association with me and the perilous life that he led and the horror of
the tragic finish has caused my mind to revert to an occasion which
nearly ended in the same way. We were caught by a heavy southerly gale
when off Candia. I carried sail until she nearly jumped her masts over
the side and herself out of water. We were then carrying the double
reefed topsails, reefed courses, inner jib, fore and main topmast
staysail, but the gale had so increased I gave orders to close-reef the
topsails and furl the mainsail. I thought it better to run no further
risk of dismasting her, as there was always a chance so long as they
were kept standing. All hands were up reefing the main topsail and I
had the wheel. I saw the black shadow of the mountains in the darkness
towering far above our heads, and we seemed to be amongst the broken
water to leeward. Every moment I expected her to strike and send us to
our doom. A simple thought of the last words of my mother about Jesus
and the sea flashed into my mind. I lashed the wheel for a moment or
two, went to the lee side, knelt down, and offered a fervent prayer to
Almighty God. I asked Him, if it was His will to save us, to do it in
His own way. I had no sooner taken hold of the wheel again than the
sails were caught aback by the wind veering and coming with the force
of a hurricane from the opposite direction. It rushed from the mountain
tops as from a funnel. I called to the men to come down and turn the
yards round smartly. I feared she would not back off quickly and that
she might get stern way on and knock the stern in and founder. My voice
failed to carry through the vast roar of the tempest, but the men knew
as well as I did that a critical moment had come, so they made their
way on deck; the yards were quickly trimmed and I ran her dead off the
land. We had not run more than eight to ten miles to the south amid a
mad conflict of broken sea that twisted and lashed at the vessel, when
all of a sudden the old wind came back and the struggle with the
opposing legions for mastery kept for a time the vessel in imminent
peril. Ultimately the southerly force prevailed, but fortunately it
blew itself out in a few hours, and we sailed into fine weather. Never
was a vessel so near destruction without being destroyed, and never
were human lives so near passing from time into eternity. Even the most
wayward of my crew attributed our safety to the pity of God, and they
thanked Him with the usual condescension that sailors adopt even
towards the Deity; but they never knew that I had addressed the
Almighty on their behalf and on my own; and that is really how it comes
that I am here to tell the tale."
V
SAILORS' OPINIONS OF NOTABLE PUBLIC MEN
The old-time sailors held strong opinions on law, i.e., sea law. The
merits of military and naval notables and prominent politicians came
within the limit of their strange discussions. Their naval heroes were
Charlie Napier, Collingwood, Nelson and Hardy. They loved Napier best
of all because he dared to be kind to his men and fight their battles
for them against the authorities; they were never quite sure whether to
give the weight of their respect on the side of Collingwood or Nelson;
but as the latter came to grief at Trafalgar, he was generally given
the benefit of any doubt as to superiority, and his devoted Hardy was
regarded as a strong backer of the redoubtable national hero. They
never got over the idea that poor Nelson was shot from the maintop by
some of his own men and not by the French sharpshooters. It was a point
that could never be cleared up to their satisfaction, hence the
impression that his sailors must have had some grudge against him was
very prevalent. His association with the King and Queen of the two
Sicilies was said to have gone a long way towards giving him a swelled
head, and in truth it was no mean distinction to be on terms of
friendship with a daughter of Maria Theresa and sister to Marie
Antoinette. They believed that Nelson had been influenced by the king
and queen when in a soft-headed mood to commit an act that can never be
obliterated. It was not only cruel and heartless, but it had close
resemblance to a crime. "They talk," said they, "of the murder by
Napoleon of their duke (Duke d'Enghien), but was it not as bad of
Nelson to have Commodore Francisco Caracciolo tried by a court martial
composed of the prisoner's enemies (Neapolitan officers) which sat only
two hours aboard the _Faudroyant_ and found him guilty of rebellion
against his sovereign?" He was ordered by Nelson to be hanged at the
fore yardarm of the _Minerva_. The sight of this poor man dangling at
the yardarm must have had a revolting impression on the minds of those
who witnessed it, and the aversion of the public who merely heard of it
must have been equally well founded. No wonder that it was handed down
to subsequent generations of seamen, and caused them to say, as I have
heard them that, "Nelson should have left the dirty, bloody business to
his pal the King of the Sicilies and kept his own hands clean." They
always spoke of his death as retribution. "If there isn't something in
it," said they, superstitiously, "why was Collingwood and Hardy not
hit?"
