“‘I am ready to acknowledge that you would very likely take me, as I should certainly deserve to be taken for my folly in agreeing to your proposal. You will excuse me if I therefore decline it,’ was the answer. Though we pitied the feelings of the poor man, it was very difficult to keep our countenance as he uttered his expressions of indignation and anger. He did not recover his spirits till his frigate was out of sight.”
This anecdote was followed by several others. Those were pleasant hours I spent on board the old Indiaman. My visits to her were indeed an agreeable change from the sea-life routine of my own ship. I was amused by the progress in intimacy made among themselves by the younger portion of the passengers since I first went aboard at Spithead. The captain confided to me the fact that it cost him much more trouble to maintain discipline in the cuddy than among his crew. “What with my young ladies and my chronometers, it is as much as an elderly gentleman can well accomplish to keep all things straight,” he observed, glancing at several young couples who were pacing the deck, the gentlemen being cadets or writers. “The friends of those girls now—nice young creatures they are too,—have sent them out fully expecting that they would marry nabobs or colonels at least, and in spite of all my precautions, they have gone and engaged themselves to those young fellows who have only just got their feet on the ratlines. Small blame to the gentlemen, however, for a more charming consignment I never had, only the more charming the more difficult to manage.”
While the calms lasted, I paid daily visits to my friends, but at length a breeze springing up we proceeded on our voyage, as I must with my narrative, or I may chance not to get to the end of it. We called off the beautiful island of Madeira, with its picturesque town of Funchal—more attractive on the outside than within; we procured, however, a welcome supply of fresh meat, vegetables, and fruits. On our crossing the line, Neptune and his Tritons came on board and played their usual pranks. Jack little thinks that on such occasions he is performing a very ancient ceremony, practised by those bold voyagers, the Carthaginians; to them there is little doubt that the secret of the mariner’s compass was known. On sailing between the Pillars of Hercules into the wide Atlantic they were visited, not by Hercules himself, but by his representative priests, to whom they were wont to deliver certain votive offerings that the propitiated divinity might protect them on their perilous voyage. The custom of performing ceremonies of a like description was continued to later times by the mariners of the Levant, Greece, and Italy, long after the temple of Hercules was in ruins. When they, and those northern seamen who had learned the scientific parts of navigation from them, extended their voyages across the line, they continued the practices, substituting Neptune for Hercules, and adding a few caricatures to suit their own more barbarous taste.
Having crossed the line, and there being no longer much risk of our meeting the cruisers of the enemy, Captain Hassall, who had long fumed at being kept back by the slow sailing of our companions, determined to part company. We accordingly hoisted our colours, gave a salute of nine guns in acknowledgment of the civilities we had received, and under all sail soon ran the dignified moving convoy out of sight. Light and contrary winds and calms kept us so long under the sun of the tropics that the seams of our decks began to open, and, to get them caulked and other repairs executed, we bore up for Saint Salvador on the coast of Brazil, belonging to Portugal. We saluted the fort on entering, and paid every necessary respect to the authorities; but we soon found that they either suspected our character, or were not inclined, for some other reason, to treat us in a friendly spirit. A guard was put on board, and we were told that neither officers nor crew must leave the ship.
We were still ignorant of the cause of this treatment, when the master of an English whaler came alongside with his men armed to the teeth. He told us that he had a letter of marque, and that on the strength of it, having fallen in with a Spanish merchantman some way to the south-west, he had chased and captured her, and found a large number of dollars on board. Having come into Saint Salvador he found there no less than seven other Spanish vessels, the masters and crews of which were favoured by the Portuguese, and he heard that they threatened to follow him out and capture him and his prize. Our arrival had turned the scales in his favour, and he offered to remain if we would accompany him out when we were ready. This Captain Hassall readily promised to do. As the whaler was strongly manned, a good-sized crew had been put on board the prize, and thus our three vessels were somewhat of a match for the Spaniards, we hoped. At length the Governor of the place ordered the officers of the ship to appear before him. Accordingly Captain Hassall, the first mate, and I, accompanied by Dennis O’Carroll, who seemed to be able to speak every language under the sun except pure English, as interpreter, went on shore under an escort. The Governor, a fat, swarthy personage in the full dress uniform of a general, received us in a haughty manner, and cross-questioned us in the most minute and tedious manner. Dennis somewhat puzzled him by the style of his answers, which were anything but literal translations of what Captain Hassall said. The result, however, was favourable, and we were allowed to go wherever we chose about the city, and to get the necessary repairs of our ships executed, and to obtain all the stores and provisions we required.
Much relieved, we made our bows, and then took a turn through the place before going on board. I was much struck with the number of churches, of priests and monks, and black slaves, the latter habited in the most scanty garments, and the former perambulating the streets in parties, dressed up in the richest attire of coloured silks and gold, with banners and crosses, and statues of saints, or representations of events mentioned in the Scriptures, the figures as large as life. A large number of friars in black, or brown, or grey gowns of coarse cloth, with ropes round their waists, were going about two and two, with small figures of saints on money boxes. The figures they literally thrust into the faces of the passers-by to be kissed. We saw no one refuse to drop a coin into the box.
“These must be a very religiously disposed people,” I observed to Dennis.
“If you knew what I do you wouldn’t say that,” he answered. “They’re fond of sinning, and they are ready to pay for it. The reason that all these priests and monks flourish is this—they have succeeded in teaching the people that they can buy pardon for all the sins they commit. The only scrap of real religion the poor people are allowed to possess is the knowledge that sin must be punished if not forgiven. Instead, however, of showing them how forgiveness can alone be obtained, they make them believe that money can buy it through the prayers of the saints; but when they’ve got the money in their own pockets, it’s very little trouble they give the saints about the matter at all.”
“How did you learn all this, Mr O’Carroll?” I asked.
“Just because I believed it all myself,” he answered quickly. “I’ll tell you some day how I came to find out that I had been sailing on a wrong tack; but you think me now a harum-scarum Irishman, and I’m afraid to talk about the matter.”