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THE STRANGE ADVENTURES
OF
CAPTAIN DANGEROUS:
WHO WAS A SOLDIER, A SAILOR, A MERCHANT, A SPY, A SLAVE
AMONG THE MOORS, A BASHAW IN THE SERVICE
OF THE GRAND TURK,
AND
=Died at last in his own House in Hanover Square.=
A NARRATIVE IN OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH.
ATTEMPTED BY
GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
1863.
[_The right of Translation is reserved._]
LONDON:
SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
PAGE
OF SUNDRY MY ADVENTURES FROM THE TIME OF MY GOING ABROAD
UNTIL MY COMING TO MAN'S ESTATE (WHICH WAS ALL THE
ESTATE I HAD) 1
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
OF MY OTHER ADVENTURES UNTIL MY COMING TO BE A MAN 50
CHAPTER THE THIRD.
OF WHAT BEFEL ME IN THE LOW COUNTRIES 87
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
I MAKE THE GRAND TOUR, AND ACQUIRE SOME KNOWLEDGE OF
THE POLITE WORLD 120
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
OF THE MANNER IN WHICH I CAME TO THE FAMOUS CITY OF
PARIS 164
CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
OF PARIS (BY THE WAY OF THE PRISON AT VIENNA) AND OF
MY COMING BACK FOR A SEASON TO MY OWN COUNTRY,
WHERE MY MASTER, THE CHAPLAIN, AND I PART COMPANY 187
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.
OF CERTAIN TICKLISH UPS AND DOWNS IN MY LIFE: AMONGST
OTHERS OF MY BEING PRESSED FOR SERVICE IN THE FLEET 206
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.
JOHN DANGEROUS IS IN THE SERVICE OF KING GEORGE 241
CHAPTER THE NINTH.
REBELLION IS MADE AN END OF, AND AFTER SOME FURTHER
SERVICE WITH HIS MAJESTY I GO INTO BUSINESS ON MY
OWN ACCOUNT 283
THE STRANGE ADVENTURES
OF
CAPTAIN DANGEROUS.
=A Narrative in Old fashioned English.=
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
OF SUNDRY MY ADVENTURES FROM THE TIME OF MY GOING
ABROAD UNTIL MY COMING TO MAN'S ESTATE (WHICH WAS
ALL THE ESTATE I HAD).
A STRANGE Nursing-mother--rather a Stepmother of the Stoniest sort--was
this Sir Basil Hopwood, Knight and Alderman of London, that contracted
with the Government to take us Transports abroad. Sure there never was a
man, on this side the land of Horseleeches, that was so Hungry after
money. Yet was his avarice not of the kind practised by old Audley, the
money-scrivener of the Commonwealth's time; or Hopkins, the wretch that
saved candles' ends and yet had a thousand wax-lights blazing at his
Funeral; or Guy the Bookseller, that founded the Hospital in Southwark;
or even old John Elwes, Esquire, the admired Miser of these latter days.
Sir Basil Hopwood was the rather of the same complexion of Entrails with
that Signor Volpone whom we have all seen--at least such of us as be old
Boys--in Ben Jonson's play of the _Fox_. He Money-grubbed, and
Money-clutched, and Money-wrung, ay, and in a manner Money-stole, that
he might live largely, and ruffle it among his brother Cits in
surpassing state and splendour. He had been Lord Mayor; and on his
Show-day the Equipments of chivalry had been more Sumptuous, the Banners
more varied, the Entertainment at Saddlers' Hall,--where the Lord Mayor
was wont to hold his Feast before the present Mansion House was built,
the ancient Guildhall in King Street being then but in an ill condition
for banquet,--Hopwood's Entertainment, I say, had been more plentifully
provided with Marrowbones, Custards, Ruffs and Reeves, Baked Cygnets,
Malmsey, Canary, and Hippocras, than had ever been known since the days
of the Merry Mayor, who swore that King Charles the Second should take
t'other bottle. He was a Parliament man, too, and had a Borough in his
Pocket, for the which he kept a Warming-Pan member,--more's the
shame,--besides one to serve him as a cushion to sit on.
