_ON BOARD THE KING'S SHIP_
The license of these pressgangs was so well known, and had been made
familiar to me by so many tales, that I had little hope from the first
of escaping their clutches. It is true they were only authorised to
impress seamen and fishermen, and that after proving their commission
before justices of the peace. But if report did not belie them, they
looked not too closely into a man's seamanship; but, if they found a
likely fellow, regarded all as fish which came into their net.
There was a lieutenant set above the fellows into whose hands I had
fallen, a tall, lantern-jawed, middle-aged man, with a most abominable
squint, and to him I addressed myself:
"Sir, I am not in a condition to be pressed by you, I am not a mariner
by calling; and, moreover, I am but just risen from a bed of
sickness."
He glanced over my dress before he answered, with something of a
smile. And, indeed, for a landsman, my costume was something out of
the way, for during the time since I had signed articles to Captain
Sims I had done my best to equip myself in true sea-dog fashion.
"You surprise me, young sir," the lieutenant said presently, when he
had surveyed me. "Your dress tallies but ill with your professions. If
you wore but a cutlass, and had a pistol to your belt, I could have
sworn you to be a smuggler at the least."
I hung my head at this, for it was my own vanity that had led me into
the mess. I could only fall back on my second excuse.
"Nevertheless, you are mistaken, sir," I said. "But however that may
be, be pleased to believe me when I tell you that I am scarce yet
recovered from several severe wounds."
"Indeed! I thought I had seen you coming out of yonder tavern at a
marvellous nimble gait. But my eyes are indifferent bad. Here, Master
Veale, what say you, does this young man look too sick for our
purpose? He says he is not recovered of his wounds."
The man he applied to, who was master of the ship's cutter, answered
him in the same jesting manner.
"I see nothing the matter with un, your honour. But perhaps we had
best carry un aboard and let the ship's doctor feel his pulse."
"I protest against this treatment," I said angrily. "In the name of
his Majesty, I say, unhandle me."
"Nay," quoth the lieutenant, "my hearing is as indifferent as my
eyesight, and I follow you not. Master Veale, if this youngster uses
any blasphemy or indecency let him be gagged till we come aboard
again."
This threat was enough to silence me, if I had not been otherwise
afraid to make a stir. For though I might have got some of the
passers-by to succour me, it being broad daylight, and these
impressments most unpopular among seafaring men, yet I foresaw that it
would quickly come to a question of who I was, and if my name once
became bruited abroad there were friends of my father's in the town
who would have made short work of sending me back to him. And sooner
than face the disgrace of this, as I considered it, I was willing to
try my luck with King George.
I therefore walked along with the pressgang, by the side of Master
Veale, who used me civilly enough when he found I had given up the
thoughts of resisting.
I was not a little amazed and delighted when we came out upon the
shore, and I caught sight of the _Talisman_, as she was called, riding
at her anchor. For she was a great line-of-battle ship, such as I had
never yet seen, carrying seventy-four guns upon her three decks, which
rose above the water like a huge wall, with the muzzles of the cannon
plainly visible through the opening of her portholes. This majestic
mass lay like a floating fortress upon the waves, and overhead her
three masts towered up into the very clouds, with their yards set in
order, and the ropes crossing from one to the other as intricate as a
spider's web. Last of all, from a flagstaff on the stern, brandished
the ensign of Great Britain, in defiance of her enemies. And my heart
swelled as I gazed upon it, and remembered how that banner had struck
terror into the Frenchmen, and Dutch, and Spaniards, in so many great
and memorable fights. Perhaps in that moment I had a foretaste of
those glorious triumphs of the British arms in which I was hereafter
to take a part.
As soon as we were brought on board this fine vessel--and by this time
we had pressed two or three others of the Yarmouth men--we were
presented to the captain for his inspection.
