The Life of a Celebrated Buccaneer Part 2

Pride, no doubt, is not a Christian virtue, yet have I found no Christian entirely without it. The Buccaneer's High Priest and other great church dignitaries, were they humble? Yes, humble enough if you paid them the respect they thought their due; if you approached the ecclesiastical breeches and gaiters with modest diffidence. Did not contradict them--not the breeches and gaiters, but the divine beings inside them--or doubt the superiority of their learning, wisdom, and virtue, or presume to make use of that intellect which G.o.d has given you. Humble enough then; but your ordinary, and sometimes your extraordinary priests cannot brook opposition. Admit also that our Buccaneer was great, good, rich, generous, brave, and a few other things barely worth the mentioning, and he was humble enough, heaven knows.

What he was almost entirely without, was that offensive pride which apes humility.

CHAPTER IX.

In our preliminary remarks it is necessary to mention two individuals who played a conspicuous part in the Buccaneer's realms.

We have already mentioned one honest sailor, the old c.o.xs'n, Jack Commonsense by name; but there were two women, not to say a third, who also had a permanent abode in his island. The one was called Patriotism, the other Liberty. The first of these was allowed to live for the most part in neglect, and though at times she was made much of, her position was little better than that of a beggar woman, to-day she would sit at the table of the great, and be taken into their councils, to-morrow she would be thrust aside, and occasionally thrown into prison. She was made a shuttle-c.o.c.k for the battledoor of Madam Party, who was the other celebrity above alluded to, and who pretty well ruled the roast in the Buccaneer's island. Everything had to give way to her, whilst except on extraordinary occasions the beggar woman, Patriotism, was thought but little of. Everybody swore they loved her; but men were deceivers ever, if not liars.

With Liberty it was quite a different tale, she could do pretty well what she liked, and had over our Buccaneer for good and for evil a wonderful influence. At her instigation he allowed the island to be made an asylum for rascals of every kind, who having been kicked out of their own homes, came over and plotted, and sowed broadcast among his people the most pernicious seeds, which bore their fruit in due time. Indeed, Madam Liberty played the part of a veritable wanton, and flirted with blackguards of the deepest dye. The consequence of this was, that one fine day, she gave birth to a boy, named Demos, the father being King Mob. This boy grew to be a most unruly fellow, and caused much trouble wherever he went.

It is said that neither man nor beast can stand prosperity for any length of time, the horse becomes restive, and occasionally kicks his stall to pieces, or otherwise misbehaves himself. Even the a.s.s; the gentle and long-suffering a.s.s, if too well fed, disturbs the whole country round, braying out in his husky tones of repletion his discontent at the very best of corn, when at one time he would have been glad enough to fill his stomach with thistles. So it was with Madam Liberty. It was through her that the Buccaneer first opened his doors to a host of cheap-Jacks, and to merchants and pedlars from all parts of the world, until in the streets of his princ.i.p.al sea-port towns and chief city, could be seen a strange mixture of costumes and features.

Swarthy Orientals with their finely cut profiles, and proud bearing.

Broad-faced, oval-eyed Mongols, who always look half asleep, but are generally found to be very wide awake. Flat-nosed, thick-lipped, woolly-headed negroes, and as a matter of course, the ubiquitous Jew was well represented. The Jew is found everywhere, but stay, exception must be made to the northern-most part of the Buccaneer's island. A Jew could not live there, not on account of the severity of the climate, though that was bad enough; but on account of the habits of the people. It is said by some that the object of the Jew is to skin the Christian and the Gentile, with the view of buying back Jerusalem, or, perhaps, the whole of the Holy Land. Many wish that this laudable desire may be accomplished, and that quickly. With all these different nationalities it was a wonder that the Buccaneer retained his individuality, or even kept his language from corruption, but he did, though a broken patter often saluted the ears, while the signs of many different races were stamped upon the faces of the people. There is a belief in the world that mongrels and cross-breeds will not fight. This is a mistake. Our Buccaneer was made up of ever so many nationalities, and yet he had fought in his day well enough. Showing, indeed, an absolute love for the fray. May not the very best blood, of the bluest kind, which flows through the veins of some haughty descendant, have taken its rise in some st.u.r.dy cur of low degree, who snapped and snarled himself to the front?

It would be as well to mention that our bold Buccaneer had had a quarrel in early times with one of his sons, who had emigrated and established himself, after the fashion peculiar to his father, on a large and fertile tract of land in the far west. This son, who was called Jonathan, was a tall, lanky, raw boned fellow, with a good head upon his shoulders and a strong will of his own. Modest diffidence had never been a stumbling block in his way. As to whose fault the quarrel was, well, some said it was entirely the old man's, but it is probable there was much to be said on both sides, and that Jonathan was not altogether blameless. At any rate blows were struck, and Jonathan handled his father somewhat roughly, and so there was an estrangement, and a separation, and Jonathan set up business for himself upon the old man's lines; except perhaps he was not quite so religious, and a great deal sharper.

