by John Drake
FLETCHER’S GLORIOUS 1ST OF JUNE
JOHN DRAKE
© John Drake 1993
John Drake has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1993 by New English Library under the pen name J C Edwards.
This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
For my favourite mother and father — in law
Introduction
The lewd and depraved substance of much that the ogre obliged me to set down, must ever be a source of shame to one whose aspirations inclined towards holy orders.
(Samuel Pettit, 5th June 1877.)
*
Following the success of Fletcher’s Fortune I have been asked to say a little more about the Journals from which the Fletcher series is drawn, and about Mr Pettit, the clerk employed by Jacob Fletcher to take down the story of his adventures.
As regards Pettit, the above quotation from a letter to his cousin Ariadne sums up his attitude to Fletcher and the memoirs better than anything I can say. Pettit was eventually ordained into the Anglican clergy some time during the latter half of 1877. He became a parish priest in Liverpool where he devoted himself to good works among the city’s poor, especially indigent sailors. He married Ariadne in 1881 and they had four children.
As in the first book, I have left Pettit’s footnotes as he wrote them, without comment. Also, at the beginning of Chapter 12, I have left his quaint warning of what follows next. What Pettit found so objectionable in this section is hard to fathom since the passage which presumably upset him is far from being the only piece of erotica in the Journals. Furthermore, it is obvious that the passage was a favourite with somebody, and the volume falls open at that place. One can only speculate as to who this person might have been.
The memoirs themselves are in twenty-five volumes, uniformly bound in dark blue leather, embossed with the word “Fletcher” with a roman numeral and the Admiralty’s “fouled anchor” emblem. The paper is of imperial quarto size.
The first twelve volumes are in Pettit’s own immaculate hand, but the rest are typed on one of the early Remington typewriters, specially imported from the U.S.A. for this purpose.
The present binding dates from the early 1900s since the originals were badly damaged when a determined effort was made to destroy them by that early feminist and founder of the Empire League for Female Suffragism, Lady Evangeline Hyde-Fletcher, who in March of 1900 ordered her head gardener to burn them on a bonfire. But somebody, probably Lady Evangeline’s husband, Rear-Admiral Sir Jacob Hyde-Fletcher (Fletcher’s great-great-grandson) rescued the volumes and had them re-bound.
As in Fletcher’s Fortune I have improvised chapters between the run of Fletcher’s narrative, drawing for my information on the papers in my growing archive of Fletcher memorabilia. I stress that these third-person chapters are my invention, though based on careful research.
J C Edwards (Ph.D., BS.c., April 1992)
1
Hubert Spry. 28th August. Five minutes and thirty seconds. Only moderate sport.
(From Victor Coignwood’s Book of Extra-ordinaries for 1794.)
*
The sun beat down, the birds sang, the sky was blue and the crowds were out in their thousands. Voraciously Lady Sarah Coignwood drank in the sights and sounds of the merry multitude, surrounding the expensive hired carriage where she and Victor were seated. It was late August of 1793 and in one short month Lady Sarah’s entire world had turned on its head. But today she was happy, enjoying a holiday from hiding in the shabby, grubby house in Greenwich, owned by her brother Admiral Lord Williams.
She smiled happily as balladeers bawled out the latest songs, jugglers juggled, piemen clanged their bells, old women hawked gin at a penny a nip, red-faced musicians fought to outplay each other and the dear innocent little children wrestled in the dust, pummelling each other’s faces.
Of course, she had to keep somewhat in the shadows of the carriage interior as her disguise as a lady’s maid might not stand close inspection. She’d already recognised several faces among the fashionable ladies and gentlemen in nearby carriages, so they might well recognise her if they got too good a look. But this was a small price to pay and even added to the thrill of the occasion.
She turned to her Victor, her younger son, whose disguise was more elaborate than hers, since he was attired as a lady of fashion — a little pleasure of his that he loved to indulge.
“Victor,” she sighed, “you are so good to me. You know that nothing so lifts my spirits as a day such as this.”
“My pleasure is to serve,” said he.
“You really are my dearest boy,” said she.
“Thank you, Mother,” said he, “but it is the Good Lord to whom we owe the sunshine.”
“Yes,” she said, “but I do hate to see an occasion spoiled by bad weather. Everyone is so miserable.” Impulsively she threw her arms around her son and kissed him, and they laughed and giggled together like the innocent girls that they were not.
At that moment, there came a sudden hum of anticipation from the crowd.
“Dearest!” said Victor. “It begins,” and mother and son turned to the day’s sport.
The small procession came out through the gate in the walls which gave access to the high wooden stage erected in front of the building to keep everything above the crowd and yet in plain sight. Victor, the aficionado, pointed out the various dignitaries to his mother and explained their part in the proceedings.
“Ah!” said she. “What a fine thing it is to see these ancient customs upheld.”
Then came a deep roar from the mob. A huge, bestial, upswel-ling howl of delight and derision as, here at last, came the principal performer, pale and grim, bareheaded in an open-neck shirt, and with a turnkey leading him by either arm. He shrank at the hostility of the crowd and the spattering of missiles that curved up towards him. The height of the platform protected him from stones and clods, but nothing could save him from the ghastly sight of the gallows crossbeam with its dangling noose, for that stood boldly in front of him on the scaffold outside Newgate Prison.