His relationship with Lady Hamilton was vigorously defended; both
voluble and comic reasons were poured forth in support of his action.
"Had she not on more than one occasion saved the fleet, and had she not
rendered great service to the British Government by her clever tongue
and alluring beauty, to say nothing of a supreme genius for intrigue?"
They believed that she had sacrificed everything to serve her country,
and now that Nelson had smashed the combined fleets of Spain and
France, and lost his life through it, this precious government had no
further need for her services, so threw her helpless on a callous,
canting world. They built a monument for him, and left his poor Emma,
whom he regarded in the light of a good spirit, to starve, though he
had begged that she should be provided for. That was the view the
sailors took of it. They believed that Nelson's infatuation for the
lady was his affair and hers, and nobody else's; but be that as it may,
there were very few seamen in the merchant service who did not warmly
sympathize with this poor, wretched, woman's fate. Nelson was often
made responsible for that which he might have nothing to do with, and
sailors have not spared him for his supposed share in instituting that
monstrous system of pressing honest, respectable men into a service
that reeked with the odour of disgraceful bureaucratic cruelty. I know
something of the legacy of prejudice which extended to bitter,
vindictive recollection of these days of brainless despots. I was
reared amid an eighteenth-century environment; both my grandfathers
fought at the Battle of the Nile; both were taken by force from their
vessels which were owned by themselves and their relatives. One of them
rose to the position of sailing-master; the other was a junior officer;
but such was the condition of this kidnapping service they could not
hope to rise higher. Both these men's lives were broken, as hundreds of
others' were. Was it any wonder that strong feelings of wrong were
handed down and indiscriminately fastened on to whosoever held any
prominent authority? That is why Nelson came in for his share of
condemnation. Personally, I think he was credited with more than he
deserved. I believe he thought so well of that branch of the service,
and his patriotism was so strong, that he wondered why there was any
necessity to institute press-gangs. I should imagine that he was often
amazed that men did not join in droves. But had he gone to the right
source for information he would soon have become disillusioned. These
gangs of ruffians preferred seamen as their prey, but they did not
discriminate very much. If they could not get a sailor they took
whatever came to hand--the bigger the better. And so, while on one of
their prowling expeditions, it came to pass that a gentleman called
Willie Carr was seized, and at the point of the bayonet or musket made
to embark aboard their boat. This person was a ship's blacksmith. His
strength was abnormal, and his feats of swimming were a marvel. He was
known to fame as the Hartley giant. Tradition has it that they put
Willie in the bow of the boat, and after they had got a little way on
their journey he asked them if they could all swim. This question
excited great laughter; but the giant coolly placed his hands on each
of the gunwales of the boat, set his knees in position, called out,
"then sink or swim, you B----," and with one mighty wrench he severed
both sides of planking from the stem. Willie swam ashore, and how many
of the men were said to be drowned I do not remember, though I have
given the main facts as I heard them scores of times in my boyhood
days. This story is told by Mr Soulsby in his excellent little history
of Blyth.
Their military champions were: the great Emperor of the French ("Bonny"
as they familiarly called him). Next came "the martyr" Ney, and then
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, and the Prussian General,
Bluecher. The relative merits of these great men were discussed
sometimes with foaming partiality. Napoleon and Ney were their
favourites. Their wrath against the allied Powers was unappeasable. How
often have I heard them thunder out that Bonny would have wiped
Wellington and his myrmidons off the field but for the treachery of
Fouche, Talleyrand, and his own generals (Fouche in particular).