Jonathan did wonderfully well. He had a keen eye for the main chance, and at driving a bargain, or getting the better of a friend, he could not be beaten. In this, to make use of an expression of his own, he pretty well licked creation. In his early days, he was not altogether scrupulous; but what he called sharp practice, other people might put down as something approaching more closely to dishonesty. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Jonathan prospered, and cheating, it is well known, never does, so he must have been an honest fellow. He loved to do his old father; to get the better of him in a bargain, to get his money out of him either by fair means or foul. Talk to him of honour and he would laugh in your face at your squeamishness. He had many of the eminent qualities of his parent, had Jonathan. He generally managed to keep what he laid his hands upon, and as the saying is, he was not altogether the man to drink with in the dark. By trade he was a packman, or a cheap Jack.

Between Jonathan and the Ojabberaways there was a great friendship. The former used to send over money to the latter to help them in their campaign against the old gentleman. Then the Ojabberaways used to plot, and make infernal machines in Jonathan's country, and come over to the Buccaneer's island, where they frequently carried out their designs, and occasionally used the knife into the bargain.

CHAPTER X.

The family of the Buccaneer in time increased to such an extent that it began to overflow the narrow limits of his island home. His sons therefore carried their zeal and energy and their manners and customs to unknown countries. Under their hands forests disappeared, lands became cultivated, and the aborigines changed their habits or cleared out. It was no business of the young chips of this ancient block, that the soil had already its owners, if not its tillers. If these people did not like the new order of things, they had an alternative. Of course the young chips would commit no act of flagrant injustice, for such would have been against the teachings of their parent's Book, but it was generally noticed that where they went they staid; and that they succeeded in the long run in clearing the land of all rubbish, using for this purpose the toes of their boots as well as their hands. Should the aborigines elect to stay, they could; but then they were made clearly to understand that they must live respectable lives. If they had anything to sell the Buccaneers bought, putting upon the articles their own price, for it could not be expected that the simple children of the soil could know the value of things. They generally gave about half of what was asked, and when the natives, to correct this, put on, to begin with, double the price they intended to take, the Buccaneers were horrified at such innate depravity, which could, as they thought, only come direct from the devil himself. The antidote was their Book. This they immediately presented to these vicious, ignorant, and immoral people, with many of the pages turned down for reference.

Wherever the Buccaneer's sons went they always took a cargo of their intoxicating drinks. These they sold to the gentle savage who showed his readiness to be civilized by getting as drunk as he could, as often as he could, thereby manifesting again his shocking depravity. The Buccaneer at home, when he heard of all this, turned up his eyes to heaven in pious horror, and immediately sent out a cargo of missionaries to counteract the evil effects of his cargoes of drink. These good people wrestled with the devil; prayed for the savages and preached to them, gave them more Bibles and explained it to them; told them to fear G.o.d; to shun the devil and all his works; begged them to give up their wicked ways and to lead new lives; to be honest and just in all their dealings; not to be extortionists; not to seek after riches, for that heaven was for the poor. Begged them to do unto others as they would be done by. In the meantime the Buccaneer's sons gave a practical ill.u.s.tration of this beautiful doctrine by selling strong drink and other merchandise at double and treble their value.

These missionaries were G.o.dly, self-sacrificing men, but their teachings to the untutored mind must have sounded strange, supplemented as it was by the actions of the Buccaneer's traders. Then again, they found that rival sects, although they professed to follow the same great Master, preached rival doctrines, and hated each other with a peculiar fervour.

At one time they painted G.o.d as the G.o.d of love, at another time they implanted fear and horror in the heart by depicting Him as a revengeful and malicious demon, full of the worst of human failings. They taught these simple savages that life was a kind of tight rope, along which they had to walk; holding in their hands the balancing pole of religion.

If they slipped, which likely as not they would, then there was G.o.d's rival underneath ready with his net to catch them, and to throw them into a fire that is never quenched.

It could not be expected that the ignorant savage would understand, all at once, the many nice distinctions of modern civilization. No doubt it must have seemed strange to him that the Buccaneer, in the face of what he preached, seldom went away empty-handed--taking indeed at times a goodly patch of land, just by way of recompense; for it was generally found, that, wherever his sons placed their feet, some of the soil always stuck to the soles of them.

