Will mount with thee till thy high goal be won!
New-York, December, 1843. Mary E. Hewitt.
REMINISCENCES OF A DARTMOOR PRISONER.
NUMBER ONE.
It was my fortune to be taken prisoner in India during the war of 1812. I was, with others, confined in Fort William at Calcutta, for several months, until the authorities could find an opportunity to send us to England. At length the Bengal fleet being ready for their return voyage, the prisoners were distributed on board the several vessels which composed it. I was placed with a few others on board the ‘Lord Wellington,’ and being in a destitute condition, I agreed to assist in working the ship to England, at the same rate as the regular hands on board. The fleet rendezvoused in the near vicinity, and consisted of something over thirty sail, most of them of the largest class, and equal in size to a line-of-battle ship. They were well armed, some carrying thirty or forty guns, with a plentiful supply of muskets, pikes, etc. This had been customary for many years, as a protection against the French privateers and men-of-war, which swarmed the Indian ocean; in many instances proving themselves more than a match for their enemies, and sometimes beating off large class frigates.
On going on board, I found between four and five hundred people, including officers, passengers, and crew. The captain was a large heavy-built man, very unwieldy, and remarkable only for having a large, long body placed upon very small legs. He reminded me of an ill-constructed building, ready to fall by its own weight. He appeared never to be happy unless he was ‘in hot water,’ either with the passengers or crew. There were six mates, or more properly lieutenants, for all the officers were in uniform. There were also a dozen or more midshipmen, a boatswain and his two mates, gunners, quarter-masters, armorers, sail-makers, and carpenters in abundance. In short, we were fitted out in complete man-of-war fashion; not forgetting the cat-o’-nine-tails, which was used with great liberality. The crew was made up of all nations, but the majority consisted of broken-down men-of-war’s men, who being unfit for His Majesty’s service had little fear of imprisonment. The others were composed of Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, etc.; and taken altogether, one would have inferred that they must have been drafted from Falstaff’s regiment of taterdamallions.
One fine morning the fleet got under way. Nothing note-worthy or interesting however occurred until we made the island of Ceylon, where we lay a couple of days; during which time the crew got and kept most unaccountably drunk. The officers tried every method to solve the mystery, but without effect. The truth was, the men became suddenly fond of cocoa-nuts, selecting them from the bum-boats in preference to any other fruit. The secret was, that the shell was bored before the nut was quite ripe, the juice poured out, and Arrack substituted in its place. Our next place of stopping was Madras, where we took in more cargo, but no more cocoa-nuts, as no fruit-boats put off to us, the weather being too rough to admit of it.
We had now been at sea several weeks, and had many among our crew and passengers upon the sick-list. Of the former, was a young man on his first voyage. He had been ill more than a week, and there being no physician on board, there was little or nothing done for him. At length he became delirious at intervals; and during the whole of the last night of his existence he made the most piercing and heart-rending cries; calling incessantly for his mother and sister, and lamenting that he should never see them more. Poor fellow! before the next night he was sewed up in his hammock, with a couple of shot at his feet; prayers were read over him, and in the presence of his silent and pensive ship-mates, he was consigned to the ocean, that vast and sublime grave of countless millions of our race. Several weeks after this occurrence, one of the passengers, a Frenchman, died of the consumption, and was buried in the same way; and had not the subject been of too serious a nature, the event would have partaken somewhat of the ludicrous. As usual, the shot was placed at the feet of the dead body, but proved to be insufficient to sink it. The consequence was, that the head and shoulders remained above the surface, bobbing up and down, until we lost sight of it in the distance. The captain’s clerk always officiated as Chaplain at the funerals and divine service; which latter, by the way, was more of a farce than any thing else; for I have known more than one instance where they have been interrupted in the very midst by a squall of wind. Then to see the hubbub; the congregation dispersed; some ordered aloft, with such pious (though sometimes more forcible) ejaculations as: ‘Lay aloft there, you lubbers! D—n your bloods! I’ll see your back-bones! I’ll set the cat at you!’ etc.
We now approached the Cape of Good Hope. The weather became lowering; and as the day advanced, heavy masses of black clouds gradually arose above the horizon, and palled the sky. Night came on suddenly, and with it the threatened storm in all its fury. The darkness was as it were the quintessence of an ink-bottle. Nothing could be seen, save when the lightning gleamed, or when the rockets which were sent up from the Commodore, and broke forth, spreading their lurid, baleful light to give notice to the squadron of their position; then for an instant the whole scene was lit up with a hideous glare, when all would subside again into tenfold darkness. This, accompanied by the whistling of the wind, the roar of thunder, and the booming of a gun at intervals from the Commodore, to give notice for putting about, gave a grandeur and sublimity to the scene, which I have never seen surpassed. Fear gave way to excitement; and the idea of perishing amid this terrible war of the elements was worth years of the monotony of every-day life. I thought too of the Flying Dutchman, but did not fall in with him until some time after, and then it was by day-light, and without the poetry of ‘darkness, and cloud, and storm.’