THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY C26Ch V. I January^ lajo. NEW BOOKS PUBLISHED OR PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION, BY WHITTAKER AND Co., AVE'MARIA LANE, LONDON. 1. In 3 vols, post 8vo. £1. lis. 6cl. GILBERT GURNET, by the Author of '' Sayings and Doings." " Received so late we must leave this work almost to its own merits, without a critical comment. But the name and fame of its author, unique as his talents constitute him in the social an;7o/u«« Muyazine. " Characterized by a thorough knowledge of the country and people Xot only extremely valuable, and calculated to be' of the greatest service to any more elaborate and ambitious produc- tion, but it is from beginning to end au engaging aud delightful piece of v,vi\xiig."— Monthly lievieu: 20. Complete in 4 vols., illustrated by a Portrait and Views, 18mo., price 10s. clotn. MEMOIRS of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, from the French of BOURRIENXE, Private Secretai-y to the Emperor. Traitslated by Johx S. Memes, LL.D. " Kourrienne WHS ti.e playmate of Kapoleon in early life, ii is companion through fliis first cam- paigns, and Ims i-rivate secretary atcer he liad readied me stimmit of power. He has made the t)*st use of lii> opportunities, and has revealed to us more of Napuleoii's real character as a man, than any of tue countless writers that have attempted his biographv."— A/o«//i/y lieviezc. " We know from the best political anthoriry now living in England, that the writer's accounts are perfectly corroborated by \acU"— Literary Gazette. 6 Works published by Whittaker and Co. 21. New EclitioTi, in 3 vols. 12mo., 21s. cloth. A DICTIONARY of ENGLISH QUOTATIONS from the BRITISH POETS. Part 1. Shakspeare.— Part 2. Rhyme.— Part 3. Blank Verse. "These volumes are what they profess to be, and are honestly and tastefully executed. We have in them the essence of Shakspeare aud the British Poets."— ilio«;tory OF ExGLAxi), Geography, and Bible History, an; translated iuto that language, price Is. each. Tlie Catechisms may also be had in Twelve Volumes, price £3. 12s. in cloth, or £4. 4s. half-b(nind and lettered, forming A JUVENILE ENCYCLOPyEDIA. 16 Works jjublished by Whittaker and Co. WORKS JUST READY FOR PUBLICATION. In 12mo., uniform with Pinnock's Histories. The HISTORY of the OVERTHROW of the ROMAN EMPIRE, and the Formation of the principal European States. By W. C, Taylok, LLD., M.R.A.S., & F.S.S. 12mo. The LYRE of DAVID ; or ANALYSIS of the PSALMS in Hebrew, critical and practical, with a HEBREW AND CHALDEE GRAM- MAR. By YiCTORiNus Bythner; translated by the Rev. Thomas Dee, A.B. Ex-Sch. J.C.D. To which are added, by the translator, TABLES of the Imperfect Verbs and a PRAXIS of the first eight Psalms, A desire to read the Sacred Scriptures in the original tongue has become of late evidently very prevalent in these kingdoms. Three months' industrious study, with good books, will effect that desirable object. The number of Hebrew radical words is 1867 ; of these 1184 occur in the Psalms : it is plain, then, that a thorough knowledge of the Psalms very nearly amounts to a thorough know- ledge of the language. Bythner's Lyi-a is, as all the learned know, the very best work on the Psalms ; nearly two centuries have gone by since its first publica- tion, and it still stands in all its freshness of estimation, unrivalled by any Avork that has since appeared on the same subject. Yet, excellent though it is, until now there has appeared no English Aversion of it, and so it has remained a closed book to the English student. Such a translation, so manifestly called for, will be presented to the English reader, with much unnecessaiy matter omitted, and several judicious additions made ; and which, as the editor tnists, Avill be found more correct than any preceding edition in the original Latin. New edition, carefully revised, and giving the latest state of the Representation, royal 32mo. Price 4s. bound, gilt and lettered. The PARLIAMENTARY POCKET COMPANION, for 1836. Contents : — All Peers of Parliament, their Ages, Marriages, Residences, Offices, Church Patronage, &c. List of Places returning Members, with their Population, £10 Houses, Assessed Taxes, prevailing Interests, &c. and several particulars connected with the last Election, including the Number of Voters registered, the gross Poll at each Contest, and the Numljer vvho voted for each Candidate. Members of the House of Commons, their Residences, Professions, Ofiices, Church Patronage, Political Principles and Pledges, the Places for which they formerly sat, and other Particulars of their Public Life. Lists of the Cabinet Ministers, the chief Public Functionaries, Parliamentary Agents, Oftices of both Houses, British and Foreign Ambassadors, &;c. Also, a Variety of Miscellaneous Information connected Avith the foregoing, and with the several Pu1)lic Offices. The whole carefully compiled from Official Documents, and from the personal Communications of Members of both Houses. " It seems to be the most useful and the best executed of, the manj- similar works that have issued from the viress."— 'JVw/^.f, "We can safely recommend this epitome of Parliamentary biography."— A^en' Monthly Magazine. "This is a ver^' neat and compendious manual, wliich every man who either hears, or reads, or talks about the debates in Parliament, ou^ht to posi^ss."— Morning Post. " It contains within waistcoat pocket dimensions, just what is required to apprise the ignorant, and to remind the forgetful of all that need be known or remembered in reading a newspaper, of the Peers, of the Commoners, and of the places which the latter represent."— AVtorrf. " Being entirely free from political bias, it must be acceptable to all parties. We know it to be surprisingly accurate."— /?«// Advertiser, BEN BRACE, THE LAST OP NELSON'S AGAMEMNONS. BY CAPTAIN 5HAMIER, R.N. AUTHOR OF " THE LIFE OF A SAILOR," &c. D'ye mind me, a sailor should be ev'ry inch All as one as a piece of the ship, And with her brave the world without ofTring to flinch, From the moment the anchor's a-trip. DIBDIN, IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. L LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. SUCCESSOR TO HENRY COLBURN. 1836. konuon: printed by samuel bentley, Dorset Street, Fleet Street. BEN BRACE, THE LAST OF THE AGAMEMNONS. CHAPTER I. A sailor's life 's the life for me, He takes his duty merrily ; If winds can whistle he can sing, Still faithful to his friend and king. DiBDIN. y "^ I WAS born at Cawsand Bay, July Sth, 1758. My father was a fisherman ; and a pair better f suited to each other than he and his wife never J. was known. Father was short, stout, and saucy : mother was all milk and modesty. It was many a year before she mustered up courage enough to crimp a skate; and she never boiled a lobster in her life without drop- ping a tear when the poor creature cried like a child : — and well it might cry ; it 's no joke VOL. I. B I- 51 ^'7^S 2 BEN BRACE. to be shoved into a boiling bath, and to be changed from a sea monster into a soldier. She was all tenderness, dear soul ! and if she had been more of a woman and less of a mother, I should now have been a follower of my fa- ther's trade, and have netted a nice property. I deserted ; and this is how it happened. My mother loved me so much, because I was a curly-pated boy and reckoned as much like her as two rope-yarns, that she never would allow me to go out with my father ; al- though I would stand by the hour gazing on the sea as it rolled into Plymouth Sound, and the higher it rolled, the louder it blew, the more murky looked the day, the more I sighed to face the dangers, and the more earnestly begged my father to take me. My father was rather under that most enviable of controls, a wife''s government, and that was one reason why I was a discharged petitioner; but the strongest reason which operated on my fa- ther'*s mind was the unusual roughness of the winter, and the consequent increased danger of the fisherman. BEN BRACE. ," said he, " but who pays for it .''" " I do, you lubber," says I. " Do you think I'm a shark to come swallowing the bait and then shake myself off the hook ? No, Ben Brace never did that : so, here 's your pay, and I have enough left to buy a hogshead of porter, 70 BEN BRACE. and a purser''s bread-bag of tobacco ; so, stir your stumps, old Blowhard." — He was as fat as a ground tier butt, and seemed as if all his crew inside of him was pumping up his breath ; his face was as red as a boiled lobster, and he wore a great white apron which came down to his knees, and from those to his fore foot he wore top- boots. He seemed to know my new companion, and he looked at him as much as to say, " You 're a pretty scoundrel, I 'm blessed if you arn't." I thought it was all jealousy, and paid no attention to the landlord, but asked my friend how he proposed that I should get on my way to my journey's end ? " Why, this way," he answered ; " I am going beyond Exeter myself, for I live down in that part of the world ; and as I know most of the common carriers, I get into their waggons, and thus for a very little money get home to my family. I advise you to follow this plan also ; for what is the use of paying the Lord hardly knows how much, to be upset from a coach, — or of walking upwards of BEN BRACE. 71 two hundred miles, sleeping every night in some strange inn, and perhaps robbed if you are out after dark ? We can go together if you like, and our companionship will make the journey agreeable : in the mean time, as the waggon will not be here for a couple of hours, we may as well have some dinner ; for I am uncommonly hungry, and we shall get nothing from the time we start until the next morning." I agreed to all this, because it looked so very friendly ; and we ordered some cold meat and potatoes; my friend declaring that I should be his guest, and should peck and perch with him. After we had finished our dinners we had a little grog, and my friend was very anxious to make me drink ; but I never was a man given to liquor, — I like now and then a pot of beer and my pipe, and I love to see ray- self surrounded by a jolly set of fellows, who have rubbed through life like sailors, and who carry their grey hairs about as honours won in old age. But no man can ever say that 72 BEN BRACE. I was ever brought up to the gangway for being intoxicated ! Well, I drank my allowance, and by and by, about eight o'clock, the waggon was pass- ing through the village, when my friend could not find his money at the moment ; so I untied the knot in my handkerchief, and paid for him : we both got up behind and bundled into the straw. I was in a rare humour for spinning a yarn, and I set to work and related my life ; during which time, when I spoke of home, my friend managed to get out of me where I kept my money, and commended my prudence, as I said that no land-shark could get hold of it without he ripped me open. It was about midnight when we passed through a little town ; there was a light in one of the public-houses, so we freshened the nip ; and as my friend was now evidently sailing by the head, I took him under my care, and sup- ported him to the waggon. He was very much overcome, and he clung round me closely, mak- ing a great number of false steps, and stagger- BEN BRACE. 