HIS ESCAPE FROM THE HOUSE, WITH VARIOUS ADVENTURES FOLLOWING.
He started at the funereal aspect of the room, into which, since he
last stood there, undertakers seemed to have stolen. The curtains of
the window were festooned with long weepers of crape. The four corners
of the red cloth on the round table were knotted with crape.
Knowing nothing of these mournful customs of the country, nevertheless,
Israel’s instinct whispered him that Squire Woodcock lived no more on
this earth. At once the whole three days’ mystery was made clear. But
what was now to be done? His friend must have died very suddenly; most
probably struck down in a fit, from which he never more rose. With him
had perished all knowledge of the fact that a stranger was immured in
the mansion. If discovered then, prowling here in the inmost privacies
of a gentleman’s abode, what would befall the wanderer, already not
unsuspected in the neighborhood of some underhand guilt as a fugitive?
If he adhered to the strict truth, what could he offer in his own
defence without convicting himself of acts which, by English tribunals,
would be accounted flagitious crimes? Unless, indeed, by involving the
memory of the deceased Squire Woodcock in his own self acknowledged
proceedings, so ungenerous a charge should result in an abhorrent
refusal to credit his extraordinary tale, whether as referring to
himself or another, and so throw him open to still more grievous
suspicions?
While wrapped in these dispiriting reveries, he heard a step not very
far off in the passage. It seemed approaching. Instantly he flew to the
jamb, which remained unclosed, and disappearing within, drew the stone
after him by the iron knob. Owing to his hurried violence the jamb
closed with a dull, dismal and singular noise. A shriek followed from
within the room. In a panic, Israel fled up the dark stairs, and near
the top, in his eagerness, stumbled and fell back to the last step with
a rolling din, which, reverberated by the arch overhead, smote through
and through the wall, dying away at last indistinctly, like low muffled
thunder among the clefts of deep hills. When raising himself instantly,
not seriously bruised by his fall, Israel instantly listened, the
echoing sounds of his descent were mingled with added shrieks from
within the room. They seemed some nervous female’s, alarmed by what
must have appeared to her supernatural, or at least unaccountable,
noises in the wall. Directly he heard other voices of alarm
undistinguishably commingled, and then they retreated together, and all
again was still.
Recovering from his first amazement, Israel revolved these occurrences.
“No creature now in the house knows of the cell,” thought he. “Some
woman, the housekeeper, perhaps, first entered the room alone. Just as
she entered the jamb closed. The sudden report made her shriek; then,
afterwards, the noise of my fall prolonging itself, added to her
fright, while her repeated shrieks brought every soul in the house to
her, who aghast at seeing her lying in a pale faint, it may be, like a
corpse, in a room hung with crape for a man just dead, they also
shrieked out, and then with blended lamentations they bore the fainting
person away. Now this will follow; no doubt it _has_ followed ere
now:—they believe that the woman saw or heard the spirit of Squire
Woodcock. Since I seem then to understand how all these strange events
have occurred, since I seem to know that they have plain common causes,
I begin to feel cool and calm again. Let me see. Yes. I have it. By
means of the idea of the ghost prevailing among the frightened
household, by that means I will this very night make good my escape. If
I can but lay hands on some of the late Squire’s clothing, if but a
coat and hat of his, I shall be certain to succeed. It is not too early
to begin now. They will hardly come back to the room in a hurry. I will
return to it and see what I can find to serve my purpose. It is the
Squire’s private closet, hence it is not unlikely that here some at
least of his clothing will be found.”
With these, thoughts, he cautiously sprung the iron under foot, peeped
in, and, seeing all clear, boldly re-entered the apartment. He went
straight to a high, narrow door in the opposite wall. The key was in
the lock. Opening the door, there hung several coats, small-clothes,
pairs of silk stockings, and hats of the deceased. With little
difficulty Israel selected from these the complete suit in which he had
last seen his once jovial friend. Carefully closing the door, and
carrying the suit with him, he was returning towards the chimney, when
he saw the Squire’s silver-headed cane leaning against a corner of the
wainscot. Taking this also, he stole back to his cell.
