Pirate tales from the law

by Arthur M. Harris

Scotland, in 1704, when the Worcester was thus blown into the port of Leith, was again having her troubles, all of which were turning around the hoodooed Scotch African-Indian company. That afflicted corporation had already marked the Content and the Speedy Return off the register as unaccountably missing, when behold a sister ship of these two, the Annandale, imprudently venturing into the Thames, was seized by the English East India Company in the assertion of its exclusive rights in the Indies, one of the impudent things which so endeared that company to the rest of the trading world. Now add that grievance to the dreary Darien affair, already laid, as we have seen, at the door of the English company, and you can understand why “Annandale” became a slogan in Scotland and the focus of all its hate. Public opinion whirled the Scottish authorities into action. These petitioned the return of the Annandale, but in vain; the tenacity of the East India Company, capable of holding a country of hundreds of millions of people in its fist, regarded the Scotch protest as lightly as some folks do their debts. To have and to hold was its motto, though all the kilted Highlanders beyond the border skirled in a fury of revenge. The Scot, however, is no baby; nay, he has considerable iron in his own system, and a turn for definite action himself. “Verra guid, mon,” said the north to the south, “verra guid; ther’s an English ship cam’ into Leith; you keep the Annandale; we tak’ your Englishman.”

Which they promptly did—none other than the Worcester.

Captain Green was certainly now in a pickle. The Scotch government seized his ship and now he had to stand around with his hands in his pockets and wait the problematic issue of all this international bickering. And the thousand pounds’ worth of patiently collected cargo, the fruit of the peculiar industry of many Cogis—that, too, was sealed by the authorities so that a man dare not take as much as enough for a cup of coffee from the hold. If he had been an East Indian Company ship he might have seen a little sense to it all; but what cared he for either the Scotch or the English companies? Very little, indeed, and yet—well, it was beyond words, even purple maritime words. He plumped down in his cabin to wait.

Now, hard by the docks in Leith there was a little parlor groggery kept by a widow named Seaton, who with her nineteen-year-old daughter, Anne, thus labored to make an honest livelihood. A widow, a lovely girl and lots of good Scotch whiskey all under one roof,—why the situation seemed just specially made for the advantage of George Haines, the steward of the Worcester. What had looked at first like a long, monotonous detention on a seized ship now suddenly brightened with the most attractive promise. George accepted the opportunity so readily that shortly he became almost a part of the Seaton home, and in an admirably brief space of time nothing less than the accepted suitor of the fair Anne herself. That meant, as any one could see with half an eye, that eventually George Haines would be the proprietor of this neat little business. No more stewing around the East Indies for him; that was all in the past, or very soon would be. Well, truly, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good.

Of course, Mrs. Seaton had neighbors, and just as much of course she talked to them about her business, her customers and her customers’ business. One of these neighbors was a dear old lady by name Mrs. Wilkie, also a widow. She was one of those sad folk who flit down to the docks to see every ship come in and who speak to every sailor that steps ashore, in the quest of loved ones long silent upon the far-off seas. Every one knew Mrs. Wilkie’s story. She was the mother of a bonnie lad by the name of Andrew, who some three years before this, had gone as surgeon on the ship of Captain Drummond, the Speedy Return, for a voyage to the Indies, and who, after one letter from Madagascar by way of Mauritius, had not been heard from this long time; neither he or his ship nor his captain. And now the old lady lived with her other son, Jamie, a tailor, and whenever a ship came into port from the East Indies, no matter what the hour of the day or night, the sailors would see a little old gray lady waiting to ask them for news of the Speedy Return. To Mrs. Wilkie, then, Mrs. Seaton made mention of the Worcester and of George Haines, its steward.

Mrs. Wilkie and Jamie hastened together to the widow Seaton’s to interview George. They found him in the parlor, comforting himself with a big tumbler of grog. Jamie bought a drink and talked easily of the voyage and hoped that George and all the others had fared well. This seizure business,—that was bad, of course; but it would all come out all right. George felt it was coming out all right for him as it was. Jamie coughed, shifted a bit in his chair and at length came out with the vital question: “Would you be meeting a ship in your travels, the Speedy Return, captain Rab Drummond, out o’ Glasgie?”

Mrs. Wilkie’s heart waited. The clock ticked loudly. The widow Seaton paused with her potato-paring knife poised in midair. On the kitchen threshold merry-faced Anne stopped and gazed as though she were watching a stage play.

“Sink me! What have I to do with Captain Drummond?”

Bang came the tumbler on the table; the steward’s loose, foolish jaw was shoved forward defiantly. Yet what was there about him? Something—yes, the steward is in the grip of a great fear. Since frequenting the widow’s shop, George had heard quite a lot about this Captain Drummond, because the captain, young Andrew Wilkie, and doubtless many others of his crew had belonged in this city of Edinburgh, of which, as you know, Leith is the port and a suburb. Folk were always asking him about this Drummond till he was fair sick of it. He leaned over and stuck his fat lips against Jamie’s ear. “While we was on the coast of Malabar,” he began with solemn, nautical preface, “a Dutch ship told us that Captain Drummond, out o’ Scotland was turned—a pirate!” He leaned back and gazed at Jamie’s astonished face. Yes, he had achieved an effect; maybe he could get another. “Aye, sir, so we manned our sloop, we did, putting guns and patereroes aboard, and got ready to give the Scot a pound or two o’ lead.” Now the creeklet of his imagination went dry. “He never came” he ended rather ineffectively.

Jamie was beaten. He drew off his artillery and departed to allow a light fire ship to come alongside. But all Anne got for her wiles and her work was, as she put it, “He found they had a design to pump him; but they should not be the wiser of him, though what he had said he had said.” He was no ship to be pumped, was George; but you see the implication that there was water in the hold.