CHAPTER IXTHE CAPTAINS
Stories of the Cape Cod captains would in themselves make a volume. One is tempted here and tempted there in choosing which should be typical of the “brave old times,” and fears to overlook the most significant. Among the more interesting of those who have not been already mentioned was Elijah Cobb, born in 1768 at Brewster—the home of deep-water sailors. From the memoir which he began to write in old age, we know that his first voyage, presumably as cabin boy, netted him the profit of a new suit of clothes and in money twenty dollars which he brought home intact to his mother, “the largest sum she had received since she became a widow.” By the time he was twenty-five he had made several voyages as captain, had married him a wife, and a year or two later was to run afoul of the French Revolution. As both French and English men-of-war were making no bones of holding up neutrals, he had cleared for Corunna: to no end, for he was taken by a French frigate and run into the harbor of Brest. “My vessel was there,” he writes, “but her cargo was taken out and was daily made into soup, bread, etc., for the half-starved populace, and without papers”—his captors had sent his papers to the Government at Paris—“Icould not substantiate my claim to the ship.” He appealed to Paris, and had the cold comfort of hearing that “the Government will do what is right in time.” In the meantime he was treated courteously, and he and some of his men lodged at a hotel at the Government’s expense. After six weeks the word came that his case had been passed upon: “without my even learning or knowing I was on trial. The decision, however, was so favorable that it gave new feelings to my life.” A fair price was offered for the cargo of flour and rice which Brest had already devoured; payment in bills of exchange on Hamburg, fifty days after date. Cobb sent his ship away in ballast, and set out for Paris to get his papers and his bills of exchange.
THE CAP’N’S
THE CAP’N’S
THE CAP’N’S
“In about two days I was under weigh for Paris,” writes Cobb, “with the national courier for government. We drove Jehu-like without stopping, except to change horses and mail, taking occasionally a mouthful of bread and washing it down with low-priced Burgundy wine. As to sleep I did not get one wink during the whole six hundred and eighty-four miles. We had from ten to twelve mounted horsemen for guard during the night, and to prove that the precaution was necessary, the second morning after leaving Brest, just before the guard left us, we witnessed a scene that filled us with horror: the remains of a courier lying in the road, the master, postillion, and five horses lying dead and mangled by it, and the mail mutilated and scattered in all directions. However, the next stage was only five miles and not considered dangerous, and we proceeded on. We reachedParis on a beautiful June morning.” But here was the beginning of fresh trouble: matters there were moving too fast for much attention to be given a young American shipmaster in quest of papers. Cobb writes that it was in “the bloody reign of Robespierre. I minuted down a thousand persons that I saw beheaded by the infernal guillotine, and probably saw as many more that I did not minute down.” He was surfeited with horrors and despairing of his mission as time passed swiftly on toward the termination of his fifty days of grace, when a friendly Frenchman at his hotel advised him to appeal direct to Robespierre, “saying that he was partial to Americans.” On the instant a note was despatched: “An American citizen, captured by a French frigate on the high seas, requests a personal interview and to lay his grievances before the citizen Robespierre.” And within an hour came the answer: “I will grant citizen Cobb an interview to-morrow at 10A.M.Robespierre.” The event proved Robespierre to be sympathetic, and, moreover, that he spoke very good English. Cobb told him of his unavailing visits to the “Office of the Twenty-third Department.” “Go again to the office,” said Robespierre, “and tell citizen F. T. that you come from Robespierre, and if he does not produce your papers and finish your business immediately, he will hear from me again in a way not so pleasing to him.” Such a message, with the guillotine working overtime in the Place de la Concorde, was likely to produce results, and the affair was concluded with despatch. But Robespierre was near his eclipse; and hardly hadCobb received his papers than, to his horror, he was to see Robespierre’s head falling into the basket. He waited not upon the order of his going, but fled from Paris, and arrived at Hamburg the very day before his bills became due. “The fortunate result of this voyage increased my fame as a shipmaster,” is his sole comment upon the adventure, “but allowed me only a few days at home.”
He was off again in the Monsoon, a new ship then, that was to prove a famous money-getter for more than one Cape Cod captain. His owners gave him a valuable cargo with directions “to find a market for it in Europe”; for certain hogsheads of rum, however, they advised Ireland. Permission to land it there was not forthcoming. “Matters were arranged, however,” writes Cobb, “so that between the cove of Cork and the Scilly Islands eight hogsheads of New England rum were thrown overboard, and a small pilot boat hove on board a bag containing sixty-four English guineas.” Again a good sale was made at Hamburg, but a later venture there proved more difficult of achievement than the rum transaction on the Irish coast: for by that time the English blockade extended to Hamburg, and he was turned back to England where, at Yarmouth, he received permission to proceed to any port not included in the blockade. But Cobb meant to sell his cargo in Hamburg. He cleared for Copenhagen, landed his goods at Lübeck, and transported them overland to Hamburg where another profitable exchange of commodities was effected. Hardly was he at home again for avisit at his Cape Cod farm than a messenger arrived with orders for him to proceed to Malaga. And at Malaga he was informed that the British Orders in Council went into force that day forbidding vessels taking a return cargo. “Of course this would make such a cargo very desirable,” Cobb remarks. He needed no further incentive to “manage the affair.” “The American consul thought there would be but little risk if I hurried, and in eight days I was ready to sail.” He made for Gibraltar, and was promptly overhauled by a frigate. “Whereupon,” says Cobb, “I told them the truth: that I was from Malaga bound for Boston; that I had come there to avail myself of a clearance from a British port and a convoy through the gut. And after I had seen the principal, placing on the counter before his eyes a two-ounce piece of gold, I was permitted to go with my clearance to the American consul. A signal gun was fired that morning and I was the first to move, being apprehensive that some incident might yet subject me to that fatal investigation. How it was managed to clear out a cargo of Spanish goods from Gibraltar, under the British Orders in Council, was a subject of most intense speculation in Boston, but I had made a good voyage for all concerned.” It is not remarkable that he was allowed no long interval for farming before he was off again for “a voyage to Europe.” His owners had learned to their great gain that it was best to give Cobb the freedom of the seas and the markets ashore. He proceeded to Alexandria, Virginia, loaded