Slipping off his own clothing, he deliberately arrayed himself in the
borrowed raiment, silk small-clothes and all, then put on the cocked
hat, grasped the silver-headed cane in his right hand, and moving his
small shaving-glass slowly up and down before him, so as by piecemeal
to take in his whole figure, felt convinced that he would well pass for
Squire Woodcock’s genuine phantom. But after the first feeling of
self-satisfaction with his anticipated success had left him, it was not
without some superstitious embarrassment that Israel felt himself
encased in a dead man’s broadcloth; nay, in the very coat in which the
deceased had no doubt fallen down in his fit. By degrees he began to
feel almost as unreal and shadowy as the shade whose part he intended
to enact.
Waiting long and anxiously till darkness came, and then till he thought
it was fairly midnight, he stole back into the closet, and standing for
a moment uneasily in the middle of the floor, thinking over all the
risks he might run, he lingered till he felt himself resolute and calm.
Then groping for the door leading into the hall, put his hand on the
knob and turned it. But the door refused to budge. Was it locked? The
key was not in. Turning the knob once more, and holding it so, he
pressed firmly against the door. It did not move. More firmly still,
when suddenly it burst open with a loud crackling report. Being
cramped, it had stuck in the sill. Less than three seconds passed when,
as Israel was groping his way down the long wide hall towards the large
staircase at its opposite end, he heard confused hurrying noises from
the neighboring rooms, and in another instant several persons, mostly
in night-dresses, appeared at their chamber-doors, thrusting out
alarmed faces, lit by a lamp held by one of the number, a rather
elderly lady in widow’s weeds, who by her appearance seemed to have
just risen from a sleepless chair, instead of an oblivious couch.
Israel’s heart beat like a hammer; his face turned like a sheet. But
bracing himself, pulling his hat lower down over his eyes, settling his
head in the collar of his coat, he advanced along the defile of wildly
staring faces. He advanced with a slow and stately step, looked neither
to the right nor the left, but went solemnly forward on his now faintly
illuminated way, sounding his cane on the floor as he passed. The faces
in the doorways curdled his blood by their rooted looks. Glued to the
spot, they seemed incapable of motion. Each one was silent as he
advanced towards him or her, but as he left each individual, one after
another, behind, each in a frenzy shrieked out, “The Squire, the
Squire!” As he passed the lady in the widow’s weeds, she fell senseless
and crosswise before him. But forced to be immutable in his purpose,
Israel, solemnly stepping over her prostrate form, marched deliberately
on.
In a few minutes more he had reached the main door of the mansion, and
withdrawing the chain and bolt, stood in the open air. It was a bright
moonlight night. He struck slowly across the open grounds towards the
sunken fields beyond. When-midway across the grounds, he turned towards
the mansion, and saw three of the front windows filled with white
faces, gazing in terror at the wonderful spectre. Soon descending a
slope, he disappeared from their view.
Presently he came to hilly land in meadow, whose grass having been
lately cut, now lay dotting the slope in cocks; a sinuous line of
creamy vapor meandered through the lowlands at the base of the hill;
while beyond was a dense grove of dwarfish trees, with here and there a
tall tapering dead trunk, peeled of the bark, and overpeering the rest.
The vapor wore the semblance of a deep stream of water, imperfectly
descried; the grove looked like some closely-clustering town on its
banks, lorded over by spires of churches.
The whole scene magically reproduced to our adventurer the aspect of
Bunker Hill, Charles River, and Boston town, on the well-remembered
night of the 16th of June. The same season; the same moon; the same
new-mown hay on the shaven sward; hay which was scraped together during
the night to help pack into the redoubt so hurriedly thrown up.
Acted on as if by enchantment, Israel sat down on one of the cocks, and
gave himself up to reverie. But, worn out by long loss of sleep, his
reveries would have soon merged into slumber’s still wilder dreams, had
he not rallied himself, and departed on his way, fearful of forgetting
himself in an emergency like the present. It now occurred to him that,
well as his disguise had served him in escaping from the mansion of
Squire Woodcock, that disguise might fatally endanger him if he should
be discovered in it abroad. He might pass for a ghost at night, and
among the relations and immediate friends of the gentleman deceased;
but by day, and among indifferent persons, he ran no small risk of
being apprehended for an entry-thief. He bitterly lamented his omission
in not pulling on the Squire’s clothes over his own, so that he might
now have reappeared in his former guise.