73 inglike a drunken brute as he was : at last, when I wanted to lift him into the waggon, he swore he would not go another inch farther ; that he felt hot, although it was the month of December ; and that he would bathe in the river which was near us. For some time I would not let him ; but at last he got so quar- relsome and made such a noise, that I jumped into the waggon, and gave him permission to go to a place, where he is snug enough now if he has left this world. I soon fell asleep, and when I awoke it was broad daylight, but a windy squally morn- ing : so I thought I 'd stand two calls before I unbuttoned my eyes for a long spell, and I soon got to sleep again. The waggoner about an hour afterwards roused me up, and we went into a house and had some breakfast. He was a stout fellow, and ate like one of his own cart- horses, — it did me good to see him feed so heartily ; I swore I would stand treat, and pulling out the end of my black silk necker- chief, I started like a harpooned porpoise when I found the end cut clean off, and all my stores VOL. I. E 74 BEN BRACE. for present service gone. I looked at the wag- goner, who had so honest a face, and evidently did not know what I had lost, that I ceased to suspect him ; although, at first, I had some doubts about his honesty. I immediately clapped my hand upon my private store-room, in which I had stowed away the supplies for my father ; and, oh, Lord ! it did not require any fumbling about my fob ; the lower part of the pocket was ripped open, and I found that I had only eight guineas left out of the twenty-five. Well, I was certain that I had been in company with a pirate. The honest old wag- goner said he did not think the other tra- veller was so drunk as he pretended to be, and he made no doubt that, whilst I was en- deavouring to steady him last night, he had cut the pocket and taken out the money ; add- ing, that he thought he looked more like a thief than a horse. I now thought of tacking ship and returning; but the words of that yellow- fevered Tackle came across me, and I resolved to proceed and to be more prudent in future — BEN BRACE. 75 to stow my money left in a place that should defy detection, taking out one guinea, and tying that, or the change of it, in the corner which was left in my neckerchief. I made friends with the waggoner, and walk- ed by his side almost all day ; when I got into my straw again, and slept like a weasel with one eye open comfortably enough. In seven days' time we got to Plymouth, and I did not stand long in taking leave of the waggoner, who was contented with four shillings, and told me that he should be returning in a fortnight, which would be quite long enough for me to remain in Cawsand Bay. I told him that I should be steering up to London about that time, and would be with him : then I gave my trousers a hitch up, stepped out like a good one for Mutton Cove, got into the ferry, and was over at Mount Edgecombe. I trotted away like a postman, never looking behind me, and carrying a press of sail, until I came to the turn which overlooks the bay and commands a view of the village. Here I stopped. I remember at this moment the feel- E 2 76 BEN BRACE. ing which overcame me. I saw before me the scene of my childhood ; I saw the cottage in which I was born and reared ; and 1 could per- ceive the door from which I had escaped, and left my parents in all the agony of uncertainty if they were childless, or if I had been kidnap- ped or murdered : never from that moment had I sent any tidings ; and afterwards, when I had learned to write, I had grown somehow dim in memory, and my mother's affection had been forgotten in the scenes I have already de- scribed. I was now fearful to advance. I was grown to be a man ; the sultry sun of the West Indies had scorched me, sickness had altered, manhood had changed me ; I knew I could advance unknown, but I trembled lest I should hear some father's curse hurled upon the head of his ungrateful and disobedient child. I stood more than an hour undecided how to act. I watched each girl that I saw running to and fro, and thought of my own little sister Jane ; and it was sunset before I wound up my resolution to face the old people. BEN BRACE. 77 " Cheer up, Ben !" said I to myself, *' there's many a lad does a worse act than you have done; and had not the land-sharks grabbed your hard-won money, even the most hard- hearted of parents might grant forgiveness when thev saw that affection had not been de- stroyed by separation or by time. It is not every one who gives his prize-money to his mother, or who even shares his pay with his wife. Many 's the time I have seen the half- starving creature, whom the law had made vir- tuous, turned away unacknowledged ; whilst those who sold their charms, and were young and handsome, contributed the venom of their abuse against the lawful, the affectionate wife : ay, and we have seen the wife turned over the gangway, her very husband scandalously rebuking her. The sun was down by five o'clock, and the drizzling rain and gusty winds announced the arrival of a gale. The boats all came in together, and every man and mother's son was in activity. The women took the fish away in baskets, whilst the crew of the dif- 78 BEN BRACE. ferent boats set to work to haul them up above high-water mark. I was soon in amongst them, and I watched for my father'*s boat. Near me was a weather-beaten Samson, who, with his crew and his boys, soon began to place their vessel in security. The next and the next seemed well provided with hands ; but the farthest one seemed afraid of coming in contact with the larger vessels. This was the one I sought. " Poor old fellow," thought I to myself, " you will be drenched to the skin before you get your boat safe, without some one lends you a hand ; and as I 'm not afraid of rubbing the skin off mine, I am just the lad to assist you." So saying, I walked up to him, ship- ped the capstan-bar, and when he had made fast the rope, I hove round with the two men Avho formed the crew. My assistance soon placed the old boy*'s boat above the tide ; and I was walking away to help some one else, when he came to me, and said his dame was getting his supper ready, and he hoped I would come and be sheltered from the gale. " For," BEN BRACE. 79 said he, "I know what you are from your rig ; youVe some man-of-war's-man turned adrift for the peace." " Just so," said I ; " much obliged to you, father, I '11 come." Well, I shouldered some of the nets, and carried up a basket on my arm, until we ap- proached ray father's old cottage, and into this we steered. I knew my mother at a glance, and I was near throwing down nets and basket and rush- ing into her arms. Poor old soul ! age had advanced upon her, grief appeared to have broken her heart ; I could discover the fea- tures of former times, but the marks were deep in her face, and they seemed like gutters for tears. She made no reply to my father's re- mark about his success, but mechanically went to work to dress some of the fish. On turning round she saw me, and looked at father, as much as to ask who and what I was : " A willing lad," said my father, '^ to assist the old. He saw the weather was getting worse, and the rain coming on hard, so he 80 BEN BRACE. came and lent us a hand to secure the boat ; and now I have made him come here, dame, for some supper, for he seems all adrift in this part of the world." " Oh, John,*" said mother, " if Ben had never left us, you would not have needed a stranger"'s help. Why, he looks something like Ben, as I'm a living woman !" I felt as if I had touched a corpse, and a chill, a dead cold chill, ran through me. There was a mild rebuke in my mother's words, but there was a tenderness in her manner of ex- pressing my name, which made my eyes flow like a waterfall. I brushed away the tears with my sleeve, pretending it was the rain, and listened attentively to my father's reply. "Who knows," said he, ''but what it's all for the best : perhaps he is out of this mise- rable world, and has not to toil and to work in rough Aveather nor smooth weather to gain a subsistence. Here now, give the lad a wel- come. Come, bring that stool to the table, and we '11 have a fish and a potatoe. There, sit down, every man to his station, and the cook to the foresheet, as they say on board a man- BEN BRACE. 81 of- war. There 's a knife and fork ; we have got some of those left yet ; and this gale will raise the price of fish." In a short time supper was ready. There was some bread, the fish, and the potatoes ; and although I have had regular feeds many a time when the dollars were not valued more than penny-pieces, and we have been surrounded by those who fought with us, and were wounded to save us, yet I call Him to witness that I never felt so happy as I did when I found I was not forgotten — nay, that I sometimes filled their thoughts, — and that I once more was seated at the cottage table. My father, remarking that I looked rather the worse for wear, got a bottle from a small cupboard, and pouring out some brandy for my mother and myself, not forgetting his own glass, spliced it with water, and then handed the jug to me. " Dame and I,'' he began, " have one rule here, young man — we always thank God for what we have, little as it is;"' saying which he bowed his head and repeated a few words. E 5 8Z BEN BRACE. He looked at mother, and the big tears were running down her face ; she never spoke, but she took a drop, as if to please my father. I could not help thinking of Jane ; but, as I was anxious not to discover myself, I did not say a word. I looked round the cot- tage as if to find some mark of female dress by which I could guess if she were alive. But no, I saw nothing except a curious old chair which stood up in a corner ; and when I took my eyes off it, I found that both my father and mother were looking at me with so inquisitive a stare, that I thought I was recognised. "Ah !" he began, " that chair reminds us often of our miseries ; we keep it that we may not forget them who have forgotten us."" My mother looked like a wax figure in tears as my father went on to speak. " In that chair we laid our son Ben when he was first born, for we had no cradle in the house; he left us when he was about twelve years of age, and we have never heard of him since. His sister Jane, God forgive her ! BEN BRACE. 83 then always sat in it, — it was called her chair, and she grew up as lovely a girl as ever sat on *a gilded throne : — ay, even those were b}'^ comparison happy days, although dame never got over the loss of Ben. — Why, what 's the matter with you, young man ? You look changing colour like a dying dolphin. And Lord love you, dame ! just see how like he is to our Ben !" " I'm rather tired," I replied : " but go on, although it's hard upon ma'am there, who does not like it." " It was some consolation," continued my father, " to have the pride of Cawsand Bay by our fireside, and to see her eyes shining when we brought home a good haul of fish, as she sat by the fire cooking for supper, and singing with her beautiful sweet voice some of the good old staves, when everything prospered and we were happy." " Stop, father," said I, " you shall be happy again, I hope ;" for I could not hold on any longer — the tears stood in my eyes. My mo- ther, who had never taken her gaze off me. 84? BEN BRACE. immediately recollected me, and had me in her arms in a moment, exclaiming, " Ben ! Ben ! God Almighty be praised that I see you before I die !" Father was soon on the other side of me, whilst mother, unbuttoning my shirt-sleeves, showed father the mark of an anchor which one of the fishermen had pricked out about a year before I first left them. " Lord bless you, boy !" said father, " and how have you been, and where have you been ? Why, you are quite a man grown, though the storms of other countries have taken the curl out of your hair. And now I look at you again, what a fool I must have been not to have known you at first !" '' Tell us, Ben," said mother, " where you have been. Oh ! I could look at you for ever !'' and she knelt down upon the ground, and kept her eyes fixed upon my face. I could not rouse up a word from the store-room of my voice. I was right aback, and they saw it : so when I said, " Do you go on first, father," he con- tinued. BEN BRACE. 