“So, about seven o’clock in the morning, it being high-water, we went out of the port; but the master being bound for Pool, loaden with sea-coal, because he would not have it seen from Shoreham that he did not go his intended voyage, but stood all the day, with a very easy sail, towards the Isle of Wight (only my lord Wilmot and myself, of my company, on board.) And as we were sailing, the master came to me, and desired me that I would persuade his men to use their endeavours with me to get him to set us on shore in France, the better to cover him from any suspicion thereof. Upon which, I went to the men, which were four and a boy, and told them, truly, that we were two merchants that had some misfortunes, and were a little in debt; that we had some money owing us at Rouen, in France, and were afraid of being arrested in England; that if they would persuade the master (the wind being very fair) to give us a trip over to Dieppe, or one of those ports near Rouen, they would oblige us very much, and with that I gave them twenty shillings to drink. Upon which, they undertook to second me, if I would propose it to the master. So I went to the master, and told him our condition, and that if he would give us a trip over to France, we would give him some consideration for it. Upon which he counterfeited difficulties, saying, that it would hinder his voyage. But his men, as they had promised me, joining their persuasions to ours, and, at last, he yielded to set us over.
“So, about five o’clock in the afternoon, as we were in sight of the Isle of Wight, we stood directly over to the coast of France, the wind being then full north; and the next morning, a little before day, we saw the coast. But the tide failing us, and the wind coming about to the south-west, we were forced to come to an anchor within two miles of the shore, till the tide of flood was done.
“We found ourselves just before an harbour in France, called Fescamp; and just as the tide of ebb was made, espied a vessel to leeward of us, which, by her nimble working, I suspected to be an Ostend privateer. Upon which, I went to my lord Wilmot, and telling him my opinion of that ship, proposed to him our going ashore in the little cock-boat, for fear they should prove so, as not knowing, but finding us going into a port of France, (there being then a war betwixt France and Spain,) they might plunder us, and possibly carry us away and set us ashore in England; the master also himself had the same opinion of her being an Ostender, and came to me to tell me so, which thought I made it my business to dissuade him from, for fear it should tempt him to set sail again with us for the coast of England: yet so sensible I was of it, that I and my lord Wilmot went both on shore in the cock-boat; and going up into the town of Fescamp, staid there all day to provide horses for Rouen. But the vessel which had so affrighted us, proved afterwards only a French hoy.
“The next day we got to Rouen, to an inn, one of the best in the town, in the fish-market, where they made difficulty to receive us, taking us, by our clothes, to be some thieves, or persons that had been doing some very ill thing, until Mr. Sandburne, a merchant, for whom I sent, came and answered for us.
“One particular more there is observable in relation to this our passage into France; that the vessel that brought us over had no sooner landed me, and I given her master a pass, for fear of meeting with any of our Jersey frigates, but the wind turned so happily for her, as to carry her directly for Pool, without its being known that she had ever been upon the coast of France.
“We staid at Rouen one day, to provide ourselves better clothes, and give notice to the queen, my mother, (who was then at Paris,) of my being safely landed. After which, setting out in a hired coach, I was met by my mother, with coaches, short of Paris; and by her conducted thither, where I safely arrived.”
An antiquary, a century ago, mentions the “Royal Oak” as standing in his time. “A bow-shoot from Boscobel-house, just by a horse-track passing through the wood, stood the royal oak, into which the king and his companion, colonel Carlos, climbed by means of the hen-roost ladder, when they judged it no longer safe to stay in the house; the family reaching them victuals with the nut-hook. The tree is now inclosed in with a brick wall, the inside whereof is covered with laurel, of which we may say, as Ovid did of that before the Augustan palace, ‘mediamque tubere quercum.’ Close by its side grows a young thriving plant from one of its acorns. Over the door of the inclosure, I took this inscription in marble:—‘Felicissimam arborem quam in asylum potentissimi Regis Caroli II. Deus O. M. per quem reges regnant hic crescere voluit, tam in perpetuam rei tantæ memoriam, quam specimen fermæ in reges fidei, muro cinctam posteris commendant Basilius et Jana Fitzherbert.
“‘Quercus amica Jovi.’”[154]
A letter from an obliging correspondent, whose initials are affixed, claims a place here, in order to correct a literal inaccuracy, and for the facts subsequently mentioned.