Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
The Log of a Privateersman
By Harry Collingwood________________________________________________________________________Another cleverly written and interesting book by this prolific author ofbooks about the sea for teenage boys. The time of the story is the verybeginning of the nineteenth century, at which time the British were atwar with France. The task of a privateersman is to act as a licensedpirate, preying on enemy ships. The hero is very successful at allthis, and eventually is offered a permanent commission in the RoyalNavy. Makes a good audiobook.________________________________________________________________________THE LOG OF A PRIVATEERSMAN
BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD
CHAPTER ONE.
THE CAPTURE OF THE WEYMOUTH--AND WHAT IT LED TO.
The French probably never did a more audacious thing than when, on thenight of October 26th, 1804, a party of forty odd of them left thelugger _Belle Marie_ hove-to in Weymouth Roads and pulled, with muffledoars, in three boats, into the harbour; from whence they succeeded incarrying out to sea the newly-arrived West Indian trader _Weymouth_,loaded with a full cargo of rum, sugar, and tobacco. The expedition wasadmirably planned, the night chosen being that upon which the new moonoccurred; it was a dismal, rainy, and exceptionally dark night, with astrong breeze blowing from the south-west; the hour was about twoo'clock a.m.; there was an ebb tide running; and the ship--which hadonly arrived late in the afternoon of the previous day--was the outsidevessel in a tier of three; the Frenchman had, therefore, nothingwhatever to do but to cut the craft adrift and allow her to glide,silent as a ghost, down the harbour with bare poles, under the combinedinfluence of the strong wind and the ebb tide. There was not a soulstirring about the quays at that hour; nobody, therefore, saw the shipgo out; and the two custom-house officers and the watchman--the onlyEnglishmen aboard her--were fast asleep, and were secured before theyhad time or opportunity to raise an alarm. So neatly, indeed, was thetrick done that the first intimation poor old Peter White--the owner ofthe ship and cargo--had of his loss was when, at the first streak ofdawn, he slipped out of bed and went to the window to gloat over thesight of the safely-arrived ship, moored immediately opposite his housebut on the other side of the harbour, where she had been berthed uponher arrival on the previous afternoon. The poor old gentleman couldscarcely credit his eyes when those organs informed him that the berth,occupied but a few hours previously, was now vacant. He looked, andlooked, and looked again; and finally he caught sight of the ropes bywhich the _Weymouth_ had been moored, dangling in the water from thebows and quarters of the ships to which she had been made fast. Then aninkling of the truth burst upon him, and, hastily donning his clothes,he rushed downstairs, let himself out of the house, and sped like amadman down the High Street, across Hope Square, and so on to the Nothe,in the forlorn hope that the ship, which, with her cargo, representedthe bulk of the savings of a lifetime, might still be in sight. And tohis inexpressible joy she was; not only so, she was scarcely two milesoff the port, under sail, and heading for the harbour in company with aBritish sloop-of-war. She had been recaptured, and ere the news of heraudacious seizure had reached the ears of more than a few of thetownspeople she was back again in her former berth, and safely moored bychains to the quay.
It was clear to me, and to the rest of the _Weymouth's_ crew, when wemustered that same morning to be paid off, that the incident hadinflicted a terribly severe shock upon Mr White's nerves. The poor oldboy looked a good ten years older than when he had boarded us in theroads on the previous afternoon and had shaken hands with Captain Winteras he welcomed him home and congratulated him upon having successfullyeluded the enemy's cruisers and privateers; but there was a fierceglitter in his eyes and a firm, determined look about his mouth which I,for one, took as an indication that the fright, severe as it undoubtedlywas, had not quelled the old man's courage.
The capture of the ship by the Frenchmen occurred during the early hoursof a Friday morning; and on the following Tuesday evening I received amessage from Mr White, asking me to call upon him, at his office, nextday at noon. Punctual to the moment, I presented myself, and was atonce ushered into the old gentleman's private sanctum, where I found myemployer seated at his desk, with several bundles of papers lying beforehim. He shook hands with me very cordially, and signed to me to beseated.
"Let me see, George," he commenced. "Your indentures will soon expire,will they not?"
"Yes, Mr White," I answered. "I shall be out of my time on thesixteenth of next month."