85 " It was in that chair she was sitting when Tackle first saw her, and I first knew as great a scoundrel as has ever cursed Cawsand with his company. Don't cry, dame ; I know it eases your heart, although it almost breaks it by the recital ; but I must tell it all to Ben. Well, this Tackle came and kept company with Jane ; and Jane soon liked him — that was as plain as a pikestaff. Very shortly afterwards, Jane told us that Tackle had offered to marry her, and that she hoped we had no objection. I took her hand, for I loved her dearly, and ' Jane,' says I, 'you know very little of Tackle ; he may be a good one, but his father never was : a black bitch, they say, never has white pups, and a wild duck never lays a tame egg : his father was transported for a highway robbery, but got to windward of the gallows ; his mother soon danced at Plymouth Dock, at the penny hops of the sailors. Besides all this, Jane, although he could not help what his father and mother were, he is a bad-humoured man, is always quarrelsome, and when ever 86 BEN BRACE. SO much pleased, looks more like a devil than a Christian.' " But this was it, Ben, — Tackle was a stout fellow, and once or twice when the young men came a-courting, he stood like a mastiff, and growled them off; then managed to pick a quarrel, fought a battle, and, by this dogged kind of courage and strength, established him- self firmer in the girPs affections. Women always love your daring men — they like to be governed when the person who commands is one of known reputation. I know all about them, and dame will tell you that although we have been married for five-and-thirty years, yet we never have had a regular quarrel. You see I am always employed, without being at her apron- string; and that little absence is like a drizzle in a south-west breeze, in regard to affection ; it tends to feed it ; whereas your hard shower or your long partings put it down entirely. "Dame did not like the match either, for Tackle had no money, and although we were better off than we are now, — for to-morrow I expect to be turned out altogether for my BEN BRACE. 87 rent, — yet I could not give the young peo- ple either money or employment ; for, said I, fishermen are like service — no inheritance. Dame spoke to Jane ; but she cried, and got into her chair near the fire, and could do nothing ; she was quite beside herself — absent-like — of no use whatever in regard to the house ; and she would sit by the hour, looking at the fire as if she expected Tackle to jump out of it, with her hands upon her knees, — and so she would remain and do no- thing ; and w^hen that's the case, depend upon it, Ben, the woman is lost — idleness is the road-maker of love. Well, it was not long after this, when I was at sea and dame at work, that Jane went off with Tackle : we heard of them at Plymouth Dock, and two days afterwards we lost all trace and have never heard of them any more." Here the old man stopped, and I asked if they would know her again if they saw her. " Ay, that I should," said my mother ; " if she was to grow as old as I am, she never would outgrow the mole on her left shoulder ; 88 BEN BRACE. that will last as long as she lives. You, Ben, have another mark of that kind, only lower down on the arm ; and they seem as if God had placed them in order that an old mother might one day find her children again." I was just on the point of breaking adrift with the log-line of my adventures, when in came a small snub-nosed chap they called an attorney's clerk. " Well, Mr. Brace,"" he began, " are you going to pay these three last quarters' rent or not.? — because, if you do not, out you will turn bag and baggage to-morrow morning." " Really, sir,"" says my father, '* I am very distressed, — very, sir, indeed : I work hard and do honestly by all ; but fortune does not assist me, and I have no money — this is all I have in the world;"*"* and he showed half-a-crown. '' I know I owe my landlord more than I can pay ; but I trust that his honour will not throw two poor old creatures, fast going to- wards their graves, upon the parish, or hasten their deaths by turning them adrift on the world in the middle of winter."" BEN BRACE. 89 '' Come, Mr. Brace," said the skeleton of the law, " fine words, you know, butter no pars- nips : I have been at you every day since June, and now I '11 stand it no longer, for I don't be- lieve one word you say. Here I find you sitting by a comfortable fire, with a visiter to assist you in emptying a bottle of brandy ; and I don't require the nose of a pointer to swear that you have made a jolly supper. And there's your good old woman's eyes, which speak volumes as to the attention she has paid to her con- sumptive friend, the almost finished bottle. I dare say she will say that maudlin eye is occasioned by the smoke ; but I 'm not to be done ; to-morrow you will pay, or, by G — ! I will seize every rag in the house, and you may turn out and wash your eyes in the rain." I was posted behind this land-shark, my jacket off, — for they had put that to dry be- fore the fire ; my father was standing up with a look of trouble which might have melted even the heart of an attorney's clerk ; whilst my mother sat down weeping like one of those dripping caves in the North of Ire- 90 BEN BRACE. land. When the wretch had finished his speech, I just took him by the cufF of the coat, and giving him a little head-way with my foot, sent him to the full enjoyment of the cold lodgings he had intended for the old folks. He had left his umbrella behind him, for which he returned. " What !" says I, " have you cleared for ac- tion, and come into the enemy's port to battle the watch with him ? I 'm for you, my hero*" — and I seized him by the throat. The little quill-driver fixed his hands upon my shirt- sleeves ; his face was as red as a lobster, and he blustered out something about assault and battery. " Here 's assault your battery for you,*" says I ; and I gave his nose a broadside. He came at me, after this, twirling his hands as if he was spinning rope-yarns ; but I touched him up on his figure-head, and soon darkened his toplights: for, do you see, I was young and stout, and he might as well have knocked his fists against a stone wall as against my head — for my skull had grown thick like a black fel- low's. Well, it all finishes by my rolling him BEN BRACE. 91 in a dirty puddle, and by giving him a salute, which was more honoured in the breach than in the observance, as I learnt by heart. " I hope, sir," says I, " there 's nothing per- sonal — but you are a d — d backbiting, dirty, dishonest scoundrel, and much better in the mud than in an honest man's house." So saying, I shut the door, and came to an anchor. " Oh ! Ben, Ben, you have ruined us !" said my mother ; '^ to-morrow we shall cer- tainly be turned out, and all our furniture sold ; and although I could not feel angry when I saw the unfeeling man so belaboured, yet now I know he will never rest until he is revenged. You had better be off at once, or he '11 have you for striking him : he '11 take the law of you." " I tell you what it is," says I, '' I'll set up my damaged shirt here against his nose, and I think I 've the best of it." "Never mind, dame," said the old fisherman. "To find Ben at such a moment is worth all the money in the world ! Now the attorney may 92 BEN BRACE. go to . I '11 soon turn the tide of misfor- tune ; I feel as if I was not twenty years of age ; I could dance a hornpipe and kick up Bob's a-dying." Night came on, and a precious night it was. Mother was for giving me their bed, and father talked of pricking for the softest plank ; but I said, no, I 'm the youngest, and the best to caulk the seam ; so I took up my station in the old chair. Though I have stood by Nelson's side when the proudest victory ever gained was won, yet I never felt as I did at that moment. I thought somehow I could fly : I felt so light, so happy. Well, the old pair blessed me, — I that had left them, and had occasioned such dis- tress to them, and who, had I remained, might perhaps have saved Jane also. Then father snapped his fingers, and says he, " A dog-fish's eye for that snub-nosed attorney's clerk ! we '11 manage somehow." And they went to bed. I slept like a top, and was making up the lee-way of my nap, when I heard a row at the door, and I saw the little shark, the clerk's master, with his precious assistant, who was BEN BRACE. 93 marked with a pair of beautiful black eyes, and his nose as big as a cocoa-nut. " HuUoa ! shipmate,'' said I, '' you must have run stem on to the chimney-sweep, and taken some of his soot to paint your figure- head." " Here is the account of rent due for this house," said he to my father : " do you in- tend to pay it ?" " " How much is it, old SnufF and Two- penny ?" said I. " Four pounds, Mr. Impudence," said he. " Have you got a receipt .P" said I. " No," said he. " Then you may trudge back and get it, old Shiver-the-Mizen." '* Where 's the money ?" said he. " Here," said I, " and more besides." " I 11 have you up before the magistrate," said the clerk, " for the assault upon me last night." " You be d— d !" said I. Upon which the attorney whispered to his clerk, who ran away home, whilst the old one 94 BEN BRACE. blockaded the port. He soon returned with the receipt. " There 's your money, my boy," said I ; " and I don't want any receipt for the attack you made upon me last night, and tore my shirt ; I see you show that as plain as the nose on your face. So, brush, old Sweep- ings and Tape-strings. Nothing personal, you know — but curse me if ever I saw such an ill- begotten bandy-legged beggar, with eyes like two burnt holes in a blanket, and mouth like a sick cod-fish." So away he went. BEN BRACE. 95 CHAPTER V. The tar 's a jolly tar who loves a beauty bright, And at sea often thinks of her charms ; Who toasts her with glee on a Saturday night, And wishes her moor'd in his arms. DiBDIN. Both father and mother looked ten years younger when they found themselves once more clear of the rent, and likely to do well for some months to come. Mother cast oflp the stopper of her tongue, and she rattled her words out like a chain-cable through an iron hawse-hole. I soon learnt from my father and mother all about Jane ; and I cast my eye upon a little black-eyed daughter of a baker. She was only fourteen years old, but I thought I liked her. As she was a child, I was allowed to give 96 BEN BRACE. her ribbons and such like ; and before I left her, which was at the end of the fortnight, I had called her my little wife, and she seemed to like it ; and when I went away, and left all my money behind me but a guinea, I told mother to look after little Susan, and be kind to her, for that as sure as I ever returned a living man I would marry her, if she was dis- posed to have me. The old ones laughed. Well, I went away from home, having pro- mised never to lose sight of them again; and, as Susan could write a bit, she was to stand captain'*s clerk for my parents, and not only read my letters to them, but write their an- swers ; and I took good care always to men- tion the little one by name ; so that as she grew, I grew in her remembrance; and she was always to be found at father's cottage; and mother loved her — and so it all went smooth enough. "In the year 1784, Nelson, who had tumbled in love with a clergyman's daughter in France, thought it prudent to get afloat again, in order to avoid marriage ; so he asked Lord Hood for BEN BRACE. 97 an appointment ; and he got the Boreas, of twenty-eight guns, and once again we went to the West Indies. I always retained my old rating of coxswain ; for in those times they might have rated a lad of twelve for that situa- tion, and no fault would have been found. I occasionally assisted the clerk, and thus I made good progress in my writing and reading, and soon became a scholar ; and as I had been so long with Nelson, he placed confidence in me, and I was made to copy many of his letters. I have not much to say about this cruise in the Boreas, because it was peace-time ; but, somehow. Nelson got embroiled in many differences of opinion about the right of the Americans to trade. Nelson soon put his opinion in force ; for, on a stated day, he seized several Yankee vessels, which, to his knowledge, had interfered with the privileges of Great Britain in trading from America to the West Indies. This being done in defiance of the opinions of the custom-house officers, and even of the different governors, all hands began to hate him, and had he left VOL. I. P 98 BEN BRACE. the ship his life would not have been safe. However, when the government at home came to investigate the business, the conduct of Cap- tain Nelson was very much applauded, and re- ceived the warmest approbation. If he had no enemies of his country to fight, he had plenty of lawyers to contend against. Good, we are told, not unfrequently comes out of evil. Owing to the law-suit which arose out of the detention of the American vessels, he became acquainted with the lady he afterwards married. The captains of the ships which Nelson had detained brought an action against him, and laid the damages at 40,000/. ; and they tried all in their power to arrest him. He remained in his ship, and the marshal came on board once or twice to seize him; but Mr. Wallis, the first lieute- nant, always bamboozled him, and he went on shore again as wise as he came. One day, one of the lieutenants — I think it was Wallis — in speaking of the confinement to his ship which Nelson was obliged to suffer for fear of the arrest, said he pitied him. " Pityr"" BEN BRACE. 