
like the end of a beam. In my fall I grappled with the backstay, and
brought myself up, and landed on the cross-trees. Thus the Almighty
preserved me from death when there was no other hope--the height from
the deck being about eighty feet."
He relates also the following circumstance, which was corroborated by a
Greenwich pensioner:--
"After I was appointed to the gunners' crew, when on our voyage to
Cadiz, the gunners' yeoman, who had charge of the stores and all the
powder, shot himself through the head in the store-room, where there
were upwards of five hundred barrels of gunpowder, and joining the place
where all our oakum and old ropes lay. When the report of the pistol was
heard in that place, the consternation became general throughout the
ship's company, as an explosion was to be dreaded. Some were for making
to the boats; others, more desperate, were for leaping overboard,
expecting the ship to blow up every moment. In the midst of the panic
produced, I and four of my shipmates ran below, rushed into the
store-room amidst the smoke, and soon extinguished the little fire
produced by the wadding of the pistol, and then we discovered the body
of the unfortunate man lying bleeding, his brains literally strewed over
the floor. Thus did God put in our hearts to risk our lives, and by
that means save our ship's company, six hundred in number, from an awful
death."
"Martin," says one of the Greenwich pensioners, "went with a boat's crew
to get water. In crossing some buoys he fell in; the accident was not
perceived, but we at length missed him; when we got him out he was all
but gone. He said we had conspired against him, but God had delivered
him. I remember this, for Dobson threatened to thrash him if he repeated
it. Martin was punished for drunkenness, and bore it in a very cowardly
manner. When he was in the mortar-boat he sang psalms, but when we were
afterwards very near wrecked, he was as cool or cooler than any one on
board. He fell overboard whilst assisting in hooking a shark, but was
picked up almost immediately. He got hurt in falling, and would never
assist in the hooking again. We had many sick and dying aboard, and the
sharks often followed in our wake: we burnt bricks and covered them with
tarpauling, &c., fixing a hook in the brick; this the fish would
swallow. Martin was very active in this, until his accident. After that
he said, 'The Lord was vexed at the guile.' He hated the Catholics."
Another pensioner, who corroborated a portion of the foregoing, added:
"Martin was much noticed by the officers; but he told them many
falsehoods, and at last was generally disliked. He was at one time in
such favour with his superiors, that two men were punished for cutting
the slings of his hammock whilst he was asleep, which is generally
passed over as a joke; but he pretended to have been hurt with the fall.
When angered, he would swear as much as anyone, and sometimes
immediately afterwards would cry and pray. His dreams and stories would
have filled a book. I saw him years afterwards at Portsmouth. Never
knew that he had deserted; he was continually amongst the crews of the
King's ships. Went to London with him, and he talked a good deal about
religion when at Portsmouth, but lived very loosely in London.[26]
Martin told me a variety of his adventures--that he was nearly murdered
by the Algerines, &c., &c., but that he was marvellously delivered, and
that God had told him in his dreams to quit the sea. He had a good deal
of prize-money to receive, but there was a delay in his getting it. The
day he was to have it finally, he was to meet me at Rotherhithe; he
never came, and from that time (1810) I never saw nor heard of him."
Martin does not tell us how long he remained in the transport service;
but when he was paid off, he proceeded to Newcastle to visit his
parents, probably in 1810; and then went to work with Mr. Page, a farmer
at Norton, in Durham.
"Here," he observes, "commenced that series of trials which almost
obliterated the remembrance of my former difficulties, and which, were
they not well-known to many now living, might appear to border on
romance." In reading his life, however, we can find no traces of
"trials" which were not brought upon himself; and there is very little
of the "romantic" about them. A few months after his residence at Norton
he married, and became the father of a son.
"I had him baptised Richard," he says. "I was deterred from giving him
my own name on account of the sins of my youth, as I conceived if I did,
the Lord might take him away." Not long after, he dreamed that his
mother came to see him, and told him he would be hanged; and his dream
produced a strong impression upon his mind.
His thoughts became more directed than before to religious matters, but
not without "manifold backslidings," as he himself confessed.
At Yarm, in Yorkshire, four miles from Norton, where he lived, was a
Methodist chapel, and he used to attend church at Norton in the morning,
and chapel at Yarm in the evening. One Sunday morning he received the
Holy Communion in the church at Norton, and in the evening he was at a
love-feast at the Wesleyan chapel.[27] This was his first formal
reception into full membership with the Methodist body. He had obtained,
as he calls it, "perfect liberty." He was converted, a new being,
emancipated from obedience to the law, being justified by faith only.
