Unfortunately, there were a few casks of wine in the hold, which the Greeks tapped; and thus, becoming intoxicated in the midst of their pillage, a few of the most ferocious proposed beating the captain to make him confess if there was more money concealed. They accordingly gave him some very hard blows with a rope’s end; then they served the cabin-boy in the same manner (as being generally privy to the captain’s hiding-places), and then two sailors. Lastly came the mate’s turn. Him they bound with a cord, and beat severely; and, finding blows made them confess nothing, they dragged him to the gunwale, held his head over the side of the ship, and, one putting a knife across his throat, swore he would kill them instantly, if he did not disclose where the captain’s money was hid, as well as Turkish letters, which were conveyed in the brig. The poor man, with loud cries, appealed to me to save his life; and, whilst I addressed myself to the lieutenant, Mrs. ——, who was sitting on the quarter-deck with our little girl, an infant, in her arms, rushed forward, undismayed by the ferocious looks of the Greeks, and, with more than a woman’s courage, arrested the pirate’s arm, and implored him to spare his victim. Whether it was their intention to murder the mate it is impossible to say; but the man who held the knife let him go, and threw the key of the mate’s chest at Mrs. ——’s feet.
This scene being over, the lieutenant informed me that he was bound to examine my luggage, whispering to me, at the same time, that, as his men had become very riotous, it would be prudent to propitiate them by a present of a few dollars. I gladly took his advice, and presented them with twenty dollars, which they accepted thanklessly enough. My luggage was then overhauled; but they took nothing, although, amongst other things, they were grievously tempted by discovering a bag of dollars. In the confusion which ensued I lost only a few trifles. The lieutenant begged a pair of pantaloons, which I gave him, and other things, which I assured him I could not spare, and which he very obligingly allowed me to retain. Considering that we were wholly in his power, I had reason to be grateful for his forbearance.
But let me, as an act of justice, bear witness to the wrongs which this nation, in the regeneration of its liberties, had to endure, and none of which were greater than those inflicted by the Austrian and Sardinian navies, whose flag our vessel bore. Whenever the merchant-ships of these two powers appeared in the Levant, it was, under the cloak of trade, to transport materials of war to their mortal enemies the Turks; and whenever the injured Greeks, availing themselves of the rights of nations, molested these pretended neutrals in their unjust traffic, the Austrian ships of war made cruel reprisals on them. In the German war, about the middle of the last century, when the Dutch, calling themselves neutrals, became carriers for the enemies of England, we were accused of committing piratical enormities on the Dutch, equal to any that the Greeks are charged with, and we sought our justification in the same rights: so that we may ask if the laws of blockade are to be held good only when exercised by the hands of the strong? In excuse for beating the master and mate, it may be alleged, that the Genoese crews, when they had the mastery, were not backward in using the same violence. As for the money which was transferred on this occasion, all that need be said is, that, setting aside the question of piracy, it passed from the hands of those who had made a vow of poverty into the pockets of an oppressed people, whose families had been driven from their homes, and perhaps were starving, until some son or husband could bring them the fruits of their dangerous enterprises.
Piracy on the high seas, in the open day, has something very awful and formidable in it. You seem to be utterly defenceless in the midst of the wide ocean, with the arbitrators of your destiny standing there to hurl you, if you utter a murmur, into the fathomless deep. They demand your money, your goods, or whatever else may chance to excite their cupidity, and you give up everything with as smiling a face as you can. You offer them refreshments, as if they were welcome guests, who have honoured and delighted you by their presence; and, until they burst out into the frantic delirium of drunkenness or butchery, the whole scene wears the appearance of the visit of an obliging consignee, who has come to take possession of his property.
