"Just like my own good sister," said I at the same time, and in a moment
I pictured to myself the happiness which would be mine, when perhaps in
that very room I might be introducing Madeline to my family. I forgot
that I was still a poor lieutenant--that the wealth I had so nearly
possessed, and had fought so hard to obtain, had gone to the bottom in
the old Leviathan--that I had saved but a few hundred pounds of
prize-money--that England and the American States were still actively
engaged in war--that the Atlantic still rolled between her and me, and
that her kindred would probably exert their influence to make her give
up all thoughts of one fighting on the side of their enemies. I was
young, and hope was bright, and difficulties and impediments were
speedily kicked away. Before another day Jane and I were talking away
as if my marriage with Madeline Carlyon was a settled thing. At last we
told our mother, dear old soul! She didn't see how it could be exactly,
but then that was her fault; and though she used to have some idea
formerly that the Americans were red, and wore leathern cloaks and
petticoats covered with beads and feathers, and painted their faces,
yet, as I assured her that Miss Carlyon was quite fair, and spoke
English like an English girl, she would be very glad to receive her as a
daughter, and for my sake love her very much. The toughest job was to
tell my father. I was half afraid how he would take the matter. He did
not scold me, or say I had been acting foolishly, but merely smiled and
remarked that he had heard of midshipmen falling in love before, and
that he had no doubt that Miss Carlyon was a very charming young lady;
but that when I brought her over as my wife he should be able to
pronounce a more decided opinion on the matter. There was, however, a
touch of irony in his tone which I did not altogether like. However, he
used after that to listen very patiently when we were all talking about
her, and, I flattered myself, began to take an interest in my project.
The days flew by very rapidly. I was invited out everywhere, and became
quite a lion, not only because I had been in so many engagements and
storms and dangers of all sorts, and had had so many hair-breadth
escapes, but more especially because I had actually seen and conversed
with General Washington. The young ladies, however, looked upon me as a
very insensible sort of a person, especially for a naval officer, and
could not in any way make me out. Of course, neither Jane nor my mother
and father said a word about Miss Carlyon, and so we let them wonder on
till I believe that I completely lost my character among them. Six
weeks thus passed rapidly away. The time thus spent was interesting to
me, but no events occurred of sufficient importance to describe to my
readers. My regular employment was to search the public papers for news
from America, to see how affairs were going in that country; and though
most naval officers would have been anxious for a continuance of the
war, my great wish was to discover signs that there was a probability of
its being brought to a conclusion.
Since I had known Captain Cook I had always taken great interest in his
adventures, and just now the sad news arrived of his death on the island
of Hawaii, one of a group of newly-discovered islands in the Pacific
Ocean called the Sandwich Islands. Four of his marines were killed at
the same time. At first the natives treated him and his people as
divinities, but on some misunderstanding they furiously set upon Captain
Cook, and killed him with their clubs as he was retreating to his boat.
The Resolution and Discovery proceeded on their voyage under the command
of Captain Clerke, but he soon after dying at sea, Mr King took command
of the expedition. Captain Clerke was a very gallant fellow. I knew
him well.
At last my leave was nearly up, and I had to set off to rejoin my ship,
allowing myself a few days to spend in London. Jane advised me to stop
at Bristol to visit our great-uncle, Sir Hurricane Tempest, but I
replied that I did not think the old gentleman would care about seeing
me, and I certainly should not find any pleasure in seeing him.
"You don't know," she answered, laughing; "he might take a fancy to you
and make you his heir. He has asked me to visit him, and I think I
will, some of these days."
"I hope that you will, Jane, dear," said I. "You are far more likely to
win an old man's heart than I am. I am as likely to become his heir as
Sultan of the Turks."
Jane still further urged the point, but I only laughed and went on to
London without stopping to see him.