He now began to feel strongly against the Church of England, which
taught the necessity of obedience to the moral law even to those who
walked in the Spirit. The laxity of the clergy in going to parties,
balls, and plays, offended him.
"I knew also that I was not authorised by law to interfere with the
Establishment. I betook myself to fasting and prayer, earnestly seeking
direction of the Lord how I should proceed in this matter. I dreamed on
Friday night that a man held out to me a piece of honeycomb, of which I
did eat, and felt refreshed, and concluded this a gift divine. I felt
greatly encouraged. On Saturday I gave away most of my working clothes
among my shopmates, having fully resolved to confess my Lord and Saviour
the next day before the congregation; not doubting but the step I was
about to take would lead me into trouble. I spent that night chiefly in
prayer, for strength to perform the task I had undertaken--of warning
people of their dangerous state by their carnal security; the necessity
of repentance and regeneration, by the operation of the Spirit; and
finally of their having the witness of the Holy Ghost that their sins
were blotted out through faith in a crucified Saviour."
He accordingly entered the church with the clerk early in the morning,
and whilst the latter went to ring the bell, Martin secreted himself in
the pulpit, and remained hidden there till the end of the prayers, when
he suddenly stood up, and gave forth as his text, St. Mark iv. 21-23,
and began to preach, with violent gesticulations. He was at once removed
by the churchwardens and constable, but was allowed to remain in the
church, though dislodged from the pulpit.
About this time he was favoured, or deluded, with the following
vision:--
"I dreamed that I was called to the city gates of London, and
beheld the inhabitants tearing each other's flesh in the most
horrible manner, and I heard a voice speak to me--'In one day this
city shall be burnt to the ground.' And I was taken by the Spirit
to the banks of a river, and I commenced digging the earth, and
cast up several sharp-edged weapons, in particular a large axe,
stained with human blood. I took hold of it, and that instant there
appeared, as I thought, St. James, and I struck off his head at one
blow, and awoke out of my sleep. This strange concern opprest me
in the spirit, and I said, 'This is no other than Popery and
persecution are intending to come forward amongst true Christians.
Oh! England, beware of Popery!'"
Martin now began to write letters to the clergy and other members of the
Church, "entreating them, as they valued their souls, to amend their
lives, and flee to the blood of sprinkling for mercy and pardon." His
conduct seems to have been so improper, so marked by a "zeal not
according to knowledge," that he was expelled the Methodist Society; and
he complains that his religious friends were afraid to own him--he was
left alone in the world; and, to add to his troubles, he lost his
employment. He then went to Whitby and worked for a few weeks, but soon
returned to Norton, and from thence went to Bishop Auckland, where he
obtained employment; and determined once more to attempt exhorting the
people in the church. He was, however, taken out by a constable; and
then he began that practice which he appears never afterwards to have
abandoned, of posting papers on the church doors, as a warning to the
clergy and congregation. The following is a copy of one of these
singular productions:--
"Oh! hear the word of the Lord, you clergymen, for the mighty sword
is expanded over your guilty heads; now shall you come to a
complete dissolution; now shall your candlesticks be completely
overthrown; now shall your blindness come to the light, and your
shame before all the people, for the Lord will not suffer you to
deceive the work of His hands any longer. Oh! prepare yourselves to
meet your God, you double-hearted sinners; cry aloud for mercy, and
now shall my God make bare His arm and conquer the devil, your
great master, for the monster of hell shall be completely
overthrown, and you and him shall not deceive the nations any
longer, for now shall God be worshipped in spirit and truth; now
you shall and must throw away your little books you carry into the
pulpits to deceive the people with; you now preach for wine and
gluttonous living, and not for precious souls--will you not get
your portion with the rich man in hell if you do not repent and
find mercy?
"JONATHAN MARTIN,
"Your sincere friend."
Martin continued for some time attending church, and disturbing the
service by his groans and exclamations of assent to, or dissent from,
what was enunciated from the pulpit. At Bishop Auckland one day he heard
the preacher declare that no man could be absolutely certain that his
sins were forgiven, and his happiness hereafter was assured, till he had
put off mortality, and his eyes were opened in the light of eternity.
This was too much for Martin to bear. He says:--
"The bitterness of my soul constrained me to call out--'Thou hast no
business in that pulpit, thou whitened sepulchre, thou deceiver of the
people, how canst thou escape the damnation of hell?' I was determined
to address the people on the following Sunday, and tell them the state
they must be in under such a ministry, and of the justness of that God
who will judge the world in righteousness. John Bunyan admonished his
hearers to an upright and strict life, being assured if this were
neglected they were void of religion, and Popery would again spread
through England. Like poor John Bunyan, I was pulled out of the place as
soon as I began to speak. The clergyman employed an attorney to write
against me, and I was apprehended as a vagabond; and they wanted my
master to swear that I was deranged. My master objected thereto, stating
that I had been with him seven months, and had been a faithful servant.