“Watch most carefully now,” said Victor pointing at the doomed figure. “There!” he cried and a shudder of unholy pleasure ran through Lady Sarah as she saw the sick horror overwhelm the victim. He staggered visibly and his head sank upon his breast.
Close beside the condemned man strode the Chaplain-in-Ordinary of the prison. His was a most important part in the proceedings and he was fully conscious of it. He held up his Bible for the condemned to see, and thundered out scripture as if Lucifer were in the very act of clambering upon the scaffold to rob the hangman of his meat.
As they came beneath the very shadow of the great beam, the Ordinary gave the Twenty-third Psalm. He always did at this juncture. For one th
ing he was fond of it and for another it was exceedingly apt.
“Yea though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,” he boomed, “I shall fear no evil!” He shook his head emphatically, “For THOU art with me!” He jabbed a finger at Heaven, “Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me ...” The mob knew the Chaplain and gave him the cheers that this fine performance deserved. Afterwards, he would acknowledge them, like the great actor Garrick (whom he’d so much admired in the ‘60s) taking his applause at Drury Lane. But meanwhile, the good Chaplain concentrated upon delivering spiritual comfort to the condemned man. And he delivered it at the top of his voice. That way, if he couldn’t save a soul, at least he could drown out the hoary old favourites that the crowd so loved to shout at his wretched one-man congregation.
“Tired, old cove? We’ll soon take the weight off yer feet!”
“You’ll find it comfortabler going back inside, cocky: you’ll be lying down!”
“Hang on yer legs for a shillin’, mister?”
“Mind the rope don’t break, cully. You could have a nasty fall!”
Unfortunately, these efforts of the Chaplain and mob were all wasted, for at this stage in the game, the victim’s senses were obliterated by terror and he’d not have noticed anything short of King George himself riding up, in crown and coronation robes, waving a pardon in his fist.
And so to the business itself. The turnkeys stood back. The hangman stood forward. The crowd bawled its approval and the hangman gravely acknowledged them. The condemned was placed upon the trap and the hangman pinioned the hands and feet. He asked for a dying confession and a massive silence fell as thousands strained to hear. But no words came as strength died in the victim’s limbs. The turnkeys held him up and the hangman covered the head with a white cap. The hangman set the noose and stepped back and his assistant knocked out the prop beneath the trap.
And so, the victim fell the few feet of the short drop and began to choke as prescribed by law. The legs kicked, the shoulders wrenched and the chest heaved to suck air through the crushed windpipe. The white cap, clumsily put on, rode up, revealing the contorted and purple face with its throttling, slobbering mouth. The tongue flapped and the eyes bulged as if they’d pop. The body spun on the end of the swaying line like a hooked fish. It jerked and bent and shuddered.
In her comfortable carriage, so conveniently placed for a good view (thanks to Victor’s foresight and the expenditure of a large sum of money) Lady Sarah watched, transported in fascination. She could not believe how long it took a hanged man to die. In point of fact, however, and by Victor’s watch, all movement ceased after five minutes and thirty seconds.
“A modest performance,” he said, jotting down the details in a pretty little notebook kept for the purpose. “I’ve seen them last fifteen minutes.”
Lady Sarah sighed and shook her head.
“Why have I never seen this before?” she said.
“You’d never come!” protested Victor. “I’ve told you a thousand times what sport it is. And it was even better in the good old days at Tyburn, with the cart and the procession.” He shook his head in sorrow, “But alas those days are gone for ever.” He gestured at the dangling figure. “A hanging isn’t half the fun it used to be.”
“None the less,” she said, “never doubt that I shall come again!” She smiled happily. “What happens now?” she asked.
“Nothing really,” said Victor. “He’ll stay up a while, until they’re quite, quite sure he’s dead. The town’s full of tricksters claiming to have been cut down alive and …”
“Who is that man?” she said, interrupting, “there, addressing the hangman.” She pointed at an immaculately-dressed man, all in black with a tall round hat, who had come forward from among the officials on the scaffold to shake hands with the executioner. What caught the eye was the air of authority about him. The hangman was behaving like a schoolboy brought before his headmaster, and the turnkeys doffed their hats in deepest respect.
“He?” said Victor, in great surprise. “Surely you know him, my darling? Everybody knows him.”
“Everybody who moves in these circles,” she said, indicating the mob with an elegant hand. “But I lack your familiarity with such society, my dear.”
Victor winced. The smile on his mother’s lovely face was like the flowers of spring, but he knew a sneer when he heard it.
“It’s Slym, the thief-taker,” he said. “He is a most remarkable man.”
“In what respect is he remarkable?” she asked, and as Victor explained, she listened with growing interest.
Later that evening, back in her brother’s safe, dull house in Greenwich, Lady Sarah’s imagination was running hot and running down dangerous channels. She was elated by the day’s freedom but eaten with fury at what circumstances had done to her in the last few weeks.
