The Onyx corvette was commanded by Captain Patrick O’Loughlin. Charles
Pole, our hero’s comrade on board the Victory, was second lieutenant,
he having had the good fortune to get appointed, through the interest
of his uncle, who commanded the Colossus, seventy-four, rejoicing
in his heart at having the warm-hearted and gallant O’Loughlin as a
commander.
“Ah! Charley, my boy!” said the commander of the corvette, “if we had
only Sir Oscar with us.”
O’Loughlin would insist on always speaking of our hero by his title,
which was endeared to him by being that of his noble benefactor.
“Ah, my dear sir,” returned the Lieutenant, “if we had, what a glorious
cruise we should have!”
“Charley, my boy,” said the Captain, filling his glass, and passing
the bottle to the Lieutenant, for they were sitting in the cabin after
dinner; “if you _sir_ me when in private, I must put you under arrest
for mutiny, be the powers of war I must. I can’t stand it. I hate
it—I’m a rank revolutionist!”
“By Jove, that’s good!” laughed Charles Pole; “you a revolutionist!
Why you insist every day of your life on drinking Sir Oscar de Bracy’s
health, and that he must always be called ‘Sir Oscar.’ He would kick
against that himself if he were here.”
“He’s a trump; don’t bother me about titles, they are all very well
when they and the wearer fit, and he’s fit to be a duke. I wish I had
been on board the Diamond that unlucky day; I’d have had that cursed
Vengeance out, or been blown to atoms.”
“A sail to windward, sir,” said a curly-haired young midshipman,
popping his head into the cabin; “she appears a large ship.”
Up jumped the commander and his lieutenant, and the next moment they
were on deck.
They were then some five leagues off the coast of France, in a line
with Ushant. It was blowing strong from the east-northeast, with a good
deal of sea on. The Onyx was under single-reefed topsails, her top
gallant masts housed. It was after sunset, with every appearance of a
dirty night. Captain O’Loughlin directed his glass in the direction of
the strange sail, whose topsails could be seen with the naked eye. She
was coming up rapidly, under double-reefed topsails, and he pronounced
her to be a frigate, whether French or English he could not say, but
half an hour would decide. The corvette being on an enemy’s coast, and
cruising for the purpose of destroying privateers or taking prizes, she
was always ready for action.
The Onyx was noted for her splendid sailing qualities. She carried
sixteen long nine-pounders, and two eighteen-pound carronades in the
bridle ports, and two twelve-pound carronades on the quarter-deck
and forecastle. Her full complement of men and boys was one hundred
and forty-five; but having taken two prizes, her first lieutenant,
twenty-five men, and two midshipmen were absent. Shortly after, as
the stranger came nearer, signals were hoisted, which not being
answered, Captain O’Loughlin became convinced that she was an enemy,
and of vastly superior force. In fact, she soon convinced them,
notwithstanding the fast increasing gloom and the commencement of a
fog, that she was a thirty-two gun frigate, of double the tonnage of
the Onyx. As she came nearer, she hoisted French colours, and commenced
firing her bow-chasers.
Captain O’Loughlin, though quite justified in getting out of the way of
so formidable an antagonist, resolved, nevertheless, to annoy her as
much as possible. Having cut away the jolly boat to make room for four
stern chasers, the Onyx opened fire from them, as soon as the French
frigate got fairly within range, whose shot was flying over them. In a
few minutes the fog, which kept increasing, put an end to the combat
for the time.
“We must get the weather-gage of that fellow,” said Captain O’Loughlin
to his only lieutenant, Charles Pole, “in case we should meet again.”
Accordingly, the Onyx hauled her wind to the eastward. Towards seven
o’clock next morning she perceived her late antagonist close on her
larboard quarter; whilst the Commander, with a speaking trumpet,
hailed, ordering the corvette to strike.
To this a broadside was returned, and the next moment the frigate ran
her bowsprit right over the starboard bow of the corvette; but as the
wind was blowing very fresh, her jib-boom broke short off, and the
corvette forcing ahead, freed herself. Just then a sailor threw himself
from the French ship into the rigging of the Onyx, and probably in the
confusion would have been cut down, had he not shouted in a loud voice—
“Hold hard, my men! I am an Englishman!”
The denseness of the fog again separated the two ships, after
exchanging each a broadside, by which one man was killed and three
wounded on board the Onyx. Captain O’Loughlin altered his course, and
stood away to the westward to repair and splice his rigging, which was
desperately cut up.
“Where is the man who threw himself on board?” demanded Captain
O’Loughlin; “bring him aft.”