99 exclaimed Nelson; '■^pity^ did you say ? I shall live, sir, to be envied ; and to that point I shall always direct my course." And he remained eight weeks in durance, bottling up his revenge. The President of Nevis, one Mr. Herbert, took a great fancy to him, and it was generally reported that he had offered to become Nelson's security for 10,000Z. if he w^ould allow" himself to be arrested. It was at his house that Nelson first saw Mrs. Nisbet, the widow of Dr. Nisbet, the lady being then only nineteen years of age, whom he afterwards married. Nelson's letter to his uncle, Mr. Suckling, gives his own de- scription of his future wife's birth, parentage, and education. " Boreas, Nevis, Nov. 14th, 1785. " My dear Sir, '' Not a scrap of a pen have I by the last packet from any relation in England ; but, however, you see I don't think I am forgot — more especially when I open a business which, perhaps, you will smile at, in the first instance, and say, this Horatio is for ever in love. My present attachment is of pretty long standing ; f2 100 BEN BRACE. but I was determined to be fixed before I broke this matter to any person. The lady is a Mrs. Nisbet, widow of a Dr. Nisbet, who died eighteen months after her marriage, and has left her with a son. From her infancy (for her father and mother died when she was only two years of age) she has been brought up by her mother's brother, Mr. Herbert, President of Nevis ; a gentleman whose fortune and cha- racter must be well known to all the West India merchants, therefore I shall say nothing upon that head. Her age is twenty-two ; and her personal accomplishments you will sup- pose / think equal to any person's I ever saw ; but, without vanity, her mental accomplish- ments are superior to most people's of either sex ; and we shall come together as two per- sons most sincerely attached to each other from friendship. Her son is under her guardian- ship, but totally independent of her. " But I must describe Herbert to you, that you may know exactly how I stand ; for when we apply for advice, we must tell all circum- stances. Herbert is very rich and very proud — he has an only daughter, and this niece, who he looks upon in the same light, if not higher. I have lived at his house, when at Nevis, since BEN BRACE. 101 June last, and ana a great favourite of his. I have told him I am as poor as Job ; but he tells me he likes me, and I am descended from a good family, which his pride likes ; but he also says, ' Nelson, I am proud, and I must live like myself, therefore I can't do much in my lifetime : when I die she shall have twenty thousand pounds ; and if my daughter dies before me, she shall possess the major part of my property. I intend going to England in 1787, and remaining there my life ; therefore, if you two can live happily together till that event takes place, you have my consent.' " This is exactly my situation with him ; and I know the way to get him to give the most, is not to appear to want it. Thus circumstanced, who can I apply to but you ? The regard you have ever expressed for me leads me to hope you will do something. My future happiness, I give you my honour, is now in your power : if you cannot afford to give me anything for ever, you will, I am sure, trust to me, that if I ever can aiford it, 1 will return it to some part of your family. I think Herbert will be brought to give her two or three hundred a year during his life ; and if you wnll either give me, I will call it — I think you will do it — 102 BEN BRACE. either one hundred a year, for a few years, or a thousand pounds, how happy you will make a couple who will pray for you for ever ! DonH disappoint me, or my heart will break. Trust to my honour to do a good turn for some other person if it is in my power. I can say no more, but trust implicitly to your goodness, and pray let me know of your generous action by the first packet." There is a hero in love : but his love did not prevent him from doing his duty; for he pleaded his own cause, and the vessels were condemned ; and the Treasury, instead of sending thanks to Nelson, sent them to the commander-in-chief, who was opposed to Nelson in opinion. " Had they known all," said Nelson, upon this subject, " I do not think they would have bestowed thanks in that quarter and have neglected me. I feel hurt that, after the loss of health and risk of fortune, another should be thanked for what I did against his orders. I either deserved to be sent out of the service, or at least to have had some little notice taken of what I had done. They have thought it worthy BEN BRACE. 103 of notice, and yet have neglected me. If this is the reward for a faithful discharge of my duty, I shall be careful, and never stand for- ward again ; but I have done my duty, and have nothing to accuse myself of." Now I will give you another letter from Nelson, and show you, that although he had the heart of a lion in war, he was as meek as a lamb in love, and as affectionate as a seal to his relations : besides, you see, it gives a kind of insight into his very soul. His uncle had written to him, offering the assistance in a pecu- niary point of view, but not being very rich himself, the accommodation distressed him. " Boreas, Carlisle Bay, March 9th, 1786. " My dear Uncle, " Your kind letter of January 3rd I re- ceived yesterday on my arrival here from Ne- vis. When I made application to you in No- vember, it was, I assure you, not so much considering you in the light of a near relation as of a sincere friend, who would do every thing which was proper for the happiness of one who sincerely regarded and esteemed him, 104 BEN BRACE. and whose friendship was pure, without any interested views in it ; and had it not been for one sentence in your letter, viz. ' Your applica- tion has in a great degree deprived me of my free agency^ I should have been supremely happy ; but my feelings are too quick, and I feel sharply what perhaps others would not, so they gained their ends. That sentence would make me suppose that you thought I conceived I had a right to ask pecuniary assistance : if you did think so, be assured you did me great in- justice ; for I was convinced, that whatever you might be kind enough to do for me must spring from your own generous heart, and not from any shadow of right I could be fool enough to suppose I derived from our relation- ship. Relations are not always the people we are to look up to for doing friendly offices. O, my dear uncle ! you can't tell what 1 feel — in- deed I can hardly write, or know what I am writing : you would pity me did you know what I suffer by that sentence — for although it does not make you act less generous, yet it em- bitters my happiness. You must know me, and consequently that I am guided by the strictest rules of honour and integrity ; and that had I not been more ambitious of fame BEN BRACE. 105 than money, I should not most probably have been under the necessity of making the present application to you. No dangers or difficulties shall ever deter me from doing my utmost to provide handsomely for my dearest Fanny, for with the purest and most tender affection do I love her. Her virtues and accomplishments are not more conspicuous than her goodness of heart and gentleness of disposition ; and you will esteem her for herself when you know her. " Your readiness in giving, my dear friend, will not make me more anxious to receive ; for can I live without your putting yourself to the inconvenience of advancing me money, I cer- tainly shall do it, for my disposition is not that of endeavouring to grasp all it can. The greatest felicity I can enjoy is to make her happy : for myself I can care but little when she is considered ; and 1 could lay down my life with pleasure at this moment for her future happiness. After what I have written, you will believe my love is founded upon that strong basis which must have the appearance of enjoy- ing happiness with her. I will endeavour, as much as my indisposed mind will let me, to answer all your questions about her son and herself. f5 106 BEN BRACE. " When Mrs. Nisbet married, Mr. Her- bert promised two thousand pounds with her ; but as her husband settled in the island, where he died a few months after, it never has been paid. Mr. H. told me he had given, and should pay to the child, one thousand pounds when he grew up ; and that he should bring him up at his expense, and put him in a way of providing for himself. Mr. Nisbet (the gen- tleman whose wife went astray) was a brother. His estate, I understand from Mr. Herbert, owes, for money lent and attending it as doctor, about 3000/. currency ; but Dr. Nisbet dying insane, without a will, or any papers which were regular, has made this business rather troublesome, as Mr. Nisbet wishes to pay as little as he can help. Mr. Stanley, the Attor- ney-general, whose property is next Mr. Her- bert'*s, and who is his particular friend, has un- dertaken to settle it for her. She will not get much ; but it must, I conceive, make her little fellow independent. "Her uncle, although he is a man who must have his own way in everything, yet I be- lieve has a good and generous heart, and loves her and her son very sincerely; and, I have every reason to suppose, is as much BEN BRACE. 107 attached to me as to any person who could pay his addresses to his dear Fanny, as he always calls her. Although his income is immense, yet his expenses must be great, as his house is open to all strangers, and he entertains them most hospitably. I canH give you an idea of his wealth, for I don't believe he knows it him- self. Many estates in that island are mort- gaged to him. The stock of negroes upon his es- tate, and cattle, are valued at 60,000/. sterling ; and he sends to England (average for seven years) 500 casks of sugar. His daughter's for- tune must be very large ; and as he says, and told me at first, that he looked upon his niece as his child, I can have no reason to suppose that he will not provide handsomely for her. I had rather wish that whatever he may do at her marriage may flow spontaneously from him- self. *' I have not an idea of being married till nearly the time of our sailing for England, which I did not think was to be till 1787 ; but report says (which I don't believe, by the by, but you can ask Mr. Stephens,) we are to go home this summer ; but I thought it right to know every sentiment of my friends upon a business of this moment." 108 BEN BRACE. What between love and law, he was obliged to take to physic ; so that he flirted with the three black Graces ; and any one may see by the following letter what effect it had upon his framework. "Nevis, July 5th, 1786. *' My dear Sir, " This will be delivered to you by Mr. Suckling, who has done me the favour of call- ing here on his way to England. He appears much improved since I last saw him, and seems to possess a modesty of behaviour which must ever get friends and promotion for him. " I wish I could tell you I was well ; but I am far from it : my activity of mind is too much for my puny constitution ; I am worn to a skeleton, but I trust that the doctors and asses'* milk will set me up again. Perhaps you will think it odd if I do not mention Mrs. Nis- bet : I can only assure you, that her heart is equal to her head, which every person knows is filled with good sense. My affection for her is fixed upon that solid basis of esteem and re- gard that I trust can only increase by a longer knowledge of her. I have not a line from either my father or sister. My brother just BEN BRACE. 