Instead of enjoying the vast fortune left by her husband, Sir Henry Coignwood, she’d had to fight (unsuccessfully as it turned out) to keep the money — money that was hers by right — out of the hands of Sir Henry’s bastard son, Jacob Fletcher. And all she’d got for her efforts was the death of her favourite son Alexander and a charge of murder that had caused her and Victor, her younger son, to flee Coignwood Hall one jump ahead of the law. She and Victor were now fugitives and but for the charity of her elderly brother they’d even now be hiding under a hedge in some field or other.
Fortunately, the old man doted on her and when she and Victor arrived on his doorstep, late one night, she’d easily persuaded him to hide them here in the Greenwich house, safely outside the busy heart of London. She’d thought it better to keep him under her own hand too, and so she made him turn out his servants and close his town house to come down here to Greenwich. The old fool was sunk in illness and senility and couldn’t be trusted to hold his tongue.
She looked about the decayed sitting room, poorly lit by its dirty windows and mouldering curtains, and sighed with the irony of it. She had plenty of ready money, thanks to her brother, and yet she had to live like this!
Certainly there was no question of moving to her own magnificent house in Dulwich Square. Even without the fear of being recognised and arrested, she couldn’t go there. Since London learned she’d got nothing from her husband’s Will, Dulwich Square had been besieged by creditors. The place was buried in debt.
As a woman of active appetites, she was driven to desperation by being locked up in this miserable house, with only Victor and two servants for company — them and her bedridden brother. Above all, it was the loneliness of it that she could not bear. She’d always been surrounded by admirers and comforters, by lovers and hangers-on. It was more than she could bear and the more she thought over the day’s events and the temporary return to the real world, the more there grew within her a mad desire to send for her coach, to dress in her finest gown and go through London for all to see. It would be worth it for the pleasure of being among the things that she knew and cherished.
It was only by the narrowest of margins that she chose to do something else instead. Something that would more directly begin the fight against those who had wronged her, and against one of those in particular. But first, she spoke to Victor and asked his advice.
I like Americans and I like their country. I like the people for their enterprise and their energy and I like the country because an Englishman can step ashore there and not be surrounded by bloody foreigners gibbering nineteen-to-the-dozen, smelling of garlic and waving their arms about. Foreigners are a curse and there should be a law against ‘em. But Americans are kindred folk and not at all to be considered as foreigners, within the meaning of the word. Consequently if, God forbid, I couldn’t be English, then I should certainly want to be American.
Let that stand as my natural attitude towards the Yankees. But since I turned my back on the Coignwood inheritance in order to make my own money, I’ve had a special dislike for anybody who tries to take it from me. So when an American privateer chases me across the high sea
s with intent to do precisely that, then I may take a different view. Especially I may when he gives me grape and roundshot from a British-made carronade 18-pounder and the best gun on my ship is an old brass nine, drooping at the muzzle from over-ring.
I date my career as an independent merchant from 3rd August 1793 when I signed on as Second Mate aboard the West Indiaman, Bednal Green. She was a Blackwall-built, ship-rigged vessel of 350 tons; 98 feet long in the hull, with 27 feet at the beam, and an 18-foot depth in hold. Smaller and cheaper to run than a massive East Indiaman, you could sail her round the world with fifteen hands and bring her home with a cargo worth a fortune. She was as fine an example of an ocean-going merchantman as you’d find on the seven seas.
She was fitted out as a slaver, for the triangular trade with Africa and the West Indies, and so she had to be able to defend herself. To that end, she had 10 gun-ports a side and mounted a mixture of 4- and 6-pounders, with a single 9-pounder brass gun in the bow. And to give enough hands to work the guns, if need be, she left London with a crew of thirty-nine, counting two boys, the ship’s cat and a dago savage from the Brazils.
The deal I made with Captain Horace Jenkins, the master and owner of Bednal Green, was that I should buy a £100 share of his outward-bound cargo for an equivalent share of the final profits at London prices. As a fringe benefit, he promised to instruct me in celestial navigation.
He did too, by lunar as well as by clock. Not many merchant ships had chronometers aboard in those days because of the high cost of the instrument. But old Horace was worth a pound or two, and had invested in one for the greater certainty it allowed of an accurate landfall. But what a puff it all was, this “Art and Mysterie” of navigation! A trained monkey could take angles with a sextant. And as for the calculations, why, they’re tedious certainly, but there’s nothing difficult about them. I used to do them in my head. I don’t know what all the fuss was about.** (The words “lunar” and “clock” are disdainful references to methods for finding longitude. In the former, sextant measurements of angles between the moon and certain stars were referred to tables, leading to calculations that, in practice, proved too complex for many mariners. In the latter, sextant measurements of the sun’s angle over the horizon at noon were compared with tables of the sun’s angle at Greenwich, at the equivalent Greenwich time given by chronometer. The chronometer method replaced the lunar as it was simpler and more accurate, but it demands diligent skill, none the less. Fletcher deigns not even to mention the finding of latitude, a simpler operation, and his attitude generally is boastful. However, one must admit that he was startlingly adept at all mathematical operations. S.P.
