For Faith and Freedom

by Walter Besant

The voyage lasted six weeks. At first we had rough weather with heavy seas and rolling waves. Happily, I was not made sick by the motion of the ship, and could always stand upon the deck and look at the waves (a spectacle, to my mind, the grandest in the whole world). But, I fear, there was much suffering among the poor wretches—my fellow-prisoners. They were huddled and crowded together below the deck; they were all sea-sick; there was no doctor to relieve their sufferings, nor were there any medicines for those who were ill. Fever presently broke out among them, so that we buried nine in the first fortnight of our voyage. After this, the weather growing warm and the sea moderating, the sick mended rapidly, and soon all were well again.

I used to stand upon the quarter-deck and look at them gathered in the waist below. Never had I seen such a company. They came, I heard, principally from London, which is the rendezvous or headquarters of all the rogues in the country. They were all in rags—had any one among them possessed a decent coat it would have been snatched from his back the very first day; they were dirty from the beginning; many of them had cuts and wounds on their heads gotten in their fights and quarrels, and these were bound about with old clouts; their faces were not fresh-coloured and rosy, like the faces of our honest country lads, but pale and sometimes covered with red blotches, caused by their evil lives and their hard drinking; on their foreheads was clearly set the seal of Satan. Never did I behold wickedness so manifestly stamped upon the human countenance. They were like monkeys for their knavish and thievish tricks. They stole everything that they could lay hands upon: pieces of rope, the sailors' knives when they could get them, even the marlinspikes if they were left about. When they were caught and flogged they would make the ship terrible with their shrieks, being cowards as prodigious as they were thieves. They lay about all day ragged and dirty on deck, in the place assigned to them, stupidly sleeping or else silent and dumpish, except for some of the young fellows who gambled with cards—I know not for what stakes—and quarrelled over the game and fought. It was an amusement among the sailors to make these lads fight on the forecastle, promising a pannikin of rum to the victor. For this miserable prize they would fight with the greatest fury and desperation, even biting one another in their rage, while the sailors clapped their hands and encouraged them. Pity it is that the common sort do still delight themselves with sport so brutal. On shore these fellows would be rejoicing in cock-fights and bull-baitings: on board they baited the prisoners.

There were among the prisoners twenty or thirty women, the sweepings of the Bristol streets. They, too, would fight as readily as the men, until the Captain forbade it under penalty of a flogging. These women were to the full as wicked as the men; nay, their language was worse, insomuch that the very sailors would stand aghast to hear the blasphemies they uttered, and would even remonstrate with them, saying, 'Nan,' or 'Poll'—they were all Polls and Nans—''tis enough to cause the ship to be struck with lightning! Give over, now! Wilt sink the ship's company with your foul tongue?' But the promise of a flogging kept them from fighting. Men, I think, will brave anything for a moment's gratification; but not even the most hardened woman will willingly risk the pain of the whip.

The Captain told me that of these convicts, of whom every year whole shiploads are taken to Virginia, to Jamaica, and to Barbadoes, not one in a hundred ever returns. 'For,' he said, 'the work exacted from them is so severe, with so much exposure to a burning sun, and the fare is so hard, that they fall into fevers and calentures. And, besides the dangers from the heat and the bad food, there is a drink called rum, or arrack, which is distilled from the juice of the sugar-cane, and another drink called "mobbie," distilled from potatoes, which inflames their blood, and causes many to die before their time. Moreover, the laws are harsh, and there is too much flogging and branding and hanging. So that some fall into despair and, in that condition of mind, die under the first illness which seizes on them.'

'Captain,' I said, 'you forget that I am also to become one of these poor wretches.'

The Captain swore lustily that, on his return, he would seek out the villain Penne and break his neck for him. Then he assured me that the difference between myself and the common herd would be immediately recognised; that a rebel is not a thief, and must not be so treated; and that I had nothing to fear—nay, that he himself would say what he could in my favour. But he entreated me with the utmost vehemence to send home an account of where I was, and what I was enduring, to such of my friends as might have either money to relieve me from servitude or interest to procure a pardon. Alas! I had no friends. Mr. Boscorel, I knew full well, would move heaven and earth to help me. But he could not do that without his son finding out where I was; and this thought so moved me that I implored the Captain to tell no one who I was, or what was my history; and, for greater persuasion, I revealed to him those parts of my history which I had hitherto concealed, namely, my marriage and the reason of that rash step and my flight.

'Madam,' he said, 'I would that I had the power of revenging these foul wrongs. For them, I swear, I would kidnap both Mr. George Penne and Mr. Benjamin Boscorel; and, look you, I would make them mess with the scum and the sweepings whom we carry for'ard; and I would sell them to the most inhuman of the planters, by whom they would be daily beaten and cuffed and flogged; or, better still, would cause them to be sold at Havana to the Spaniards, where they would be employed, as are the English prisoners commonly by that cruel people, namely, in fetching water under negro overseers. I leave you to imagine how long they would live, and what terrible treatment they would receive.'

So it was certain that I was going to a place where I must look for very little mercy, unless I could buy it; and where the white servant was regarded as worth so many years of work; not so much as a negro, because he doth sooner sink under the hardships of his lot, while the negro continues frolick and lusty, and marries and has children, even though he has to toil all day in the sun, and is flogged continually to make him work with the greater heart.

Among the women on board was a young woman, not more than eighteen or thereabout, who was called Deb. She had no other name. Her birthplace she knew not; but she had run about the country with some tinkers, whose language she said is called 'Shelta' by those people. This she could still talk. They sold her in Bristol; after which her history is one which, I learn, is common in towns. When the Captain bade her come to the cabin, and ordered her to obey me in whatsoever I commanded, she looked stupidly at him, shrinking from him if he moved, as if she was accustomed (which was indeed the case) to be beaten at every word. I made her first clean herself and wash her clothes. This done, she slept in my cabin, and, as the Captain promised, became my servant. At first she was not only afraid of ill-treatment, but she would wilfully lie; she purloined things and hid them; she told me so many tales of her past life, all of them different, that I could believe none. Yet when she presently found out that I was not going to beat her, and that the Captain did never offer to cuff or kick her (which the poor wretch expected), she left off telling falsehoods and became as handy, obliging, and useful a creature as one could desire. She was a great, strapping girl, black-eyed and with black hair, as strong as any man, and a good-looking creature as well, to those who like great women.

This Deb, when, I say, she ceased to be afraid of me, began to tell me her true history, which was, I suppose, only remarkable because she seemed not to know that it was shameful and wicked. She lived, as the people among whom she had been brought up lived, without the least sense or knowledge of God; indeed, no heathen savage could be more without religion than the tinkers and gipsies on the road. They have no knowledge at all; they are born; they live; they die; they are buried in a hedgeside, and are forgotten. It was surprising to me to find that any woman could grow up in a Christian country so ignorant and so uncared for. In the end, as you shall hear, she showed every mark of penitence and fell into a godly and pious life.