Next morning, October the 1st, they made their final purchases, while the servants accompanied their baggage to the dock to see it safely stowed on board. After an early dinner at their inn they drove out to the Cumberland Basin, where their ship—the Circe, Captain Cummins—was awaiting only the arrival of her passengers to take advantage of a favourable wind, and sail.
With the evening tide, Circe dropped down the river. In the big after-cabin they drank with the Captain to a happy voyage; but long before they landed in the West Indies Roger would have given all he possessed to have exchanged the dangers that beset them, in this ill-fated ship, for another spell of risking his head in Paris during the height of the Terror.
4
Trouble Aboard
At that date there were over fourteen thousand merchantmen sailing the seas under the British flag. The majority of them were between three and five hundred tons burden. The East India Company alone owned a few giants ranging from a thousand to fourteen hundred.
But ‘The Company’ was a thing apart. Its monopoly of trade with India, Ceylon, Burma and China had made it fabulously rich, and its Board of Governors had used its resources wisely to build up a service worthy of their vast private Empire. Youths were enrolled as Cadets only after careful selection, and it was considered every bit as suitable for the younger sons of the nobility to enter the Company’s service as to go into the Navy or study for the Bar. Its officers wore a handsome uniform; to achieve each step in promotion they had to have served for a specified number of voyages, which ensured a reasonable degree of efficiency to hold their ranks. All of them enjoyed the privilege of an agreed amount of cargo space, which enabled them to carry on highly profitable private trading, and the allocation of space to Captains was so considerable that it was not unusual for them to net ten thousand pounds, to split with their backers, out of a single voyage. Officers of the Royal Navy frequently transferred to the Company; its ships were well found in every particular, its seamen were efficient and by special decree immune from the unwelcome attentions of the press-gangs.
Very different was the status of all other ships of the mercantile marine. Strangely enough, to qualify for service as an A.B. in them a stiff examination in practical seamanship had to be passed; but the bulk of their crews was a rabble largely composed of ex-jailbirds or men fleeing the country to escape arrest; and their officers were almost invariably tough customers who had served for many years before the mast. No examination had to be passed to become a mate or master. It was sufficient for an ambitious A.B. to learn the three R’s and a smattering of navigation, then a recommendation from his superiors to the owners was enough to get him a junior berth aft from which in time he might work up to become a Captain. In fact, it was a saying applicable to the retirement of most Merchant Captains that ‘he had gone in at the hawse pipe and come out by the cabin window’. Yet, only too often when such men at last became masters, and answerable to no one during ocean voyages of many weeks, they took to the bottle and lost their ships, their crews and themselves owing to a combination of drunkenness and incompetence.
Captain Cummins of Circe was no better and no worse than many others of his type. He was a rough hard-bitten seaman of fifty odd, who could cope with log, lead and latitude, and for the rest trusted to his long experience of every type of weather. When seas were running high he conscientiously stayed on deck, sometimes for days on end; in periods of calm he often remained in his cabin, also for days on end, moody and half comatose from copious potations of neat rum. His breath was like a furnace, he packed the punch of a mule, his language could be more foul than that of any of his crew, and he maintained discipline among them with ferocious brutality.
Fortunately for his passengers they were called on to do no more than pass the time of day with him. In ‘The Company’s’ ships nouveau riche merchants paid as much as a hundred pounds for the privilege of eating at the Captain’s table throughout the voyage, but in West India men with much more limited accommodation afforded space only for one large table in the after cabin, and the Captain fed in his own.
The Circe was a ship of four hundred and thirty tons, and like most of her class the one big cabin aft was, apart from the decks, the only place in which her passengers could congregate. Their possession of it was exclusive, but it had to be used for all purposes; so at each meal there were two sittings, the servants feeding at the earlier and the quality at the later so that they might linger over their wine if they so desired. Adjacent to the big cabin were twelve smaller ones, the majority of which had double berths, but St. Ermins had made a deal with the owners for the whole of the passenger accommodation; so there was ample room for their baggage in the spare cabins. The passengers’ quarters were well equipped, having port-holes designed for protection from tropical heat. Below them, in the big after cabin, there was a long semi-circular sofa, and mirrors fitted into mahogany wainscoting adorned the walls. In one of the spare cabins a cask had been up-ended and secured to serve as a sea-water bath, and they had brought their own linen. So once they had accustomed themselves to habitual stooping, to avoid knocking their heads on the low beams of the ceilings, they were by no means uncomfortable.
There was, of course, no question of sailing direct to the West Indies. Even in peace time privateers of all nations, not by the score but by the hundred, swarmed in both Europe and American waters, and owing to the war with France they were now more numerous than ever. In consequence, except for specially fast ships, such as the Mail Packets, and other termed ‘runners’, a system of convoys had long been organised.
As the chances of a propitious passage were largely dependent on favourable winds the sailing of convoys was governed by the seasons, and the first winter departure habitually left home waters early in October. Owing to major war commitments the naval protection afforded was decidedly scanty; and usually consisted of no more than two eighteen-gun sloops, which were charged with shepherding anything from sixty to a hundred and twenty in differently-handled and slow-moving merchantmen safely across the Atlantic.