This enormously rich man had a fine House in Bishopsgate Street, with as
many rogues in blue liveries as a Rotterdam Syndic that has made three
good ventures in Java. When we poor wretches, chained together, had been
brought up in Carts from Aylesbury to London, on our way to be Embarked,
nothing would serve this Haughty and Purse-proud Citizen but that our
ragged Regiment must halt before his peddling Palace; and there the
varlets in blue that attended upon him brought us out Loaves and Cheese,
and Blackjacks full of two-thread Beer, which, with many disdainful
gestures and uncivil words, they offered to our famished lips. And my
Lady Hopwood, and the fine Madams her daughters,--all laced and
furbelowed, and with widows' and orphans' tears, and the blood-drops of
crimped seamen and kidnapped children, twinkling in their Stomachers for
gems,--were all set at their Bowery window, a pudding-fed Chaplain
standing bowing and smirking behind them, and glozing in their ears no
doubt Praises of their exceeding Charity and Humanity to wretches such
as we were. But this Charity, Jack, says I to myself, is not of the
Shapcott sort, and is but base metal after all. My troth, but we wanted
the Bread and Cheese and Swipes; for we had had neither Bite nor Sup
since we left Aylesbury Gaol seven-and-twenty hours agone. So, after a
while, and the mob hallooing at us for Gallows-birds, and some Ruffians
about the South-Sea House pelting us with stones,--for Luck, as they
said,--we were had over London Bridge,--where with dreadful admiration I
viewed the Heads and Quarters of Traitors, all shimmering in the coat of
pitch i' the Sun over the North Turret,--and were bestowed for the
night in the Borough Clink. And hither we were pursued by the Alderman's
Agents, who straightway began to drive Unholy Bargains with those among
us that had Money. Now 'twas selling them Necessaries for the voyage at
exorbitant rates; or promising them, for cash in hand, to deliver them
Luxuries, such as Tobacco, playing-cards, and strong waters, at the Port
of Embarkation. Now 'twas substituting Light for Heavy Fetters, if the
Heaviness could be Assuaged by Gold; and sometimes even negotiations
were carried so far as for the convicted persons to give Drafts of
Exchange, to be honoured by their Agents in London, so soon as word came
from the Plantations that they had been placed in Tolerable Servitude,
instead of Agonising Slavery. For although there was then, as there is
now, a convenient Fiction that a Felon's goods became at once forfeit to
the Crown, I never yet knew a Felon (and I have known many) that felt
ever so little difficulty in keeping his property, if he had any, and
disposing of it according to his own Good Will and Pleasure.
The Head Gaoler of the Borough Clink--I know not how his Proper official
title ran--was a colonel in the Foot Guards, who lived in Jermyn Street,
St. James's, and transacted most of his High and Mighty business either
at Poingdestre's Ordinary in St. Alban's Place, or at White's Chocolate
House, to say naught of the Rose, or the Key in Chandos Street. Much,
truly, did he concern himself about his unhappy Captives. His place was
a Patent one, and was worth to him about Fifteen Hundred a year, at
which sum it was farmed by Sir Basil Hopwood; who, in his turn, on the
principle that "'tis scurvy money that won't stick to your fingers,"
underlet the place to a Company of Four Rogues, who gave him Two
Thousand for that, which they managed to swell into at least Three for
themselves by squeezing of Poor Prisoners, and the like crying
Injustices. 'Twas Aylesbury Gaol over again, with the newest
improvements and the Humours of the Town added to it. So, when Sir
Basil Hopwood took up a cargo of cast persons for Transportation, his
underlings of the Borough Clink were only too glad to harbour them for a
night or two, making a pretty profit out of the poor creatures. For all
which, I doubt it not, Sir Basil Hopwood and his scoundrelly Myrmidons
are, at this instant moment, Howling.
This place was a prison for Debtors as well as Criminals, and was to the
full as Foul as the Tophet-pit at Aylesbury yonder. I had not been there
half an hour before a Lively companion of a Gentleman Cutpurse, with a
wrench at my kerchief, a twist at my arm (which nearly Broke it in
twain), and a smart Blow under my Lower Jaw, robs me of the packet of
comforts (clothing, pressed beef, sugar, comfits, and the like) which my
kind friends at Aylesbury had given me. The Rascal comes to me a few
minutes afterwards with a packet of Soap and a Testament, which he had
taken from my Bundle, and returns them to me with a Grin, telling me
that it was long since his Body had felt need of the one or his Soul of
the other. And yet I think they would have profited considerably
(pending a Right Cord) by the application of Both. So I in a corner, to
moan and whimper at my Distressed condition.
A sad Sunday I spent in the Clink,--'twas on the Monday we were to
start,--although, to some other of my companions, the Time passed
jovially enough. For very many of the Relations and Friends of the
Detained Persons came to visit them, bringing them money, victuals,
clothing, and other Refreshments. 'Twas on this day I heard that one of
us, who was cast for Forgery, had been offered a Free Pardon if he could
lodge Five Hundred Pounds in the hands of a Person who had Great
Influence near a Great Man.
Late on the Sunday afternoon, Sir Basil Hopwood came down in his coach,
and with his chaplain attendant on him. We Convicts were all had to the
Grate, for the Knight and Alderman would not venture further in, for
fear of the Gaol Fever; and he makes us a Fine Speech about the King's
Mercy,--which I deny not,--and his own Infinite Goodness in providing
for us in a Foreign Land. The which I question. Then he told us how we
were to be very civil and obedient on the voyage to those who were set
over us, refraining from cursing, swearing, gaming, or singing of
profane songs, on pain of immediate and smart chastisement; and having
said this, and the chaplain having given us his Benediction, he gat him
gone, and we were rid of so much Rapacious and Luxurious Hypocrisy. We
lay in the yard that night, wrapped in such extra Garments as some of us
were Fortunate enough to have; and I sobbed myself to sleep, wishing, I
well remember, that it might never be Day again, but that my Sorrows
might all be closed in by the Merciful Curtain of Eternal Night.
So on the Monday morning we were driven down--a body of Sir Basil
Hopwood's own company of the Trainbands guarding us--to Shayler's
Stairs, near unto the church of St. Mary Overy; and there--we were in
number about a hundred--put on board a Hoy, which straightway, the tide
being toward, bore down the river for Gravesend.