with flour that sold well at Cadiz, and returned inballast to Norfolk where he found orders to load again at Alexandria. But America was now ready to clamp down her Embargo Law which every Yankee captain worthy of the name was prepared to evade. Mr. Randolph from Congress had sent news of it to a ship merchant at Alexandria who passed on the word to Cobb. “What you do must be done quickly, for the embargo will be upon you at 10A.M.on Sunday.” Cobb tells the story of his achievement. “It was now FridayP.M.We had about a hundred tons of ballast on board which must be removed, and upwards of three thousand barrels of flour to take in and stow away, provisions, wood, and water to take on board, a crew to ship, and get to sea before the embargo took possession. I found that we could get one supply of flour from a block of stores directly alongside the ship, and by paying three-eighths of a dollar extra, we had liberty if stopped by the embargo to return it.” But Cobb meant to regain for his employers that three-eighths of a dollar, and the tidy additional profit that was to be made on a cargo of American flour at Cadiz. “Saturday morning was fine weather. About sunrise I went to the ‘lazy corner’ so called, and pressed into service every negro that came upon the stand and sent them on board the ship, until I thought there were as many as could work. I then visited the sailors’ boarding-houses, where I shipped my crew, paid the advance to their landlords, and received their obligations to see each sailor on board at sunrise next morning. It had now got to be about twelve o’clock, and the ship must be cleared at thecustom house before one. ‘Why Cobb,’ said the collector there, ‘what’s the use of clearing the ship? You can’t get away. The embargo will be here at ten o’clock to-morrow morning. And even if you get your ship below, I shall have boats out that will stop you before you get three leagues to sea.’ Said I, ‘Mr. Taylor, will you be so kind as to clear my ship?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said he. And accordingly the ship was cleared and I returned on board and found everything going on well. Finally, to shorten the story, at nine that evening we had about three thousand and fifty barrels of flour, one longboat on board in the chocks, water, wood and provisions on board and stowed, a pilot engaged, and all in readiness for the sea.” The tide served at eight in the morning, the sailors were aboard, the pilot had come, and down the narrow, winding river they started with a fair wind that helped them on the first leg of their journey. But at Hampton Roads, in a dead calm, the government boat hove in sight. “Well,” said Cobb to his mate, “I fear we are gone.” But it was never his way to give up hope while a move in the game remained to him: when the boat was so near that with his glass he could descry the features of its crew, a breeze came puffing along, and he made for sea. In about ten minutes the boat gave up the chase, Mr. Taylor, of Alexandria, satisfied, no doubt, that he had discharged his duty.
Cobb gave the first notice of the embargo at Cadiz. “The day before I sailed,” he writes, “I dined with a large party at the American consul’s and, it beingmentioned that I was to sail next day, I was congratulated by a British officer on the safety of our flag. Well, I thought the same, when at the time war between England and America was raging. I sailed from Cadiz on the twenty-fifth of July, 1812, bound for Boston, and I never felt safer on account of enemies on the high seas.” But for once his confidence was not justified. Hardly had he entered the Grand Banks than he was overhauled by an English cruiser, with whose captain he proceeded to bargain on the point of ransom for his ship. “What will you give for her,” asked the Britisher, “in exchange for a clear passport into Boston?” “Four thousand dollars,” replied Cobb at a venture. “Well,” said the other, “give us the money.” “Oh, thank you,” said Cobb, “if it were on board, you’d take it without the asking. I’ll give you a draft on London.” “No, cash, or we burn the ship.” “Well,” said Cobb coolly, “you’ll not burn me in her, I hope.” The upshot was that a prize crew was put aboard, and Cobb had the pleasure of being convoyed by the frigate into Saint John’s, where he joined a company of about twenty Yankee masters of ships and their officers, at the so-called “Prisoners’ Hall.” Twenty-seven American prize ships were in port; and in a few days the Yankee prize Alert came in, with a British crew and American officers, under the protection of a cartel flag, to treat for an exchange of prisoners. The old admiral of the port was in a rage because of the irregularity of making the cartel on the high seas. “I’m likely to join you here,” said the Yankee captain to his countrymen at Prisoners’ Hall.However, in a few moments along came a note from the admiral saying that “he found that the honor of the British officers was pledged for the fulfilling of the contract, and as he knew his government always redeemed the pledges of its officers, he would receive the [British] officers and crew on the Alert, and would give in exchange every American prisoner in port (there were two to one) and we must be off in twenty-four hours. Now commenced a scene of confusion and bustle. The crew of the cartel were soon landed, and the Americans as speedily took possession.”
At twelve midnight, in due course of time thereafter, Captain Cobb arrived at his home, and tapped on the window of a downstairs bedroom where he knew his wife to be sleeping. At first she thought it a twig of the sweetbriar bush. Then, “‘Who is there?’ cried she. ‘It is I,’ said I. ‘Well, what do you want?’ ‘To come in.’ ‘For what?’ said she. Before I could answer I heard my daughter, who was in bed with her, say, ‘Why, ma, it’s pa.’ It was enough. The doors flew open, and the greetings of affection and consanguinity multiplied upon me rapidly. Thus in a moment was I transported to the greatest earthly bliss a man can enjoy, viz: to the enjoyment of the happy family circle.”
With these cheerful words Mr. Cobb ends his record. For a year or two thereafter he remained at home, and then was off again to sea. In 1819 and 1820 he made trips to Africa, and on the second voyage returned with so much fever aboard that the ship, as a means to disinfecting it, was sunk at the wharf. Thenhe retired from sea—he had built a fine Georgian house in 1800—and filled many offices ashore. His youth was crammed with adventure; he followed the sea longer than some of his mates; yet at the age of fifty-two, when he left it with a modest fortune, he showed as much zest in the management of more humdrum affairs: in due sequence he was town clerk, treasurer, inspector-general, representative to the General Court, senator, justice of the peace, and brigadier-general in the militia; no town committee seems to have been complete without him; he was a steadfast member of the liberal church which had taken possession of the old North Parish. And on one of those foreign voyages he had had painted a portrait of himself: a gallant, high-bred youth, with “banged” hair and curls, in Directoire dress, rolling collar, muslin stock and frills. The lovely colors of the old pastel hold their own, the soft blue of the surtout, the keen eyes, the handsome, alert face. A young man who knew something of his worth, Captain Cobb, and a young man who made exceptional opportunity to put that worth to the test.