On arriving in London, accompanied by Tom Rockets, I went to the house
of a relative of ours in Bloomsbury Square, one of the most fashionable
and elegant quarters of London. He and his wife were very grand people,
but they had a fancy for patronising celebrities small and great, and
having by some chance heard that I had seen a good deal of service, and
could talk about what I had seen, they begged I would come and see them,
and make their house my home. I took them at their word, though I think
they were somewhat astonished when Tom and I arrived in a coach with our
traps stored inside and out of it. They looked, at all events, as if I
had tumbled from the moon. However, I made myself perfectly at home,
and we soon became great friends. I was on the point of leaving them
when a letter reached me from Captain Luttrell, prolonging my leave, and
I found that I might have remained three weeks longer at home. When
they heard of it, they most kindly invited me to remain on with them. I
amused myself pretty well, after I had seen all the sights of London, by
wandering about and examining the outside, as it were, of the huge
metropolis. One of the places at which I found myself was the suburb of
Tyburn, to the north of Hyde Park. It was a considerable distance from
London itself, and well it might be, for here was the place of execution
of all ordinary malefactors. One day I was passing this spot when I saw
four carts approaching. In each of them were three persons sitting,
with their arms closely pinioned. On each side of the carts rode public
officers, the sheriffs, city marshals, the ordinary of Newgate, and
others. I asked a bystander where they were going and what was to be
done to them, for I did not know at the time that I was near Tyburn.
"Why, of course, they are all going to be hung," was his reply. "We are
pretty well accustomed to such sights about here."
"Are they all murderers?" I asked, thinking, perhaps, that they were a
gang of pirates.
"No--oh no!" said my friend. "They are mostly guilty of robbery,
though. You will hear what they have to say for themselves before they
are turned off; I will learn for you, if you have a curiosity to know."
He went away, and soon returned with a paper on which were written the
names of the malefactors and their crimes. One had stolen some wearing
apparel; another had robbed a gentleman of his watch on the highway; a
third had purloined some silks and ribbons from a shop, and so on. None
of the crimes, that I remember, were attended with violence, and most of
the criminals were mere lads, from seventeen to twenty years of age, and
only one or two above it. I remarked this to my companion.
"Yes," he observed. "The older ones are too knowing to be caught."
The poor lads seemed terribly agitated and cast down at their
approaching fate, and shed abundance of tears. One after the other was
led up to the fatal drop and cast off. I could not stop to see the end,
but hurried away. I had seen hundreds of my fellow-creatures die, but I
hoped that I might never again see any put to death as these were.
After this I went down to Chatham to see how the ship was getting on,
and then returned to London. I found the city in a complete state of
uproar and confusion. It was on a Friday, the 2nd of June, when Tom and
I made our way towards the Houses of Parliament, for I had heard that
Lord George Gordon was going with a large body of people to present a
protest against the repeal of any of the penal laws against the Roman
Catholics. I wanted to see the fun. There must have been twenty
thousand people at least, who arrived in three different bodies before
the Houses of Parliament. Here they behaved very orderly, and dispersed
after being addressed by some of the magistrates; but the mob in other
places broke out into all sorts of excesses, and as we went home we
found them busily employed in demolishing a Romish Chapel in Duke
Street, near Lincoln's Inn Fields. They hauled out all the ornaments,
and what they thought of no value they trampled under foot, but the rest
they made off with. Several houses, either belonging to Romanists, or
inhabited by persons supposed to be favourable to them, we saw
completely gutted. The same sort of work went on for several days. At
last I got so completely mixed up with one of the mobs that I could not
get free of them.
"Here, you look a likely man to lead us!" exclaimed a fellow standing
near me. "Where shall we go next?"
I did not answer him, but endeavoured to get away. This did not suit
him.
"What does the captain say?" he exclaimed.
"To Sir George Saville's, to Sir George Saville's!" cried some one.
"Hurrah for Sir George Saville's in Leicester Fields! He was the very
man who brought the Romish Bill into Parliament. Down with his house,
down with it!" shouted another fellow. "Lead on, captain--lead on!"