Thus were the first seeds of civilization sown; but other and better things were to follow. The nakedness of the savage had to be clothed, and the long black coat and tall hat of respectability had to be introduced. The result of all this was not far to find. It was a natural consequence; for where the Buccaneer found simple human beings, worshipping G.o.d after their own way, dark if you like, but at least honest, he frequently left an accomplished lot of hypocrites, drunkards, liars, thieves and rascals generally, who having cast off the few rags of virtue which their own benighted religion had clothed them in, had put on a garment made up of most of the vices of civilization, and only st.i.tched together with the thinnest threads of Christian virtues, which threads were liable to snap at any time. Of course this was not the fault of the Buccaneer's sons. It was entirely due to the wretched soil they had to work upon; you cannot grow figs on thistles, nor can you make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

What is civilization, do you ask? It is a veneer, sometimes thick and sometimes thin, which is thrown over human nature by culture and what not. From under this cloak the old Adam will from time to time peep out and take a good look round. Did he not peep out to some purpose amongst one of the Buccaneer's neighbours, and playing the part of Cain did he not draw his knife, called the guillotine, across many a brother's throat, kicking them unshriven into eternity? It is right to give every one their due, and it must be owned that the Buccaneer's footsteps were not always written in dust. He often found a people at war amongst themselves, and tearing each other to pieces. These he brought under subjection and gave them law and order, and if he could have kept his sons from selling strong liquors to them, and teaching them some of the pernicious principles of trade, he would have done very much good, but with his Book he took his bottle, and the latter was more readily received than the former.

It sometimes so happened that the ignorance of the heathen was so great, and their minds so clouded by prejudice, that they misunderstood altogether the nature of the missionary. Experience had taught them that the Buccaneer's Bible was generally the harbinger of the Buccaneer's sword, which he cleared the way for the Buccaneer's man of business, who, it was found, generally got the advantage in any bargain that was made. What wonder then, if the simple children of nature, the gentle savage, mistook food that was meant for the mind, as food meant for the body, and consumed the missionary instead of his teachings? This is an expensive way of converting a people, but it might be expected that a devoured missionary would not be without its effect upon the consumer.

The disposition is naturally affected by the state of the body, the latter by the food that is taken in to nourish it. A violent fit of indigestion might bring on a deep remorse, and then the body would be in a proper state to receive the good seed, which taking root in the heart of one man even, might spring up and spread amongst a whole people.

There is consolation here for those who have lost a friend or relation in the above manner.

By the simple methods thus related the Buccaneer managed to get an outlet for his surplus population, and he then increased his dominions, until it was his boast that the sun never set upon them. There was not a clime too inhospitable for him. He conquered not only the people but every natural disadvantage. His sons too travelled into every land as the bearers of the veneer called civilization. Their footprints could be traced upon the desert sands of Arabia. The ring of their rifles was to be heard in the remotest parts of India; on the wild prairies of America, and on the untrodden plains of Africa. They loved to beard the lion and the tiger in their native lairs; to shoot the alligator on the banks of the Nile, and the wild goats high up on the slopes of the vast snow-capped Himalayas. This to them was a pleasurable recreation, while for pastime they loved to climb the highest ice-bound peaks, and the mangled corpse of some adventurous comrade lying at the foot of some precipice in no way damped their ardour. They recovered the body, sang a pean in praise of his temerity, gently placed him in the tomb of oblivion, where so many good people lie, and then commenced their dangerous climb. They were a brave and adventurous lot were the sons of this bold Buccaneer.

CHAPTER XI.

Our Buccaneer from his earliest times had always kept his Sabbaths in a manner peculiar to himself. He put on his best clothes and a long hat, shut up all his shops but kept open his pot and public houses, and allowed no other recreations than going to church and drinking. Six days had his people to enjoy themselves and his tradesmen to adulterate their different articles of merchandise, the seventh day he decreed should be given up to worship and to pious meditations. All his museums were shut up and all his picture galleries were closed, and his chief city would have been like a city of the dead, if it had not been for the howling mobs that occupied his parks, and other public places, and either shouted sedition or spouted religion. Entire freedom of speech he considered absolutely necessary to the entire freedom of the subject.

Many of his people who were not thus engaged pa.s.sed their time in an inoffensive manner in their favourite pot-house and boosed their holiday away. This from a pecuniary point of view was very much more profitable to the Buccaneer than the opening of any of his museums or libraries; for from drink he derived a goodly income. It is sad, but it must be owned that this rich man had his poor, and where there is poverty there is discontent. The skirts of his garments did trail in the mud. The most distressing thing about this Poverty is that she will bring forth and increase, in an altogether unnecessary manner, thereby providing food for the jail, the hangman, and in the end, the devil.