109 mentioned it in a cursory manner as you did. I hope you and your family are well, and ever will continue so. You have been my best friend, and I trust will continue as long so as I shall prove myself by my actions worthy of supplying that place in the service of my country which my dear uncle left for me. I feel myself, to my country, his heir, and it shall, I am bold to say, never lack the want of his council ; I feel he gave it to me as a legacy, and had I been near him when he was removed, he would have said, ' My boy, I leave you to my country : serve her well, and she '11 never desert, but will ultimately reward you.' You who know much of me, I believe and hope, think me not unworthy your regards. " But I beg your pardon for this digres- sion ; but what I have said is the inward monitor of my heart upon every difficult occa- sion. Bless you, my best friend, and believe me most affectionately, " Horatio Nelson." " William Suckling, Esq." It is nothing very new to say, that when once a man gets into love he is the most obstinate creature that walks the earth. Nel- no BEN BRACE. son was in love, and he married on the 11th March, 1787. I was there of course, and I saw Prince William Henry, his present Majesty, — God bless him ! Yes, Nelson got married and I got drunk. It 's a faint heart which never rejoices ; and although I can say that I never boused my jib up on board since I entered the service, yet I must confess that now and then, in order to do honour to the service — that is, four times a year — once for Lord St. Vincent's ac- tion, or rather Nelson's bridge-building, (I '11 explain that as I spin out my life,) the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, — I get as royal as a Scotch piper ; although, when it comes to the last action, and which is in winter-time, I drink my first glass in solemn silence for the loss of my old commander, and then I give three cheers for the victory. Nelson was married, and many a man in the service thought he was ruined ; for I have heard those say who know nothing about the business, ' that a man is never properly ruined until he is spliced :' but we feel, I think, as much disposed to gain high rewards when BEN BRACE. Ill we know that the woman with whom we have shared our lives is to share in the honours ; and although it may be true that in a des- perate business of cutting out, a man remembers his wife and eight small children, yet few are the instances on record of a sailor proving himself deficient in courage because he was married. Nelson thought that love is not to be drown- ed ; but this opinion was written before his marriage. " We are often separate,'* (this is writ- ten to the widow,) " but our affections are not by any means on that account diminished. Our country has the first demand for our ser- vices, and private convenience or happiness must ever give way to the public good. Duty is the great business of a sea-ofiicer : all private considerations must give way to it, however painful. Have you not often heard that salt water and absence wash away love.? Now I am such a heretic as not to believe that article ; for, behold, every morning I have had six pails of salt water poured upon my head, and in- 11^ BEN BRACE. stead of finding what seamen say to be true, it goes on so contrary to the prescription, that you must see me perhaps before the fixed time. To write letters to you is the next greatest pleasure I feel to receiving them from you. What I experienced when I read such as I am sure are the pure sentiments of your heart, my poor pen cannot express : nor, indeed, would I give much for any pen or head which could express feelings of that kind. Absent from you I feel no pleasure : it is you who are every- thing to me — without you I care not for this world ; for I have found lately nothing in it but vexation and trouble. These are my present sentiments — God Almighty grant they may never change ! nor do I think they will — in- deed there is, as far as human knowledge can judge, a moral certainty that they cannot; for it must be real affection that brings us to- gether, not interest or compulsion." That was a happy ship, that Boreas. We had all manner of amusements on board, from play-acting amongst the officers to single-stick between the men ; and when the hurricane- BEN BRACE. 113 months came on, we used to shelter in English Harbour, Antigua, and took to music and dancing as if we had been French skipjacks. We came home in June ; and Nelson was none the better for the heat of his love and the heat of the climate, so the Admiralty thought they would cool him again, and by way of doing this, they kept the old ship at the Nore as a receiving vessel till the end of No- vember, when she was paid off. Nelson did not relish this treatment, and he said out loud to the first lieutenant, the morning we went into the Medway, ' It is my firm determination never again to set foot on board a king's ship.* The ship was paid off, and the Captain, after again going to Court, went to Burnham Thorpe, and I went to Cawsand Bay 114 BEN BRACE. CHAPTER VI. Yes ! the hope of return is the joy of a tar ; 'Tis his compass, his helm ; 'tis his guide and his star ; 'Tis impressed on his bosom the moment he sails ; It shortens long nights, and it quickens light gales. Sea Song. I don't know how it is, but certain it is, that there is no subject a man likes to talk about so much as his misfortunes and his sweet- heart ; the first always raises his mind and the second his heart ; and that man is sure to be reckoned a friend who can listen to either. I remember my sweetheart when she was young, handsome, sprightly, with eyes all fire, and with the sweetest lips that ever man kissed ; but now Mr. Time has taken some few liberties with her figure-head ; and I don''t think she walks so well as she did, for she's got rather of a BEN BRACE. 115 broken back, do you see, which makes her sail by the head ; so it 's very dangerous when she goes down hill, which I think we are all doing. When Captain and Mrs. Nelson went down to their father, who, poor fellow, was very sick, and had been condemned by the doctors forty years before he was broken up, I got leave to go to Cawsand ; and as I had saved my pay, and got a little addition from my new captain, that is Mrs. Nelson, I took good care to profit by former experience, and not to talk about gold- dust to any chaps who had not been to the coast of Africa ; so I had it all sewed into my neckhandkerchief, excepting the present service store, which I tied up in the corner ; because, do you see, in those times, although we had long tails, we had no pockets, and I thought no pirate should take my cargo without cutting my throat. Away I went, " with a light heart and tight pair of breeches," as the song says ; and I fell in with the same waggoner who had taken me to Plymouth before. " Good day to you, my jolly sailor,**' said he; " I never should have known you again, for 116 BEN BRACE. you are as brown as a gipsy ; — you must have been in foreign parts, I suppose ?" " Just so, old Blowhard,"" says I ; " and now, do you see, I am going to moor ship for a full due." " Nay, sir," said he, ** I don't know the place — we don't pass through it. There 's Dart- moor, but that's on t'other road ; and there's Moorfields, but that's t'other side of Lunnun ; but Moreship — no, I never heard of it afore; it's no where hereabouts, and it's not near Plymouth." " Yes, but it is," says I ; " it 's at Cawsand Bay — there she is to be found — as neat a little craft as ever seaman's eye skimmed over, clean run fore and aft, and so on. I don't suppose you know much about these matters; but I am going to be spliced to her — that 's all." *' I say, master sailor," replied the old wag- goner, " you bean't very mad, be you .'' or I can't let you get into the waggon, for there 's a poor woman in there with her child." " What, a sail in distress !'' said I ; '' then here goes, old boy, for an overhaul." BEN BRACE. 117 Well, I jumped into the waggon; and there sure enough I saw a pretty young creature, with a child about eight months old : she seemed in great distress, and was groaning most lament- ably, whilst the poor little half-starved infant made more noise than the mother. " What cheer, missus ?" said I : " you seem here in the dolderums. Why, what''s the matter, my little black-eyed cherub ? Is your husband dead ?'' . She looked up at me with an eye so very sor- rowful that I hardly knew what to say — I was taken right aback. So I tried again, although I don't think our voices are soft enough for consolation, yet, when I had turned my quid to cool in my pocket, and had given my mouth a slight heel to starboard, I thought I spoke more like a parson. " If you 're hard up on a clinch, and no knife to cut the seizings," said I, for I could not help talking like a sailor, " here 's money enough to buy one, and set you on your legs again. Come, talk, that's a good woman — it will do 118 BEN BRACE. you good. Nothing eases the mind so much as a flourish of the tongue, or a stiff glass ; and I have often heard an officer say, when the watch on deck moved rather slowly, that it did him good to get rid of a good round oath. What 's the matter, my cherub ?" and I took hold of her hand. Lord bless you ! as gently as if she had been a chap with the yellow fever. Well, I can't say I was much pleased when she withdrew it as if I had poisoned her, and com- menced abusing sailors all in a bunch : but she seemed to have some cause for so doing ; for when I asked her if she included the marines, she said, "No; they had never deceived her — they had never left her with a new-born babe to beg or to starve." " No more will I, my cherub. If it's money you want, I'll give you as much as I can spare; but I'm going down to Cawsand Bay to get married, and must keep a little for rib- bons, you know.'* Well, at this she gave a sigh, from the bottom of her heart, and says she, " I hope you will be more happy than I have been." BEN BRACE. 119 " Thank you, ma'am," said I, " with all my heart. Now let me stow your hold with some of the provisions of life : tell me what 's the matter with you ?" *' Nothing particular,'' she replied, " except- ing that I am starving, and my child is dying. My husband — no, no, not my husband, — has deserted me ; I have not a farthing to buy me a crust of bread, and am tired of my life, and of the trouble I have undergone."" At this moment the waggon stopped, and the waggoner brought a piece of bread and some beer for the poor creature. Lord ! my heart was all alive, to think that a poor fellow who had to work so hard for his money, and to walk all his life, though he had a waggon alongside of him, should have so much charity as to share the little he had with a stranger, whom hardly any other would have assisted ; and then he pressed her so kindly to eat, saying, "There, my good young woman, cheer up, and eat : you really do look very fatigued ; but don't disturb yourself, you may ride all the way to Plymouth, and I '11 do all I can to 120 BEN BRACE. assist you." So I jumped out of the waggon, and, taking him by the hand, said, '* Who the devil ever made you a waggoner, when you have generosity enough for a sailor ? But you are not going to have all the credit of doing what every man ought to do, and, as I am the richest man, I shall pay the piper.**'' After a good deal of disputing as to who should pay, we split the difference, each agree- ing to bear half the expense ; and that being arranged, I got into the waggon again. The woman was about two or three-and-twenty, with a fine expression of countenance, large dark eyes and hair, which, although rough and neglected, was long enough for one of the crew of old Benbow''s barge. The child had a remarkable mole exactly between the two eyes ; it was nearly as large as a six- pence, and was so plain to be seen, that any person who saw the infant once might swear to her ever after. Although I always am mighty polite to the fair sex, and have such a wheedling tongue that I can come at the secrets of their hearts, yet this woman beat me . BEN BRACE. 