As meditating over this difficulty, he was passing along, suddenly he
saw a man in black standing right in his path, about fifty yards
distant, in a field of some growing barley or wheat. The gloomy
stranger was standing stock-still; one outstretched arm, with weird
intimation pointing towards the deceased Squire’s abode. To the
brooding soul of the now desolate Israel, so strange a sight roused a
supernatural suspicion. His conscience morbidly reproaching him for the
terrors he had bred in making his escape from the house, he seemed to
see in the fixed gesture of the stranger something more than humanly
significant. But somewhat of his intrepidity returned; he resolved to
test the apparition. Composing itself to the same deliberate
stateliness with which it had paced the hall, the phantom of Squire
Woodcock firmly, advanced its cane, and marched straight forward
towards the mysterious stranger.
As he neared him, Israel shrunk. The dark coat-sleeve flapped on the
bony skeleton of the unknown arm. The face was lost in a sort of
ghastly blank. It was no living man.
But mechanically continuing his course, Israel drew still nearer and
saw a scarecrow.
Not a little relieved by the discovery, our adventurer paused, more
particularly to survey so deceptive an object, which seemed to have
been constructed on the most efficient principles; probably by some
broken down wax figure costumer. It comprised the complete wardrobe of
a scarecrow, namely: a cocked hat, bunged; tattered coat; old velveteen
breeches; and long worsted stockings, full of holes; all stuffed very
nicely with straw, and skeletoned by a frame-work of poles. There was a
great flapped pocket to the coat—which seemed to have been some
laborer’s—standing invitingly opened. Putting his hands in, Israel drew
out the lid of an old tobacco-box, the broken bowl of a pipe, two rusty
nails, and a few kernels of wheat. This reminded him of the Squire’s
pockets. Trying them, he produced a handsome handkerchief, a
spectacle-case, with a purse containing some silver and gold, amounting
to a little more than five pounds. Such is the difference between the
contents of the pockets of scarecrows and the pockets of well-to-do
squires. Ere donning his present habiliments, Israel had not omitted to
withdraw his own money from his own coat, and put it in the pocket of
his own waistcoat, which he had not exchanged.
Looking upon the scarecrow more attentively, it struck him that,
miserable as its wardrobe was, nevertheless here was a chance for
getting rid of the unsuitable and perilous clothes of the Squire. No
other available opportunity might present itself for a time. Before he
encountered any living creature by daylight, another suit must somehow
be had. His exchange with the old ditcher, after his escape from the
inn near Portsmouth, had familiarized him with the most deplorable of
wardrobes. Well, too, he knew, and had experienced it, that for a man
desirous of avoiding notice, the more wretched the clothes, the better.
For who does not shun the scurvy wretch, Poverty, advancing in battered
hat and lamentable coat?
Without more ado, slipping off the Squire’s raiment, he donned the
scarecrow’s, after carefully shaking out the hay, which, from many
alternate soakings and bakings in rain and sun, had become quite broken
up, and would have been almost dust, were it not for the mildew which
damped it. But sufficient of this wretched old hay remained adhesive to
the inside of the breeches and coat-sleeves, to produce the most
irritating torment.
The grand moral question now came up, what to do with the purse. Would
it be dishonest under the circumstances to appropriate that purse?
Considering the whole matter, and not forgetting that he had not
received from the gentleman deceased the promised reward for his
services as courier, Israel concluded that he might justly use the
money for his own. To which opinion surely no charitable judge will
demur. Besides, what should he do with the purse, if not use it for his
own? It would have been insane to have returned it to the relations.
Such mysterious honesty would have but resulted in his arrest as a
rebel, or rascal. As for the Squire’s clothes, handkerchief, and
spectacle-case, they must be put out of sight with all dispatch. So,
going to a morass not remote, Israel sunk them deep down, and heaped
tufts of the rank sod upon them. Then returning to the field of corn,
sat down under the lee of a rock, about a hundred yards from where the
scarecrow had stood, thinking which way he now had best direct his
steps. But his late ramble coming after so long a deprivation of rest,
soon produced effects not so easy to be shaken off, as when reposing
upon the haycock. He felt less anxious too, since changing his apparel.
So before he was aware, he fell into deep sleep.
When he awoke, the sun was well up in the sky. Looking around he saw a
farm-laborer with a pitchfork coming at a distance into view, whose
steps seemed bent in a direction not far from the spot where he lay.
Immediately it struck our adventurer that this man must be familiar
with the scarecrow; perhaps had himself fashioned it. Should he miss it
then, he might make immediate search, and so discover the thief so
imprudently loitering upon the very field of his operations.
