As the question was again put pointedly to me I replied that, whilst I should greatly regret being separated from so stanch a shipmate and so true a friend as my companion had proved himself to be in many a situation of difficulty and peril, I would not allow the feeling to interfere in any way with the plans of a kind and generous patron; and I felt sure that, in saying this on my own behalf, I might also say as much for my friend. To which speech Courtenay bowed his acquiescence, looking rather glum at the same time, I must say.
“Very well,” said the admiral, “I must separate you for the present; but I promise you that you shall become shipmates again at the earliest convenient opportunity. Now, listen to me. There have been numerous complaints from the merchants here, during the last two or three months, that cargoes consigned to them have never arrived; and the only conclusion possible is that the ships carrying these cargoes have been snapped up by privateers. I have already sent out all the men-of-war available to cruise about the spots most likely to be haunted by these pests; but there are a couple of cruising grounds which are still less effectively watched than I should like, and I have been thinking I would send you two lads away to them, just to see what you can do. You, Courtenay, I intend to put in charge of that large felucca you brought in from the lagoons; she is just the craft for the work you will have to do—a good powerful vessel, but of light draught of water. Your cruising ground will be from Cape Maysi northward as far as Long Island, giving the Kays in Austral Bay an overhaul now and then, thence to windward of the Windward Passages, down as far south as, say, the Silver Kay Passage, then to the westward as far as Cape Maysi again. But you will have to be very careful, young gentleman, in your navigation of Austral Bay, or you may find yourself cast away on one or another of the shoals. You, Lascelles, I intend to put in command of that schooner, the Dauphin, which was brought in by the Minerva a few days ago; she is a really formidable vessel of her class, and I think it quite likely I shall be very severely blamed—behind my back—for intrusting her to a mere boy, as you are; but you must look upon this command as an indication of the confidence I have in your gallantry and discretion, and I shall look to you to justify me by your conduct in the choice I have made. Your cruising ground will be round Saint Domingo and as far east as the Virgin Islands, and the duty of you both will be, firstly, to protect commerce, and next to beat up the enemy’s quarters everywhere within your bounds, and capture, sink, burn, and destroy everything you can lay hands on which is not too big for you to tackle. The whole coast of Saint Domingo is swarming with French privateers, really pirates under a rather more respectable name; and it is to these fellows I want you to more particularly direct your attention. The Foam I shall pay off at once, and I think it will be a good plan if you, Mr Courtenay, will try to secure the hands you now have on board the felucca for your next cruise. If you, Mr Lascelles, have any particularly good men on board the Foam that you would like to keep, you had better endeavour to get them to enter for the Dauphin, which, by the way, we will re-christen and call the Dolphin for the future. And now, good morning both of you; if you want a few days’ leave, take it, sending Mr Purkis here your addresses, so that I may know where to communicate with you. Do not leave your ships, however, until the Foam is paid off, which will be to-morrow.”
Upon this hint to depart we rose, and thanking our kind benefactor as briefly as possible for his really extraordinary kindness to us, bowed ourselves out and withdrew.
As we went down over the side I resolved that I would there and then pay a visit to my new command, and see what she was like. I had already noticed her lying alongside the dockyard wharf, and had admired her, not only for her handsome rakish appearance, but also because she was the largest schooner I had at that time ever seen. We therefore pulled straight away for the dockyard, Courtenay accompanying me in the Foam’s gig. As soon as we were fairly away from the Mars my fidus achates turned to me and said:
“Well, Lascelles, this is all very well for you, old fellow, who are well up in your navigation; but I really don’t know how in the world I shall get on. It is true I did fairly well in the felucca on our trip from the lagoons; but then I was always careful to keep the schooner well in sight, so that I was really trusting to you as much as to myself. But now I shall have to depend upon myself, and if I had not felt certain that you will polish me up during the few days that we may be in port together, I should have been obliged to decline the admiral’s very kind offer. What a brick the old fellow is, to be sure; and yet see what a name he has for harshness and severity.”
“Depend upon it,” said I, “he is only harsh and severe with those who deserve it. Then, great allowances must be made for a man occupying such a responsible position as his; no matter what goes wrong, or who is to blame, it is always he who is called to account for it. He has certainly proved himself a true friend to us, and henceforward I will never sit down tamely and hear him vilified. And as to yourself, my dear fellow, make your mind easy; you are a far better navigator than you think yourself, and what little help you may need to render you perfect I will cheerfully give you; a week’s hard study on your part will be quite sufficient to qualify you for going anywhere.”
