“You know, Susan,” continued she, looking up at the portrait, “that Captain Enticknapp was your great-grandfather, and I daresay it seems impossible to you to think of him as young as as he was when that picture was painted.”
“Was he young?” asked Sophia Jane. “Then, why has he got grey hair?”
“That is not grey hair, my dear, it is powder; nearly every one who could afford to pay the tax wore powder in those days. When that picture was done my father was only thirty-five years old. Well, as I told you, we lived at Wapping, on the banks of the river Thames, close to the great London Docks. Since then other docks have been built, and Wapping is no longer such an important place; but then it was the chief entrance for shipping, and nearly all the great merchantmen came in there with their cargoes, or started thence for foreign countries. Many large vessels lay there for months at a time to be refitted, and as our house stood close to the water’s-edge you could see from its windows all that went on, and all the different crafts and barges which passed on the river. When you wished to go anywhere by water you had only to step down a narrow flight of stone stairs outside, get into a boat, and be rowed where you pleased, and this was a very pleasant way of travelling and cost little. At that time few lived at Wapping but sea-faring people, and those who owned great wharfs, and had to do with merchandise and shipping. My father was in the merchant service, well-known for his successful voyages, and always to be trusted to carry through a matter honourably and well. He was a man of his word, firm and true, and one who would look neither to right or left, but go straight on where his duty led. When you think of your great-grandfather, Susan, you can always feel proud of this; there is nothing better than to have had people belonging to us in the past who have been high-minded and good. He was, of course, often absent from us for months at a time, and had much to tell us about his voyages when he returned. He was the first to take out a gang of convicts in the ship Scarborough, and land them in the place which was afterwards called Botany Bay, then a wild and desolate country; this happened in the year 1788, when a new law was passed to establish a penal settlement in Australia with a governor at its head. Until then convicts had been sent to America and the West Indies. The account of this landing always interested me very much; but, on his second voyage to Australia, there happened to my father such a strange adventure, and such a narrow escape from a dreadful death that I never wearied of hearing about it, and it is now as fresh in my memory as if he had just told it to me. This is how it came to pass. It was in the spring of 1789, when he had been at home with us for a month, that he received orders to start for the colony with a second lot of 200 convicts, some to be taken on board at Woolwich, and some at Portsmouth; he was afterwards to proceed to China for a cargo of tea, and would therefore be away a long, long time. The whole household was sorry for this, because we all missed his cheerful companionship; but my mother grieved most of all, for she understood better than we did, the dangers he would go through, and felt each time he left her, that she might never see him again. But she showed her trouble as little as she could until he was out of her sight, so that he might go on his way with a good heart, and not be too much cast down at leaving us alone.
“Well, he got down to Portsmouth, and the convicts came on board, looking at the first glance all very much alike, with their cropped heads and their prison clothes. But this was not really so, there was a great difference between them; for some were men of education and some were ignorant; some were brutal and wicked by nature, and others only weak and foolish; some were stupid, and others clever, and each of these things stamps its own expression on the face and form.
“As my father stood on the quay watching the men as they passed him, someone tapped him on the shoulder, and turning he saw a certain Major Grose standing there.
“‘Captain Enticknapp,’ he said; ‘a word with you about one of those men. Notice the one standing fourth from us now; his name is Birt. I know him well and his father too. He can be trusted; it is misfortune rather than vice which has brought him to this evil pass. If you can, allow him some privileges, and show him kindness during the voyage. You will do me a service if you will bear this in mind.’
“Now my father was a man only too ready to think well of others, and to do them a kindness if possible, so he willingly promised, and observed Birt closely that he might know him again. He was a slight young fellow of about twenty, with delicate features and large melancholy eyes which he bent on the ground; so shame-faced and sad looking, and such a contrast in his bearing to the recklessness of many of the other men, that my father’s heart was at once touched with pity for him.
“On the voyage he took every possible occasion of being kind to Birt, and allowed him the privilege of being on deck all day instead of only two hours like the rest of the convicts. He also lent him books, encouraged him to talk of his troubles, and by degrees learned the whole story of his misfortunes. Now, in doing this my father became fond of him, for to bestow benefits on anyone is a sure way to make a friendly feeling towards them, and as for Birt he would have done anything to serve the captain and show his gratitude. Very soon this chance was given to him.
“At night the convicts were all locked down under hatches and sentinels placed over them. The men lay six in a berth, and it so happened that one of these disclosed to Birt a plot that forty of them had made and signed with their blood. Would he join them and have his share of the prize?
“Now Birt dared not say no, for he feared for his life amongst those desperate men.