A contemporary of Cobb’s was Freeman Foster, born in 1782 at Brewster before its historic division from Harwich. At the age of ten he was off on fishing-voyages with his father, who had been a whaler; at fourteen he had begun to work his way up to the quarter-deck of the merchant service; his schooling was acquired in the intervals ashore. Curiously, in all his seafaring, he never crossed the “Line,” but cruised between Boston, New Orleans, and the West Indies,the Russian ports of Archangel and Kronstadt, and to Elsinore. At fifty-five he retired to his farm, and in the Embargo War served as an officer in the militia under his neighbor General Cobb. He had been a robust boy and grew to be a mighty man, well over six feet in height and broad in proportion. He had a family of ten children; and his record tallies with that of many another old sea-captain: he “left behind him a reputation for strict integrity and sturdy manhood.”
Jeremiah Mayo, of Brewster, born in 1786, was one of nine huge brothers who were said to measure, in the aggregate, something like fifty-five feet. His father meant to make a blacksmith of him, with fishing-voyages, in the season, as relaxation. At sixteen he had a forge of his own in his father’s shop and could shoe all the horses that were brought there. But Jeremiah had no notion of confining his adventures to shoeing horses and catching fish, and at eighteen he was off for a voyage to Marseilles when, for his ability, he received two dollars a month more than any other sailor aboard. On his next voyage to Malaga, Leghorn, Alicante, and Marseilles, his ship, the Industry, was attacked off Gibraltar by the Algerines and escaped with some casualties, among them a flesh wound for Jeremiah. The captain, Gamaliel Bradford, with his leg shot away, had to be left in hospital at Lisbon. On his third voyage he and a young cousin were first and second mate and, the captain falling ill, the two lads, each only nineteen, had to take the ship by the dangerous “north-about”through the Hebrides from Amsterdam to Cadiz; and on a second voyage with the same captain, who seems to have been one of faint heart and would have given up the ship when she sprung a leak, Mayo took her safely to port, and at Bordeaux, where she was sold, sailed her for the French buyers to a Breton port with a cargo of claret, worth there twice its value at Bordeaux. By skilful manœuvre he evaded the British patrol, landed his precious cargo, and returned safely to Bordeaux where he shipped with a Yankee captain, with a cargo of Médoc, for Spain. He arrived at Corunna a few days after the historic battle there, and on a later voyage remembers seeing the monument erected to Sir John Moore. In the Embargo War he was captured by an English frigate, and if the wind had not failed him would have turned the tables by bowling the prize crew into Baltimore as prisoners. “And I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had,” he remembered as the sportsmanlike comment of his captor. Immediately after the battle of Waterloo he was at Havre, where he was approached by an agent of Napoleon with a proposition to take the emperor to America. He promptly accepted the hazard, and was disappointed when he heard Napoleon had been taken; had Napoleon been able to reach the Sally, he might have escaped Saint Helena, for she was not spoken from Havre to Boston. Mayo greatly admired Napoleon, and had seen him a-horseback at Bayonne when he was landing his army for Spain; at Paris, in 1815, he heard the shots in the Luxembourg Gardens when Ney was executed; he remembers seeing Lafayettedriving away from the Hall of Assembly. His vessel had been one of the first to enter a British port after the War of 1812, and the captain of an English frigate there sent him an invitation to dine and took occasion to express admiration of the American fighting quality on the seas. Mayo retired in good time to his comfortable forty-acre farm in Brewster, but by no means to inactivity. He was justice of the peace and well read in the law, a licensed auctioneer, a skilful surveyor and draughtsman, and was president of the Marine Insurance Company. It was remembered that he had “rare conversational powers,” which were well employed, we may suppose, in depicting the scenes of his eventful life. Mayo was as handsome a man as Cobb, his portrait showing a fine, spirited profile, with aggressive nose and a beautifully arched setting of the eye. He must have been magnificent with his six feet four of height.
Until the end of the clipper-ship era, Brewster was famous for its deep-water sailors, and at one time no less than sixty captains hailed its little farms as home. In the later period one of them was to rival the adventures of Robinson Crusoe and also of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine. One suspects, even, that Stockton may have heard the story. His fine clipper ship, the Wild Wave, fifteen hundred tons, with a crew of thirty all told, and ten passengers, San Francisco to Valparaiso, was wrecked on Oeno, a coral island of the Pacific about half a mile in circumference. Passengers and crew, provisions and sails for tents were safely landed. Water they found by digging for it. ButJosiah Knowles was not the man to remain inert, and after two weeks he took a ship’s boat, the mate and five men, and his treasure chest of eighteen thousand dollars in gold, and set out for Pitcairn’s Island which he knew to be distant some hundred miles. Safely there, he found to his amazement the island deserted and the inhabitants decamped to Norfolk Island, a notice to that effect, for the benefit of possible callers, posted in several of the houses. They had left behind them much possible provision in the way of sheep, goats, bullocks, and poultry, and there was plenty of tropical fruit such as oranges, bananas, breadfruit, and cocoanuts. But it was plain that the voyage must be continued if Knowles was to rescue his companions marooned at Oeno, and he himself be returned to civilization. By ill luck their boat, shortly after they had landed, was stove in on a reef, and their first care was to replace it. They found six axes, one hammer, and a few other tools, and some of the houses were burned to obtain nails and iron. The timber had to be felled and hewed as best could be; and their boat, the John Adams, was launched July 23, a little more than four months after the wreck at Oeno. The ensign of the new craft was fashioned from the red hangings of the chapel pulpit, an old shirt, and some blue overalls. All being ship-shape and in order, Captain Knowles again set sail with his gold, the mate and two men, and “the wind being unfavourable” headed for the Marquesas. Their destination was Tahiti, fifteen hundred miles distant. Three of his men had preferred the comfortable solitude of Pitcairn’s Island to suchan adventure. But fortune favored the daring, and on August 4 they made Nukahiva, where, by extraordinary luck, for no American ship had called at the island in the previous five years, they found the Yankee sloop-of-war Vandalia. Next morning, with his usual promptness, Knowles sold his boat to the island missionary, and was off on the Vandalia which sailed for the rescue of the marooned on Oeno and Pitcairn’s, dropping Knowles and his men at Tahiti. The mate joined the Vandalia as an officer. Knowles, at Tahiti, was offered passage on a French frigate to Honolulu, where he found an American barque loading for San Francisco and arrived there the middle of September. He found letters from home, but could carry news there as quickly as it could be sent, as there was no communication overland then except by pony express. Sailing for New YorkviaPanama, he arrived there late in October and telegraphed home, where he had long been given up for lost. Fourteen years later, in his ship, the Glory of the Seas, he stopped at Pitcairn’s Island, now restored as the habitation of man, was received royally by the Governor and natives, and speeded on his way by the entire population, each bearing a gift—the island fruits, ducks, chickens, even sheep, “enough,” said he, “to load a boat.” Some years later he retired from sea to live in San Francisco, where the Governor of Pitcairn’s Island, whenever he came to town, made his headquarters at the home of Captain Knowles.
