Will Weatherhelm: The Yarn of an Old Sailor

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Accordingly he took me to the captain, who was too glad to get an able seaman on board his vessel, and he promised me if I would sign the articles that I should have thirty dollars a month. I had not much difficulty in balancing this offer against the prospect of a Spanish prison. Now I honestly believe, that had she been a privateer, and I should have had to fight against my own countrymen, nothing would have tempted me to accept the offer. However, I decided at once. “I’ll join you,” said I, “and am ready to sign the articles whenever you like.”

That evening I found myself, like many other British seamen, converted suddenly into an American. La Motte told me that he had been wrecked on the American coast, and having been kindly treated, he had joined one of their merchantmen, when shortly afterwards he was made a mate. The schooner was called the Skylark, and was a remarkably fine and fast vessel. At that time, while all the rest of the world were at war, the Americans remained neutral, and their merchantmen made a great deal of money by becoming the carriers for all the belligerent parties. This was a wise policy in all respects, but still wiser would they have proved themselves had they adhered to it. While it brought wealth and prosperity to their newly established republic, it laid the foundation of that naval power which enabled them to contend for a time even with England herself, and has since enabled them to take an important part in the transactions of the world. The schooner had been employed to bring out a new governor for the islands from Cadiz, and she was waiting to convey the former one back to Spain. He, however, was not ready, and the schooner was detained a long time. Still I had no reason to complain. Teneriffe was a very pleasant place; the captain and first mate of the schooner were very kind sort of men, and La Motte, for old friendship’s sake, did his best to make my life agreeable. Perhaps, had we been less idle, it would have been better for us all. The great difficulty the officers had, was to find work for the men. We painted and polished, and scrubbed and used up every particle of rope-yarn, and turned in all the rigging afresh before Señor Don Longwhiskerandos announced that he was ready to take his departure.

The voyage was not to be without danger, for there were English cruisers watching all the Spanish and French ports; and though they could not have touched us on the high seas, they would have made prize of us, had they caught us trying to enter an enemy’s port. I never heard the real name of the governor. We called him Don Longwhiskerandos just for shortness’ sake, for it was fully three times as long as that. He looked a very important personage, and awfully fierce, and did little else than smoke cigars, and let a black man attend on him as if he was a mere baby. We had fine weather, and the Don sat on the deck in great state, when a sail was made out on our weather quarter. As she drew near there could be little doubt from her appearance that she was an English frigate. I borrowed a glass from La Motte. I took a long, steady look at her, and I felt certain that she was my old ship the Brilliant. Meantime our helm was put up, and off we went before the wind to endeavour to increase our distance. She made sail of course in chase, and I began to consider whether it would not have been better to have gone to a Spanish prison than be taken as a deserter, and cruelly flogged, if not hung. I pictured all sorts of dreadful things to myself, and earnestly prayed that the schooner might escape the frigate. If I was in a fright, Don Longwhiskerandos was in a still greater. He tore his hair and wrung his hands, and walked about the deck uttering all sorts of extraordinary expressions, calling on I don’t know how many saints to come and help him—while blackie followed him with his snuff-box and a handkerchief, and seemed trying to console him. La Motte, however, laughed at my apprehensions. He said that of course it was known that I had not willingly left the ship, and that I had a right to save my life in the best way I could. Still I was not satisfied. On came the frigate. We pressed the schooner with all the canvas she could carry. She walked along at a great rate, and so did the frigate. A stern chase is a long chase, but I had very little expectation that we should escape. If we could keep ahead till night, then we might have a better chance.

It was well on in the afternoon when we saw two sail ahead. From the whiteness of their canvas and the squareness of their yards, they were evidently men-of-war. If they should prove English cruisers, we were fairly caught in a net, and Don Whiskerandos would have very little chance of seeing his wife and family for a long time to come. Still our captain was a resolute man, and one who would never give in while a prospect of escape remained. The helm was put down, and we kept up five or six points towards the French coast, thinking that we might keep clear of them all till night set in, and might then escape in the darkness. The officers kept their glasses on the strangers. One was a frigate, the other a corvette. They made sail when they saw us. Evening was closing in. “Hurra, my lads,” shouted our captain, “up go the French colours. I thought by the cut of their canvas they were Frenchmen, and our friends!” How strangely those words sounded in my ears! To be glad to fall in with Frenchmen, and to call them our friends!

