Homeward Bound; Or, the Chase Part 5

"An exceedingly clear case, I protest," he answered, "and capitally put--I question if Lord Stowell could do it better--and exceedingly apt, that about the _ante bellum_; but I confess my feelings have not been so much roused for a long time as they have been on account of these poor people.

There is something inexpressibly painful in being disappointed as one is setting out in the morning of life, as it were, in this cruel manner; and rather than see this state of things protracted, I would prefer paying a trifle out of my own pocket. If this wretched attorney will consent, now to take a hundred pounds and quit us, and carry back with him that annoying cutter with the lug-sails, I will give him the money most cheerfully,--most cheerfully, I protest."

There is something so essentially respectable in practical generosity, that, though Eve and all the curious auditors of what was ma.s.sing; felt an inclination to laugh at the whole procedure up to this declaration, eye met eye in commendation of the liberality of the baronet. He had shown he had a heart, in the opinion of most of those who heard him though his previous conversation had led several of the observers to distrust his having the usual quantum of head.

"Give yourself no trouble about the attorney, Sir George," returned the captain, shaking the other cordially by the hand: "he shall not touch a pound of your money, nor do I think he is likely to touch Robert Davis. We have caught the tide on our lee bow, and the current is wheeling us up to windward, like an opposition coach flying over Blackheath. In a few minutes we shall be in blue water; and then I'll give the rascal a touch of Vattel that will throw him all aback, if it don't throw him overboard."

"But the cutter?"

"Why, if we drive the attorney and Grab out of the ship, there will be no process in the hands of the others, by which they can carry off the man, even admitting the jurisdiction. I know the scoundrels, and not a shilling shall either of the knaves take from this vessel with my consent Harkee, Sir George, a word in your ear: two of as d----d c.o.c.kroaches as ever rummaged a ship's bread-room; I'll see that they soon heave about, or I'll heave them both into their boat, with my own fair hands."

The captain was about to turn away to examine the position of the cutter, when Mr. Dodge asked permission to make a short report in behalf of the minority of the comity (committee), the amount of which was, that they agreed in all things with the majority, except on the point that, as it might become expedient for the ship to anchor again in some of the ports lower down the Channel, it would be wise to keep that material circ.u.mstance in view, in making up a final decision in the affair. This report, on the part of the minority, which, Mr. Dodge explained to the baronet, partook rather of the character of a caution than of a protest, had quite as little influence on Captain Truck as the opinion of the majority, for he was just one of those persons who seldom took advice that did not conform with his own previous decision; but he coolly continued to examine the cutter, which by this time was standing on the same course as the ship, a short distance to windward of her, and edging a little off the wind, so as to bring the two nearer to each other, every yard they advanced.

The wind had freshened to a little breeze, and the captain nodded his head with satisfaction when he heard even where he stood on the quarter-deck, the slapping of the sluggish swell, as the huge bows of the ship parted the water. At this moment those in the cutter saw the bubbles glide swiftly past them, while to those in the Montauk the motion was still slow and heavy; and yet, of the two, the actual velocity was rather in favour of the latter, both having about what is technically termed "four-knot way" on them. The officer of the boat was quick to detect the change that was acting against him, and by easing the sheets of his lug-sails, and keeping the cutter as much off the wind as he could, he was soon within a hundred feet of the ship, running along on her weather-beam. The bright soft moonlight permitted the face of a young man in a man-of-war cap, who wore the undress uniform of a sea lieutenant, to be distinctly seen, as he rose in the stern-sheets, which contained also two other persons.

"I will thank you to heave-to the Montauk," said the lieutenant civilly, while he raised his cap, apparently in compliment to the pa.s.sengers who crowded the rail to see and hear what pa.s.sed. "I am sent on the duty of the king, sir."

"I know your errand, sir," returned Captain Truck, whose resolution to refuse to comply was a good deal shaken by the gentleman-like manner in which the request was made; "and I wish you to bear witness, that if I do consent to your request, it is voluntarily; for, on the principles laid down by Vattel and the other writers on international law, the right of search is a belligerent right, and England being at peace, no ship belonging to one nation can have a right to stop a vessel belonging to another."

"I cannot enter into these niceties, sir," returned the lieutenant, sharply: "I have my orders, and you will excuse me if I say, I intend to execute them."

