Fellow, such as I was now, stout and vigorous, and going for nineteen
years of age, should no longer remain in the Background. First I hied me
to London by the waggon, where, after four days' journey--for it was ill
travelling in those days, between London and Dover--I arrived without
any misadventure. I was my own Master, I had Ten Pound in my pocket
(the two additional Pieces being now spent), and I did not know one
single soul in a city of eight hundred thousand inhabitants. Is it to be
wondered at, under these premises, that before I fixed upon any decided
line of life, I went, first of all, to the Deuce. It took me but a
woundily short time to reach that Goal. For ten pounds you may reckon,
we will say--if you put up at a small alehouse in the Borough--upon
about ten friends who shall be very fond of you for a couple of days. I
think, at the beginning of the third, I had just three and sixpence left
wherewith to buy a razor to cut my throat withal. "Stuff and nonsense!"
cried the last of the fleeting friends who had abided with me. "Three
and sixpence for a razor, forsooth! why, a yard of good new cord, quite
strong enough to bear your weight, can be bought in any shop in
Tooley-street for a penny. You have just three and fivepence left,
brother, to make yourself merry for the day, and, please the pigs, we
will be merry as grigs upon it until Sundown (for I took a fancy to you
the first minute I set eyes upon you), and even then there are two ways
out of the hobble, without twisting your weasand. I have a pair of
pistols, and as I love you like a brother, will share anything with you;
and we will pad the hoof betwixt this and Deptford, and see whether we
can meet any fat Kentish hop-grower on his way to the Borough Market
with more money than wit--a capital plan, any way, seeing that if you
fail, the Sheriff will hang you for nothing, and you can keep your penny
for drink, or else you can list for a soldier, as many a tall and pretty
fellow in the like straits has done before."
I civilly declined this amicable and philosophical advice, for it had
suddenly become apparent to me that my new friend was a confirmed Rogue.
For opening of the Eyes there is nothing like having spent all your
money. I gave him a shilling, however, out of my three and sixpence, and
crossed London Bridge to see if I could find better luck on the
Middlesex side, determined, if nothing offered itself during the day, to
ask my way to the Barracks at the Savoy and list for a Soldier. I
amused myself as I walked, with the thought that chance might so bring
it about for the Sergeant who would give me the King's shilling to be
the selfsame grenadier whose sconce I had broken years agone in
Charlwood Chase with the Demijohn of Brandy.
I had heard, as most Ignoramuses have done, I suppose, that London
Streets are paved with Gold; and I found 'em as Muddy, as Stony, and as
Hardhearted as I dare say they have been discovered by ten thousand
Ignoramuses before my time to be. I was quite dazed and stupified with
the noise and uproar of the Great City, the more perplexing to me as I
was not only a Stranger, but almost a Foreigner and Outlandish Man in
Great Britain. I could speak my own tongue well enough with Parson Hodge
and Mr. Pinchin, but when it came to be clamoured all around me by
innumerable voices, I a'most lost heart, and gave up the notion that I
was an Englishman at all. It must be confessed, that half a century
since we English were a very Blackguard People, and that London was
about the most disreputable city in all Europe. There were few public
buildings of any great note or of Majestic Proportions, save St. Paul's
Cathedral, the Monument, and the Banqueting House at Whitehall. The
Mansion House and the Bank of England were not yet built, and between
them and the Royal Exchange (the which, noble enough in itself, was girt
about, and choked up with Shops and Tenements exceeding mean and
shabby), was a nasty, rubbishing, faint-smelling place, full of
fruiterers and herbalists, called the Stocks Market. The crazy and
rotten City Gates blocked up the chief thoroughfares, and across the
bottom of Ludgate Hill yawned a marvellous foul and filthy open sewer,
rich in dead dogs and cats, called the Fleet Ditch. This street was fair
enough, and full of commodious houses and wealthy shops, but all about
Temple Bar was a vile and horrid labyrinth of lanes and alleys, the
chief and the most villanous of which was a place full of tripe shops
and low taverns, called Butcher Row, leading from the Bar down to the
Churchyard of St. Clement's Danes. The Strand was broad and fair enough