Some sinned in this respect who ought by example to have taught a better lesson. It was no uncommon thing in the Buccaneer's island for one of his priests to ascend the pulpit, and preach from there the efficacy, and even necessity, of practising self denial. He would then descend from his throne and point a moral to adorn his tale, by marrying and bringing into the world a number of children that he had no visible means of supporting; your priest's quiver is generally full, and he seems at times to have a beautiful faith in G.o.d's mercy. Thinking, perhaps, that as He fed the Israelites in the days of old, so would He feed him and his numerous progeny now, with manna fresh from heaven.

It was said that our Buccaneer frequently forgot to look at home, and raising his eyes over the heads of his own poor, fixed his sympathetic gaze upon other people's. Perhaps he did experience a certain amount of gratification at seeing his name at the head of subscription lists, when any of his neighbours suffered from either fire, famine, or pestilence; and to clothe the naked savage of the sunny south, where clothing, except the smallest amount for decency's sake, is absolutely unnecessary, seemed to be to him a more meritorous action than the mending of the rags of his own poverty stricken people.

Then as if he had not enough poor of his own, all his neighbours paid a flattering tribute to his good nature and generosity, by emptying their human sweepings into his dust bin; until in time his island became--and he prided himself upon the fact--an asylum for all the cut-throats, thieves, blackguards, a.s.sa.s.sins and idiots of the whole world. Madam Liberty had a good deal to say to this. But our Buccaneer, or fighting trader as he had become, was generous even to his own poor in a spasmodic kind of way, and when in his church he heard the oft told story of Dives and Lazarus, it made him sympathetic and opened the bowels of his compa.s.sion, and could he have laid hands upon that rascal Dives he would have been made to suffer. This Dives does not appear, however, to have been a monster of iniquity. The only sin he apparently committed, was to fare sumptuously every day, and clothe himself in fine linen. Who amongst us will not do the same if he has but the chance? Do modern Christians live the life of anchorites? Does Dives never sit at the priest's table? Did the Buccaneer's priesthood, from the head down, eschew fine linen, and even at times gorgeous raiments? Do they turn their faces against the luxury of the table on which delicacies temptingly repose. Suppose the Buccaneer on his way home from his devotions had found Lazarus on his door-step, would he have taken him in? not a bit of it. He would have sent him quickly about his business, and if he did not hurry himself the officer of the law would have been called in and Lazarus would have been marched away as a rogue and vagabond. Would the Buccaneer's high priest or any other of his ecclesiastics have taken Lazarus in and washed his sores; tended to him, and fed him? Yes, yes, but times have changed and the story of Lazarus does very well as an example to hold up before the people for pious admiration, but Lazarus' case does not apply to our present high state of civilization, with all its complex social machinery for the benefit of the poor. The proper place for Lazarus now would be the sick ward of a poor house.

Having thus briefly sketched the early history of our Buccaneer or fighting trader; his conversion, the manufacturing of his religion, and the method he had of persuading the heathen to become Christians, it is necessary to relate how he conducted his business. His old sea-faring instincts stuck to him, and he moored on the river that flowed past his princ.i.p.al city, a ship which he called the Ship of State, and by her side he moored another, which he called his Church Ship, and these two rode side by side and stemmed the current of time.

It could not be said that either of these ships were rapid sailers.

Indeed, both of them were somewhat bluff in the bows, but they were excellent sea boats, and the old Ship of State had weathered many a storm, and had experienced in her day much foul weather. Her figure-head was a crown. Her crew all told numbered some six hundred and seventy hands, and was divided into two watches, Starboard and Port, each having its captain, lieutenants, petty officers, able and very ordinary seamen, cooks, bottle-washers, swabbers, and adventurers. Of the latter there were a goodly few in each watch, and they had but one star to steer by; but that one was of the very first magnitude. These adventurers were a very busy body of men, and by keeping up a great noise, and pushing themselves to the front, they tried very hard to feather their nests, or drop into some well-paid but sinecure office. They were frequently successful.

In the after part of the Ship of State the Buccaneer had placed his second or Upper Chamber, into which he sent all those of his sons who had done well. Here they enjoyed in peace and extreme quiet their well-earned repose. When thus shelved they were given t.i.tles, and were frequently endowed out of the public purse. In early times some of the members of the Upper Chamber had endowed themselves, but there were very few of the old stock left. The principle that our Buccaneer had of promoting his sons to the Upper Chamber was peculiar. It was not based upon personal merit, nor at all times upon services rendered to the State. Success in trade, or fidelity to a party, was generally considered to be, by him, of the very first consideration.