At seven at night the schooner’s crew left us to pursue our voyage. The beds and blankets that lay scattered on the cabin-floor were replaced in the berths, a little order was restored, and a wretched supper was made on hard biscuit and cold water; for everything good to eat, from the chickens down to the lemons, walnuts, figs, raisins, &c., had either been taken away or devoured. It was calm through the night; and, when the morning of Sunday broke, the schooner was still in view. Our fears were revived, when we saw the enemy’s boat manned, and soon afterwards coming towards us. But it was only a complimentary visit from the lieutenant, who, with smiles and an amiability that only a Greek can put on towards those whom he has plundered, expressed his hopes that we had passed the night comfortably, and begged of the master to have the goodness to look for a box of jewels that was marked on the ship’s bill of lading, but which had been overlooked the day before; for the lieutenant spoke and read Italian perfectly, and was supposed to be a native of the Ionian isles: so that, having examined the manifest during the night, he was enabled to discover what valuables there were on board which had escaped personal scrutiny. The master reluctantly gave up the casket; and the lieutenant, having requested him to prick down on the chart the longitude and latitude, to see if they corresponded with his own reckoning, politely took his leave, squeezing my hand on parting, just as if we had been old acquaintances bidding each other adieu. A breeze sprang up; the schooner put her head towards Candia, and we soon lost sight of her.
A council was then called as to what was to be done. The friars, who had lost their all, were for putting back: but I objected to that course, seeing we were now two-thirds of our way to our destination. The friars, however, having, as I afterwards learned, agreed, in writing, to give the captain 250 Spanish dollars if he would return, carried their point; and all that remained to be done was to bear the disappointment with patience.
In returning to Leghorn, it was necessary to put into the first port we could reach for provisions; and, accordingly, on the 19th of September, we cast anchor at Zante. Here I made known our misfortune to the government secretary, Colonel Maclean, who very obligingly came down to the health-office to see me, our vessel being in quarantine: and I had reason, from what he told me, to be well satisfied with having escaped as we did; for I learned from him that it was quite a miracle that any respect had been paid to the English name, since many piracies, accompanied with violence and outrage, had been lately committed on English vessels. At Zante I saw in the quarantine ground hundreds of wretched Greeks, in rags and misery, driven from their country, and not knowing where to find a place to lay their heads.
On the 27th of September we weighed anchor, and, when off Sicily, nearly lost our masts in a gale of wind. The next day we were alarmed by the kitchen’s catching fire, and by a passenger falling ill of fever; after which, we ran on the island of Elba in a fog, and finally arrived at Leghorn on the 12th of October, 1827.
The passenger I have named was an Italian, one Signor Girolamo ——, a young man, who, after very successful studies at Padua, thought to turn his talents to account in Mahomet Ali’s service; but, on his arrival in Egypt, he was nearly starved. He was a clever mathematician, and of great literary attainments; but he forgot that, to teach, one must be enabled to explain, which, from his ignorance of Arabic, was impossible, and that Mahomet Ali wanted officers, mechanics, and engineers—practical men—but not schoolmen. Having in vain essayed to find an employment, he was at last told he might take service, if he would pronounce himself competent for the situation of hospital-mate and apothecary to an infantry regiment. In this his medical employment, according to what he told me, he saw so much peculation going forward, that, being ordered to Navarino, with his regiment, in disgust, he made his escape to Zante, determined to have done with Pashas and Eastern civilization for ever. Anxiety, fatigue, and blasted prospects, threw him into a malignant fever; and his deplorable situation, in the empty hold of a vessel, without bed or blanket to sleep on, could not but excite our sympathy.
There was one of the friars, named Fra’ Buonaventura, who, after the plunder of the vessel, when we were on our passage back, was guilty of a breach of confidence so base, that I hardly know how to designate it. He was the one to whom the bag of letters from Europe for the monks of the different monasteries in the Holy Land had been entrusted. These letters, being of no use to the Greeks, were left; and Fra’ Buonaventura used to lie on his back in his berth, and, breaking the seals, read them one by one, and then destroy them. His conduct appeared to me so culpable, that I wrote to the Neapolitan ambassador (he belonging to a monastery at Naples), and requested his Excellency to make this violation of trust known to his superiors.