to view as far as the New Exchange; but in lieu of that magnificent
structure which Sir William Chambers, the Swedish architect, has built
for Government offices, and where the Royal Academy of Arts and the
Learned Societies have their apartments (when I first came to town there
was no Royal Academy at all, only a Mean School for painting from the
Life and drawing from Bustos in St. Martin's Lane; the Royal Society
held their sittings in a court off Fleet Street; the College of
Physicians was chock-a-block among the butchers in Warwick Lane, Newgate
Market, where it still, to the scandal of Science, remains; and
Surgeon's Hall, where malefactors were anatomised after execution--a
Sanguinary but Salutary custom--was in the Old Bailey, over against the
leads of the Sessions House)--in place, then, of what we now call
Somerset House, albeit it has lost all connexion with the proud Duke of
that name, there stood the Old Palace of the Queens of England, a
remarkable tumbledown barn of a place, hideous in its ugliness towards
the Strand, but having some stately edifices at the back, built by that
Famous Engineer, Mr. Inigo Jones. Here sometimes Queens were lodged, and
sometimes Embassadors--'twas the Venetian Envoy, I think, that had his
rooms in Somerset House when I first knew it,--and sometimes Masquerades
were given. A company of Soldiers was kept on guard in the precincts,
not so much for ornament as for use, for they had hard work every night
in the week in quelling the pottle-pot brawls and brabbling among the
Rogues, Thieves, Besognosos, Beggars, Ribbibes, Bidstands, and
Clapper-dudgeons, male and female, who infested the outskirts of the Old
Palace, or had Impudently Squatted within its very walls, and had made
of the Place a very Alsatia, now that Scamp's Paradise in Whitefriars
had been put down by Act of Parliament. Here they burrowed like so many
Grice, till the shoulder-tapping Pilchers of the Compter came a
badger-drawing with their bludgeons. 'Twas a perfect chaos of
clap-dishes, skeldering, cranion-legged Impostors, fittous cripples, and
gambling bullies, for ever roaring over Post and Pair, or Dust Point, or
throwing their Highmen, or barbing gold, or yelling profane songs and
catches. A man was killed here about every other day in some Callet and
Cockoloch squabble, and there was a broil about twice in every hour. Of
course there were Patricos here, who only wanted Fashionable
Encouragement to rival the Feet Parsons in the trade of faggot-weddings.
There were philosophers who devised schemes for paying off the National
Debt, or for making roast ribs of beef out of brickbats. Here were swept
the last pillings and frayings of the South Sea Bubble, in the shape of
divers Speculators and Directors who had absconded from their Creditors,
and were here pretty safe from arrest, for although not legally a
sanctuary, it was as chancy to cop a man here on a capias as to put
one's naked hand into a bag full of rats.
I dined this day at a sixpenny ordinary in the New Exchange, and after
that asked my way to the Savoy, which I found to be close by. So I
walked down to the old Tower, and passed the time of day to the Sergeant
of the Guard, who was for having me empty a can of ale with him on the
spot, but I would not then, and concealed my intention, being minded to
defer the execution of it till sunset. I don't know what Vain and
Foolish Hope possessed me that something might yet turn up which might
save me from the sad necessity of listing for a soldier, to the which
vocation, mindful of my early experiences among the Blacks in Charlwood
Chase, I entertained a very sincere Abhorrence. So I wandered up and
down the Streets, asking from time to time where I was, and being (as is
usual with the People of England in their intercourse with strangers)
cursed or laughed at for a fool or a bumpkin. Half a dozen times I felt
that some rogue was trying my pocket; but I knew I had no money to be
robbed of, and kept my kerchief in my hat; only the bare endeavour made
me mad, and the next time one of my gentleman nick-skins made a dive
into my pouch, I turned round and hit him a crack over the head with a
short knobbed-stick I carried, which, I warrant, made him repent of his
Temerity.
I had gotten into St. James's Park about four o'clock in the afternoon,
and was walking very moodily by the side of the long water trench called
Rosamond's Pond, when at once a desire seized hold of me to behold the
Tower of London. Whether in my fantastic Imagination I deemed that I
might find Tower Hill paved with gold, or pick up some Profitable
Acquaintance there, it is fruitless as this distance of time to inquire.
