Newton Forster; Or, The Merchant Service

by Frederick Marryat

I consider that the public ought to feel very much indebted to me for this exposé. Madeira wine is very low, while sherry is high in price. They have only to purchase a cask of Madeira and flavour it with Wellington boots or ladies’ shippers, as it may suit their palates. The former will produce the high-coloured, the latter the pale sherry. Further, I consider that the merchants of Madeira are bound to send me a letter of thanks, with a pipe of Bual, to prove its sincerity. Now I recollect Stoddart did promise me some wine when he was last in England; but I suppose he has forgotten it.

But from the produce I must return to the island and my passengers. The first day of their arrival they eat their dinner, took their coffee, and returned to bed early to enjoy a comfortable night after so many of constant pitching and tossing. The next morning the ladies were much better, and received the visits of all the captains of the India ships, and also of the captain of the frigate who escorted them.

The officers of the Bombay Castle had been invited to dinner; and the first-mate not being inclined to leave the ship, Newton had for one accepted the invitation. On his arrival he discovered in the captain of the frigate his former acquaintance, Captain Carrington, in whose ship he had obtained a passage from the West Indies, and who on the former being paid off had been appointed to the command of the Boadicea, Captain Carrington was delighted to meet Newton; and the attention which he paid to him, added to the encomiums bestowed when Newton was out of bearing, raised him very high in the opinion, not only of Captain Drawlock, but also in the estimation of the ladies. At the request of Captain Carrington Newton was allowed to remain on shore till their departure from the island; and from this circumstance he became more intimate with the ladies than he would in all probability have otherwise been in the whole course of the voyage. We must pass over the gallop up to Nostra Senhora da Monte, an expedition opposed by Captain Drawlock on the score of his responsibility; but he was over-ruled by Captain Carrington, who declared that Newton and he were quite sufficient convoy. We must pass over the many compliments paid to Isabel Revel by Captain Carrington, who appeared desperately in hove after an acquaintance of four-and-twenty hours, and who discovered a defect in the Boadicea which would occupy two or three days to make good, that he might be longer in her company; but we will not pass over one circumstance which occurred during their week’s sojourn at this delightful island.

A certain Portuguese lady of noble birth had been left a widow with two daughters, and a fine estate to share between them. The daughters were handsome; but the estate was so much handsomer, that it set all the mandolins of the Portuguese inamoratos strumming under the windows of the lady’s abode from sunset to the dawn of day.

Now it did so occur that a young English clerk in a mercantile house, who had a fresh complexion and a clean shirt to boast of (qualifications unknown to the Portuguese), won the heart of the eldest daughter; and the old lady, who was not a very strict Catholic, gave her consent to this heretical union. The Catholic priests, who had long been trying to persuade the old lady to shut up her daughters in a convent, and endow the church with her property, expressed a holy indignation at the intended marriage. The Portuguese gentlemen, who could not brook the idea of so many fair hills of vines going away to a stranger were equally indignant: in short, the whole Portuguese population of the island were in arms; but the old lady, who had always contrived to have her way before her husband’s death, was not inclined to be thwarted now that she was her own mistress; and, notwithstanding threats and expostulations from all quarters, she awaited but the arrival of an English man-of-war that the ceremony might be performed, there being at that time no Protestant clergyman on the island; for the reader must know that a marriage on board of a king’s ship, by the captain duly entered in the log-book, is considered as valid as if the ceremony were performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I once married couple on board of a little ten-gun brig of which I condescended to take the command, to oblige the first lord of the Admiralty; offered, I believe to provide for me, and rid the Board of all future solicitations for employment or promotion.

It was one of my sailors, who had come to a determination to make an honest woman of Poll and an ass of himself, at one and the same time. The ceremony took place on the quarter-deck. “Who gives this woman away?” said I, with due emphasis, according to the ritual. “I do,” cried the boatswain in a gruff voice, taking the said lady by the arm and shoving her towards me, as if he thought her not worth keeping. Every thing went on seriously, nevertheless. The happy pair were kneeling down on the union-jack, which had been folded on the deck in consideration of the lady’s knees, and I was in the middle of the blessing, when two pigs which we had procured at St. Jaco’s, being them off that island (creatures more like English pigs on stilts than any thing else, unless you could imagine a cross between a pig and a greyhound), in the lightness of their hearts and happy ignorance of their doom, took a frisk, as you often see pigs do on shore, commenced a run from forward right aft, and galloping to the spot where we were all collected, rushed against the two just made one, destroying their centre of gravity, and upsetting them; and, indeed, destroying the gravity and upsetting the seriousness of myself and the whole of the ship’s company. The lady recovered her legs, damned the pigs, and, taking her husband’s arm, hastened down the hatchway; so that I lost the kiss to which I was entitled for my services. I consoled myself by the reflection that, “please the pigs,” I might be more fortunate the next time that I officiated in my clerical capacity. This is a digression I grant, but I cannot help it; it is the nature of man to digress. Who can say that he has through life kept in the straight path? This is a world of digression; and I beg that critics will take no notice of mine, as I have an idea that my digressions in this work are as agree able to my readers, as my digressions in life have been agreeable to myself.

