From the moment of the launch the preparations for the voyage progressed rapidly, yet not as rapidly as George could have wished, for the time was one of great difficulty and tension in England; war with France, or Spain, or both, threatened to break out at any moment; the country was swarming with spies, and it was therefore of vital importance to the success of the expedition that the most absolute secrecy concerning it should be maintained. It was even necessary that the very existence of the ship and the fact of her being fitted out should be noised abroad as little as possible, for, as things then were, in the event of a crisis arising it was quite upon the cards that the authorities might lay forcible hands upon the craft and annex her for the service of the country. Such a condition of affairs militated very strongly indeed against extreme rapidity of progress; yet so well did cunning old Radlett manage that, in spite of everything, the process of rigging the Nonsuch and preparing her for sea went forward with surprising speed. It was of course impossible to keep the fact of her fitting-out an absolute secret from everybody, so when inquisitive people came prowling about the wharf, asking all sorts of inconvenient questions, old Radlett gave them to understand, with many nods and winks of mystery, that he had it in his mind to see what could be done with her in the way of a trading voyage to the eastern Indies, where, he understood, pots of money were to be made by those who were willing to take a little risk.
Every day saw a little further progress made, an additional spar raised into position and secured, a little more added to the complicated maze of rigging; and meanwhile George, accompanied by Robert Dyer, who had been hunted up the moment that his services could be made useful, went hither and thither all over Plymouth and its neighbourhood, day after day, hunting up desirable recruits, including many of the Bonaventure’s former crew, until in process of time they contrived, between them, to get together no less than one hundred men, all of them of the true Devon breed, ready to go anywhere and do anything. Under ordinary conditions so large a crew would have found themselves cramped for room in a ship of the Nonsuch’s tonnage. But the Nonsuch was not designed for cargo carrying. She was essentially a fighting ship, her cargo-space being only about half the capacity of other ships of her size, the remainder of the hold being fitted to serve as a spacious ’tween-decks, affording accommodation for an even larger crew than George and her owner had decided was necessary. And, in addition to the ’tween-decks, there were of course the cabins, plainly but comfortably fitted up, which included the captain’s state cabin in the stern of the ship, the main cabin, in which the officers would take their meals and which would be used by them at other times as a council chamber and general living-room, and cabins for the pilot or sailing master, the captain of the soldiers, the chaplain, the surgeon, and the purser.
By the time that this formidable crew had been collected together the Nonsuch was practically complete, so far as rigging and equipment were concerned, and a week later found her with provisions, water, powder, and stores of every description on board, as well as her crew, and only waiting for a fair wind to enable her to go to sea. It was April, and after a long spell of bitter north-easters the weather had changed, a south-westerly wind had set in, with mild, rainy weather, and although George declared himself ready to go to sea and attempt to beat down-channel, old Radlett strenuously opposed the idea, upon the plea that it would be merely a waste of time and a needless risking of the ship. But a day or two later a hint was brought to him to the effect that the attention of the authorities had at last been directed to the Nonsuch and the question of her being taken over by the Government was being discussed, whereupon the old man withdrew his opposition, and, the weather falling opportunely calm at the same moment, George took a hasty farewell of his mother, hurried aboard, gave orders for the lowering and manning of all boats, and on the afternoon of a certain balmy day of mid-April, triumphantly towed his ship out to sea until, abreast of the Mewstone, he fell in with a small southerly air to which he spread his every sail and so passed out of sight to the westward, while Mrs Saint Leger, having crossed to Mount Edgcumbe, stood on Rame Head, watching, until the white sails vanished in the golden haze of evening.
Chapter Four.
How the “Nonsuch” came to Trinidad and was careened there.