"Execute them, with all my heart, sir: if you are ordered to heave-to my ship, all you have to do is to get on board if you can, and let us see the style in which you handle yards. As to the people now stationed at the braces, the trumpet that will make them stir is not to be spoken through at the Admiralty. The fellow has spirit in him, and I like his principles as an officer, but I cannot admit his conclusions as a jurist. If he flatters himself with being able to frighten us into a new category, now, that is likely to impair national rights, the lad has just got himself into a problem that will need all his logic, and a good deal of his spirit, to get out of again."

"You will scarcely think of resisting a king's officer in British waters!"

said the young man with that haughtiness that the meekest tempers soon learn to acquire under a pennant.

"Resisting, my dear sir! I resist nothing. The misconception is in supposing that you sail this ship instead of John Truck. That is my name, sir; John Truck. Do your errand in welcome, but do not ask me to help you.

Come aboard, with all my heart; nothing would give me more pleasure than to take wine with you; but I see no necessity of stopping a packet, that is busy on a long road, without an object, as we say on the other side of the big waters."

There was a pause, and then the lieutenant, with the sort of hesitation that a gentleman is apt to feel when he makes a proposal that he knows ought not to be accepted, called out that those in the boat with him would pay for the detention of the ship. A more unfortunate proposition could not be made to Captain Truck, who would have hove-to his ship in a moment had the lieutenant proposed to discuss Vattel with him on the quarter-deck, and who was only holding out as a sort of salve to his rights, with that disposition to resist aggression that the experience of the last forty years has so deeply implanted in the bosom of every American sailor, in cases connected with English naval officers, and who had just made up his mind to let Robert Davis take his chance, and to crack a bottle with the handsome young man who was still standing up in the boat. But Mr. Truck had been too often to London not to understand exactly the manner in which Englishmen appreciate American character; and, among other things, he knew it was the general opinion in the island that money could do any thing with Jonathan; or, as Christophe is said once to have sententiously expressed the same sentiment, "if there were a bag of coffee in h---, a Yankee could be found to go and bring it out."

The master of the Montauk had a proper relish for his lawful gains as well as another, but he was vain-glorious on the subject of his countrymen, princ.i.p.ally because he found that the packets outsailed all other merchant-ships, and fiercely proud of any quality that others were disposed to deny them.

At hearing this proposal, or intimation, therefore, instead of accepting it, Captain Truck raised his hat with formal civility, and coolly wished the other "good night." This was bringing the affair to a crisis at once; for the helm of the cutter was borne up, and an attempt was made to run the boat alongside of the ship. But the breeze had been steadily increasing, the air had grown heavier as the night advanced, and the dampness of evening was thickening the canvas of the coa.r.s.er sails in a way sensibly to increase the speed of the ship. When the conversation commenced, the boat was abreast of the fore-rigging; and by the time it ended, it was barely up with the mizzen. The lieutenant was quick to see the disadvantage he laboured under, and he called out "Heave!" as he found the cutter was falling close under the counter of the ship, and would be in her wake in another minute. The bowman of the boat cast a light grapnel with so much precision that it hooked in the mizzen rigging, and the line instantly tightened so as to tow the cutter. A seaman was pa.s.sing along the outer edge of the hurricane-house at the moment, coming from the wheel, and with the decision of an old salt, he quietly pa.s.sed his knife across the stretched cordage, and it snapped like pack-thread. The grapnel fell into the sea, and the boat was lossing in the wake of the ship, all as it might be while one could draw a breath. To furl the sails and ship the oars consumed but an instant, and then the cutter was ploughing the water under the vigorous strokes of her crew.

"Spirited! spirited and nimble!" observed Captain Truck, who stood coolly leaning against a shroud, in a position where he could command a view of all that was pa.s.sing, improving the opportunity to shake the ashes from his cigar while he spoke; "a fine young fellow, and one who will make an admiral, or something better, I dare say, if he live;--perhaps a cherub, in time. Now, if he pull much longer in the back-water of our wake, I shall have to give him up, Leach, as a little marin-_ish:_ ah! there he sheers out of it, like a sensible youth as he is! Well, there is something pleasant in the conceit of a six-oared boat's carrying a London liner by boarding, even admitting the lad could have got alongside."

