A grief I’ll ne’er impart;
It breathes no sigh, it sheds no tear,
But it consumes my heart.
I have taken up my pen to add, that Will Mather still remains a bachelor, and that on every visit I make to Dumfriesshire, I take my dinner, solus cum solo, at Auchincleuch, and that many tears are annually shed, over a snug bottle, for poor Nancy.
AN ADVENTURE WITH THE PRESS-GANG.
How goes the press? was, as usual, our first and most anxious inquiry when the pilot boat came alongside to the westward of Lundy Island. The brief but emphatic reply was, “As hot as blazes.” Knowing therefore what we had to expect, the second mate and I, and one or two others, applied to the captain to set us ashore at Ilfracomb, but he would not listen to us. A double-reefed topsail breeze was blowing from the westward, and a vigorous flood-tide was setting up channel, enabling us to pass over the ground about fifteen knots. Such advantages the captain was no way disposed to forego, so that there was nothing for us but to trust to Providence and our stow holes. The breeze flagged towards sunset, and it was not until an hour after dusk that we dropped anchor in Kingroad.
As soon as the ship was brought up, I stepped in the main rigging to lend a hand to furl the topsail, but had not reached the top, when I heard the cabin boy calling out in an Irish whisper, “Bobstay, down, down, the press-boat is alongside.” I was on deck in a twinkling, and was springing to the after scuttle, when I found myself seized violently by the arm. I trembled. It was the same boy that had called me down. “They are already in the mizen chains,” said he; “to the fore scuttle, or you are a gone man.”
Down the fore peak I went with the rapidity of lightning, and down jumped three of the gang after me with little less velocity.
“Oho, my tight little fellow,” said one of them, thrusting his cutlass down a crevice over my head; “I see you; out you must come, or here goes an inch or two of cold steel into your bread-bag.”
I knew well that I was beyond his reach, and took care to let him have all the talk to himself. They rummaged about all over the hold, thrusting their cutlasses down every chink they could perceive, but no one could they find give a single squeak. In about half an hour I heard the well-known voice of the cabin boy calling me on deck. On reaching the deck, I found that the gang had carried off three of our hands, and had expressed their determination to renew their search next day. Of course my grand object was to get ashore without delay. The moment we anchored, the captain had gone off to Bristol to announce his arrival to his owners; and as the mate and I were not on good terms, he refused to allow me the use of the ship’s boat. None of the watermen whose boats we hailed would come alongside, because if they had been found assisting the crew of merchant vessels to escape the press, they themselves would have been subjected to its grasp. About midnight, however, one waterman came alongside, with whom the love of money overcame the fear of danger, and he agreed to pull the second mate, boatswain, and myself ashore, for half a guinea each. I had brought from the West Indies a small venture in sugar, a cask of which, about a hundredweight, I took into the boat with me, to clear present expenses.