By this time I found that, almost insensibly, as it were, I had become
separated from my old companions the Blacks, and that I was more than
ever Alone. The greatest likelihood is, that Authority deemed it
advisable to break up, for good and all, the Formidable Confederacy they
had laid hold of, and to prevent those Dangerous Men from ever again
making Head together. But my whole Life was but a kind of Shifting and
uncertain Vision, and I took little note of the personages with whom I
came in contact, till looking around me, in a dull listlessness about
the Hoy, I found myself, cheek by jowl, with a motley crew, seemingly
picked up hap-hazard from all the gaols in England. But 'twas all one to
me, and I did not much care. Such a Stupor of Misery came over me, that
for a time I almost forgot my good Quaker Friends, and the lessons they
had taught me; that I felt myself once more drifting into being a
dangerous little brute; and that seeing the Master of the Hoy, a
thirsty-looking man, lifting a great stone-bottle to his lips, I longed
to serve him as I had served Corporal Foss with the demijohn of Brandy
in the upper chamber of the Stag o' Tyne.
We landed not at Gravesend, but were forthwith removed to a bark called
_The Humane Hopwood_, in compliment, I suppose, to Sir Basil, and which,
after lying three days in the Downs, put into Deal to complete her
complement of Unfortunate Persons. And I remember that, before making
Deal, we saw a stranded Brig on the Goodwins, which was said to be a
Leghorner, very rich with oils and silks; round which were
gathered--just as you may see obscene Birds of Prey gathered round a
dead carcass, and picking the Flesh from its bones--at least a score of
luggers belonging to the Deal Boatmen. These worthies had knocked holes
in the hull of the wreck, and were busily hauling out packages and casks
into their craft, coming to blows sometimes with axes and marlin-spikes
as to who should have the Biggest Booty. And it was said on Board that
they would not unfrequently decoy by false signals, or positively haul,
a vessel in distress on to those same Goodwins,--in whose fatal depths
so many tall Ships lie Engulfed,--in order to have the Plunder of her,
which was more profitable than the Salvage, that being in the long-run
mostly swallowed up by the Crimps and Longshore Lawyers of Deal and
other Ports, who were wont to buy the Boatmen's rights at a Ruinous
Discount. Salvage Men, indeed, these Boatmen might well be called; for
when I was young it was their manner to act with an extreme of Savage
Barbarity, thinking far less of saving Human Life than of clutching at
the waifs and strays of a Rich Cargo. And then up would sheer a
Custom-House cutter or a Revenue Pink, the skipper and his crew fierce
in their Defence of the Laws of the Land, the Admiralty Droits, and
their own twentieths; and from Hard blows with fists and spikes, matters
would often come to the arbitrament of cutlasses and firearms; so that
naval Engagements of a Miniature kind have often raged between the Deal
Boatmen and the King's Officers. Surely the world was a Hard and a Cruel
and a Brutal one, when I was young--bating the Poor-Laws, which were
more merciful than at present; for now that I am old the Gazettes are
full of the Tender Valour and Merciful Devotion of the Deal Boatmen,
who, in the most tempestuous weather, will leave their warm beds, their
wives and bairns, and put off, with the Sea running mountains high, to
rescue Distraught Vessels and the Precious Lives that are within them.
The Salvage Men of my time were brave enough, but they were likewise
unconscionable rogues.
The wind proved false to us at Deal, and we had to wait a weary ten days
there. Captain Handsell was our commander. He was a man who knew but one
course of proceeding. 'Twas always a word and a blow with him. By the
same token the blow generally came first, and the word that followed was
sure to be a bad one. The Captain of a Ship, from a Fishing Smack to a
Three-Decker, was in those days a cruel and merciless Despot. 'Twas only
the size of his ship and the number of his Equipage that decided the
question whether he was to be a Petty Tyrant or a Tremendous One. His
Empire was as undisputed as that of a Schoolmaster. Who was to gainsay
him? To whom, at Sea, could his victims appeal? To the Sharks and
Grampuses, the Dolphins and the Bonettas? He was privileged to beat, to
fetter, to starve, to kick, to curse his Seamen. Even his Passengers
trembled at the sight of this Bashaw of Bluewater; for he had Irons and
Rations of Mouldy Biscuit for them too, if they offended him; and many a
Beautiful and Haughty Lady paying full cabin-passage has bowed down
before the wrath of a vulgar Skipper, who, at home, she would have
thought unworthy to Black her Shoes, and who would be seething in the
revelry of a Tavern in Rotherhithe, while she would be footing it in the
Saloons of St. James's. Yet for a little time, at the outset of his
voyage, the Skipper had his superior; the Bashaw had a Vizier who was
bigger than he. There was a Terrible Man called the Pilot. He cared no
more for the Captain than the Archbishop of Canterbury cares for a
Charity-Boy. He gave him a piece of his mind whenever he chose, and he
would have his own Way, and had it. It was the delight of the Seamen to
see their Tyrant and Bully degraded for a time under the supreme
authority of the Pilot, who drank the Skipper's rum; who had the best
Beef and Burgoo at the Skipper's table; who wore, if he was so minded,
the Skipper's tarpaulin; who used the Skipper's telescope, and thumbed
his charts, and kicked his Cabin-boy, and swore his oaths, till, but for
the fear of the Trinity House, I think the Skipper would have been
mighty glad to fling him over the taffrail. But the reign of this Great
Mogul of Lights and Points and Creeks soon came to an end. A River Pilot
was the lesser evil, a Channel Pilot was the greater one; but both were
got rid of at last. Then the Skipper was himself again. He would drink
himself blind with Punch in the forenoon, or cob his cabin-boy to
Death's door after dinner for a frolic. He could play the very Devil
among the Hands, and they perforce bore with his capricious cruelty; for
there is no running away from a Ship at Sea. Jack Shark is Gaoler, and
keeps the door tight. There is but one way out of it, and that is to
Mutiny, and hey for the Black Flag and a Pirate's Free and Jovial
Life![A] But Mutiny is Hanging, and Piracy is Hanging, and Gibbeting
too; and how seldom it is that you find Bold Hearts who have Stuff
enough in them to Run the Great Risk! As on sea, so it is on land. That
Ugly Halter dances before a man's eyes, and dazes him away from the
Firmest Resolve. For how long will Schoolboys endure the hideous
enormities of a Gnawbit before they come to the Supreme Revolt of a
Barring-out! And for how long will a People suffer the mad tyranny of a
Ruler, who outrages their Laws, who strangles their Liberties, who
fleeces and squeezes and tramples upon them, before they take Heart of
Grace, and up Pike and Musket, and down-derry-down with your Ruler, who
is ordinarily the basest of Poltroons, and runs away in a fright so soon
as the first Goose is bold enough to cry out that the Capitol _shall_ be
saved!