Convoys for the West Indies assembled at Cork, and from first to last several weeks generally elapsed before they were fully mustered. Charles St. Ermins being aware of this had deliberately delayed the departure of his party until it was fairly certain that the bulk of the convoy would have put in an appearance, and that it would be waiting only a fair wind to sail. His timing proved good, as Circe dropped anchor off Cork on October the 3rd, and was delayed there no more than three days. During them the party went ashore and enjoyed the bounteous hospitality of Irish acquaintances who lived in the vicinity. Then on the 6th, with her crew lustily singing sea-shanties, the Circe weighed anchor, hoisted her sails and, in the company of some seventy-five ships, headed for the open ocean.
But, yet again, there was no question of sailing direct to the West Indies. Long experience had shown that, given normal conditions, the quickest passage could be made by a ship buffeting her way down to Madeira, then picking up the North East Trade Winds which ensured a swift and easy crossing of the Atlantic on a curve running from about 35° North to within 15° of the Equator.
On sailing from Cork the convoy set a course South by West, so as to clear Cape Finisterre by a hundred miles; and for the first four days out it enjoyed reasonably good weather. During that time, owing to the very limited area of the Circe’s decks, the passengers got to know most of her crew by sight and all her officers to nod to. She had a crew of forty-two, three mates, a purser, a supercargo and a doctor. Her cargo was mainly shoddy clothes and salt meat, as it was customary for the planters to make presents of these to their negro slaves at Christmas.
With a view to protecting British commerce from foreign competition, numerous laws had been passed, making it illegal for British goods to be exported, or Colonial produce shipped anywhere or re-imported from Britain, in any but British ships, and for a British ship to be manned by any but British subjects. But the breaking away of the North American Colonies, an
d the heavy demand caused by the war for trained seamen to man Naval vessels that had, in the years of peace, been laid up in dry dock, had brought about certain relaxations; notably that the Colonies might trade direct with the newly-independent States, and that the crews of merchant vessels might include a proportion of foreign seamen.
Owing to this comparatively recent departure, the First Mate of the Circe was a stolid Dutchman, and the Purser a lanky Swede, three of the crew were Baits and eight others who had been picked up at Porto Rico on a previous voyage were more or less of Spanish origin.
The Second and Third mates, Jennings and Baird, were ruffians hardly distinguishable from the crew; Wells, the Supercargo, who was carried only to act for the owners of cargo when the ship reached her destination, was a pimply youth suffering from tuberculosis who had undertaken the voyage for his health. Alone among them, the Doctor, a pleasant young Scot named Fergusson, had any pretence to more than a smattering of education.
With all sail set the convoy buffeted its way south. Few of the ships in it were as large as Circe, and although the majority were ship-rigged most of them were only two-masters, and there was a number of schooners and snows among them. On every side for miles around the October sun caught their white canvas against the blue-green of the ocean, making as fine a sea spectacle as one could wish for.
On their first Sunday at sea the Captain took Divine Service; Charles and Roger read the Lessons and all the passengers attended, but not all the ship’s company. It was natural that the Porto Ricans, being Catholics, should absent themselves from a Church of England ceremony, but eight or ten British members of the crew refused to come aft for it and later held a prayer meeting of their own up on the fo’c’s’le.
The meeting was led by one of the quartermasters, named Ephraim Bloggs. He was about thirty years of age and a splendidly built fellow with a shock of short curly black hair. It was obvious too that he was a man of strong personality and much superior to the average run of seamen.
As Roger watched the little group from the distance, he was somewhat perturbed by this schism, which in one sense divided the allegiance of the crew. It was not that he was a bigoted supporter of the Church of England, but because he knew that the so-called British Jacobins found their strongest adherents among Dissenters and often used their meetings to spread revolutionary doctrines.
When he mentioned this to Captain Cummins, the Captain said that he too regarded such meetings as most undesirable; but, as religious tolerance was always observed under the British flag, it was beyond his powers to put a stop to them. He added that Bloggs had been brought up as a blacksmith, and rumour had it that he had fled the country some years before on account of having half-murdered the squire of his village in a fit of ungovernable rage. He had already displayed the violence of his temper in a quarrel with the bos’n and been put in irons for insubordination; but, that apart, he was an excellent seaman, and no quartermaster could be more reliable when doing his trick at the wheel.
It was on the following day, and their fifth out of Cork, that a series of squalls forced the convoy to take in much of its canvas, and as the men hauled on the ropes their gay sea-shanties gave place to more doleful ones.
They were now in the latitude of the Bay of Biscay, and the weather worsened rapidly. By evening visibility was down to half-a-mile and they were running with naked masts before the storm. Georgina and Nell had retired with bouts of queasiness from the unaccustomed motion on the first evening out, but had soon recovered from it. Now both of them, and Amanda and Jenny as well, were prostrate from sea-sickness. Young Clarissa was the only one of the women who remained unaffected. Charles, too, proved a good sailor, but Roger had his work cut out not to succumb. He was not a particularly bad sailor, but lacked his usual confidence in himself when at sea, and from previous experience had a dread of bad weather.