One could go on indefinitely recounting the adventures of these men, among them many pioneers in onepart of the world or another. A Brewster sailor went to Oregon in 1846, and a few years later sold out his frame house and saw and grist mill to his brother, while he himself, from 1854 to 1858, carried cargoes of ship-spars from Puget Sound to China, the first cargoes to Hong Kong. In 1794, John Kenrick, commanding the Columbia Redivivia, with the sloop Lady Washington as tender, was the first American master to circle the globe. He rounded the Horn and sailed up the coast to the Columbia River, which he is said to have named from his ship. That he gave over to his mate, Robert Gray, with instructions to explore the river, while he himself rigged his tender as a brig and crossed the Pacific, swinging around home again by way of the East Indies and “the Cape.” Earlier than that the Stork of Boston, under a Yarmouth captain, is said to have been the first to carry the American flag around the Cape of Good Hope; and Brewster captains were the first to fly the American merchant flag in the White Sea. A Brewster man, in 1852, carried the first load of ice, and a frame house for storing it, to Iquique. This idea of sending ice to the tropics was to net thousands of per cent profit. This same master carried, and placed, the great gun named the “swamp angel” that was expected to retake Fort Sumter, and he transported troops for Butler. In 1870 also, he carried a valuable cargo of war material to the French at Brest; and on the return voyage shipped, at London, many passengers and a lot of animals for Barnum’s circus. They were so delayed on the homeward passage that their provisions were nearly exhaustedand, as it was, several trained ponies and goats were sacrificed to feed the more valuable lions and tigers. Collins, of Truro, was a blockade-runner in 1812, sailing open boats from the lower Cape towns to Boston, but was captured in his first venture on the deep sea. Later he was in the coasting trade up and down as far as Mexico, and had many medals for rescue at sea; later still he established the famous Collins Line. Hallett, of Barnstable, who died in 1849, was a pioneer in this coasting trade, and also as a saver of souls: for he raised the first Bethel flag for seamen’s worship in New York and in Boston. He was a “professor” from his twentieth year, and was said to be “singularly gifted in prayer and exhortation.” In 1808 he built the Ten Sisters, the most noted packet for years running between New York and Boston. Rider, of Truro, who combined with seafaring the trade of carpenter, went West in 1837, and built “the first boat to navigate the Illinois River by mule power,” and afterwards built other famous river boats. A Barnstable captain transported Mark Twain on the first leg of his “Innocents Abroad” expedition; another was master of the beautiful Gravina, named from the admiral in command of the Spanish reserves at Trafalgar, which on her maiden voyage, New York to Shanghai, took out some of Bishop Boone’s missionaries. A Brewster man made a fortune by establishing a stage-line to the Australian gold-fields.
It was natural that, in 1849, the Cape Cod men should be among the first to start for California; andit is interesting, also, that the majority of them, at least, in time returned to their life at sea. A Barnstable captain, Harris, who had received a medal from the Admiralty for saving a British crew in the North Sea, sailed, with his son, for San Francisco, where their brig was abandoned at the water-front and was used as an eating-house. Captain Harris, in due course, returned to Barnstable, and became sheriff of the county. There is testimony that he was “always young in spirit: it was a pleasure to see him dance, for he showed us more fancy steps and more of the old ways of dancing than we had ever seen.” Cape sailors were more apt to man the clippers than hunt for gold. A Hyannis captain remembered that an owner once said to him when he was looking for a berth: “The new clipper ship Spit-fire is lading for San Francisco and the cap’n’s a driver. He wants a mate can jump over the fore-yard every morning before breakfast.” “I’m his man,” retorted the seaman, “if it’s laid on the deck.” He shipped forthwith, and had a passage of one hundred and two days to San Francisco. A group of eight Brewster men and four from Boston combined seamanship and gold-hunting by buying a brig of a hundred and twenty tons and manning it themselves. They elected their officers, the rest of the owners going as common sailors. “We were all square-rig sailors except Ben Crocker,” writes one of the “seamen,” “and he was made cap’n of the main boom, as the square-rig sailors were afraid of it.” The cook worked his passage out, and there were six passengers; all ate together in the cabin. In a hundred andforty-seven days they made San Francisco, where they sold the brig for half what she cost them, and “each man took his own course.” There is no record that any of them made a fortune.
One Forty-Niner, sailing for “Frisco,” was lured by richer tales of gold to Australia, whither he worked his passage only to be wrecked on the coast, and turning short-about for a trading voyage among the Pacific islands was again wrecked, and in the lapse of time mourned as dead by his family. But in a year or so news of him came from the Carolines, where he had become virtual king of one of the islands, married the chief’s daughter, taught the natives the uses of civilization in respect of houses, clothing, and the sanctity of the marriage tie, and was building up a pretty trade in tortoise-shell, cocoa oil, and hogs. For nearly ten years he ruled his little kingdom, and then was killed by jealous invaders from another island who, worsted in battle, were literally torn limb from limb by his enraged people, and thrown to the sharks, thereby losing not only life here, but all hope of the hereafter.
