Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849
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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849
Author: Various
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 66, NO 409, NOVEMBER 1849 ***
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCIX. NOVEMBER, 1849. VOL. LXVI.
CONTENTS.
THE TRANSPORTATION QUESTION, 519
MY PENINSULAR MEDAL. BY AN OLD PENINSULAR. PART I., 539
DISENCHANTMENT. BY DELTA, 563
ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, 567
PEACE AND WAR AGITATORS, 581
THE FRENCH NOVELS OF 1849, 607
DIES BOREALES. NO. V. CHRISTOPHER UNDER CANVASS, 620
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
_To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._
SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCIX. NOVEMBER, 1849. VOL. LXVI.
THE TRANSPORTATION QUESTION.
The great question of SECONDARY PUNISHMENTS has now been settled by
experience, so far as the mother country is concerned. It is now known
that imprisonment has no effect whatever, either in deterring from
crime, or in reforming criminals. Government, albeit most unwilling to
recur to the old system of transportation, has been compelled to do so
by the unanimous voice of the country; by the difficulty of finding
accommodation for the prodigious increase of prisoners in the jails
of the kingdom; and by the still greater difficulty, in these days of
cheapness and declining incomes, of getting the persons intrusted with
the duty of providing additional prison accommodation, to engage in the
costly and tedious work of additional erections. An order in council
has expressly, and most wisely, authorised a return to transportation,
under such regulations as seem best calculated to reform the convicts,
and diminish the dread very generally felt in the colonies, of being
flooded with an inundation of crime from the mother country. And the
principal difficulty felt now is, to find a colony willing to receive
the penal settlers, and incur the risks thought to be consequent on
their unrestricted admission.
It is not surprising that government should have been driven from the
ruinous system of substituting imprisonment for transportation; for
the results, even during the short period that it was followed out,
were absolutely appalling. The actual augmentation of criminals was the
least part of the evil; the increase of serious crimes, in consequence
of the hardened offenders not being sent out of the country, but
generally liberated after eighteen months' or two years' confinement,
was the insupportable evil. The demoralisation so strongly felt and
loudly complained of in Van Diemen's Land, from the accumulation of
criminals, was rapidly taking place in this country. The persons tried
under the aggravation of previous convictions in Scotland, in the three
last years, have stood as follows:--
Under aggravation
Years. Total convicted. of previous
convictions.
1846 2936 858
1847 3569 1024
1848 3669 1043
--_Parliamentary Reports_, 1846-48.
So rapid an increase of crimes, and especially among criminals
previously convicted, sufficiently demonstrates the inadequacy of
imprisonment as a means either of deterring from crimes, or reforming
the criminals. The same result appears in England, where the rapid
increase of criminals sentenced to transportation, within the same
period, demonstrates the total inefficacy of the new imprisonment
system.
Transported.
Years. England and Wales. Scotland.
1846 2805 352
1847 2896 456
1848 3251 459
And of the futility of the hope that the spread of education will
have any effect in checking the increase of crime, decisive proof
is afforded in the same criminal returns; for from them it appears
that the number of educated criminals in England is above twice, in
Scotland _above three times and a half that of the uneducated_,--the
numbers, during the last three years, being as follows:--
| | ENGLAND AND WALES. | SCOTLAND. |
|Years.| | | | |
| | Educated. |Uneducated. | Educated. |Uneducated.|
+------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+
|1846 | 16,963 | 7,698 | 3,155 | 903 |
|1847 | 19,307 | 9,050 | 3,562 | 1,048 |
|1848 | 20,176 | 9,691 | 3,985 | 911 |
--_Parliamentary Returns_, 1846-8.
Nay, what is still more alarming, it distinctly appears, from the
same returns, that the proportion of educated criminals to uneducated
is _steadily on the increase_ in Great Britain. Take the centesimal
proportions given in the last returns for England--those of 1848:--
| Degrees of | | | | | | | | | | |
|Instruction.|1839.| 1840.|1841.|1842.|1843.|1844.|1845.|1846.|1847.|1848.|
+------------+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
|Unable to | | | | | | | | | | |
|read or | | | | | | | | | | |
|write, |33.53| 33.32|33.21|32.35|31.00|29.77|30.61|30.66|31.39|31.93|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
|Imperfectly,|53.48| 55.57|56.67|58.32|57.60|59.28|58.34|59.51|58.59|56.38|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
|Well, |10.07| 8.29| 7.40| 6.77| 8.02| 8.12| 8.38| 7.71| 7.79| 9.83|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
|Superior, | 0.32| 0.37| 0.45| 0.22| 0.47| 0.42| 0.37| 0.34| 0.28| 0.27|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
|Not | | | | | | | | | | |
|ascertained,| 2.60| 2.45| 2.27| 2.34| 2.91| 2.41| 2.30| 1.78| 1.60| 1.59|
--_Parliamentary Returns for England_, 1848, p. 12.
The great increase here is in the criminals who have received an
_imperfect education_, which class has increased as much as that of the
totally uneducated has diminished. Unhappily, imperfect education is
precisely the species of instruction which alone, in the present days
of cheapened production and diminishing wages, the great body of the
poor are able to give to their children.
Mr Pearson, M.P., who has paid great attention to this subject, and
whose high official situation in the city of London gives him such
ample means of being acquainted with the practical working of the
criminal law, has given the following valuable information in a public
speech, which every one acquainted with the subject must know to be
thoroughly well founded:--
"In the year 1810, which is the earliest account that we possess
in any of our archives, the number of commitments, of assize
and sessions cases, was 5146. In the year 1848, the number of
commitments for sessions and assize cases was 30,349. Population
during that period had increased but 60 per cent, whilst the
commitments for crime had increased 420 per cent. I should not be
candid with this assembly if I did not at once say, that there
are various disturbing circumstances which intervene, during
that period, to prevent the apparent increase of commitments
being the real estimate of the actual increase. There was the
transition from war to peace. We all know, that from the days
of Hollingshed, the old chronicler, it has been said that war
takes to itself a portion of the loose population, who find
in the casualties of war, its dangers, rewards and profligate
indulgences, something like a kindred feeling to the war made upon
society by the predatory classes. Hence we find that, when war
ceases, a number of that class of the community are thrown back on
the honest portion of society, which, during the period of war,
had been drained off. Besides this, there are other co-operating
causes. There is the improved police, the constabulary, rural
or metropolitan, who undoubtedly detect many of those offences
which were formerly committed with impunity. There is also the
act of parliament for paying prosecutors and witnesses their
expenses, which led to an increased number of prosecutors in
proportion to the number of crimes actually detected. These
circumstances have, no doubt, exercised a considerable influence
over the increase in the commitments; but after having for 35
years paid the closest attention to the subject, having filled,
and still filling, a high office in regard to the administration
of the law in the city of London, I am bound to say, that, making
full deduction from the number which every feeling of anxiety
to raise the country from the imputation of increasing in its
criminal character dictates--after making every deduction, I am
bound with shame and humility to acknowledge, that it leaves a
very large amount of increase in the actual, the positive number
of commitments for crime. Sir, this is indeed a humiliating
acknowledgment; but happily the statistics of this country,
in other particulars, warrant us in drawing comfort from the
conviction, that even this fact affords no true representation of
the state of the moral character of the people--no evidence of
their increasing degradation of character or conduct, in anything
like the proportion or degree that those statistics would appear
to show. I appeal to history--I appeal to the recollection of
every man in this assembly, who, like myself, has passed the
meridian of life, whether society has not advanced in morals as
well as in arts, science, and literature, and everything which
tends to improve the social character of the people. Let any man
who has read not our country's history alone, but the tales and
novels of former times--and we must frequently look to them,
rather than to the records of history, for a faithful transcript
of the morals of the age in which they were written,--let any man
recur to the productions of Fielding and of Smollett, and say
whether the habits, manners, and morals of the great masses of our
population are not materially improved within the last century.
Great popular delusions prevail as to the causes of the increase
of commitments for criminal offences in this country, which I deem
it to be my duty to endeavour to dispel. Some ascribe the increase
to the want of instruction of our youth, some to the absence of
religious teaching, some to the increased intemperance, and some
to the increased poverty of the people. I assert that there is no
foundation for the opinions that ascribe the increase of crime to
these causes. If the absence of education were the cause of crime,
surely crime would be found to have diminished since education
has increased. For the purpose of comparing the present and past
state of education, for its influence upon the criminal statistics
of the nation, I will not go back to the time when the single
Bible in the parish was chained to a pillar in the church; or when
the barons affixed their cross to documents, from inability to
write their names. I refer to dates, and times, and circumstances
within our own recollection. In the year 1814 the report of the
National Society says, there were only 100,000 children receiving
the benefit of education. Now there are above 1,000,000 under that
excellent institution, besides the tens of thousands and hundreds
of thousands who are receiving education under the auspices of the
Lancasterian Society Schools. But some may say that the value of
education is not to be estimated by numbers. Well then, I reject
numbers, if you please, and try it by its quality. I ask any man
who listens to me if he does not know that the national schools,
and other gratuitous establishments in this country, now give
privileges in education which children in a respectable condition
of life could hardly obtain, such was the defective state of
instruction in this country, 40 or 50 years ago. (Cheers.) No man,
therefore, can say that the increase of crime is attributable
to the absence of education. If it were so, with education
increased 800 per cent during the last 30 years, crime would have
diminished, instead of increased, 400 per cent."--_Times_, Aug.
28, 1849.
The immense _expense_ with which the maintenance of such prodigious
numbers of prisoners in jail is attended, is another most serious
evil, especially in these days of retrenchment, diminished profits,
and economy. From the last Report of the Jail Commissioners for
Scotland--that for 1848--it appears that the average cost of each
prisoner over the whole country for a year, after deducting his
earnings in confinement, is £16, 7s. 6d. As this is the cost after
labour has been generally introduced into prisons, and the greatest
efforts to reduce expense have been made, it may fairly be presumed
that it cannot be reduced lower. The average number of prisoners
constantly in jail in Scotland is now about 3500, which, at £16,
7s. 6d. a-head, will come to about £53,000 a-year.[1] Applying this
proportion to the 60,000 criminals, now on an average constantly
in confinement in the two islands,[2] the annual expense of their
maintenance cannot be under a million sterling. The prison and county
rates of England alone, which include the cost of prosecutions, are
£1,300,000 a-year. But that result, enormous as it is in a country
in which poor-rates and all local burdens are so rapidly augmenting,
is but a part of the evil. Under the present system a thief is
seldom transported, at least in Scotland, till he has been three
or four years plying his trade; during which period his gains by
depredations, and expenses of maintenance, cannot have averaged less
than £25 yearly. Thus it may with safety be affirmed, that every thief
transported from Scotland _has cost the country, before he goes, at
least £100_; and that has been expended in training him up to such
habits of hardened depravity, that he is probably as great a curse
to the colony to which he is sent, as he had proved a burden to that
from which he was conveyed. _Sixteen pounds_ would have been the cost
of his transportation in the outset of his career, when, from his
habits of crime not being matured, he had a fair chance of proving an
acquisition, instead of a curse, to the place of his destination.
As the question of imprisonment or transportation, so far as Great
Britain and Ireland are concerned, is now settled by the demonstrative
evidence of the return of a reluctant government to the system which
in an evil hour they abandoned, it may seem unnecessary to go into
detail in order to show how absolutely necessary it was to do so;
and how entirely the boasted system of imprisonment, with all its
adjuncts of separation, silence, hard labour, and moral and religious
instruction, has failed either in checking crime, or producing any
visible reformation in the criminals. No one practically acquainted
with the subject ever entertained the slightest doubt that this would
be the case; and in two articles directed to the subject in this
magazine, in 1844, we distinctly foretold what the result would be.[3]
To those who, following in the wake of prelates or philanthropists,
how respectable soever, such as Archbishop Whately, who know
nothing whatever of the subject except from the fallacious evidence
of parliamentary committees, worked up by their own theoretical
imaginations, we recommend the study of the Tables below, compiled
from the parliamentary returns since the imprisonment system began, to
show to what a pass the adoption of their rash visions has brought the
criminal administration of the country.[4]
It is not surprising that it should be so, and that all the pains
taken, and philanthropy wasted, in endeavouring to reform criminals
in jail in this country, or hindering them from returning to their
old habits when let loose within it, should have proved abortive.
Two reasons of paramount efficacy have rendered them all nugatory.
The first of these is, that the theory regarding the possibility of
reforming offenders when in prison, or suffering punishment in this
country, is wholly erroneous, and proceeds on an entire misconception
of the principles by which alone such a reformation can in any case be
effected. In prison, how solitary soever, you can work only on the
_intellectual_ faculties. The _active_ powers or feelings can receive
no development within the four walls of a cell, for they have no
object by which they can be called forth. But nine-tenths of mankind
in any rank, and most certainly nineteen-twentieths of persons bred as
criminals, are wholly inaccessible to the influence of the intellect,
considered as a restraint or regulator of their passions. If they had
been capable of being influenced in that way, they would never have
become criminals. Persons who fall into the habits which bring them
under the lash of the criminal law, are almost always those in whom,
either from natural disposition, or the unhappy circumstances of early
habits and training, the intellectual faculties are almost entirely in
abeyance, so far as self-control is concerned; and any development they
have is only directed to procuring gratification for, or furthering the
objects of the senses. To address to such persons the moral discipline
of a prison, however admirably conducted, is as hopeless as it would be
to descant to a man born blind on the objects of sight, or to preach to
an ignorant boor in the Greek or Hebrew tongue. Sense is to them all in
all. Esau is the true prototype of this class of men; they are always
ready to exchange their birthright for a mess of pottage.
No length of solitary confinement, or scarce any amount of moral
or religious instruction, can awaken in them either the slightest
repentance for their crimes, or the least power of self-control when
temptation is again thrown in their way. They regard the period of
imprisonment as a blank in their lives--a time of woful monotony
and total deprivation of enjoyment, which only renders it the more
imperative on them, the moment it is terminated, to begin anew with
fresh zest their old enjoyments. Their first object is to make up
for months of compulsory sobriety by days of voluntary intoxication.
At the close of a short period of hideous _saturnalia_, they are
generally involved in some fresh housebreaking or robbery, to pay for
their long train of indulgence; and soon find themselves again immured
in their old quarters, only the more determined to run through the
same course of forced regularity and willing indulgence. They are
often able to feign reformation, so as to impose on their jailors,
and obtain liberation on pretended amendment of character. But it is
rarely if ever that they are really reclaimed; and hence the perpetual
recurrences of the same characters in the criminal courts; till the
magistrates, tired of imprisoning them, send them to the assizes or
quarter-sessions for transportation. Even then, however, their career
is often far from being terminated in this country. The keepers of the
public penitentiaries become tired of keeping them. When they cannot
send them abroad, their cells are soon crowded; and they take advantage
of a feigned amendment to open the prison doors and let them go. They
are soon found again in their old haunts, and at their old practices.
At the spring circuit held at Glasgow in April 1848, when the effects
of the recent imprisonment mania were visible,--out of 117 ordinary
criminals indicted, no less than _twenty-two_ had been sentenced to
transportation at Glasgow, for periods not less than seven years,
_within the preceding two years_; and the previous conviction and
sentence of transportation was charged as an aggravation of their new
offence against each in the indictment.
The next reason which renders imprisonment, in an old society and
amidst a redundant population, utterly inefficacious as a means of
reforming criminals is, that, even if they do imbibe better ideas
and principles during their confinement, they find it impossible on
their liberation to get into any honest employment, or gain admission
into any well-doing circle, where they may put their newly-acquired
principles into practice. If, indeed, there existed a government or
parochial institution, into which they might be received on leaving
prison, and by which they might be marched straightway to the nearest
seaport, and there embarked for Canada or Australia, a great step
would be made towards giving them the means of durable reformation.
But as there is none such in existence, and as they scarcely ever are
possessed of money enough, on leaving prison, to carry them across
the Atlantic, they are of necessity obliged to remain in their own
country--and that, to persons in their situation, is certain ruin.
In new colonies, or thinly-peopled countries, such as Australia or
Siberia, convicts, from the scarcity of labour, may in general be
able to find employment; and from the absence of temptation, and the
severance of the links which bound them to their old associates, they
are often there found to do well. But nothing of that sort can be
expected in an old and thickly-peopled country, where the competition
for employment is universal, and masters, having the choice of honest
servants of untainted character, cannot be expected to take persons who
have been convicted of crimes, and exposed to the pollutions of a jail.
Practically speaking, it is _impossible_ for persons who have been
in jail to get into any honest or steady employment in their own
country; and if they do by chance, or by the ignorance of their
employers of their previous history, get into a situation, it is ere
long discovered, by the associates who come about them, where they
have been, and they speedily lose it. If you ask any person who has
been transported in consequence of repeated convictions, why he did
not take warning by the first, the answer uniformly is, that he could
not get into employment, and was obliged to take to thieving, or
starve. Add to this that the newly-reformed criminal, on leaving jail,
and idling about, half starved, in search of work, of necessity, as
well as from inclination, finds his way back to his old residence,
where his character is known, and he is speedily surrounded by his
old associates, who, in lieu of starving integrity, offer him a life
of joyous and well-fed depravity. It can hardly be expected that
human virtue, and least of all the infant virtue of a newly-reformed
criminal, can withstand so rude a trial. Accordingly, when the author
once asked Mr Brebner, the late governor of the Glasgow bridewell, what
proportion of formed criminals he ever knew to have been reformed by
prison discipline, he answered that the proportion was easily told,
for _he never knew one_. And in the late debate in parliament on
this subject, it was stated by the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey,
that while the prison discipline at Pentonville promised the most
cheering results, it was among those trained there, and _subsequently
transported_, that the improvement was visible; for that no such
results were observed among those who, after liberation, were allowed
to remain in this country.
But while it is thus proved, both by principle and experience, that the
moral reformation of offenders cannot be effected by imprisonment, even
under the most improved system, in this country, yet, in one respect,
a very great amelioration of the prisoner's habits, and extension of
his powers, is evidently practicable. It is easy _to teach a prisoner
a trade_; and such is the proficiency which is rapidly acquired by the
undivided attention to one object in a jail, that one objection which
has been stated to the imprisonment system is, that it interferes
with the employment of honest industry out of doors. No one can walk
through any of the well-regulated prisons in Great Britain without
seeing that, whatever else you cannot do, it is easy to teach such
a proficiency in trade to the convicts as may render them, if their
depraved inclinations can be arrested, useful members of society, and
give them the means of earning a livelihood by honest industry. Many
of them are exceedingly clever, evince great aptitude for the learning
of handicrafts, and exert the utmost diligence in their prosecution.
Let no man, however, reckon on their reformation, because they are thus
skilful and assiduous: turn them out of prison in this country, and
you will soon see them drinking and thieving with increased alacrity,
from the length of their previous confinement. It is evidently not
intellectual cunning, or manual skill, or vigour in pursuit, which
they in general want--it is the power of directing their faculties to
proper objects, when at large in this country, which they are entirely
without, and which no length of confinement, or amount of moral and
religious instruction communicated in prison, is able to confer upon
them. Here then is one great truth ascertained, by the only sure guide
in such matters--_experience_--that while it is wholly impossible to
give prisoners the power of controlling their passions, or abstaining
from their evil propensities, when at large, by any amount of prison
discipline, it is always not only possible, but easy, to communicate to
them such handicraft skill, or power of exercising trades, as may, the
moment the wicked dispositions are brought under control, render them
useful and even valuable members of society.
Experience equally proves that, though the moral reformation of
convicts in this country is so rare as, practically speaking, to be
considered as impossible, yet this is very far indeed from being the
case when they are removed to a distant land, where all connexion
with their old associates is at once and for ever broken; where an
honest career is not only open, but easy, to the most depraved, and a
boundless supply of fertile but unappropriated land affords scope for
the exercise of the desire of gain on legitimate objects, and affords
no facilities for the commission of crime, or the acquisition of
property, by the short-hand methods of theft or robbery. Lord Brougham,
in a most able work, which is little known only because it runs counter
to the prejudices of the age, has well explained the causes of this
peculiarity:--
"The new emigrants, who at various times continued to flock to
the extensive country of America, were by no means of the same
description with the first settlers. Some of these were the
scourings of jails, banished for their crimes; many of them
were persons of desperate fortunes, to whom every place was
equally uninviting; or men of notoriously abandoned lives, to
whom any region was acceptable that offered them a shelter from
the vengeance of the law, or the voice of public indignation.
