Ralph entereth into the regions of romance and privateering, carried thither by a pilot, malgré lui—An inopportune visit.
Shortly after the illegal suspension of the Habeas Corpus that I recorded in the last chapter, the portion of the navy stationed in the West Indies became actively employed in the conquest of those islands still in the possession of the French. Some fell almost without a struggle, others at much expense of life, both of the military and naval forces. As everyone, who could find a publisher, has written a book on all these events, from the capture of the little spot Deseada, to the subduing the magnificent island of Guadaloupe, and the glorious old stone-built city of Domingo, I may well be excused detailing the operations.
Among other bellicose incidents that varied the dull monotony of my life, was the beating off a frigate equal in force to our own; though I believe that we were a little obliged to her for taking leave of us in a manner so abrupt, though we could not certainly complain of the want, on her part, of any attention for the short and busy hour that she stayed with us, for she assisted us to shift all our topmasts, and as, before she met us, we had nothing but old sails to display, she considerably decorated us with a profusion of ribands gaily fluttering about our lower masts and the topmasts that were still standing gracefully hanging over our sides.
We were too polite and well-bred not to make some return for all these petits soins. As, between the tropics, the weather is generally very warm, we evinced a most laudable anxiety that she should be properly ventilated, so we assiduously began drilling holes through and through her hull; and, I assure the reader, that we did it in a surpassingly workmanlike manner. But, in the midst of this spirited exchange of courtesies, our Gallic friend remembered that he had, or might have, another engagement, so he took his leave; and, as he had given us so many reasons to prevent our insisting to attend upon him, we parted en pleine mer, leaving us excessively annoyed that we were prevented from accompanying him any further.
In Captain Reud’s despatches he stated, and stated truly, that we beat him off. Why he went, I could not understand; for, excepting in the shattered state of her hull, and more particularly in a sad confusion of her quarter gallery, with her two aftermost main-deck-ports, he sailed off with her colours flying, and every sail drawing, even to her royals. But the French used to have their own method of managing these little matters.
But let us rapidly pass over these follies and hasten to something more exquisitely foolish. And yet I cannot, I have to clear away many dull weeds, and tread down many noxious nettles, before I can reach the one fresh and thornless rose, that bloomed for a short space upon my heart, and the fragrance of which so intoxicated my senses, that, for a time, I was under a blessed delusion of believing myself happy.
I had now been two years and a half in the West Indies, and I was fast approaching my nineteenth year. At this period we had retaken several English West Indiamen.
In one of these retaken merchant vessels, there was found, as the French prize-master, and now of course our prisoner, a mercurial little fellow of the name of Messurier. He was very proud of the glory of his nation, and still prouder of his own. As France possessed many historians, and Monsieur Adolphe Sigismund Messurier but one, and that one himself, of course, he had the duty of, at least, three hundred savants thrown upon his own shoulders: he performed it nobly, and with an infinite relish. Now, when a person who is given to much talking is also given to much drinking, it generally happens, injurious as is the vice of the grog-bottle, that the vice of the voluble tongue is still worse. When in his cups, he told of the scores that he had slain, counting them off by threes and fives upon his fingers, his thumbs indicating captains, his forefingers first-lieutenants, and so on with the various grades in our service, until the aspirants, or middies, were merely honoured by his little finger as their representative, we only laughed; and asked him, if he had been so destructive to the officers, how many men had fallen by the puissance of his arm. It seemed that these latter were too numerous and too ignoble to be counted; for that question was always answered with a bah! and a rapidly passing over the extended palm of his left hand with his open right one.
But when, one evening, he mentioned that he could pilot a frigate into the inland waters from whence swarmed the crowd of schooner privateers that infested the islands, and by their swift sailing to windward, eluded our fastest ships, we laughed still, and I did something more; I reported this boast to Captain Reud.
“Then,” exclaimed my valorous little creole, “by all the virtues of a long eighteen, he shall take in His Majesty’s frigate, Eos.”