So, it would seem, thought Mr. Leach and the crew of the Montauk; for they were clearing the decks with as much philosophy as men ever discover when employed in an unthankful office. This _sang-froid_ of seamen is always matter of surprise to landsmen; but adventurers who have been rocked in the tempest for years, whose utmost security is a great hazard, and whose safety constantly depends on the command of the faculties, come in time to experience an apathy on the subject of all the minor terrors and excitements of life, that none can acquire unless by habit and similar risks. There was a low laugh among the people, and now and then a curious glance of the eye over the quarter to ascertain the position of the struggling boat; but there the effect of the little incident ceased, so far as the seamen were concerned.

Not so with the pa.s.sengers. The Americans exulted at the failure of the man-of-war's man, and the English doubted. To them, deference to the crown was habitual, and they were displeased at seeing a stranger play a king's boat such a trick, in what they justly enough thought to be British waters. Although the law may not give a man any more right than another to the road before his own door, he comes in time to fancy it, in a certain degree, his particular road. Strictly speaking, the Montauk was perhaps still under the dominion of the English laws, though she had been a league from the land when laying at her anchor, and by this time the tide and her own velocity had swept her broad off into the offing quite as far again; indeed she had now got to such a distance from the land, that Captain Truck thought it his "duty" to bring matters to a conclusion with the attorney.

"Well, Mr. Seal," he said, "I am grateful for the pleasure of your company thus far; but you will excuse me if I decline taking you and Mr. Grab quite to America. Half an hour hence you will hardly be able to find the island; for as soon as we have got to a proper distance from the cutter, I shall tack to the south-west, and you ought, moreover, to remember the anxiety of the ladies at home."

"This may turn out a serious matter, Captain Truck, on your return pa.s.sage! The laws of England are not to be trifled with. Will you oblige me by ordering the steward to hand me a gla.s.s of water? Waiting for justice is dry duty, I find."

"Extremely sorry I cannot comply, gentlemen. Vattel has nothing on the subject of watering belligerents, or neutrals, and the laws of Congress compel me to carry so many gallons to the man. If you will take it in the way of a nightcap, however, and drink success to our run to America, and your own to the sh.o.r.e, it shall be in champagne, if you happen to like that agreeable fluid."

The attorney was about to express his readiness to compromise on these terms, when a gla.s.s of the beverage for which he had first asked was put into his hand by the wife of Robert Davis. He took the water, drank it, and turned from the woman with the obduracy of one who never suffered feeling to divert him from the pursuit of gain. The wine was brought, and the captain filled the gla.s.ses with a seaman's heartiness.

"I drink to your safe return to Mrs. Seal, and the little G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of justice,--Pan or Mercury, which is it? And as for you, Grab, look out for sharks as you pull in. If they hear of your being afloat, the souls of persecuted sailors will set them on you, as the devil chases male coquettes. Well, gentlemen, you are balked this time; but what matters it?

It is but another man got safe out of a country that has too many in it; and I trust we shall meet good friends again this day four months. Even man and wife must part, when the hour arrives."

"That will depend on how my client views your conduct on this occasion, Captain Truck; for he is not a man that it is always safe to thwart."

"That for your client, Mr. Seal!" returned the captain, snapping his fingers. "I am not to be frightened with an attorney's growl, or a bailiff's nod. You come off with a writ or a warrant, I care not which; I offer no resistance; you hunt for your man, like a terrier looking for a rat, and can't find him; I see the fine fellow, at this moment, on deck,--but I feel no obligation to tell you who or where he is; my ship is cleared and I sail, and you have no power to stop me; we are outside of all the head-lands, good two leagues and a half off, and some writers say that a gun-shot is the extent of your jurisdiction, once out of which, your authority is not worth half as much as that of my chief cook, who has power to make his mate clean the coppers. Well, sir, you stay here ten minutes longer and we shall be fully three leagues from your nearest land, and then you are in America, according to law, and a quick pa.s.sage you will have made of it. Now, that is what I call a category."

As the captain made this last remark, his quick eye saw that the wind had hauled so far round to the westward, as to supersede the necessity of tacking, and that they were actually going eight knots in a direct line from Portsmouth. Casting an eye behind him, he perceived that the cutter had given up the chase, and was returning towards the distant roads. Under circ.u.mstances so discouraging, the attorney, who began to be alarmed for his boat, which was flying along on the water, towed by the ship, prepared to take his leave; for he was fully aware that he had no power to compel the other to heave-to his ship, to enable him to get out of her. Luckily the water was still tolerably smooth, and with fear and trembling, Mr.