But I must needs see the Tower, and was as eager for a view of that
famous Fortress as though I had been the veriest holiday-making and
sight-seeing Country Cousin. I made my way into the Birdcage walk, and
so through Palace-yard down to the stairs at the foot of where they were
driving the first piles of that great structure which is now called
Westminster Bridge. Here a Waterman agreed to take me to the Tower
stairs for a shilling, which was not above thrice his legal fare, but
yokels and simpletons are common prey in this great village of London. I
observed more than once as he rowed me down stream that we were followed
by a heavy wherry, manned by stout, smart fellows in frocks of blue
duck, who kept stroke remarkably well together, and whose coxswain eyed
me very narrowly. As we were shooting one of the narrow arches of London
Bridge--(then covered with shops and houses, with barbicans, and
traitors' heads spiked upon 'em at each end, and I have heard old people
say that many a time they have fished for perch and grayling standing on
the starlings of the Bridge)--this wherry fouled our craft, and my
waterman burst into a volley of horrible ribald abuse, till he who was
coxswain among the blue-frocked gentry spake some words to him in a low
voice, at which he touched his cap, and became quite Meek and Humble. I
caught him eyeing me, quite as narrowly as the steersman of the wherry
had done, and when I asked him what ailed him, he stuck his Tongue in
his cheek and grinned audaciously.
"Who were those rough fellows in the wherry, yonder, that fouled us?" I
asked.
"Bluebottles," says he, with another grin.
"What d'ye mean, fellow?" I continued.
"Well, fresh-water fishermen, if you like," he went on, "that bait their
hooks with salt worms. Will you please pay me my fare now, Master, since
I am a Fellow forsooth, and Murphy's Murrain to you?"
What Murphy's Murrain was--except some term of waterside sculduddrey I
did not know--but I paid the knave his shilling, whereupon he very
importunately craved another sixpence to drink my health, saying that it
might be a very long time before he saw me again. Now I happened only to
have one and fourpence left in the world, and suspecting that I had
already overpaid him, I resisted further extortion, upon which he became
more and more clamorous for money, and finding that I was as obstinate
as he, rested on his oars and declared that, burn him--with many other
execrations too unseemly to transcribe--he would not pull a stroke
further. This it seems was by no means an uncommon occurrence among the
dishonest waterside knaves of those days, and it afforded vast sport to
a mob of small craft that gathered round, and the people in which
covered me with ridicule and abuse, calling me a Thames Bilk, and
advising the waterman to hold me over the side of the boat by the scruff
of the neck and give me a Ducking. I was in a great Quandary, and knew
not what to do.
Meanwhile the heavy wherry, which had kept close in our offing, pulled
almost on board of us, and the coxswain hailed us to know what was the
matter.
"Here's a Holiday Tailor that would seek to stump a poor waterman of his
fare," quoth the false scoundrel who was striving to rob me.
"'Tis a base lie!" I cried out; "I gave him a shilling at Westminster
stairs to row me to the Tower wharf."
"Fare's only fourpence. Shame! shame!" cried one part of the people in
the small craft.
"He's a Bilk," yelled another part of 'em. "Duck him, Goodman Crabs,
duck him."
"Stop," cries the coxswain of the wherry, standing up. "It _is_ a shame.
The poor fellow shan't be put upon. Here, young man, step on board this,
and we'll land you at the Tower wharf for nothing; and here, waterman,
take this shilling and be d--d to you, and sheer off before you can cry
Poor John."
The wherry by this time had got so close on our quarter that, thanking
the blue-frocked gentlemen for their politeness, I was able to step on
board the wherry without any difficulty. My thief of a waterman took the
shilling which was flung to him, and again sticking his tongue in his
cheek, and grinning in a more unblushing manner than before, pulled
away. The crowd in the small craft set up a cheer, that had more of
derision than approbation in it, and I once more heard the cry of "Blue
Bottles."
These Blue Bottles, however, were as good as their word, for five
minutes afterwards I was landed safe and sound at the Tower wharf. I
thanked them all very heartily; but, as I had not enough money to treat
them all, made bold to confess the narrowness of my means to the
coxswain, begging that he, at least, would do me the honour to take a
mug of flip--which could be had, double allowance, for fourpence. He
clapped me, in reply, on the shoulder in the most friendly manner, and
said, roast him, that he would not see me put upon; that I was evidently
a lad of mettle and spirit, and that I should go with him to the
"Admiral Benbow," on Little Tower Hill, close by, where he would himself
stand treat for as many mugs of flip or Punch as ever I liked.