But a change of scene will work some improvement upon the most
dissolute of characters. It is much to be removed from the scenes
with which villany has been constantly associated, and the
companions who have rendered it agreeable. It is something to
have the leisure of a long voyage, with its awakening terrors, to
promote reflection. Besides, to regain once more the privilege
of that good name, which every unknown man may claim until he is
tried, presents a powerful temptation to reform, and furnishes
an opportunity of amendment denied in the scenes of exposure and
destruction. If the convicts in the colony of New Holland, though
surrounded on the voyage and in the settlement by the companions
of their iniquities, have in a great degree been reclaimed by
the mere change of scene, what might not be expected from such
a change as we are considering? But the honest acquisition of a
little property, and its attendant importance, is, beyond any
other circumstance, the one most calculated to reform the conduct
of a needy and profligate man, by inspiring him with a respect
for himself and a feeling of his stake in the community, and
by putting a harmless and comfortable life at least within the
reach of his exertions. If the property is of a nature to require
constant industry, in order to render it of any value; if it
calls forth that sort of industry which devotes the labourer to
a solitary life in the open air, and repays him not with wealth
and luxury, but with subsistence and ease; if, in short, it is
property in land, divided into small portions and peopled by
few inhabitants, no combination of circumstances can be figured
to contribute more directly to the reformation of the new
cultivator's character and manners."[5]
In addition to these admirable observations, it may be stated, as
another, and perhaps the principal reason why transportation, when
conducted on proper principles, is attended with such immediate and
beneficial influences on the moral character of the convict, that it
places him in situations where scope is afforded for the development
of the _domestic and generous affections_. A counterpoise is provided
to self. It is the impossibility of providing such a counterpoise
within the four walls of a cell--the extreme difficulty of finding
it, in any circumstances in which a prisoner can be placed, on his
liberation from jail in his own country, which is the chief cause of
the total failure of all attempts to work a moral reform on prisoners,
when kept at home, by any, even the most approved system of jail
discipline. But that which cannot be obtained at home is immediately,
on transportation, found in the colonies. The criminal is no longer
thrown back on himself in the solitude of a cell--he is not surrounded
by thieves and prostitutes, urging him to resume his old habits, on
leaving it. The female convict, on arriving in New South Wales, is
almost immediately married; ere long the male, if he is industrious
and well-behaved, has the means of being so. Regular habits then come
to supplant dissolute--the natural affections spring up in the heart
with the creation of the objects on which they are to be exercised. The
solitary tenant of a cell--the dissolute frequenter of spirit-cellars
and bagnios, acquires _a home_. The affections of the fireside begin to
spring up, because a fireside is obtained.
Incalculable is the effect of this change of circumstances on the
character of the most depraved. Accordingly it is mentioned by Mr
Cunningham, in his very interesting _Account of New South Wales_, that
great numbers of young women taken from the streets of London, who have
resisted all efforts of Christian zeal and philanthropy in Magdalene
Asylums or Penitentiaries at home, and embark for New South Wales in
the most shocking state of depravity, become sensibly improved in their
manners, and are not unfrequently entirely reformed by forming, during
the voyage, _temporary connections with sailors_, to whom, when the
choice is once made, they generally remain faithful: so powerful and
immediate is the effect of an approach even to a home, and lasting
ties, on the female heart.[6] The feelings which offspring produces are
never entirely obliterated in the breast of woman. It has been often
observed, that though dissolute females generally, when they remain at
home, find it impossible to reform their own lives, yet they rarely, if
they have the power, fail to bring up their children at a distance from
their haunts of iniquity. So powerful is the love of children, and the
secret sense of shame at their own vices, in the breasts even of the
most depraved of the female sex.
It has been proved, accordingly, by experience, on the very largest
scale, not only that the reformation of offenders, when transported
to a colony in a distant part of the world, takes place, if they
are preserved _in a due proportion of numerical inferiority to
the untainted population_, to an extent unparalleled in any other
situation; but that, when so regulated, they constitute the _greatest
possible addition to the strength, progress, and riches of a colony_.
From official papers laid before parliament, before the unhappy
crowding of convicts in New South Wales began, and the gang-system was
introduced, it appears that between the years 1800 and 1817--that is,
in seventeen years--out of 17,000 convicts transported to New South
Wales, no less than _six thousand had, at the close of the period,
obtained their freedom from their good conduct, and had earned among
them, by their free labour, property to the amount of £1,500,000_! It
may be safely affirmed that the history of the world does not afford
so astonishing and gratifying an instance of the moral reformation of
offenders, or one pointing so clearly to the true system to be pursued
regarding them. It will be recollected that this reformation took place
when 17,000 convicts were transported in seventeen years--that is, on
an average, 1000 a-year only--and when the gang-system was unknown, and
the convict on landing at Sidney was immediately assigned to a free
colonist, by whom he was forthwith marched up the country into a remote
situation, and employed under his master's direction in rural labour or
occupations.
And that the colony itself prospers immensely from the forced labour of
convicts being added, _in not too great proportions_, to the voluntary
labour of freemen, is decisively proved by the astonishing progress
which Australia has made during the last fifty years; the degree in
which it has distanced all its competitors in which convict labour
was unknown; and the marvellous amount of wealth and comfort, so much
exceeding upon the whole that known in any other colony, which now
exists among its inhabitants. We say upon the whole, because we are
well aware that in some parts of Australia, particularly Van Diemen's
Land, property has of late years been most seriously depreciated in
value--partly from the monetary crisis, which has affected that
distant settlement as well as the rest of the empire, and partly from
the inordinate number of convicts who have been sent to that one
locality, from the vast increase of crime at home, and the cessations
of transportation to Sidney;--a number which has greatly exceeded the
proper and salutary proportion to freemen, and has been attended with
the most disastrous results. But that the introduction of convicts,
when not too depraved, and kept in due subordination by being in a
_small minority compared to the freemen_, is, so far from being an
evil, the greatest possible advantage to a colony, is decisively proved
by the parliamentary returns quoted below, showing the comparative
progress during a long course of years of Australia, aided by convict
labour, and the Cape of Good Hope and Canada, which have not enjoyed
that advantage. These returns are decisive. They demonstrate that the
progress of the convict colonies, during the last half century, has
been three times as rapid as that of those enjoying equal or greater
advantages, to whom convicts have not been sent; and that the present
state of comforts they enjoy, as measured by the amount per head of
British manufactures they consume, is also triple that of any other
colony who have been kept entirely clear from the supposed stain, but
real advantages, of forced labour.[7]
Accordingly, the ablest and best-informed statistical writers and
travellers on the Continent, struck with the safe and expeditious
method of getting quit of and reforming its convicts which Great
Britain enjoys, from its numerous colonies in every part of the
world, and the want of which is so severely felt in the Continental
states, are unanimous in considering the possession of such colonies,
and consequent power of unlimited transportation, as one of the very
greatest social advantages which England enjoys. Hear what one of the
most enlightened of those writers, M. Malte-Brun, says on the subject:--
"England has long been in the habit of disposing of its wicked
citizens in a way at once philosophic and politic, by sending them
out to cultivate distant colonies. It was thus that the shores
of the Delaware and the Potomac were peopled in America. After
the American war, they were at a loss where to send the convicts,
and the Cape of Good Hope was first thought of; but, on the
recommendation of the learned Sir Joseph Banks, New South Wales
obtained the preference. The first vessel arrived at Botany Bay on
the 20th January 1788, and brought out 760 convicts, and according
to a census taken in 1821, exhibited the following results in
thirty-three years, viz.--
Free settlers, men, women
and children 23,254
Convicts 13,814
------
37,068"
In 1832, that population had risen to 40,000 souls.[8] In 1821, there
were in the colony 5000 horses, 120,000 horned cattle, and 350,000
sheep. It consumed, at that period, 8,500,000 francs' (£340,000) worth
of English manufactures, being about £8, 10s. a-head, and exported to
Europe about £100,000 worth in rude produce.
"Great division of opinion has existed in France, for a long
course of years, on the possibility of diminishing the frequency
of the punishment of death, as well as that of the galleys; but
a serious difficulty has been alleged in the expense with which
an establishment such as New South Wales would cost. It is worthy
of remark, however, that from 1789 to the end of 1821, England
had expended for the transport, maintenance, and other charges
of 33,155 convicts, transported to New South Wales, £5,301,023,
being _scarce a third_ of what the prisoners would have cost in
the prisons of Great Britain, without having the satisfaction of
having changed into useful citizens those who were the shame and
terror of society.
"When a vessel with convicts on board arrives in the colony,
the men who are not married in it, are permitted to choose a
wife among the female convicts. At the expiration of his term
of punishment, every convict is at liberty to return to his own
country, at his own expense. If he chooses to remain, he obtains
a grant of land, and provisions for 18 months: if he is married
the allotment is larger, and an adequate portion is allowed for
each child. Numbers are provided with the means of emigration
at the expense of government; they obtain 150 acres of land,
seed-corn, and implements of husbandry. It is worthy of remark
that, thanks to the vigilance of the authorities, the transported
in that colony lose their depraved habits; that the women
become well behaved and fruitful; and that the children do not
inherit the vices of their parents. These results are sufficient
to place the colony of New South Wales _among the most noble
philanthropic institutions in the world_. After that, can any one
ask the expense of the establishment?"--MALTE-BRUN, _Géographie
Universelle_, xii. 194-196.
But here a fresh difficulty arises. Granting, it will be said, that
transportation is so immense a benefit to the mother country, in
affording a safe and certain vent for its criminals; and to the
colonies, by providing them with so ample a supply of forced labour,
what is to be done when they will not receive it? The colonies are
all up in arms against transportation; not one can be persuaded,
on any terms, to receive these convicts. When a ship with convicts
arrives, they begin talking about separation and independence, and
reminding us of Bunker's Hill and Saratoga. The Cape shows us with
what feelings colonies which have not yet received them view the
introduction of criminals; Van Diemen's Land, how well founded their
apprehensions are of the consequences of such an invasion of civilised
depravity. This difficulty, at first sight, appears not only serious
but insurmountable. On a nearer examination, however, it will be found
that, however formidable it may appear, it could easily be got over;
and that it is entirely owing to the true principles of transportation
having been forgotten, and one of the first duties of government
neglected by our rulers for the last thirty years.
It is very remarkable, and throws an important light on this question,
that this horror at the influx of convicts, which has now become so
general in the colonies as to render it almost impossible to find a
place where they can with safety be landed, is entirely of _recent_
origin. It never was heard of till within the last fifteen or twenty
years. Previous to that time, and even much later, transportation was
not only regarded by the penal colonies without aversion, but with the
utmost possible complacency. They looked to a series of heavy assizes
in Great Britain with the same feelings of anxious solicitude, as the
working classes do to a good harvest, or the London tradesman to a
gay and money-spending season. Spirits never were so high in Sidney,
speculation never so rife, property never so valuable, profits never so
certain, as when the convict ships arrived well stored with compulsory
emigrants. If any one doubts this, let him open the early numbers of
the _Colonial Magazine_, and he will find them filled with resolutions
of public meetings in New South Wales, recounting the immense
advantages the colony had derived from the forced labour of convicts,
and most earnestly deprecating any intermission in their introduction.
As a specimen, we subjoin a series of resolutions, by the Governor
and Council of New South Wales, on a petition agreed to, at a public
meeting held in Sidney, on 18th February 1838.
_Resolutions of the Legislative Council, New South Wales, 17th
July 1838._
4. _Resolved._--That, in opinion of this council, the numerous
free emigrants of character and capital, including many officers
of the army and navy, and East India Company's service, who have
settled in this colony, with their families, together with a
rising generation of native-born subjects, constitute a body of
colonists who, in the exercise of the social and moral relations
of life, are not inferior to the inhabitants of any other
dependency of the British crown, and are sufficient to impress a
character of respectability upon the colony at large.
5. _Resolved._--That, in the opinion of this council, the rapid
and increasing advance of this colony, in the short space of
fifty years from its first establishment, in rural, commercial,
and financial prosperity, proves indisputably the activity,
the enterprise, and industry of the colonists, and is wholly
incompatible with the state of society represented to exist here.
6. _Resolved._--That, in the opinion of this council, the strong
desire manifested by the colonists generally, to obtain moral and
religious instruction, and the liberal contributions, which have
been made from private funds, towards this most essential object,
abundantly testify that the advancement of virtue and religion
amongst them is regarded with becoming solicitude.
7. _Resolved._--That, in the opinion of this council, if
transportation and assignment have hitherto failed to produce all
the good effects anticipated by their projectors, such failure
may be traced to circumstances, many of which are no longer in
existence, whilst others are in rapid progress of amendment.
Amongst the most prominent causes of failure may be adduced the
absence, at the first establishment of the colony, of adequate
religious and moral instruction, and the want of proper means of
classification in the several gaols throughout the colony, as well
as of a sufficient number of free emigrants, properly qualified to
become the assignees of convicts, and to be intrusted with their
management and control.
8. _Resolved._--That, in the opinion of this council, the great
extension which has latterly been afforded of moral and religious
instruction, the classification which may in future be made in the
numerous gaols now in progress of erection, upon the most approved
principles of inspection and separation, the most effectual
punishment and classification of offenders in ironed gangs,
according to their improved system of management--the numerous
free emigrants now eligible as the assignees of convicts, and
the accumulated experience of half a century--form a combination
of circumstances, which renders the colony better adapted at the
present, than at any former period, to carry into effect the
praiseworthy intentions of the first founders of the system of
transportation and assignment, which had no less for its object
reformation of character than a just infliction of punishment.
9. _Resolved._--That, in the opinion of this council, no system
of penal discipline, or secondary punishment, will be found at
once so cheap, so effective, and so reformatory, as that of
well-regulated assignment--the good conduct of the convict, and
his continuance at labour, being so obviously the interest of the
assignee; whilst the partial solitude and privations, incidental
to a pastoral or agricultural life in the remote districts of the
colony, (which may be made the universal employment of convicts,)
by effectually breaking a connexion with companions and habits of
vice, is better calculated than any other system to produce moral
reformation, when accompanied by adequate religious instruction.
10. _Resolved._--That, in the opinion of this council, many men
who, previously to their conviction, had been brought up in habits
of idleness and vice, have acquired, by means of assignment,
not only habits of industry and labour, but the knowledge of a
remunerative employment, which, on becoming free, forms a strong
inducement to continue in an honest course of life.
11. _Resolved._--That, in the opinion of this council, the sudden
discontinuance of transportation and assignment, by depriving the
colonists of convict labour, must necessarily curtail their means
of purchasing crown lands, and, consequently, the supply of funds
for the purpose of immigration.
12. _Resolved._--That, in the opinion of this council, the produce
of the labour of convicts, in assignment, is thus one of the
principal, though indirect means, of bringing into the colony
free persons: it is obvious, therefore, that the continuance of
emigration in any extended form, must necessarily depend upon the
continuance of the assignment of convicts.[9]
It is not surprising that they viewed, at this period, the
transportation system in this light; for under it they had made
advances in population, comfort, and riches, unparalleled in any other
age or country of the world.
How, then, has it happened that so great a change has come over the
views of the colonists on this subject; and that the system which
they formerly regarded, with reason, as the sheet-anchor of their
prosperity, is now almost universally looked to with unqualified
aversion, as the certain forerunner of their destruction? The answer
is easy. It is because transportation, as formerly conducted, _was
a blessing_, and because, as conducted of late years, it _has
become a curse_, that the change of opinion has arisen in regard to
it. The feelings of the colonists, in both cases, were founded on
experience--both were, in the circumstances in which they arose,
equally well founded, and both were therefore equally entitled to
respect and attention. We have only to _restore the circumstances_ in
which the convicts were a blessing, to revive the times in which their
arrival will be regarded as a boon. And to effect this, can easily be
shown not only to be attended with no difficulty, but only to require
the simultaneous adoption by government of a system of punishment
at home, and of voluntary emigration at the public expense abroad,
attended with a very trifling expense, and calculated to relieve,
beyond any other measure that could by possibility be devised, the
existing distress among the labouring classes of Great Britain and
Ireland.
To render the introduction of penal labour into a colony an advantage,
three things are necessary. 1st, that the convicts sent out should be
for the most part instructed in some simple rural art or occupation,
of use in the country into which they are to be transplanted. 2d, that
they should in general be _beginners in crime_, and a small number of
them only hardened in depravity. 3d, what is most important of all,
that they should be preserved in a _due proportion_, never exceeding
_a fourth or a fifth_ to the free and untainted settlers. Under these
conditions, their introduction will always prove a blessing, and will
be hailed as a boon. If they are neglected, they will prove a curse,
and their arrival be regarded as a punishment.
Various circumstances have contributed, of late years, to render the
convict system a dreadful evil, instead of, as formerly, a signal
benefit to the colonies. But that affords no ground for despair; on the
contrary, it furnishes the most well-grounded reason for hope. We are
suffering under the effects of an erroneous regimen, not any inherent
malady in the patient. Change this treatment, and his health will soon
return.
It is well known that the greatest pains have of _late years_ been
taken, in this country, to instruct prisoners in jail in some
useful handicraft; and that, so far has this been carried, that our
best-regulated jails are more in fact great houses of industry. The
general penitentiary at Pentonville, in particular, where the convicts
sentenced to transportation are trained, previous to their removal to
the penal settlements, is a perfect model of arrangement and attention
in this important respect. But it is equally well known that it is only
of _late_ years that this signal reform has come into operation; and
we have the satisfaction of knowing that already its salutary effects
have been evinced, in the most signal manner, with the convicts sent
abroad. Previous to the year 1840, scarcely anything was done on any
considerable scale, either to teach ordinary prisoners trades in jail,
to separate them from each other, or to prepare them, in the public
penitentiaries, for the duties in which they were to be engaged,
when they arrived at their distant destination. The county jails,
now resounding with the clang of ceaseless occupation, pursued by
prisoners in their separate cells, then only re-echoed the din of riot
and revelling in the day-rooms where the idle prisoners were huddled
together, and beguiled the weary hours of their captivity by stories
of perpetrated crime, or plans for its renewal the moment they got out
of confinement. But the ideas of men are all formed on the experience
of facts, or the thoughts driven into them, for a considerable time
back. The present universal horror at transportation is founded on the
experience of the prisoners with which, for a quarter of a century, New
South Wales had been flooded, from the idle day-rooms or profligate
hulks of Great Britain. Some years must elapse before the effects of
the improved discipline received, and laborious habits acquired, in the
jails and penitentiaries of the mother country, produces any general
effect on public opinion in its distant colonies.
The relaxation of the severity of our penal code at home, during the
last thirty years, however loudly called for by considerations of
justice and humanity, has undoubtedly had a most pernicious influence
on the _class of convicts_ who have, during that period, been sent to
the colonies. In so far as that change of system has diminished the
frequency of the infliction of the punishment of death, and limited,
practically speaking, that dreadful penalty to cases of wilful and
inexcusable murder, it must command the assent of every benevolent and
well-regulated mind. But, unfortunately, the change has not stopped
there. It has descended through every department of our criminal
jurisprudence, and come in that way to alter much for the worse _the
class of criminals_ who of late years have been sent to the penal
colonies. The men who were formerly hanged are now for the most part
transported; those formerly transported are now imprisoned; and those
sent abroad have almost all, on repeated occasions, been previously
confined, generally for a very long period. As imprisonment scarcely
ever works any reformation on the _moral_ character or habits of a
prisoner, whatever improved skill in handicraft it may put into his
fingers, this change has been attended with most serious and pernicious
effect on the character of the convicts sent to the colonies, and gone
far to produce the aversion with which they are now everywhere regarded.