As we rapidly approached the wharf, the noble proportions of the Dolphin became every moment more apparent, and when at length the gig dashed alongside and I passed in through the wide gangway I felt as though I had a frigate under me. She measured one hundred and twenty feet in length between perpendiculars, and was thirty feet beam at her widest part, which dimensions gave her a measurement of close upon five hundred tons. Her hull was, however, exceedingly shallow, her draught of water being only nine feet when in her usual sailing trim; her lines were, moreover, without any exception the finest and most beautiful I ever saw; so that, though, in consequence of the curious manner in which tonnage was at that time calculated, she was an extraordinarily large vessel of her class, I do not believe she would have carried a cargo of more than four hundred tons of dead weight. This, however, was all in her favour, so far as speed was concerned, as it gave her large and beamy hull a very small displacement, whilst her long flat floor rendered her exceedingly stiff; this latter quality being peculiarly apparent from the fact that, though on this occasion she had an empty hold—her iron ballast having been all removed and stacked upon the wharf—she scarcely deigned to heel at all to the sea-breeze, though it was blowing half a gale at the time, whilst her spars were all ataunto just as she had come in from sea. She was a truly noble craft, her model was superb, and I fell in love with her on the spot—no sailor could have helped doing so. She had been taken under French colours, but my own opinion, which was supported by that of others who were far better judges than myself, was that she was American built. There was an easy graceful spring in her long spacious deck which no Frenchman could ever have compassed, and there was an American look too about her bows, which raked forward in an exquisite curve, whilst they flared outward in a way which promised to make her wondrously dry and comfortable in a sea-way. Her armament had been, like her ballast, removed to the wharf, and I understood from the foreman in charge that it was to be replaced by one somewhat lighter; but when I stepped on shore and saw the guns—eight long eighteens, with a long thirty-two mounted on a pivot for the forecastle—I inwardly resolved that, since she had been able to carry them so far, she should continue to do so if my powers of persuasion could be made to avail anything with the admiral. She had accommodation for eighty men forward, and a cabin abaft which for size and elegance of fittings would not have disgraced a frigate. Poor Courtenay was so completely overwhelmed with admiration that I really felt quite sorry for him; hitherto there had been nothing approachable in his opinion to the felucca—which, by the bye, I have forgotten to say was called the Esmeralda—but now she was dwarfed into insignificance in every respect by the Dolphin, and her young skipper quite put out of conceit with her. However, I consoled myself, if not him, with the reflection that, the Dolphin once out of sight, he would forget all about her. Having given the craft a thorough overhaul, we sauntered off to the naval hospital, only a short distance from the dockyard gates, to see how our wounded were progressing, and also—to tell the whole truth—that my boat’s crew might have an opportunity to take a good look at the schooner, which I felt sure would so favourably impress them that I should have little difficulty in persuading them to enter for her.
We remained in the hospital about an hour, and on our return to the dockyard I just caught a glimpse of my men tumbling over the schooner’s side back into their boat, so I had good hopes of finding that they had one and all swallowed my bait.
Shoving off, I put Courtenay on board his craft and then proceeded to the Foam, where I was kept pretty busy for the remainder of the day preparing to pay off, as I had no clerk to help me. I allowed the hands to go to dinner without saying anything to them, to give the “gigs” an opportunity to discuss the Dolphin with their shipmates, as I felt sure they would, but before they turned-to after dinner I sent for them aft and made my maiden speech, which ran somewhat as follows:
“My lads,” said I, “I have sent for you to tell you that the Foam will be paid off to-morrow. And I wish to take advantage of the opportunity which this announcement affords me to also thank you heartily for the gallant way in which you have all stood by me, and for the way you have behaved generally from the moment when it devolved upon me, through Mr O’Flaherty’s wounding and subsequent death, to assume the command of the schooner. Our cruise together has been a short one, it is true, but it has been long enough to enable me to become personally acquainted with you individually, and to discover both your good and your bad qualities. The latter, I am pleased to say, have been so few and so trifling that they are not worth further mention, whilst the former have been so conspicuous as to render me anxious for a continuance of the connection between us. And this brings me to my final statement, which is that the admiral has been pleased to announce his intention of commissioning that fine schooner the Dolphin, yonder, and placing me in command. Now, my lads, I daresay you guess pretty well at what further I have to say: the Dolphin is to proceed against the French privateers which are snapping up so many of our westerly-bound merchantmen, so there will probably be plenty of fighting for her to do, but there will also be plenty of captures and recaptures, which mean plenty of prize-money for her crew. And I am most anxious that that crew shall be a good one, as good in every respect as the Foam’s crew has proved itself to be; in short, my lads, I should like to have every one of you with me again. Think the matter over, and those of you who are willing to try another cruise with me, and to enter for the Dolphin, can let me know to-morrow when you are paid off. That will do now, you may go to your duty.” Instead of turning-to at once, however, the men clustered together and began to confer eagerly with each other, and with the boatswain, the gunner, and the quarter-master; the result of the confabulation being that in less than five minutes the entire crew, to a man, came forward and announced their desire to enter for the Dolphin. This was eminently satisfactory, for I now had at least the nucleus of a thoroughly good crew.