"Just so; just so. I thought that they would have about a month to run;but have been too busy the last few days to ascertain the precise date.Well, George," he continued, "I have come to the conclusion that the_Weymouth_ must be laid up, for the present at all events. Her capturethe other night has opened my eyes more completely than they have everbeen opened before, to the risk of working an unarmed ship during war-time. Were I to continue to do so, and the ship should happen to becaptured, it would go far toward ruining me; and I am too old to enduresuch a loss; so I have made up my mind to lay up the _Weymouth_ whilethe war lasts. But there is good money to be made, even in war-time, ifa man goes the right way to work. Privateering is a very profitablebusiness when it can be carried on successfully; and success depends asmuch as anything upon the kind of men employed. I have been having achat with Captain Winter upon the subject, with the result that I havepurchased the schooner that they are now finishing off in Martin'sbuilding-yard; and I intend to fit her out as a privateer; that beingthe kind of work, in fact, that she has been especially built for.Captain Winter will have the command of her, of course, with Mr Lovellas chief mate; and, George, upon the captain's very strongrecommendation, I have determined to offer you the berth of second mate.It will take more than a month to complete the schooner and fit her forsea; and by that time your indentures will have expired. Captain Wintergives you a most excellent character, and has recommended you for theberth; and from what I have seen of you, my lad, I have come to theconclusion that I shall not go very far wrong in giving it to you. Nay,you owe me no thanks, boy; you have earned the refusal of the offer byyour steadiness and industry, so it is yours, freely, if you like tohave it. I do not want you to make up your mind and answer me yea ornay upon the spur of the moment; take a little time to consider thematter if you like, and let me know by the end of the week."
I needed no time for consideration, however; the offer was altogethertoo good and advantageous in every way to be left hanging in thebalance, as it were. I therefore thankfully accepted it on the spot,and the question of pay and prize-money then being gone into and settledupon a very satisfactory basis, so far as I was concerned, I took myleave, and hurried off home to acquaint my relatives with my goodfortune.
Now the reader will have gathered from the foregoing that at the periodof the opening of my story I was a sailor, and quite a young man; andprobably I need say but little more to complete the acquaintance thusbegun.
My name is George Bowen, and I was the only son of my father, CaptainBowen, who was believed to have been drowned at sea--his ship neverhaving been heard of after leaving England for the South Seas--when Iwas a little chap of only six years old. My sister Dora was born justabout the time that it was supposed my father must have perished, and ayear later my poor mother died, broken-hearted at the loss of a husbandthat she positively idolised. Thus, we two--Dora and I--were leftorphans at a very early age, and were forthwith taken into the motherlycare of Aunt Sophie, who had no children of her own. Poor Aunt Sophie!I am afraid I led her a terrible life; for I was, almost from my birth,a big, strong, high-spirited boy, impatient of control, and resolute tohave my own way. But Dor
a--ah! Dora, with her sweet, dociledisposition, made ample amends for all my shortcomings, and in the end,by her gentle persuasiveness, did much to subdue my rebellious spiritand render me amenable to domestic discipline.
We were both exceptionally well educated, as education went then; forUncle Jack--Aunt Sophie's husband--was a clever, long-headed fellow, whobelieved that it was not possible for a man to know too much; so Dora,in addition to receiving a sound English education, was taught French,music, and, in fact, the general run of what was then known as"accomplishments", while I, in addition also to a good sound Englisheducation, was taught French, Latin, and mathematics, includinggeometry, algebra, and trigonometry. I was allowed to continue atschool until my fourteenth birthday, when, in consequence of my strongpredilection for the sea as a profession, I was apprenticed by UncleJack to Mr White for a period of seven years. The first year of myapprenticeship was spent aboard a collier, trading between the Tyne andWeymouth; then I was transferred for three years to a Levant trader; andfinally I was promoted--as I considered it--into the _Weymouth_, WestIndiaman, which brings me back to the point from whence this bit ofexplanation started.
The modest cottage which I called home was situated in the picturesquelittle village of Wyke; I had therefore a walk of some two miles beforeme when I left Mr White's office; and as I sped along the road Ibeguiled the way by building the most magnificent of castles in the air.After the brief peace of Amiens, war had again broken out in May of thepreceding year; and everybody was of opinion that the struggle whichthen commenced was destined to be of quite exceptional duration andseverity. Then, again, it was well-known that Spain was only waitingfor a sufficiently plausible pretext to declare war against us; and thatpretext, it was believed, would be found in the capture by a Britishsquadron of the three Spanish treasure-ships _Medea_, _Clara_, and_Fama_, news of which had just reached England. All this was of coursesimply disastrous from a commercial point of view; but for navy men andprivateersmen it opened up a long vista of opportunities to win bothdistinction and fortune; for it gave us the marine commerce of threerich and powerful nations--France, Holland, and Spain--as a lawful prey.Fortunes of almost fabulous magnitude had been made by luckyprivateersmen during the last war; and was there not even then living inWeymouth the heroic Captain Tizard, who had captured a Spanish Plateship and sailed into Plymouth Sound with his prize in tow, and a massivegold candlestick glittering at each mast-head? And if others had donesuch things, why not we? I knew Captain Winter for a man who not onlyhad every detail of his profession at his fingers' ends, but who alsocombined the highest courage with the nicest discretion and a subtletyof resource that had already served us in good stead on more than oneoccasion. Then there was Robert Lovell, our chief mate, late of the_Weymouth_. He, like the captain, was a finished seaman; bold as alion; and knew exactly how to deal with a crew, encouraging those whodid their duty, while the idle skulkers found in him a terrible enemy.