When Captain Carrington anchored with his convoy in Funchal roads, immediate application was made by the parties for the ceremony to be performed on board of his ship. It is true that, as Mr Ferguson had arrived, it might have taken place on shore; but it was considered advisable, to avoid interruption and insult, that the parties should be under the sanctuary of a British man-of-war. On the fourth day after the Boadicea’s arrival the ceremony was performed on board of her by Mr Ferguson; and the passengers of the Bombay, residing at the house of Mr —, who was an intimate friend of the bridegroom, received and accepted the invitation to the marriage-dinner. The feast was splendid, and after the Portuguese custom. The first course was boiled: it consisted of boiled beef, boiled mutton, boiled hams, boiled tongues, boiled bacon, boiled fowls, boiled turkeys, boiled sausages, boiled cabbages, boiled potatoes, and boiled carrots. Duplicates of each were ranged in opposition, until the table groaned with its superincumbent weight. All were cut up, placed in one dish, and handed round to the guests. When they drank wine, every glass was filled, and every body who filled his glass was expected to drink the health of every guest separately and by name before he emptied it. The first course was removed, and the second made its appearance all roasted. Roast beef, roast veal, roast mutton, roast lamb, roast joints of pork, roasted turkeys, roasted fowls, roasted sausages, roasted every thing; the centre dish being a side of a large hog, rolled up like an enormous fillet of veal. This too was done ample justice to by the Portuguese part of the company, at least, and all was cleared away for the dessert, consisting of oranges, melons, pine-apples, guavas, citrons, bananas, peaches, strawberries, apples, pears, and indeed of almost every fruit which can be found in the whole world, all of which appear to naturalise themselves at Madeira. It was now supposed by the uninitiated that the dinner was over; but not so; the dessert was cleared away, and on came an husteron proteron medley of pies and puddings, in all their varieties, smoking hot, boiled and baked, custards and sweetmeats, cheese and olives, fruits of all kinds preserved, and a hundred other things, from which the gods preserve us! At last the feast was really over; the Portuguese picked their teeth with their forks, and the wine was circulated briskly. On such an occasion as the marriage of her daughter, the old lady had resolved to take a pipe of Madeira, which was, at the very least, fifty years old, very fine in flavour, but, from having been so long in the wood, little inferior in strength to genuine Cogniac. The consequence was, that many of the gentlemen became noisy before the dinner was over; and their mirth was increased to positive uproar upon a message being sent by the bishop, ordering upon pain of excommunication, that the ceremony should proceed no further. The ladies retired to the withdrawing room; the gentlemen soon followed; but the effects of the wine were so apparent upon most of them, that Captain Drawlock summoned Newton to his assistance, and was in a state of extreme anxiety until his “responsibilities” were safe at home. Shortly afterwards, Captain Carrington and those who were the least affected, by persuasion or force, removed the others from the house; and the bridal party were left to themselves, to deliberate whether they should or should not obey the preposterous demands of the reverend bishop.

Captain Carrington was excessively fond of a joke, and never lost the opportunity when it occurred; now it happened, that in the party invited there was a merchant of the name of Sullivan, who, upon his last visit to England, had returned with a very pretty, and at the same time, a very coquettish young lady as his wife. It happened, in the casualties of a large dinner party, that the old colonel (Ellice was his name, if I have not mentioned it before) was seated next to her, and, as usual, was remarkably attentive. Mr Sullivan, like many other gentlemen, was very inattentive to his wife, and, unlike most Irishmen, was very jealous of her. The very marked attention of the colonel had not escaped his notice; neither did his fidgeting upon this occasion escape the notice of those about him, who were aware of his disposition. The poor colonel was one of those upon whose brain the wine had taken the most effect, and it was not until after sundry falls, and being again placed upon his legs, that he had been conveyed home, between Captain Carrington and Mr —, the merchant at whose house the party from the Bombay Castle were residing. The ensuing morning he did not make his appearance at breakfast; and the gentlemen residing on the island, commenting upon the events of the evening before, declared in a joking way that they should not be surprised at Mr Sullivan sending him a challenge in the course of the morning; that was, if he was up so soon, as he had quitted the house in a greater state of inebriety than even the colonel. It was upon this hint that Captain Carrington proposed to have some amusement; and having arranged with one of the junior partners of the house, he went into the room of the colonel, whom he found still in bed.

“Well, colonel, how do you find yourself?” said Captain Carrington, when he had roused him.