It has been often observed, by those practically acquainted with the
working of the transportation system in the colonies, that the Irish
convicts were generally the best, and the Scotch, beyond all question,
the worst who arrived. This peculiarity, so widely different from, in
fact precisely the reverse of, what has been observed of the _free_
settlers from these respective countries, in every part of the world,
has frequently been made the subject of remark, and excited no little
surprise. But the reason of it is evident, and, when once stated,
perfectly satisfactory. The Scotch law, administered almost entirely by
professional men, and on fixed principles, has long been based on the
principle of transporting persons only who were deemed irreclaimable in
this country. Very few have been sent abroad for half a century, from
Scotland, who had not either committed some very grave offence, or
been four or five times, often eight or ten times, previously convicted
and imprisoned. In Ireland, under the moderate and lenient sway of
Irish county justices, a poacher was often transported who had merely
been caught with a hare tucked up under his coat. Whatever we may think
of the justice of such severe punishments for trivial offences, in the
first instance, there can be but one opinion as to its tendency to
lead a much better class of convicts from the Emerald Isle, than the
opposite system did from the shores of Caledonia. Very probably, also,
the system of giving prisoners "repeated opportunities of amendment,"
as it is called in this country--but which, in fact, would be more
aptly styled "renewed opportunities for depravity"--has, from good but
mistaken motives, been carried much too far in Scotland. Be this as it
may, nothing is more certain than that the substitution of a race of
repeatedly convicted and hardened offenders, under the milder system
of punishment in Great Britain, during the last twenty years, for one
comparatively uninitiated in crime, such as were formerly sent out, has
had a most pernicious effect on the character of the convicts received
in the colonies, and the sentiments with which their arrival was
regarded.
But by far the most powerful cause, which has been in operation for
above a quarter of a century, in destroying the beneficial effects
of the system of transportation, and substituting the worst possible
consequences in their stead, has been the sending out of convicts _in
too great a proportion to the free population_, and the consequent
necessity for substituting the _gang for the assignment system_. This
is a matter of the very highest, indeed of paramount importance; and
it may safely be affirmed that, unless a remedy is found for it, all
efforts made to render the system of transportation palatable to the
colonies will prove nugatory. Fortunately the means of remedying
that evil are not only easy, but, comparatively speaking, cheap,
and perfectly efficacious; and they promise, while they remedy the
above-mentioned evil, to confer, in other respects, signal benefits
both on the colonies and the mother country.
New South Wales was originally selected, and not without sufficient
reasons, as the place for the establishment of penal colonies,
because the distance of it from the mother country, and the length of
the voyage, rendered it a very difficult matter either for runaway
convicts, or those who had served their time, to get home again. Once
sent out, you were, in the great majority of cases, clear of them for
ever. This circumstance was no disadvantage, but rather the reverse, to
the colony, and certainly a very great advantage to the parent state,
as long as the number of convicts annually sent out was inconsiderable,
and the whole convict population formed a small minority to the number
of free settlers. When the whole number committed a-year in England was
4500, and in Scotland under 100, as it was in Great Britain in 1804 or
1805, the settlement of convicts on the distant shores of Australia
worked well. They were glad to get the 300 or 400 annually sent out;
they were benefited by their forced labour; and the free settlers
were in sufficient numbers to keep them with ease in subjection, and
prevent their habits from contaminating those of the free inhabitants
of the colony. But when the commitments from Great Britain and Ireland
had risen to 50,000 or 60,000 a-year, and the convicts sent out to
3000 or 4000 annually, as they have done for some years past, the case
was entirely altered. The polluted stream became much too large and
powerful for the land it was intended to fertilise; it did more harm
than good, and became the object of uniform and undisguised aversion.
The _distance_ of Australia from the mother country, which formerly had
been so great an advantage to both parties, now became the greatest
possible evil; because it prevented, at the time this great influx
of convicts was going on, the immigration of freemen from preserving
anything like a due proportion to it. When the convicts rose to 2000
and 3000 yearly, the free settlers should have been raised to 8000 or
10,000 annually. This would have kept all right; because the tainted
population would have been always in a small minority compared to the
virtuous; order would have been preserved by the decided majority of
the well-disposed; and the assignment system, the parent of so much
good, still rendered practicable by the ceaseless extension of free
settlers in the wilds of nature. But the distance of Australia rendered
this impracticable, when the emigration of freemen was left to its own
unaided resources. Steam navigation contributed powerfully to throw it
into the back-ground for all but the very highest class of emigrants.
The voyage to Australia is one of fourteen thousand miles; it takes
from five to six months, must still be performed by sailing vessels,
and costs about £16 a-head for the ordinary class of emigrants. That
to America is one of three thousand miles; it takes from a fortnight
to three weeks, is performed by great numbers of steam as well as
sailing vessels, and costs from £3 to £4 a-head for the same class of
passengers.[10]
These facts are decisive, and must always continue so, against the
choice of Australia, as the place of their destination, by the great
bulk of ordinary emigrants. Several young men of good family, indeed,
tempted by the high profits generally made there in the wool trade, and
the boundless facilities for the multiplication of flocks which its
prairies afforded, have settled there, and some have done well. But of
ordinary labourers, and persons to do the work of common workmen, there
has always been felt a very great deficiency, for this simple reason,
that they could not afford the expense of the voyage. The settlers were
almost entirely of the better class, and they were in no proportion at
all to the number of the convicts. This distinctly appears, not only
from the extravagant wages paid to shepherds and common labourers,
generally not less than five or six shillings a-day, but from the very
limited number of emigrants, even during the distress of the last
three years, when the voluntary emigration had reached two hundred and
fifty thousand annually from the British islands, who have gone to our
colonies in New South Wales.[11]
This unhappy turn of affairs has been attended with a double
disadvantage. In the first place, the vast increase in the number
of convicts sent to Sydney, compared with the small number of free
settlers, has for a long time past rendered the continuance of the
assignment system impossible; and _the gang system_, to take off and
embody the surplus numbers, became in a manner a matter of necessity.
The manners of the colony, its habits, its prospects, its morality,
have been seriously damaged by this change. The emancipated convicts
who have made money, known by the name of "canary birds," have pressed
upon the heels, and come to excite the jealousy, of the free settlers.
The accumulation of convicts in the lower walks of life has checked the
immigration of free labour, perpetuated the frightful inequality of the
sexes, and led to the most lamentable disorders. The gang system, of
necessity introduced, because free settlers did not exist to take the
convicts off under the assignment system, perpetuated in the colony the
vices of the hulks, the depravity of the galleys. The whole benefits of
transportation to the convicts, their whole chances of amendment, are
lost, when, instead of being sent to rural labour in the solitude of
the woods and the prairies, they are huddled together, in gangs of four
or five hundred, without hope to counterbalance evil propensities, or
inducement to resist the seduction of mutual bad example. These evils
were so sensibly felt, and led to such energetic representations to the
government at home, that at length the colony was pacified, but at the
same time its progress checked, by an order in council in 1837, that
no more convicts, for a limited time, should be sent to Sydney or its
dependencies.
But this only shifted the seat of the evil, and augmented its
intensity. The convicts, now swelled to above four thousand a-year,
could not be kept at home; they required to be sent somewhere, and
where was that place to be? Van Diemen's Land was selected, being the
most southernly portion of New Holland, and of course the farthest
removed from this country; and thither nearly the _whole convicts_ of
Great Britain and Ireland, soon above thirty-five hundred annually
in number, were sent for several years. The consequence of this
prodigious influx of criminals into an infant colony, so far removed
from the parent state that it cost £20 a-head to send a common labourer
there--and of course no free emigration in proportionate numbers could
be expected without public aid--might easily have been anticipated.
Government did nothing to encourage the simultaneous settlement of
free settlers in that distant land, thus flooded with convicts, or so
little as amounted to nothing. The consequence was, that, ere long,
_three-fifths_ of the inhabitants of the colony were convicts. Every
one knows, none could have failed to anticipate the consequences. The
morals of the settlement, thus having a majority of its inhabitants
convicts, were essentially injured. Crimes unutterable were committed;
the hideous inequality of the sexes induced its usual and frightful
disorders; the police, how severe and vigilant soever, became unable
to coerce the rapidly-increasing multitude of criminals; the most
daring fled to the woods, where they became bush-rangers; life became
insecure; property sank to half its former value. So powerful, and
evidently well-founded, were the representations made on the subject to
the legislature, that it became evident that a remedy must be applied;
and this was done by an order in council in 1844, which suspended
entirely for two years the transportation of _male_ convicts to the
colonies. That of females was still and most properly continued, in the
hope that, by doing so, the inequality of the sexes in Australia might
in some degree be corrected.
But this measure, like all the rest, not being founded on the right
principle, has entirely failed. The accumulation of offenders in the
British islands, from the stoppage of the usual vent by which they were
formerly carried off, soon became insupportable. The jails were crowded
to suffocation; it was ere long found to be necessary to liberate many
persons, transported seven years, at the expiration of two, to make way
for new inmates. The liberated convicts were soon back in their old
haunts, and at their old practices; and the great increase of _serious_
crimes, such as robberies, burglaries, and murders, demonstrated that
the public morals in the great towns were rapidly giving way, under the
influence of that worst species of criminals--returned convicts. The
judges both of Great Britain and Ireland, in common with every person
practically acquainted with the subject, and who had daily proofs,
in the discharge of their important official duties, of the total
failure of the imprisonment system, were unanimous in recommending a
return to transportation. All the temporary expedients adopted, such
as Gibraltar, Bermuda, &c., soon failed from the rapid increase of
convicts, who greatly exceeded all the means left of taking them off.
Government became convinced that they had made a step in the wrong
direction; and they most wisely took counsel from experience, and
determined to resume the practice of sending convicts abroad. But, on
the threshold of the renewed attempt, they were met by the refusal
of the colonies to take them. The Cape is almost in rebellion on the
subject; and in despair of finding a willing colony, it is said they
have in contemplation to send them to be roasted under the White
Cliffs, and increase the already redundant population of Malta.
It is not necessary to do any such thing. The solution of the
transportation question is easy, the method to be followed perfectly
efficacious. Government have only _to commence the discharge_ of
one of their most important social duties to get rid of all their
difficulties, and render the immigration of criminals, as it was
in time past, as great a blessing to the colonies, and as ardently
desired, as of late years it has been a curse, and earnestly deprecated.
Transportation is a blessing to a colony when the convicts are kept
in a minority, perhaps in a fourth or a fifth of the community to
which they are sent, and when they are not hardened in crime, and all
instructed in some useful trade. In such circumstances, they are the
greatest possible addition to its strength, riches, and progress, and
will always be gladly received.
Transportation is a curse when the convicts sent out are so numerous,
and the free settlers so few, that the former forms a large proportion
of the community compared to the latter, and when their habits are
those of hardened irreclaimable criminals, instead of youthful novices
in crime. If they become a majority, certain ruin may be anticipated to
the colony thus flooded with crime.
The difficulties which now beset the transportation question have all
arisen from our having pursued a course, of late years, which rendered
the settlement of convicts a curse instead of a blessing, as it was
at first, when the system was directly the reverse. To render it a
blessing again, we have only to restore the circumstances which made
it so formerly--sending out the convicts when not completely hardened
in depravity, and in such a proportion to the free settlers as to
keep them a _small minority_ to the free and untainted part of the
community. The immigration of convicts to our colonies is like that of
the Irish into western Britain: everything depends on the proportion
they bear to the remainder of the population. They are very useful if
a fourth; they can be borne if they are a third; but let them become
a majority, and they will soon land the country in the condition of
Skibbereen or Connemara.
We cannot diminish the numbers of convicts transported; on the
contrary, woful results have made us aware that it should be materially
increased. Experience has taught us, also, that voluntary unaided
emigration cannot enable the free settlers in Australia to keep pace
with the rapid increase of crime in the British islands. What, then,
is to be done? The answer is simple: Discharge in part the vast duty,
so long neglected by government, of providing, at the public expense,
for the emigration of a certain portion of the _most indigent_ part of
the community, who cannot get abroad on their own resources, and SETTLE
THEM IN THE SAME COLONY WITH THE CONVICTS. Do this, and the labour
market is lightened at home; the convicts are kept in a small minority
abroad; the colony, thus aided by the combined virtue and penal labour
of the mother country, is secured of prosperity and rapid progress; and
its rate of increase will soon induce the other colonies to petition
for a share of the prolific stream.
At present, there are, or at least should be, above 5000 criminals
annually transported from the British islands.[12] The cost of settling
a free labourer in Australia is about £16 a-head. To send 16,000 free
labourers with these 5000 criminals would cost just £256,000 a-year:
call it £300,000 yearly, to make room for the probable increase of
criminals, from the growing necessities or depravity of the mother
country, and provide for the extra and unavoidable expenses of an
infant establishment, and the transportation question is at once
solved, a great relief is afforded to the distressed labourers of the
parent state, and a certain market for our manufactures provided,
which will double every two or three years, as long as the system is
continued.
Let government, by an order in council, propose these terms to the
colonies, and we shall see if any of them will refuse them. If none
will close with them, let them at once establish a new colony on these
principles, in some unoccupied part of New Holland. In twelve months,
there will be a race for who is to get a share of the fertilising
stream. Sixteen thousand free settlers, and five or six thousand
convicts, annually sent to any colony, would cause its numbers to
double every two, and its prosperity to triple in value every three
years. Everything would go on in a geometrical progression. It would
soon rival California in progress and reputation. Capital would rapidly
follow this scene of activity and progress. Moneyed men are not slow
in discovering where labour is plentiful and comparatively cheap, and
where their investments are doubled in amount and value every two or
three years. A colony thus powerfully supported by the parent state
would soon distance all its competitors: while the Cape, New Zealand,
and Australia were slumbering on with a population doubling every ten
years, from the tardy and feeble support of free emigrants on their
own resources, the establishment thus protected would double in two
or three. Voluntary emigrants would crowd to the scene of activity,
progress, and opulence. The 20,000 persons annually sent out would
immediately become consumers of our manufactures to the extent of
£150,000 a-year:[13] and this rate would be doubled the very next
year! At the end of five or six years, it would amount to £800,000 or
£900,000 annually. What a relief at once to the manufacturers of Great
Britain, now labouring so severely under the combined effect of foreign
competition and a declining home market, and the starving peasantry of
Ireland, where half a million of stout labourers--admirable workmen
in a foreign country, though wretched ones in their own--are pining
in hopeless destitution, a burden upon their parishes, or flocking in
ruinous multitudes to Liverpool and Glasgow.
But where is the £300,000 to come from? The Chancellor of the Exchequer
has no money; taxation has reached its limits; and loans are out of
the question. What! have free trade and a restricted currency, then,
so quickly prostrated the resources of the country, that the nation
which, in 1813, with eighteen millions of inhabitants, at the close
of a twenty years' costly war, raised £72,000,000 by taxation, and
£80,000,000 by loan, cannot now, with thirty millions, for so very
important an object, after thirty-three years of unbroken peace, muster
up £300,000 a-year? A shilling a gallon on the 6,259,000 gallons of
whisky annually consumed in _Scotland alone_, in demoralising the
community, would provide the requisite sum, and tend to equalise the
ruinous exemption which Scotland now enjoys in the manufacture of that
attractive and pernicious liquor. A similar duty on the 12,000,000
gallons annually consumed in England, would raise double the sum. But
if government, despite the £100,000,000 we were promised by free trade,
cannot afford £300,000 a-year for this vital object, let it be laid on
the counties as part of the prison or county rates. A little reflection
would soon show every person of sense in the country, that its amount
could speedily be saved in prison and poor rates.
Simultaneously with this change, an alteration, equally loudly called
for, should take place in the administration of our criminal law at
home. The present system of inflicting short imprisonments at first,
and reserving long imprisonments and transportation for criminals who
have plied their trade of pillage for two or three years, should be
abolished. Imprisonment should consist of three kinds:--1. A very
short imprisonment, perhaps of a week or ten days, for the youngest
criminals and a first trifling offence, intended to terrify merely. 2.
For a second offence, however trivial--or a first, if considerable,
and indicating an association with professional thieves--a long
imprisonment of _nine months or a year_, sufficient _to teach every
one a trade_, should invariably be inflicted. 3. The criminal who
has been thus imprisoned, and taught a trade, should, when next
convicted, be _instantly transported_. In this way a triple advantage
would be gained. 1. The immense number of prisoners now constantly
in confinement in the British islands would be materially lessened,
and the prison-rates proportionally relieved. 2. The cost of now
maintaining a convict in one of the public penitentiaries, to prepare
him for transportation, not less than £17 or £18, would be almost
entirely saved; he would be prepared for it, in the great majority
of cases, by his previous imprisonment. 3. The character and habits
of the convicts sent out would be materially improved, by getting
comparatively young and untainted men for penal labour, instead of
old offenders, who have learned no other trade than that of thieving.
To the country it would undoubtedly save £60 or £80 on each criminal
transported, by removing him at the commencement of his career, when
his reformation was possible, instead of waiting till its close, when
he had lived for three or four years in flash-houses and prisons at
the public expense, paid in depredations or prison rates, and acquired
nothing but habits which rendered any change of character abroad
difficult, if not impossible. The prisons would become, instead of mere
receptacles of vice, great houses of industry, where the most dangerous
and burdensome part of our population would be trained for a life of
industry and utility in the colonies.
For a similar reason, the great object in poor-houses, houses of
refuge, hospitals, and other institutions where the destitute poor
children are maintained at the public expense, or that of foundations
bequeathed by the piety of former times, should be to prepare the
young of both sexes, by previous education, for the habits and duties
of colonists; and, when they become adults, to _send them abroad at
the expense of the public or the institution_. Incalculable would be
the blessings which would ensue, both to the public morals and the
public expenditure, from the steady adoption of this principle. It
is a lamentable fact, well known to all practically acquainted with
this subject, that a large proportion of the orphan or destitute boys,
educated in this manner at the public expense, in public institutions,
become thieves, and nearly all the girls prostitutes. It could not
be otherwise with young creatures of both sexes, turned out without
a home, relation, or friend, shortly after the age of puberty, into
the midst of an old and luxurious community, overloaded with labour,
abounding in snares, thickly beset with temptations. Removed to
Australia, the Cape, or Canada, they might do well, and would prove as
great a blessing in those colonies, where labour is dear, women wanted,
and land boundless, as they are a burden here, where labour is cheap,
women redundant, and land all occupied. Every shilling laid out in the
training the youth of both sexes in such situations, for the duties of
colonial life, and sending them to it when adults, would save three in
future prison or poor rates. A pauper or criminal, costing the nation
£15 or £20 a-year, would be converted into an independent man living on
his labour, and consuming £7 or £8 worth yearly of the manufactures of
his native country.
The number of emigrants who now annually leave the British shores, is
above 250,000![14] No such migration of mankind is on record since
the days when the Goths and Vandals overthrew the Roman empire, and
settled amidst its ruins. It might naturally have been supposed that
so prodigious a removal of persons, most of them in the prime of
life, would have contributed in a material degree to lighten the
market of labour, and lessen the number of persons who, by idleness or
desperation, are thrown into habits of crime. But the result has been
just the reverse; and perhaps nothing has contributed so powerfully to
increase crime, and augment destitution among the labouring classes
of late years, as this very emigration. The reason is evident. It is
for the most part _the wrong class which has gone abroad_. It is the
employer, not the employed; the holders of little capitals, not the
holders of none. Left to its own unaided resources, emigration could
be undertaken only by persons possessed of some funds to pay their
passage. It took £100 to transport a family to Australia; £20 or £30
to America. The destitute, the insolvent, the helpless, could not get
away, and they fell in overwhelming and crushing multitudes on the
parish funds, county rates, and charity of the benevolent at home.
Labour became everywhere redundant, because so many of the employers
of labour had gone away. The grand object for all real lovers of their
country now, should be to induce government or the counties to provide
means for the emigration, on a large scale, of destitute _labourers_,
chained by their poverty to the soil. About 150,000 persons have
annually emigrated from Ireland for the last three years, carrying
with them above half its agricultural capital; and the consequence is,
that in many districts the land is uncultivated, _and the banknotes
in circulation, which, in 1846, were £7,500,000, have sunk in August
1849 to £3,833,000_![15] The small cultivators, the employers of the
poor, have disappeared, and with them their capital--leaving only
to the owners of land a crowd of starving, unemployed labourers, to
consume their rents. A million of such starving labourers now oppress
the industry of Ireland. Such is the result of agitation at home, and
free trade in emigration abroad. The American papers tell us, that
each of these starving Irishmen, if strong and healthy, is worth 1000
dollars to the United States. Free-trade emigration can never send them
out--it can transport only those who can pay. A large increase of penal
emigration, coupled with such a proportionate influx, at the public
expense, of free settlers, as would prevent it from becoming an evil,
at once solves the transportation question, and is the first step in
the right direction in that of Emigration.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Prison Report 1848_, p. 73.