The missionary brig Morning Star had often touched at King John’s Island, and generous testimony was offered that “John Higgins of Brewster has done more towards civilizing these natives than any missionary could have done.” And no less than three Yarmouth captains had at one time or another commanded the several succeeding vessels of the Board of Missions, all of which were named the Morning Star.
There are records enough of mutiny and fire and ofdisaster other than shipwreck at sea—the captain wounded and his wife quelling the insurgents; a coal cargo afire in the South Pacific, the crew taking to the boats to make the Marquesas twenty-one hundred miles distant; a captain “subduing a fire in his cargo of coals,” outward bound to Singapore, and receiving a gold watch as a reward from the underwriters for saving the ship. A Brewster captain and his mate, “taking the sun” in a stiff northwest gale, were swept overboard by a heavy sea, the mate to his death, but the captain, quick of wit, grasping a rope as he went overboard, took a double turn round his arm; the wheelman saw him, the watch ran aft and hauled him in so badly wrenched he could not stand, but with sufficient spirit to be lashed to the deck-house and command the vessel through the tail of the storm. A Barnstable captain in the Mediterranean service was fatally stabbed by a Malayan sailor, who jumped overboard and swam ashore, and the captain lived long enough to reach home. On the Sunshine, Melbourne to Callao, one of the crew poisoned the officers, who all recovered except the captain, another Barnstable man.
Nearly a hundred years ago now, the brig Polly, under command of Captain William Cazneau, and with two Dennis men, accomplished seamen both, among the crew, sailed from Boston. Just south of the Gulf Stream she ran into a fierce gale that laid her on her beam ends, and in order to right her the masts were cut away. Loaded with lumber, she could not sink, and as if invisible she floated unseen, exposedto every caprice of wind and weather, in and out of the most frequented trade-routes of the sea. Provisions and water exhausted, one by one the crew died until only the captain and an Indian cook were left. They ate barnacles which by now were thick enough on the ship’s side, obtained fire by the old Indian device of rubbing two sticks together, and water by distillation. For one hundred and ninety days they managed to keep themselves alive until at last a ship sighted them; and the captain, in further proof of an iron constitution, lived to the good age of ninety-seven.
In 1855 the Titan, commanded by a young Brewster captain who lived on through the first decade of the twentieth century, alert and active in the public service to the end of his long life, was chartered by the French Government to transport troops to the Crimea. For two years he cruised back and forth through the Mediterranean in such service, and then, home again, took from New Orleans to Liverpool the largest cargo of cotton that had ever been carried, and was nearly wrecked making port in a stiff gale. Refitted and made seaworthy, she took out over a thousand passengers to Melbourne, thence proceeded to Callao for a cargo of guano for London; but homeward bound, she sprung a leak in the South Atlantic and had to be abandoned some eleven hundred miles off the coast of Brazil. Sails were set and all took to the boats which, provisioned with biscuit, canned meats, jam, and none too much water, were moored to the ship that she might serve them as longas might be safe. Next morning the captain and an officer boarded her, saw there was no hope for her, returned to the boats, and cast off. They knew there was an island, Tristan d’Acunha, somewhere north of them, but as it was “too small to hit,” they decided to make for the mainland. But they were in the “belt of calms,” which might extend for ten miles or a hundred and ten, and oars must come before sails. As the men bent to their work, one cried out to look at the old Titan. A slight breeze aloft catching her sails, she had righted and seemed to be following them; but even as they looked, and wondered, she careened two or three times and went down. In a shorter time than might have been hoped, they were picked up, by a Frenchman bound for Havre who refused to interrupt his voyage for their convenience; but being provisioned for a small crew and the Titan’s men numbering fifty-three, he was soon glad to land them at Pernambuco. This same captain told of a voyage from Australia to Hong Kong when he was sailing by some old charts, “seventeen hundred and something”—the “English Pilot” for a guess—wherein certain islands were sketched in as “uncertain.” They were running into this region on a beautiful moonlight night, and the captain and a passenger he was carrying went aloft and smoked, and watched, until past midnight. But at two he was called up again, and there directly over the bow were palm-trees thick in the moonlight. They had grazed, and cleared, the island of Monte Verde, some twenty miles in length, which of course was charted on themore modern maps of the day. And it was in this same southern sea that he once ran in and out of a hurricane. He could have veered out of its path, but he was in his rash youth, and the fringe of it giving a good breeze, he reefed up and went flying ahead under bare poles, through a tremendous gale that soon had him at its will. Suddenly, like a flash, there was entire calm, and stillness save for the distant roaring of the hurricane: he realized that he had got into the very centre of it, which travels ahead only some twelve miles an hour, but whirls round and round with incredible velocity. He knew that he had somehow to drive his ship out of the vortex that was sure to suck him down, and again through the outer turmoil—booming like thunder, flattening the boat on her beam ends—he, making sure the end had come, but driving her on, again won through, and the boat righting herself, continued on her way. The captain never again wooed the favoring breeze of a hurricane.
The very names of their ships stir the imagination: the Light Foot, the Chariot of Fame, the Chispa, the Rosario, named for the wife of an owner who had been a captain in his day and had loved and won a Spanish beauty. The Whirlwind and Challenger were famous clipper ships; and one man commanded successively the Undaunted, the Kingfisher, the Monsoon and Mogul and Ocean King, and the steamers Zenobia and Palmyra—and Edward Everett. There was the Young Turk and Santa Claus, the Tally Ho, the Expounder and Centaur and Cape Cod; the Agenor and Charmer and Valhalla, the ShootingStar and the Flying Dragon, the Altof Oak, and, quaintly, the Rice Plant; the Oxenbridge and Kedar. Some ships were so famous that when their day was done, they passed down their names to ships of a younger generation than theirs. Masters changed from one ship to another, and discussion as to how this captain and that handled the Expounder or Monsoon on such or such a voyage filled many a long evening of their old age at home.
