One Saturday afternoon when the wind was blowing a hurricane and the sea rolling and seething in all its majestic fury, as we were scudding along somewhere between Guernsey and the Isle of Wight, we saw a fine bark in the distance, and on nearer approach we found it was the Anchor, returning from the West Indies laden with sugar. We got near enough to speak to each other, and I looked to see if I could make out Jim Drake, but I failed to do so. The vessel had encountered some very bad weather for nearly all the bulwarks were gone, and almost everything that is usually carried on deck had been washed away. The men were, like ourselves, tied fast with a rope's end to prevent their being washed overboard. After two or three days and nights in the Channel, we at last found ourselves in Weymouth harbour. We had been soaking wet and had had no sleep or food, nor did we seem to require any, but I went to an inn and got to bed and slept for ten hours. On arriving back in Jersey the first thing I heard was that Jim Drake, who had just returned in the Anchor, had summoned his skipper for cruelly ill-using him while at sea. It appeared that the Anchor was no sooner out of Jersey than poor Jim Drake began to be sea-sick. So this skipper, the "very nice gentleman," took a rope, and the chief mate took another, and between them they belaboured poor Jim, one hitting on one side and one on the other. So this nice pair seem to have taken a delight in ill-using the poor lad during the whole of the voyage.
One day Jim committed the awful crime of whistling. No one was allowed to whistle on board except the commander, and he only under extraordinary circumstances, such as when there was a dead calm he might whistle for a breeze. Superstition ran so high on board that if a man whistled he was considered an evil genius; storm and tempest, fire and famine, aye, the devil himself would visit that ship, and from the moment Jim Drake whistled every man on board became his enemy. The skipper cursed, and the mate swore, and poor Jim cried for mercy and said he did not know he was committing an offence. But they tied him to the mast and both took a rope and hammered away as if the subject they were operating upon had been a piece of cast-iron or a block of granite; and at last one took a handspike and gave Jim a blow which broke his arm, and as there was no surgeon the limb was never set. This was the complaint brought before the court, and when I saw Jim there I cried for pity as the poor lad stood there with his hand twisted round, the back being towards his thigh, the palm outwards, and the whole dangling useless by his side. Now Jim was an English lad, and the skipper a Jerseyman, and all the business of the court was carried on in French. Jim stated his evidence, but there was not a man amongst that crew who would corroborate it, and the skipper and the mate were two very respectable men. Moreover the skipper was such a kind-hearted gentleman that he had actually given his men a double allowance of grog on their homeward voyage; so of course, as in duty bound, they all to a man spoke of his kind and generous conduct. So poor Jim's complaint fell to the ground. And not only that, but the skipper took proceedings against him for trying to defame his fair character, and poor Jim was sent to prison for three weeks. I cried with anguish for Jim, yet thanked my lucky stars that I did not go on board the Anchor.
CHAPTER VI
RETURN AND MARRIAGE
I HAD now been in Jersey eight years and things began to get rather dead there. Work was scarce and wages very low, and if any one wanted a small job done, there were always about a dozen men ready to do it for almost nothing; and what made it so was the number of Irish pensioners. They had their pensions, and of course they would do any kind of work for less wages than any other man who had to live entirely by his labour. In fact, things were in a state of stagnation everywhere. I went across to France, and the people there were quarrelling with King Louis Philippe and casting all the blame of their poverty upon his shoulders, and saying how much better they should get on if they could only have a Napoleon to rule over them. They were chalking Vive Napoléon upon the pavements and walls.
I went back to England and found things were not much better there. Thousands of poor people were half-starved and half-clothed, and when they asked for work and wages to buy bread for themselves and their little ones, the Commander-in-Chief was ready to fire a volley of grape shot down the street. England and some of the continental nations were at very low water in 1846-7, and I think at their very lowest ebb in 1848. Some monarchs were obliged to abdicate, and in London in April of that year riot and rebellion were rampant. Several thousand people paraded the streets starving. In the House of Commons some one declared that it would be a wholesome proceeding to hang a few rebels. Up jumped Fergus O'Connor, and cried, "Whenever you hang a rebel you should make a point of hanging a tyrant too, and rebellion would soon die a natural death." Soldiers were placed in every town in England, lest the owners of hungry stomachs should show too much anxiety to fill them with bread. At the same time it was said that millions of quarters of foreign grain were brought within sight of the shores of England, but were thrown into the sea by order of rich merchants rather than that corn should be brought in to reduce the price. Such is the greed of man.
The only work that I could get after I left Jersey was in a canvas manufactory in Somersetshire at eight shillings a week, and this was considered very good wages then. Here I found poverty and wretchedness and oppression supreme. There were about four hundred people employed in the various departments of this business; old men and women, nearing four score, and little boys and girls from five years of age and upwards. Some worked in the factory, and some who had hand-looms took their work to their homes. Several of them had to walk four miles carrying their woof with them, where they had handlooms; and so these poor toilers worked from early dawn until ten o'clock at night weaving their woof into sail-cloth or canvas. When these poor slaves came to the factory for their work, the foreman would weigh out to each person so many pounds of chain and as many of woof to each person. The weaver had to take it home on his back and produce exactly forty-six yards length of canvas two feet wide. Now if he happened to put a little too much energy or muscular strength into the work, all the woof would be used up before forty-six yards were made. Consequently he would have to send to the factory for a few ounces more woof to finish the pieces, and the cloth therefore would be a trifle too stout, and consequently the weaver would be fined to the tune of any amount, according to the greed and temper of the master, from sixpence up to five shillings and sixpence, which was the wage due for weaving the whole piece. On the other hand if the weaver happened to be weakly and unable to use the strength required, he would come to his forty-six yards' length before he had shot in all his woof. The cloth therefore would not be quite stout enough, and the poor weaver would be fined. Any frivolous pretext was resorted to to fine the workers.
Many a time have I seen poor men or women after toiling hard all the week coming to the pay office for their wages, but instead of receiving any being cursed at and told that it was a very great favour on their employers' part to give them work at all. And so these poor slaves would have to do without the "weaver's ox" (red herring) for their Sunday dinner. A red herring was the greatest luxury these poor people could indulge in, and thrice blest was he who could afford three red herrings a week. There were many other pretexts for fining the weaver besides those mentioned. Another was what was called in weaving a "gout"; that is, in the course of weaving there were some thick and gouty parts in the woof, where the thread was twice or thrice as thick as it should be. If the weaver was not careful, and allowed one of these thick gouty threads into the texture of the cloth, he was heavily fined. The cloth was also examined under a magnifying glass, and if found pin-holey or spotted, the weaver was fined. All these were certainly very superficial excuses for fining the people, for the masters themselves would throw the canvas down on the floor and walk over it. The cottages where these poor people had to live and do this weaving were shocking hovels.
This firm was carried on by a man and his three sons. Each of the sons took up a certain department. One superintended the spinning department, another the bleaching, and the third the weaving. On a certain Whit Monday at the village club festival an old farmer, in an after-dinner speech, took the liberty to tell the three young men that it was very shabby and mean of them to fine these poor weavers in the manner they did, and he thought it amounted to little less than downright robbery. Then the young man from the spinning department jumped up, and with an oath cried, "They," meaning his brothers, "do not half fine them here. You should come over to my place and see my books." In less than a week this man was seized with a fit and fell dead; and the poor people, in their simplicity, said it was a judgment sent from Heaven. The owners of the firm evidently did not think so, for they continued to fine the people as usual.