Captain Starkey.
Died, July 9, 1822.
Reader! see the famous Captain
Starkey, in his own coat wrapt in;
Mark his mark’d nose, and mark his eye,
His lengthen’d chin, his forehead high,
His little stick, his humble hat,
The modest tie of his cravat;
Mark how easy sit his hose,
Mark the shoes that hold his toes;
So he look’d when Ranson sketch’d him
While alive—but Death has fetch’d him.
*
Auto-biography is agreeable in the writing, and sometimes profitable in the publication, to persons whose names would otherwise die and be buried with them. Of this numerous class was captain Starkey, who to his “immortal memory” wrote and published his own “Memoirs.”[208]
The preface to a fine uncut copy of captain Starkey’s very rare “Memoirs,” penes me, commences thus:—“The writers of biographical accounts have always prepared articles, which at once, when held forth to the public, were highly entertaining, useful, and satisfactory.” This particular representation, so directly opposed to general experience, is decisively original. Its expression bespeaks an independence of character, rendered further conspicuous by an amiable humility. “I am afraid,” says the captain, “I shall fall infinitely short in commanding your attention; none, on this side of time, are perfect, and it is in the nature of things impossible it should be otherwise.” He trusts, “if truth has any force,” that “patience and candour” will hear him out. Of captain Starkey then—it may be said, that “he knew the truth, and knowing dared maintain it.”
The captain declares, he was born of honest and poor parents, natives of Newcastle upon Tyne, at the Lying-in Hospital, Brownlow-street, Long-acre, London, on the 19th of December, 1757. “My infantile years,” he observes, “were attended with much indisposition.” The nature of his “indisposition” does not appear; but it is reasonable to presume, that as the “infantile years” of all of “living born,” at that time, were passed in “much indisposition,” the captain suffered no more than fell to him in the common lot. It was then the practice to afflict a child as soon as it breathed the air, by forcing spoonfulls of “unctuousities” down its throat, “oil of sweet almonds and syrup of blue violets.” A strong cotton swathe of about six inches in width, and from ten to twenty feet in length, was tightly rolled round the body, beginning under the arm pits and ending at the hips, so as to stiffly encase the entire trunk. After the child was dressed, if its constraint would allow it to suck, it was suckled; but whether suckled or not, the effect of the swathing was soon visible; its eyes rolled in agony, it was pronounced convulsed, and a dose of “Dalby’s Carminative” was administered as “the finest thing in the world for convulsions.” With “pap” made of bread and water, and milk loaded with brown sugar, it was fed from a “pap-boat,” an earthen vessel in the form of a butter-boat. If “these contents” were not quickly “received in full,” the infant was declared “not very well,” but if by crying, kicking of the legs, stiffening of the back, and eructation from the stomach, it resisted further overloading, then it was affirmed that it was “troubled with wind,” and was drenched with “Daffy’s Elixir,” as “the finest thing in the world for wind.” As soon as the “wind” had “a little broken off, poor thing!” it was suckled again, and fed again; being so suckled and fed, and fed and suckled, it was wonderful if it could sleep soundly, and therefore, after it was undressed at night, it had a dose of “Godfrey’s Cordial,” as “the finest thing in the world for composing to rest.” If it was not “composed” out of the world before morning, it awoke to undergo the manifold process of being again over-swathed, over-fed, “Dalby’d, Daffy’d, and Godfrey’d” for that day; and so, day by day, it was put in bonds, “carminativ’d, elixir’d, and cordial’d,” till in a few weeks or months it died, or escaped, as by miracle, to be weaned and made to walk. It was not to be put on its legs “too soon,” and therefore, while the work of repletion was going on, it was not to feel that it had legs, but was kept in arms, or rather kept lolling on the arm, till ten or twelve months old. By this means its body, being unduly distended, was too heavy to be sustained by its weak and comparatively diminutive sized limbs; and then a “go-cart” was provided. The go-cart was a sort of circular frame-work, running upon wheels, with a door to open for admission of the child; wherein, being bolted, and the upper part being only so large as to admit its body from below the arms, the child rested by the arm pits, and kicking its legs on the floor, set the machine rolling on its wheels. This being the customary mode of “bringing children up” at the time of captain Starkey’s birth, and until about the year 1790, few were without a general disorder and weakness of the frame, called “the rickets.” These afflicted ones were sometimes hump-backed, and usually bow-shinned, or knock-kneed, for life, though to remedy the latter defects in some degree, the legs were fastened by straps to jointed irons. From the whole length portrait at the head of this article, which is copied from an etching by Mr. Thomas Ranson, prefixed to captain Starkey’s “Memoirs,” it is reasonably to be conjectured that the captain in his childhood had been ricketty and had worn irons. Mr. Ranson has draped the figure in a long coat. Had this been done to conceal the inward inclination of the captain’s knees, it would have been creditable to Mr. Ranson’s delicacy; for there is a sentiment connected with the meeting of the knees, in the owner’s mind, which he who knows human nature and has human feelings, knows how to respect; and no one either as a man or an artist is better acquainted with the “humanities” than Mr. Ranson. But that gentleman drew the captain from the life, and the captain’s coat is from the coat he actually wore when he stood for his picture. There is a remarkable dereliction of the nose from the eyebrows. It was a practice with the race of nurses who existed when the captain’s nose came into the world, to pinch up that feature of our infant ancestors from an hour old, till “the month was up.” This was from a persuasion that nature, on that part of the face, required to be assisted. A few only of these ancient females remain, and it does not accord with the experience of one of the most experienced among them, that they ever depressed that sensible feature; she is fully of opinion, that for the protrusion at the end of the captain’s, he was indebted to his nurse “during the month;” and she says that, “it’s this, that makes him look so sensible.”