Our late second mate--a man named Penrose, who had only been one voyagewith us--had not given the skipper satisfaction; he had proved to beuntrustworthy, overbearing, obstinate, unscrupulous, and altogetherobjectionable, so I was not at all surprised to find that he had beenpassed over; but it was a surprise, and a most agreeable one, too, tolearn that the captain had recommended me in place of him. It was aresponsible post, more so even than that of second mate in an ordinarytrader; but I had no fear of myself, and was quite determined to leavenothing undone to justify "the old man's" recommendation.
Thus pondering, I soon found myself at home. Truth compels me to admitthat I was greatly disappointed with the reception that my good news metwith at the hands of Aunt Sophie and Dora. Instead of congratulating methey wept! wept because I was so soon to leave them again, and becauseof the dangerous character of my new berth! They declared theirconviction that I should be killed by the first enemy that we mighthappen to fall in with; or, if I were fortunate enough to escape death,that I should be brought home to them a miserable, helpless cripple,minus a leg and arm or two, and all that Uncle Jack and I could sayfailed to shake that conviction. Dora even went so far as to endeavourto coax me to decline the berth; and only desisted upon myrepresentation that, were I so foolish as to do so, I should inevitablybe snapped up by the press-gang. That, and the indisputable fact--whichthey appeared to have forgotten--that there were at least a dozen men inWeymouth alone who had gone through the whole of the last war withoutreceiving so much as a scratch, brought them to regard the mattersomewhat more resignedly; and at length, when they had all but criedthemselves blind, Uncle Jack's cheery and sanguine arguments began totell upon them so effectually, that they dried their tears and announcedtheir determination to hope for the best.
Strange to say, although I had been at home six days, I had hithertobeen so busy, running about with Dora and calling upon a rather numerouscircle of friends that, up to the time of receiving Mr White's offer, Ihad not found time to do more than just become aware of the fact thatMr Joe Martin, our local ship-builder, happened to have a very finecraft upon the stocks, well advanced toward completion. Now, however,that it had come about that I was to serve on board that same craft as"dickey", I was all impatience to see what she was like; so, the nextday happening to be fine, I set off, the first thing after breakfast,and, walking in to Weymouth, made my way straight to the shipyard. As Ireached the gates I caught my first near view of her, and stoodentranced. She was planked right up to her covering-board, and whileone strong gang of workmen was busy fitting her bulwarks, another gang,upon stages, was hard at work caulking her, a third gang under herbottom, having apparently just commenced the operation of coppering.She was, consequently, not presented to my view in her most attractiveguise; nevertheless, she being entirely out of the water, I was able tonote all her beauties, and I fell in love with her on the spot. She wasa much bigger craft than I had expected to see; measuring, as I waspresently told, exactly two hundred and sixty-six tons. She was veryshallow, her load-line being only seven feet above the lowest part ofher unusually deep keel, but this was more than counterbalanced by herextraordinary breadth of beam. She had a very long, flat floor, and,despite her excessive beam, her lines were the finest that I had everseen--and that is saying a great deal, for I had seen in the West Indiessome of the most speedy slavers afloat. Altogether she impressed me asa vessel likely to prove not only phenomenally fast but also a perfectsea-boat. She was pierced for four guns of a side, with two stern-chasers; and there was a pivot on her forecastle for a long eighteen-pounder; she would therefore carry an armament formidable enough toenable us to go anywhere and do anything--in reason. Having thoroughlyinspected her from outside, and gone down under her bottom, I next mademy way on board, and went down below to have a look at her interioraccommodation. This I found to be everything that could possibly bedesired; the arrangements had evidently been carefully planned with aview to securing to the crew the maximum possible amount of comfort; thecabins were large, and as lofty as the shallow depth of the vessel wouldallow; there was every convenience in the state-rooms in the shape ofdrawers, lockers, sofas, folding tables, shelves, cupboards, and so on;and the living quarters were not only light, airy, and comfortable, butwere being finished off with great taste and considerable pretensions toluxury. While I was prowling about below I encountered Harry Martin,the son of the builder, who told me that Mr White, when completing thepurchase of the vessel, had given instructions that no reasonableexpense was to be spared in making the craft as thoroughly suitable aspossible for the service of a privateer. I spent fully two hours onboard, prying into every nook and cranny of the vessel, and makingmyself thoroughly familiar with the whole of her interior arrangements,and then left, well satisfied with my prospects as second mate of sosmart and comfortable a craft.