The captain, it was easy to perceive, was a man of great quality,
being, as I learned before long, a nephew of Lord Saxmundham, in
Suffolk, who at that time sat upon the Board of Admiralty. He had the
most elegant hands and feet of any man I ever saw, and was dressed
with great care, having long ruffles of the finest lace to his neck
and wrists, and a gold-hilted small-sword by his side. Even my cousin
Rupert beside him would have looked but a country boor.
He spoke to the lieutenant who had headed our party, drawling out his
words in a fashion absurd in a London fop, but disgusting in the
commander of a man-o'-war.
"Well, Mr. Griffiths, what sort of scum have you got hold of this
time? Faugh!" he continued, taking out a pocket napkin to wipe his
nose, "I declare the fellows all stink of herrings!"
This last was a downright lie, for I had never so much as stepped into
a fishing smack. And besides, the herring fishery was not yet begun.
"Sir, that is a fault which can soon be amended," returned the
lieutenant, biting his lip at the other's insolence. "For the rest,
they looked to me to be sturdy rascals enough, and, I doubt, will make
good seamen."
"Yes, looked to you, my good sir; but then, you know, your sight is
none of the best," sneered the captain, between whom and his officer
there appeared to be some jealousy.
Mr. Griffiths, though he had jested at his infirmity in speaking to
me, writhed under this allusion to it from another. He gave his answer
with spirit.
"Captain Wilding, I have done what you ordered me in impressing these
men. If you don't think them serviceable I shall be happy to set them
ashore again."
The other waved his napkin between them as if he would have brushed
away a fly.
"There, there, my worthy man, that is quite enough! I have seen the
tarry scoundrels, and as long as they have not the smallpox, I am
content. Bestow them as you please."
Thereupon we were led into the fore part of the ship, to be rated
according to our several abilities. And it fell out luckily for me,
for the lieutenant, when he discovered that I had had some education,
and could cast accounts--a business of which he plainly knew
nothing--informed me that he believed the purser stood in need of an
assistant, and offered to recommend me to him. This kindness on his
part I gladly closed with, not that I liked the duty better than the
common service of a ship, but because I guessed that I should thereby
be delivered from the molestations of the crew, there being no greater
pleasure to the vulgar of every profession than to rough-handle and
abuse those who come newly amongst them. And herein, as it turned out,
I had judged rightly, and for so long as I remained upon that ship I
suffered no ill-usage, except at the hands of my superiors.
But before this was settled I had a favour to ask of the worthy
lieutenant.
"One thing I must bargain for, with your leave, Lieutenant Griffiths,"
I said to him, speaking boldly, as I discerned him to be favourable to
me, "and that is, that if we should come to fighting with the enemy I
am to take part with the rest."
Mr. Griffiths laughed when he heard this demand.
"Why, there now," he cried, slapping his thigh, "if I couldn't have
sworn that you were one of the sort we wanted directly I clapped eyes
on you! Never fear, lad, you shall have your fill of fighting before
we go into dock again; for--I will tell you so much--we are under
orders to join Admiral Watson's fleet at the Nore, and a man with a
healthier stomach for such work never hoisted pennant on a
three-decker."
"I am glad, at all events, that we shall sail under a fighting
admiral," I responded saucily, "for, as for our captain----"
He stopped me at this point in a manner which terrified me, hurling a
string of curses at my head sufficient to have sunk me through the
deck.
"Hold your impertinent tongue!" he said in conclusion. "I would have
you know better than to pass remarks on your officers in my hearing. I
have had men put in irons for less. Follow me this minute to the
purser, and remember you are on board of one of his Majesty's ships,
and not a dirty herring smack."
By which I saw that, however this gentleman secretly despised his
commanding officer, he was too honourable to encourage the tattle of
his inferiors. In this no doubt he showed his breeding; for it was his
boast that he was sprung from one of the most ancient families in
Wales, where the gentry, he was wont to say, are of older lineage than
those of any other country in the world.
The purser proved to be a Scotchman, against which nation I had taken
a strong prejudice, on account of the wicked and unnatural support
given by them to the Chevalier in his bloody invasion of this kingdom,
and which prejudice has since been further confirmed in me by the late
mean and notorious conduct of Lord Bute. However, I found Mr.
