‘I mean that by this time he represents two legs of mutton, several dishes of “ratatouille”, and any number of beeftaks! In other words, the prisoners have eaten him!’
It was even so. The vision of a large plump dog had been too much for the Raffalés, and as the irate Colonel was rowed shorewards from the ship, he saw the skin of his pet nailed on to the outer side of it.
Captain R—— revenged himself for the double fiasco by a series of brutal persecutions and punishments which culminated in open rebellion, severe fighting, much bloodshed, and at last in a proclamation by the Captain that unless the ringleaders were delivered up to him, imploring pardon for what had happened, he would have every man shot.
In the meanwhile the long duration and intensity of Captain R——‘s persecution had reached the ears of the authorities, and just at the expiration of the hour which he had given the prisoners for decision, the great folk of the Admiralty arrived, and the result of a court of inquiry which lasted the whole day, and which even Garneray admits was conducted with impartiality, was that he was removed.
A few weeks later Garneray observed two of the worst of the Raffalés seated on a bench playing ecarté very seriously, and surrounded by a silent and equally serious crowd. Suspecting that this was no ordinary gambling bout, he inquired, and was told that by a drawing of lots these two men had been left to decide who should kill the ship’s master, one Linch, the worst type of hulk tyrant. In vain Garneray exerted himself to prevent the committal of so terrible a crime. The game was played out, and five minutes later the master was stabbed to the heart as he stood on the upper deck.
Towards the end of 1811 the Vengeance, to which hulk Garneray had been shifted from the Crown, received her quota of the unfortunate Frenchmen who, after the capitulation of Baylen in 1808, had been imprisoned by the Spaniards on the island of Cabrera, where they had been submitted to the most terrible sufferings and hardships, and had died like flies. Garneray describes the appearance of thirty of these poor creatures who had been apportioned to the Vengeance, as they came alongside.
‘The poor wretches, lying at the bottom of the boat, cried aloud in their agony and tossed in the delirium of fever; thin as skeletons, pale as corpses, scarcely covered, although the cold was intense, by their miserable rags.... Of these thirty only about ten had strength enough to get on board.’
The doctor of the Vengeance refused to receive them on board, saying that by their infection they would in a fortnight’s time turn the ship into one great tomb, and they were ordered to be put on board the Pegasus hospital ship. While the arrangements for their reception were being made, the unfortunates were kept in their agony in the boat alongside, for the captain of the Vengeance said it was not worth while to disarrange his ship for such men, for so short a time.
Exterior View of a Hulk.
(After Louis Garneray.)