As captains grew toward middle age, and the children were old enough to be left at home with relatives or put into boarding-school, their wives not infrequently accompanied them on the long voyages “to some port or ports in Europe at the discretion of the captain,” as his orders might cite; or farther afield to “Bombay and such ports in the East Indies or China as the captain may determine, the voyage not to exceed two years”—or a longer matter when profit was found in cruising back and forth between the Indies and the ports “down under.” But wherever the port might be, there were sure to be Yankee ships, and many were the visits between ship and ship, commanded, perhaps, by old neighbors at home; more formal festivities ashore were offered by consignees, or the American consul, or a foreign acquaintance that was renewed from voyage to voyage.
In 1844 a Barnstable captain wrote from France: “Dunkirk and Bordeaux are fine places and contain many curiosities to us. We had more invitations todine than we wished as the dinners in this country are very lengthy, say from three to four hours before you rise from the table, and then not dry. To-day we have been to the Bordeaux Mechanical Exposition or Fair, and it is splendid. There are nine American vessels here, and five of the captains have their wives.” These Barnstable captains and their families, when in New York, used to stop at a hotel opposite Fulton Ferry, and when they went uptown of an evening to the Crystal Palace or the theatre or opera, they would charter a special Fulton Ferry ’bus for the journey. And if the voyage began with an American port of call, at New Orleans, we will say, there was plenty of gayety—balls, theatre-parties, opera, and oyster-suppers—and more than once a young shipmaster was captivated by the bright eyes of some Southern beauty.
A long voyage to Australia and India was another matter. The diary and “letters home” of a captain and his wife could tell us that; and while not brilliant in themselves, such records give us the atmosphere of these old times as could perhaps nothing else. On a February 16, some sixty years ago, a captain writes to his children who were in boarding-school: “We have had a very long and dull passage, with many calms and head winds, and are only to the equator and thirty-nine days out. It has tried my patience pretty well; but I can’t make winds or weather.” His wife was with him, and he was also taking a passenger on this voyage to Australia. “It is very warm and fine after a few days of hard rain when we caught plentyof water so we can wash as much as we like, and clothes belonging to all hands are hung out drying all over the ship. While I am writing the rest are reading and sitting around the cabin with as little clothing on as possible. I imagine you at church, muffled up in cloaks and furs, listening to a good sermon while we have to do our own preaching. If I’d had a letter ready a few days ago, I could have sent it by a barque bound up to New York which I spoke. Yet it would have been difficult, as it was in the evening and I could not understand who she was, and don’t know that she understood our name. Mother busies herself sewing when she feels like it, and reads the rest of the time. I must bid you good-morning now and attend to getting an observation and see where we are.” On February 28 he continues the letter: “I am now about where I expect to pass the Sunrise, if nothing has happened to her. I look for her every day. I don’t know what poor Freeman would say if we should meet them.” Freeman was the oldest son who had insisted on going to sea to “toughen” himself in a losing fight with “consumption”; and here on the wide stretches of the southern seas his father hoped to have word with him. “Mother is sewing on old clothes of some sort,” he went on to tell them, “and if she is well I think she will have time to mend all up. Time passes rapidly, but I often think of our little home being shut up and how many happy days we spent there, and hope we may all live to spend many more.” He ends his week’s stint of writing with some excellent moral advice. March 3: “We are now goingfor the Cape of Good Hope with a moderate breeze and good weather. Mother has been washing a little, and is now much taken up with some story she is reading. I suppose it is washing day at home, and I fancy Mrs. Lincoln hanging her clothes in our yard.” March 15: “Good-morning, my dear children. I wish I could hear you answer to it, but thousands of miles now separate us and every day still more. We are now abreast of the Cape, and have had some rough weather since I wrote last. Mother is first-rate, and can eat as much salt junk as any of us. To-day she is ironing a little, and I have been pitching quoits with the passenger for exercise. We see nothing but the blue sea now, not a vessel or anything else but some birds. We caught an albatross the other day, but we let him go again as it seemed cruel to deprive him of his liberty. We have got through all our hot weather, and I expect we shall soon want a fire while you will be having the spring—the green grass and the trees putting forth their beauty, and I hope you will enjoy it well. I shall not write any more until I arrive. Be good children is the sincere wish of your own dear Father.”
On April 25 Mother writes Nancy a letter of anxious instructions as to closing the house after vacation; because she is at the Antipodes, Mother is no less the careful housewife. “Take good care of the carpets; you need do nothing about the winter bedclothes, they are all safe. Be sure that the skylight is secure, and if it leaks more than usual get Mr. Snow to repair it. If necessary, put more plattersto catch the water. Have the boys attend to the underpinning of the house so that the rats or skunks cannot get in; and tell them I wish they would paint my boxes and buckets. I wish them light-colored, and put them on the old table and in the sink to dry. You will find some gooseberry and currant preserve in the cellar which you can dispose of. Do not disturb a jar in the dining-room closet. When Freeman arrives have his sea-clothes put in the barn. Take good care of Clanrick’s overcoat. If it is wet, see that it is dried as soon as possible, and if torn mend it immediately. You know it must last him another winter for his best. Do not forget to wear your rubbers”—and so on. They were entering Melbourne Bay, and Mother, having unburdened her mind of its care, was now free to close her letter, which, as a steamer was sailing next day, would be sent back by the doctor, “who will board us this afternoon.” “The boys [members of the crew, and neighbors at home] will not probably send letters this time. You will receive this a month sooner than you anticipated. Give my love to grandmother. I often think of her, and hope she will not go to her old home to live alone. Tell her father will see that her board is paid. She need not give herself any uneasiness about that. I must now bid you good-bye with much love from your affectionate Mother.”