[2] In 1848, the number committed for serious offences was 73,770.
[3] See the "Increase of Crime, and Imprisonment, and Transportation,"
_Blackwood's Magazine_, May and July 1844, vol. lv. p. 532, and vol.
lvi. p. 1.
[4] Table showing the number of commitments for serious offences in the
undermentioned years in England, Scotland, and Ireland:--
|Years. | England. | Scotland. | Ireland. | Total. |
+-------+----------+-----------+-----------+--------+
| 1837 | 23,612 | 3,126 | 24,804 | 51,542 |
| 1838 | 23,094 | 3,418 | 25,723 | 52,235 |
| 1839 | 24,443 | 3,409 | 26,392 | 54,244 |
| 1840 | 27,187 | 3,872 | 23,833 | 54,892 |
| 1841 | 27,760 | 3,562 | 20,776 | 52,118 |
| 1842 | 31,309 | 4,189 | 21,186 | 56,684 |
| 1843 | 29,591 | 3,615 | 20,126 | 53,332 |
| 1844 | 26,542 | 3,577 | 19,448 | 49,565 |
| 1845 | 24,309 | 3,537 | 16,696 | 44,542 |
| 1846 | 25,107 | 2,901 | 18,492 | 46,500 |
| 1847 | 28,833 | 4,635 | 31,209 | 64,677 |
| 1848 | 30,349 | 4,909 | 38,522* | 73,770 |
--_Parliamentary Returns_, 1842-8.
* Irish Rebellion.
[5] BROUGHAM'S _Colonial Policy_, i. 61, 62.
[6] CUNNINGHAM'S _New South Wales_, i. 262.
[7] Table showing the annual exports of British manufactures to the
undermentioned Colonies, from 1828 to 1846.
| | Canada, &c. | The Cape, | Australia, |
|Years.| Without Convicts. | Without Convicts. | With Convicts.|
+------+ | | |
|1828 | £1,691,044 | £218,849 | £443,839 |
|1829 | 1,581,723 | 257,501 | 310,681 |
|1830 | 1,857,133 | 330,036 | 314,677 |
|1831 | 2,089,327 | 257,245 | 398,471 |
|1832 | 2,075,725 | 292,405 | 466,328 |
|1833 | 2,092,550 | 346,197 | 558,372 |
|1834 | 1,671,069 | 304,382 | 716,014 |
|1835 | 2,158,158 | 326,921 | 696,345 |
|1836 | 2,732,291 | 482,315 | 835,637 |
|1837 | 2,141,035 | 488,811 | 921,568 |
|1838 | 1,992,457 | 623,323 | 1,336,662 |
|1839 | 3,047,671 | 464,130 | 1,679,390 |
|1840 | 2,847,913 | 417,091 | 2,004,385 |
|1841 | 2,947,061 | 384,574 | 1,269,351 |
|1842 | 2,333,525 | 369,076 | 916,164 |
|1843 | 1,751,211 | 502,577 | 1,211,815 |
|1844 | 3,076,861 | 420,151 | 744,482 |
|1845 | 3,555,954 | 648,749 | 1,201,076 |
|1846 | 3,308,059 | 480,979 | 1,441,640 |
--PORTER'S _Parliamentary Tables_, 1846, p. 121.
Exports, per head, to the following countries in 1836.
| | | |Proportion|
| | Population. | Exports. | per head.|
| | +-------------+----------+
|United States of America, | 14,000,000 | £12,425,605 | £0 17 6 |
|Canada, &c., | 1,500,000 | 2,739,291 | 1 16 0 |
|British West India Islands, | 900,000 | 3,786,453 | 3 12 0 |
|Australia, | 100,000 | 835,637 | 8 14 0 |
--PORTER'S _Parliamentary Tables_.
[8] It now (1849) exceeds 200,000 souls.
[9] _Colonial Magazine_, i. 431, 433.
[10] While we write these lines, the following advertisement, which
appeared in the _Times_ of Oct. 10, will illustrate this vital
difference:--
"EMIGRATION.--The undersigned are prepared to forward intending
emigrants to every colony now open for colonisation, at the following
rates of passage-money:--To Sydney, £15; Melbourne, £15; Adelaide,
£15; Swan River, £20; Van Diemen's Land, £20; New Zealand, £18; Cape
of Good Hope, £10; Natal, £10; California, £25; New York, £2, 10s.;
Philadelphia, £2, 10s.; New Orleans, £3.--HARRISON & CO.--_11 Union
Street, Birmingham._"
[11] Emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland to Australia and New
Zealand:--
1830, 1,242 1836, 3,124 1842, 8,534
1831, 1,561 1837, 5,054 1843, 3,478
1832, 3,733 1838, 14,021 1844, 2,229
1833, 4,093 1839, 15,726 1845, 830
1834, 2,800 1840, 15,850 1846, 2,227
1835, 1,860 1841, 32,625
--PORTER'S _Parliamentary Tables_, 1846, p. 236.
[12] Sentenced to be transported--
England. Scotland. Ireland. Total.
1846, 2805 352 753 3810
1847, 2896 456 2185 5537
1848, 3251 459 2678* 6388
* Rebellion.
--_Parliamentary Returns_, 1846-8.
[13] At the rate of £7, 14s. a-head--the present rate in Australia.
[14] Viz.:--1847, 258,000; 1848, 248,000; 1849, understood to be still
larger.--_Parliamentary Reports._
[15] See _Dublin University Magazine_, October 1849, p. 372.
MY PENINSULAR MEDAL.
BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.
PART I.--CHAPTER I.
On the evening of the 13th of February last, I was sitting in my
library, at my residence in ---- Square, when a double knock at the
door announced the postman. Betty presently entered, bringing, not as
I anticipated, a letter or two, but a small packet, which evidently
excited her curiosity, as it did mine.
The first thing upon the said packet that caught my eye was a large
seal of red wax--the royal arms!--then, above the direction, "On Her
Majesty's service!"--just beneath, the word, "Medal!" Yes, the medal
that I had earned five-and-thirty years before, in the hard-fought
fight on the hill of Toulouse--long expected, it was come at last!
And, let me tell you, a very handsome medal, too; well designed, well
executed; and accompanied with a very civil letter, from that old
soldier, and true soldier's friend, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the military
secretary. This letter being, no doubt, precisely the same as hundreds
of "Old Peninsulars" have by this time received, I presume I am guilty
of no breach of confidence in here transcribing it for the benefit of
my readers:--
"Horse-Guards, 31st January 1849.
"Sir,--I am directed by the Commander-in-Chief to transmit to you
the Medal and Clasps graciously awarded to you by her Majesty
under the general order of the first of June 1847. I have the
honour to be, &c.
"FITZROY SOMERSET."
As I never attempt to describe my own feelings, except such as are
describable, I shall not relate what I now felt on the receipt of this
much desired, anxiously expected medal. But this I will say;--long live
the Queen! long live Queen Victoria! God bless her! Oh, it was a kind
thought: it was a gracious act. It comes to cheer the heart of many an
old soldier, and of many a middle-aged gentleman like myself, who got
nothing but honour and aching bones for his share in the Peninsular
glories; and now has something that he can add to the archives of his
family, and leave to those who come after him. "Graciously awarded to
you by her Majesty:" Yes; and I feel it as much so, as if her Majesty's
own gracious hands had placed it in mine. And, if ever she wants
defenders, so long as this arm can wield--but enough: romance would be
out of place.
After the delivery of the medals had been proceeding for some time, I
was coming, one morning, out of the Horse-Guards, when I met old Major
Snaffle, who had just got his. The major belongs to that class who are
known in the army by the name of "grumblers;" and, having been knocked
down by the wind of a shot at the Trocadero, having been brought away
in the last boat but nineteen from Corunna, having seen the battle of
Salamanca from the top of a tree, having been seized with the ague but
an hour before the storming of Badajoz, having again been very ill in
the south of France from eating unripe grapes, having regularly drawn
his pay and allowances, and never having been absent from his regiment
on sick leave when he could not get it, now justly deems himself a very
ill-used man, because more has not been done for him. "Well, major,"
said I, "I wish you joy. So you have got your medal at last." "Yes,"
growled the major, or rather grunted, "at last I _have_ got it. Long
time, though, six-and-thirty years--long time to wait for half-a-crown."
My own profession, at present, is very different from that of arms.
Nor can I presume, having been in but one general action, to rank with
those brave old fire-eaters of the Peninsular army, whose medals with
_many_ clasps--bar above bar--tell of six, seven, eight, critical
combats or more, in which they took a part under the illustrious
Wellington, in Portugal, in Spain, in the south of France. By the bye,
how I should like to see the Duke's own medal! What a lot of bars HE
must have!--what a glorious ladder, step rising above step in regular
succession, when he sits down to soup in his field-marshal's coat! But
I was going to say--to return from great things to small--so far from
being able to claim high military honours for myself, though serving
under his Grace's orders in the Peninsular war, I was not there at all
in a strictly military capacity. Yet as, from this very circumstance,
I had opportunities of seeing scenes, characters, and incidents,
connected with the British army, of a different kind from those
described by other writers on the subject, I am induced, by the arrival
of my medal, to place on record a short narrative of my personal
adventures in the Peninsula and south of France.
Yet, ere I commence the yarn, a word, one word, for the honoured dead.
Many, who came home safe from the Peninsula, fell at Waterloo. Others
were borne from the western ports of Europe across the Atlantic, to
be marks for Kentucky riflemen and New England bushfighters. Of the
survivors, multitudes upon multitudes have gradually dropped off; and
those who now remain, of the legions that conquered at Vimeira, at
Vittoria, and at Orthes, to receive her Majesty's gracious gift, are
probably fewer in number than those who are gone. One "Old Peninsular"
I have heard of, in whose own family and connexions, had all lived,
there would have been fourteen or fifteen claimants of the medal. He is
now, if he still survives, the only one left. In my own connexions we
should have made seven; and now, besides myself, there remains only one
venerable uncle, who is comfortably located in a snug berth in Canada.
There was my honoured father, who received the thanks of parliament
for his services at Corunna, and pounded the French batteries at
Cadiz. There was my cousin, Tom Impett, of the 53d, whom I found with
a musket-ball in his leg two days after the battle of Toulouse, in a
house full of wounded men and officers. He died in Canada. There was
another venerable uncle, as kind an uncle as ever breathed, and as
honest a man as ever lived. He died, to his honour, far from rich,
after having been personally responsible for millions upon millions
of public money, the sinews of war, all paid away in hard cash for
our Peninsular expenses. He was generally known at headquarters
by a comical modification of his two Christian names. There was
Captain, afterwards Colonel B----, of the Royal Engineers, a quiet,
mild-tempered man, with military ardour glowing in his breast--the
man of education and the gentleman. We met near the platform of
St Cyprien; and he had the kindness to entertain me with a calm
disquisition on the fight, while we were both in the thick of it. He
had his share of professional employment in the Peninsular sieges, and
got a bad wound or two; but lived to fortify Spike Island, and was at
length lost at sea. And then there was colonel H----, who commanded a
Portuguese brigade with the rank of brigadier-general--an extraordinary
composition of waggery, shrewdness, chivalry, and professional talent.
He came down to Lisbon while I was there, on his way to England, quite
worn out with hard service and the effect of his wounds, or, as he told
us himself, "unripped at every seam." He died not many days after, on
his passage to England.
Now for myself. I commenced keeping my terms at Trinity College,
Cambridge, in the year 1809, the seventeenth of my age. A college
life was not altogether my own choice; for nearly all the males of my
family, for three generations, had served or were serving their country
either in the army, navy, or marines, to the number of some ten or
twelve; and I myself had always looked forward to wearing the king's
uniform. Moreover, as the Peninsular war had already commenced when I
went to college, and I had learned at school the use of the broadsword
and small sword, had been drilled, and could handle a musket, my
thoughts often turned to military scenes, especially when I read in
the daily journals of victories won, first by Sir Arthur Wellesley,
then by Lord Wellington. But, once at Cambridge, I caught the fever of
academic emulation. My cousin B---- (brother of the Captain B---- above
mentioned,) had been senior wrangler, and had given me some useful
hints as to the mode of reading with effect; I read hard, obtained a
Trinity scholarship in my first year, first class the same year, ditto
the second year, and stood fair for a place among the wranglers. But
now my health broke; not, however, from hard living, but from hard
study. I was compelled to give up; and, not choosing to read for a
middling degree after having been booked for a high one, determined to
go out among the hoys. Now my penchant for military adventure returned
with full force. I was miserably out of health, with an excellent
constitution--in proof of which I always found that I lost ground by
nursing, but gained by a rough open-air life. A campaign or two would
be just the thing for me. And I beg to offer this suggestion to growing
young gentlemen who are sickly, and consequently hipped, as I was.
If, with rough living--that is, with much moving about, and constant
exposure to the atmosphere--you grow worse, I can give you no comfort;
you are a poor creature, take all the care of yourself you can. But
if, with the same kind of life, you grow better, stronger, stouter,
heartier, saucier, depend upon it, you have some stamina. This was my
case. I saw that a sedentary life was not the life I was made for; an
active life was the life for me; and my thoughts dwelt more and more on
the Peninsula. I rubbed up my French, procured a Gil Blas in Spanish,
ditto in Portuguese, a Portuguese and a Spanish grammar, and, for a
sick man, made wonderful progress in all the three languages.
But, alas! there was a hitch. I was an only son, and an only
child--intended for the _law_! My dear father had already made me
a present, while at school, of Fortescue _De Laudibus_; and I had
already gobbled up a portion of that excellent work--for I was always
an omnivorous reader--and had digested it too. And then what would my
dear mother say, if I talked to her about going to be shot at for the
benefit of my health? It was a delicate point to manage, and how to
manage it I knew not.
In the long vacation of 1812, which closed my third year at Trinity
College, Cambridge, I brought matters to an explanation. My father's
ship, the----, 74, was then in the Downs, and we had lodgings on Walmer
beach. I stated my desire to enter the army, and my firm conviction
that nothing else would restore my shattered constitution. But my
father was inflexible, my mother answered all my arguments, and I saw
that I had no chance.
But when one way of gaining an object fails, another sometimes presents
itself. My two uncles, of whom I have spoken, were already in the
Peninsula, both of them in the same department, the senior at the head
of it, with the privilege of occasionally nominating his own clerks.
Their friends in England heard from them now and then; and I saw a
letter from my senior uncle to a particular old crony of his own, who
had influential connexions, asking him why he did not come out to the
army with the rank of A. D. P. M. G.,[16] instead of staying at home,
and eating roast pig for supper.
Like all the hipped, a miserable race, I was constantly thinking
about myself; and now a happy thought struck me. As to parliamentary
interest, to be sure I had none. Besides, being under one-and-twenty,
I was not of an age to aspire to an officer's rank, in a department of
so much responsibility as the paymaster-general's; therefore, the above
standing of assistant-deputy, which put an epaulet on the shoulder at
once, was not to be thought of. But then, if Buonaparte would only have
the kindness to keep us in hot water two or three years longer, I might
rise to the said rank by previous good conduct in the office of clerk,
and that my uncle could get me at once.
I again broke ground with my honoured parents. My father assured me
that, if I went to Lisbon, where he had been stationed with his ship,
I should find it a hell upon earth: though I afterwards learned that
he had contrived to spend a tolerably happy life there. "And as to
your being attached to headquarters, and following the movements of
the army, I," said he, "have seen quite enough of service ashore to
be able to tell you that you will be soon sick of that." But, to cut
the story short, my dear mother now began to incline to my view of the
subject. To be sure a clerkship was not exactly what they had thought
of for me--but it might lead to something better--no man's education
was complete without a tour on the Continent--the usual tour through
France, Italy, and the south of Germany, was rendered impossible by
the war--and where, in all Europe, could a young man travel, except
in Spain and Portugal? Fighting, and paying those who fought, were
different things--I might keep out of the way of bullets, and yet
contrive to see the world. In short, these arguments prevailed. A
letter was written out to my uncle, begging him to write a letter to
the head office in London, nominating me as one of his clerks for
Peninsular service. I went back to Cambridge, attacked Spanish and
Portuguese with renewed ferocity, took my degree of A. B., and returned
home in the early part of 1813, just in time to meet a letter from the
best of uncles, stating that he had written to the home authorities,
and was anxiously expecting my valuable assistance in the Peninsula.
Nothing was now wanting but the nomination from London. That anxious
month! Morning after morning I watched for the postman's knock; and,
at every such summons, it was myself that opened the door to him. But
great bodies move slowly, and official dignity delights to announce
itself by tardiness of action. At length the wished-for communication
arrived; a letter, "On His Majesty's Service," of no common magnitude;
a seal of correspondent amplitude; and an intimation, in terms of
stately brevity, that I was appointed a clerk of the military chest
attached to the Peninsular army, and was to attend at the office in
London to receive my instructions.
During that month the bustle of preparation, in our usually quiet
domicile, had been immense. Stockings sufficient to set up a Cheapside
hosier, shirts enough for a voyage to India, flannel commensurate
with a visit to the North Pole--everything, in short, that could be
thought of, was prepared for the occasion with kind and provident care.
I said farewell, reached London, reported myself, got my orders and
an advance, booked my place for Falmouth, and found myself the same
evening a passenger to Exeter by the fast coach.
In those times, the journey from London to Falmouth by the fast coach
was a light off-hand affair of two nights and two days. We reached
Exeter on the second night, and there I was allowed the indulgence
of three hours' bed, till the Falmouth coach was ready to start. As
part of the said three hours was occupied in undressing and dressing,
and part also in saying my prayers, I entered the new vehicle far
more disposed for sleep than for conversation. But there I found,
to my consternation, a very chatty passenger, perfectly _fresh_! He
was a man of universal information--in short, a talented individual,
and an intellectual character; had his own ideas upon morals,
politics, theology, physics, metaphysics, and general literature; was
particularly anxious to impart them; and was travelling to obtain
orders in the rum and hollands line. Ah, what a night was that! Oh the
dismal suffering which a prosy talker inflicts on a weary head! Of all
nuisances, the most unconscious is the bore. I do think the Speaker of
the House of Commons is the most ill-used man in the three kingdoms.
Reflect: he must not only hear--he must _listen_! And then think what
a time!--hour after hour, and day after day! For a period amounting,
in the aggregate, to no small portion of the life of man, must that
unfortunate victim of British institutions sit and hearken to
"Now a louder, now a weaker,
Now a snorter, now a squeaker;
How I pity Mr Speaker!"
Some portion of such suffering I myself was now compelled to endure,
by my communicative friend in the Falmouth coach. To be sure, it
was only a single proser; but then there was variety in one. He
commenced by a few remarks on the weather, by which he introduced a
disquisition on meteorology. He then passed, by an easy transition,
to the question of secondary punishments; glanced at the theory of
gravitation; dwelt for some time on heraldry; touched on hydrostatics;
was large on logarithms; then digressed on the American war; proposed
emendations of our authorised version; discussed the Neptunian theory;
and at length suspended his course, to inform me that I was decidedly
the most agreeable fellow-traveller he had ever met with. The fact
is, I was sitting up all this time in the corner of the coach, in a
state of agony and indignation indescribable, meditating some mode
of putting a stop to the annoyance, and mentally seeking a solution
to the question--What right has a very stupid person to make your
brain a thoroughfare for his stupid ideas, especially when you would
particularly like to go to sleep? He mistook my silence for attention,
and thought he was appreciated. This went on till daylight--continued
to breakfast-time--proceeded during breakfast--ceased not when we
had re-entered the coach-talk, talk, talk, _de omnibus rebus et
quibusdam aliis_--still the same stream of stuff. That long, that
dreary journey from Exeter to Falmouth! The soft lull of somnolency
came at length to my relief; and I began to nod my assent, much to my
tormentor's gratification. But presently I was dead asleep; and, most
unfortunately, my head dropped forward into the pit of his stomach.
The breath, knocked out of his body, escaped with a gasp, like an
Indian's "ugh!" In a moment I was broad awake, and made a thousand
apologies, which he politely accepted, and renewed the thread of his
discourse. Again, I dropped off; and again my head dropped forward.