Seal succeeded in blundering into the boat; not, however, until the watermen had warned him of their intention to hold on no longer. Mr. Grab followed, with a good deal of difficulty, and just as a hand was about to let go the painter, the captain appeared at the gangway with the man they were in quest of, and said in his most winning manner--

"Mr. Grab, Mr. Davis; Mr. Davis, Mr Grab; I seldom introduce steerage pa.s.sengers, but to oblige two old friends I break the rule. That's what I call a category. My compliments to Mrs. Grab. Let go the painter"

The words were no sooner uttered than the boat was tossing and whirling in the caldron left by the pa.s.sing ship.

Chapter V.

What country, Mends, is this?

Illyria, lady.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

Captain Truck cast an eye aloft to see if everything drew, as coolly as if nothing out of the usual course had happened; he and his crew having, seemingly, regarded the attempt to board them as men regard the natural phenomena of the planets, or in other words, as if the ship, of which they were merely parts, had escaped by her own instinct or volition. This habit of considering the machine as the governing principle is rather general among seamen, who, while they ease a brace, or drag a bowline, as the coachman checks a rein, appear to think it is only permitting the creature to work her own will a little more freely. It is true all _know_ better, but none talk, or indeed would seem to _feel_, as if they thought otherwise.

"Did you observe how the old barky jumped out of the way of those rovers in the cutter?" said the captain complacently to the quarter-deck group, when his survey aloft had taken sufficient heed that his own nautical skill should correct the instinct of the ship. "A skittish horse, or a whale with the irons in him, or, for that matter, one of the funniest of your theatricals, would not have given a prettier aside than this poor old hulk, which is certainly just the clumsiest craft that sails the ocean. I wish King William would take it into his royal head, now, to send one of his light-heeled cruisers out to prove it, by way of resenting the cantaverous trick the Montauk played his boat!"

The dull report of a gun, as the sound came short and deadened up against the breeze, checked the raillery of Mr. Truck. On looking to leeward, there was sufficient light to see the symmetrical sails of the corvette they had left at anchor, trimmed close by the wind, and the vessel itself standing out under a press of canvas, apparently in chase. The gun had evidently been fired as a signal of recall to the cutter, blue lights being burnt on board of both the ship and its boat, in proof that they were communicating.

The pa.s.sengers now looked gravely at each other, for the matter, in their eyes, began to be serious. Some suggested the possibility that the offence of Davis might be other than debt, but this was disproved by the process and the account of the bailiff himself; while most concluded that a determination to resent the slight done the authorities had caused the cruiser to follow them out, with the intention of carrying them back again. The English pa.s.sengers in particular began now to reason in favour of the authority of the crown, while those who were known to be Americans grew warm in maintaining the rights of their flag. Both the Effinghams, however, were moderate in the expression of their opinions; for education, years, and experience, had taught them to discriminate justly.

"As respects the course of Captain Truck, in refusing to permit the cutter to board him, he is probably a better judge than any of us," Mr. Effingham observed with gentlemanly reserve--"for he must better understand the precise position of his ship at the time; but concerning the want of right in a foreign vessel of war to carry this ship into port in a time of profound peace, when sailing on the high seas, as will soon be the case with the Montauk,--admitting that she is not there at present,--I should think there can be no reasonable doubt. The dispute, if there is to be any, has now to become matter of negotiation; or redress must be sought through the general agents of the two nations, and not taken by the inferior officers of either party. The instant Montauk reaches the public highway of nations, she is, within the exclusive jurisdiction of the country under whose flag she legally sails."

"Vattel, to the back-bone!" said the captain, giving a nod of approbation, again clearing the end of his cigar.

Now, John Effingham was a man of strong feelings, which is often but another word for a man of strong prejudices; and he had been educated between thirty or forty years before, which is saying virtually, that he was educated under the influence of the British opinions, that then weighed (and many of which still weigh) like an incubus on the national interests of America. It is true, Mr. Effingham was in all senses the contemporary, as he had been the school-fellow, of his cousin; that they loved each other as brothers, had the utmost reliance on each other's principles in the main, thought alike in a thousand things, and yet, in the particular of English domination, it was scarcely possible for one man to resemble another less than the widowed kinsman resembled the bachelor.