Wellington's prayer for "night or Bluecher" was always used in
mitigation of what might be called an unpatriotic opinion. I have
listened to the diatribes of these rugged critics who claimed for their
hero that he imbued his soldiers with a high sense of honour in
contrast to our barbarous disciplinary methods of flogging. The image
of the great man, and the part Wellington played in having him banished
to St Helena, never faded from their memories. They believed the Iron
Duke to be the instigator and encourager of a shabby trick. It was a
wonderful phenomenon that made these men talk so systematically of
their magical enemy, and yet they never lost an opportunity of showing
their national dislike for and superiority over the French people as a
whole. So strong was this instinct that it permeated British crews from
the captain to the cabin-boy. Of course there were at times violent
differences of opinion, but as a rule the Emperor was singularly
popular, and the aversion to his former subjects, especially civilians,
was never disguised. They showed frequent hostility towards
coal-heavers, dockers, sailors, fishermen, and sundry other grades of
workmen with whom they came in contact, but that is not to say they
were always successful in their attacks, though they invariably took
the initiative. In the old days the average British tar could not solve
the mystery as to what foreigners, and especially Frenchmen, were made
for; even at the present time they put on a lordly air when they come
in contact with people whom they regard as aliens. This attitude is
adopted independent of all reason, and becomes quite infectious. I must
have caught it early in life. I went to a French port on my first
voyage to sea, and although I was a mere child of twelve and a half
years, I became smitten with the forecastle belief that my country and
countrymen had suffered irreparable mischief at the hands of the French
nation. I therefore deemed it my duty to be avenged, so picked out a
French youth apparently my senior by some years, reminded him of
Trafalgar and Waterloo, and called him by the opprobrious name of
Johnny Crapo, the meaning of which I did not understand. I was promptly
made to run for my life before a sudden Napoleonic onslaught of about
half-a-dozen small boys, who had congregated to see their friend
demolish the avowed foe of their country.
In discussing the many phases of Napoleon, the sailor was never
perplexed in coming to conclusions as to the right and wrong of his
(Napoleon's) actions. Their quotations and manner of using them were at
times amazingly tempestuous and erratic. Captain Maitland, of the
_Bellerophon_, was generally believed to have behaved with becoming
generosity towards the dethroned monarch, but the question as to
whether he gave himself up voluntarily and without reservation, or, as
Napoleon maintained, that he was prevailed upon to become the guest of
England, and put himself under the protection of her laws, was a point
that occasioned great diversity of opinion, and I think it may be said
that Maitland's version in the majority of cases was thought to be
correct. Admiral Sir George Cockburn came in for a good deal of harsh
criticism for complaining about the Emperor rising from the table as
soon as coffee had been served, and the well-known reminder of Madame
Bertrand was quoted in a form that almost put the original beyond
recognition, and had it been correct would have justified the admiral
in putting the lady into solitary confinement for the remainder of the
passage, for using language to him that was not only coarse and
impolite, but unwarrantably seditious. Instead of this, Madame Bertrand
merely remarked with all the charm of a cultured courtier: "Do not
forget, admiral, that your guest is a man who has governed a large
portion of the world, and that kings once contended for the honour of
being admitted to his table." They had some misty notion that that
admiral was not always considerate to his guest, and disliked his
attentions to the officers and crew of the _Northumberland_, not one
of which it is said could resist the magical influence of his actions
and words. It was natural that the salient incidents of a voyage with
such a man should be passed on and handed down to later generations of
seamen.