And of course Mother had been keeping a Daily Journal, a copy of which, from time to time, she sent the children. “Just fifteen weeks from the time we left Boston we saw King’s Island,” she writes of theend of their voyage. “It was a joyful sound to me when I heard the cry from aloft of Land Ho. I was almost tempted to go aloft as I had not caught a glimpse of land or even a rock since I left home. Soon after, I could see the high hills from the deck which are about one hundred and eighty miles from Melbourne. The next evening we saw the light, but the wind being fresh ahead we could not gain much, which was rather trying as we were anxious to get in. The twenty-eighth we took a pilot, and as I had an opportunity to send my letters I felt quite reconciled to my situation, it being beautiful weather and fine scenery. The land on both sides of us is covered with trees and shrubbery, fresh like ours in June, although autumn here. Arrived at our anchorage about two o’clock, and lots of people called aboard, Mr. Osborn, our consignee, among them. He invited us to go to church with him on Sunday and dine with him and go to the Botanic Gardens, and we accepted. The Gardens are beautiful almost beyond description”—but she does describe them, and charmingly too, and the birds there, and the waterfowl, “the plumage of which is superb.” And she notes that the Yarra Yarra River is “not half as wide as our pond.” “We called also at Mr. Smith’s, a brother of our former minister. He has a very pretty place and gave me a very pretty bouquet. We returned to the ship about sunset very much pleased with my first day in Melbourne. Next morning we were taken up to the wharf, and I am glad to be here where I can come and go as I please. Father is busy, and I have been unpacking andarranging my clothes, room, etc. I have got my cabin carpeted and it looks quite nice. Mr. Sinclair, our passenger, called this morning, and brought me some apples and pears and grapes—a great treat. 29th: I intended to have gone to Melbourne shopping, but received an invitation from Mr. Osborn to go to tea and the opera in the evening. Some of the singing was good and the scenery was beautiful. I cannot compare it with American opera as I never went but once in my life and have forgotten about that. This is a great place for opera and theatre-going people, as well as spirit-drinking people. May 1st: To-day I presume you go a-Maying.” And now Mother had her shopping expedition, and notes that cotton cloth is cheaper than at home. “I find our last year’s goods and styles just received here, and of about the same price.” Like other Americans in foreign lands she is a little nettled that “they know in a moment I am an American.” The next week being rainy, she did little but “make a few calls upon some English ladies”; and then came a day spent at South Yarra with “the first American lady I had seen since I left home. I was delighted to see one home face, and she seemed as happy to see me. We were not long getting acquainted, and our tongues ran fast I can assure you. I informed her of the latest fashions, while she told me of the points of interest I should visit. They have a beautiful garden and I took lots of slips, and hope to fetch some of the plants home.” With the wife of a Newburyport captain she “went to Melbourne to see what there was to be seen,” and there was more gayetyafoot. “You will think me dissipating largely in going to operas and theatres. I think I am, indeed, but as I have no particular regard for such amusement do not think I shall be injured by going.” And she did certainly “see what there was to be seen.” Nothing escaped Mother’s observant eye. “I cannot begin to tell you of it in a letter,” she writes, “but will leave it till some winter evening when seated around our little light-stand at home. But I am resolved to see something of the world while I can.”
And on May 20, it was up anchor, and off again: “It seemed almost like getting home and we soon got under weigh and bid farewell to Melbourne. We have two gentlemen passengers for Calcutta, and I hope we shall have a quick passage. I have enjoyed myself, and have often wished you were with me to enjoy the pleasures too. Perhaps some day you may do so, if you, Nancy, catch a sea-captain; and you, Clanrick, may be a merchant here. I must now bid you good-night, with much love and kisses from Father and Mother.” The letter was off to them by the pilot, and Father and Mother for Calcutta where their visit was not as pleasant as at Melbourne. Father and many of the crew were ill. “I was very anxious indeed,” writes Mother to the children, “and was thankful to have some home friends near. Captains Dunbar and Crowell were very kind. They have done all of Father’s business they possibly could so that he need not get overdone.” The sick boys among the crew are a particular anxiety: “They are so careless and imprudent of themselves that I fear we shallnot bring them all home with us. They will not hear to reason, but will eat everything which comes to hand and sleep in the open air which is enough to kill any one. But the doctor says they will soon be well after getting to sea. We are obliged to wait for a steamer as by Father’s being ill we lost our turn; but I have just heard that one is engaged to take us down river Friday. I have formed some very pleasant acquaintances here, but have not met any American ladies. Captain Knowles and wife, and a Captain Smith, wife, and daughter have just arrived. I am sorry not to see them. Father is still better, and is now eating his dinner of chicken soup and toast bread after which he will ride down and see his consignee. Do not give yourself any uneasiness, but take good care of yourselves. I must now leave you in the hands of Him Who ever watches over us, and trust He will preserve us all and restore us soon to our loved home.”
Did Mother feel that the best of their voyaging was over? When Father returned to the ship that night, he had a letter “containing sad news from Freeman,” their lad who had thought to conquer the dread white plague by the hardships of a seaman’s life, and who was ill at Valencia. But Mother was not one to spend the long weeks of their return voyage to Melbourne in useless repining, and her Diary shows her alert, as ever, to “see what there was to see.” They made slow progress out to sea, as the weather was hot and calm. “It is very tedious to be lying here, although we have company near us. To-day we sawwhat we supposed to be the Ghats Mountains on the eastern coast of Hindustan.” And steadily, week after week, they nosed their way southward again, and on October 26 she could write: “It has been really cold this week, about like the weather at home this season. I sit up on deck all the morning, and have been very busy this week turning my silk dress.” It was rough weather the last leg of their journey, “the ship rolled terribly”; and Mother was none too good a sailor. When they hove to at Port Philip Light to take on the pilot, they received orders to proceed to Sydney to discharge their cargo. And there was a letter from his captain, one of their old neighbors at home, confirming their worst fears in regard to Freeman. He had died at Valencia, and was buried there, even as Mother had been praying that another year might see them all united at the old home. There was no time to be spent in idle lamentation, and as Father must go to Melbourne, so would she go also to be near him. They landed, rode by stage twenty miles to Geelong through “a very dreary country,” thence by railway to Melbourne where they were disappointed not to find letters from home at the consul’s, nor was their friend Mr. Osborn to be found that day; but they breakfasted with him the next morning, when Father accomplished his business, and by afternoon they were on the wearisome journey back to Geelong and Queen’s Cliff where the ship was moored. Indomitable Mother writes: “It was a beautiful morning and I enjoyed the ride.” She had learned the subtlest use of life: to miss none of its beauty, though the heart werebreaking. That night, before they sailed for Sydney, she wrote the two forlorn children at home—a long letter, with the high heart of courage, knowing that it might be months before they should receive it and the first sting of their sorrow be past: a letter full of Christian resignation and of comfort.
