The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer

by Harry Collingwood

“She is not for sale, boy,” answered the old man with an inscrutable smile. “I built her in order to put to the test certain theories o’ my own, and now, before ever she touches the water, I be sure, from the look of her, that my theories be right. So I be going to keep her and use her for my own purposes. And one o’ they purposes be to make money so fast as ever I can. I’ve got neither chick nor child to think about and take care of, so my only pleasure in life be to build good ships and make good money with ’em.

“Now, Garge, when I sat listenin’ to you talkin’ last night, I says to myself—‘There’s money, and lots of it, in that there adventure o’ Garge’s, if ’tis only worked right. But it’ll want a good leader, and a good ship; and young as Garge Saint Leger be, I do believe he’ve a-got the brains and the courage for it, while I’ve got the ship. If I’d a built the Nonsuch expressly for such an adventure she couldn’t ha’ been better suited for it.’ So I comed home and thought the thing over until I’d made up my mind about it. Now, Garge, I’m willin’ to do this for ’e. I’ll launch the Nonsuch just as sune as we can get the cradle builded. Then, directly that she be afloat, I’ll put on a strong gang o’ riggers to get her masts in and rigged and her spars across—the sails be makin’ now, and’ll be finished by the time that she’s ready vor ’em; and when she’s all complete I’ll fit her out in ordnance, ammunition, and weapons of all sorts, and provision her for a year’s cruise, all at my own expense. You shall have her for your adventure upon condition that you provide a sufficient crew for her, to my satisfaction, and that, for the use of the ship and her equipment, I be to have one half of all the treasure you brings home; the other half to be disposed of as you thinks fit. Now, what do ’e say? Will that arrangement suit ’e?”

“It will suit me admirably, Mr Radlett, and I agree to your proposal with a thousand thanks and the greatest pleasure,” said George. “Indeed,” he added, “it was precisely such an agreement as I desired to enter into with Mr Marshall, or some other merchant, but none of them would listen to me. And very lucky it is for me that they would not, for with none of them should I have got such a ship as the Nonsuch. What is her tonnage?”

“Just three tons bigger than the Bonaventure, accordin’ to her measurements,” answered Radlett, “but she’ll have twice so much accommodation for a crew as Marshall’s ship have got; because the Bonaventure be built for cargo carryin’ while the Nonsuch be built more for fightin’ and sailin’. Now do ’e see?” And the old fellow accompanied his explanation with a dig in the ribs that was intended to convey to George several things that it was best not to discuss too openly.

Of course George fully understood his companion’s meaning, understood—that is to say—that the Nonsuch had been specially designed and built with a view to her employment as a freebooter, free-trader—as it was then euphemistically termed—or a pirate! But let not the reader be too greatly shocked at this frank admission. For in the days of George Saint Leger piracy was regarded as a perfectly legitimate and honourable trade—always provided that the acts of piracy were perpetrated only against the enemies of one’s country. A pirate, indeed, in those days, was synonymous with the individual who was termed a privateersman at the time of the Napoleonic wars. George Saint Leger, although a perfectly honest and even God-fearing young man, received old Radlett’s hint, with all that it implied, without turning a hair, for it implied nothing worse than he had contemplated from the moment when he first heard of his brother’s capture. It was generally agreed, at that time, that it was not only quite lawful but actually meritorious to make war upon and spoil the enemy of one’s country, and Spain was England’s enemy just then, secretly at all events. Many people maintained that she was God’s enemy as well, therefore it was deemed doubly meritorious to make war upon her; so George Saint Leger had not the ghost of a scruple with regard to his projected raid upon the ports of the Spanish Main.