I at once saw that this was a trick that the real leader of the mob
might be screened. I was determined to escape or I might be ruined. I
told Tom to keep his eye on me, and to follow my movements. The mob
began to move on, destroying one or two houses on their way. We at last
passed the entrance to a narrow lane. Leaping aside, I darted down it.
Tom followed. None of the mob missed me. I had got some way along the
lane when a big, ill-favoured-looking fellow rushed out of a house with
a thick stick in his hand, evidently with the intention of joining the
rioters. Seeing a gentleman, and probably thinking I was a Romanist
escaping from the mob, he immediately turned on me and aimed a blow at
my head. I was just turning a corner, and he did not see Tom Rockets,
but Tom saw him, and with a stroke of his fist felled him to the ground.
Some other persons in the neighbouring houses saw the transaction, and
the fellow quickly recovering there was a hue and cry made after us, the
people rushing from their doors just as dogs are seen to run out from
their kennels, yelping and barking when a stranger cur passes through
the village.
As we were unarmed we could do nothing to defend ourselves, and had to
trust to our heels for safety. Our pursuers were very likely, I knew,
to tear us in pieces without asking any questions, and before we had
time to explain who we were. I never ran faster in my life. How we
were to escape them I could not tell. On we went: I sang out to Tom to
stick by me, for if I should lose him I was afraid he might never find
his way home again. We were distancing our pursuers. I made as many
turns as I could, so as to cause them to lose the scent; but there were
knowing fellows among them, and I conclude that they found as great an
interest in the chase as a foxhunter does when following the hounds. At
last I saw before me a large mob. There is safety in numbers, I thought
to myself, so I called to Tom to dash in among them.
"Hurrah! hurrah! have you caught the fellow?" I sang out.
"No, he's slipped out of his kennel, but we'll take care that he does
not burrow in it again," replied some of the people.
I guessed that they referred to the unfortunate inmate of the mansion
into which numbers of them were forcing their way, while pictures,
books, and pieces of furniture were being thrown out of the windows. I
pretended to be very eager to get into the house, but making my way
round on the opposite side, followed by Tom, we got free; and when I
looked back I saw that no one was following us. We now walked along as
composedly as we could, but it was not without difficulty that we found
our way into Bloomsbury Square. As we got there we saw a mob following
at our heels, and we naturally thought they were after us. We had to
run for it to reach my relative's house. On came the mob. One of the
finest houses in the square belonged to my Lord Mansfield. They rushed
towards it, and began thundering at the door. They soon broke it open,
and in they poured. In an instant the place became the scene of the
most dreadful havoc and destruction. Again did I see pictures, clothes,
books, furniture of the richest sorts, ruthlessly destroyed. I could
scarcely have supposed that the work could have been done so rapidly.
Then the most daring of the ruffians broke into the wine-cellar, and we
saw them coming out with bottles and jugs and glasses, and distributing
the rich liquor to the rabble outside.
What had become of my lord and his lady all this time we could not tell;
we had great fears that they had fallen victims to the blind fury of the
ignorant populace. I wanted to go out, but my relative would not let
me. What the drunken mob might next have done I do not know, when a
fresh party were seen entering the square; but they were a body of the
royal guards with a magistrate at their head. He boldly approached the
mob, and, halting the soldiers at no great distance from them, began to
read the Riot Act. He finished it without faltering, the mob continuing
as before their work of destruction. "Men," he shouted, "I have warned
you. I am going to give the order to the troops to fire if you do not
desist. Once again I warn you--your blood be on your own heads--Fire!"
No sooner was the fatal command given than the soldiers levelled their
muskets and let fly in among the rabble. Several fell; there were
shrieks and cries and curses; but the people were too eager in their
thirst for plunder to be driven off from the work they had in hand.
