_Being a Narrative of Certain Extraordinary Adventures that Befell
Barnaby True, Esquire, of the Town of New York, in the Year 1753._
I
It is not so easy to tell why discredit should be cast upon a man
because of something his grandfather may have done amiss, but the
world, which is never over-nice in its discrimination as to where to
lay the blame, is often pleased to make the innocent suffer instead of
the guilty.
Barnaby True was a good, honest boy, as boys go, but yet was he not
ever allowed altogether to forget that his grandfather had been that
very famous pirate, Captain William Brand, who, after so many
marvellous adventures (if one may believe the catchpenny stories and
ballads that were writ about him), was murdered in Jamaica by Captain
John Malyoe, the commander of his own consort, the _Adventure_ galley.
It hath never been denied, that ever I heard, that up to the time of
Captain Brand's being commissioned against the South Sea pirates, he
had always been esteemed as honest, reputable a sea-captain as could
be. When he started out upon that adventure it was with a ship, the
_Royal Sovereign_, fitted out by some of the most decent merchants of
New York. Governor Van Dam himself had subscribed to the adventure, and
himself had signed Captain Brand's commission. So, if the unfortunate
man went astray, he must have had great temptation to do so; many
others behaving no better when the opportunity offered in these
far-away seas, when so many rich purchases might very easily be taken and
no one the wiser.
To be sure those stories and ballads made our captain to be a most
wicked, profane wretch; and if he were, why God knows he suffered and
paid for it, for he laid his bones in Jamaica, and never saw his home
or his wife or his daughter after he had sailed away on the _Royal
Sovereign_ on that long, misfortunate voyage, leaving his family behind
him in New York to the care of strangers.
At the time when Captain Brand so met his fate in Port Royal Harbor he
had increased his flotilla to two vessels--the _Royal Sovereign_ (which
was the vessel that had been fitted out for him in New York, a fine
brigantine and a good sailer), and the _Adventure_ galley, which he had
captured somewhere in the South Seas. This latter vessel he placed in
command of a certain John Malyoe whom he had picked up no one knows
where--a young man of very good family in England, who had turned
red-handed pirate. This man, who took no more thought of a human life than
he would of a broom straw, was he who afterwards murdered Captain
Brand, as you shall presently hear.
With these two vessels, the _Royal Sovereign_ and the _Adventure_,
Captain Brand and Captain Malyoe swept the Mozambique Channel as clear
as a boatswain's whistle, and after three years of piracy, having
gained a great booty of gold and silver and pearls, sailed straight for
the Americas, making first the island of Jamaica and the harbor of Port
Royal, where they dropped anchor to wait for news from home.
But by this time the authorities had been so stirred up against our
pirates that it became necessary for them to hide their booty until
such time as they might make their peace with the Admiralty Courts at
home. So one night Captain Brand and Captain Malyoe, with two others of
the pirates, went ashore with two great chests of treasure, which they
buried somewhere on the banks of the Cobra River near the place where
the old Spanish fort had stood.
What happened after the treasure was thus buried no one may tell. 'Twas
said that Captain Brand and Captain Malyoe fell a-quarrelling and that
the upshot of the matter was that Captain Malyoe shot Captain Brand
through the head, and that the pirate who was with him served Captain
Brand's companion after the same fashion with a pistol bullet through
the body.
After that the two murderers returned to their vessel, the _Adventure_
galley, and sailed away, carrying the bloody secret of the buried
treasure with them.
[Illustration: "CAPTAIN MALYOE SHOT CAPTAIN BRAND THROUGH THE HEAD"]
But this double murder of Captain Brand and his companion happened, you
are to understand, some twenty years before the time of this story, and
while our hero was but one year old. So now to our present history.
It is a great pity that any one should have a grandfather who ended his
days in such a sort as this; but it was no fault of Barnaby True's, nor
could he have done anything to prevent it, seeing he was not even born
into the world at the time that his grandfather turned pirate, and that
he was only one year old when Captain Brand so met his death on the
Cobra River. Nevertheless, the boys with whom he went to school never
tired of calling him "Pirate," and would sometimes sing for his benefit
that famous catchpenny ballad beginning thus:
"Oh! my name was Captain Brand,
A-sailing,
And a-sailing;
Oh! my name was Captain Brand,
A-sailing free.
Oh! my name was Captain Brand,
And I sinned by sea and land,
For I broke God's just command,
A-sailing free."