In these strenuous days of severe competition and universal education, when there are far more men anxious to obtain responsible positions than there are responsible positions to be filled, a man often reaches middle age before he is able to secure a command of the relative importance conferred upon George Saint Leger when the latter was given the command of the Nonsuch. But in those days competition was nothing like so keen as it is to-day, especially among seafarers, where men of education were comparatively rare. Such men were only needed to take command of the ships which were being built to meet the requirements of England’s rapidly expanding trade with “foreign parts,” and no sooner was a man qualified to command than shipowners were glad enough to snap him up. Also the sum of seafaring knowledge in those days was infinitely less than it is now. The art of navigation was, comparatively speaking, in its infancy, and it was therefore quite possible to produce a finished seaman in the space of five years, or even less. Consequently there were many Elizabethan captains who were little more than boys when they obtained their first command, the immortal Drake, Saint Leger’s illustrious contemporary, being among them. Boys began life earlier then than they do now, and consequently were often occupying positions of great responsibility at an age when the public school-boy of the present day is just beginning to think of abandoning his studies in order to enter upon a career. Hence it is not surprising that, after seven years of active sea life, George Saint Leger, young as he was, was deemed by his old friend Radlett as fully qualified to command what in those days was considered a very fine ship, and to head an expedition of very great importance. True, Mr Marshall, the owner of the Bonaventure, had expressed some doubt as to George being old enough for the responsibility of command, but he did not know the lad so well as old Si Radlett did, and had not followed his career with the same interest; and no sooner was the Nonsuch clear of the channel—which event occurred on the day following that of her departure from Plymouth—than the young commander began to justify the confidence which his new owner had reposed in him.
For, undoubtedly, George Saint Leger was a born seaman. Not only did he ardently love the sea and everything connected with it, but he early developed a faculty of understanding ships, their tackling, and how to handle them. Knowledge that some men acquired only slowly and with difficulty he seemed to grasp intuitively. The mysteries of navigation soon ceased to be mysterious to him, and seven years of active sea experience had taught him all that there was to learn in the way of handling a crew and training it to work together in such a manner that its efforts might be employed to the best advantage. Therefore, once fairly at sea, he began to sedulously exercise his crew, first in the work of reducing and making sail, until he had brought them to a pitch of unsurpassable perfection in that particular direction. Then he as sedulously drilled them in tacking, veering, and other manoeuvres. Finally, he exercised them at the guns, putting them through all the actions of loading, aiming, firing, and sponging out their weapons—but without much expenditure of his precious ammunition—until there was probably no smarter or capable crew afloat than that of the Nonsuch. It must not be supposed that all this was accomplished without developing a certain amount of friction. The ship had not been it sea a full week before her young commander discovered that, despite all his care, he had picked up a few grumblers and shirkers who failed to see the necessity for so much strenuous training, but it was just here that his own personal gifts came to the front. By dint of argument, raillery, and—in one or two particularly bad and obdurate cases—judicious chastisement he finally succeeded in, what is termed in modern parlance, “licking them into shape.”
The usual course to the West Indies in those days was by way of the Azores and the Cape Verdes, at one or both of which places ships were wont to renew their supplies of wood, water, and provisions, and from the last of which mariners shaped a due west course before the trade-winds. But, as already hinted, George Saint Leger was a young man of somewhat original ideas, and geography was one of his favourite studies. He knew that the direct course from the chops of the channel, was, as nearly as might be, south-west; therefore he determined to steer a south-westerly course whenever the wind would permit, instead of following the usual long route via the Azores and the Cape Verde islands; but with the assistance of a roughly made globe he had also puzzled out the fact, not then generally recognised, that in the latitude of sixty degrees a degree of longitude was only about half the length of the same degree at the equator, therefore he also determined to make as much westing as possible at the very outset of his voyage. And this he was able to do with very satisfactory results, for the light southerly air which had sprung up and met him when he towed his ship out of Plymouth Sound not only freshened up into a brisk breeze of such strength that he could only show “topgallants”—as they were then called—to it by rather bold “carrying-on,” but it lasted a full week, during which the reckoning showed that the ship—which proved to be amazingly fast—had sailed a distance of fully twelve hundred miles, or more than half the distance between England and Newfoundland. Then a westerly gale sprang up, which lasted nine days, during which the Nonsuch, under close-reefed canvas, drove southward to the latitude of Madeira, where the ship encountered calms and light variable winds for five days before falling in with the trade-winds; after which the troubles of the voyagers were over. For thereupon ensued not only a constant fair wind, but also fine weather, so that the ship sailed on day after day over a sparkling, gently heaving sea of deepest blue tipped with tiny creaming foam-caps out of which leaped those marine marvels the flying-fish in countless shoals as the bows clove the roaring surges, while overhead the sky daily assumed a deeper, richer tint of sapphire, out of which the sun, scarcely veiled by the solemn drifting trade-clouds, shot his beams with ever-increasing ardour.