LIFE IN JERSEY
THE judge had a fleet of ships of his own trading to nearly every corner of the globe, and in the months of September and October several vessels returned from the Newfoundland fishery, laden with codfish, whalebone, sperm oil, and seal, beaver, fox, and other skins. He made me a sort of deputy-clerk, and I had to note down every article with its number and weight. This I did so much to his satisfaction that at Christmas he actually gave me a sovereign as a present over and above my wages; and a few kind and complimentary words that he spoke made me feel as if I had suddenly grown an inch taller. Now I began to feel very pleased and glad I was born.
I began to think myself surpassingly rich, for I had three good suits of clothes, and six golden sovereigns in my pocket, and I thought of poor Jim the ploughman, who used to go to bed early on Saturday night to give his mother the opportunity to wash his one and only ragged shirt, so that he might have it clean on Sunday morning. All this time I had thought greatly about my poor mother, for she had not the slightest idea of what had become of me. I had been away from April until Christmas. I had never up to that time any idea of writing a letter as I had never been to a week-day school, but somehow or other I had acquired the art of writing. Of course I could not realize how very deep her grief must have been, being only a male. We as men love our children, but our love at best cannot be measured or weighed against the deep and constant love of a mother for her child. Now I thought how pleased she would be if I could only just put these six sovereigns into her hands. I thought whether I could manage to go for a week to see her, and return again; but on second thoughts I decided that would not do at all. So at last I wrote a letter, and told my mother that I was well and flourishing, but could not come to see her. If she would come and see me, however, I would send her the funds to pay her passage. She answered my letter by return of post to say that she would come, and so in the course of a few weeks I had the pleasure of meeting her on the pier, as she landed from the Atlantic. The judge gave me as many holidays as I wanted, and so I was able to show my mother about the Island.
The first thing that surprised her was to see the French women wheeling heavy barrows of luggage about, while their lords and masters were swelling about with their gold-laced caps, gingham blouses, patent leather boots, and the everlasting pipe in their mouths.
Mother would gaze at the women in the street, and say, "Well, I have worked hard in my time, but I am very glad I am not a Frenchwoman." She was not surprised, she said, that the Duke of Wellington was able with a handful of Englishmen to go over and thrash them Frenchmen on their own ground.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself during the five weeks mother stayed with me. Father had given her four weeks, but I must confess to playing a trick on her so that she could stay with me another week. On the day that she was to leave I went down to the steamship office to ascertain at what time the packet started, and found it was timed to start at nine o'clock in the evening. But my mother did not trust quite to that, for she went herself to learn the hour of departure, so it was no fault of her own that she was left behind. Well, we had high tea at six o'clock, and got a few friends together just to talk away the hours until nine o'clock. So while the ladies were thus employed, and helping my mother put her things together, I put the clock back three-quarters of an hour. No one noticed it, as the clock was in another room, and it turned out exactly as I desired. We went off, my mother and I, she shaking hands and bidding her friends good-bye and I laughing up my sleeve, knowing full well that the steam-packet would have left. When we arrived at the pier and she found it had gone without her she could scarcely believe her own senses. I knew that she had never been away from her home for twenty-four hours before, and I also knew that my father would be dreadfully vexed, especially as he would have to walk a long way to the Foxwell turnpike to meet the Weymouth coach. I ought to have been put in the stocks for practising such a joke, but somehow I felt it might be years before I should see her again.
I took her over to Elizabeth Castle, and she stood close by the great gun when it was fired off, bearing the deafening noise and the vibration under our feet like a real old soldier; and then we went to Gorée Castle and saw the oyster fishing; and she was very much amused to see the oysters as they lay in heaps upon their shells, and to watch the mice, that swarmed around trying to get a nibble from the open oysters, which would close up their shells upon them. Then I took her down to St. Clement's Bay, where her grandfather, a sergeant-major in one of the English regiments, landed when he was sent to the island to clear out the French. At the death of Major Peirson in the Royal Square the command fell upon my great-grandfather, who drove the French out of the town at the point of the bayonet literally into the sea, and at the time of our visit the guns which were used in that fight were stuck into the ground along the beach as a memorial of the occasion.