Again the order was given to fire; but the humane magistrate ordered the
troops to fire over the heads of the people. Some on this began to move
off, but others continued their task of plunder and destruction. No one
thought of attacking the soldiery. It showed the class of people
composing the rioters--the very scum of the populace. This last fire of
course did not produce any effect, and the mob began to proceed to
greater extremities, and set fire both to the out-houses and stables, as
also to the mansion itself, when they had possessed themselves of
everything they thought of value. Only after repeated volleys from the
soldiery were they driven off, and not till they had completed the work
of destruction they had commenced. This did not take them long, and at
last, several of their number having fallen, a panic seized them, and
away they went helter-skelter in every direction out of the square. I
could not resist the temptation of sallying out to see what they would
next do, in spite of the warnings of my relative, who advised me to keep
in the house. I laughed at the idea of there being any danger, and said
that Tom and I would very soon be back again.
The troops stood their ground in readiness to march in any direction to
which they might be sent. Some of the mob went off towards the east,
and I went after them, hearing that they were about to attack some of
the prisons, and having a fancy to see how they would proceed about the
undertaking. Tom and I had gone about half a mile or more, when, coming
along a street which crossed that we were in, I saw a coach driving
somewhat fast. Some of the rioters saw it also, and some seizing the
horses' heads, others proceeded to open the door, crying out that the
person inside was a papist escaping from justice.
"Papist! I am no papist," cried out an old gentleman from the interior;
"let my carriage proceed on, scoundrels, or I'll break some of your
heads for you."
This threat had no effect; indeed, from the appearance of the fellows I
had no doubt that their only object in attacking the carriage was for
the sake of robbing the inmate. I had this time taken care to come out
provided with a stout bludgeon and a sword. I knew pretty well the sort
of coward hearts to be found in that sort of gentry, so telling Tom what
I proposed doing, I sang out, "To the rescue! to the rescue!--off
scoundrels, off!" and, drawing my sword, I rushed furiously at them, as
if I had twenty stout fellows at my back. The desired effect was
produced. They did not stop to see who was coming, but took to their
heels and left the carriage free. I assisted back the old gentleman,
who had been dragged half out of it, and, shutting the door, told the
coachman to drive on as hard as he could go.
"Stop, stop! I want to know your name, young man, to thank you for your
bravery," exclaimed the old gentleman vehemently.
"Hurricane Hurry, at your service, sir, a lieutenant in his Majesty's
Navy," I answered. "I hail from Falmouth, sir--but I won't stop you,
sir, the mob are coming back, and to a certainty they won't let you off
as easily as before. Drive on, coachman, drive on for your life: I can
tackle them if they attack me."
The coachman needed no second warning, but, lashing on his horses, drove
furiously along the street, though the old gentleman put his head out of
the coach window and ordered him to stop, as he had another word to say
to me, and wanted me to get into the coach with him. I would gladly
have done as he desired, as there was no object in exposing myself and
Tom to the fury of the mob, and was running after the coach, when,
looking over my shoulder, I saw some of the ruffians so close on my
heels that I was obliged to turn round and defend myself, or I might
have received a knock on the head which would probably have quieted me
for ever. Knowing that there was nothing like a sudden onslaught, I
turned suddenly round, and, seconded by Tom, made so furious an
onslaught on the scoundrels that they one and all fled, as if a body of
dragoons were upon them. The old gentleman, who was still looking out
of the window, calling first to the coachman and then to me, must have
seen this last manoeuvre of mine.
After Tom and I had with loud shouts pursued the mob a little way, we
once more turned round and set off in order to overtake the coach. It
had, however, by that time got out of sight, and though we followed in
the direction I supposed it had gone, we did not again see it.
"Never mind," said I, "I should have liked to have known who the old
gentleman was; he looked like somebody of consequence. However, I am
very glad to have been of service to him."