Nothing of this did I think aboard _The Humane Hopwood_. I was too young
to have any thought at all, save of rage and anguish when it pleased
Captain Handsell, being in a cheerful mood, to belabour me, till I was
black and blue, with a rope's end. At the beginning of the voyage I was
put into the hold, ironed, with the rest of the convicts, who were only
permitted to come on deck twice a day, morning and evening, for a few
Mouthfuls of Fresh air; who were fed on the vilest biscuit and the most
putrid water, getting but a scrap of fat pork and a dram of Rum that was
like Fire twice a week, and who were treated, generally, much like
Negroes on the Middle Passage. But by and by,--say after ten days; but I
took little account of Time in this floating Purgatory,--Captain
Handsell had me unironed; and his cabin-boy, a poor weakly little lad,
that could not stand much beating, being dead of that and a flux, and so
thrown overboard without any more words being said about it--(he was but
a little Scottish castaway from Edinburgh, who had been kidnapped late
one night in the Grass Market, and sold to a Greenock skipper trading in
that line for a hundred pound Scots--not above eight pounds of our
currency)--and there is no Crowner's Quest at sea, I was promoted to the
Vacant Post. I was Strong enough now, and the Wound in my side gave me
no more pain; and I think I grew daily stronger and more hardened under
the shower of blows which the Skipper very liberally dealt out to me; I
hardly know with more plenitude when he was vexed, or when he was
pleased. But I was not the same bleating little Lamb that the Wolfish
Gnawbit used to torture. No, no; John Dangerous's apprenticeship had
been useful to him. Even as college-lads graduate in their Latin and
Greek, so I had graduated upon braining the Grenadier with the demijohn.
I could take kicks and cuffs, but I could likewise give them. And so, as
this Roaring Skipper made me a Block to vent his spite upon, I would
struggle with, and bite, and kick his shins till sometimes we managed to
fall together on the cabin-floor and tumble about there,--pull he, pull
I, and a kick together!--till the Watch would look down the skylight
upon us, grinning, and chuckle hoarsely that old Belzey, as they called
their commander (being a diminutive for Beelzebub), and his young Imp
were having a tussle. Thus it came about that among these unthinking
Seamen I grew to be called Pug (who, I have heard, is the Lesser Fiend),
or Little Brimstone, or young Pitchladle. And then I, in my Impish way,
would offer to fight them too, resenting their scurril nicknames, and
telling them that I had but one name, which was Jack Dangerous.
The oddest thing in the world was that the Skipper, Ungovernable Brute
as he was, seemed to take a kind of liking for me through my Resistance
to him.
"What a young Tiger-cub it is!" he would say sometimes, swaying about
his Rope's End, as if undecided whether to hit me or not. "Lie down,
Rawbones! Lie down, Tearem!"
"You go to hit me again," I would cry, all hot and flurried; "I'll mark
you, I will, you Tarpaulin Hedgehog!"
Then in a Rage he would make a Rush at me, and Welt me sorely; but
oftener he would Relent, and opening his Locker would give me a slice of
Sausage, or a white Biscuit, or a nip of curious Nantz.
At last he gave up maltreating me altogether. "If you'd been of the same
kidney as Sawney M'Gillicuddy," he said, speaking of the poor little
Scottish lad who Died, "I'd have made you food for fishes long ago.
'Slid, my younker, but they should 'a had their meat tender enough, or
there's no vartue in hackled hemp for a lacing! But you've got a Heart,
my lad; and if you're not hanged before you're out of your Teens,
you'll show the World that you can Bite as well as Bark some of these
days."
So I became a prime Favourite with Captain Handsell; and, in the
Expansion of his Liking towards me, he began to give me instruction in
the vocation in which a portion of my life has since (with no small
Distinction, though I say it that should not) been passed. Of scientific
Navigation this very Rude and Boorish person knew little, if any thing;
but as a Practical Seaman he had much skill and experience. Indeed, if
the Hands had not enjoyed a lively Faith in the solid sea-going
Qualities of "Foul-Weather Bob," as they called him when they did not
choose to give him his demoniacal appellation, they would have Mutinied,
and sent him, Lashed to a grating, on a voyage of Discovery at least
twice in every Twenty-Four Hours. For he led them a most Fearful Life.
