As my memory takes me back to those jovial but hard-working days of "camaraderie" it is melancholy to think how many of those friends have gone before: Mrs. Murray-Aynsley, Mrs. Hobart and her husband Hobart Pasha; Hugh Burgoyne, one of the navy's brightest ornaments, who was drowned while commanding the ill-fated Captain; Hewett, who lately gave up command of the Channel Fleet only to die; old Steele, the king of blockade-running captains; Maurice Portman, an ex-diplomatist; Frank Vizitelly, whose bones lie alongside those of Hicks Pasha's in the Soudan; Lewis Grant Watson, my brother agent; Arthur Doering, one of my loyal lieutenants, and a host of old Confederate friends, are all gone, and I could count on my fingers those remaining of a circle of chums who did not know what care or fear was, and who would have stood by each other through thick and thin in any emergency. In fact my old friends Admiral Murray-Aynsley and Frank Hurst are almost the only two living of that companionship.
Of Hobart Pasha and of the important part he played in the Turko-Russian war and Cretan rebellion—in which he acknowledged that his blockade-running experiences stood him in such good stead—most, if not all, my readers will have read or heard. He commanded a smart little twin screw-steamer called the Don, in fact one of the first twin propeller steamers ever built. And very proud he was of his craft, in which he made several successful runs under the assumed name of Captain Roberts. On her first trip after "Captain Roberts" gave up command in order to go home, the Don was captured after a long chase, and his late chief officer, who was then in charge, was assumed by his captors to be Roberts. He maintained silence concerning the point, and the Northern newspapers upon the arrival of the prize at Philadelphia were full of the subject of the "Capture of the Don and the notorious English naval officer, Captain Roberts." Much chagrined were they to find they had got the wrong man, and that the English naval officer was still at large.
Poor Burgoyne—whose tragic and early end, owing to the capsizing of the Captain, everybody deplored—as a blockade-runner was not very successful. If I remember correctly he made only two or three trips. Had he lived he would have had a brilliant career before him in the navy; bravest of the brave, as is evidenced by the V.C. he wore, gentle as a woman, unselfish to a fault, he might have saved his life if he had thought more of himself and less of his men on that terrible occasion off Finisterre, when his last words were, "Look out for yourselves, men; never mind me."
Then there was Hewett, another wearer of the "cross for valour," who has only recently joined the majority, after a brilliant career as Admiral commanding in the East Indies, Red Sea, and Channel Fleet; who successfully interviewed King John in Abyssinia, and was not content to pace the deck of his flagship at Suakim, but insisted upon fighting in the square at El Teb, and whose hospitality and geniality later on as Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Fleet was proverbial.
Murray-Aynsley, I rejoice to say, is still alive. Who that knows "old Murray" does not love him; gentle as a child, brave as a lion, a man without guile, he was perhaps the most successful of all the naval blockade-runners. In the Venus he had many hair-breadth escapes, notably on one occasion when he ran the gauntlet of the Northern Fleet in daylight into Wilmington. The Venus, hotly pursued by several blockaders and pounded at by others, straight through whom she steamed, and old Murray on the bridge, with his coat sleeves hitched up almost to his arm-pits—a trick he had when greatly excited—otherwise as cool as possible, was, as Lamb afterwards told me, a sight not to be forgotten.
But shore life in Nassau was by no means "all beer and skittles." As I have stated, the cheery side had its reverse. So far as I was concerned, I had always a busy time attending to the mercantile part of the business, and latterly a large staff of clerks, captains, and officers to supervise, to manage whom required all the tact and firmness of which as a comparative youngster I was capable. But on the whole they were a loyal set of men; some imbeciles were indeed sent out as captains, who were no more fit to command a blockade-runner than I was a regiment, and these men had to be superseded and replaced by others: which caused much friction, but the interests involved were so large that I could not afford to be sentimental.
The business had now grown to very large proportions; owing to the success achieved by the first Banshee her shareholders were encouraged to make further investments, and their friends were only too delighted to follow suit. The consequence was that my principals at home established a private Joint Stock Company with a large capital, by means of which steamer after steamer was built and sent out for me to manipulate.
Individual ventures gradually became the exception, and on account of the amount of capital required it was found more profitable to form large companies. The risk of loss was lessened by the possession of a greater number of vessels, as even if half the fleet owned by a company were captured the profits earned by the other half would more than counterbalance the loss entailed by failure. The mercantile house which transacted the company's business invariably held a large quantity of the stock, and the commission earned was so great that, even if the individual stockholders lost, the mercantile house came out a gainer.
This change increased immensely my responsibilities and anxieties; vast sums had to be dealt with, and at times a decision had to be made in an instant upon a subject which involved grave consequences but brooked little delay. However, youth and a sanguine temperament seemed to carry me along, and in those days I managed to brush aside difficulties and annoyances which in these later times would appear to me insufferable.
One morning I was wakened up at daylight by Doering and the captain of a boat called the Tristram Shandy, which I had despatched only five days before on her maiden trip, standing at the foot of my bed. They explained to me that they had arrived within 100 miles of Wilmington when they had fallen in with a fast cruiser, who had chased them; to avoid capture they had been obliged to throw all their cargo overboard. This in itself meant a serious loss, but it was not the sum-total of the day's misfortunes, for some hours later I heard of the capture of another of our boats, and the total destruction of a third by being run ashore and destroyed by the blockaders—a heavy bill of misfortune for one day!