He inquired of my master and several neighbours at Norton if they were
not afraid of me, but was answered in the negative."
Martin mentions here that his wife had become a great enemy to him since
he joined the Methodists; that she wanted him to leave them, and vowed
to God that, unless he deserted them, she would disown him as a husband;
and "from that period to the day of her death, eight years, she kept her
word, but his firmness was not shaken."
"About this time the Bishop (I think of Lincoln) was to hold a
confirmation at Stockton, for the Bishop of Durham. I had heard that he
was a good man, and that numbers attended his visitation. I was glad to
hear so good a report of him, and concluded that if he were really so
good a man and so eminent a Christian, he would not fear death, and
resolved to try his faith by pretending to shoot him. I had been in
Newcastle to see my brother, and recollecting he had an old pistol, I
asked and obtained it, and brought it home with me. On my arrival, my
wife, observing the pistol, inquired what I wanted with it. I replied
with a smile that I got it to shoot the Bishop. I laid it down
carelessly, determined, if she should remove it, and I should receive no
encouragement by a dream, I would proceed no further in the matter. When
I got up in the morning the pistol was not to be found, and there, as I
thought, the matter dropped; but some officious person hearing of it,
told the clergyman of Norton, and he laid a complaint before the
magistrate against me. A vestry meeting was then called, to which I was
summoned. My previous interference with the church was urged against me,
and so much was I tormented with questions on the subject, before I went
to the vestry, and while there, that I was considerably agitated and off
my guard. However, the reverend gentleman was little better tempered
than myself, and showed a degree of rancour that I did not expect. I
was asked if I had a pistol to shoot the Bishop with; to which I
replied, 'that I did not mean to injure the man, although I considered
they all deserved shooting, being blind leaders of the blind;
consequently both must fall into the ditch.' I was then suffered to
depart, but was next day taken into custody, and brought before the
meeting of justices at Stockton, and examined very harshly. They asked
me, if I had found the pistol, would I really have shot the Bishop? I
replied, 'It depended upon circumstances--I would ask him some questions
out of the Creed, and if he did not answer me satisfactorily as to his
conversion, and the evidence of the Spirit, he must be branded as a
deceiver of the people.' For this I was sentenced to be confined in a
mad-house for life, but glory be to God, they could not keep me an hour
longer than my Lord and Saviour thought fit. I felt as happy under this
trial, in the assurance of Jesus' love, as if I had been going to a
palace."
He was at first confined in a lunatic asylum at West Auckland, but was
afterwards removed to a similar establishment at Gateshead. His
afflictions then and subsequently he relates thus:--
"I had not for a long time seen my wife and child, as during the time I
was so rigorously confined they had been denied admittance. My poor wife
had long been labouring under heavy affliction, having a cancer in her
breast When I began to work they were allowed to come and see me, and my
wife at parting said--'Farewell, Jonathan, look to Jesus; pray for me;
may God bless you; my strength is fast failing, and I feel that I shall
not be able to come any more.' She spoke prophetically, for we met no
more. A short time after, she took to her bed, from which she never
rose. My readers may judge of my grief to think that my poor wife was
a-dying, at no great distance, and when she requested to see me, even in
custody and in chains, the keeper was so unfeeling as to refuse her
dying request. She afterwards sent my son (little more than seven years
old), hoping that his youth, innocence, and distress might soften their
hearts, but his appeal was unheeded. She sent him again with her dying
love to me, and the keeper's wife shut the door in his face, and the
child was suffered to return weeping to his mother. His supplication, as
I afterwards heard, would have melted any heart, crying, 'What will
become of me? My mother is dying, and my father is shut up in a
mad-house, where I am not so much as allowed to see him.'"
It must be remembered that Martin's account of things is not to be
trusted in all particulars. At the same time it is certain that asylums
were not conducted at that period with humanity and judgment.
Mrs. Orton, the keeper's wife alluded to, was examined at the trial of
Martin, ten years later. She said: "When Martin was with me I thought
him a really insane person. He would sit on the floor with two
cross-sticks as if he was fiddling, either singing hymns or whistling.
He called his sticks an imitation of David's harp. I have known him fast
four days--and say it was God Almighty's orders--in imitation of Christ
fasting forty days on the Mount. He was often under restraint, and was
bad to manage."