The power that this Upper Chamber once had was extremely great, but now all this had changed, and the old ship was worked entirely, or nearly so, by whichever watch happened to be on duty. Besides, as will be shown, the Upper Chamber had the misfortune to fall under the displeasure of one of the ship's crew.

The Buccaneer dearly loved a lord, no matter whether he was spiritual or temporal, and the women, with few exceptions, adored them without distinction. There is perhaps too much obloquy bestowed upon the toady and tuft hunter. Why should they be so despised? To love and revere the great is surely a commendable action. Are they not the salt of the earth? Sometimes, indeed, the salt has a little lost its flavour, but what then? Much that is good must still remain, to which homage is due.

It is the birthright of those who, by their superior intelligence, wisdom, and virtue, have placed themselves high up on pedestals, for common humanity to bow down and worship them.

Who does not love a lord? This esteem for the great is universal. Even the democratic cheap-Jack Jonathan dearly loved a lord; but as he had none of his own he had to make the most he could out of other people's, and he did. It was thought by many, that such a clever fellow as this Jonathan would not be long without lords of his own; but that he would manufacture a few out of the cheap shoddy that he always had on hand.

The Upper Chamber ought to have been extremely wise, and their councils even inspired, for their deliberations were sanctified and leavened by the presence amongst them of a certain number of Lords Spiritual. This gave a sort of Divine authority to the great affairs of State. The priest's kingdom is not of this world; it is therefore all the more wonderful how in every age, and in every clime, he becomes clothed, hemmed in, and perhaps hampered by temporal power, which no doubt he wears as a garment of sackcloth and ashes.

The Church Hulk, which was moored on that side of the Ship of State away from the sh.o.r.e, was commanded by the Buccaneer's High Priest, one celebrated for his piety and learning. His crew was numerous and very able, though at times a mutinous spirit showed itself on board when the authority of the High Priest was openly defied; but then it must be remembered that the church was a church militant, and the priests true chips of the fighting old Buccaneer block. The power of the Buccaneer's priesthood grew, and waxed in strength, and gained such an influence over him that he was not allowed to do anything scarcely without their sanction, and before he set out on any of his predatory expeditions he always asked the blessing and the prayers of the church, and was very seldom if ever refused. This practice is followed even now amongst brigands, in certain parts. These picturesque cut-throats say their prayers before their favourite shrine, and then sally out, slit a gullet and steal a purse with a clear conscience, and take some of the spoil back--if they be pious brigands--to their favourite shrine.

In time the Buccaneer's State Church became so extremely rich that envious eyes were cast in her direction. Those on board of the old Church Hulk denied her wealth, and they should have known. Some of her crew were poor enough, heaven knows, and the Great Hat was constantly sent round. The priest, he is by nature a beggar. It is perhaps one of the few relics we have of that time, when a pure religion was planted by a small band of mendicants, who had neither shoes upon their feet, nor money in their scrips.

How beautiful is poverty at a distance. Songs have been sung in its praise, but no one likes it. It pinches so, and in the Buccaneer's island it was as the mark of Cain. There is something to be said on its side though, for is it not written? "Happy are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Twice happy are they, for not only is theirs the kingdom of heaven, but they are free from the social parasite who never leaves the rich man alone. One attacks him and begs, because he has a large family born to genteel poverty. Another has a church to be roofed or renovated, or some distressing object of charity which he would willingly hang round the neck of the rich man instead of his own, until the rich man being tormented by a thousand and one importunate beggars of high and low degree, feels inclined to exclaim, "Oh! unhappy indeed am I, for not only is it harder for me to enter the kingdom of heaven, than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, but also on earth I am not unfrequently set upon, and despitefully used by the common and vulgar thief, while the hand of the whole world is against me."

CHAPTER XII.

On the mainmast of the Ship of State, high up above the domes and minarets of the Buccaneer's chief city, he had placed his crow's nest or look-out tub, where the look-out man was stationed. This man had, as a matter of course, the usual number of eyes; but one was an official eye, the vision of which was peculiar; for it could see into far distant lands if so inclined; but if not, there could be no eye more blind, not being able to discover what was going on under the nose placed by nature to its immediate front.

Then the Buccaneer had wonderful inventions, by which he could communicate with all his foreign relations and receive in turn what information it was their pleasure to give.

The way the Buccaneer filled up appointments on board of his Ship of State was peculiar to himself. Adaptability, or knowledge of the particular department, was of little or no consideration in his eyes. If the hole to be filled was a round one, he took a square man and jammed him into it, and left him to fit in as best he could. This might appear difficult, and even detrimental to outsiders, but to those accustomed to the peculiar system, things soon settled down and worked pretty well.