As I was crossing Hope Square, toward the foot of Scrambridge Hill, onmy way home again, I met Captain Winter, who, after congratulating meupon my appointment, informed me that he had secured _carte blanche_from the owner as to
the number of the crew, and that he was determinedto have the vessel strongly manned enough to enable her to keep at seaeven after sending away a prize crew or two. He was therefore anxiousto secure as many good men as possible, and he suggested that I couldnot better employ my spare time than in looking about for such, andsending to him as many as I could find. This I did; and as the skipperand Mr Lovell, the chief mate, were both industriously engaged in thesame manner, we contrived, by the time that the schooner was ready forsea, to scrape together a crew of ninety men, all told--a largeproportion of whom were Portlanders,--as fine fellows, for the mostpart, as ever trod a plank.
The schooner was launched a fortnight from the day upon which I hadfirst visited her, and as she slid off the ways Joe Martin's youngestdaughter christened her, giving her the name of the _Dolphin_. She waslaunched with her two lower-masts in, and was at once taken up theharbour and moored opposite Mr White's warehouse, where the work ofrigging her and getting her guns and stores on board was forthwithcommenced. Thenceforward I was kept busy every day, assisting theskipper and Mr Lovell in the task of fitting-out; and so diligently didwe work that by mid-day of the 26th of November the _Dolphin_ was allataunto and ready for sea. And a very handsome, rakish, and formidablecraft she looked, as she lay alongside the quay, her enormously long anddelicately-tapering masts towering high above the warehouse roof; herwide-spreading yards, extending far over the quay, accurately squared;her standing and running rigging as taut and straight as iron bars; herten long nine-pounders grinning beneath her triced-up port-lids; herbrightly-polished brass long eighteen-pounder mounted upon herforecastle; her spacious deck scraped and scoured until it was as whiteas snow; and her new copper and her black topsides gleaming andshimmering in the gently-rippling tide. Day after day, as the work offitting-out progressed, the quay was crowded with people who came downto watch our operations and admire the schooner; and so favourable wasthe impression she created that, had we been in want of men, we couldhave secured volunteers in plenty from among the idlers who spent dayafter day alongside, watching us at work, and speculating amongthemselves--with their hands in their pockets--as to the measure ofsuccess that our bold venture was likely to meet with.
When we knocked off work at noon, to go to dinner, our work wascompleted; and as Mr White had taken care to secure our letters-of-marque in good time, it was determined that the _Dolphin_ should proceedto sea that same evening, the crew having already signed articles, andbeen warned to hold themselves in readiness for a start at a moment'snotice. As for me, my traps were already on board, and nicely arrangedin my cabin--my sister Dora having, with her usual tenderness ofaffection, insisted upon attending to this matter herself--there wastherefore nothing for me to do but to go home, say good-bye, and rejointhe ship. This ceremony I had always found to be a most painfulbusiness; but it was especially so in the present case; for I was notonly once more about to brave the ordinary perils incidental to asailor's life, but was, in addition, to be exposed to the still greaterhazards involved in battle with the enemy. Poor Dora and my aunt werebut too well aware, from the experience of others in the last war, whatthese hazards were; they knew how many men had gone out from theirhomes, hale, strong, and full of enthusiasm, either to find death intheir first engagement, or to be brought back, sooner or later, maimed,helpless, and physically ruined for the remainder of their lives; and,as tender, loving women will, they anticipated one or another of theseevils for me, and were therefore distressed beyond all hope of comfort.Nor could I shut my eyes to the possibility that their forebodings mightcome true, and that I might therefore be looking upon their dear facesfor the last time. To bid them farewell, therefore, and tear myselffrom their clinging arms was a most painful business; and it was notuntil I had returned to the _Dolphin_, and was busying myself about thefinal preparations for our departure, that I was able in some degree torecover my equanimity and get rid of the troublesome lump that wouldkeep rising in my throat.
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