According to captain Starkey’s narrative, when “learning to walk alone,” he unfortunately fell, “and so hurt his left arm, that it turned to a white swelling as large as a child’s head.” The captain says, “my poor parents immediately applied to two gentlemen of the faculty, at the west end of the town, named Bloomfield and Hawkins, physicians and surgeons to his then reigning majesty, king George the Second, of these kingdoms, who declared that, they could not do any more than cut it off; unto which my tender parents would not consent.” A French surgeon restored to him the use of his arm, and gave him advice “not to employ it in any arduous employment.” “I, therefore,” says the captain, “as my mother kept a preparatory school, was learned by her to read and spell.” At seven years old he was “put to a master to learn to write, cipher, and the classics.” After this, desiring to be acquainted with other languages, he was sent to another master, and “improved,” to the pleasure of himself and friends, but was “not so successful” as he could wish; for which he says, “I am, as I ought to be, thankful to divine providence.” With him he stayed, improving and not succeeding till he was fourteen, “at which age,” says the captain, “I was bound apprentice to Mr. William Bird, an eminent writer and teacher of languages and mathematics, in Fetter-lane, Holborn.” After his apprenticeship the captain, in the year 1780, went with his father, during an election, to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, his parents’ native town. Returning to London, he, in 1784, went electioneering again to Newcastle, having left a small school in London to the care of a substitute, who managed to reduce twenty-five scholars to ten, “although he was paid a weekly allowance.” Being “filled with trouble by the loss,” he was assisted to a school in Sunderland; “but,” the captain remarks, “as the greatest success did not attend me in that, I had the happiness and honour of receiving a better employment in the aforesaid town of Sunderland, from that ever to be remembered gentleman, William Gooch, esq., comptroller of the customs, who died in the year 1791, and did not die unmindful of me: for he left me in his will the sum of 10l., with which, had I been prudent enough, and left his employ immediately after his interment, I might have done well; but foolishly relying on the continuance of my place, continued doing the duties for nine months without receiving any remuneration; and at last was obliged to leave, it not being the pleasure of the then collector, C. Hill, esq., that I should continue any longer in office.” Great as the sensation must have been at Sunderland on this important change “in office,” the fact is entirely omitted in the journals of the period, and might at this time have been wholly forgotten if the captain had not been his own chronicler. On his forced “retirement” he returned to Newcastle, willing to take “office” there, but there being no opening he resolved once more to try his fortune in London. For that purpose he crossed the Tyne-bridge, with two shillings in his pocket, and arriving at Chester-le-street, obtained a subscription of two guineas, by which, “with helps and hopes,” and “walking some stages,” and getting “casts by coaches,” he arrived in the metropolis, where he obtained a recommendation back, to the then mayor of Newcastle. Thither he again repaired, and presented his letter to the mayor, who promised him a place in the Freemen’s Hospital, and gave it him on the first vacancy. “In which situation,” says captain Starkey, “I have now been twenty-six years enjoying the invaluable blessing of health and good friends.” So ends his “Memoir written by himself.”
To what end captain Starkey wrote his history, or how he came by his rank, he does not say; but in the “Local Records, or Historical Register of Remarkable Events in Durham, Northumberland, Newcastle, and Berwick,” a volume compiled and published by Mr. John Sykes, of Newcastle, there is a notice which throws some light on the matter. “Mr. Starkey, who was uncommonly polite, had a peculiarly smooth method of obtaining the loan of a halfpenny, for which he was always ready to give his promissory note, which his creditors held as curiosities.” Halfpenny debentures were tedious instruments for small “loans,” and Starkey may have compiled his “Memoirs,” without affixing a price, for the purpose of saying, “what you please,” and thereby raising “supplies” by sixpence and a shilling at a time. It is to be observed to his credit, that had he made his book more entertaining, it would have had far less claim upon an honest reader. It is the adventureless history of a man who did no harm in the world, and thought he had a right to live, because he was a living being. Mr. Ranson’s [portrait] represents him as he was. His stick, instead of a staff of support, appears symbolical of the assistance he required towards existence. He holds his hat behind, as if to intimate that his head is not entitled to be covered in “a gentleman’s presence.” He seems to have been a poor powerless creature, sensible of incompetency to do; anxious not to suffer; and with just enough of worldly cunning, to derive to himself a little of the superabundance enjoyed by men, who obtain for greater cunning the name of cleverness.