'Twas a vile thing to sing at the grandson of so unfortunate a man, and
oftentimes Barnaby True would double up his little fists and would
fight his tormentors at great odds, and would sometimes go back home
with a bloody nose or a bruised eye to have his poor mother cry over
him and grieve for him.
Not that his days were all of teasing and torment, either; for if his
comrades did sometimes treat him so, why then there were other times
when he and they were as great friends as could be, and used to go
a-swimming together in the most amicable fashion where there was a bit of
sandy strand below the little bluff along the East River above Fort
George.
There was a clump of wide beech-trees at that place, with a fine shade
and a place to lay their clothes while they swam about, splashing with
their naked white bodies in the water. At these times Master Barnaby
would bawl as lustily and laugh as loud as though his grandfather had
been the most honest ship-chandler in the town, instead of a
bloody-handed pirate who had been murdered in his sins.
Ah! It is a fine thing to look back to the days when one was a boy!
Barnaby may remember how, often, when he and his companions were
paddling so in the water, the soldiers off duty would come up from the
fort and would maybe join them in the water, others, perhaps, standing
in their red coats on the shore, looking on and smoking their pipes of
tobacco.
Then there were other times when maybe the very next day after our hero
had fought with great valor with his fellows he would go a-rambling
with them up the Bouwerie Road with the utmost friendliness; perhaps to
help them steal cherries from some old Dutch farmer, forgetting in such
an adventure what a thief his own grandfather had been.
But to resume our story.
When Barnaby True was between sixteen and seventeen years old he was
taken into employment in the counting-house of his stepfather, Mr.
Roger Hartright, the well-known West Indian merchant, a most
respectable man and one of the kindest and best of friends that anybody
could have in the world.
This good gentleman had courted the favor of Barnaby's mother for a
long time before he had married her. Indeed, he had so courted her
before she had ever thought of marrying Jonathan True. But he not
venturing to ask her in marriage, and she being a brisk, handsome
woman, she chose the man who spoke out his mind, and so left the silent
lover out in the cold. But so soon as she was a widow and free again,
Mr. Hartright resumed his wooing, and so used to come down every
Tuesday and Friday evening to sit and talk with her. Among Barnaby
True's earliest memories was a recollection of the good, kind gentleman
sitting in old Captain Brand's double-nailed arm-chair, the sunlight
shining across his knees, over which he had spread a great red silk
handkerchief, while he sipped a dish of tea with a dash of rum in it.
He kept up this habit of visiting the Widow True for a long time before
he could fetch himself to the point of asking anything more particular
of her, and so Barnaby was nigh fourteen years old before Mr. Hartright
married her, and so became our hero's dear and honored foster-father.
It was the kindness of this good man that not only found a place for
Barnaby in the counting-house, but advanced him so fast that, against
our hero was twenty-one years old, he had made four voyages as
supercargo to the West Indies in Mr. Hartright's ship, the _Belle
Helen_, and soon after he was twenty-one undertook a fifth.
Nor was it in any such subordinate position as mere supercargo that he
sailed upon these adventures, but rather as the confidential agent of
Mr. Hartright, who, having no likelihood of children of his own, was
jealous to advance our hero to a position of trust and responsibility
in the counting-house, and so would have him know all the particulars
of the business and become more intimately acquainted with the
correspondents and agents throughout those parts of the West Indies
where the affairs of the house were most active. He would give to
Barnaby the best sort of letters of introduction, so that the
correspondents of Mr. Hartright throughout those parts, seeing how that
gentleman had adopted our hero's interests as his own, were always at
considerable pains to be very polite and obliging in showing every
attention to him.
Especially among these gentlemen throughout the West Indies may be
mentioned Mr. Ambrose Greenfield, a merchant of excellent standing who
lived at Kingston, Jamaica. This gentleman was very particular to do
all that he could to make our hero's stay in these parts as agreeable
and pleasant to him as might be. Mr. Greenfield is here spoken of with
a greater degree of particularity than others who might as well be
remarked upon, because, as the reader shall presently discover for
himself, it was through the offices of this good friend that our hero
first became acquainted, not only with that lady who afterwards figured
with such conspicuousness in his affairs, but also with a man who,
though graced with a title, was perhaps the greatest villain who ever
escaped a just fate upon the gallows.
So much for the history of Barnaby True up to the beginning of this
story, without which you shall hardly be able to understand the purport
of those most extraordinary adventures that afterwards befell him, nor
the logic of their consequence after they had occurred.