He would take no denial to his hospitable proposal, so that I
accompanied him to the "Admiral Benbow," a snuggish little hostelry,
about which some half a score more stout fellows in blue frocks were
lounging. But these I noticed had broad leather belts round their
waists, in which were stuck pistols, and to which hung cutlasses.
When we had made ourselves comfortable in the little back parlour of the
"Admiral Benbow" over a steaming jug and a Pipe of Tobacco, my companion
began to ask me a few questions, to which, with the ingenuous candour of
youth, I made full replies. I told him that I was a young man seeking my
fortune, but had as yet come only on very scurvy luck; that I had spent
all my money; that I had but recently come from foreign parts, and that,
in despite of finding honest employment, I had made up my mind to list
for a soldier that very night.
"Don't do that, boy?" cried my friend the coxswain. "Curse pipeclay and
red blanketing, and the life of a swaddy. The sea, the blue glorious
sea's the place for a bold heart like you."
I answered that I knew not enough of seamanship to take the place of an
officer, and that I considered the condition of a common sailor as too
base for one of my bringing up.
"Ay, ay! you shall be an officer in time, my hearty," answered the
Coxswain--"Lord High Admiral, for a certainty; but you must creep
through the hawse-holes first. There's nothing like half-a-dozen cruises
before the mast for taking the conceit out of a maple-faced
hobbledehoy."
Whether I was maple-faced or not, I did not stay to argue; but there was
something about the mahogany face of the coxswain that misliked me much.
Now that I inspected him closely I recognised in him something of that
mangonising or slave-dealing expression which is burnt in as with a
Red-hot Iron upon the countenances of all those whose trade is
kidnapping and man-stealing. So without more ado I rose to go, thanking
him for his treat, and saying that if I went to sea it should be at my
own pleasure and in my own way.
"Stop abit," he answered, rising with me, and putting his back against
the door--"not so fast, my hearty! King George doesn't allow likely
young blades to slip through his fingers in this fashion. As you're in
such a deuce of a hurry, I think we'd better see the Midshipmite."
I measured him with my eye, but at once gave up all thoughts of
mastering him if I attempted violence in leaving the room. He was taller
than I, broader across the chest, older, his limbs better knit, and in
every way the more powerful. He too, I saw, was taking stock of me, and
marking from my Frame and my Mien that, although young, I was likely to
prove an Ugly Customer, he outs with a pistol from under his jerkin, and
holds it to my head with one hand, while with the other he blows a smart
call upon a silver whistle suspended by a lanyard round his neck.
In a moment the room was full of blue-frocked ruffians; a dozen pistols
were levelled at my head, a dozen cutlasses drawn menacingly against me.
Before I knew where I was I was tripped up, knocked down from behind, a
gag forced into my mouth, and a pair of handcuffs slipped on to my
wrists.
"No offence, shipmate," said a big fellow with black whiskers, as he
knelt on my chest and screwed the manacles on so tightly that I gave a
scream of pain. "We always begin in this here way--we crimps our cod
before we cooks it. To-morrow morning, when you've had your grog, you'll
be as gentle as a lamb, and after your first cruise you'll be as ready
as ere a one of us to come cub-hunting."
Upon this there entered the room he whom the coxswain had spoken of as
the Midshipmite, and who I rightly conjectured to be in authority over
these dare-devils. He was a young man wearing his own hair, which was
bright red. His face was all covered with pimples, and his mouth was
harelipped from a sword cut. He had canvas bags and grey ribbed hose
like a common sailor, but his hat was bound with a scrap of dirty gold
lace; he had a hanger at his side, and on his threadbare blue coat I
could see the King's button. Withal he was a very precise gentleman, and
would listen to nothing but facts. He bade his men remove the gag from
my mouth, and then addressed me.
"The fact of the matter is," says he, "that you've been kicking up a
devil of a row, and that you'd much better have gone quietly with the
coxswain."
"Why am I kidnapped? why have you put these footpad bracelets on me?" I
cried out, passionately.