The story of the passage of the line was an everlasting theme retailed
in order to justify the goodness of Napoleon. The boatswain represents
Neptune and becomes sovereign for a time. Neither rank nor position is
exempt from the customary shaving and baptism, but on this occasion
Neptune graciously respected the distinction of the exiles, and
reminded them that they had too often received the baptism of fire and
of glory to require additional attention from him. The Emperor
consented to have Neptune presented to him, and gave him through the
grand marshal five hundred napoleons in order that he and his court
might drink his health. Well might this generous gift bring forth wild
hurrahs and loud cries of "Long live the Emperor Napoleon." The amount
by common consent was handed over to the captain to be distributed when
the crew were discharged, but this did not prevent Neptune and a number
of his subjects intoxicating themselves, and it was only through the
interposition of the Emperor and his suite with the admiral that they
were saved from being cruelly flogged. "They may talk about this man as
they like," said one of the crew, "but I won't believe the bad they say
of him." His popularity with the sailors of the _Northumberland_ was
not created by merely seeing him sitting for hours day by day on the
gun which was named "The Emperor's." He became their hero now as
passionately as he had previously appeared to them as being the foe of
all that was humane. His little attentions and kindnesses, accompanied
by an irresistible smile, and the act of putting them through some form
of drill, endeared him to them long before they reached his lonely
rock. Then the story of Sir Hudson Lowe's treatment of him in so many
petty ways, such for instance as seizing a small bust of his son, the
King of Rome, which had been sent to the exiled monarch, made friends
for the Emperor in thousands; and not the least of them were the brave
fellows who had traversed the ocean with him, and whose souls were
filled with sympathy and horror at the crime that was being committed.
Their testimony was that no one could live in close contact with him
without instinctively realizing that he was a much maligned person. No
wonder that this impression was spread widely not only through the
whole navy but also throughout the whole mercantile marine. What a
blunder the whole savage, senseless business was!
But while the British sailors claimed the little corporal as their
idol, they did not think that even for political reasons the Emperor
had any right to divorce Josephine, though they thought he might have
reasons other than those commonly understood to have been engineered by
the arch-traitor Fouche, and ultimately agreed to by the Emperor. The
Empress, when she was plain Josephine, had the reputation of carrying
on violent flirtations with other gentlemen while her husband was in
Italy, and subsequently, when he was in Egypt swiftly forging his way
to fame and to his destiny. So that when Napoleon was accused of
cruelty in putting her from him, there were ever some champions ready
to palliate the act by putting her unfaithful conduct before their
opponents. But the Emperor's divorce of the little Creole was never
quite approved by his sailor admirers, more especially as they had a
strong dislike to Marie Louise, the Austrian arch-duchess who took the
place of the poor, wayward Josephine, and who forsook her imperial
husband in the first hour of his adversity to become the mistress of an
ugly Austrian count, named Neipperg, who was minus an eye. Subsequently
this man entered into a morganatic marriage with the gentle Marie, and
she bore to him several children who were declared to be legitimate,
and this happened notwithstanding the fact that the Emperor her husband
was still living in anguish under a tyranny and cruel despotism
instituted by the British oligarchy. This was the kind of anecdote that
filled the sailors with sympathy for the great man who in the decline
of his days was at the mercy of a lot of little men. Then they had
stories of how he could throw off the thought of his wretched position,
and enter into a frolic with Betsy Balcombe and her sister at the
Briars. He would play for hours with the two little girls, and also
with the other children that became attached to him. The smattering
knowledge and comic rawness of the discourses on this great personality
were always intensely attractive. Faith in the accuracy of their own
views was strong. Long before I was old enough to be allowed to take
part in the forecastle Napoleonic discussions I used to listen to them
with eager interest, and well remember the attention given to even a
wrongly-informed orator. The subject was always made fascinating by
serving up the tales in their own forecastle fashion. None of the other
military notables of Napoleon's time claimed their admiration or
devotion as he did; not even Wellington.
Their views on politics and politicians, and their mode of expressing
them, were extremely queer. The prominent statesmen they talked of most
were Fox, Pitt, Lord John Russell, Palmerston, Peel, Gladstone and
Disraeli; and apart from the fault they had to find with the latter as
a statesman, they believed him to be unwilling to legislate in their
interests, though even they didn't appear to have the ghost of an idea
as to how those interests were to be legislatively served. They knew
there was something the matter, that was all. They also had a strong
antipathy to Disraeli owing to his Hebrew origin. In fact, they
regarded the great Jew in the light of a foreigner, whose intrusion
into English politics was a humiliation to all British-born subjects.
