Such news as it contained related largely to shipping. There was a column of items of maritime intelligence. My eye naturally dwelt upon this column, and I read some passages aloud. At last I came to this paragraph:
A correspondent informs us that the brig Black Watch, 295 tons, built in 1806, by Mr. W. Dixon, of Sunderland, is fitting out in the Thames presumably for a privateering cruise. She is said to have been purchased by a gentleman of Amsterdam, but the person who goes in command of her is Captain Michael Greaves, who belongs to this town. If the owner be a Dutchman, as rumor asserts, it is not to be supposed that letters of marque will be issued.
“What do you say, uncle?” said I.
“I cannot tell. I know nothing about letters of marque, Bill. If she’s furrin’-owned her capers can’t be countenanced by our State, can ’ey?”
“No,” said I.
I looked again at the paragraph.
“Michael Greaves—Michael Greaves.” I seemed to know the name. I pondered, found I could get nothing out of memory, and turned my eye upon another part of the paper.
“Here is an account of the casting away of the William and Jane.”
“That’s the ship for whose murder her skipper is swinging on the sand hills,” said my uncle.
I read the story—an old-world story, not infrequently repeated since. Do not we know it, Jack? A ship mysteriously leaks; the carpenter sounds the well, and his eyes are damned by the captain for hinting at a started butt; all hands sweat at the pumps; the water gains; the mate thinks the leak is in the fore-peak, and the master, who is intoxicated, stutters with blasphemies that the mischief is in the after-hold; the people leave in the boats: the derelict washes ashore, and is found with four auger holes in her bottom; the master is collared and charged. At the trial the carpenter states that the master borrowed an auger from him and forgot to return it. Master is damned by the evidence of the mate and a number of seamen; is condemned to be hanged by the neck, and is turned off on the Deal sand hills protesting his innocence.