He succeeded in making his escape from the asylum[28] on the 17th of
June, 1820, but was caught at Norton and brought back. On the 1st of
July, 1820, he made his escape again by rubbing the rivets of his irons
with freestone, which he managed to secrete in his room. He broke
through the ceiling, got into a garret, and escaped through the tiles
upon the roof. He thence descended cautiously and safely to the ground;
and thus ended his captivity of three years.
With great difficulty--still with the rings of his chains on his
ankles--he reached the house of Mr. Kell, an intimate friend, of the
same way of thinking, at Cadlaw Hill. Mr. Kell freed him from the
remains of his fetters--"the degrading emblem of slavery," as Jonathan
termed them. Mr. Kell was a distant relation of Martin on his mother's
side; and he remained there a fortnight, till his strength was
recruited, when he left him, designing to proceed to an uncle's, a
distance of sixteen miles, to assist him to get in his hay harvest.
However, before he reached his uncle's house, he was met by his cousin,
who told him that Orton, the keeper, with a constable, had been there in
search of him: he therefore escaped as fast as he could to Glasgow,
where another uncle resided; and he reached it in safety. From Glasgow
he went to Edinburgh; and was in that city at the rejoicings on account
of the coronation of George IV. Martin stopped at Edinburgh only one
day, being anxious to see his wife; and on returning to Norton he found
his wife still alive, but in the last stage.
After remaining three weeks with his friend Mr. Kell, he determined to
go to London to be near his brothers, one of whom was the celebrated
imaginative painter so well known by his wonderful pictures, "The Eve of
the Deluge," "The Plains of Heaven," &c.
His friend having furnished him with money, he left Darlington for
London on the 1st of August, 1820, exactly a month after he had made his
escape. He went, however, no farther than Boroughbridge, where, on
September 8th, he received a letter informing him of his wife's death,
and of his having had his house robbed of money and goods to the amount
of £24. He gives a pitiable account of the last illness and the distress
of his poor wife:--
"I learned afterwards that my dear wife had to go through great
tribulation. There was a woman allowed one shilling and sixpence per
week to wait on her, but she always locked her in at night, without any
attendant but the poor child to wait on his wretched mother; until my
sister, hearing of their condition, came and took him away with her. So
greatly neglected was he, that there was none to cut the bread for him;
and when my sister came to see them he had the loaf picked out, as if
eaten by mice, not being able to cut it himself. In this pitiable
condition my poor boy sat up several nights with his mother, to hold the
drink to her when she became too weak to do it for herself."
He then went to Hull, where he began to preach to his mates in the
tannery where he worked. "I was moved to speak to them of their drunken
lives, what would be the consequence if they did not repent. One or two
of them, more wicked than the rest, got above me with a bucket of
bullock's blood, which they heaved over me; but that did not move me
from my stand: then they tried water. Then the devil put it into their
minds to heave wet skins in my face, and that did not make me quit my
stand until the hour was up."
Notwithstanding these checks, which in Jonathan's description strongly
remind the reader of the sufferings of Mawworm, he continued his
exhortations in and out of the shop, and if we are to believe his own
account, two hundred persons were converted by him.
From Hull he was driven by this treatment by his carnally-minded
shopmates, and went to Norton, where his old master, Mr. Page, having
obtained the consent of the magistrates that Martin should not be again
consigned to the asylum, employed him as a tanner. But he soon after (in
1822) removed to Darlington, where he also worked at his trade, and
spent his evenings in preaching to and praying with those who would hear
him. He boasts that through his labours in seven weeks "two hundred
precious souls were set at liberty." He remained at Darlington
apparently till 1827, and here he pretends to have had some remarkable
visions.
"I should inform my readers how I was taken to the seaside in a vision,
and beheld a countless army of men arising from the waves. As I stood
gazing thereon a man advanced towards me, and said, 'Where shall we find
bread for so great a multitude?' He quickly answered, 'Where they can.'
They then advanced with great fury, and covered, as it were, the whole
earth, and I thought England fled before them. This dream made great
impression on my mind after I came to Darlington, and I determined to
make known the things that will befall England, unless we all turn to
the Lord with full purpose of heart, for I dreamed of a great battle
between Newcastle and Sunderland; and again, that the son of Buonaparte
came and conversed with me, and having a musket, said he would shoot
through the door of an Englishman. He tried three times, and the third
was successful.
"I then left him, and was soon overtaken by some baggage waggons; all
the French fired their muskets in the air. I was taken prisoner, and
they shut me up with the Word of God and a Wesley hymn-book in my hand.
In the prison the sun shone upon me with all its splendour, and I
rejoiced to see the mercy of God towards me."
He then bursts out into the following denunciation against clergymen:--