121 I could not get anything out of her, but that she was taking the child to her grand- mother, who now had no children ; and that, although it wore her to death taking care of it, yet she did not think she could bear the part- ing with her, who, although it had been her ruin, was now her greatest consolation : and then she would touch the little creature's cheek with her fore-finger, and say, " I love you, don't I, Jane ?" and the little thing would look up and smile so beautifully, that I wished I was married, and had a little Jane to dangle upon my knee : but that was only a pleasure de- ferred, for I was determined to have a few young Braces for the honour of the service. I asked her for her name, but she would not tell me ; and I could not get her to say one word in regard to him who had caused her suffering's. As we neared Plymouth she became worse and worse : she would sit for hours look- ing earnestly at the child, and crying like a baby ; and every now and then she would say, " It is hard, very hard to part ; but it is VOL. I. G 122 BEN BRACE. better one should live than that both should die." " Pray, young woman,*" says I, *' what are you going to do when you get to Plymouth ?" " Beg my bread from the man who seduced and left me." " And supposing, like most of those Aiaga- bonds, he turns you away empty-handed .?" " Then I shall die," she replied, " and all my misery in this world will end. I don't think it can be much of a sin to lay down a load one cannot carry." " That 's all wrong," said I. " No sentinel can leave his post until he is relieved ; and the look-out man would taste the cat if he shut his eyes before his time was out. And then to commit a murder upon oneself ! Lord love you, I would sooner cut the throats of half the French nation than let daylight into my own, excepting in the natural way, which a man does when he is sleepy or hungry, and opens his mouth to gape or to eat. No, you must not talk of this, my good woman ; it is all wrong, depend upon it. And now, as we have only an- BEN BRACE. 123 other mile to go together, I am going to see if I cannot help you." Well, I untied my neckerchief, and I took my knife out of my pocket, and says I, " Hold this end, young woman ;" and I ripped open the magazine, and took out all the money. " Now," said I, " let 's have a fair division, and no favour, — there 's a guinea for you, there 's one for Susan, there 's one for mother, and one for myself; now it \s your turn again." And so I went on, until I had shared out twenty pounds, every farthing I had in the world. She looked at the money, and then at me ; and then she looked at the child, as much as to say, "We need not part now." But I shoved in my oar, and said, " Take an old sailor''s advice; leave the young one with the grandmother, buy some new rigging, and go to service like a Christian, and don't be having a penn'orth of steps at Point or Stonehouse — that always leads to evil with you pretty creatures. If you get a place, and are honest and hard-working, you will soon be able to look after the young one again ; and although your upper-works may g2 124 BEN BRACE. be damaged, I think the steerage of your heart is all right and clear. There, put it in your pocket ; and if one sailor has injured you, an- other has relieved you ; so don''t abuse us all as you did do."" . She took my hand and blessed me. *' Tell me,'"* said she, 'Ho whom I am indebted, so that I may remember with gratitude the generous sailor." "No, ma'am,'* says I, "fair play 's a jewel; you keep your own name safe, and I '11 keep mine ; then there 's no reckoning kept, to be brought against us hereafter. I see enough thanks in your eyes to float a jolly-boat ; so good-Vye, my little black-eyed cherub ! don't let the gale of wind which is whistling about you drive your hull on shore and wreck you when a little energy and skilful seamanship may make you weather the squall. — I say, old wag- goner, here 's your money, and more to boot; and the next time you see Ben Brace '"* " Oh, my God !'* said the woman . " I shall be spliced to Susan." I heard some one call after me ; but I BEN BRACE. 125 thought every inch a mile until I was at Glut- ton Cove, then in the ferry round by Mount Edgecombe ; and with one kind of hornpipe step, I made a jump to the door, and taking off my small straw hat, I gave three loud cheers and popped into the cottage. Mother expected me, for I had written to her, and I found everything ready to make me happy. Father was out fishing; but the boats were then stand- ing in-shore ; and we could see his, taking the lead as if I had got hold of the tow-rope and was hauling him and his haul along. My tail was down to my stern-post. I had on a pair of ducks, tight round the waist, with enough canvass in the legs of them to dress an Irish family ; a pair of sailor's shoes, with about a yard of ribbon in each, for I never liked buckles ; and about as neat a jacket as you could see of a summer's day. I had fixed my eyes upon the boat, whilst mother was kick- ing up a fry for dinner ; and I was so eager to assist my old father, that I did not see a figure in black which was standing close alonofside of me ; but all of a sudden I saw her — I knew 126 BEN BRACE. her — I drew back — my knees shook — I opened my arms, and just as the dear creature began to grow dim to my sight, she rushed into my arms, and I kissed her. It was Susan, grown a woman of seventeen — Such a craft ! eyes like the lights that welcome us home when we first make the Lizard — figure, face, feet, — d — me if ever any one saw such a beauty ! She loved me — I could see that from the way she em- braced me : it was not your sisterly hug, or your sham-Abraham embrace, — no, no, it was a woman's coil when her arms are firm and her heart warm. I retreated a step or two and gazed upon her : she was all life and happiness ; her wet-bright eyes sparkled with joy, and there was a moisture in her rosy lips which almost reminded me of dew upon the smiling face of morning when the sun first rises in the West Indies. Lord, how I looked at her ! and she blushed and smiled and turned away her head, and then said, — " Oh ! nonsense, Mr Brace," (she gave me shore-rank, you see, and made a gentleman of me,) " don't stare at me so." And then she blushed again, BEN BRACE. 127 and as I kissed her, I looked up, and there was the snub-nose attorney's clerk, who had now set up in business for himself, as successor to his precious master, looking like a dying cod- fish, with the whites of his eyes turned up- wards in astonishment. " Hulloa ! old boy," said I ; " what ! have you been a-cruising in these waters and trying to cut out my prize, eh ? I advise you to sheer off before I pour another broadside into your legal knowledge-box." " Susan," said he, " my dear Susan, can you listen to the words of this uncouth sailor, whilst I, a man of education, with the best house in the village — with comfort, respectability, money to offer — am treated with contempt r" " And serve you right too," said I, " Mister Attorney : d — me, I '11 turn ye to the right- about if you attempt to clapperclaw her." " Surely, Susan," he continued, " you are not so blind to your own interest as to unite your- self with a man whose profession is that of danger, — who will no sooner marry than he '11 leave you, and who, when far away, will con- 128 BEN BRACE. sole himself for your absence in the embrace of another ; whilst I must remain where you were born and bred, you will be amongst your relations, and you will triumph over those who have taken every opportunity of traducing your character, by saying you corresponded with a sailor — a common sailor ! a man whose feet hardly knows the comfort of stockings, and whose whole life is one of servitude and toil — a-hem !" " I say, Susan," said I, " are you going to listen to that fellow's lingo ? Why, his profes- sion is to deceive, and he is endeavouring to make you his victim. Now I am all fair and above-board, and I never told a lie to any one in my life; and if old Tapes there said as much, it would be the biggest lie he ever told. There is my hand ; there, there it is for your protection, and if you like it, say the word !" Susan had been much flattered by the atten- tion of the apothecary and the attorney, and in justice to human nature she had become a flirt. She loved me — women always like the brave, or those who follow a desperate profession ; BEN BRACE. 129 they hate your fair hands and white-faced fellows, who seem to dabble in milk, and swal- low chinam. There was a frankness, an open- heartedness in all I said, which could not fail to please ; and my figure, face, and speech, were those of a sailor and — although I say it myself — a handsome man. On the other side, I saw what was going on in her heart: she thought the malice of self- imagined rival beau- ties would be thrown back upon themselves if she married the attorney, who was the most mis- chief-making fellow in the village. This had its due weight : Susan as the wife of a sailor and daughter-in-law to a poor fisherman, might be pitied ; but Susan, as the attorney's lady would be envied : Susan as pretty Polly might be caressed as a favour; but Susan as Mrs. Tapes would be courted and admired. Her mind balancing between love and pride, was controlled by discretion, and she neither took my hand, nor did she refuse it ; on the con- trary, although her hand was still and quiet, her eyes were speaking and communicative. The attorney immediately proceeded to argue g5 130 BEN BRACE. in favour of his client — himself ; and on such a subject he was not likely to be cool. He consi- dered me as sailors were, and are considered, — a kind of interlopers on the land ; very good men to fight, get wounded or killed, receive small gains, and no honour; then, when crip- pled, turned to the devil or the poor-house. " Now, Miss Susan," he began, " I am sure you are too good a j udge not to give each side an impartial hearing. The sailor there has stated his case, and concluded it by offering his hand. I shall show you the numerous objec- tions to that not over-clean hand before I offer my own ; and I am convinced that you will give a verdict in my favour. In the first place, by his own showing, his hand cannot he yours; it is his king''s and his country's : and although I admit he could not serve in a better cause, yet it is obvious that, in his faithful service, he must neglect you. Can the man who is freez- ing in the North Sea, or melting in the Indies, be protecting you at Cawsand Bay, your fa- ther and mother being dead .?" BEN BRACE. 131 " I 'm very sorry for that, Susan," said I. " No interruptions, Mr. Sailor, if you please,*" said the land-shark. " The whole pro- perty is yours ; it is not sufficient of itself to do credit to one of such acknowledged beauty ; and you, from this, which is not enough, would be obliged to support him." " I take the liberty of telling you, Mr. Tapes " " No interruptions !" said he. " Curse your 'ruptions !" said I. " Here goes for the truth. You tell a most infernal '' " That is the man — gentle-\na.n I cannot call him, Susan, — to whom you would listen. If in a case like this — an indifferent case to him, for we all know what a sailor's love is — he can outrage society in the way he has done, what pain, what anguish would it afford one so gentle and so mild as yourself, should his ungovernable rage break out and be vented on you ! To a bad temper must be added lurking avarice and dirty habits. You see how warm he got when he heard your parents were in their cold graves, 132 BEN BRACE. and you in comparative affluence. But look at that — which not even love could blind, — look at that huge swelling in his cheek !'" " It 's my quid,"" said I. " It will never get you a quid pro quo,"" said the shark ; " for no one can be over-fond of a person whose gluttony distorts his counte- nance." If I had understood the words at that time as well as I do now, I would have choked his lufF Avith the tobacco ; but not rightly understand- ing them, I only said, giving him a leer with my eye, " Maybe."" " Well, Susan,"" he continued, '' in opposi- tion to poverty, I have to offer affluence ; to absence, constant affection ; to a hammock, a house. I feel that your beauty might warrant an aspiration to a coronet ; but I know that all the lords of the creation could not more honour- ably sue than I have done, or more bravely pro- tect the prize should I succeed in capturing it."" " Ah, now you speak like a Christian,"'"' says I, " without being personal, and I can under- stand you. Of course you mean by capture BEN BRACE. 