Another "ugh!" another ocean of apologies, another resumption of the
endless yarn. The other passengers, two sedate and remarkably silent
gentlemen of Falmouth, in broad-brimmed hats and drab coats of a
peculiar cut, had each his weather-eye open, and began to enjoy the
joke amazingly. Gradually, once more, the incessant clack subsided in
my ears to a pleasing hum; I was off; the cervical, dorsal, and lumbar
muscles once more lost their tension beneath the narcotic influence of
incessant sound; and my drowsy head gave a pitch as before, with the
same results--"ugh!"--apologies unlimited--ditto accepted--and more
yarn. The Quakers--I beg their pardon, the "Friends"--are, you must
know, eminently humourists. This, please to take notice, arises from
their superior intelligence, and high degree of mental culture; the
result of which is high susceptibility. You might now have seen, in
our two fellow-travellers in the Falmouth coach, what you would see
nowhere but in their "connexion"--two men ready to die of laughing,
and each looking as grave as a judge. For a few miles it went on.
Talk--sleep--head pitched into bread-basket--"ugh!"--pungent and
profound regrets--regrets accepted--talk recommenced--and so on with a
perpetual _da capo_. At length the most gifted of gratuitous lecturers
began to perceive that he was contributing to the amusement of the
party in a way that he had not intended, and grew indignant. But I
pacified him, as we drove into Falmouth, by politely soliciting a card
of his house; stepped out of the coach into the coffee-room of the
hotel, out of the coffee-room into bed as soon as it was ready, and
made up for two sleepless nights by not coming down to breakfast till
two o'clock the next day.
The Lisbon packet was not to sail for a week. My extra baggage arrived
in due time by the heavy; and I occupied the interval, as best I
could, in a pedestrian survey of the environs of Falmouth, walks to
Truro, Pendennis Castle, &c. I was much delighted with clouted cream,
and gave the landlady an unlimited order always to let me have a john
dory for dinner, when there was one in the market. N.B.--No place like
Falmouth for john dories. Clouted cream always ask for, when you go
into the West--very good with tea, not bad with coffee; and _mem._,
unimpeachable with apple-pie.
The packet, that was to have the honour of conveying me from Falmouth
to Lisbon, was a little tub of a gun-brig, yclept the Princess
Wilhelmina. Judging from her entire want of all the qualities requisite
for the service on which she was employed, I presume she must have
obtained the situation through some member of parliament. Her captain
was laid up with the gout; and we were to be commanded by the mate, who
turned out to be a Yankee, and an ugly customer; but more of him anon.
At the same hotel where I had established my _habitat_, was a military
party, three in number, waiting, like myself, for the sailing of the
packet; yet not, like myself, men fresh in the service, but all three
regular "Peninsulars"--men who had returned on leave from the British
army, and were now about to join, in time for the opening of the
campaign. They had established themselves in a front drawing-room on
the first floor, seemed very fond of music, and had good voices. But as
they always sang together, and each sang his own song, it was not easy
to determine the vocal powers of each. The coffee-room was quite good
enough for me; and there I had the honour of forming the acquaintance
of another fellow-voyager that was to be--a partner in a large London
house in the Manchester line, whom, to avoid personality, I beg leave
to distinguish by the name of Gingham. He had many of the peculiarities
of Cockneyism, and some that were entirely his own; but I found him a
very pleasant companion, and we perambulated the town and neighbourhood
in company.
CHAPTER II.
My first chapter brought me, on my way to Portugal, as far as the
Royal Hotel, Falmouth. At this stage of my travels, I must beg to
detain the reader for a short space; for here it is that I may be
said to have had my seasoning; here, in fact, I obtained my first
introduction to military society, and to military life, as it prevailed
at the British headquarters in the Peninsula. This advantage I gained
by falling in with the party of "Peninsulars" already mentioned, who
were on their way out, like myself. I must also make my readers better
acquainted with my friend Gingham, whom I hope they will not dislike
on further knowledge. Gingham and I afterwards campaigned in company.
I must premise that he had a touch of romance; and, as I afterwards
discovered, had not been brought up as a merchant.
It was the early spring of 1813: a year big with events of import to
Spain, to France, to England, and, in fact, to the whole of Europe. On
leaving London by the fast coach, we had bowled away over frozen roads.
But at Falmouth, the trees were budding in the hedgerows, the sun
was shining, the birds were singing; while the soft air stole gently
by, and, whispering, sportively saluted us as it passed, like some
coy nymph invisible--that idea was Gingham's--the sky was clear, and
the haze danced in the sunshine on the distant hills--Gingham again.
Towards the afternoon, it generally fell calm. The capacious harbour,
smooth as glass, though gently undulating at its entrance, with the
swell of the Atlantic that rolled lazily in, bore on its bosom not only
the tub-like Princess Wilhelmina and her Yankee mate, but many a noble
vessel of ampler tonnage, that showed no water-line in the transparent
and silent mirror on which it floated, and seemed to hang suspended
between earth and heaven, motionless in the sun-lit and misty ether.
A very odd fish was that Gingham. We enjoyed our walks amazingly. He
was going out to Lisbon in a large way, on a mission of mercantile
speculation, with full authority from his firm to do anything and
everything, whether in the way of contracts for the army, buying up
commissariat bills, engaging in monetary transactions, or, above
all--for that was his chief object--forming a Peninsular connexion, and
opening a new market for British goods. His was, indeed, a voyage of
enterprise and of discovery; not, however, his first. His manners were
precise. He was a higgler in little things, but had large ideas, and
lots of gentlemanly feeling. Like many other Cockneys of those days,
he was always dressed, and always conscious of being dressed. His hat
was white, with the exception of the interior green of the brim, which
matched with his spectacles. His gloves were white, his unmentionables
were white, and so was his waistcoat. His white cravat was tied before
in a sort of pilot-balloon, or white rosicrucian puff. His hair also
was pomatum'd, and powdered white. His very pigtail, all but the narrow
silk ribbon that held it together, was white. His coat was not white,
but a light pepper-and-salt, approaching to white. On the whole, there
was so much white in his general appearance, that on board the packet
he at once received the name of "the white man." He was generally
well-informed, but particularly so in matters of commerce. Our intimacy
increased rapidly, and I afterwards, indeed very soon, found the
advantage of it. He was naturally of a communicative disposition,
while he had much to communicate that was worth knowing. In me he
found a willing hearer; for I was glad to receive any kind of useful
information. With the prospect before us of a campaign in common, we
soon knocked up a sort of friendship.
Gingham could do the handsome thing. Two days before our embarkation
he insisted on my dining with him--taking my chop with him, he called
it--in return for half a beefsteak, which he had accepted from me at
breakfast, his own being delayed. I entered the coffee-room at the
appointed hour; but was ushered up stairs into a private room with
some degree of ceremony by the waiter, who, I observed, had on gloves,
knees, silk stockings, and pumps.
Gingham was there. He had ordered a regular spread. We sat down. The
landlord, who had not hitherto made himself visible, emerged on this
festive occasion, brought in the soup, bowed, and retired. Gingham said
grace. The soup excellent: it was turtle! "Capital turtle!" said I;
"had no idea that anything half so good was to be had in all Falmouth."
"Always take a small stock when I travel," said Gingham; "got a
dozen three-quart cases from Cornhill. Just found room for it in my
travelling store-closet." "Travelling store-closet!" thought I: "what a
capital fellow to campaign with!"
Soup removed. Re-enter landlord, attended by waiter. John dory, in
compliment to me, splendid. Large soles, fried. "I despise the man that
boils a sole," said Gingham. It was despicable, I admitted. "My dear
sir," said he, "allow me to lay down a principle, which you will find
useful as long as you live. With _boiled_ fish--turbot, for instance,
or john dory--always take sauce. You did quite right, in allowing me to
help you to sauce just now. But with _fried_ fish, at least with fried
sole--this, for instance--never, never permit sauce or melted butter to
be put upon your plate." It was a manoeuvre to get me to try the sole,
after the john dory. "Fried sole without butter?" said I. "Try it my
way," said Gingham, helping me: "take some salt--that's right--now put
to that a modicum of cayenne--there--a little more--don't be afraid
of putting enough--cayenne, though hot, is not heating, like common
pepper--now mix them well together with the point of your knife." I
obeyed implicitly. "Now then," said Gingham, with a look of exultation,
"TRY THAT." I tried it; and owned that I had never known, till then,
the right way of eating fried sole. It was excellent, even after the
john dory. Try it, only try it, the first time a fried sole appears on
the dinner table, under which are your legs.
A peculiar sound at the side-table now announced that he of the pumps
was opening a bottle of champagne. Up to that moment we had managed to
put up with Madeira, which was the fashionable dinner wine in those
days. N.B.--Good wine to be got at Falmouth. It comes direct from
abroad, not viâ _London_.
Fish removed. Door opens. Though rejoicing in those days in a very
fair appetite, I was rather alarmed, after such a commencement of our
humble meal, at the thought of what might be coming. But Gingham had
a delicacy of taste, which never overdid things. Enter once more
the landlord, bearing an elegant little saddle of Dartmoor mutton,
and audibly whispering to the waiter, "Boiled fowls and tongue to
follow." I commenced this history with a resolution to conceal nothing;
therefore, away with reserve: both mutton, fowls, and tongue were
excellent. "A little more Madeira, Mr Y--," said Gingham. The currant
jelly had distasted my mouth. I merely put the glass to my lips, and
set it down again. Gingham observed, and at once discovered the reason.
"Take a mouthful of potato," said Gingham, "the hottest you can find in
the dish." My taste was restored. Table cleared again. I hoped the next
_entrée_ would be the cheese and celery.
During the short armistice, Gingham, who delighted to communicate
useful knowledge, resumed the subject of the potato. Like all merchants
who pay frequent visits to the Peninsula--and Gingham had been there
often--he was knowing in wines, and in everything vinous. "Yes," said
he, "nothing like a mouthful of hot potato to make you taste wine.
There are lots of things besides, but none equal to that. The invention
is my own."
"Then," replied I, "I presume you use it at Oporto and Xeres, when you
make purchases?"
"Why, not exactly that neither," said he. "The worst of it is, it makes
all wine relish alike, bad as well as good. Now, in buying wine, you
want something to distinguish the good wine from the bad. And for this
purpose--" The landlord and waiter reappeared.
"Sorry, Mr Y--, there is no game," said Gingham. "Fine jack hare in the
larder this morning, but rather late in the season. Wouldn't have it.
Can you finish off with one or two light things in the French way?"
"My dear sir, my dear sir!"
The table was this time covered with such a display of _pâtisserie_,
macaroni, and made dishes, as would have formed of itself a very
handsome _petit souper_ for half-a-dozen people. Gingham wanted me to
try everything, and set me an example.
The whole concluded, and the cloth about to be removed, "Mr Gingham,"
said I, "you said grace before dinner, and I think _I_ ought to
say grace now." The waiter drew up reverently with his back to the
sideboard, adjusted his neckcloth, and tightened with his right hand
the glove upon his left.
We sat sipping our wine, and nibbling at a very handsome dessert. I
wanted to know more about distinguishing good wine from bad.
"I have made large purchases of wine on commission," said Gingham,
"for private friends; and that, you know, is a delicate business, and
sometimes a thankless one. But I never bought a bad lot yet; and if
they found fault with it, I wouldn't let them have it--kept it myself,
or sold it for more in the market."
"You were just on the point," said I, "of mentioning a method of
distinguishing good wine from bad."
"Well," replied he, "those fellows there, on the other side of the
Bay of Biscay, have methods innumerable. After all, taste, judgment,
and experience must decide. The Oporto wine-merchants, who know what
they are about, use a sort of silver saucer, with its centre bulging
upwards. In this saucer they make the wine spin round. My plan is
different."
"I should like to know it," said I.
"Well, sir," said he, "mix with water--two-thirds water to one-third
wine. Then try it."
"Well?"
"If there is any bad taste in the wine, the mixing brings it out. Did
you never notice in London, even if the port or sherry seems passable
alone, when you water it the compound is truly horrid, too nauseous to
drink?"
"The fact is, though a moderate man, I am not very fond of watering
wine."
"The fact is," continued Gingham, "there is very little good wine
to be got in London, always excepting such places, for instance, as
the Chapter. When you return, after having tasted wine in the wine
countries, you will be of my opinion. Much that you get is merely poor
wine of the inferior growths, coloured, flavoured, and dressed up with
bad brandy for the London market. That sort comes from abroad. And much
that you get is not wine at all, but a decoction; a vile decoction,
sir; not a drop of wine in its composition. That sort is the London
particular." I felt that I was receiving ideas.
"Now, sir," said Gingham, "my cold-water test detects this. If what you
get for wine is a decoction, a compound, and nothing but a compound, no
wine in it, then the water--about two-thirds to one-third--detects the
filthy reality. Add a lump or two of sugar, and you get as beastly a
dose of physic as was ever made up in a doctor's shop."
"Just such a dose," I replied, "as I remember getting, now you mention
it, as I came down here by the fast coach, at an inn where I asked, by
way of a change, for a glass of cold white-wine negus. The slice of
lemon was an improvement, having done duty before in a glass of gin
punch."
"Shouldn't wonder," said Gingham. "And if what you buy for port or
sherry be not absolutely a decoction, but only inferior wine made
up, then the water equally acts as a detective. For the dilution has
the effect of separating, so to speak, the respective tastes of the
component parts--brings them out, sir; and you get each distinct. You
get, on the one hand, the taste of the bad brandy, harsh, raw, and
empyreumatic: and you get, on the other hand, the taste of the poor,
paltry wine, wretched stuff, the true _vinho ordinario_ flavour, that
makes you think at once of some dirty roadside Portuguese _posada_,
swarming with fleas."
"But what if you water really good wine?"
"Why, then," said Gingham, "the flavour, though diluted, is still the
flavour of good wine."
"I should like," said I, "to be knowing in wines."
Seeing in me a willing learner, he was about to open. But at this
moment the mail drove into the yard of the hotel; and, knowing that
Gingham was always ravenous for the London journals on their first
arrival, I insisted on our going down into the public room, taking a
cup of coffee, and reading the papers. We had talked about wines; but,
being neither of us topers, had taken only a moderate _quantum suff._,
though all of the best kind. Gingham, out of compliment to me, wished
to prolong the sitting. But, knowing his penchant for a wet newspaper,
I was inflexible. We rose from the table.
I felt that I had been handsomely entertained, and that something
handsome ought to be said. The pleasing consciousness, however, of
having eaten a good dinner, though it excited my finest feelings, did
not confer the faculty of expressing them. I began:
"Sir, Mr Gingham; I feel we ought not to leave this room, till I have
expressed the emotions--" Then, taking a new departure, "Really, sir,
your kind hospitality to a comparative stranger--"
"Well, sir," said Gingham, laughing, "I will tell you how it was. Do
you remember your first breakfast in the coffee-room, the day after
your arrival by the mail? I was present, and enjoyed it amazingly."
"Oh, sir! oh, sir!" said I, a _leetle_ taken aback; "really I was
enormously hungry. In fact I had eaten nothing during my two days'
previous journey; and was so sleepy on my arrival, that I got to bed as
fast as I could, without thinking of ordering supper. And when I came
down next morning, or rather afternoon, why, to tell you the truth, I
made it breakfast and dinner in one; and perhaps I did seem a little
savage in my first onset on the Falmouth--"
"No, NO, NO!" exclaimed Gingham, interrupting me. "That was not it. No,
NO, NO! far from it. My dear sir, you merely disposed of two or three
plates of ham and eggs; then a few muffins, with about half-a-dozen
basins of tea. After that--let me see--after that, to the best of my
recollection--after that, you took nothing, no, nothing, but the mutton
chops. No, sir, it was not the quantity. I have often made as hearty a
meal myself; and, if we campaign together, I trust we shall often make
as hearty a meal together. Nothing like campaigning for an appetite.
No, sir; that was not it. It was your manner of taking it."
"My manner of taking it? Really! And pray what did you see in my manner
of taking it?"
"Sir," said Gingham, with emotion, "I know this house. I have long
used this house. Everything in this house is good. The accommodation
is good. The attendance is good. The wine is good. The dinners are
good. The breakfasts are good. Now, sir, I have seen some persons
conduct themselves in this house in a manner that filled me with scorn,
disgust, and indignation. They arrive by the London mail, sir, as you
did, and go to bed. In the morning they come down into the public room,
and order breakfast. They breakfast, not like you, my dear sir, very
moderately, but enormously. That I could forgive; after a long journey
it is excusable. But, sir, what I cannot tolerate is this: They find
fault with everything. The tea is bad; the coffee is bad. They take up
the silver cream-jug; examine the clouted cream; smell to it--yes, sir;
they actually smell to it--and smelling to anything, I need not say, is
as great a _bêtise_ as a man can commit at table--ask the waiter what
he means by bringing them such stuff as that; and, before they have
done, gobble up the whole, and perhaps call for more."
"Call for more? Why, that, I think, is exactly what I did."
"Yes, my dear sir," said Gingham, "you enjoyed it; and you took a
pretty good lot of it; but you did not find fault with it. Not so the
people I am talking of. The fact is, sir, we Londoners have a great
idea of keeping up our dignity. These persons wish to pass for people
of importance; and they think importance is announced by finding
fault. Item, they are enormously, indecently hungry, and fully intend
to make a breakfast for two, but wish to do it surreptitiously. On
the arrival of the beefsteak, they turn round the dish, and look at
it contemptuously, longing, all the while, to fall to. Yes, sir, they
turn round the dish two or three times; then stick their fork into the
steak, and turn it over and over; perhaps hold it up, suspended by a
single prong, and examine it critically; and end all by pushing away
their plate, drawing the dish into its place, and bolting the whole
beefsteak, without taking time to masticate. Sir, there was a man in
that coffee-room this morning, who grumbled at everything, and ate like
a dog. In short, they clear the table of eatables and drinkables; then
call the waiter, and reproach him, with a savage look, for bringing
them a tough beefsteak; and, in a plaintive voice, like ill-used men,
inquire if there is any cold meat-pie."
I owned, from personal observation in the public room, to the general
correctness of this sketch.
"Now you, sir," continued Gingham, "enjoyed your breakfast, and made a
good one; but found fault with nothing; because, I presume, there was
nothing to find fault with. I like to see a man enjoy his meals. And if
he does, I like to see him show it. It is one of the tokens by which I
judge of character. Your conduct, my dear sir, commanded my respect.
Shall I say more? It won my esteem. Then and there my resolution was
formed, to invite you, at the first convenient opportunity, to partake
of my humble hospitality."
It was too much. I extended my fist. A shaking of hands, of some
continuance--cordial on my part, and evidently so on Gingham's, by the
pain I felt in my shoulder.
"Well, sir," said Gingham, "I had already learned that you were a
passenger for the Peninsula. I was a passenger for the Peninsula; and,
as we were to sail together, and probably to campaign together, I
resolved to introduce myself. I said, this lad--I beg your pardon, this
youth--excuse me, this gentleman, this young gentleman--for I guess you
have some ten years the advantage of me in that respect--this gentleman
is, like myself, bound for the headquarters of the Peninsular army. I
know something of campaigning; he knows nothing. We campaign together."
"Well now," said I, "that is just what I should like amazingly."
Gingham now took the initiative, and put forth his paw. Again we
tackled, and, in the true pump-handle style, so dear to Englishmen,
expressed mutual cordiality: only that this time, being better
prepared, I reversed the electric stream, and brought tears into
Gingham's eyes. He sung out, "Oh!" and rubbed his arm.
"The rest," said Gingham, "is easily told. After breakfast you walked
out into the court-yard, lit a cigar, and stood on the steps. I lit
another, followed, and had the pleasure of making your acquaintance."
I gave audible expression to my profound self-congratulations.
"Allow me, however, to add," said Gingham, "you raised yourself greatly
in my esteem by asking the waiter for a red herring. The request
evinced a superiority to vulgar prejudices. Your way of putting it,
too, was in perfect good keeping: for you did not commit yourself by
_ordering_ a red herring; but asked whether you could have one in
the coffee-room. Believe me, I was pained, when he stated that red
herrings were not permitted; and could but admire your self-denial, in
accepting, as a substitute, the mutton-chops."
We adjourned to the public room.
Gingham had entertained me hospitably and handsomely. Yet this was
the same Gingham who, when I made him take part of my beefsteak at
breakfast, because his own was delayed, proposed that we should desire
the waiter to tell the landlady to charge only half a beefsteak to me,
and half a beefsteak to him, Gingham. My rejection of this proposal was
the immediate occasion of the dinner, at which the reader has just been
present.
