Towards the end of August, a French squadron of five men of war came in, commanded by Monsieur L'Etanducre, who were to convoy the trade to France. Neither he nor his officers ever took any kind of notice of Captain Cheap, though we met them every day ashore. One evening, as we were going aboard with the captain of our ship, a midshipman belonging to Monsieur L'Etanducre, jumped into our boat, and ordered the people to carry him on board the ship he belonged to, leaving us to wait upon the beach for two hours before the boat returned. On the sixth of September we put to sea, in company with the five men of war, and about fifty sail of merchant-men. On the eighth we made the Cayco Grande; and the next day a Jamaica privateer, a large fine sloop, hove in sight, keeping a little to windward of the convoy, resolving to pick up one or two of them in the night, if possible. This obliged Monsieur L'Etanducre to send a frigate to speak to all theconvoy, and order them to keep close to him in the night; which they did, and in such a manner, that sometimes seven or eight of them were on board one another together; by which they received much damage; and to repair which, the whole squadron was obliged to lay to sometimes for a whole day. The privateer kept her station, jogging on with the fleet. At last, the commodore ordered two of his best-going ships to chase her. She appeared to take no notice of them till they were pretty near her, and then would make sail and be out of sight presently. The chasing ships no sooner returned, than the privateer was in company again. As by this every night some accident happened to some of the convoy by keeping so close together, a fine ship of thirty guns, belonging to Marseilles, hauled out a little to windward of the rest of the fleet; which L'Etanducre perceiving in the morning, ordered the frigate to bring the captain of her on board of him; and then making a signal for all the convoy to close to him, he fired a gun, and hoisted a red flag at the ensign staff; and immediately after the captain of the merchant-man was run up to the main-yard-arm, and from thence ducked three times. He was then sent on board his ship again, with orders to keep his colours flying the whole day, in order to distinguish him from the rest. We were then told, that the person who was treated in this cruel manner, was a young man of an exceeding good family in the south of France, and likewise a man of great spirit; and that he would not fail to call Monsieur L'Etanducre to account when an opportunity should offer; and the affair made much noise in France afterwards. One day, the ship we were in happened to be out of her station, by sailing so heavily, when the commodore made the signal to speak to our captain, who seemed frightened out of his wits. When we came near him, he began with the grossest abuse, threatening our captain, that if ever he was out of his station again, he would serve him as he had done the other. This rigid discipline, however, preserved the convoy; for though the privateer kept company a long time, she wasnot so fortunate as to meet with the reward of her perseverance.
On the 27th of October, in the evening, we made Cape Ortegal; and on the 31st, came to an anchor in Brest road. The Lys having so valuable a cargo on board, was towed into the harbour the next morning, and lashed alongside one of their men of war. The money was soon landed; and the officers and men, who had been so many years absent from their native country, were glad to get on shore. Nobody remained on board but a man or two to look after the ship, and we three English prisoners who had no leave to go ashore. The weather was extremely cold, and felt particularly so to us, who had been so long used to hot climates; and what made it still worse, we were very thinly clad. We had neither fire nor candle; for they were allowed on board of no ship in the harbour, for fear of accidents, being close to their magazines in the dock-yard. Some of the officers belonging to the ship were so kind to send us off victuals every day, or we might have starved; forMonsieur L'Intendant never sent us even a message; and though there was a very large squadron of men of war fitting out at that time, not one officer belonging to them ever came near Captain Cheap. From five in the evening we were obliged to sit in the dark; and if we chose to have any supper, it was necessary to place it very near us before that time, or we never could have found it. We had passed seven or eight days in this melancholy manner, when one morning a kind of row-galley came alongside, with a number of English prisoners belonging to two large privateers the French had taken. We were ordered into the same boat with them, and were carried four leagues up the river to Landernaw. At this town we were upon our parole; so took the best lodgings we could get, and lived very well for three months, when an order came from the court of Spain to allow us to return home by the first ship that offered. Upon this, hearing there was a Dutch ship at Morlaix ready to sail, we took horses and travelled to that town, where we were obliged to remain sixweeks, before we had an opportunity of getting away. At last we agreed with the master of a Dutch dogger to land us at Dover, and paid him beforehand. When we had got down the river into the road, a French privateer that was almost ready to sail upon a cruize, hailed the Dutchman, and told him to come to an anchor; and that if he offered to sail before him, he would sink him. This he was forced to comply with, and lay three days in the road, cursing the Frenchman, who at the end of that time put to sea, and then we were at liberty to do the same. We had a long uncomfortable passage. About the ninth day, before sunset, we saw Dover, and reminded the Dutchman of his agreement to land us there. He said he would; but instead of that, in the morning we were off the coast of France. We complained loudly of this piece of villany, and insisted upon his returning to land us, when an English man of war appeared to windward, and presently bore down to us. She sent her boat on board with an officer, who informed us the ship he came from was the Squirrel, commanded by Captain Masterson. We went on board of her, and Captain Masterson immediately sent one of the cutters he had with him, to land us at Dover, where we arrived that afternoon, and directly set out for Canterbury upon post-horses; but Captain Cheap was so tired by the time he got there, that he could proceed no further that night. The next morning he still found himself so much fatigued, that he could ride no longer; therefore it was agreed that he and Mr. Hamilton should take a post-chaise, and that I should ride; but here an unlucky difficulty was started; for upon sharing the little money we had, it was found to be not sufficient to pay the charges to London; and my proportion fell so short, that it was, by calculation, barely enough to pay for horses, without a farthing for eating a bit upon the road, or even for the very turnpikes. Those I was obliged to defraud, by riding as hard as I could through them all, not paying the least regard to the men, who called out to stop me. The want of refreshment I bore as well as I could. When Igot to the Borough, I took a coach and drove to Marlborough-street, where my friends had lived when I left England; but when I came there, I found the house shut up. Having been absent so many years, and in all that time never having heard a word from home, I knew not who was dead or who was living, or where to go next; or even how to pay the coachman. I recollected a linen-draper's shop, not far from thence, which our family had used. I therefore drove there next, and making myself known, they paid the coachman. I then enquired after our family, and was told my sister had married Lord Carlisle, and was at that time in Soho-square. I immediately walked to the house, and knocked at the door; but the porter not liking my figure, which was half French, half Spanish, with the addition of a large pair of boots covered with dirt, he was going to shut the door in my face; but I prevailed with him to let me come in.