So the bargain was struck there and then, even to the drafting in duplicate and signing by both parties of a document setting forth the several terms and conditions of the agreement. After this George Saint Leger departed for home with a light step and a still lighter heart, to tell his mother the good news. And she, poor soul, listened to him with strangely mingled feelings; for on the one hand her heart was racked and torn with anxiety and fear for her elder son, a captive in the hands of men whose cruelties to enemies, and especially to so-called heretics, were even then sending thrills of horror and dismay through the Protestant world, while her nights were rendered sleepless by the visions of awful torments, conjured up by her too vivid imagination, which that son might even then be enduring. No wonder was it that, under such circumstances, the one great and paramount desire that possessed her, to the exclusion of all other things, was the deliverance of Hubert from the fate which she pictured for him. Yet, when it came to the point of consenting to the going of her second son to the rescue of her first, her very soul sickened within her lest George, instead of effecting his brother’s deliverance, should himself fall into the toils. For she, like those merchants whom the lad had unavailingly approached, was convinced that the lad was altogether too young, too immature, too inexperienced to undertake the responsibility of leading such an expedition, and if he should fail, her last state would be worse than her first. And what hope of success for him dared she entertain at the very moment when all England was being profoundly stirred at the news of Hawkins’ and Drake’s disastrous failure? If they, seasoned and experienced mariners as they were, found themselves unable to stand against the might of Spain, what chance, she constantly asked herself, would such a mere boy as her George have? Thus she was swayed by first one form of terror and then the other until her reason threatened to give way altogether under the strain, and in sheer desperation she sought, quite unavailingly, to find distraction in preparing George’s wardrobe for the voyage. As for George, he saw the terrible struggle through which his beloved mother was passing, read her every thought, realised her every fear, and when he was not engaged at the shipyard with old Radlett, devoted himself strenuously to the almost superhuman task of allaying those fears, driving them out, and infusing some measure of hopefulness in their place. And so energetically did he strive that at length he actually succeeded in convincing not only Mrs Saint Leger, but also himself, that the expedition would certainly be successful and that he would be able to bring home his brother safe and sound.

Meanwhile, old Si Radlett was nothing if not thorough in his methods, and, having made up his mind to engage in a speculation that, if decidedly risky, might yet result in enormous profit to himself, allowed no grass to grow under his feet. Every man in his yard was at once detailed for service on and about the Nonsuch, the cradle was built, and on a certain raw but brilliant morning of early March, Mrs Saint Leger, well wrapped up in furs, was escorted by George to the shipyard in Millbay, where she had undertaken to preside at the launch of, and perform the ceremony of christening, the ship which was to bear one of her sons across the tempestuous Atlantic to the rescue of the other.

The launch of a ship in those days was a much less ceremonious affair than it is to-day, yet the piety of the time was so real, and so intimately pervaded the affairs of daily life, that a short religious service was deemed as necessary at the christening of a ship as at that of a child; and accordingly a small platform was erected under the bows of the Nonsuch, where, with Mrs Saint Leger beside him, the vicar of the church in which old Radlett worshipped every Sunday morning, read certain passages of scripture, preached a short sermon, and then offered up special prayers beseeching God’s blessing upon the ship. After this the spur-shores were knocked away, and to the blare of trumpets and the roll of drums, Mrs Saint Leger dashed a bottle of wine against the great cutwater of the gaily bedizened ship as she began to move down the ways, exclaiming, as she did so:

“God bless the good ship Nonsuch and all who are to sail in her!” And she said it not perfunctorily, but from her heart; for the lives and fortunes of the two who were nearest and dearest to her in the whole world were irrevocably bound up with the ship.

George did not occupy the platform beside his mother. As soon as he had seen her safely placed, he made his way to a point in the yard from which he could advantageously view the plunge of the ship into “her native element,” and his heart thrilled with joy and pride as he noted with a keen, appreciative, and understanding eye the manner in which the hull took the water, the buoyancy with which, after the first deep plunge, she rose to her bearings and sat upon a perfectly even keel, and the cleanness with which she divided the water as she drove out toward the middle of the bay. Then, too, the craft being farther distant from him than he had ever before viewed her, he was the better able to observe the very marked differences in model which Radlett had introduced into her design, the easier and more flowing lines, the more graceful shape, the shallower hull, and the absence of those towering fore and after castles which rendered the ships of those days so awkward, crank, and uneasy in heavy weather; and he told himself grimly that with such a ship as that, and with a good strong sturdy crew of staunch Devonian hearts to back him up, it should not be his fault if he did not make the word “Englishman” a name of dread from one end to the other of the Spanish Main.