While we were eviscerating the papers, fresh from London, Gingham
leaned over the table, with the air of a man who had something
important to communicate. He looked me earnestly in the face.
"Mr Y----," said he, "what do you say--to a red herring--this
evening--for supper?"
"Thank you. You must excuse me. Nothing more to-night, but one cup
of coffee, and perhaps a cigar. Not even an anchovy toast. I really
couldn't."
"Well, then," said Gingham, "to-morrow at breakfast. We will engage a
room up stairs, and ask leave of nobody. I have brought down a small
barrel from London--always take some when I visit the Peninsula--get
them in Lower Thames Street. You will pronounce them excellent."
The offer was too good to be declined.
Next morning we ordered breakfast up stairs. Indeed, a fire had been
lit in one of the parlours, by Gingham's directions; and there I found
him, with the table laid, and the herrings ready for cooking. Gingham
had secured a small Dutch oven; not with the design of _baking_ the
herrings--no, no, he knew better than that--but to keep them hot when
done. The doing he reserved to himself, on the plea of experience. I
was not to assist, except in eating them.
"Do you understand cookery, Mr Y--?" said Gingham.
I ingenuously owned my deficiency in that branch of education, which is
no part of the Cambridge curriculum.
"Three months at headquarters," said he, "will make you an excellent
cook."
It so happened that the parlour, in which we had located ourselves for
the purpose of cooking our herrings, was not that in which we had dined
the day before, but one adjoining the larger apartment occupied by the
three military gentlemen, with whom we were to cross the Bay of Biscay.
A boarding, removable at pleasure, was the only separation between the
two rooms. We had not yet become acquainted.
Shortly after I joined Gingham, two of the three entered their
parlour; presently the third followed. They rang the bell, and ordered
breakfast, all in high good humour, and talking incessantly. We were
not listeners, but could not help hearing every word that was said.
"Good blow-out that, yesterday."--"Pity we didn't know of it sooner;
might as well have dined with them."--"Turtle, too."--"'Pon your
honour?"--"Turtle, and lots of champagne. Caught the waiter swigging
off the end of a bottle in the passage."--"Who are they?"--"Don't
know; can't make them out. Both going out with us in the packet,
though."--"Think I remember seeing the white fellow at Cadiz; almost
sure I did; and afterwards again at Madrid. Always wore his hair in
that way, well floured and larded, except when it was too hot, and
combed down straight on each side of his ugly face."--"What a nose!
Prodigious! A regular proboscis."--"Yes, and all on one side, like the
rudder of a barge."--"Let me tell you, a very good thing; for if it
was straight, it would be always in his way."--"Always in his way? Why
it would trip him up when he walked."--_Omnes_, "Ha, ha, ha."--"Going
with us, do you say? Hope he don't snore. Why, such a _tromba_ as that
would keep a whole line-of-battle ship awake."--"Bet you a dollar he's
blind of one eye."--"Done." "Done. Book it, major."--"I'll trouble
you for a dollar. He does walk a little sideways, but it isn't his
eye."--"What is it, then? One-eyed people always walk sideways."--"Why,
I'll tell you, now. It's a principle which most people observe through
life."--"What principle?"--"Guess."--"Come, tell us, old fellow. None
of your nonsense."--"D'ye give it up?"--"Yes, I give it up. Come, tell
us."--"Follow your nose."--_Omnes_, "Ha, ha, ha."--"Capital! capital!
That's the best we've had for some time. Follow your nose! Capital!
Ha, ha, ha."--"Well, that's it, depend upon it. Other people follow
their noses by walking straight forward. That white fellow walks
sideways, but still follows his nose."--"No, no, major. Your theory is
fallacious. When he walks his nose points backwards. His nose points
over his left shoulder, and he walks right shoulders forward." I looked
at Gingham, and laughed. Gingham was looking rather grave, and feeling
his nose. "No, no. I tell you he walks _left_ shoulders forward."--"Bet
you a dollar."--"Done."--"Done. Book it, major."--"I'll trouble you
for a dollar. Saw him this morning, all in a bustle. Took particular
notice of his nose."--"Who is the young chap?"--"Oh, he's a regular
Johnny Newcome, that's evident."--"Johnny Newcome? Yes; but I wish he
wasn't such a chap for john dories. Price in the market is doubled."
Gingham laughed and looked at me. "Suppose he's a sub going out to
join his regiment."--"No, no. Got such lots of baggage. No regimental
officer would be ass enough to take such a heap of trunks. Load for
three mules."--"He'll soon knock up. Those long fellows always knock
up."--"Shouldn't wonder if he gets the fever next autumn. Then what
will his mammy say?"--"Well, but what did they dine about? Thousand
pities we did not join them."--"Oh, I suppose it was something of a
parting feed; taking leave of Old England, you know: toasting Miss
Ann Chovy, Miss Mary Gold, Miss Polly Anthus, and all that kind of
thing."--"Hang it all; a good dinner for eight people; thousand pities
we missed it."
By this time, our cookery was proceeding in due course. Two splendid
bloaters, whole, lay extended where chestnuts are roasted; while two
more, split open, hung suspended from a large toasting-fork, held
by Gingham, who told me to look and learn, but not to meddle. With
a clear bright fire, they soon began to spit. Nor was there wanting
another token of our operations. For now the savoury odour of four red
herrings, simultaneously under a brisk process of culinary preparation,
diffused itself through the apartment, and no doubt through the whole
hotel, from the cellar to the attics. The effect on our friends in the
next room was instantaneous. Conversation ceased. Then there was a deal
of sniffing--then audible whispering and suppressed laughter--then
again, a dead silence. Gingham and I exchanged looks. "We _must_ be
acquainted," said Gingham, quietly; "and the sooner the better." I
saw he had made up his mind, and was prepared for what was about to
take place. Then the conversation was heard a little louder, but not
distinguishable. There was evidently a council of war. Much laughter.
Then, audibly spoken, "Are you fond of herrings?"--"Very; capital for
breakfast."--"So am I, very; that is, of _red_ herrings. _Fresh_,
can't endure them."--"Nor I; they have such a horrid SMELL. But a
bloater,--often dined off them up the country; didn't we, major?"--"Oh
yes, lots of times. But you were moderate. Never could manage above
half-a-dozen at a sitting."--"Ring for the waiter."--"No, no; nonsense.
Major M--, YOU." After a moment's pause, one of the party left the
room; walked, apparently to the end of the passage; then walked
back again; opened our door; entered, and politely apologised for
the mistake. He was a middle-aged, well-built, gentlemanly-looking
man, with _bonhomie_ beaming in his countenance, and came at once to
business. His eye dropped upon the herrings.
"Beg ten thousand pardons. Oh! I see it's _here_. We perceived that
bloaters were frying somewhere in the house, and thought we should like
to try a few. Will you have the kindness to inform me where they can be
procured? Didn't know there was a single bloater in all Falmouth."
I, in my simplicity, thought the major was really asking for
_information_, and was going to tell him of several shops where I had
seen bloaters; but Gingham was too quick for me.
"Here is a barrel-full," said Gingham, pointing to the corner of the
room. "Shall be most happy to supply you and your friends with any
quantity. Do me the favour to accept of two or three dozen."
"Oh no, sir," said Major M--, drawing up, as if he had been
misunderstood. The major was playing a higher game. "Couldn't think of
such a thing. Thought you had procured them in the town."
"Indeed, sir," said Gingham, "I don't think the town contains their
equals. They are from London direct. Always take a small barrel with me
when I visit the Peninsula. Get them in Lower Thames Street."
"Really, a most excellent idea," said Major M--. "I wish I had done the
same. Well, I think I never will return to headquarters again without
taking a barrel of red herrings." The Major cast a sort of domesticated
look about the room, as if he felt quite at home with us.
"Go it, Major!" said an opening in the partition, _sotto voce_.
"Come, Major," said Gingham, "I see you and the gentlemen your
companions are old campaigners. So am I. Suppose we waive ceremony. You
see we have got our cooking apparatus all ready. Suppose--do us the
favour--excuse the shortness of the invitation--I shall be delighted,
and so will my friend here, if you and your party will oblige us with
your company to breakfast."
"Yes, yes, Major," said the crevice, as before. "Yes, Major, yes," said
another crevice.
"Really, sir," said the Major, with an admirably assumed look of polite
embarrassment, and turning a deaf ear to his two prompters behind the
scenes--"really, sir, I hardly know how to thank you sufficiently for
your obliging invitation. But--shall we not intrude? You meant to
breakfast in private. You have, perhaps, business? Matters to arrange,
preparatory to the voyage?"
"None in the world, sir," said Gingham, "till after breakfast. Our only
business here is to cook our bloaters and eat them, which we could not
do in the public room below. Do, pray, oblige us by negotiating this
little affair, Major, and persuade your friends to favour us with their
company."
The Major, in fact, was negotiating already; and a capital negotiator
he made. He might, had he pleased, have walked off, at an earlier stage
of the proceedings, with a whole pile of herrings; and even that, at
college, we should have thought a capital _coup_. But the Major was not
so green.
"Well, sir, since you are so very pressing, I shall have the pleasure
of communicating to my comrades your kind invitation; and I presume,"
he added, bowing politely to me, "I may also have the honour of saying,
the invitation of your friend, Captain Y--."
I bowed in return, too much taken by surprise to disclaim the rank so
unexpectedly conferred; and a little sore at being saluted "captain,"
by the same voice which I had heard, just before, proclaiming aloud,
that if I was a regimental officer I was an ass. The Major bowed again;
backed out of the room, still bowing, and closed the door.
The remaining negotiation was not of long continuance. His two
friends were already in the passage, hard by the entrance of our
apartment. A dead silence--one irrepressible burst of laughter,
instantly hushed--again dead silence--a tap at the door--door opened by
Gingham--and enter THE THREE PENINSULARS.
I really could not help admiring the perfectly free and easy, but at
the same time quiet, self-possessed, and gentlemanly style of their
_entrée_, and of their bearing during the first few moments of our
interview. Gingham expressed his gratification; was happy to see them.
Advancing on their right flank, taking up a central position, and then
facing to the left, "Allow me," said the major, "to avail myself of
my brief priority of acquaintance, and to introduce--Captain Gabion,
of the Royal Engineers," (bowing, on both sides)--"and Mr Commissary
Capsicum," (more bowing,)--"half-brothers, I need not say--the family
likeness is so striking." Gingham presented Mr Y--. Mr Y--(booby!)
presented Gingham.
"Not very striking that family likeness, though," thought I, of
course taking seriously what the wag of a major spoke with perfect
seriousness. The captain of the Engineers was a pale-looking man,
buttoned up to the chin in his regulation frock-coat, rather above
the common height, air military and symmetrical. Education had traced
on his countenance the lines of thought; and, in short, his whole
appearance was a little aristocratic, and what we now call _distingué_.
His "half-brother," the commissary, on the contrary, who appeared at
least twelve years his senior, was a short, pursy, puffy man; with
a full, rubicund, oleaginous, and pimpled visage; a large, spongy,
purple blob of a nose, its broad lower extremity pendulous, and
slightly oscillatory when he moved; a humorous twinkle in his eye,
which was constantly on the range in search of fun; two black, bushy
tufts for eyebrows; his hair distributed over his ample pericranium in
large detached _flocks_, each flock growing a way of its own, and no
two alike; coat flying open; waistcoat open, all but the two bottom
buttons; a bull neck, with very little cravat; and a profuse display
of shirt and frill. His shirt and frill, imperfectly closed, revealed
his grizzly chest; while his nether extremities were set off to great
advantage by a pair of tight blue kerseymere pantaloons with a scarlet
stripe; and something--I suppose, as bustles were not then the fashion,
it must have been his tailors' clumsiness--imparted a peculiar breadth
and bulge to the tail of his coat. He wore splendid gaiters of bright
nankeen, with mother-of-pearl buttons. No ceremony when gentlemen meet.
We were all quite at home in a moment.
There was a little hitch. All the party were quite of one mind and
will, in the project and purpose of cooking and eating bloaters. But
how were five cooks to cook at one fire?
We all saw it together. I looked at the partition. "Better unship
that," said the commissary. The commissary, I soon saw, was, by common
consent, the commanding officer of the party. We went to work; and in
no time the partition was cleverly removed, and stowed away on one
side. We thus made our small parlour a large one, with the additional
advantage of two fires instead of one for our culinary operations.
Gingham, meanwhile, had slipped out of the room; but returned in a few
minutes, looking quite innocent. He had been absent to some purpose,
as the result shortly proved. We now found full employment with the
herrings, roasting and toasting. Gingham, the captain, and the major,
at the larger fire; I and Mr Commissary Capsicum at the other.
Gingham, when he left the room, had given his order; a _carte blanche_
to the whole establishment to extemporise as handsome a breakfast as
circumstances would permit, with a special caveat against delay.
Enter the waiter, with a tray, and a large tablecloth.--Previous
set-out transferred from the table to the tray, and placed on the
sideboard.--Two tables run into one--fresh tablecloth laid.--Exit
waiter.
Enter waiter again, with plates, cups and saucers, knives, forks, and
spoons, basin, two sugar-basins--in short, all the apparatus of a
breakfast-table.--The whole laid, in the twinkling of an eye.--Exit
waiter.
Enter waiter a third time, with a large tray--bread, (varieties,)
butter, water-cresses, ham, tongue, cold fillet of veal, cold chicken,
cold pigeon-pie, all the cold eatables.--Boots handed in from the
door a large block of quince marmalade, on a silver salver.--Boots
handed in small jars: potted shrimps, pickled oysters, pot of Scotch
honey, strawberry jam, other jams.--Boots handed in one larger jar,
a Portuguese conserve, _quartos de marmelas_. (N. B. quinces cut up
into lumps, and boiled in Brazilian sugar. Portuguese beat all the
world in sweetmeats, and _quartos de marmelas_ beat all the rest.)
I guessed Gingham had given the landlady the key of his travelling
store-chest.--Boots handed in milk, cream, clouted cream. Boots handed
in two splendid brass kettles of boiling water, one of which waiter
placed on each fire.--Exit waiter.
A temporary pause. During this lull, the utmost energies of the
house were in exercise below, to provide with despatch the remaining
_matériel_ of our humble meal. I observed, from time to time, that he
of the commissariat eyed the preparations with peculiar benignity. It
was all in his way, as I subsequently had the pleasure of experiencing,
among the sources of the Adour and the Garonne. "Ever been with the
army?" said he.--"Never," said I; "but hope to be soon."--"Hope you'll
often dine with me. But don't spoil that fine bloater. There, hold it a
little further from the fire. Red herring should be toasted, not burnt
to death. Done, when the backbone is crisp; not before. But should not
be done quickly, like murder in Shakspeare. Do it slowly, my dear sir;
do it slowly. If you do it fast, you burn all the flavour out of it." I
saw he was a connoisseur.
Yet--stupid, conceited, arrogant young coxcomb--so inexperienced was I
then, so indignant at the shadow of interference, so unaccustomed to
anything that bore the least semblance of control, I inwardly curled at
even these valuable and truly philanthropic suggestions--thought it all
exceedingly odd, and took it for dictation.
Lots of bloaters were now toasted or roasted, and prepared for eating.
Just as we were ready, for the fourth time enter waiter, bringing eggs,
coffee-pot, two tea-pots, (tea and coffee ready,) muffins, hot buttered
rolls, &c., &c., &c. But among the _etceteras_ I really must pause,
to specify a certain delicate sort of round west-country breakfast
cake--piles of which were also brought in, buttered and smoking hot.
Gingham whispered the waiter, "Keep on bringing _them_."
Gingham, with his usual judgment, had prohibited anything hot in the
shape of chops, steaks, cutlets, grills, rashers, or even kidneys. It
was a herring breakfast; and he excluded what would only have divided
the appetite, and interfered with the bloaters.
We made a capital breakfast. Everything was excellent. The pile of
breakfast cakes received perpetual accessions, but never gained in
height. The bloaters, however, were the staple of our meal; and
Gingham's barrel suffered a considerable reduction. As we were all
sensible people, or wished to appear so, there was very little talk;
and what there was referred to the important business in hand. At
length it was clear that we had breakfasted. Gingham was beginning to
recommend the knick-knackeries--jams, pickled oysters, marmalade. Each
seemed disposed to pause, yet none had quite left off. Our guests were
evidently telegraphing, and exchanging looks of approval, when--
Enter the waiter once more, bringing, upon a silver tray, two curiously
shaped bottles cased in a sort of wicker-work, with glasses. A splendid
Italian liqueur! It was sipped, approved, tossed off with wonderful
despatch. One by one we gradually leaned back in our chairs, and the
bottles began to move round, as if spontaneously. That is, I cannot
exactly say I saw any one pass them; but from time to time, first here,
first there, I noticed a little finger pointing to the ceiling; a
movement which certainly had something to do with the progress of the
bottles. We sat, sipped, and chatted. Our breakfast was an accomplished
fact.
"Hear, hear, hear!" Mr Commissary Capsicum was on his legs. Knuckles
rapped; glasses jingled; "Hear, hear, hear!"--The telegraphic
communications of his two friends had intimated to him their wishes:
the unexpected bonus of the liqueur, coming in at the last, had
awakened, in his own bosom, its most benevolent emotions: he rose to
acknowledge our hospitality; and in his friends' name, as well as in
his own, to invite us that day to dinner.
His address I shall not attempt to report. It was brief, well-bred, and
well-expressed; had several good points, and was heard with immense
applause. He invited us to dinner; gave Gingham's health and mine; and
concluded by observing that, "conscious that he had not made a neat and
appropriate speech, he begged leave," (filling, and suiting the action
to the word,) "to drink long life and prosperity to us, in a neat and
appropriate bumper." Considering it was our first meeting, I did think
_that_ was a little broad.
Gingham returned thanks, and gave the health of Major M--, R.A. Major
M-- returned thanks.
I returned thanks, and gave the health of Captain Gabion, R.E.
Captain Gabion returned thanks, sat down, and rose a second time, but
was anticipated by Gingham again, who gave the health of Mr Commissary
Capsicum.
Mr Commissary Capsicum returned thanks.
With respect to the dinner, it would not do. It was our last day before
sailing; Gingham had whole reams of letters to write; I also had
matters to attend to; we pleaded the circumstances, and begged to be
excused. Our friends saw the difficulty, and reluctantly accepted our
apologies.
There was a moment's pause. Then all three rose from the table at once,
again thanked us politely for our hospitality, and withdrew to their
private apartments. Shortly after, looking out of the window, I saw
them walking down the street, all arm in arm, and each puffing a cigar.
Gingham stood pensive by the fire, his elbow on the mantelpiece, his
head leaning on his hand.
"I fear," said I, "your exertions to entertain your guests have wearied
you."
He made no reply. I went up to him. He seemed to awake as from a
reverie.
"Hang it!" said Gingham, in a plaintive tone, "there _should_ have been
some mashed potatoes."
"Never mind, my dear sir--excellent breakfast; everything went off
capitally. I, for one, enjoyed it amazingly."
"Yes," said Gingham, mournfully; "but, to make the thing complete,
there _should_ have been some mashed potatoes with the bloaters.
Had I only known of it in time! By the bye," added he, "I thought
once or twice, you did not seem entirely at your ease. Nothing more
gentlemanly, my dear sir, than your general manner. But at times, it
struck me, you did appear a little--a little--stiffish. You must get
rid of that before we reach headquarters."
"Well," said I, "I'll tell you. That 'captain' stuck in my gizzard.
There's the truth. Coupled with what we heard previously, and Major
M--must have known that we heard it, it was just the same as calling me
a donkey to my face."
"Oh, that's nothing," said Gingham. "Don't distress yourself about such
trifles as that."
"To tell you the truth," said I, "the whole thing appeared to me a
little too free and easy. Here were you and I preparing to take a quiet
breakfast, when those three guerilla fellows, with their off-hand
Peninsular manners, actually took us by storm, made a most ferocious
attack on your barrel of herrings, sunk it one-third, drank up your
two bottles of liqueurs, and civilly wished us good morning. Now, when
I was at college, to be sure we were merry enough, no etiquette, no
ceremony there. But then there was a certain gentlemanly feeling, which
forbade vulgar familiarity in any shape. And as to people that assumed,
or made free, I always kept them at arm's length."