Sanders, the purser, to be a respectable, religious man, having as
little love for Papists and Jacobites as I had myself. He received me
without much civility, but if he showed me no great favour neither did
he do me any injury, and in his accounts he cheated the crew as little
as any purser I ever heard of.
But not to linger over these matters, the only thing that befell me
during our voyage to the Nore was an extraordinary painful sickness
and retching, the anguish of which I could not have believed possible
to be borne, and which many times made me wish I had never quitted my
father's house. During the continuance of this malady I was rendered
quite unable to do my duty, to Mr. Sanders's no small discontent, and
was left to the sole companionship of an Irishman, one Michael
Sullivan, who became much attached to me, and soothed my sufferings by
every means in his power. He was a corporal of the Marines, and had
been three times promoted to be sergeant for his bravery in action,
and three times degraded again for drunkenness. Among his comrades he
was known as Irish Mick: and here I observed a peculiarity which I
have found amongst others of that nation; for though he would
continually be boasting of his country, and exalting the Irish race
above every other on the face of the earth, yet no sooner did any of
us remark on it to him that he was an Irishman than he straightway
fell into a violent passion, as if we had laid some insult upon him.
While I lay thus ill, as I have said, I lost all thoughts of the quest
I had meant to undertake for Marian, and would not have cared if the
ship had been bound for the infernal regions. But as soon as I was
recovered sufficiently to come on deck, whither I was very kindly
assisted by the Irishman, I grew exceedingly curious as to our
destination.
"Does any one know whither we are bound when we have joined the
Admiral's fleet?" I asked of Sullivan.
"Faith, and it's that same question I'm just after putting to the
boatswain's mate," he answered, "and the sorrow a soul on board that
knows any better than myself and yourself."
He pronounced his speech with a very rich brogue, which I shall no
more attempt to imitate than Captain Wilding's affectation. For indeed
there seem to be as many ways of pronouncing English as there are
people that speak it, and even in Norfolk itself I have met with
people who were not free from something like the Suffolk twang.
Seeing, I suppose, that I was disappointed by this answer, he leant
over and whispered in my ear--
"But it's my belief that King George is tired of the peace with the
French, and that he's sending us out to sink a few of their ships and
maybe bombard a town or two, just by way of letting them know that
we're ready to begin again."
I answered him impatiently, for my sickness had made me fretful.
"I believe you are a fool, Mick! It is well known that we never go to
war with the French unless they have first provoked us."
"Well, and sure haven't they provoked us enough by all their doings in
America and the Indies, not to mention the battle of Fontenoy, which
my own cousin Dennis helped them to win, more by token; though he got
a bullet in his left arm before the fighting begun, and had to content
himself with cheering while the others were at it."
"That will do," I said crossly, for I had heard of the battle of
Fontenoy and his cousin Dennis before, and it was a sore point between
us. Nor could I understand how a man who had the privilege of being
born a British subject, though liable to the proper severities of the
penal code against Papists, could traitorously desert his allegiance
and take service with our natural enemies.
However, I learned nothing further of our destination till we reached
the Nore, which we did about the end of the third day. Here we found
the rest of the squadron a-waiting us, and, the _Talisman_ being the
biggest ship in company, Admiral Watson immediately hauled down his
pennant off the _Victory_, of fifty guns, and came aboard of us.
I was leaning over the chains with Sullivan when the barge came
alongside, and could see a gentleman in the stern, sitting beside the
Admiral, in a military uniform, and having a very resolute and
commanding countenance.
"Who is that?" I asked.
"That? Why that's Charlie Watson," he replied, mistaking my meaning.
"It's myself that ought to know, for I sailed under him against the
Spaniards in '44, and a devil of a beating we gave them. Hooray!"
The cheer was taken up by the rest of the crew as they caught sight of
this gallant seaman, who had been made Rear-Admiral of the Blue in his
thirty-fifth year, and that without any influence at his back, but
solely on account of his splendid services in the Spanish wars. Mr.