I had imparted to him that I was somewhat of a scholar, and that Captain
Night had taught me something besides stealing the King's Deer. There
was a Bible on Board, which the Skipper never read,--and read, indeed,
he was scarcely able to do,--but which he turned to the unseemly use,
when he had been over-cruel to his crew, of swearing them upon it, that
they would not inform against him when they got into port. For this was
an odd medley of a man, and had his moments of Remorse for evil-doing,
or else of Fear as to what might be the Consequences when he reached a
Land where some degree of Law and Justice were recognised. At some times
he would propitiate his crew with donatives of Rum, or even of Money;
but the next day he would have his Cruelty Fit on again, and use his men
with ten times more Fierceness and Arbitrary Barbarity. But to this
Bible and a volume of Nautical Tables our Library was confined; and as
he troubled himself very little about the latter, I was set to read to
him sometimes after dinner from the Good Book. But he was ever coarse
and ungovernable, and would have no Righteous Doctrine or Tender
Precepts, but only took delight when I read to him from the Old
Scriptures the stories of the Jews, their bloody wars, and how their
captains and men of war slew their Thousands and their Tens of Thousands
in Battle. And with shame I own that 'twas these Furious Narratives that
I liked also; and with exceeding pleasure read of Joshua his victories,
and Samson his achievements, and Gideon how he battled, and Agag how
they hewed him in pieces. Little cockering books I see now put forth,
with pretty decoying pictures, which little children are bidden to read.
Stories from the Old Testament are dressed up in pretty sugared
language. Oh, you makers of these little books! oh, you fond mothers who
place them so deftly in your children's hands! bethink you whether this
strong meat is fit for Babes. An old man, whose life has been passed in
Storms and Stratagems and Violence, not innocent of blood-spilling, bids
you beware! Let the children read that other Book, its Sweet and Tender
Counsels, its examples of Mercy and Love to all Mankind. But if I had a
child five or six years old, would I let him fill himself with the
horrible chronicles of Lust, and Spoliation, and Hatred, and Murder, and
Revenge? "Why shouldn't I torture the cat?" asks little Tommy. "Didn't
the man in the Good Book tie blazing Torches to the foxes' tails?" And
little Tommy has some show of reason on his side. Let the children grow
up; wait till their stomachs are strong enough to digest this potent
victual. It is hard indeed for one who has been a Protestant alway to
have to confess that when such indiscreet reading is placed in
children's hands, those crafty Romish ecclesiastics speak not altogether
foolishly when they tell us that the mere Word slayeth. But on this
point I am agreed to consult Doctor Dubiety, and to be bound by his
decision.
In so reading to the Skipper every day, I did not forget to exercise
myself in that other art of Writing, and was in time serviceable enough
to be able to keep, in something like a rational and legible form the
Log of _The Humane Hopwood_, which heretofore had been a kind of
cabalistic Register, full of blots, crosses, half-moons, and zigzags,
like the chalk score of an unlettered Ale-wife. And the more I read (of
surely the grandest and simplest language in the world), the more I
discovered how ignorant I was of that essential art of Spelling, and
blushed at the vile manner in which the Petition I had written to the
King of England was set down. And before we came to our voyage's end, I
had made a noticeable improvement in the Curious Mystery of writing
Plain English.
One day as the Skipper was taking Tobacco (for he was a great Smoker),
he said to me, "Jack, do you know what you are, lad?"
"Your cabin-boy," I answered; "bound to fetch and carry: hempen wages,
and not much better treated than a dog."
"You lie, you scum," Captain Handsell answered pleasantly. "You go
snacks with me in the very best, and your beef is boiled in my own
copper. But 'tisn't that I mean. Do you know how you hail on the
World's books? what the number of your mess in Life is?"
"Yes," I replied; "I'm a Transport. Was to have been hanged; but I wrote
out a Petition, and the Gentlemen in London gave it to the King, God
bless him!"
"Vastly well, mate!" continued the Captain. "Do you know what a
Transport is?"
"No; something very bad, I suppose; though I don't see that he can be
much worse off than a cabin-boy that's been cast for Death, and lain in
gaol with a bayonet-wound he got from a Grenadier,--let alone having
been among the Blacks, and paid anigh to Death by Gnawbit,--when he was
born a Gentleman."
"You lie again. To be a Transport is worse than aught you've had. Why a
cat in an oven without claws is an Angel of bliss along of a Transport!
You're living in a land of beans and bacon now, in a land of milk and
honey and new rum. Wait till you get to Jamaica. The hundred and odd
vagabonds that I've got aboard will be given over to the Sheriff at Port
Royal, and he'll sell 'em by auction; and for as long as they're sent
across the herring-pond they'll be slaves, and worse than slaves, to the
planters; for the black Niggers themselves, rot 'em! make a mock of a
Newgate bird. Hard work in the blazing sun, scarce enough to eat to keep
body and soul together, the cat-o'-nine-tails every day, with the
cow-hide for a change; and, when your term's out, not a Joe in your
pocket to help you to get back to your own country again. That's the
life of a Transport, my hearty. Why, it's worse cheer than one of my own
hands gets here on shipboard!"