Waiting until the man momentarily disappeared in a little hollow,
Israel ran briskly to the identical spot where the scarecrow had stood,
where, standing stiffly erect, pulling the hat well over his face, and
thrusting out his arm, pointed steadfastly towards the Squire’s abode,
he awaited the event. Soon the man reappeared in sight, and marching
right on, paused not far from Israel, and gave him an one earnest look,
as if it were his daily wont to satisfy that all was right with the
scarecrow. No sooner was the man departed to a reasonable distance,
than, quitting his post, Israel struck across the fields towards
London. But he had not yet quite quitted the field when it occurred to
him to turn round and see if the man was completely out of sight, when,
to his consternation, he saw the man returning towards him, evidently
by his pace and gesture in unmixed amazement. The man must have turned
round to look before Israel had done so. Frozen to the ground, Israel
knew not what to do; but next moment it struck him that this very
motionlessness was the least hazardous plan in such a strait. Thrusting
out his arm again towards the house, once more he stood stock still,
and again awaited the event.
It so happened that this time, in pointing towards the house, Israel
unavoidably pointed towards the advancing man. Hoping that the
strangeness of this coincidence might, by operating on the man’s
superstition, incline him to beat an immediate retreat, Israel kept
cool as he might. But the man proved to be of a braver metal than
anticipated. In passing the spot where the scarecrow had stood, and
perceiving, beyond the possibility of mistake, that by, some
unaccountable agency it had suddenly removed itself to a distance,
instead of being, terrified at this verification of his worst
apprehensions, the man pushed on for Israel, apparently resolved to
sift this mystery to the bottom.
Seeing him now determinately coming, with pitchfork valiantly
presented, Israel, as a last means of practising on the fellow’s fears
of the supernatural, suddenly doubled up both fists, presenting them
savagely towards him at a distance of about twenty paces, at the same
time showing his teeth like a skull’s, and demoniacally rolling his
eyes. The man paused bewildered, looked all round him, looked at the
springing grain, then across at some trees, then up at the sky, and
satisfied at last by those observations that the world at large had not
undergone a miracle in the last fifteen minutes, resolutely resumed his
advance; the pitchfork, like a boarding-pike, now aimed full at the
breast of the object. Seeing all his stratagems vain, Israel now threw
himself into the original attitude of the scarecrow, and once again
stood immovable. Abating his pace by degrees almost to a mere creep,
the man at last came within three feet of him, and, pausing, gazed
amazed into Israel’s eyes. With a stern and terrible expression Israel
resolutely returned the glance, but otherwise remained like a statue,
hoping thus to stare his pursuer out of countenance. At last the man
slowly presented one prong of his fork towards Israel’s left eye.
Nearer and nearer the sharp point came, till no longer capable of
enduring such a test, Israel took to his heels with all speed, his
tattered coat-tails streaming behind him. With inveterate purpose the
man pursued. Darting blindly on, Israel, leaping a gate, suddenly found
himself in a field where some dozen laborers were at work, who
recognizing the scarecrow—an old acquaintance of theirs, as it would
seem—lifted all their hands as the astounding apparition swept by,
followed by the man with the pitchfork. Soon all joined in the chase,
but Israel proved to have better wind and bottom than any. Outstripping
the whole pack he finally shot out of their sight in an extensive park,
heavily timbered in one quarter. He never saw more of these people.
Loitering in the wood till nightfall, he then stole out and made the
best of his way towards the house of that good natured farmer in whose
corn-loft he had received his first message from Squire Woodcock.
Rousing this man up a little before midnight, he informed him somewhat
of his recent adventures, but carefully concealed his having been
employed as a secret courier, together with his escape from Squire
Woodcock’s. All he craved at present was a meal. The meal being over,
Israel offered to buy from the farmer his best suit of clothes, and
displayed the money on the spot.
“Where did you get so much money?” said his entertainer in a tone of
surprise; “your clothes here don’t look as if you had seen prosperous
times since you left me. Why, you look like a scarecrow.”
“That may well be,” replied Israel, very soberly. “But what do you say?
will you sell me your suit?—here’s the cash.”
“I don’t know about it,” said the farmer, in doubt; “let me look at the
money. Ha!—a silk purse come out of a beggars pocket!—Quit the house,
rascal, you’ve turned thief.”
Thinking that he could not swear to his having come by his money with
absolute honesty—since indeed the case was one for the most subtle
casuist—Israel knew not what to reply. This honest confusion confirmed
the farmer, who with many abusive epithets drove him into the road,
telling him that he might thank himself that he did not arrest him on
the spot.