Once more we altered our course. In a short time the ships of war made out the English frigate, and allowing us to go ahead, then clewed up their topsails and waited for her. She saw them, and nothing daunted, under all sail stood on to close them before nightfall. Now, for the first time, I felt a little regret that I was not on board my own ship, she looked so proud and bold going into action against so superior a force. Oh, how I wished that I could find myself on her deck alongside my former shipmates, whom I pictured to myself standing at their guns, bared to the waist, with handkerchiefs round their heads, looking stern and grim as became men about to fight with heavy odds, yet every now and then cutting a joke with each other in the exuberance of their spirits. I thought if I could now but jump overboard with something to float me till she came up, and then I would climb up her side, and say that I had come to join them. Still, when I thought again, I knew that she was not likely, even if I was seen, to heave-to to pick me up, and I abandoned the idea as too hazardous. As the frigate got up to them, the two French ships let fall their canvas, and began to manoeuvre to gain the weather-gage; but she was too quick for them, and getting up to the corvette first, gave her such a dose from her broadside as must have made the Frenchmen dance to a double-quick tune. Our captain’s object was to land his passengers, so of course he could not stop to see the result of the action. As we ran out of sight, all three ships were hotly engaged. “Well, if there’s one man on board who will do his duty, and show what real Englishmen are made of, its Joe Merton,” I said to myself.

For some time after nightfall I could hear the sound of their guns borne over the calm waters, and then all was silent, and we continued our course to the French coast. Two days after this we were again chased by an English sloop of war; but the Skylark showed a faster pair of heels than she did, and we ran her out of sight. At length, after being chased away from various ports, we entered the mouth of the Gironde river in France, which runs down from Bordeaux. We were some days getting up to Bordeaux, where we landed Don Longwhiskerandos and his black slave and all his property, and hoped to get a return cargo. But there were no freights to be had; so, as the Don described the schooner as being a very fast craft, the French Government offered a large sum for her, which our captain was too glad to accept. The mates and crew accordingly received their wages, and we were all turned adrift. Now I found that there was a great chance of my being in a much worse condition than ever. Of course I hailed as an American, and if the police had found me on shore without a ship, I should have been seized and sent to serve on board a French man-of-war. On every account I must avoid that, I felt. In the first place, I did not wish to serve with Frenchmen; and in the second, had any ship I might have been in been captured, I should have been looked upon as a deserter and a traitor, and very likely shot.

La Motte, as an English subject, was in the same condition, except that he had never served on board a man-of-war. Accordingly he and I talked the matter over before we left the schooner, and agreed that it would never do to trust ourselves on shore. We saw ahead of us a ship under Hamburguese colours, taking in a cargo of wine for Hamburg, which was a free port. When, therefore, we left the schooner, we pulled alongside, and asked if she wanted hands. The captain said yes; he would ship us at once. He spoke very good English, and the mate we had reason to suspect was an Englishman, as were several of the crew. So much the better, we thought. I at all events was very glad to get to sea. Four or five days afterwards, just as we got into the English Channel, the captain called us aft, and told us that, instead of going to Hamburg, he expected to proceed to London; but that he had received directions to put into the Island of Guernsey first to wait for orders. I was very glad to hear this news, for I thought there was a chance of my seeing old England again sooner than I had expected.

“Yes, that may be very true,” observed La Motte. “But how will you see it? The first night you put your foot on shore you will be pressed to a certainty, and quickly find yourself on board a man-of-war, and a slave as before.”

“No, not a slave,” said I indignantly. “I’d rather go and serve willingly than be pressed, that’s the truth; but no one has a right to call British men-of-war’s men slaves. They may be pretty hardly tasked sometimes; but they get pay and prize-money and liberty, and if they did but know how to take care of their money, and would but conduct themselves like rational beings, the good men would have no reason to complain.” The truth was, that La Motte had got the notion entertained by most merchant seamen, and encouraged by shipowners as well as masters and mates, that men-of-war were all alike, little better than hells afloat; that all naval officers were tyrants, and all men-of-war’s men miserable, spiritless slaves. Why, even in those times they were generally better treated than merchant seamen, and now the lot of the two cannot be compared. There’s no class of men better cared for, better fed, better clothed, and more justly treated, than the British man-of-war’s man. I don’t want to cry down the merchant service, or owners or officers of merchant ships, but this I will say, that the most comfortable, happy merchantmen I have seen have been those commanded by naval officers.

We were within half-a-day’s sail of Guernsey, and were expecting to get in there next morning, when a heavy gale sprang up from the north-west, and before we could take the canvas off the ship—for we were very short-handed—every yard of it was blown out of the bolt-ropes. We were in a bad way, for we were already too much to the southward. Still our captain hoped, if we could bend fresh sails, to weather the islands; but all that nook of the coast is full of rocks and dangers, and tides setting here and there, so that it is difficult to tell where a ship will be drifted to. Twice we tried to bend fresh sails; but each time they were blown away, before we could hoist them to the yards. Darkness came on. Two of our shipmates were hove off from the lee yard-arm, and their despairing shrieks reached our ears as they drifted away, a warning to us of what might be our fate.