It was then broad daylight, though the fog still covered the whole
surface of the sea. In the course he was steering, Captain O’Loughlin
did not again expect to see his late antagonist, from whom he
considered he had a most fortunate escape, as she appeared full of men.
He was then walking the deck with Lieutenant Pole, when the seaman
who had leaped on board came upon the quarter-deck attended by the
quarter-master.
“This is the young man, sir,” said the latter, touching his hat; “he
refuses to give any explanation except to the captain of the ship.”
O’Loughlin looked at the stranger. He was a tall, slight, handsome
young man, of about two or three and twenty; his complexion evidently
tanned by a southern climate. There was a manly, independent manner in
his bearing and look as he stood calmly facing the commander of the
Onyx.
“Well, sir,” said Captain O’Loughlin, “what have you to say for
yourself? Were you a prisoner on board that ship—but, first of all,
what was her name?”
“The frigate Prudente, forty guns, and three hundred men,” replied the
young man.
“The deuce it was!” cried Captain O’Loughlin; “then we had a fortunate
escape. Pray what were you doing on board?”
“Waiting,” returned the young man, in a somewhat hasty tone, “for an
opportunity to get away. Sir,” he continued, advancing a step or two,
and with a flush on his cheek, “my story is too long to tell you here;
I am an Englishman and a gentleman; my name is Julian Arden, and—”
“What! Be the powers of war!” exclaimed O’Loughlin, springing forward,
and catching the surprised young man by the hand; “Julian Arden! the
lost brother of Mabel, and the son of the Duchesse de Coulancourt?”
“Oh, sir!” exclaimed the young man, trembling with emotion, and
clasping the captain’s hand with a grasp of intense feeling; “who are
you, who greet my ear with names engraved upon my heart—never forgotten
through years of suffering and degradation?” Julian Arden paused; his
eyes were filled with tears, and his voice failed him from agitation.
Patrick O’Loughlin wrung the young man’s hand, almost equally affected;
but, taking him by the arm, whilst Charles Pole and the quarter-master
Brown stood considerably surprised, he said—
“Come with me, Mr. Arden; you could not have stumbled upon a man who
can so much relieve your mind as I can. Thank God for this strange and
most unexpected meeting!”
Julian Arden felt a sensation of happiness he had not experienced for
years. He followed the commander into his cabin, and then the delighted
O’Loughlin—whose generous nature never felt so elated, or experienced
so much pleasure, as when rendering a service to a friend—again warmly
shook the young man by the hand, told him to consider himself as much
at home in the little Onyx as himself, and summoning the steward,
ordered him to place refreshments and wine on the table.
“I am so overpowered, Captain O’Loughlin, by your extreme kindness, and
so bewildered by hearing so suddenly intelligence that fills my heart
with rapture—for I judge, by your words and manner, that I may expect
to hear that my beloved mother and sister are both alive—whilst alas!
for years I have mourned them as dead.”
“It delights me,” said O’Loughlin, “to be able to positively assure
you that not only is your mother, Madame de Coulancourt, alive, but
she had been, when last we heard of her, restored to her estate of
Coulancourt, and was residing in Paris. Your sister, Mabel Arden, who
has grown into a most lovely girl, is in England, residing with a
French lady, a Madame Volney. There is, or will be, time enough for
mutual explanations this evening, provided we do not again encounter
the Prudente—an ugly customer for the little Onyx. I wish my consort
was up with us—we should then be able to manage our friend.”
“The Prudente is a very fine craft,” said Julian Arden, “but her
commander is one of the most vulgar tyrants that ever trod a deck.”
“Now, make yourself comfortable,” said the Commander, as the steward
placed the breakfast equipage on the table; for the day was yet young,
and neither the commander of the Onyx nor his officer had broken their
fast.
“You can have a suit of Charley Pole’s garments to put on, instead of
that dress. You are much of a height. Nature made me a head too tall,
like my poor friend Sir Oscar de Bracy—ah! that’s the man who saved
your sister Mabel, and carried her safe to England. Be the gods of war!
when you hear all, you will love him as I do.”
“Sir Oscar de Bracy!” repeated Julian Arden; “why, my mother’s brother
is a Sir Oscar de Bracy; surely you don’t mean him?”
“No, my dear fellow, I mean his son; however, eat your breakfast;
an empty stomach is a worse enemy than a forty-gun frigate; you may
beat off the one, but you must satisfy the other. Steward, call down
Lieutenant Pole, or the steak will be cold.”
Lieutenant Pole and Julian Arden were soon introduced to each other;
Charles Pole remembered all the circumstances of the affair at Toulon,
and William Thornton’s care of little Mabel Arden, so that, in fact,
Julian appeared as if he had come amongst old friends.