In great dolor at this unhappy repulse, Israel trudged on in the
moonlight some three miles to the house of another friend, who also had
once succored him in extremity. This man proved a very sound sleeper.
Instead of succeeding in rousing him by his knocking, Israel but
succeeded in rousing his wife, a person not of the greatest amiability.
Raising the sash, and seeing so shocking a pauper before her, the woman
upbraided him with shameless impropriety in asking charity at dead of
night, in a dress so improper too. Looking down at his deplorable
velveteens, Israel discovered that his extensive travels had produced a
great rent in one loin of the rotten old breeches, through which a
whitish fragment protruded.
Remedying this oversight as well as he might, he again implored the
woman to wake her husband.
“That I shan’t!” said the woman, morosely. “Quit the premises, or I’ll
throw something on ye.”
With that she brought some earthenware to the window, and would have
fulfilled her threat, had not Israel prudently retreated some paces.
Here he entreated the woman to take mercy on his plight, and since she
would not waken her husband, at least throw to him (Israel) her
husband’s breeches, and he would leave the price of them, with his own
breeches to boot, on the sill of the door.
“You behold how sadly I need them,” said he; “for heaven’s sake
befriend me.”
“Quit the premises!” reiterated the woman.
“The breeches, the breeches! here is the money,” cried Israel, half
furious with anxiety.
“Saucy cur,” cried the woman, somehow misunderstanding him; “do you
cunningly taunt me with _wearing_ the breeches’? begone!”
Once more poor Israel decamped, and made for another friend. But here a
monstrous bull-dog, indignant that the peace of a quiet family should
be disturbed by so outrageous a tatterdemalion, flew at Israel’s
unfortunate coat, whose rotten skirts the brute tore completely off,
leaving the coat razeed to a spencer, which barely came down to the
wearer’s waist. In attempting to drive the monster away, Israel’s hat
fell off, upon which the dog pounced with the utmost fierceness, and
thrusting both paws into it, rammed out the crown and went snuffling
the wreck before him. Recovering the wretched hat, Israel again beat a
retreat, his wardrobe sorely the worse for his visits. Not only was his
coat a mere rag, but his breeches, clawed by the dog, were slashed into
yawning gaps, while his yellow hair waved over the top of the crownless
beaver, like a lonely tuft of heather on the highlands.
In this plight the morning discovered him dubiously skirmishing on the
outskirts of a village.
“Ah! what a true patriot gets for serving his country!” murmured
Israel. But soon thinking a little better of his case, and seeing yet
another house which had once furnished him with an asylum, he made bold
to advance to the door. Luckily he this time met the man himself, just
emerging from bed. At first the farmer did not recognize the fugitive,
but upon another look, seconded by Israel’s plaintive appeal, beckoned
him into the barn, where directly our adventurer told him all he
thought prudent to disclose of his story, ending by once more offering
to negotiate for breeches and coat. Having ere this emptied and thrown
away the purse which had played him so scurvy a trick with the first
farmer, he now produced three crown-pieces.
“Three crown-pieces in your pocket, and no crown to your hat!” said the
farmer.
“But I assure you, my friend,” rejoined Israel, “that a finer hat was
never worn, until that confounded bull-dog ruined it.”
“True,” said the farmer, “I forgot that part of your story. Well, I
have a tolerable coat and breeches which I will sell you for your
money.”
In ten minutes more Israel was equipped in a gray coat of coarse cloth,
not much improved by wear, and breeches to match. For half-a-crown more
he procured a highly respectable looking hat.
“Now, my kind friend,” said Israel, “can you tell me where Horne Tooke
and John Bridges live?”
Our adventurer thought it his best plan to seek out one or other of
those gentlemen, both to report proceedings and learn confirmatory
tidings concerning Squire Woodcock, touching whose fate he did not like
to inquire of others.
“Horne Tooke? What do you want with Horne Tooke,” said the farmer. “He
was Squire Woodcock’s friend, wasn’t he? The poor Squire! Who would
have thought he’d have gone off so suddenly. But apoplexy comes like a
bullet.”
“I was right,” thought Israel to himself. “But where does Horne Tooke
live?” he demanded again.
“He once lived in Brentford, and wore a cassock there. But I hear he’s
sold out his living, and gone in his surplice to study law in Lunnon.”
