Every Man Will Do His Duty (73 page)

During our final cruise in the bay, in the month of February, I had a very narrow escape. One afternoon, on a bitter cold day, we fell in with the wreck of a schooner abandoned by her crew. On going in the boat to examine her, I found her floating on her broadside, half full of water, her sails all blown away. On her deck were a few pieces of salt provisions, two trunks, and some other articles. By a rope, which hung over the side and was quite fagged out, we were led to conclude that her boat had gone down under her counter, and the crew had probably perished. A starved cat in her last agonies was stretched on the cabin floor. In the hold was a quantity of salt, and, floating in all directions, a number of broken fruit-boxes. About one hundred cases of oranges and lemons, and some bales of figs, were in good preservation. The flag of Oldenburg was in her rigging, and by her papers we judged she was from St. Ubes
[Setubal, Portugal].
I sent the boat back with two cases of oranges, advising the captain to hoist the cutter out, clear
her of all that was worth taking, and let her go. The boat returned with orders to endeavour to pump her out, and put her in sailing order, for which purpose I received a reinforcement of the boatswain and twelve men. Her pumps were hoisted on deck, cleared, and with copper strainers over their heels put down again, and placed in ballast-baskets. With these, and a well formed in the main hatchway for baling, we soon freed her, set her on her keel, and fitting her with some of our storm stay-sails, put a midshipman with a few men on board, took her in tow, and made sail for Scilly.

A heavy swell from a previous westerly gale got still higher as the wind freshened in the night. At daybreak I perceived her heeling very much to leeward, and I requested permission to go on board, to see how matters really were. I was desired to wait until after breakfast, when I reminded the captain of it again. Again procrastination was the order of the day. “When the lower deck was cleared I might go.” I felt uneasy; the breeze was freshening, and the sea rapidly getting up. About ten
A.M.
the jolly-boat was lowered, and with the boatswain and fourteen men I went on board. I immediately perceived she was settling fast in the water, and sent the men’s hammocks and bags with the midshipman, whom I desired to say that she could not swim long. The boat returned with orders to cast her off and leave her. Unluckily the stream cable, by which she had been towed, was so jammed with the strain, that some time was lost in obeying the order; at length we attempted to cut it with our knives, but, before this could be done, seeing her going down, I ordered every man into the boat, and was in the act of shoving off, when I found three of them missing.

I jumped on board again, and was urging them to lose no time, when she suddenly lurched to port, fell on her broadside, her mast heads in the water, and nearly sunk the boat, which had got entangled with her mainmast head and crosstrees. We meanwhile secured ourselves as well as we could in what had been the weather rigging, every moment expecting to share the fate of the boat and crew, which, if she went down, appeared inevitable. When the former at length got clear, I gave the boatswain the necessary orders for extricating us from our perilous situation; this was scarcely done, when she settled gradually for a few seconds, and then as quick as lightning sunk to rise no more. The world of waters closed over our heads; it was an awful moment. How far I was carried down, or how long under water, I do not know: when I emerged, I felt as if about to burst. My leather hat, forced down over my eyes by the pressure of the water, at first prevented me from seeing; and, when this was a little arranged, all I could perceive was an empty orange-case, which I ineffectually attempted to reach: clogged with a pair of heavy boots, and my winter dress saturated with water, I in vain struggled towards it—a mountain-sea was running,
which, just as I thought it within my reach, came and carried it further from me. At length I saw a glimpse of a hat waving, and immediately after, as the sea lifted, the boat, with the boatswain standing abaft. She was, however, so crowded, that they could scarcely keep her head to the sea; and, although only a few yards distant, I was so exhausted, that I could only just keep my head above water. My legs were beginning to sink; my sight was getting dim; at every breath I was swallowing the brine, and was suffering the last horrors of a protracted death by drowning, when my hand was seized by a marine in the bow of the boat, and I was saved. The carpenter’s mate and the captain of the top, the latter a good swimmer, were also saved, but a third companion in danger was seen no more. I was put to bed, and by proper treatment brought about again, but my health had received a severe shock, and I remained for some time languid and spiritless.