After this adventure I began to reflect that it would be wiser to return
home. I could not tell what might next happen. The day was drawing to
a close. As we looked eastward, we saw the whole sky glowing with a
lurid glare, which I afterwards found was produced by the conflagration
of Newgate prison, which, after the mob had broken into and released all
the prisoners, they set on fire. My relative was very glad to see me
back safe, and on hearing of my adventures said that Tom and I were very
fortunate to have escaped with our lives, and positively prohibited our
again quitting the house. During the next day flames were seen bursting
forth in every direction. Most of the prisons, as also many private
houses, were broken open and burnt to the ground, and several hundred
people were shot by the military, while perhaps an equal number died
from drinking inordinately of spirits which they procured at the
distillers', into which they broke, or were burnt to death in the ruins
of the houses they set on fire. At length, however, so many troops,
regular and militia, poured into London, that the rioters were
completely overcome, and numerous arrests took place. Among others,
Lord George Gordon was apprehended and committed a prisoner to the
Tower.
Not long after this, I bade my kind friends in London good-bye, and
joined my ship at Chatham. I ought to have said that they were very
much interested in the account I gave them of the way I had rescued the
old gentleman in the coach. Who he could be they could not guess, but
they said that they would make inquiries, and if they could hear they
would let me know. I felt no little curiosity to obtain this
information; but day after day passed by and I heard nothing about the
matter. There was something in his look and in his eagerness to speak
to me which struck me forcibly at the time, and over and over again his
countenance recurred to me; but whether I had ever seen it before, or
why it made so deep an impression on me, I could not tell. There was
nothing very remarkable in saving an old gentleman from a mob, when mobs
were parading all parts of London, and undoubtedly many old gentlemen,
physicians and others, were driving about in their coaches, called out,
however unwillingly, by urgent business. Hearing nothing, my curiosity
at length died away, and I thought no more about the matter. I must
remark that Lord George Gordon was afterwards brought to trial, but
acquitted of having in any way participated in the riots and plundering
and destruction of property which had occurred, as also that any of the
disorders had occurred in consequence of his instigation or counsel. He
undoubtedly was influenced in his proceedings by a warm affection for
the Protestant faith, though it may be doubted whether he took the
wisest course to support it. He wished that the multitudes he assembled
should merely produce a moral effect on the Houses of Parliament. The
ruffians and robbers of London took the opportunity, on finding large
masses of people assembled, to create disturbances, and to incite the
more ignorant masses to commit all sorts of outrages in order that they
might have greater licence and opportunities of plunder. In this they
unhappily succeeded, and brought no small amount of opprobrium and
disgrace on the Protestant cause. I have now said, I think, enough
about my adventures on shore.
On the 16th of June Captain Luttrell was superseded in his command of
the Charon by Captain Thomas Symonds, whose son was appointed third
lieutenant of the ship. On the 1st of July we dropped down to
Sheerness, where we got in our guns. On the 12th we removed to the
Little Nore, where the purser, surgeon, lieutenant of marines, gunner
and carpenter quitted the ship. On the 24th we sailed from the Nore,
and on the 25th anchored in the Downs. We quitted it with a convoy on
the 28th, and arrived at Spithead the following morning. Here the first
lieutenant was superseded by Mr Thomas Edwards. On the 6th of August
we sailed from Spithead, and on the 7th anchored in Plymouth Sound.
Here we remained till the 9th, when we proceeded down channel. On the
10th we took our departure from the Lizard, and once more I bade adieu
to the British shore. I will not say that I quitted it with regret. I
dearly loved England, in spite of all her faults, but I believed that I
might on the other side of the Atlantic have a prospect of meeting with
Madeline Carlyon, or at all events of hearing of her, and that alone was
ample inducement to me gladly to encounter all the dangers and hardships
to which I might be exposed.
Many others have, I suppose, thought and felt and hoped as I did, and
many others have been disappointed.
"Hurrah for the West Indies--Spanish galleons--dark-eyed Creoles and
prize-money!" was the general toast on board the Charon.