In the town of Halberstadt, not long ago, there lived a tanner, remarkable for having been made enormously rich against his will. During the seven years’ war, the French, being at this place, had collected all the cattle in the environs, the skins of which they had to sell. The tanners of Halberstadt had but little power to buy, one alone excepted. To him the French applied; but, not understanding speculation after a certain quantity, he absolutely refused any more. Conquerors are not to be trifled with; and finding that their persuasions, which indeed were numberless, could not prevail, they resorted to the argumentum baculinum, and the tanner was at last beat into compliance. It was however under the condition that the other tanners would, at a fair price, lend him their tan-pits; and for this the argumentative French very readily undertook. The tanners were summoned, refused, and the rhetoric of the bastinado was again employed. It was resistless; the tanners let out their tan-pits. The tanner, who bought the hides at one-sixth of their value, parted with the dollars he had been so desirous to retain; and, in a few years afterward, became the wealthiest tanner in Germany.
I will give you another example of the caprice of this said Madam Fortune.
In Germany there are lotteries of various construction. Of one of these the law is, that he who draws a first prize, a second, and a third, shall the fourth time be one of the five that are to draw for the capital lot of I know not how many thousand dollars. A cooper, who loved to tap the barrels he hooped, bought a ticket, which came up a prize once, twice, and thrice; but the foolish fellow was thirsty; and being offered drink for the present, and money to buy more for a fortnight to come, he could not resist the temptation, and sold his ticket, which was a fourth time the fortunate number. He comforted himself with his can; and made a second venture, with exactly the same good and ill success. To another man this would have been horribly vexatious; but the jovial cooper let it pass; and when the next lottery came, made another purchase. The third time it had arrived at the third stage of winning, and he was again on the point of parting with his chance. By something of persuasion, and something of force, the reckless fellow was prevented. ‘Fortune,’ said his friends, or perhaps his wife, though this is the kind of husband a wife knows least how to manage, ‘Fortune absolutely persecutes you to accept her favours: why do you so perversely cast them from you?’ For once the sot heard reason; and the doctrine of chances proved how dangerous it is to lay the long odds; for the cooper’s ticket again gained the great prize.
From us Fortune is flying; and we are now in pursuit. The sequel will shew how perverse a jade she is, and how determined not to be overtaken.
On the first of July, 1799, we went on board the Kennet, Captain Thomson. All was confusion, all hurry. Barges, loaded with prodigious bales, lay beside her; a dozen men were straining every nerve to raise them over her side, and stow them between her ribs. It excited attention and surprise to see these cumbrous packs wedged with such contrivance as scarcely to leave a vacancy. Every thing that suppleness of limb, thews, sinews and muscular force could effect, was in continual exertion. The vessel was to fall down the river the next tide; which seemed incompatible with the labour to be performed.
With what additional wonder do I recollect scenes like these in my native country, having compared them with the inattention I since have witnessed. Here every man was active and intelligent; and one even supremely above the rest. Indeed it was prodigious. He was the mate; he directed the whole; his eye was every where; and his arm seemed to work miracles. He was full six feet high; and when the ponderous load seemed to defy their collected strength, he came, applied his giant force, and, at the first pull, it began to move. His agility was no less surprising, and almost irreconcilable to such bulk; for his wrist would doubly measure that of an ordinary man. His understanding was equal to his bodily power; he instantly saw what was wrong, and the way in which it was to be rectified. Give but his faculties another circle of action, and an epic poet might have made this man his hero: yet he was but the mate of a ship, subject to a captain who, though no fool, was far indeed from his equal; and when I asked him if he did not mean to be a captain himself, answered with a sigh—‘I wish, Sir, I may ever have so much good fortune.’
In what a traverse and frequently ludicrous manner does accident arrange the place and office of man, and the affairs of this poor world!
The mate’s name was Baird; and he and his commander were both Scotchmen. In the invoice, he was written captain, and the captain supercargo; a falsehood to which the infamous practice of pressing has given birth; a mate, like a foremast man, being liable to be pressed.
When I came on board, and saw the work that was still to do, I concluded it was impossible it should be accomplished. The mate himself doubted, but hoped, and worked like legion. Yes; we were at Gravesend the next day, where we were examined at the Alien Office; and on the evening of the third, anchored at the Nore.
The ocean was before us; the evening was calm; the expanse vast; the shores of Essex and of Kent were to the right and left; and the fleet with which we were to sail, with our convoy, and the admiral’s ship that guards the Nore, were all in view. The silence that reigned was suddenly interrupted by the eight o’clock bell, that rang from vessel to vessel; and, much more agreeably, by the admiral’s military band. We were at a proper distance; and the music came so softened to our ears that it was delightful.