"I think I'd rather be hanged," I said, with something like a Trembling
come over me at the Picture the Skipper had drawn.
"I should rather think you would; but such isn't your luck, little Jack
Dangerous. What would you say if I was to tell you that you ain't a
Transport at all?"
I stammered out something, I know not what, but could make no
substantial reply.
"Not a bit of it," continued Captain Handsell, who by this time was
getting somewhat Brisk with his afternoon's Punch. "Hang it, who's
afraid? I like thee, lad. I'm off my bargain, and don't care a salt
herring if I'm a loser by a few broad pieces in not sticking to it. I
tell thee, Jack, thou'rt Free, as Free as I am; leastways if we get to
Jamaica without going to Davy Jones's Locker; for on blue water no man
can say he's Free. No; not the Skipper even."
And then he told me, to my exceeding Amazement and Delight, of what an
Iniquitous Transaction I had very nearly been made the victim. It seems
that although the Pardon granted me after the Petition I had sent to his
Majesty was conditional on my transporting myself to the Plantations,
further influence had been made for me in London,--by whom I knew not
then, but I have since discovered,--and on the very Day of the arrival
of our condemned crew in London, an Entire and Free Pardon had been
issued for John Dangerous and lodged in the hands of Sir Basil Hopwood
at his House in Bishopsgate Street. Along with this merciful Document
there came a letter from one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of
State, in which directions were given that I was to be delivered over to
a person who was my Guardian. And that I was in no danger of being again
given up to the villains Cadwallader and Talmash, or their Instrument
Gnawbit, was clear, I think, from what Captain Handsell told me:--That
the Person bringing the letter--the Pardon itself being in the hands of
a King's Messenger--had the appearance, although dressed in a lay habit,
of being a Foreign Ecclesiastic. The crafty Extortioner of a Knight and
Alderman makes answer that I had not come with the other Transports to
London, but had been left sick at Brentford, in the care of an agent of
his there; but he entreats the Foreign Person to go visit Newgate, where
he had another gang of unhappy persons for Transportation, and see if I
had arrived. And all this while the wretch knew that I was safely
clapped up in the yard of the Borough Clink. And the Foreign Person
being met at the Old Bailey by one of Hopwood's creatures, this Thing
takes him to walk on the leads of the Sessions House, praying him not to
enter the gaol, where many had lately been stricken with the Distemper,
and by and by up comes a Messenger all hot as it seemed with express
riding,--though his sweat and dust were all Forged,--and says that a
gang of Ruffians have broken up the Cage of Brentford, where, for
greater safety, the Boy Dangerous had been bestowed; that these Ruffians
were supposed to be the remnant of the Blacks of Charlwood Chase who had
escaped from capture; and that they had stolen away the Boy Dangerous,
and made clear off with him. And, indeed, it was a curious circumstance
that Brentford Cage was that day broken into (the Times were very
Lawless), and a Strange Boy taken out therefrom. But Hopwood had
artfully separated me from the Blacks who were in Newgate, and placed me
among a stranger mob of riffraff in the Borough Clink. The Newgate Gang
were in due time taken, not to Gravesend, but straight away from the
Pool to Richmond in Virginia; whereas I was conveyed to Gravesend and
Deal, and shipped off to Jamaica in _The Humane Hopwood_. And what do
you think was the object of this Humane Scoundrel in thus sequestrating
the King's Pardon and robbing me of my liberty, and perhaps of the
occasion of returning to the state of a Gentleman, in which I was Born?
'Twas simply to kidnap me, and make a wretched profit of twenty or
thirty pounds,--the Commander of his Ship going him half in the
adventure,--by selling me in the West Indies, where white boys not being
Transports were then much in demand, to be brought up as clerks and
cash-keepers to the Planters. Sure there was never such a Diabolical
Plot for so sorry an end; but a vast number of paltry conspiracies,
carried out with Infernal Cunning and Ingenuity, had made, in the course
of years, Sir Basil Hopwood rich and mighty, a Knight and Alderman,
Parliament man and ex-Lord Mayor. To carry out these designs was just
part of the ordinary calling of a Shipmaster in those days. 'Twas looked
upon as the simplest matter of business in the world. To kidnap a child
was such an everyday deed of devilry, that the slightest amount of pains
was deemed sufficing to conceal the abominable thing. And thus the
Foreign Person saw with dolorous Eyes the convoy of convicts take their
departure from Newgate to ship on board the Virginian vessel at St.
Katherine's Stairs, while poor little Jack Dangerous was being smuggled
away from Gravesend to Jamaica.
And to Jamaica I should have gone to be sold as a Slave, but for the
strange occurrence of the Captain taking a liking to me. He dared not
have kept me among the convicts, as the Sheriff at Port Royal would have
had a List in Duplicate of their names sent out by a fast-sailing King's
Ship; for the Government at Home had some faint Suspicion of the
prevailing custom of Kidnapping, and made some Feeble Attempts to stop
it. But he would have kept me on board as a ship-boy till the Auction of
the Transports was over, and then he would have coolly sold me, for as
much as I would fetch, to some Merchant of Kingston or Port Royal, who
was used to deal in flesh and blood, and who, in due course, would have
transferred me, at a profit, to some up-country planter.