During the night it blew great guns. Long before dawn Roger had given in and lay feebly cursing as he battled with nausea in his narrow cot. The awful rolling and pitching of the vessel apart, Monsieur Pirouet could have not cooked breakfast had he been offered a fortune, Tom was in no condition to serve it, or Charles to eat it; so Clarissa found herself the only candidate for the meal.
Dan, having spent so large a part of his life at sea, could stand up to any weather; so he knocked up a hearty breakfast for her in the passengers’ galley, then stood by catching the various pieces of crockery before they could slide off the table, and watching her with admiration while she ate.
Afterwards she reeled from one cabin to another, doing what she could for the rest of the party, then insisted on going on deck; so Dan took her up to the poop and, from fear she might be swept overboard, belayed her to the mizzen mast with a rope’s end. It was as well that he did, as the deck was heaving from one terrifying angle to another, and every few moments a sea washed over it. Drenched to the skin, her fair hair streaming in the wind, she remained there all the morning, and later told her friends that never in her life had she more enjoyed an experience.
For the three days that followed, the others lay prone in their cabins. Young Dr. Fergusson, Clarissa and Dan did what they could for them, but there was little that could be done. Each time the ship rushed up a mountain-side of water they held their breaths, then as it plunged into a seemingly bottomless valley they felt as though they were leaving their insides behind. Their groans were smothered by the thunder of the storm, the sheeting rain, and the ankle-deep water that slapped and hissed about the floors of their cabins. The wind screamed through the rigging, the timbers groaned; at times the ship, caught by a cross-wave, shuddered as though she was about to fall apart, while every hour or two there came a resounding crash as some spar snapped and fell, or a boat was stove in. They were in constant fear that each new crisis would prove the last, and their terrors were multiplied from the knowledge that, so exhausted were they from constant retching, should the ship begin to founder they would be incapable of making any effort to save themselves.
Although they did not know it, their apprehensions were well justified, as the tempest was driving the ship towards the coast of Portugal and had it continued unabated for a few more hours she must have been smashed to pieces on the rocks. On the fourth afternoon, by the grace of God, the weather eased, visibility became sufficient for the Captain to see the coast, and by setting the foresail they were able to veer away from it.
The convoy had been so completely dispersed that only one of Circe’s companions was now in sight; a brig that had lost both her top and top-gallant masts. Circe was in little better case as only her foremast remained intact; nearly all her upper yards were gone, and the decks were still a tangle of top hamper that had been hacked away in a series of emergencies. One of her crew had been swept overboard, another killed by a failing spar, and two more severely injured. Both captains decided to put into Lisbon, and their ships limped down to the port, arriving there to the relief of all on October the 15th.
Two other ships of the convoy were already there and three more made the port during the next twenty-four hours; but four of the five were so severely damaged that major repairs would prevent them from leaving for some time, and neither of the escort ships was among them. However, a Portuguese man-of-war was due to leave with a small convoy for Madeira on the 20th and Captain Cummins decided to make every effort to get Circe into condition to accompany it. Extra labour was engaged and from dawn to dusk for the next four days the ship was a pandemonium of hammering, sawing, clanking and shouting as new gear was rigged.
To escape the din, although hardly yet recovered, the passengers went ashore and the October sunshine soon revived their spirits. Forty years earlier Lisbon had suffered the worst earthquake of modern times. The greater part of the city had been thrown to the ground, the whole of the harbour and all the shipping in it had been totally engulfed and 40,000 people had perished in the space of a few hours. But the Portuguese had tackled this terrible calamity with great courage, and from the rubbl
e a fine new capital had soon arisen which contained many beautiful buildings.
The travellers were filled with admiration as they strolled across Rolling-Stone Square, and on the third day they made an excursion to Cintra where they thoroughly enjoyed a meal eaten on a vine-covered terrace and washed down with new-made wine. Their joy in this brief respite from the confined quarters of the Circe was only marred by the news which kept coming in of other ships of their convoy which had been wrecked on the coast. At least nine had been pounded to pieces on the rocks and it was certain that others had foundered in the terrible storm; so they felt that they had been very lucky to escape with nothing worse than the considerable damage the sea water had done to their clothes and other belongings.
On the 20th the Circe, and one schooner that had arrived in the Tagus shortly after her, set sail with the Portuguese convoy. The weather was now fair, but the winds, as was to be expected at this season, were still contrary. Again the ships tacked in long sweeps from side to side, rarely making more than two miles an hour in the direction of their destination. Then, on the fourth day out from Lisbon, trouble started on board the Circe. A deputation of the crew led by Ephraim Bloggs came aft to protest about the badness of the food.
As Roger later found out, the complaint was fully justified; but the passengers knew nothing about it until they saw Bloggs strung up to a grating, and learned that he was about to be given fifty lashes with the cat. According to Captain Cummins, when the deputation had been told that nothing could be done Bloggs had had to be restrained by the older men from attacking him; so an example must be made by disciplining him severely.
The Dark Secret of Josephine Page 7