Edward Effingham was a singularly just-minded man, and having succeeded at an early age to his estate, he had lived many years in that intellectual retirement which, by withdrawing him from the strifes of the world, had left a cultivated sagacity to act freely on a natural disposition. At the period when the entire republic was, in substance, exhibiting the disgraceful picture of a nation torn by adverse factions, that had their origin in interests alien to its own; when most were either Englishmen or Frenchmen, he had remained what nature, the laws and reason intended him to be, an American. Enjoying the _otium c.u.m dignitate_ on his hereditary estate, and in his hereditary abode, Edward Effingham, with little pretensions to greatness, and with many claims to goodness, had hit the line of truth which so many of the "G.o.d-likes" of the republic, under the influence of their pa.s.sions, and stimulated by the transient and fluctuating interests of the day, entirely overlooked, or which, if seeing, they recklessly disregarded. A less impracticable subject for excitement,--the _primum mobile_ of all American patriotism and activity, if we are to believe the theories of the times,--could not be found, than this gentleman. Independence of situation had induced independence of thought; study and investigation rendered him original and just, by simply exempting him from the influence of the pa.s.sions; and while hundreds were keener, abler in the exposition of subtleties, or more imposing with the ma.s.s, few were as often right, and none of less selfishness, than this simple-minded and upright gentleman. He loved his native land, while he saw and regretted its weaknesses; was its firm and consistent advocate abroad, without becoming its interested or mawkish flatterer at home, and at all times, and in all situations, manifested that his heart was where it ought to be.

In many essentials, John Effingham was the converse of all this. Of an intellect much more acute and vigorous than that of his cousin, he also possessed pa.s.sions less under control, a will more stubborn, and prejudices that often neutralized his reason. His father had inherited most of the personal property of the family, and with this he had plunged into the vortex of monied speculation that succeeded the adoption of the new const.i.tution, and verifying the truth of the sacred saying, that "where treasure is, there will the heart be also," he had entered warmly and blindly into all the factious and irreconcilable principles of party, if such a word can properly be applied to rules of conduct that Bary with the interests of the day, and had adopted the current errors with which faction unavoidably poisons the mind.

America was then much too young in her independence, and too insignificant in all eyes but her own, to reason and act for herself, except on points that pressed too obviously on her immediate concerns to be overlooked; but the great social principles,--or it might be better to say, the great social interests,--that then distracted Europe, produced quite as much sensation in that distant country, as at all comported with a state of things that had so little practical connexion with the result, The Effingham family had started Federalists, in the true meaning of the term; for their education, native sense and principles, had a leaning to order, good government, and the dignity of the country; but as factions became fiercer, and names got to be confounded and contradictory, the landed branch settled down into what they thought were American, and the commercial branch into what might properly be termed English Federalists.

We do not mean that the father of John intended to be untrue to his native land; but by following up the dogmas of party he had reasoned himself into a set of maxims which, if they meant anything, meant everything but that which had been solemnly adopted as the governing principles of his own country, and many of which were diametrically opposed to both its interests and its honour.

John Effingham had insensibly imbibed the sentiments of his particular sect, though the large fortune inherited from his father had left him too independent to pursue the sinuous policy of trade. He had permitted temperament to act on prejudice to such an extent that he vindicated the right of England to force men from under the American flag, a doctrine that his cousin was too simple-minded and clear-headed ever to entertain for an instant: and he was singularly ingenious in discovering blunders in all the acts of the republic, when they conflicted with the policy of Great Britain. In short, his talents were necessary, perhaps, to reconcile so much sophistry, or to render that reasonably plausible that was so fundamentally false. After the peace of 1815, John Effingham went abroad for the second time, and he hurried through England with the eagerness of strong affection; an affection that owed its existence even more to opposition than to settled notions of truth, or to natural ties. The result was disappointment, as happens nineteen times in twenty, and this solely because, in the zeal of a partisan he had fancied theories, and imagined results. Like the English radical, who rushes into America with a mind unsettled by impracticable dogmas, he experienced a reaction, and this chiefly because he found that men were not superior to nature, and discovered so late in the day, what he might have known at starting, that particular causes must produce particular effects. From this time, John Effingham became a wiser and a more moderate man; though, as the shock had not been sufficiently violent to throw him backward on truth, or rather upon the opposing prejudices of another sect, the remains of the old notions were still to be discovered lingering in his opinions, and throwing a species of twilight shading over his mind; as, in nature, the hues of evening and the shadows of the morning follow, or precede, the light of the sun.