And day by day, recording time by latitude and longitude at sea, ashore by day and month, she set down in the Journal for the interest of their later reading, what she did and what she saw. Wilson’s Point, as they beat round to Sydney in head winds and heavy seas, “would be a terrible place to be shipwrecked,” she thought. And at Sydney she enjoyed things, as she could, noting the weather—there had been no rain to speak of for sixteen months—living on shipboard, but taking many excursions and meeting pleasant people ashore, and remembering the sermons at the English church, and the markets, and the shops; and again, one afternoon, alone, “I went a-cruising to see what I could see”—among other things, in the Public Gardens, “some beautiful plants in the greenhouses. The greatest variety of fuchsia I ever saw, and the gardener gave me some slips to take home. There were lots of birds and animals there, and I saw a kangaroo.” And some friends took them out to Botany Bay. “It was a terrible road and dreary country through which we passed, but there was a beautiful garden adjoining the hotel and I walked on the beach and got a few shells. Saw some wild animals, and returned to Sydney at seven o’clock. I enjoyed it very much.” There is the constantnote. Delayed in their sailing by storms, they had Christmas dinner at the consul’s: “a very nice dinner consisting of roasted goose, boiled turkey, boiled ham, cabbage, string beans, and potatoes.” After this mighty meal the company took steamer for “a resort for pleasure parties where there is a place called the Fairy Bower which is very beautiful. The winding way to it is over rocks and through the Bush. There is a public house there in front of which is the Bay and on either side and at the back are high rocky hills. There are lovely shells on the beach. It is a very romantic spot.”
On the twenty-sixth, “Boxing Day at Sydney,” she writes, they sailed early, and by afternoon “it blew very fresh and I was obliged to go to bed, being a little seasick.” On the eighth, in a fair wind, she remembers that it is just a year since they left Boston. On the nineteenth they were rounding Cape Leeuwin, and after a week of heavy swell and variable winds “we took the trades. Very pleasant and fine steady trades, which we appreciate.” So through fair weather and storms, starlight nights and sultry days, they came to Calcutta once more, and the steamer took them upstream, and their old friends welcomed them.
And there, incredibly, plucky little Mother, who could not have believed that she would not be in the world to serve any one of them while they had need of her, sickened with the deadly cholera and died. And Father, heartsick and alone, is sailing southward once more, this time for home. As the pilot takes him downstream,he is writing the son and daughter at Cape Cod. “I am seated here alone in my cabin where your mother and I have spent many pleasant hours and taken sweet counsel together, with everything around me to remind me of her. Here sets her chair, and there her trunk and clothes and everything as she left it.” (We wonder if the “slips” she had taken at Melbourne and Sydney are blooming yet.) “Oh, my dear, dear children, how much I have to feel and suffer. Your mother was thinking much of coming home to you again, but her spirit is with those in heaven. She spoke much of Nancy and Clanrick before she died, and said be sure to give Nancy my watch, and buy one for Clanrick and tell him it was his mother’s request. I hope you will find a home at the Cape somewhere till my return. Clanrick, be a good boy and kind to your sister; and try to cheer one another up in your heavy affliction. I soon expect to discharge the pilot. Good-morning, my dear children. God bless you. Your own afflicted Father.”
Father seems to have been of no such indomitable fibre as Mother. Perhaps for too many decades the sea had had its will of him, and for too many times, before this last voyage that had been so beautifully companioned, he had suffered the loneliness of long months afloat. Yet Father, in his youth, had been one of the gayest lads in town; within an hour of his arrival from sea, he was in and out of every house there, with a joke for the old ladies, and a new story for the cap’ns, a song for the girls, and a new style for the lads. Then he had taken on a steady pilot inSusan, his wife, and had steered straight through all their years together. He adored his children, and gave them perhaps more pleasures than he could well afford; for somehow, although he was an able captain and trader, riches had never come his way. Men said he was a free-spender, and ought to have saved. And now, in his broken state, after a few weeks with the children in the old home among the willows and lilacs, he must be off again to earn money for them all, this time on a coasting voyage, Boston to “New-Orleens.” And at sea, with far too much time for reflection, he is writing his loved daughter: “I hoped I never should be drifting about the ocean again, but here I am, and no one but my Heavenly Father knows what my destiny is. When I look back on the past two years, it seems all a dream: our dear Freeman pining away in a foreign land, and longing to get home once more, poor boy. And your mother in her last moments perfectly calm and serene, not one murmur or complaint. I have tried to bear up the best I could, but it has been dreadful hard. Perhaps I do not realize my blessings, but I do have many—I’ve been restored to health better than I ever expected to be, and I have two fine children, and can make me a comfortable home.”
Poor tender-hearted Father, struggling to count his “blessings.” The voyage to “New-Orleens” was not one of his most prosperous, he had lost the magic touch of success; nor was health as firmly restored as he supposed: that old fever at Calcutta, the sorrows that followed, had broken more than his spirit, and hereturned only in time to die at home—happy, at the last, to have made that familiar haven. And fortunate beyond many of his fellows. For there was a reverse to the old tales of daring and adventure; and many a man, long before age should cool the ardors of his hot-blooded youth, had died in a foreign port, or on shipboard; and many a memorial stone records that such a one died at Panama or Madras or Bassein, at Sourbaya or Batavia or Truxillo, or at Aden. And there is the longer list of those “lost at sea,” when wives and sweethearts waited through heartsick months and years for the word that never came. Yet those at sea and those ashore found their strength in the old faith: “Ye see when the mariner is entered his ship to saile on the troublous sea, how he is for a while tossed in the billows of the same, but yet in hope that he shall come to the quiet haven, he beareth in better comfort the perils which he feeleth; so am I now toward this sayling: and whatsoever stormes I shall feele, yet shortly after shall my ship be in the haven, as I doubt not thereof by the grace of God, desiring you to helpe me with your prayers to the same effect.”