"Well, Mr Y--," said Gingham, "I see plainly how it is. Follow my
advice. If you can't take a joke, resign your appointment, forfeit your
money, and return to London. You'll find it awkward enough living among
military men on actual service."
"I trust," said I, "by adhering to my invariable rule, never to offer a
deliberate insult, but at the same time never to brook one, go where I
will, I shall be fortunate enough to escape disagreeable rencontres."
"Nonsense!" said Gingham, looking very serious, and speaking quite
in a sharp and peremptory tone--"nonsense!" Then softening a little,
"Rencontres, my dear sir? Rencontres? Nothing of the kind. Rencontres?
You talk like a militia officer. Rencontres? You'll soon dismiss all
that kind of thing from your thoughts, after you have seen two or
three rencontres with the French. Rencontres? No, no; no field of
forty footsteps at headquarters. Rencontres? It would be a perfect
absurdity, where men have the chance of being shot gratis every day of
their lives, without going out of the way for it. Rencontres? No; I did
not mean that. What I meant to say was this: you would infallibly be
made a general butt. Rencontres? Why, Mr Y--, if you show any nonsense
of that sort, you'll be tormented to death. Rencontres? Oh, what lots
of fun they'll take out of you! Meanwhile, think yourself fortunate
that you are now getting a seasoning. I am truly glad, for your sake,
that you have had the opportunity here at Falmouth, and will have the
opportunity on your passage out, of seeing something of military men
and modes before you join. You may, and probably will, be dubbed, on
your arrival, a Johnny Newcome. But, at any rate, you will not be a
Johnny Raw."
Gingham closed the conference by walking to the other end of the room,
and steadfastly contemplating his own beautiful physiognomy in the
glass. During our conversation, his hand had frequently visited his
nose. He now stood opposite the mirror, slewing his head first this
way, then that, and at length broke silence:--
"Well, I was not aware of it; but I do think that my nose is a little
crooked."
"I presume," said I, "you have no sisters?"
"I have none," replied Gingham.
"Nor are you, I apprehend, a married man?"
"There, alas, you are right again," said Gingham; "but what has that to
do with it?"
"Your wife, or your sisters, if you had any, would have told you that
you have a very crooked nose."
"Well, but," said Gingham, "there's my mother. My dear mother never
told me that my nose was crooked."
"Your mother, probably, is totally unconscious of the fact; and,
should she hear any one else assert such a thing, would deny it most
strenuously."
"Nay, but," said Gingham, "though I have neither sister nor wife, and
supposing my dear mother to be blind to my personal defects, I have--in
short, Mr Y--, before I left London, I took a tender leave of her whom
I hope to persuade, on my next return from the Peninsula, to accept the
hand and the heart of a Gingham. SHE did not tell me that my nose was
crooked. She mentioned various obstacles to our union; but she never
mentioned _that_."
"Then," said I, "depend upon it, she means to have you. And depend upon
this, too; she will tell you your nose is crooked when you have made
her Mrs Gingham, if she does not tell you so before."
"As to my walking sideways," said Gingham, "that's a palpable fiction."
"Here," said I, "come to this extremity of the room, and place yourself
opposite the glass." He came, and placed himself accordingly.
"Now walk straight down upon, the glass, keeping your eye fixed upon
your reflected nose."
"What nose? Which nose?" said Gingham, in a state of obvious alarm. "Do
you mean the nose in my face?"
"I mean your nose in the glass." He walked as I had directed.
"Well, really," said Gingham, it's extraordinary; it's very curious.
When I walk and look at my nose in the glass, it appears quite straight
again--just as it ought to be, in the middle of my face."
"That's just it," said I. "Then you walk sideways. Depend upon it, if
you walked straight, your nose would appear crooked."
He repeated the experiment again, and again, muttering to himself,
"Very remarkable, very curious; quite a natural phenomenon."
"Don't distress yourself about your nose," said I; "it is a good enough
nose, in magnitude respectable, though not strictly rectilinear. Make
yourself easy; and say, with Erasmus, 'Nihil me poenitet hugeous
nasi.'"
CHAPTER III.
Where Gingham got his classical knowledge, I had not at this time
ascertained. Certain it is, he was a very fair classic. But there was
one dreadful drawback to his character, and, in a man of his gravity,
a strange one: I mean his offensive, horrid practice of making most
atrocious Latin puns. A pun in English he viewed with utter contempt.
It stirred his bile. No English pun escaped his lips. But for a Latin
pun, he scrupled not to lay under contribution even the first-rate
Latin poets, Virgil, Ovid--nay, his favourite author, Horace; and if I,
influenced by bad example, was weak enough, in an unguarded moment, to
commit the same offence, he stole my puns, and made them again as his
own.
On the eve of our embarkation we strolled forth, after an early
dinner, for a parting view of the sunset from the castle. Walking
up town, we met the man of rum, the sleep-murdering Macbeth of the
mail-coach. Still he was talking--for want of company, talking to
himself. But his eyes were set, half-closed, and dim; his aspect was
peculiarly meditative, and his course curvilinear. He had taken on
board _plus æquo_ of his own samples. Perceiving our approach, he
gave a lurch to clear us. But his legs, being not altogether under
management, brought him exactly in the direction which he sought
to shun; his stomach, which had already suffered so many assaults
in the coach, most unfortunately impinged upon my elbow; and again
it was "ugh!" His gummy eyes expanded, and gleamed on us like two
fresh-opened oysters. Awhile he gazed with drunken gravity; then,
turning round, bent over the roadside gutter, as if about to tumble
in, and jocosely imitated the operation of drawing a cork. His organs
of vision then assumed a slow movement of horizontal oscillation, and
gradually settled on a pastry-cook's shop over the way. Towards this
point he directed his zigzag approaches, recommencing his agreeable
conference with himself, in terms of which we could catch only the
words--"Archimedes--screw--pneumatic chemistry--soda water--pop!" He
left with us the odour of a very bad cigar, which led Gingham to remark
that he was "backy plenus" in more senses than one.
The influence of bad example is dreadful. Emerging from the town in
our way to the castle, we met a merry party, male and female, all
equestrians save some six or eight, who occupied the interior and
exterior of a post-chaise. Gingham, who saw into a thing at once,
pronounced them a wedding party; and a buxom dame, who was mounted on
a lively little west country galloway, the bride. "Pony subit conjux,"
said I. "Yes," said Gingham; "but if that dear lady rides so near the
carriage, oh! oh! oh! she will infallibly be capsized! 'Pony sub curru
nimium propinqui!'" We reached the hill in time, saw a glorious sunset,
and returned to letter-writing, and a light supper on hashed duck.
As Gingham appears more than once upon the stage in the course of
my Peninsular adventures, and I should really be sorry to annoy the
reader, as much as I was annoyed myself, with his perpetual and
abominable perversions of classic latinity, I beg leave to dispose
of this part of the subject at once, before we get to sea. Suffice
it to say, then, that in the spring of the year 1838, just a quarter
of a century after the period of which I am now writing, I once more
left London for Falmouth, _en route_ to Lisbon, though with an object
far different from that of my voyage now to be recorded, and in a far
different capacity. Science, in these five-and-twenty years, had done
wonders; and I had secured my passage in London, not by a miserable tub
of a sailing packet, but by a well-found and fast Peninsular steamer.
The day before the steamer was to start from Falmouth, I walked down to
the water's side to take a view of her. On the quay stood Gingham. By
one of those strange coincidences which sometimes happen in life, we
had again met at Falmouth, and were again to cross the Bay of Biscay in
company. I recognised him: he did not recognise me. Time had somewhat
changed his look, his dress very little. Its predominant aspect was
still white. His nose, too, was unmistakeable. Perceiving at once that
he was, like myself, a passenger to the Peninsula, I availed myself of
the freedom conceded in such cases, and commenced a conversation by
some remark on the steamer.
"I presume, sir," said he, "you are a passenger?"
"Yes, Mr Gingham, and so are you. Glad to meet you." He stared, but
admitted the fact.
"But, sir," said he, "you have the advantage of me."
"Well, well," said I, "you'll find me out to-morrow on board the
Guadalquivir. Fine ship that. To-morrow, you know, as Horace said, when
he was off by the steamer:-'Cras, ingins! iterabimus æquor!"
The effect was instantaneous. Gingham did not speak, he shouted:--"Dine
with me: I have got a john dory."
We walked off to the town--I rubbing my shoulder, which Gingham shook,
when he shook my hand--he, for a few paces, thoughtful and silent. I
expected a burst of sentiment.
"By the bye," said Gingham, "while your hand was in, you might just
as well have quoted the _other_ line, for that, also, refers to our
voyage."
"The other line?"
"Yes, the other line. Don't you see that pair of rooks flying over the
harbour?"
"Rooks fly in droves. I see no rooks."
"Right," said he; "they are a couple of crows."
"But the line from Horace, referring to our voyage?"
"Not only referring to it," said Gingham, "but highly encouraging. 'Nil
desperandum two crow duce, et auspice two crow."
"Gingham, you are incorrigible."
To reach the street from the water's side we had to pass through a
narrow passage, and there met the stewardess of the steamer, who was
going on board. She stalked along in clogs on tiptoe, her left hand
gathering up, behind, her cloak, gown, petticoat, &c., while her right
hand bore an umbrella one size larger than a parasol, and a reticule
one size less than a pannier; emerging from which pannier appeared
the ugly mug of an enormous Portuguese red ram cat, the pet of the
stewardess, and the constant companion of her Peninsular voyages.
"My cat inter omnes," said Gingham.
* * * * *
But I have rambled, and am a quarter of a century wide of the mark.
The period of which I have now to write, the important period to which
my present narrative refers, is not the more recent year, 1838, but
the remoter year, 1813, glorious in the annals of England; the year
that saw the commencement of Napoleon's downfall; the year of triumph
and rout beneath the walls of Vittoria; the year of a still sterner
and equally successful conflict at St Sebastian; the year, too, that
furnished a name for a princess of a royal line, that QUEEN VICTORIA
who, in her high estate and royal clemency, remembered and rewarded the
long-forgotten and long unrecompensed heroes of those bygone times.
In the early spring of that year, 1813, I was there at Falmouth, a
raw youth, launched on the wide world in search of adventure, burning
to reach the headquarters of the Peninsular army, fully capable of
making a fool of myself when I got there, and anxiously waiting for
the sailing of the Princess Wilhelmina gun-brig, which, for want of a
better, performed the office of Lisbon packet. It was well for me that,
at Falmouth, I had already fallen into friendly hands.
On the morning of our embarkation, March the--th, 1813, Gingham went
early on board the packet, for his personal baggage was bulky and
various, to see to its stowage--part in his berth, part in the hold.
It was settled between us that he was to return ashore, that we were
to breakfast together at the hotel, and afterwards go off together to
the packet, which was still lying in the harbour, and was to sail about
noon.
I waited breakfast for Gingham, but no Gingham came. At length I
received a long note from him, dated on board the packet. It began by
stating that an attempt had been made to impose upon him, and that he
was determined not to stand it. The attempted imposition, as I learned
from him afterwards, was this:--
Gingham walked down from the hotel to the water's side, and engaged a
boat, which was to take him on board the packet for eighteen-pence;
he, Gingham, understanding thereby, according to the tenor of many
previous bargains at the same rate of payment, that he was to be taken
on board, and put on shore again. On this, however, the last day of
our abode at Falmouth, the two boatmen, thinking they might safely try
it on, and conjecturing also that Gingham's time might possibly be too
valuable to be wasted in discussion, determined to take a different
view of the subject, and exact a second fare for landing him. The boat
reached the packet, Gingham went on board, the boatmen made fast to
a harbour-buoy, and waited the result. Gingham went below, made his
arrangements, came on deck, and hailed his boat to take him ashore. The
elder boatman civilly touched his hat, and remarked, with a winning
smile, that they hadn't been paid "nuffin" for bringing him _on board_.
Gingham replied, that he should pay as usual when they had got back to
the quay. The boatman, courteous as before, again touched his hat, and
answered, simpering, "Beg your pardon, sir, but this ear last day, when
the peckit's hoff, jeddlemen hol-ways pays bode ways, cumin aboard,
and goon back again." "Oh, do they?" said Gingham, and walked down
into the cabin, where he quietly wrote his note to me, in a hand that
beat copperplate; and breakfasted upon sea biscuit, junk, and ship's
cocoa, the steward not having yet got off his stock of groceries for
the voyage. Everybody on board knew Gingham, and he had no difficulty
in getting his note brought ashore in the ship's boat, without the
knowledge of the two 'longshore fellows, who were riding at the buoy,
and who still thought they had the best of the bargain--as it is a rule
in harbour, or at any rate was in those days, that no private passenger
by a packet passed or repassed except by 'longshore boats. Gingham was
now all right, and did not care one farthing for the boatmen; for he
already had the bulk of his things on board, he was on board himself,
and his note advised me respecting his remaining matters ashore. He
continued below, having resolved, as he told me afterwards, to keep the
boatmen waiting alongside till the packet was off, and then give them
ninepence. Meanwhile he sent up, by the steward, an injunction to the
people on deck, who enjoyed not a little the false position of the two
boatmen, not on any account to let them come on board.
Gingham's note to me, which was, as I have already intimated, a
beautiful specimen of commercial penmanship, was to the following
effect:--That he was detained on board by his determination to resist
a gross imposition; that the laundress had still in her keeping a
small quantity of his linen, which she was to bring to the hotel about
breakfast-time; that he had settled with the servants that morning;
and that the landlady was indebted to him in the sum of two shillings,
he having paid his bill the night before, in which bill was included
the charge of two shillings for a cold-meat breakfast, which he should
not take; that he requested me to get back the two shillings from
the landlady; that he would also thank me to receive the linen from
the laundress, see that it was correct per invoice, (washing-bill, I
presume,) check her account, liquidate it, and bring the linen on board
with me.
Meanwhile a circumstance arose, which was of great moment in itself,
and gave Gingham a further advantage in his affair with the two
Falmouth lads. An extra mail for Lisbon had arrived from London,
sent off by despatch to catch the packet before she sailed; and, by
management of Gingham's partners, who were influential people, brought
Gingham letters on a matter of some importance. These letters were
taken off to Gingham by a trusty drab-coated Falmouth "Friend," in
another 'longshore boat, and rendered it absolutely requisite that he
should go ashore, and perhaps defer his voyage. The packet at this
time was surrounded with boats and bustle, the two boatmen still
fast to the buoy; and Gingham had no difficulty in returning ashore
by the boat which brought off his mercantile friend, without being
observed by them. In fact, they were half asleep, still secure, as they
thought, of their victim, and affording no small sport to the crew of
the packet, who saw how things were going. I shall only mention here,
that the communication, received by Gingham from London, related to
a grand financial speculation, an idea of his own, having reference
to the monetary transactions at headquarters, which were very large,
and as well conducted as circumstances permitted, but attended with
great difficulties, and considerable loss to the British government.
Gingham's plan would have been backed by private capital to any amount.
It was knocked on the head by the peace of 1814: but I have more to say
about it hereafter.
True to her time, the laundress arrived at the hotel; not bringing, as
Gingham had described it, a small quantity of linen, but attended by
a man with a barrow, wheeling two large buck-baskets, each piled with
an immense heap of shirts, white inexpressibles, white double-breasted
dimity waistcoats,--in short every thing white,--a stock for a voyage
to China. On the interior of the collar of one of the said white
double-breasted dimity waistcoats, I noticed the cypher G G!--No.
37
1 of the fourth dozen! So profuse was Gingham in his provision for the
habiliment of his own elegant exterior. I settled with the laundress,
engaged the barrow-man to go off with me in charge of the linen, and
take back the baskets, finished my breakfast, paid my bill, and went on
board. Such was my first embarkation for the Peninsula. Little dreaming
that there was a spoke in my wheel, and that some time was still to
elapse between my departure from Falmouth and my arrival at the British
headquarters, I had longed for the day of the packet's sailing. But
now, when the wished-for moment had arrived, a lot of little things,
coming upon me at the last, quite put it out of my head that I was
quitting my native land, and about to enter on new scenes, mingle
with strangers, embark in active life, and master--where alone they
could be mastered, on their vernacular soil--two ancient, expressive,
and kindred languages, which I had conned rudimentally on the banks
of Cam. Nor did I dream that I went to earn a prospective claim to a
Peninsular Medal; and jot down mental memoranda, still vividly legible,
of all I heard and saw, for the information and amusement of readers
then unborn. "Gooin' off to the peckit, sir? Here, Bill, hand the
jeddleman's boxes." Then, when we were half way to the brig,--"Wherry
'ot on the worter, sir. Ope you'll be ginnerous a little hextry for the
luggidge, sir. Wherry dry work pullin', sir."
Gingham, when I reached the packet, was not on board. The cause of his
absence was explained to me by the steward, who assisted in stowing
away the contents of the two buck-baskets in Gingham's berth. During
this operation, the steward, who fully participated in the antipathy
to 'longshore boatmen common to his class, communicated to me, with no
small glee, the occurrences of the morning; and begged me to take a
sight, when I went on deck, of the two expectant gentlemen at the buoy.
There they were, sure enough, very much at their ease--quite satisfied
that Gingham would want to be taken ashore again before the packet
sailed, that theirs was the boat that must take him, and that they had
the game in their own hands.
On deck I met our three breakfast guests of the day before. They
greeted me cordially, made many inquiries after Gingham, and introduced
me, as a particular old crony of theirs, to Staff-Surgeon Pledget, who
had arrived by the mail overnight, and was also a passenger to Lisbon,
on his return to the British army. I soon began to perceive that it was
a standing rule with my three new acquaintances, regular "Peninsulars,"
to extract fun from even the most common incidents--in fact, from
everybody and everything. Staff-Surgeon Pledget, as able a man in his
profession as any staff-surgeon attached to the Peninsular army, was
matter-of-fact personified; and the dignified cordiality with which
he received an old crony of _theirs_, evidently afforded the three
hoaxers extraordinary sport. Major M---- did the presentation with
perfect coolness and amenity. Gammon was his element. Mr Commissary
Capsicum winked his eye in the richest style of comedy, and nearly made
me spoil all by laughing. Captain Gabion looked gravely on, and laughed
internally. His sides shook, his elbows twitched, and his countenance
wore its usual expression of melancholy.
Presently after was seen approaching a man-of-war's boat, pulling at
the steady rate, which indicated that it conveyed an officer of rank.
The boat came alongside with a graceful sweep; twelve oars stood
upright, as if by magic; and a tall, military-looking man, who had
lost an arm, rose, politely took leave of the lieutenant in charge of
the boat, ascended the ship's side, with the aid of his single hand,
faster than some people perform the same difficult operation with two,
and stood on deck. This was the brave Colonel ---- of the cavalry,
who was going out with us to rejoin his regiment. He had lost his
arm at Oporto, on that memorable occasion when the French, to their
astonishment, found the British army on _their_ side of the Douro; and
when the British army, too, quite surprised at finding itself, as if by
magic, on the _opposite_ bank of a broad, deep, and rapid river, and
struck with admiration at the bold conception and skilful execution
which had effected the transition under the enemy's nose, with one
consent dubbed its illustrious leader "Old Douro." By that title,
from that time forward, he was commonly known at headquarters: and is
it not a glorious one, so won, and so conferred, and truly worthy of
descending in his family? On that occasion, I was told, Colonel ----
charged through the enemy at the head of his regiment, and, as one good
turn deserves another, thought he might as well charge back again. It
was in this second charge that he lost his arm.
Arrived on deck, the colonel made a somewhat semicircular bow to all
of us, and immediately recognised Major M----. His valet followed him,
and presently went below. The next moment, the colonel began to take a
first view of the vessel, and turned from us for that purpose. Captain
Gabion, first nudging Mr Commissary Capsicum, whispered Major M----,
"Come, major, give us the colonel." The major, having an arm too many,
in a twinkling whipped one behind him, stepped to the gangway, and did
the colonel's first appearance to the life. To execute the colonel's
recognition of himself, for want of a better substitute, he advanced,
with the colonel's three military strides, to _me_. I, carried away by
the drollery of the scene, so far forgot myself that I did the major.
This caused a general laugh; the colonel turned round, and caught me
and the major bowing, grimacing, and shaking hands. He saw at once what
had been going on, and laughed too. But the major wished to shift the
responsibility. "That Pledget," said he, "keeps us in a constant roar."