133 that you'll fight for the prize — that 's all right,*" said I, taking off my jacket ; " and we'll settle it in the twist of a capstan. Of course, you are going to fight the frigate before you plun- der the convoy. Come, Susan, my love, you're mine safe enough — don't cry, that's a dear — there 's no danger. I '11 put him on the apothecary's list before he can say law. By this time I had cleared for action, and tacked ship to face the enemy ; but he had made sail to his own harbour ; and as father had just touched the shore, I ran down to assist him. Susan was looking very melancholy-like, and I don't think she regarded me as much as she had done ; so she walked home to my mother, whilst I shook hands with my father, lent a hand to get out the nets and basket the fish ; and then, when the boat was hauled up, we returned to the cottage. " Where 's Susan," said I, " mother .?" " She 's gone home to look after her business," said mother ; '* and, Ben, don't be angry if I tell you that I don't think she '11 ever marry you." ISi* BEN BRACE. *' Why not, mother ?" said I. " Has not she in all her letters said she was affectionately mine ? Here I have got them all near my heart ;" and I pulled out every line she had ever written. " But I '11 give her a hail to- night, and see how the wind sets." " Ay," said my father, " that 's all right, Ben. You see, the lawyer and the doctor want to have a slice off her loaf; and they tell her she ""s as beautiful as a boat ; and that one the like of her may do much better than to throw herself away upon such fellows as you, vpho are always leaving your women to fish for them- selves. But, come along, — sorrow is dry, and grief is no comfort ; let 's welcome you home again, and make your stay agreeable." I was in love : I had always liked the little craft, and now she had grown a woman, I saw a kind of fairy before me. I could not eat, I could not drink, — my heart was full of love for Susan, and revenge at the sneering insults of the lawyer ; so I wished the hours passed and night at hand, in order that I might go and BEN BRACE. 135 visit Susan in her own house. I thought the night had gone in chase of the sun, and would never return until next morning. Well, I wait- ed until half Caw^sand had gone to roost, and until it was dark enough to walk about without being noticed. It was about nine o'clock ; away I went to Susan's, and I tapped at the door. Instead of Susan's opening it, a nice little girl came. " Is Susan within ?^^ said I. " Not so free," said she, " until better ac- quainted. I wonder where you learnt man- ners !" " On board a man-of-war," said I. " Susan, Susan !'' said m^ Susan ; " let the gentleman in ; it 's Mr. Brace." She led me to a clean and creditable apart- ment, which bore no signs of the trade, with the exception of some Jlowers in the window. Susan was seated near the fire, wearing a rather me- lancholy countenance. I don't think we sailors are good hands at consolation, — we are too quick ; and if the woman does not dry her eyes in a moment we are apt to call it blubbering, 136 BEN BRACE. and become too impatient. Well, I walked up to her, and "Susan," said I, as I sat down by the fire, " which way is the wind to-night ?" " I 'm sure I don't know," replied the girl. Whew ! I was on the wrong tack ; so I did like many greater men have done before and after me — started afresh with an indifferent remark. " I say. Miss, you must have had a comfortable berth of it here, and an easy time of it, since old Brown fitted foreign and got launched ?" Well, my eyes, how she did blush ! and she looked all of a heap ; her face became as red as a lobster, and a kind of confusion covered her. " I really don't understand you, Mr. Brace," she replied : " I wish you would express your- self in such terms that I may come to a proper conclusion." " Come to an anchor, Susan, first," said I ; at the same time I took her by the hand. She looked in my face, and I thought I saw an expression as much as to say, — " It won't do, Ben Brace !" She was not so friendly BEN BRACE. 1S7 as the last time we met. I spoke to her about the letters, and of all the pretty things she had written ; but there was still the same coolness in her countenance ; until at last I thought she might take my freedom amiss, considering I had never spoke outright ; so I began again, '* I say, Miss, 1 should like to be moored with you for life i'"* but she did not un- derstand, and then it occurred to me that she might like the attorney. " Come, Susan,*" said I, "let's be all fair and above-board. I have loved you ever since I saw you. I '11 fight for you as long as I can stand ; and here 's every farthing I have in the world to make you com- fortable. Why, won't you take it .^ it's no pirate's money; it's all fair hard-worked-for wages, saved up for you and my father; and every time I felt to see if it was safe, I thought how glad you would be to see that 1 never lost sight of you, however thick the fogs of disap- pointment. There, Susan, take it, that 's a dear, and let's make a splice of it, and pitch that shri- velled-faced attorney to his master the devil." Well, this is the long and the short of 138 BEN BRACE. it, — Susan was thinking about the lawj'^er ; for when I mentioned him, she got as white as a purser's shirt on a scrubbing-day in the West Indies. She thought there was a great deal of truth in all that he said; firstly, that if she married me, she would marry merely the name, because I was so wedded to the ser- vice and to Nelson, that to sea I should go, and that I told her. Then she saw all the assistance I should be able to offer was very small indeed ; and then she thought of the attorney's house, and being a gentleman's wife, instead of the daughter-in-law of a fisherman. Besides, there was Jane Mattocks, a pretty girl, who was her rival, and they had quarrelled ; and when two pretty women quarrel, they are more insincere in their friendship afterwards than two tigers ; they will " dear" and " love" it, before each other ; but no sooner out of sight, than "jade" and "turnspit" are terms too flat- tering. She did not like to give me up, because I was a good-looking chap ; and yet she did not like Jane to call her a sailor's wife, for she was well to do in the world — she was the only baker BEN BRACE. 139 in the place, and she had got a nice house over her head. She told me all this, and I grew des- perate. " There," said I — " there, Susan, is my flipper ; will you have me, or not ?" She looked rather astonished, and did not answer. " Come, no shilly-shally," said I ; '* either you have me this day week, or we part company for ever.'' *' I 'm too young, and my aunt," (that was Jane's mother,) " says I may do better." "Well," said I, " many a time I have heard say, that ' the smoother the w^ater, the more close are the rocks ; and when the sky is the clearest, the white squalls are the most likely. God bless you, Susan, I won't tell a lie about the business, — I feel uncommon queer at leav- ing you, for I know I love you ; — God bless you, and make you a happy woman and a good mother ! but not all the attorneys in the world can love you more than I do." "No, no, Ben, you shan't go — you shan't leave me for ever," she said, — "no, not for all the Janes in Cawsand Bay ; but you must not hurry me — only fancy what a step it is for a 140 BEN BRACE. young girl like me to take. Here my aunt and the attorney manage the business, which has increased since my father"*s death, and I cannot marry without the consent of the former. They don't dislike you ; but they say that you will marry me to-day and leave me to-morrow. Now, Ben, listen to me : if you will take off that sailor's jacket, and put on a baker's dress, I '11 marry you ; but if you follow the sea, you may marry Jane if you like. Make up your mind to-morrow — ar i now, good night !" " Give me a kiss," said I. " Certainly," said she, and we parted. " Whew !" said I, when I was clear of the port, and steering towards home, — " what a craft I Never saw so much flesh and bone put so well together ; she 's as tight as a cockle- shell, and from her figure to her cathead she shows as bluff a bow as a French frigate ; a clean run fore and aft ; and as for her quar- ters, my toplights ! a Dutchman on the Dog- gerbank is a joke to her." D — me if ever I felt so queer in my life. I felt a creeping come over my flesh as if the cook's tormentors BEN BRACE. 141 were sticking in me. I must have been cursed- ly in love, for I never felt so dry in my life. Well, away I went home, star-gazing whenever the clouds left them clear ; and just as I came to the door I gave some- thing a kick, which rolled over and over. I took it up, for it was a basket, — I carried it into the house, and I soon found there was a live caro^o. " What 's that, Ben .?" said my mother. " A squeaker," said I. " A pig ?'' said she. '•' No— a child," said I. "■ Put it out again,"" said she, '' or we shall have some trouble come upon us, especially if it should die." " Take it to the attorney's," said my father ; " leave it at the door, ring the bell, and be off," '' Let 's look at it first," said I. My mother nodded, and we began to un- pack the child, who had been stretched into a straw basket, something like the manner I once saw a peacock stowed on the top of a coach. 14^ BEN BRACE. with his tail sticking out, and just room left for his beak to get breath. I soon released the poor thing. I saw before me the very child the woman nursed in the waggon. She had the mark I before described, and it was impossible to mistake the business. The child had a black ribbon round its neck, to which was ap- pended a card with the name Jane Tackle. "Hulloa!" said I, "then I must have been the travelling companion of my own sister, and never knew her. She has taken my advice snug enough, and I 'm blessed if I allow the child to go to the attorney's. Come, mother, you must take care of little Jane ; and I '11 just take a skip over to Plymouth, and see if I can find the t'other Jane." Mother at first did not like the business, and father talked of hard times; but I promised to set all that square, and expressed some hopes that we might yet recover the mother. " She can't be far ofi^," said I, '^ for the basket was not here when I went a-courting Susan, and I have not been there more than an hour : besides, she was very sick and weak and could not walk much." BEN BRACE. 143 " She may go to the devil !" said my father. '' My curse attend upon her !"" said my mother. " Avaust there !" said I. "If we were all to suffer according to our deserts, who would escape.'^ — no, none of us. It's no use war- ring against our own flesh and blood ; for the world is ready enough to pick at a wounded bird which can't assist itself, and the more credit is due to them who shelter the houseless and who feed the hungry. Jane 's my sister, and your daughter ; I could not hate her if I would, for my own blood would run against me ; and you must forgive her mother," said I, " before I go from this house to seek her, and restore her again to your arms, doubly blessed for the pardon you will bestow." 144 BEN BRACE. CHAPTER VII. Now close 'long-side of stout Mounseer, A British broadside pour'd ; " Again," cried I, " boys, never fear, We 've shot enough aboard. Helm-a-weather now ; now lay her close ; Yard-arm and yard-arm now she lies ; Again, boys, give her t'other dose, Man shrouds and grapple, or she flies !" Sea Song. It's many a time that I have thought a parent's curse the heaviest calamity : if those who have watched us in childhood, have nursed us through sickness, have felt when we felt, have smiled when we smiled, can find their children so ungrateful for all tlie kindness and all the attention they bestowed upon them, as to turn the natural current of affection into the sourness of hatred, the child must have been BEN BRACE. 145 bad indeed, or the parents unreasonable beyond belief. I don't value life a straw in regard to the fear of Death ; — I have faced him a thousand times — I have laughed at him ; and it 's not now, when the hull is going to pieces, that the captain will desert his ship. No, no ; I don't want any Methody parsons to provision me for the long cruise we must all take : when the wind dies away, the ship must anchor, and he is the best man who finds the safest moorings. I felt somehow all of a shiver, as if I had swallowed poison, when I sat by the side of my parents and heard my sister cursed. I thought it was wrong — I knew it was uncharitable. They are frail things those women, and we who do all we can to make them more frail, ought to be the foremost to forgive. *' Come, mother," said I, *' take off the curse, and I '11 bring you a daughter to bless.'"' ''Well, Ben," she said, "1 believe you're right ; although if anything could warrant the parent's anger, it is a disobedient child, — it is the heartless, ungrateful daughter, who, having VOL. I. H. 146 BEN BRACE. been reared by her mother, and been covered with warmth whilst her parent was freezing, deserts her in her old age, and leaves her the pity — ay, Ben, you know what a word that pity is-^to those who before envied her. Bring back Jane, and 1 11 forgive her.