At the time of my sojourn in Jersey from 1839 to 1847 it contained twelve parishes. The capital town of St. Heliers contained six or seven churches besides two Roman Catholic chapels, and several Dissenting places of worship. There was a fine theatre, and a Court-house in the Royal Square. This house did duty as the House of Commons, Guildhall, assize hall, and I know not what besides. I have seen great doings there when a new judge was being elected. I have also seen prisoners tried for various offences, but whether the prisoners were French or English or of any other nation, the whole of the business was carried on in the French language. If the prisoner at the Bar did not happen to understand that language so much the worse for him. There was no such person as an interpreter, and I often heard sentence passed upon a prisoner who was quite ignorant of the nature of the trial or sentence until some kind friend who could speak both languages would tell him what he was to expect.
Mr. Charles Carus Wilson, a man over seven feet in height and a member of the English Bar, on one occasion stood up and told the judge that the prisoner had not had a fair trial, that he protested against it, and that he would report the circumstances to Lord Denman, the Lord Chief Justice. The judge thereupon told Mr. Wilson that he had insulted the court and must pay a penalty of £10, and apologise to the court for such an insult. "Indeed, I shall do neither one nor the other," replied Mr. Wilson. "Then," said the judge, "you must go to prison during Her Majesty's pleasure." "Very well," replied Mr. Wilson, "here's off to jail." So he walked through the streets in charge of a constable, his head and shoulders towering above the heads of the crowd which had gathered round. In prison they had to put two bedsteads and beds together to make it long enough for him to lie down.
Mr. Wilson, however, took it very quietly and courteously and reported the whole matter to Lord Denman, who sent over a writ of habeas corpus. Of course I wondered whatever that could be, but the steam packet arrived on a Sunday morning, covered with flags and banners, and thousands of people went down to see the sight and wondered what was going to happen next. I do not know if the judges knew the meaning of it, but they were nearly frightened out of their wits. Messengers were sent all over the island to call all the judges together. On Monday morning they met and consulted, and the result of their deliberations was that they went themselves and opened the prison doors and asked Mr. Wilson if he would please to walk out. Charles Carus Wilson, however, did not please to walk out. He merely replied, "You have sent me here for I know not what, and I do not feel disposed to be sent to prison and taken out again just as it suits your whims."
So the upshot of it all was that they had to pay Mr. Wilson's fare and their own to London, and all had to appear before a judge of the Queen's Bench, and the Jersey judges were fined £100 each, and the poor woman, whose trial and sentence of seven years' transportation for stealing a hen and chicken had caused all the trouble, was freed.
My employer had often told me that if I had been a few years older, he would have sent me to Newfoundland to superintend his business there. As I was too young to fill such a responsible position, he proposed that I should join the Anchor, a fine bark of 600 tons. The captain, he said, was a "very nice gentleman," and on that vessel I should have an opportunity of learning the art of navigation, so that eventually I should be able to take charge of any ship belonging to the merchant service. I thought this was exceedingly kind, especially as he said he would provide me with an outfit, and I then and there closed with the bargain. The Anchor was in the harbour and I went on board and assisted in putting in a stock of provisions, ready for the voyage to the Brazils. She was to sail in a fortnight, and I was rather glad that I was born, to fall in luck's way in the manner I had. There now appeared a prospect of my being placed in a position worth struggling for, which I knew was not usually the lot of one such as I. So I looked forward daily and hourly for the kind-hearted judge to supply me with the outfit. When, lo and behold, one morning, a day or two before the Anchor was ready to start, the judge told me that he intended to place Jim Drake in my place, because his father was dead, and he was a poor, friendless lad. "Just as if I were not a poor, friendless lad," thought I. I don't think I wished Jim Drake dead, but I did wish that he had never been born. That he should step in and just open his mouth and catch the blessing that was intended for me was almost more than I could bear.
