The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel Jack

by Daniel Defoe

We drank on, and drank the punch out, and more was brought up, and he pushed it about apace; and then came up a leg of mutton, and I need not say that we ate heartily, being told several times that we should pay nothing. After supper was done he bids my landlady ask if the boat was come. And she brought word no; it was not high water by a good deal. “No!” says he. “Well, then, give us some more punch.” So more punch was brought in, and, as was afterwards confessed, something was put into it, or more brandy than ordinary, and by that time the punch was drunk out we were all very drunk; and as for me, I was asleep.

About the time that was out we were told the boat was come; so we tumbled out, almost over one another, into the boat, and away we went, and our captain in the boat. Most of us, if not all, fell asleep, till after some time, though how much or how far going we knew not, the boat stopped, and we were waked and told we were at the ship’s side, which was true; and with much help and holding us, for fear we should fall overboard, we were all gotten into the ship. All I remember of it was this, that as soon as we were on board our captain, as we called him, called out thus: “Here, boatswain, take care of these gentlemen, and give them good cabins, and let them turn in and go to sleep, for they are very weary;” and so indeed we were, and very drunk too, being the first time I had ever drank punch in my life.

Well, care was taken of us according to order, and we were put into very good cabins, where we were sure to go immediately to sleep. In the meantime the ship, which was indeed just ready to go, and only on notice given had come to an anchor for us at Shields, weighed, stood over the bar, and went off to sea; and when we waked, and began to peep abroad, which was not till near noon the next day, we found ourselves a great way at sea; the land in sight, indeed, but at a great distance, and all going merrily on for London, as we understood it. We were very well used and well satisfied with our condition for about three days, when we began to inquire whether we were not almost come, and how much longer it would be before we should come into the river. “What river?” says one of the men. “Why, the Thames,” says my Captain Jacque. “The Thames!” says the seaman. “What do you mean by that? What, han’t you had time enough to be sober yet?” So Captain Jacque said no more, but looked about him like a fool; when, a while after, some other of us asked the like question, and the seaman, who knew nothing of the cheat, began to smell a trick, and turning to the other Englishman that came with us, “Pray,” says he, “where do you fancy you are going, that you ask so often about it?” “Why, to London,” says he. “Where should we be going? We agreed with the captain to carry us to London.” “Not with the captain,” says he, “I dare say. Poor men! you are all cheated; and I thought so when I saw you come aboard with that kidnapping rogue Gilliman. Poor men!” adds he, “you are all be trayed. Why, you are going to Virginia, and the ship is bound to Virginia.”

The Englishman falls a-storming and raving like a madman, and we gathering round him, let any man guess, if they can, what was our surprise and how we were confounded when we were told how it was. In short, we drew our swords and began to lay about us, and made such a noise and hurry in the ship that at last the seamen were obliged to call out for help. The captain commanded us to be disarmed in the first place, which was not, however, done without giving and receiving some wounds, and afterwards he caused us to be brought to him into the great cabin.

Here he talked very calmly to us, that he was really very sorry for what had befallen us; that he perceived we had been trepanned, and that the fellow who had brought us on board was a rogue that was employed by a sort of wicked merchants not unlike himself; that he supposed he had been represented to us as captain of the ship, and asked us if it was not so. We told him yes, and gave him a large account of ourselves, and how we came to the woman’s house to inquire for some master of a collier to get a passage to London, and that this man engaged to carry us to London in his own ship, and the like, as is related above.

He told us he was very sorry for it, and he had no hand in it; but it was out of his power to help us, and let us know very plainly what our condition was; namely, that we were put on board his ship as servants to be delivered at Maryland to such a man, whom he named to us; but that, however, if we would be quiet and orderly in the ship, he would use us well in the passage, and take care we should be used well when we came there, and that he would do anything for us that lay in his power; but if we were unruly and refractory, we could not expect but he must take such measures as to oblige us to be satisfied; and that, in short, we must be handcuffed, carried down between the decks and kept as prisoners, for it was his business to take care that no disturbance must be in the ship.

My captain raved like a madman, swore at the captain, told him he would not fail to cut his throat, either on board or ashore, whenever he came within his reach; and that, if he could not do it now, he would do it after he came to England again, if ever he durst show his face there again. For he might depend upon it, if he was carried away to Virginia, he should find his way to England again; that, if it was twenty years after, he would have satisfaction of him. “Well, young man,” says the captain, smiling, “’tis very honestly said, and then I must take care of you while I have you here, and afterwards I must take care of myself.” “Do your worst,” says Jacque boldly; “I’ll pay you home for it one time or other.” “I must venture that, young man,” says he, still calmly, “but for the present you and I must talk a little;” so he bids the boatswain, who stood near him, secure him, which he did. I spoke to him to be easy and patient, and that the captain had no hand in our misfortune.

“No hand in it! D—n him,” said he aloud, “do you think he is not confederate in this villainy? Would any honest man receive innocent people on board his ship and not inquire of their circumstances, but carry them away and not speak to them? And now he knows how barbarously we are treated, why does he not set us on shore again? I tell you he is a villain, and none but him. Why does he not complete his villainy and murder us, and then he will be free from our revenge? But nothing else shall ever deliver him from my hands but sending us to the d—l, or going thither himself; and I am honester in telling him so fairly than he has been to me, and am in no passion any more than he is.”

The captain was, I say, a little shocked at his boldness, for he talked a great deal more of the same kind, with a great deal of spirit and fire, and yet without any disorder in his temper. Indeed I was surprised at it, for I never had heard him talk so well and so much to the purpose in my life. The captain was, I say, a little shocked at it. However, he talked very handsomely to him, and said to him, “Look ye, young man, I bear with you the more because I am sensible your case is very hard; and yet I cannot allow your threatening me neither, and you oblige me by that to be severer with you than I intended. However, I will do nothing to you but what your threatening my life makes necessary.” The boatswain called out to have him to the geers, as they called it, and to have him taste the cat-o’-nine-tails—all which were terms we did not understand till afterwards, when we were told he should have been whipped and pickled, for they said it was not to be suffered. But the captain said, “No, no; the young man has been really injured, and has reason to be very much provoked; but I have not injured him,” says he. And then he protested he had no hand in it, that he was put on board, and we also, by the owner’s agent, and for their account; that it was true that they did always deal in servants, and carried a great many every voyage, but that it was no profit to him as commander; but they were always put on board by the owners, and that it was none of his business to inquire about them; and, to prove that he was not concerned in it, but was very much troubled at so base a thing, and that he would not be instrumental to carry us away against our wills, if the wind and the weather would permit, he would set us on shore again, though, as it blowed then, the wind being at south-west and a hard gale, and that they were already as far as the Orkneys, it was impossible.

But the captain was the same man. He told him that, let the wind blow how it would, he ought not to carry us away against our consent; and as to his pretences of his owners and the like, it was saying of nothing to him, for it was he, the captain, that carried us away, and that, whatever rogue trepanned us on board, now he knew it, he ought no more to carry us away than murder us; and that he demanded to be set on shore, or else he, the captain, was a thief and a murderer.