This was all news to Israel, who, from various amiable remarks he had
heard from Horne Tooke at the Squire’s, little dreamed he was an
ordained clergyman. Yet a good-natured English clergyman translated
Lucian; another, equally good-natured, wrote Tristam Shandy; and a
third, an ill-natured appreciator of good-natured Rabelais, died a
dean; not to speak of others. Thus ingenious and ingenuous are some of
the English clergy.
“You can’t tell me, then, where to find Horne Tooke?” said Israel, in
perplexity.
“You’ll find him, I suppose, in Lunnon.”
“What street and number?”
“Don’t know. Needle in a haystack.”
“Where does Mr. Bridges live?”
“Never heard of any Bridges, except Lunnon bridges, and one Molly
Bridges in Bridewell.”
So Israel departed; better clothed, but no wiser than before.
What to do next? He reckoned up his money, and concluded he had plenty
to carry him back to Doctor Franklin in Paris. Accordingly, taking a
turn to avoid the two nearest villages, he directed his steps towards
London, where, again taking the post-coach for Dover, he arrived on the
channel shore just in time to learn that the very coach in which he
rode brought the news to the authorities there that all intercourse
between the two nations was indefinitely suspended. The characteristic
taciturnity and formal stolidity of his fellow-travellers—all
Englishmen, mutually unacquainted with each other, and occupying
different positions in life—having prevented his sooner hearing the
tidings.
Here was another accumulation of misfortunes. All visions but those of
eventual imprisonment or starvation vanished from before the present
realities of poor Israel Potter. The Brentford gentleman had flattered
him with the prospect of receiving something very handsome for his
services as courier. That hope was no more. Doctor Franklin had
promised him his good offices in procuring him a passage home to
America. Quite out of the question now. The sage had likewise intimated
that he might possibly see him some way remunerated for his sufferings
in his country’s cause. An idea no longer to be harbored. Then Israel
recalled the mild man of wisdom’s words—“At the prospect of pleasure
never be elated; but without depression respect the omens of ill.” But
he found it as difficult now to comply, in all respects, with the last
section of the maxim, as before he had with the first.
While standing wrapped in afflictive reflections on the shore, gazing
towards the unattainable coast of France, a pleasant-looking cousinly
stranger, in seamen’s dress, accosted him, and, after some pleasant
conversation, very civilly invited him up a lane into a house of rather
secret entertainment. Pleased to be befriended in this his strait,
Israel yet looked inquisitively upon the man, not completely satisfied
with his good intentions. But the other, with good-humored violence,
hurried him up the lane into the inn, when, calling for some spirits,
he and Israel very affectionately drank to each other’s better health
and prosperity.
“Take another glass,” said the stranger, affably.
Israel, to drown his heavy-heartedness, complied. The liquor began to
take effect.
“Ever at sea?” said the stranger, lightly.
“Oh, yes; been a whaling.”
“Ah!” said the other, “happy to hear that, I assure you. Jim! Bill!”
And beckoning very quietly to two brawny fellows, in a trice Israel
found himself kidnapped into the naval service of the magnanimous old
gentleman of Kew Gardens—his Royal Majesty, George III.—“Hands off!”
said Israel, fiercely, as the two men pinioned him.
“Reglar game-cock,” said the cousinly-looking man. “I must get three
guineas for cribbing him. Pleasant voyage to ye, my friend,” and,
leaving Israel a prisoner, the crimp, buttoning his coat, sauntered
leisurely out of the inn.
“I’m no Englishman,” roared Israel, in a foam.
“Oh! that’s the old story,” grinned his jailers. “Come along. There’s
no Englishman in the English fleet. All foreigners. You may take their
own word for it.”
To be short, in less than a week Israel found himself at Portsmouth,
and, ere long, a foretopman in his Majesty’s ship of the line,
“Unprincipled,” scudding before the wind down channel, in company with
the “Undaunted,” and the “Unconquerable;” all three haughty Dons bound
to the East Indian waters as reinforcements to the fleet of Sir Edward
Hughs.
And now, we might shortly have to record our adventurer’s part in the
famous engagement off the coast of Coromandel, between Admiral
Suffrien’s fleet and the English squadron, were it not that fate
snatched him on the threshold of events, and, turning him short round
whither he had come, sent him back congenially to war against England;
instead of on her behalf. Thus repeatedly and rapidly were the fortunes
of our wanderer planted, torn up, transplanted, and dropped again,
hither and thither, according as the Supreme Disposer of sailors and
soldiers saw fit to appoint.