"The fact of the matter is that we always do it to save time and
trouble," answered the Midshipmite--"Easy and quiet is the word at the
'Admiral Benbow.'"
"I'll have the law of you!" I exclaimed, in a rage.
"Exactly so," quoth the Midshipmite, quite politely. "May I ask if
you're a free-man of the City of London?"
"I am not."
"Precisely so. Are you a waterman, duly entered at your Hall, and all
arrears paid up, or an apprentice, carrying your indentures with you?"
"I am not, and I don't know what you mean."
"Then the fact of the matter is," said the Midshipmite, with a chuckle,
"that we've got the law of _you_. The King, God bless him, wants stout
and gallant hearts to man his fleet, and you're about the likeliest
young fellow I've seen this week; so the best thing you can do is to go
willingly on board the Tower Tender, of which I have the honour to be
second in command. If you won't, the fact of the matter is that we must
make you."
"But why should I go with you?" I urged.
"The fact of the matter is that you're Pressed," coolly answered the
Midshipmite, or midshipman, "and if you want to see the warrant, you may
ask Davy Jones for it, who keeps it under three seals in his locker to
prevent accidents."
Between listing for a soldier and being pressed for a sailor there was
not, I take it, much difference. Either way, the chance of a livelihood
offered itself. But I did not like this violent way of doing things, and
I told the midshipman so. He merely ordered his blue-frocks to take me
away. Then I attempted to burst my bonds, and bit, kicked, and
struggled, so that it took half-a-dozen men to drag me to the door.
"The fact of the matter is," remarked the midshipman, filling himself a
glass of punch, "that there's always this hullabaloo at the first going
off, and that you'd better give him One for peace and quietness."
Somebody immediately followed the officer's advice, and gave me One with
the butt end of a pistol, which nearly clove my skull in twain, and
certainly made me peaceable and quietness, for it stunned me.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.
JOHN DANGEROUS IS IN THE SERVICE OF KING GEORGE.
IT now becomes expedient for me to pass over no less than Fifteen Years
of my momentous Career. I am led to do this for divers cogent Reasons,
two of which I will forthwith lay before my Reader. For the first, let
me urge a Decent Prudence. It is not, Goodness knows, that I have any
thing to be ashamed of which should hinder me from giving a Full, True,
and Particular Account of all the Adventures that befell me in these
same fifteen Years, with the same Minute Particularity which I bestowed
upon my Unhappy Childhood, my varied Youth, and stormy Adolescence. I
did dwell, perhaps, with a fonder circumspection and more scrupulous
niceness upon those early days, inasmuch as the things we have first
known and suffered are always more vividly presented to our mind when we
strive to recall 'em, sitting as old men in the ingle-nook, than are the
events of complete manhood. Yet do I assure those who have been at the
pains to scan the chapters that have gone before, that it would be easy
for me to sit down with the Fidelity of a Ledger-Keeper all the things
that happened unto me from my eighteenth year, when I last bade them
leave, and the year 1747, when I had come to be three-and-thirty years
of age. I remember all: the Ups and Downs; the Crosses and the Runs of
Luck; the Fortunes and Misfortunes; the Good and the Bad Feasts I sat me
down to, during an ever-changing and Troublous Period. But, as I have
said, I have been moved thus to skip over a vast tract of time through
Prudence. There may have been certain items in my life upon which, now
that I am respectable and prosperous, I no more care to think of. There
may be whole pages, close-written and full of Stirring Matter, which I
have chosen to cancel; there may be occurrences treated of which it is
best, at this time of Day, to draw a Veil over. Finally, there may be
Great Personages still Living who would have just cause to be Offended
were I to tell all I know. The dead belong to all the World, and their
Bones are oft-times Dug up and made use of by those who in the Flesh
knew them not; but Famous Persons live to a very Great Age, and it is
sometimes scandalous to recount what adventures one has had with 'em in
the days of their hot and rash Youth. Had I permission to publish all I
am acquainted with, the very Hair upon your Head might stand up in
Amazement at some of the Matters I could relate:--how Mean and Base the
Great and Powerful might become; how utterly Despisable some of the most
Superb and Arrogant Creatures of this our Commonwealth might appear. But
I am prudent and Hold my Tongue.