Mr Staff-Surgeon Pledget looked a little surprised. When the major
gave us the colonel's horizontal salutation to the company assembled,
Pledget took it all in earnest, and bowed in return.
One other arrival followed. A shore boat came off, having four more
passengers--a lady, two gentlemen, and a female attendant. One of the
said gentlemen, an Irishman, was the lady's brother: she, in face
and form, a perfect specimen of Irish beauty; he, both in person
and in feature, all that might be expected in the brother of such a
sister. In this respect he presented a remarkable contrast to their
fellow-passenger, who was a young Irish officer of the East India
Company's navy, and, what made it more remarkable, the accepted
swain, as we afterwards had every reason to conclude, of his fair
countrywoman. How shall I describe this lovely youth? His head was
large; his face prodigiously large and _flat_; his features were
ludicrously diminutive. Fancy a full moon seen broad and white through
a Shetland mist--in short, a full moon of putty; then fancy, stuck
exactly in the centre of this moon, the little screwed-up pug face of a
little ugly monkey, and you have him to a T. His two little twinkling
eyes, deep sunk beneath the beetling brow of his prominent and massive
forehead, and in such close proximity that nothing separated them but
the bridge of his nose, were constantly and inquisitively on the
move. The nose itself was too insignificant to merit a description.
Yet it was not exactly what is called a squashed nose, but a nose
without a nib. It conveyed to you, indeed, the painful impression that
some unfeeling barber had sliced off its extremity, and left the two
unprotected nostrils staring you full in the face, like the open ports
of a ship. His ears were like an elephant's,--large, loose, thin,
flat, and un-hemmed. His mouth, like that described by a distinguished
authoress, "had a physiognomy of its own." Not very observable when
quiescent, in speaking it became curiously expressive, and, at times,
enormously elongated or strangely curvilinear. It had also, under the
same circumstances, another peculiarity. It was a travelling mouth:
yes, it travelled. When it talked, it was constantly shifting its
position, not only up and down, but sideways and obliquely. In the
utterance of a single sentence, it would traverse the whole extent of
his face. It was now high, now low; now on this side, now on that.
It ranged, at will, the whole breadth of his countenance from ear to
ear; so that at times he was all mouth on one side of his face, and no
mouth on the other. This gave him the additional advantage, that his
profile could maintain a dialogue with you, as well as another man's
full face. When conversing with his lady-love, side by side at the
dinner-table, he never turned to look at her--he had no need. Viewing
her with one eye, like a duck, in tones of deferential tenderness he
addressed her from the cheek that was nearest hers. His perfectly
well-bred deportment, nay, elegance of manner, his inexhaustible fund
of good humour, and amusing waggery, did not, I am sorry to say,
prevent his acquiring, and bearing during the voyage, the name of
Joey: allusive, I presume, to the feats of mouth performed in those
days by the far-famed Grimaldi. The malevolent suspicion, that a title
so derogatory was any suggestion of mine, I scorn to notice. To this,
however, I do confess, that, ere we had been four-and-twenty hours at
sea, as a slight token of my profound veneration for the stateliest
and the loveliest of Erin's daughters, I proposed, and it was carried
unanimously, that she should bear the name of Juno. And, the colonel
having pronounced her brother a perfect Apollo, I also proposed,
and it was also carried unanimously, that we should call him Mr
Belvidere. But I am anticipating. On the practice of giving sobriquets,
so common at headquarters, much remains to be said hereafter. As
to the maid-servant, she was a quiet little Irishwoman of about
five-and-thirty, in a duffle cloak with pink bows, snug straw bonnet
neatly tied under her chin with a pink ribbon, and snow-white cotton
stockings, exhibiting a rather broad instep, which led me to conjecture
that she had not always worn shoes. Her mistress called her Kitty, and
that name she was allowed to keep, as no one on board thought he could
improve it.
It is time to get to sea. Gingham, where are you? what are you about?
We shall be off, and leave you behind. Noon, our hour of sailing, was
now near at hand. The anchor was hove short; the sails were shaking in
the wind; the skipper came on board; the foresail was then set; still
there was no Gingham. Those talented individuals, the two boatmen,
still supposing Gingham was on board, were getting a little uneasy.
They were now wide awake, and anxiously peering at the ship with
their hands over their eyes, watching every one that came on deck,
but watching in vain. Their uneasiness evidently increased, as our
remaining time diminished; till at length, as the town clock struck
twelve, the capstan was manned. The anchor was then hove to the tune of
"Off she goes," performed on a single fife in admirable time, marked by
the tread of many feet. The flood-tide was beginning to make; but we
didn't care for that, as we had wind enough from the north-east, and
to spare. Other sails were now set, and we were beginning to get way;
while I was intently eyeing the shore, expecting to see Gingham shove
off, and perfectly sure he would come, because he had taken no steps
for the re-landing of his baggage.
But I did not look in the right direction. Gingham, detained to the
last moment, and then, having settled all things to his satisfaction,
at liberty to prosecute his voyage, had made his arrangements with his
usual judgment. It was a near thing though. He put off from a part of
the town lower down than the quay from which he usually embarked, so
as to cut in upon us as we glided down the harbour; and was within a
few fathoms of the ship before I saw him. He was then standing upright
in his boat, completely absorbed in a London paper, but with one hand
waving his umbrella, without looking up, to stop the ship. Stopping
the ship was out of the question. Indeed, I fancied the skipper would
have been glad to go without him. The boat, coming end on, and not very
cleverly handled by the Falmouth fellows, bumped against the side of
the ship, which, as she was now under way, they were afraid of missing
altogether; and the shock almost pitched Gingham and his umbrella into
the water. He came on board amidst general laughter, and the hearty
greetings of such of the passengers as knew him--none heartier than
mine. "How his green spectacles would have frightened the fishes!" said
Mr Commissary Capsicum to Captain Gabion. "Don't joke on such a serious
subject," replied the captain; "had he gone over, we should have
quitted England without getting a sight of the last London newspaper."
The two worthies, who, still expecting to see Gingham emerge from
the cabin, had so long waited for him in vain, were by this time in
an awkward predicament. When the ship first began to move, they had
no resource but to unmoor from the buoy, out oars, and pull away in
company. But this, it was soon clear, would not do. The ship was
getting more and more way, and, had they pulled their hearts out, would
soon have left them astern; when, as their only chance, they pulled
close alongside, and made free with a rope's end that was dragging
through the water. This one of them held, after giving it a turn round
a bench; while the other kept off the boat from the ship's side by
means of the boat-hook. While they were being thus dragged through the
water, each, as he could, from time to time touching his hat, each
beseechingly simpering, each saying something that nobody could hear,
and both anxiously looking for Gingham on deck, to their great surprise
they saw him come alongside in another boat, as I have already related;
and, before they could say Jack Robinson, he was on board.
After our first greetings, I called Gingham's attention to the
disagreeable position of our two friends, who were still holding on
alongside, and dragging through the water. Indeed, I was disposed to
hold an argument with him on the subject, and thought a different view
might be taken of their case. "No, no," said Gingham; "this is the
first time any Falmouth man has ever attempted to impose upon me, and I
mean it to be the last."
The breeze, no unusual circumstance in such localities, stiffened
as we approached the entrance of the harbour, where the high land
closes in, and the sea-way is comparatively narrow; and, meeting the
swell which came tumbling in from the ocean with the flood-tide,
knocked up a little bit of an ugly ripple. The situation of the two
boatmen was becoming every moment more awkward. We were now going six
knots, (through the _water_, mind you, not _making_ six knots--that,
against such a current, was quite beyond our tubby little Wilhelmina's
capabilities;) the ripple was gradually becoming nastier; the boatmen,
still touching their hats from time to time, still blandly smiling, and
still making unheard but pathetic appeals to Gingham's generosity, did
not like to let go till they had got _something_; and I really thought
the end must be, that their boat would be swamped alongside. At length,
Gingham put an end to the farce, by screwing up ninepence in a bit of
paper, and throwing it into the boat, telling them it was threepence
more than they deserved. They then let go; and we left them poppling up
and down, like a cork, in the broken water, and scuffling about in the
bottom of the boat for the scattered coin.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] For the benefit of the uninitiated,
assistant-deputy-paymaster-general; A. A. D. P.
M. G., acting-assistant-deputy-paymaster-general;
a long title, but not so long, by four syllables,
as that of the letter-carrier of a certain German
war-office--Ober-kriegsversammlungrathsverhandlungpapieraufhebergehülfe.
DISENCHANTMENT.
BY DELTA.
I.
Although from Adam stained with crime,
A halo girds the path of time,
As 'twere things humble with sublime,
Divine with mortal blending,
And that which is, with that which seems,--
Till blazoned o'er were Jacob's dreams
With heaven's angelic hosts, in streams,
Descending and ascending.
II.
Ask of the clouds, why Eden's dyes
Have vanished from the sunset skies?
Ask of the winds, why harmonies
Now breathe not in their voices?
Ask of the spring, why from the bloom
Of lilies comes a less perfume?
And why the linnet, 'mid the broom,
Less lustily rejoices?
III.
Silent are now the sylvan tents;
The elves to airy elements
Resolved are gone; grim castled rents
No more show demons gazing,
With evil eyes, on wandering men;
And, where the dragon had his den
Of fire, within the haunted glen,
Now herds unharmed are grazing.[17]
IV.
No more, as horror stirs the trees,
The path-belated peasant sees
Witches, adown the sleety breeze,
To Lapland flats careering:[18]
As on through storms the Sea-kings sweep,
No more the Kraken huge, asleep,
Looms like an island, 'mid the deep,
Rising and disappearing.
V.
No more, reclined by Cona's streams,
Before the seer, in waking dreams,
The dim funereal pageant gleams,
Futurity fore-showing;
No more, released from churchyard trance,
Athwart blue midnight, spectres glance,
Or mingle in the bridal dance,
To vanish ere cock-crowing.[19]
VI.
Alas! that Fancy's fount should cease!
In rose-hues limn'd, the myths of Greece
Have waned to dreams--the Colchian fleece,
And labours of Alcides:--
Nay, Homer, even thy mighty line--
Thy living tale of Troy divine--
The sceptic scholiast doubts if thine,
Or Priam, or Pelides!
VII.
As silence listens to the lark,
And orient beams disperse the dark,
How sweet to roam abroad, and mark
Their gold the fields adorning:
But, when we think of where are they,
Whose bosoms like our own were gay,
While April gladdened life's young day,
Joy takes the garb of mourning.
VIII.
Warm gushing thro' the heart come back
The thoughts that brightened boyhood's track;
And hopes, as 'twere from midnight black,
All star-like re-awaken;
Until we feel how, one by one,
The faces of the loved are gone,
And grieve for those left here alone,
Not those who have been taken.
IX.
The past returns in all we see,
The billowy cloud, and branching tree;
In all we hear--the bird and bee
Remind of pleasures cherish'd;
When all is lost it loved the best,
Oh! pity on that vacant breast,
Which would not rather be at rest,
Than pine amid the perish'd!
X.
A balmy eve! the round white moon
Emparadises midmost June,
Tune trills the nightingale on tune--
What magic! when a lover,
To him, who now, gray-haired and lone,
Bends o'er the sad sepulchral stone
Of her, whose heart was once his own:
Ah! bright dream briefly over!
XI.
See how from port the vessel glides
With streamered masts, o'er halcyon tides;
Its laggard course the sea-boy chides,
All loath that calms should bind him;
But distance only chains him more,
With love-links, to his native shore,
And sleep's best dream is to restore
The home he left behind him.
XII.
To sanguine youth's enraptured eye,
Heaven has its reflex in the sky,
The winds themselves have melody,
Like harp some seraph sweepeth;
A silver decks the hawthorn bloom,
A legend shrines the mossy tomb,
And spirits throng the starry gloom,
Her reign when midnight keepeth.
XIII.
Silence o'erhangs the Delphic cave;
Where strove the bravest of the brave,
Naught met the wandering Byron, save
A lone, deserted barrow;
And Fancy's iris waned away,
When Wordsworth ventured to survey,
Beneath the light of common day,
The dowie dens of Yarrow.
XIV.
Little we dream--when life is new,
And Nature fresh and fair to view,
When throbs the heart to pleasure true,
As if for naught it wanted,--
That, year by year, and ray by ray,
Romance's sunlight dies away,
And long before the hair is gray,
The heart is disenchanted.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] A clearer day has dispelled the marvels, which showed themselves
in heaven above and in earth beneath, when twilight and superstition
went hand in hand. Horace's
"Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,
Nocturnos Lemures, portentaque Thessala,"
as well as Milton's
"Gorgons, Hydras, and Chimæras dire,"
have all been found wanting, when reduced to the admeasurements of
science; and the "sounds that syllable men's names, on sands, and
shores, and desert wildernesses," are quenched in silence, or only
exist in what James Hogg most poetically terms
"That undefined and mingled hum,
Voice of the desert, never dumb."
The inductive philosophy was "the bare bodkin" which gave many a
pleasant vision "its quietus." "Homo, naturæ minister," saith Lord
Bacon, "et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturæ
ordine se vel mente observaverit: nec amplius scit nec potest."--_Nov.
Organum_, Aph. I.
The fabulous dragon has long acted a conspicuous part in the poetry
both of the north and south. We find him in the legends of Regnar
Lodbrog and Kempion, and in the episode of Brandimarte in the second
book of the Orlando Inamorato. He is also to be recognised as the huge
snake of the Edda; and figures with ourselves in the stories of the
Chevalier St George and the Dragon--of Moor of Moorhall and the Dragon
of Wantley--in the Dragon of Loriton--in the Laidley Worm of Spindleton
Heugh--in the Flying Serpent of Lockburne--the Snake of Wormieston,
&c. &c. Bartholinus and Saxo-Grammaticus volunteer us some curious
information regarding a species of these monsters, whose particular
office was to keep watch over hidden treasure. The winged Gryphon is
of "auld descent," and has held a place in unnatural history from
Herodotus (_Thalia_, 116, and _Melpomene_, 13, 27) to Milton (_Paradise
Lost_, book v.)--
"As when a Gryphon, through the wilderness,
With wingèd course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian," &c.
[18] Of the many mysterious chapters of the human mind, surely one of
the most obscure and puzzling is that of witchcraft. For some reason,
not sufficiently explained, Lapland was set down as a favourite seat of
the orgies of the "Midnight Hags." When, in the ballad of "The Witch
of Fife," the auld gudeman, in the exercise of his conjugal authority,
questions his errant spouse regarding her nocturnal absences without
leave, she is made ecstatically to answer,
"Whan we came to the Lapland lone,
The fairies war all in array;
For all the genii of the North
War keepyng their holyday.
The warlocke man and the weird womyng,
And the fays of the woode and the steep,
And the phantom hunteris all were there,
And the mermaidis of the deep.
And they washit us all with the witch-water,
Distillit fra the moorland dew,
Quhill our beauty bloomit like the Lapland rose,
That wylde in the foreste grew."
_Queen's Wake_, Night 1st.
"Like, but oh how different," are these unearthly goings on to
the details in the Walpurgis Night of Faust (Act v. Scene 1.) The
"phantom-hunters" of the north were not the "Wilde Jäger" of Burger, or
"the Erl-king" of Goethe. It is related by Hearne, that the tribes of
the Chippewas Indians suppose the northern lights to be occasioned by
the frisking of herds of deer in the fields above, caused by the hallo
and chase of their departed friends.
[19] It is very probable, that the apparitional visit of "Alonzo the
Brave" to the bridal of "the Fair Imogene," was suggested to M. G.
Lewis, by the story in the old chronicles of the skeleton masquer
taking his place among the wedding revellers, at Jedburgh Castle, on
the night when Alexander III., in 1286, espoused as his second queen,
Joleta, daughter of the Count le Dreux. These were the palmy days of
portents; and the prophecy uttered by Thomas of Ercildoune, of the
storm which was to roar
"From Ross's hills to Solway sea,"
was supposed to have had its fulfilment in the death of the lamented
monarch, which occurred, only a few months after the appearance of the
skeleton masquer, by a fall from his horse, over a precipice, while
hunting between Burntisland and Kinghorn, at a place still called "the
King's Wood-end."
Wordsworth appears to have had the subject in his eye, in two of the
stanzas of his lyric, entitled _Presentiments_,--the last of which runs
as follows:--
"Ye daunt the proud array of war,
Pervade the lonely ocean far
As sail hath been unfurled,
For dancers in the festive hall
What ghostly partners hath your call
Fetched from the shadowy world."
--_Poetical Works_, 1845, p. 176.
The same incident has been made the subject of some very spirited
verses, in a little volume--_Ballads and Lays from Scottish
History_--published in 1844; and which, I fear, has not attracted the
attention to which its intrinsic merits assuredly entitle it.
ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.[20]
Another book from the active pen of our American acquaintance, the able
seaman. The question having been raised whether Mr Herman Melville
has really served before the mast, and has actually, like the heroine
of a well-known pathetic ballad, disfigured his lily-white fingers
with the nasty pitch and tar, he does his best to dissipate all such
doubts by the title-page of his new work, on which, in large capitals,
is proclaimed that _Redburn_ is "_The Sailor-boy Confessions and
Reminiscences of the son of a gentleman in the merchant service_;" and,
collaterally, by a dedication to his younger brother, "_now a sailor
on a voyage to China_." An unmerited importance has perhaps been given
to the inquiry whether Mr Melville's voyages were made on quarterdeck
or on forecastle, and are genuine adventures or mere Robinsonades. The
book, not the writer, concerns the critic; and even as there assuredly
are circumstances that might induce a youth of gentle birth and
breeding to don flannel shirt, and put fist in tar-bucket as a merchant
seaman, so the probably unpleasant nature of those circumstances
precludes too inquisitive investigation into them. We accept Mr
Melville, therefore, for what he professes to be, and we accept his
books, also, with pleasure and gratitude when good, just as we neglect
and reject them when they are the contrary. _Redburn_, we are bound
to admit, is entitled to a more favourable verdict than the author's
last previous work. We do not like it so well as _Typee_ and _Omoo_;
and, although quite aware that this is a class of fiction to which one
cannot often return without finding it pall, by reason of a certain
inevitable sameness, we yet are quite sure we should not have liked it
so well as those two books, even though priority of publication had
brought it to a palate unsated with that particular sort of literary
diet. Nevertheless, after a decided and deplorable retrogression, Mr
Melville seems likely to go a-head again, if he will only take time and
pains, and not over-write himself, and avoid certain affectations and
pedantry unworthy a man of his ability. Many of the defects of _Mardi_
are corrected in _Redburn_. We gladly miss much of the obscurity and
nonsense that abound in the former work. The style, too, of this one
is more natural and manly; and even in the minor matter of a title, we
find reason to congratulate Mr Melville on improved taste, inasmuch as
we think an English book is better fitted with an English-sounding name
than with uncouth dissyllables from Polynesia, however convenient these
may be found for the purposes of the puff provocative.
_Redburn_ comprises four months of the life of a hardy wrong-headed
lad, who ships himself on board a trading vessel, for the voyage from
New York to Liverpool and back. As there is no question of shipwreck,
storm, pirates, mutiny, or any other nautico-dramatic incidents, during
Wellingborough Redburn's voyage out and home; and as the events of his
brief abode in England are neither numerous nor (with the exception
of one rather far-fetched episode) by any means extraordinary, it is
evident that a good deal of detail and ingenuity are necessary to
fill two volumes, on so simple and commonplace a theme. So a chapter
is devoted to the causes of his addiction to the sea, and shows how
it was that childish reminiscences of a seaport town, and stories of
maritime adventure told him by his father, who had many times crossed
the Atlantic, and visions of European magnificence, and, above all,
the frequent contemplation of an old-fashioned glass ship which stood
in his mother's sitting-room, and which is described with considerable
minuteness, and some rather feeble attempts at the facetious--how all
these things combined had imbued young Wellingborough with a strong
craving after salt water. Other circumstances concurred to drive him
forth upon the world. He hints at family misfortunes. His father had
been a merchant at New York, in a flourishing business. Things were now
less prosperous. "Some time previous, my mother had removed from New
York to a pleasant village on the Hudson river, where we lived in a
small house, in a quiet way. Sad disappointments in several plans which
I had sketched for my future life; the necessity of doing something for
myself, united to a naturally roving disposition, had now conspired
within me to send me to sea as a sailor." And yet it would a
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