So I had the mortification of seeing Jim Drake go off in the Anchor, and I felt more disgusted than I can tell, especially as the skipper was a "very nice gentleman." But I afterwards found out that after all this happened for the best. The judge offered me more than one good situation. He had several other vessels, besides the Anchor, but to all his offers I turned a deaf ear. If he had ill-used me, or kicked me and boxed my ears, I should have forgiven him; but he had deceived me, and for that offence I could not respect him. So I left him and sought other employment.
I found work in a large blacksmith's shop, and here I had to work very hard indeed. I stayed for a time, and then engaged myself to another merchant. I went on board his vessel, which was a small sloop trading between France and the Channel Islands and occasionally visiting some English port, Plymouth, Poole or Southampton. Now this old merchant used to go over to Havre or Granville, proceed a few miles into the country, buy cows at from £5 to £8 each, and send them on board the Medora, ordering them to be taken to St. Aubin, Jersey, while he himself went on before in the steam packet.
The Medora in due course ran into harbour, and there would be the old sinner waiting to order the cows to Poole, and at the next tide we would set sail for Poole, where he again would be waiting to meet us, and the cattle would be unloaded and he would take them to the market or drive them round to the farmers and sell them for pure Jersey cows, thereby gaining an enormous profit.
One Saturday afternoon when the wind was blowing a hurricane and the sea rolling and seething in all its majestic fury, as we were scudding along somewhere between Guernsey and the Isle of Wight, we saw a fine bark in the distance, and on nearer approach we found it was the Anchor, returning from the West Indies laden with sugar. We got near enough to speak to each other, and I looked to see if I could make out Jim Drake, but I failed to do so. The vessel had encountered some very bad weather for nearly all the bulwarks were gone, and almost everything that is usually carried on deck had been washed away. The men were, like ourselves, tied fast with a rope's end to prevent their being washed overboard. After two or three days and nights in the Channel, we at last found ourselves in Weymouth harbour. We had been soaking wet and had had no sleep or food, nor did we seem to require any, but I went to an inn and got to bed and slept for ten hours. On arriving back in Jersey the first thing I heard was that Jim Drake, who had just returned in the Anchor, had summoned his skipper for cruelly ill-using him while at sea. It appeared that the Anchor was no sooner out of Jersey than poor Jim Drake began to be sea-sick. So this skipper, the "very nice gentleman," took a rope, and the chief mate took another, and between them they belaboured poor Jim, one hitting on one side and one on the other. So this nice pair seem to have taken a delight in ill-using the poor lad during the whole of the voyage.
One day Jim committed the awful crime of whistling. No one was allowed to whistle on board except the commander, and he only under extraordinary circumstances, such as when there was a dead calm he might whistle for a breeze. Superstition ran so high on board that if a man whistled he was considered an evil genius; storm and tempest, fire and famine, aye, the devil himself would visit that ship, and from the moment Jim Drake whistled every man on board became his enemy. The skipper cursed, and the mate swore, and poor Jim cried for mercy and said he did not know he was committing an offence. But they tied him to the mast and both took a rope and hammered away as if the subject they were operating upon had been a piece of cast-iron or a block of granite; and at last one took a handspike and gave Jim a blow which broke his arm, and as there was no surgeon the limb was never set. This was the complaint brought before the court, and when I saw Jim there I cried for pity as the poor lad stood there with his hand twisted round, the back being towards his thigh, the palm outwards, and the whole dangling useless by his side. Now Jim was an English lad, and the skipper a Jerseyman, and all the business of the court was carried on in French. Jim stated his evidence, but there was not a man amongst that crew who would corroborate it, and the skipper and the mate were two very respectable men. Moreover the skipper was such a kind-hearted gentleman that he had actually given his men a double allowance of grog on their homeward voyage; so of course, as in duty bound, they all to a man spoke of his kind and generous conduct. So poor Jim's complaint fell to the ground. And not only that, but the skipper took proceedings against him for trying to defame his fair character, and poor Jim was sent to prison for three weeks. I cried with anguish for Jim, yet thanked my lucky stars that I did not go on board the Anchor.