"But that shall never be, Jack my hearty," Captain Handsell exclaimed,
when, after many more pipes of Tobacco and rummers of Punch, he had
explained these wonderful things to me. "I shall lose my half share in
the venture, and shall have to tell a rare lie to yonder old
Skin-a-flea-for-the-hide-and-fat in London; but what o' that? I tell
thee I won't have the sale of thy flesh and blood on my conscience. No
slave shall you be, forsooth. I have an aunt at Kingston, as honest a
woman as ever broke biscuit, although she has got a dash of the
tar-brush on her mug, and she shall take charge of thee; and if thou
were a gentleman born, I'll be hanged if thou sha'n't be a gentleman
bred."
It would have been more fitted to the performance of this Honourable
and Upright Action towards one that he had no motive at all in serving
(in Fact, his Interest lay right the other way), that I should be able
to chronicle a sensible Reformation in my Commander's bearing and
conduct towards others; but, alas, that I am unable to do; the truth
being that he continued, unto the very end of our voyage, to be towards
the Hands the same brutal and merciless Tyrant that he had once, in the
days of his Rope's-End Discipline, been towards me. 'Twas Punch and
Cobbing, Tobacco and Ugly Words, from the rising of the Sun until the
setting of the same. And for this reason it is (having seen so many
Contradictions in Human character) that I am never surprised to hear of
a Good Action on the part of a very Bad Man, or of a Bad Action done by
him who is ordinarily accounted a very Good one.
_The Humane Hopwood_ was a very shy Sailer,--being, in truth, as Leaky
an old Tub as ever escaped breaking up for Fire-Wood at Lumberers'
Wharfs,--and we were seven weeks at Sea before we fell in with a
trade-wind, and then setting every Rag we could hoist, went gaily before
that Favourable breeze, and so cast anchor at Port Royal in the island
of Jamaica.
Captain Handsell was as good as his word. Not a syllable did he say to
the Sheriff of Kingston about my not being a Transport, or being,
indeed, in the Flesh at all in those parts; for he argued that the
Sheriff might have some foregatherings with the Knight and Alderman of
Bishopsgate Street by correspondence, and that the Wealthy Extortioner
might make use of his credit in the Sugar Islands to do me, some day or
another, an ill turn. But he had me privily on shore when the Transports
had all been assigned to different task-masters; and in due time he
introduced me to his Aunt, his Brother's Wife indeed (and I believe he
had come out to the Island with an Old-Bailey Passport; but Rum and the
climate had been too strong for him, and he had so Died and left her a
Widow).
She was by right and title, then, Mistress Handsell, with the Christian
name of Sarah; but among the coloured people of Kingston she went by the
name of Maum Buckey, and, among her more immediate intimates, as "Yaller
Sally." And, although she passed for being very Wealthy, I declare that
she was nothing but a Washerwoman. This Washing Trade of hers, however,
which she carried on for the King and Merchants' ships that were in
Harbour, and for nearly all the rich Merchants and Traders of Kingston,
brought Maum Buckey in a very pretty penny; and not only was her tub
commerce a brisk ready-money business, but she had two flourishing
plantations--one for the growing of Coffee, and the other of Sugar--near
the town of Savannah de la Mar. Moreover, she had a distillery of Rum
and Arrack in Kingston itself, and everybody agreed that she must be
very well to do in the world. She was an immensely fat old Mulotter
woman, on the wrong side of Fifty when I knew her, and her Mother had
been a slave that had been the Favourite Housekeeper to the English
Governor, who, dying, left her her Freedom, and enough Money to carry
on that Trade of cleansing clothes which her Daughter afterwards made so
profitable.
Maum Buckey and I soon became very good friends. She was proud of her
relationship with a white Englishman--"a right go-down Buckra" as she
called him--who commanded a ship, and besides recommended her to other
gentlemen in his way for a Washerwoman; and although she took care to
inform me, before we had been twenty-four hours acquainted, that her
Husband, Sam Handsell, has been a sad Rascal, who would have drunk all
her Money away, had he not Timeously drunk himself to death, she made me
the friendliest welcome, and promised that she would do all she could
for me, "the little piccaninny buckra," who was set down by Mr. Handsell
as being the son of an old Shipmate of his that had met with
misfortunes. After a six weeks' stay in the island, and _The Humane
Hopwood_ getting Freight in the way of Sugar, Captain Handsell bade me
good by, and set sail with a fair wind for Bristol, England. I never
set Eyes upon him again. You see, my Friends, that this is no
cunningly-spun Romance, in which a character disappears for a Season,
and turns up again, as pat as you please, at the end of the Fourth
Volume; but a plain Narrative of Facts, in which the Personages
introduced must needs Come and Go precisely as they Came and Went to me
in Real Life. I have often wished, when I had Power and Riches, to meet
with and show my Gratitude to the rough old Sea-Porpoise that used to
Rope's-End me so, and was so tearing a Tyrant to his Hands, and yet in a
mere fit of kind-heartedness played the Honest Man to me, when All
Things seemed against me, and rescued John Dangerous from a Foul and
Wicked Trap.
