Peter the Whaler

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“What do you mean by lately?” I asked.

“Just de last six months or so,” he answered, with the greatest effrontery.

“I beg, gentlemen, that his answer may be noted; for I hope to be able to prove that I have not been on board the schooner as many weeks,” I said, with a calm voice, which had, I think, some effect on my hearers.

There was such a mass of false swearing and contradictory evidence taken during the examination, that the naval officers were compelled to reserve any judgment on the case till they should arrive in port, when it might be handed over to the lawyers to sift to the bottom. Greatly to my satisfaction, the boats returned laden with further goods taken from the Mary; but it required two more trips before they could all be brought off. The task was at last accomplished, without any of the pirates having made their appearance, and sail was then made to the northward.

I found that our destination was Charleston, to which port the brig belonged, and where my trial and that of the other prisoners would take place. Had it been New Orleans, I thought I might have been able to prove that I had gone to sea in the Susannah, and Captain Searle might be found, who would give a favourable account of me. While I was thinking of this, I suddenly began to reflect that perhaps Captain Searle might turn upon me as the African had done, though for a different reason. He would be able to prove that I was at New Orleans, certainly, but then the Foam was there at the same time. She had watched, attacked, and robbed him, and taken out of his vessel me and another person, who, without any unwillingness, had turned pirate, so that I had perhaps all along been in league with the freebooters, and my pretended ignorance of Hawk and his craft might have been all sham. I might indeed be considered, as the negro declared I was, worse than all the rest.

As I reflected on these things, I remembered that my destiny was in the hands of a higher Power; that I had acted rightly according to the best of my belief; and that He would direct all things for my future good. This feeling gave me strength to endure the present and confidence in the future. I have thus invariably found it in all the affairs of life. When I have conscientiously done my duty, though inconveniences and annoyances may have apparently happened in consequence, the end has always been fortunate when I have been able to arrive at the result. The consequence of many of our acts, we must remember, is yet in the eternal future, unfathomed by mortal ken. To that time we must look forward for the reward of any of our acts which may be considered by our beneficent Father worthy of reward; and also to that time (we must not conceal from ourselves) for punishment for our misdeeds, unless our Saviour mercifully intercede for us.

Our voyage to Charleston was very rapid. I certainly was in no hurry to have it over, when I had so disagreeable a prospect before me as a trial, and not impossibly an execution. I was treated with less harshness than the rest of the prisoners—perhaps on account of my youth—perhaps because some believed me innocent. I fain hoped on the latter account.

At length we arrived. I will not stop to describe Charleston. It is a fine, flourishing city, with a dock-yard, where many of the ships of the American navy are built. I saw little of it, for soon after the Neptune had dropped her anchor I was conveyed with the other prisoners on shore to jail.

The Americans are as fond, fortunately, of the go-ahead system in law as they are in everything else. In the settlements founded by Spain and Portugal, we might have been kept six months without being brought into court; here, before as many days were over, our trial commenced. The fate of those taken in the schooner was easily settled. Several robberies were proved against them; and she was sworn to as the same vessel which had fired into the brig off the coast of Cuba, and had there carried the pirate flag, besides having also killed and wounded several officers and men in the United States navy.

The trial of the people in the boat next came on. The others swore that we belonged to the schooner and the negro, in the bitterness of his feelings against me, had acknowledged the same. I told my history as my best defence.