One morning at daylight, about ten days after, we perceived a large ship, apparently steering for Bourdeaux; we instantly gave chase, and in ten hours came up with, and took possession of her; she proved to be an American from Charlestown
[Charleston, South Carolina],
bound to Bourdeaux with cotton, cocoa, and rice; we sent her into Plymouth, and she turned up a noble prize. It is astonishing how this operated on my impaired health; I seemed suddenly to have taken a new lease of existence.

At length we were at peace with all the world, our exertions were no longer needed, we were ordered to Hamoaze and were paid off all standing, with scarce sufficient time, with the assistance of our acquaintance, to sweat out the fifty dozen of wine, presented to us by our liberal friends, the merchants of Nantes.

Scarcely was the pendant hauled down, when I received an appointment to the Y—brig of eighteen guns, fitting at Woolwich for the North Sea station, and I joined her in September 1815. Not being allowed to open a rendezvous for the entry of seamen, the greater part of my time was passed in the neighbourhood of Tower Hill, and the purlieus of Wapping, with now and then a trip to the Brickhelms, Epping Forest, and other places, whither our tars had retired to rusticate, and where, with the characteristic improvidence of real sailors, they were “spending like asses” that pay and prize-money which “they had earned like horses.” While the cash lasted, to say nothing of the general antipathy to the service, there was little inclination for employment. But, by dint of coaxing—for Jack, if humoured, is easily managed—and a liberal supply of “heavy wet,” I succeeded in getting the vessel tolerably well manned.

At the latter end of September, we sailed for Shields, where we remained
nearly four months to keep the colliers in order. During this interval, our men, taking advantage of the captain’s disinclination to punishment, became quite disorderly, and, availing themselves of our proximity to the shore, before we sailed, the greater part of them deserted. In consequence of this we returned to Sheerness, to complete our compliment; and I, once more enacting the part of Sergeant Kite, was sent up to London to enter men. This, as on a former occasion, cost me about thirty pounds in treating, and redeeming Jack’s traps “out of chancery,”
⁵
for which I never received a farthing’s compensation, while the officers of larger ships employed on this service had a liberal allowance. Except on the principle that “the weakest goes to the wall,” I know of no reason why this, as well as many other invidious distinctions made between large and small craft, should have place.

Once more manned, we sailed in April on a cruise to the North Sea, against the smugglers, and were not long before we sent some hundreds of tubs to the custom-house. Our captain, who had made but little prize-money during the war, hoped now to bring up the lee-way, or get promoted for working up the unfortunate contrabandiers; with this view we had procured at Dover, a sailing galley, about thirty-six feet long, by eight broad, built on the plan of some lieutenant of the impress at Folkstone, a complete coffin. The most arduous period of the war, when surrounded with enemies, and the strictest vigilance was necessary, was nothing to this harassing service. Day and night there was no rest for a soul on board; every floating thing was taken for a smuggler and chased, boarded, and submitted to the most rigorous search. I soon got sick of this sort of employment; and, the galley being equipped as a tender, I was very glad to get the command of her, receiving an order to cruise eight days off Flushing, and then join the ship at or off the Hock of Holland. With a midshipman, twelve seamen, and two marines, riflemen, I set out in search of adventures. I had been ordered “rigorously to blockade the port,” and could not help smiling on contrasting the present with my former service on the same spot in the P, seventy-four, when, in many a heavy gale, with three cables ahead, we had been pitching bows under on the seventeen fathom bank; West Cappel church or lighthouse dipping in the horizon, with seventeen sail of the line “blockading the Dutch fleet.” The day was fine when I quitted the brig, and I stood close in and reconnoitred my ground, anchoring in the evening on Steer Bank in eight fathoms, West Cappel in sight to the eastward. About two A.M. the wind got up, and soon freshening into a gale, the boat became very uneasy. I tried her in every way, but could not make her lay-to with-out shipping so much water that we could scarcely keep her free, all hands baling.