“Here’s the prog, Charley,” said the Captain, helping himself to a
plentiful allowance of a very tempting breakfast pie—for the Onyx was
capitally victualled, and had a first-rate cook. Her worthy captain,
if he loved fighting, also loved good cheer, and no commander could be
more beloved by his officers and crew than Patrick O’Loughlin.
Having finished breakfast, Lieutenant Pole took Julian Arden to his
cabin, to rig him out in a suit of his shore-going clothes, whilst
Captain O’Loughlin proceeded on deck. The wind had lulled considerably,
and the fog looked as if inclined to lift. The reefs were shaken out
of the topsails, and the course of the corvette altered, standing in
for the land, hoping to fall in with her consort. About mid-day the fog
cleared; they could distinguish the land about five leagues off, but no
sign of their late antagonist; and Captain O’Loughlin resolved to run
down along the coast, and cruise off the mouth of the Seine. During the
day nothing was seen worth giving chase to—a few fishing luggers, and
one or two small coasters, standing in for the land. Lieutenant Pole
and Julian Arden made their appearance on deck, the latter dressed in
the former’s garments. He was a remarkably handsome young man, slight,
but well made, and very active. As they walked the quarter-deck,
Captain O’Loughlin made the latter fully acquainted with all the
particulars he knew respecting Madame Coulancourt and Mabel, and of
the property and title of the Ethertons falling to Captain Arden, his
uncle, and then to his son Howard, and mentioned the cruel and unjust
conduct of the latter towards Mabel.
“You are now, in point of fact, Sir Julian Etherton,” added Captain
O’Loughlin, as the narrative was brought to a conclusion.
“Yes,” said the young man, his cheek flushing, as he thought of the
bitter treatment and contemptuous words of Sir Howard Etherton towards
his sister; “yes, and, please God, I will assert those rights; though
I may, till I can communicate with my mother, find some difficulty as
I am, as I now stand as nobody in the eyes of the law. Do you know,
Captain O’Loughlin, I have just been wishing you could land me on the
coast to the eastward of Havre; Coulancourt is within a league of the
sea. I remember every yard of the country. I may say I am almost a
Frenchman, in manner, and speaking the language, having passed almost
all my life in France and with Frenchmen. My mother is in Paris; and I
have no doubt of being able to make my way there without any suspicion
being attached to me.”[6]
“By Jove! it is not a bad idea,” said Captain O’Loughlin; “but your
dress, and the want of French money. Be the powers of war! we must
capture some fellow, and supply ourselves with the needful. It is
possible you might pick up some intelligence of my poor friend, Sir
Oscar, who, I fear, is a prisoner with Sir Sidney Smith; at all events,
we will run down along the coast, and see what is to be done.”
In the evening, after the watch was set, the weather fine, and the
wind blowing from the land, the officers of the Onyx were assembled
in the Captain’s cabin, enjoying a social bottle of wine, having been
invited by their Commander. When only Lieutenant Pole and Julian Arden
were left with the Captain, the latter gave them the following account
of his escape from the perils of the revolutionary bloodhounds, and his
adventures afterwards:—
“I was scarcely sixteen years of age,” began Julian Arden, “when the
demons let loose by the revolution at Lyons seized me one morning
in the saloon with my mother and sister. Mocking their cries and
lamentations, they tore me forcibly away, and dragging me through the
streets filled with a revolutionary rabble, who seemed to revel in the
miseries of the victims driven along with myself, they consigned me to
the tender mercies of Marachat, the notorious and ferocious head gaoler
of the prisons of Lyons.
“‘There,’ said my brutal conductors, giving me a blow that drove me on
my face with force, causing the blood to flow down my cheeks, ‘there’s
a spawn of an aristocrat for you, Marachat; treat him tenderly, and do
not make him too fat with kindness.’
“‘Ah! my brave garçon, be not afraid,’ returned the gaoler, ‘I will
tell my chef de cuisine to be sparing of his lard.’
“Ordering one of the turnkeys to take charge of me, I was hurried along
and thrust into a damp and dismal cell, in which were more than a
hundred and fifty unfortunate wretches, half starved, scantily clothed,
and many suffering from disease; robbing the guillotine, as our vile
gaoler said when any died, of its just dues. I was young, not too young
to think; but I will not pain you with minutely detailing my thoughts
or my sufferings. This frightful cell was not more than thirty-five
feet long and ten broad, and so feebly lighted from above from a slit
in the wall, that until well accustomed to the place I could scarcely
see. After some eight or ten days’ incarceration, three of our number
died, and for four days their bodies were left by those accursed
wretches before they were removed. One day I was made to approach the
wretch Marachat; a gaoler held a lantern till its light fell upon my
features.
