All present were eager in rewarding the honest sailor.
A hackney-coach was now come to the door for Mr. Carat, and every body hurried off as fast as possible.
“Where are they all steering to?” said the sailor. The stage-coachman told him all that he had heard of the matter. “I’ll be in their wake, then,” cried the sailor; “I shall like to see the Jew upon his court-martial; I was choused once by a Jew myself.” He got to Bow-street as soon as they did.
The first thing Howard learned was, that the jewels, which had been all found at Mr. Carat’s, precisely answered the description which his aunt had given of them. The Jew was in the utmost consternation: finding that the jewels were positively sworn to, he declared, upon his examination, that he had bought them from a captain of a ship; that he had paid the full value for them; and that, at the time he purchased them, he had no suspicion of their having been fraudulently obtained. This defence appearing evidently evasive, the magistrates who examined Mr. Carat informed him, that, unless he could produce the person from whom he had bought the jewels, he must be committed to Newgate for receiving stolen goods. Terrified at this sentence, the Jew, though he had at first asserted that he knew nothing of the captain from whom he had received the diamonds, now acknowledged that he actually lodged at his house.
“Hah!” exclaimed Holloway: “I remember, the day that I and Lord Rawson called at your house, you were settling accounts, your foreman told us, with a captain of a ship, who was to leave England in a few days: it’s well he’s not off.”
An officer was immediately sent to Mr. Carat’s in quest of this captain; but there were great apprehensions that he might have escaped at the first alarm of the search for the jewels. Fortunately, however, he had not been able to get off, as two constables had been stationed at Mr. Carat’s house. The officer from Bow-street found him in his own bed-chamber, rummaging a portmanteau for some papers, which he wanted to burn. His papers were seized, and carried along with him before the magistrate.
Alderman Holloway knew the captain the moment he was brought into the room, though his dress and whole appearance were very different from what they had been when he had waited upon the alderman some months before this time, with a dismal, plausible story of his own poverty and misfortunes. He had then told him that his mate and he had had a quarrel, upon the voyage from Jamaica; that the mate knew what a valuable cargo he had on board; that just when they got in sight of land, the crew rose upon him; the mate seized him, and by force put him into a boat, and set him ashore.
The discovery of the jewels at Mr. Carat’s at once overturned the captain’s whole story: cunning people often insert something in their narration to make it better, which ultimately tends to convict them of falsehood. The captain having now no other resource, and having the horrors of imprisonment, and the certainty of condemnation upon a public trial, full before him, threw himself, as the only chance that remained for him, upon Mrs. Howard’s mercy; confessed that all that he had told her before was false; that his mate and he had acted in concert; that the rising of the crew against him had been contrived between them; that he had received the jewels, when he was set ashore, for his immediate share of the booty; and that the mate had run the ship off to Charlestown, to sell her cargo. According to agreement, the captain added, he was to have had a share in the cargo; but the mate had cheated him of that; he had never heard from him, or of him, he would take his oath, from the day he was set ashore, and knew nothing of him or the cargo.
“Avast, friend, by your leave,” cried the honest sailor who had found the stage-coachman’s parcel—“avast, friend, by your leave,” said he, elbowing his way between Alderman Holloway and his next neighbour, and getting clear into the middle of the circle—“I know more of this matter, my lord, or please your worship, which is much the same thing, than any body here; and I’m glad on’t, mistress,” continued the tar, pulling a quid of tobacco out of his mouth, and addressing himself to Mrs. Howard: then turning to the captain, “Wasn’t she the Lively Peggy, pray?—it’s no use tacking. Wasn’t your mate one John Matthews, pray? Captain, your face tells truth, in spite of your teeth.”
The captain instantly grew pale, and trembled: on which the sailor turned abruptly from him, and went on with his story. “Mistress,” said he, “though I’m a loser by it, no matter. The Lively Peggy and her cargo are safe and sound in Plymouth, at this very time being, and we have her mate in limbo, curse him. We made a prize of him, coming from America, for he was under French colours, and a fine prize we thought we’d made. But her cargo belongs to a British subject; and there’s an end to our prize money: no matter for that. There was an ugly look with Matthews from the first; and I found, the day we took her, something odd in the look of her stern. The rascals had done their best to paint over her name; but I, though no great scholar, made a shift to spell the Lively Peggy through it all. We have the mate in limbo at Plymouth: but it’s all come out, without any more to do; and, mistress, I’ll get you her bill of lading in a trice, and I give ye joy with all my heart.”