The Frozen Pirate

by William Clark Russell

Now, as you may suppose, by this time I had settled my plans; and as we sailed up channel, I unfolded them to my companions. I pointed out that before we entered the river it would be necessary to discharge our lading into some little vessel that would smuggle the booty ashore for us. The figure the schooner made was so peculiar she would inevitably attract attention; she would instantly be boarded in the Thames on our coming to anchor, and, if I told the truth, she would be seized as a pirate, and ourselves dismissed with a small reward, and perhaps with nothing.

"My scheme," said I, "is this: I have a relative in London to whom I shall communicate the news of my arrival and tell him my story. You, Wilkinson must be the bearer of this letter. He is a shrewd, active man, and I will leave it to him to engage the help we want. There is no lack of the right kind of serviceable men at Deal, and if they are promised a substantial interest in smuggling our lading ashore, they will run the goods successfully, do not fear. As there is sure to be a man-of-war stationed in the Downs, we must keep clear of that anchorage. I will land you at Lydd, whence you will make your way to Dover and thence to London. Cromwell and Pitt will return and help me to keep cruising. My letter to my relative will tell him where to seek me, and I shall know his boat by her flying a jack. When we have discharged our lading we will sail to the Thames, and then let who will come aboard, for we shall have a clean hold. This," continued I, "is the best scheme I can devise. The risk of smuggling attend it, to be sure; but against those risks we have to put the certainty of our forfeiting our just claims to the property if we carry the schooner to the Thames. Even suppose, when there, that we should not be immediately visited, and so be provided with an opportunity to land our stuff—whom have we to trust? The Thames abounds with river thieves, with lumpers, scuffle-hunters, mud-larks, glutmen, rogues of all sorts, to hire whom would mean to bribe them with the value of half the lading and to risk their stealing the other half. But this is the lesser difficulty; the main one lies in this: there are some sixteen hundred men employed in the London Custom House, most of whom are on river duty as watchmen; thirty of these people are clapped aboard an East Indiaman, five or six on West India ships, and a like proportion in other vessels. So strange a craft as ours would be visited, depend on't, and smartly, too. D'ye see the danger, lads? What do you say, then, to my scheme?"

The negroes immediately answered that they left it to me; I knew best; they would be satisfied with whatever I did.

Wilkinson mused a while and then said, "Smuggling was risky work. How would it be if we represented that we had found the schooner washing about with nobody aboard?"

"The tale wouldn't be credited," said I. "The age of the vessel would tell against such a story, even if you removed all other evidence by throwing the clothes and small-arms overboard and whatever else might go to prove that the schooner must have been floating about abandoned since the year 1750!"

"Musn't lose de clothes, massa, on no account," cried Pitt.

"Well, sir," says Wilkinson, after another spell of reflection, "I reckon you're right. If so be the law would seize the vessel and goods on the grounds that she had been a pirate and all that's in her was plunder, why, then, certainly, I don't see nothin' else but to make a smuggling job of it, as you say, sir."

This being settled (Wilkinson's concurrence being rendered the easier by my telling him that, providing the lading was safely run, I would adhere to my undertaking to give them six hundred and sixty pounds each for their share), I went below and spent half an hour over a letter to Mr. Jeremiah Mason. There was no ink, but I found a pencil, and for paper I used the fly-leaves of the books in my cabin. I opened with a sketch of my adventures, and then went on to relate that the Boca was a rich ship; that as she had been a pirate, I risked her seizure by carrying her to London; that I stood grievously in need of his counsel and help, and begged him not to lose a moment in returning with the messenger to Deal, and there hiring a boat and coming to me, whom he would find cruising off Beachy Head. That I might know his boat, I bade him fly a jack a little below the masthead. "As for the Boca del Dragon," I added, "Wilkinson would recognize her if she were in the middle of a thousand sail, and indeed a farmer's boy would be able to distinguish her for her uncommon oddness of figure." I was satisfied to underscore the words "a rich ship," quite certain his imagination would be sufficiently fired by the expression. At anything further I durst not hint, as the letter would be open for Wilkinson to read.

When I had finished, I took a lanthorn and the keys of the chest and went very secretly and expeditiously to the run, and removing the layers of small-arms from the top of the case that held the money, I picked out some English pieces, quickly returned the small-arms, locked the chest, and returned.

All this time we were running up Channel before a fresh westerly wind. It was true December weather, very raw, and the horizon thick, but I knew my road well, and whilst the loom of the land showed, I desired nothing better than this thickness.