The Loss of the Royal George

by William Henry Giles Kingston

I had been some time at home, and had pretty nearly recovered from my wounds. Susan frequently went up to see Jane; and the ladies treated her, notwithstanding what had occurred, as kindly as ever; but the captain ceased to inquire after me, and he evidently had not got over his annoyance, and still believed that Susan and I, if we had not encouraged Harry, might have at all events prevented him from falling in love with Miss Fanny. The poor young lady had not recovered her spirits; and Susan said she was afraid that if anything should happen to Harry it would bring her to her grave. This of course made us more than ever anxious to hear again from Jerry. At last one day the postman brought a letter to our door and demanded three shillings for it, which I willingly paid, for I saw at a glance that it was from my old shipmate. I have it still by me; here it is:—

“Dear old Ship—

“What I told you in my last has prepared you for the news I have now to give. I thought over what Mr Pengelley had told me, and could not help hoping that we should at last find out all about Harry Saint George.

“The very first time that I saw Mrs Stafford (though I did not know her name then) she told me that her husband had been an officer on board the Royal George, and that he was lost when the ship went down; but she said nothing more at that time. When, however, I heard that she had had a little boy who had disappeared with her young sister-in-law, I at once jumped to the conclusion that the young lady who had come to your house was Miss Stafford, and that the little boy was her nephew. It struck me that nothing was more likely than that Miss Stafford should have set off to see her brother, and consult with him what was best to be done for the safety of his son; but, as you know, it’s a very different matter to guess a thing and to prove it. Still I am almost as certain as I am of my own existence, that the little boy you saved from the wreck was Harry Stafford’s son; but my thinking so won’t get him his rights. Biddulph Stafford and I were young men together before I went off to sea, and many a wild prank we played; some of them such as I don’t like to think about. There was an act of his, indeed, which, if known, would bring him under the power of the law; and I feel sure that if I were to introduce myself to him, and let him know that I was acquainted with it, and could bring witnesses to prove his guilt, long ago as it happened, I might gain an influence over him, which I might exercise for Harry’s benefit. Sir Mostyn Stafford, you will understand, is still alive, and all Biddulph’s scheming and plotting has hitherto gained him no advantage. My first idea was to go and give him his choice, either to acknowledge Harry, or to take the consequences of having his crime made known; he might, however, set me at defiance. The difficulty would be to prove that the young lady you saw was Miss Stafford, and then that the child saved from the wreck was the same little boy she had brought with her. The first thing to be done, as it seemed to me, was to learn from Mrs Stafford if she knew how her little boy was likely to have been dressed; and if she described him as you had seen him, it would settle the matter in our minds, and we might possibly get Mr Pengelley, or some other lawyer, to take up the case, and try to gain his rights for your young Harry. As soon as this idea occurred to me, I went back to Mr Pengelley; he thought that I might be right, but told me to wait till he had obtained some more certain information as to how the Stafford estates were settled. This took up some time, for lawyers seem to me to have a peculiarly slow way of setting about a business; probably they find from experience that ‘Slow and steady wins the race.’ At last he sent for me, and told me that I might go off and see Mrs Stafford, and gain all I could from her. I of course lost not a moment. She recognised me at once, though she was naturally surprised to find how I was changed. I introduced the subject cautiously. I then asked her if she thought it possible that her son was still alive? She said that sometimes she had hopes, but then she could not understand how it was that her sister-in-law had never written to her. At last I asked her if she could describe what her son was like? ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘for I have his portrait, which Emily sent me a few days only before her mother’s death.’ ‘Will you allow me to see it?’ I asked; and going to her room she returned with a small well-done drawing of a little boy, exactly like what Harry might have been, and dressed as you described him, in a sailor’s jacket and trousers and round hat.

“‘You see him in a dress I made for him myself, and sent only a short time before. I also made a copy of it, which I forwarded to my poor husband on board the Royal George.’

“‘Did it ever occur to you, ma’am,’ I asked, ‘that your sister may have gone to see her brother on board the Royal George, and taken the little boy with her?’

“‘Yes, indeed,’ she answered, ‘I thought that possible; but when I heard that all the women and children on board had perished, I knew that if such were the case, both Emily and my child must have been lost also.’

“‘Did you ever hear, ma’am, that a little boy was saved from the wreck?’ I said.

“‘No,’ she answered. ‘Mr Biddulph Stafford, who kindly came here at the time, and told me all about it, did not mention that any child was saved; but oh! say, was such really the case? Could my boy have been on board and escaped the fate which overtook his father?’

“I thought it time to describe to the poor mother how a young lady came with a little boy, exactly like the picture she had just shown me, to your cottage, and how you had saved the same child after the ship had gone down, and that the same boy was now an officer in the navy.