The weather became worse, and our situation alarming. I consulted with the quarter-master, and it was deemed necessary to bear up for shelter, but where? Dangerous sands lay between us and the shore, I did not know the channels, and the rain and sea prevented us from seeing the buoys. The lead was kept going, and a man was placed at the fore-mast head to look out for the Dumloo Channel; nought however was perceptible but the sea breaking in all directions. “One wide water all around us, all above but one black sky.”

I had a chart in my hand, but the wind and rain, which poured down in torrents, prevented me from using it. All depended upon a sharp look-out and good steerage. I had reason to fear I had missed the channel, and death appeared inevitable. All at once, to our great joy, however, a buoy is seen on the starboard bow; immediately after another Hurra! In two minutes more we are in smooth water between the banks, and shortly after anchored in the five-fathom channel close to the beach, with the north-west bastion, and one of the churches of Flushing in sight, congratulating each other on our narrow escape. Unbending the foresail, we spread it over the main-boom as a covering from the rain, made a fire in our hanging stove, and, splicing the main brace, in five minutes all our dangers were forgotten in our present security. The gale continued, the rain still poured down upon us in spite of the awning, which afforded but a partial shelter, but we huddled round our stove and beguiled the night with telling long “yarns.” Daylight brought us better weather; we returned to our cruising ground, and our term of service being expired, rejoined the ship to the great satisfaction of the captain and crew, who had been very apprehensive for our safety. We took several boats with their cargoes, but our success by no means inspired the same feeling that the capture of the enemies of our country had done. The poor fellows always told a piteous tale of their own, and the distress of their wives and families, who would now be ruined by their detention.

In the month of July I applied to be superseded; this was immediately complied with, and I found myself, for the first time in my life, on shore “Lord of myself,” and with sufficient of the sinews of war to carry it on for some time. Having seen the lions of London, I essayed the air of Cheltenham, then took a trip to Brighton, and hence crossed over to Paris, the
agrémens [agréments,
pleasures] of which detained me five months. The wounds the national sentiment had sustained by the reverses at Waterloo, and the occupation of la grande Cité, still fresh, were galled and kept open by the supercilious arrogance, the pride, and ostentation of many of our unbending countrymen, who, bringing with them all the deep-rooted prejudices springing from ignorance and conceit, which it has so long been the invidious policy of our oligarchy to foster among us, made no attempt to
conceal their own imagined superiority and the contempt in which they held every other nation. This, among a high-spirited people, blinded by similar mistaken prepossessions, could not but lead to frequent collision; and quarrels and duels (in which many of both parties fell) were the order of the day. For my own part, my English notions of men and things having been more than once revised by early travel and experience, any false ideas I might have formed of our neighbours were easily corrected. Those who, like the learned Smellfungus,
⁶
see every thing through the jaundiced or distorted medium of spleen, journey with a predetermination to be satisfied with nothing, make comparisons, and, for want of understanding, taste, or discrimination, find “nothing so good as at home,” will always do well to save the expenses of locomotion, by stopping at home and remaining contented within their own narrow circle, among the people and things which alone they are capable of appreciating, and not lowering their own or their country’s pretensions in the eyes of foreigners.

I passed a very agreeable time among this light-hearted, vivacious, and really good-tempered people. The only unpleasantness I experienced occurred at Havre, on my return. I was one day dining at Justan’s
table d’hote
in that town, when some gentlemen recently arrived by the diligence were discussing the circumstances of the battle of Waterloo, and the loss of so many of our officers on that sanguinary day This led to some remarks from an officer-like Frenchman, at the table in a military undress, who, as usual, gasconaded so vehemently on the superior skill of his countrymen in the use of the sword, at the same time contemning the deficiency of our officers in science, that I could not help correcting his notions, evidently preconceived in an ignorance at least of one side of the question, and endeavoured to show him that, in a thousand instances, our seamen, with no other training than that acquired on the forecastle at single stick (generally as an amusement), when wielding the ship’s cutlass on similar principles, somehow or other always contrived to drive their adversaries like sheep before them, whatever the science of the latter might be. As usual on such occasions, the argument waxed warm. Both, like