The confusion of opinions as to the character and duties devolving on
members of Parliament was very embarrassing even to themselves, and the
vivacity with which they delivered orations to each other on the merits
or demerits of members was exquisitely droll. The rivalry between Fox
and Pitt was a subject that involved them in vehement chaos, just as
the rivalry between Disraeli and Gladstone did in later years. They had
some mystified idea that those political gentlemen were ever thirsting
for each others' blood. They had gathered from some gossipy source that
Mr Fox was a hopeless gambler, and that Pitt was exclusively
responsible for the Napoleonic wars, and that Palmerston was a
mischief-maker who set his impudence up to everybody, and his rashness
either ended in war or coming near to do so. It was the latter that was
accused in forecastle circles of bringing on that Crimean War which
caused so much suffering and loss of life both to sailors and soldiers.
I have heard Sir Robert Peel spoken of in words of vituperation for
having introduced "peelers," now known as "bobbies," to interfere, as
they said, with poor people's rights. Many of them were full of wrath
at his having repealed the Corn Laws. They had got some garbled notion,
which was passed down to later generations, that it would tend to spoil
their chances of getting employment and otherwise lower their wages.
This doctrine had been well thumped into them by some agency or other,
and it led to many a quarrel with the minority who held free trade
views. They were opposed to the introduction of Board of Trade
examinations for the purpose of obtaining certificates of competency,
which is another evidence of their undeveloped sense. And I have
actually known instances where exception was taken by common sailors to
the close scrutiny of Board of Trade surveyors into the defects of a
vessel they had long sailed in and had formed a strong regard for. The
Reform Bill did not appeal to them in the same way as it did to other
workmen. They had occasional opportunities of hearing that a great
noise was going on about household suffrage and the extension of the
franchise, but they had a very hazy conception of the meaning of the
terms. It is no exaggeration to say that the former was often spoken of
as having reference to the sufferings of somebody in the houses of the
people, and the latter was talked of as having some French connection!
They adhered to the idea of the nation being governed by the upper
classes, and yet they used to curse them with unrestrained fury for
their indifference to the needs of the common people. Gladstone was
very frequently in disfavour with them: for instance, they did not
altogether approve of the abolition of purchase in the army. It was
considered a gratuitous interference with a person's freewill. "Why,"
said they, "shouldn't a commission be purchased if a man wants to spend
his money in that way? It was no business of his!" Besides, their fears
were excited lest the army should become composed of low-bred wasters.
Their views on these particular questions were always very paradoxical
and very breezily expressed. How I used to listen and gape at the flow
of what I deemed gifted intelligence when there was a heated discussion
on. I did not understand it; indeed they did not understand it; but
they talked with a volubility and assurance that made deep impressions
on me and on them. The advent of Thomas Burt from the mine into the
political arena was not welcomed with a gush of enthusiasm by seamen.
They doubted the wisdom of a republican miner being allowed to enter a
legislature composed of aristocracy and landed gentry! The idea seemed
to have gripped their minds that this refined and gentle little man was
destined to inflict severe punishment on dukes, marquises and earls,
and in other ways disturb the British nation! Mr Burt was not long in
Parliament before he showed marked indications of wise statesmanship.
Men on both sides of the House soon learnt to respect and admire him.
He made it clear that he was not a mere class representative, and
during the whole time he has been in Parliament the sailors have had no
truer friend than he. I think they have long been satisfied of this
themselves.
These sturdy, commonplace fellows, taking them as a whole, knew no more
about politics than Tom Brown's horse; but, like many other simple,
ill-informed people, they had a calm belief in their unmeasured
knowledge which was void of all reason, and when they were thrown into
contact with shore people it was one of the funniest things in the
world to witness the lordly air they assumed in the initial stages of
acquaintanceship, and the humour of it was exhilarating when the period
for evaporation came, and they shone forth in all their artless
simplicity. I cannot pretend to portray or exactly reproduce the scene
of a sailor's political or any other controversy for that matter; I can
only hope to convey some idea of it; and the rest must be left to the
imagination of the reader.