Maum Buckey had a great rambling house--it had but one Storey, with a
Piazza running round, but a huge number of Rooms and Yards--in the
suburbs of Kingston. There did I take up my abode. She had at least
twenty Negro and Mulotter Women and Girls that worked for her at the
Washing, and at Starching and Ironing, for the Mill was always going
with her. 'Twas wash, wash, wash, and wring, wring, wring, and scrub,
scrub, scrub, all day and all night too, when the harbour was full of
ships. Not that she ever touched Soapsuds or Flat-iron or
Goffering-stick herself. She was vastly too much of a Fine Lady for
that, and would loll about in a great chair,--one Negro child fanning
her with a great Palmetto, and another tickling the soles of her
feet,--sipping her Sangaree as daintily as you please. She was the most
ignorant old creature that ever was known, could neither read nor write,
and made a sad jumble of the King's English when she spoke; yet, by mere
natural quickness and rule-of-thumb, she could calculate to a Joe how
much a Shipmaster's Washing-Bill came to. And when she had settled that
according to her Scale of Charges, which were of the most Exorbitant
Kind, she would Grin and say, "He dam ship, good consignee;" or, "He dam
ship, dam rich owner; stick him on 'nother dam fi' poun' English, my
chile;" and for some curious reason or another, 'twas seldom that a
shipmaster cared to quarrel with Maum Buckey's Washing-Bills. She, being
so unlettered, had been compelled to engage all manner of Whites who
could write and read--now Transports, now Free--to keep her accounts,
and draw her necessary writings; but it was hard to tell which were the
greatest Rogues, the Convicts whose term was out, or the Free Gentlemen
who had come out without a pair of iron garters to their hose. In those
days all our plantations, and Jamaica most notably, were full of the
very Scum and Riffraff of our English towns. 'Twas as though you had let
Fleet Ditch, dead dogs and all, loose on a West-India Island. That
Ragged Regiment which Falstaff in the Play would not march through
Coventry with were at free quarters in Jamaica, leave alone the regular
garrison of King's Troops, of which the private men were mostly
pickpockets, poachers, and runaway serving-men, who had enlisted to save
themselves from a merry-go-round at Rope Fair; and the officers the
worst and most abandoned Gentlemen that ever wore his Majesty's
cockade, and gave themselves airs because they had three-quarters of a
yard of black ribbon crinked up in their hats. Captain This, who had
been kicked out of a Charing-Cross coffee-house for pocketing a
Punch-ladle while the drawer was not looking; Lieutenant That, who had
been caned on the Mall for cheating at cards; and Ensign T'other, who
had been my lord's valet, and married his Madam for enough cash to buy a
pair of colours withal--Military gentlemen of this feather used to serve
in the West Indies in those days, and swagger about Kingston as proud as
peacocks, when every one of them had done that at home they should be
cashiered for. Maum Buckey would not have to do with these
light-come-light-go gallants. "Me wash for Gem'n Ship-Cap'n, Gem'n
Marchants, Gem'n Keep-store," she would observe; "me not wash for dam
Soger-officer."
Her Sugar Plantation was in charge of a shrewd North-countryman, against
whom, save that he was a runaway bankrupt from Hull in England, there
was nothing to say. Her Coffee Estate was managed by an Irishman that
had married, as he thought, a great Fortune, but found the day after his
wedding that she but a fortune-hunter like himself, and had at least
three husbands living in divers parts of the world. And finally, the
Distillery had for overseer one, an Englishman, that had been a Horse
Couper, and a runner for the Crimps at Wapping, and a supercargo that
was not too honest,--albeit he had to keep his accounts pretty square
with Maum Buckey, than whom there never was a woman who had a keener Eye
for business or a finer Scent for a Rogue.
She made me her Bookkeeper for the Washing Department. 'Twas not a very
dignified Employment for one that had been a young Gentleman, but 'twas
vastly better than the Fate of one who, but for a mere Accident, might
have been a young Slave. So I kept Maum Buckey's Books, teaching myself
how to do so featly from a Ready Reckoner and Accomptant's Assistant
(Mr. Cocker's), which I bought at a Bookstore in Kingston. The work was
pretty hard, and the old Dame of the Tub kept me tightly enough at it;
but when the work was over she was very kind to me, and we had the very
best of living: ducks and geese and turkeys and pork (of which the
Mulotter women are inordinately fond, although I never could reconcile
to myself how their stomachs, in so hot a climate, could endure so
Luscious a Food); fish of the primest from the Harbour of Port Royal,
lobsters and crabs and turtle (which last is as cheap as Tripe with us,
and so plentiful, that the Niggers will sometimes disdain to eat it,
though 'tis excellent served as soup in the creature's own shell, and a
most digestible Viand); to say nothing of bananas, shaddock, mango,
plantains, and the many delicious fruits and vegetables of that Fertile
Colony; where, if the land-breeze in the morning did not half choke you
with harsh dust, and the sea-breeze in the afternoon pierce you to the
marrow with deadly chills, and if one could abstain from surfeits of
fruits and over-drinking of the too abundant ardent spirits of the
country, a man might live a very jovial kind of life. However, I was
young and healthy, and, though never a shirker of my glass in
after-days, prudently moderate in my Potations. During four years that I
passed in the Island of Jamaica (one of the brightest jewels in the
British Crown, and as Loyal, I delight to say, as I am myself), I don't
think I had the Yellow Fever more than three times, and at last grew as
tough as leather, and could say Bo to a land-crab (how many a White
Man's carcass have those crabs picked clean at the Palisadoes!), as
though I feared him no more than a Green Goose.