I need not acquaint my readers with what surprise and joy my sister received me. Sheimmediately furnished me with money sufficient to appear like the rest of my countrymen; till that time I could not be properly said to have finished all the extraordinary scenes which a series of unfortunate adventures had kept me in for the space of five years and upwards.
THE END.
LONDON:BRADBURY AND EVANS, BOUVERIE-STREET.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]Captain Inglefield's account of the loss of the Centaur, (in September, 1782), furnished Byron with many of those trivial incidents, which, as the poet well knew, render a story, to use Gibbon's words, "circumstancial and animated," instead of "vague and languid;" the "eternal difference between fiction and truth." The behaviour of the sailors before the sinking of the ship; some lashing themselves in their hammocks, some putting on their best clothes; the sail made of blankets; the ragged piece of sheet with which they caught the rain-water; the words used by the man who first saw the land, &c. &c., are all faithfully copied or slightly altered from Inglefield.[2]Byron's ship in this expedition was the Dolphin: she was the second ship ever coppered in the British navy.[3]Captain Cheap has been suspected of a design of going on the Spanish coast without the Commodore; but no part of his conduct seems to authorise, in the least, such a suspicion. The author who brings this heavy charge against him, is equally mistaken in imagining that Captain Cheap had not instructions to sail to this island, and that the Commodore did neither go nor send thither, to inform himself if any of the squadron were there. This appears from the orders delivered to the captains of the squadron, the day before they sailed from St. Catherine's (L. Anson's Voyage, B.I.C. 6.); from the orders of the council of war held on board the Centurion, in the bay of St. Julian, (C. 7.); and from the conduct of the Commodore (C. 10.) who cruized (with the utmost hazard) more than a fortnight off the isle of Socoro, and along the coast in its neighbourhood. It was the second rendezvous at Baldivia, and not that at Socoro, that the Commodore was forced by necessity to neglect.[4]Chiloe is an island on the western coast of America, about the 43rd deg. of S. latitude; and the southernmost settlement under the Spanish jurisdiction on that coast.[5]There are two very different disorders incident to the human body, which bear the same name, derived from some resemblance they hold with different parts of the animal so well known in the countries to which these disorders are peculiar. That which was first so named is the leprosy, which brings a scurf on the skin not unlike the hide of an elephant. The other affects the patient with such enormous swellings of the legs and feet, that they give the idea of those shapeless pillars which support that creature; and therefore this disease has also been called elephantiasis by the Arabian physicians; who, together with the Malabarians, among whom it is endemial, attribute it to the drinking bad waters, and the too sudden transitions from heat to cold.
[1]Captain Inglefield's account of the loss of the Centaur, (in September, 1782), furnished Byron with many of those trivial incidents, which, as the poet well knew, render a story, to use Gibbon's words, "circumstancial and animated," instead of "vague and languid;" the "eternal difference between fiction and truth." The behaviour of the sailors before the sinking of the ship; some lashing themselves in their hammocks, some putting on their best clothes; the sail made of blankets; the ragged piece of sheet with which they caught the rain-water; the words used by the man who first saw the land, &c. &c., are all faithfully copied or slightly altered from Inglefield.
[2]Byron's ship in this expedition was the Dolphin: she was the second ship ever coppered in the British navy.
[3]Captain Cheap has been suspected of a design of going on the Spanish coast without the Commodore; but no part of his conduct seems to authorise, in the least, such a suspicion. The author who brings this heavy charge against him, is equally mistaken in imagining that Captain Cheap had not instructions to sail to this island, and that the Commodore did neither go nor send thither, to inform himself if any of the squadron were there. This appears from the orders delivered to the captains of the squadron, the day before they sailed from St. Catherine's (L. Anson's Voyage, B.I.C. 6.); from the orders of the council of war held on board the Centurion, in the bay of St. Julian, (C. 7.); and from the conduct of the Commodore (C. 10.) who cruized (with the utmost hazard) more than a fortnight off the isle of Socoro, and along the coast in its neighbourhood. It was the second rendezvous at Baldivia, and not that at Socoro, that the Commodore was forced by necessity to neglect.
[4]Chiloe is an island on the western coast of America, about the 43rd deg. of S. latitude; and the southernmost settlement under the Spanish jurisdiction on that coast.
[5]There are two very different disorders incident to the human body, which bear the same name, derived from some resemblance they hold with different parts of the animal so well known in the countries to which these disorders are peculiar. That which was first so named is the leprosy, which brings a scurf on the skin not unlike the hide of an elephant. The other affects the patient with such enormous swellings of the legs and feet, that they give the idea of those shapeless pillars which support that creature; and therefore this disease has also been called elephantiasis by the Arabian physicians; who, together with the Malabarians, among whom it is endemial, attribute it to the drinking bad waters, and the too sudden transitions from heat to cold.
Transcriber's Notes:Maintained original spelling, hypenation and punctuation.Obvious printer errors have been corrected.
Transcriber's Notes:Maintained original spelling, hypenation and punctuation.Obvious printer errors have been corrected.