Wilding, who had come up on deck to receive the Admiral, looked round
very sourly when he heard the cheer, but was ashamed to openly rebuke
us.
"Nay, but who is the other beside him," I went on to ask, being
strongly moved to interest by the sight of this gentleman. He appeared
to be by some years junior to Mr. Watson, who was now somewhat over
forty, but in spite of that, and of his treating the Admiral with much
ceremony, there was that in the air of this officer which made an
impression of authority, and which drew all eyes towards him as soon
as they were arrived upon the quarterdeck.
Sullivan professed himself as ignorant as to the stranger's identity
as I was myself, nor was I near enough to hear what passed when
Admiral Watson presented him to Mr. Wilding and the other officers.
Nevertheless, I could see that they received him with extraordinary
respect, even the captain seeming to brisk up and to put on a more
manly carriage under this gentleman's eye.
After giving one or two keen glances round the deck, which set us all
on the alert, the officer walked quickly forward, and the whole party
following him, they went below, immediately after which the signal for
weighing anchor was made to the squadron, and the crew was set to work
putting on all sail. In the midst of which business the report ran
round the ship, and reached me I know not from what lips, that the
passenger we had received on board was no other than the famous Mr.
Robert Clive, who had just been created a lieutenant-colonel by the
king, and whom we were carrying out to India to take up his government
of Fort St. David in the Carnatic.
At this time, though Mr. Clive had not yet reached to that height of
eminence which he afterwards attained, he was already known as one of
the bravest Englishmen of his time, and I had heard from many quarters
of his glorious exploits in the Indies. Although a civilian by
profession, when the settlements of the East India Company in Madras
were threatened with destruction by the French, he had exchanged his
pen for a sword, and, with a mere handful of English and Sepoys, had
captured and maintained the town of Arcot against a great army of the
French and their allies, after which he had beaten them in many
engagements, and in the end wrested the entire province of the
Carnatic from their hands. Since then he had been in England, where he
had stood for the Parliament, and, as it was thought, had given up all
intentions of returning to Indostan. Now the news that we had him on
board with us, and that he was on his way out, no doubt to drive the
last remains of the French power from that quarter of the world, came
on my ears like the summons of a trumpet, and went far to make me
content with the accident that had thrown me in the way of the
pressgang.
Mr. Griffiths, the lieutenant, who had continued to take some notice
of me, for which I was not ungrateful, chanced to come by while I was
full of these thoughts, and after confirming the news which I had
heard, fell to talking with me about our cruise.
"You see I did you a good turn by bringing you off from that muddy
fishing-hole," he was pleased to observe presently. "Now you are
likely to see some service, and, if luck serves, to bring home a good
share of prize-money."
By this time I had called to mind the sailing of the _Fair Maid_, and
the destination of that passenger of hers, to see whom once more I
would have given all the prize-money in the world.
"Are we like to make the Hooghley river, do you think, sir, when we
get out to the Indies?" I ventured to ask.
"That's as it may be," he answered, friendly enough. "All I can tell
you--for I believe this to be no secret--is that our first port in
those seas is Bombay. And further, since we cannot attack the French
till war breaks out, I may give you to know that our first business is
to root out certain pirates that infest that coast, and who have their
headquarters at the citadel of Gheriah, in the Morattoes' country."
I turned silent at this, remembering how I had heard the name of
Gheriah pronounced between my cousin and Mr. Sims in the parlour of
the "Three-decker", and feeling a dreadful apprehension that I was to
meet with the privateers (as they called themselves) in circumstances
which I had little desired.
* * * * *
Eleven months later--for we were beset by contrary winds all round the
continent of Africa, and put in at divers places on the way--we came
to an anchor in the harbour of Bombay. And there, riding at a mooring
under the very walls of the fort, the first vessel that I saw was the
_Fair Maid_ herself, looking as peaceful as if she had never fired a
gun.