“‘Ah!’ said the savage, ‘I see my cook takes care you shall not grow
too fat. I have to tell you that your friend, Collet d’Herbois, has
taken care of your worthy mother and sister; the glorious guillotine
has cut their dainty heads off!’
“I shrieked in agony, and maddened, flew at my gaoler, but, with a blow
of the heavy keys he carried, he struck me bleeding to the ground. Oh,
what I suffered! when a kind old man, one of the prisoners, restored
me to life and sense by bathing my face with his scanty allowance of
water.
“‘My poor boy! My poor boy!’ sobbed the old man, ‘just the age of my
poor Philip!’
“‘Surely, surely!’ I exclaimed, ‘they could not murder a child. My
loved sister was but a child!’
“‘Not murder a child!’ repeated the old man, hysterically; ‘Eh,
mon Dieu! babes in the arms are butchered by those fiends Herbois
and Ronsin. When they entered the city with two thousand of their
blood-stained followers, did not those two wretches stand gazing with
frightful exultation upon two hundred victims tied to trees, whom
cannons loaded with grape tore to pieces? and when their soldiers
bayoneted those that survived, they laughed madly with joy. Oh,
merciful God!’ exclaimed the old man, waving his skeleton arms wildly
in the air, ‘wilt thou permit such sin to triumph?’ The old man’s head
sank upon his breast.
“The next day he was relieved from his misery by death. The third
morning from that event half our number were led out, more dead than
alive, to be shot down like dogs, and for no earthly crime. Thirty
only, besides myself, remained five days afterwards, when one morning
Marachat entered the cell with some turnkeys.
“‘Come, my beauties!’ said this wretch, ‘let me have a look at you
all. I have cleared out my saloons, and they are getting tired of
shooting and bayoneting. More’s the pity. Let me see how many more of
you are fit to serve your country. Ah! my little aristocrat, have you
escaped the guillotine and shooting? Lucky fellow; come, I think you
will do for me, you’re young;’ and examining the rest, he selected
nine. ‘Morbleu, only ten of you fit to smell powder, after all my care.
Tonnerre de Dieu! I must discharge my chef de cuisine. There, garçons,
take those fellows into the yard; the rest of these miserable wretches
may be shot to-morrow, they are good for nothing else.’
“We were driven into a court-yard, there our arms were pinioned, and
shortly afterwards we were put into a covered cart. I must have been
blessed with a singularly strong constitution to have survived these
trials, under which I beheld strong men die. I did live certainly,
but I was greatly emaciated. Several other carts were filled with
wretched-looking objects; and as soon as they had their complement they
drove off, escorted by a troop of dragoons. We were taken to Brest, and
were intended to supply the loss the French fleet had sustained by the
guillotine. Many captains were beheaded, a rear-admiral imprisoned, and
numbers of seamen declared disaffected were executed.
“After being in the hospital a fortnight, where I was tolerably well
cared for, I was placed on board a guardship. There was a kind and
humane surgeon in the hospital, to whom I told my story, stating I was
an Englishman by birth.
“‘Mother and father English? Keep that to yourself, my lad,’ said the
surgeon; ‘as surely as you say you are English, you will be shot.’
“I found I was entered on the books as Julian Coulancourt. Brest at
that time was in a state of intense excitement. The tricolour was
formally adopted as the national flag, and the navy of Republican
France declared cleansed and regenerated. Though told by that villain
Marachat, the tool of Collet d’Herbois, that my beloved mother and
sister had perished, there were at times moments when I cheered myself
with the idea that they yet lived. I knew that Herbois was the fiendish
persecutor of my mother, and his tool Marachat might have spoken
falsely to torture me. Why I was not taken out and shot with the first
group is a mystery to me. However, the very idea that they might still
live enabled me to sustain the hardships I went through. Divine hope,
the sheet-anchor of man, held me up against despair.
“At this time it was decreed by the National Convention that the
captain or any officer of any ship-of-the-line carrying the Republican
flag, who should haul down the national flag to an enemy, however
superior, unless actually in danger of sinking, should be stigmatised
as a traitor, and suffer death. It was my lot to be placed on board
the seventy-four gun-ship Vengeance, then commanded by Noel François
Renaudin, one of the bravest and at the same time kindest-hearted
commanders then in the service of the Republic. I have good reason to
remember him and his gallant little son, then a mere child, scarcely
more than eleven years old.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Passports were not, at the period of the French Directory, framed
in the same manner as they were some years afterwards.