*' " And you, father .?" " I think," says dad, " that she '11 clear up the fogs here a little ; and that, as you say, we can never hope for forgiveness ourselves if we deny it to others : so I have done, and she shall be again my daughter."" I kissed my mother, leaving the child in her arms ; and although the night was dark and rainy, I stepped out like a soldier. Well, I got as far as the ferry, when I con- sidered, firstly, that I was wet through, cold, and comfortless ; and secondly, that the ferry was over the Plymouth side, and that the wind was so strong that it would not come back again without a good fare offered, which at that time of the night was not likely. After waiting some time, and whistling a kind of music to the wind, I began to think that I BEN BRACE. 147 might wait until daylight, and then find my- self just where I was: so I turned my face upon the homeward path, and strolled back just as uncomfortable as any man need have been. Well, just as I turned the corner of a house which was in front of my mother's, I heard a low kind of groaning, moaning noise, and I thoufi^ht I heard a kind of sobbino- like one in grief. Well, I looked about, for it was very dark indeed, and I could not see any- thing at all; but I still heard the groaning. It was a bitter night, and the rain fe^l as if from a water-spout ; the air was keen and cold, and the squalls, as they came bustling along, seemed more heavily laden with the dismal moaning, which I was convinced came from a human being. I called out, '' What cheer, my cherub .^" but I got no answer, although the voice was stilled, and the wind came along in its natural manner. I then somehow beo^an to think it mio-ht be Tackle's ghost, and I was for hauling my wind ; but. then I thought of the folly of being frightened by a shadow, when I was h2 148 BEN BRACE. not afraid of the devil himself hy daylight. At last I wound up myself to examine the premises. At the corner of the house was a large upright stone that looked, as much as I could see of it, more like a human creature than a horse- pond ; so I went on quietly enough, but when I touched it, I 'm blessed if it did not move ! I gave a start back, and I felt a cold shiver run through me, as if I had touched a dead one; then came again the same low, dismal moaning, and I got as much a cow- ard as the two captains in Benbow's action. '' Why,"" says I to myself, " Ben Brace, are you afraid, and Nelson''s coxswain ? — not a bit of it ;**' so I tried again. I went steadily along the house saying my prayers, when I distin- guished a woman seated like under the lee of the stone, in order to shelter herself from the inclemency of the weather. " Hulloa, messmate !" said I, " you have got a bad berth of it here : why, you will be blown to pieces before morning." *' Leave me," said the woman, — " leave me to BEN BRACE. 149 die ! I have lost my child for ever ; it has been taken from me ; and I have waited here watching the door which encloses my infant, but is closed against me. And now, the sooner I die the better !" I recollected the voice in a moment : it was that of the poor forlorn creature who had come down with me in the waggon, and whom I now knew to be my own sister. My heart swelled, and my voice was almost stifled; I was just able, however, to stammer out, ''Jane, Jane, come to a brother's arms !"" " Is it you, Ben ? — now I die happy ! You '11 be a father to it — won't you, Ben ?" and she jumped upon her feet and threw her arms round my neck. " Now — now pro- mise me not to let it starve, and I will go and die elsewhere. — Oh ! my heart ! my heart ! I feel it breaking whenever I think I am to quit this place and leave it there : but I '11 stay until daylight ; I have been at the window twice, but I did not hear it cry ; but the wind shook the small shutter, and maybe it drowned its noise. — But don't go, Ben, yet ! Why don't 150 BEN BRACE. you speak to me? Say, Ben, you will be a father to it." I kissed Jane, and she gave me back a hun- dred. She hung round my neck, and she cried like a baby ; it was some time before I took her by the hand, and told her that father and mother had forgiven her, and that the door would be opened to her, and that she must come with me. " Never, Ben — never could I look," she said, " upon father and mother again ! they will curse me, and I shall go mad. No, as yet I do not know if they have cursed me — and that is some happiness. Oh ! my child ! my child !" " Your mother has taken the child," said I, " and I have been to the ferry to search for you." " Then it was you that kicked the basket ? Oh ! how my heart failed me when I saw my child kicked in the dirt, and did not dare to rescue it." " Come along, Jane," i-aid I ; and I dragged her to the threshold : " come, Jane, and be a daughter to the old ones ;" and I rapped at the BEN BRACE. 151 door. I felt her tremble, and she sank down at my feet. My father opened the door : he could not bring a light, for the wind was bois- terous. " Here she is, father," said I. " Where ?" said he. " Here at my feet." The old man rushed toward his child ; he seized her by the arm. '^ Jane, Jane ! do I live to see you again ; to bless you, my poor lost one — to comfort you ! Here's your child asleep, and here ""s your mother ; come, cheer up!" My mother looked at her daughter as she lay on the floor, for we had lifted her in. I got the big arm-chair ; but I saw Jane shud- der at the sight of it, and she hung her head down to the ground. I went to my mother and I touched her arm : " Mother," said I, " your promise." But she looked at her daughter in a strange unforgiving manner. By degrees I coaxed her nearer and nearer ; and no sooner did I place Jane's hand in hers, and she felt 152 BEN BRACE. the touch, than she burst out a-crying and blessed her child. I never saw such a scene. There was Jane dripping wet lying along the floor ; she never spoke or cried ; she was dried up by grief: and there was her father, the rough old fisherman, whose life had been one struggle against the storms of heaven, now beaten, fairly beaten by a woman's silent sorrow. My mother had raised Jane's head and placed it on her knees ; whilst I stood behind my father, endeavouring to shame my tears. Whenever I see a fellow looking calmly on such scenes of affliction, or when, in the last rattle of death, the bystander is without a tremor, I always think he must be either a doctor or a brute. We get accustomed to death, to be sure, and that is the excuse for the former : and, he would make but a poor surgeon who felt the wound he inflicted. But with us — we who are paid for being shot — why, it would ill become us not to feel for others. Well, we got all hands to bed ; and the next morning I arose with the conscience of a man who has done a good act : I was as BEN BRACE. 153 light as a cork, and skipped about like one of the figures we see in Punch's box. Before we piped to breakfast, I was on my road to Susan's, which was about a hundred yards from our house. She was up, and received me very kindly : she saw I was in high spirits, and asked me the reason. "Jane's come back, Susan," said I. *'Why, what do you look so contemptuous about ? She is forgiven ; and you '11 come, I know, and see her, and be her friend, as you used to be." " No, no, Mr. Brace," she answered ; " that I can never do. Think what the world would say if I was the friend of a bad woman ! I should be thought no better than she was. No, it must not be, and I cannot consent to have a sister-in-law whose conduct has been so reprehensible." " That 's a long word, Susan," said I, " and perhaps it 's a good one ; but it sounds like as much as to say, you never will shake hands with my sister again ; that you won't be her friend now that she most requires it." H 5 154 BEN BRACE. " Certainly, Mr. Brace,"' said she ; " that is what I mean." *' Then you never shall say that you are Mrs. Brace; and the sooner you are Mrs. Tapes, the sooner you may repent of this ungenerous conduct. I tell you what it is, Miss Susan," (you see I came the captain over her,) " your heart is not in the right place, or you would feel for one of your own sex, and rather endeavour to raise than to trample on her — So, good-b'ye to you ! we part company from this moment: and hereafter, when that attorney has cheated you out of your person and your property, you will think of the sailor — the coxswain of Nelson." Then I took off my hat, and making her a proper bow, lifting up left leg to keep the balance even as I bobbed my head and right hand : " Good-b''ye to you, Miss Susan ! I hope you may feel the satisfaction which I feel at this moment ; for although I leave the girl I have loved ever since I was the height of a fire-shovel, yet I know that I have done what is right." I just took a last BEN BRACE. 155 look, and I saw her lift her apron to her eyes, then run into her house. " There," said I, as I nearly run foul of the attorney, " there's a clear coast for you to smuggle upon, old Tapes : but use her well, for she is a nice craft after all, and we part friends : so, tip us your flipper, and good luck to you both !" I found I could not remain in Cawsand after this business ; so I left my money with the old people, and returned to Nelson. It was on the 30th of January, 1793, that I left Burnham with my captain to join the Agamemnon : and now, we begin to get a- head in our history. During the time I had been down in the country, I had learnt to garden ; for Nelson was very fond of that employment, and he was one of those men who could never be idle : he was always active, always alive, and never walked about with his hands in his pockets, as if he was feeling for his money, and wondering where the devil he was to find it. I had got rid of my sweet- heart, and I did not care a fig when I read from 156 BEN BRACE. Jane's hand a full account of the marriage of Susan with Tapes — the anger of one party and the envy of the other I was digging potatoes when I began to think of it, and said I, as I turned up a whole parcel of the roots, '' Women are like you, all the better for dressing ; and not unfrequently when you have taken o£F the finest skin, you find the heart is rotten, — nay, sometimes the fairest blossom of you contains the most poison : 1 'm much better single." So in that way I ar- gued myself into the conviction that whatever is, is right ; and I shovelled away with a light heart and willing hand. The Agamemnon was ordered to the Medi- terranean, and made one of a fleet under the command of Lord Hood : and shortly after our arrival off Toulon, we were sent to Naples with despatches for Sir William Hamilton. I steered the captain on shore on that day, which afterwards led to the ruin of his domestic hap- piness — but with that I have nothing to do : he was not unlike all other heroes; and true it is, as I have since read, that all the greatest heroes BEN BRACE. 157 of old or new times were always rather generous as to the distribution of their love. I could tell you of thousands — but what's the use of that ? Men celebrated for any great actions are courted and caressed by that sex which know how to admire noble deeds : and I '11 tell you what it is ; a man may be left in a room with the bottle and not touch it, but he is not master of himself when a beautiful wo- man is near him. I know even now, whenever I see one of those angels — for angels they are — with bright eyes, flushed cheeks, and rosy lips, that I feel as if I would give my other arm for one taste of the lips which are pouted out to provoke us. Lord love them ! what would life be without them ? Who would give a straw to live if the light of woman's eye:j were never to cheer him .? I have heard of one Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, and en- vied neither one nor the other. Our business being concluded at Naples, we sailed to join Commodore Linzee at Tunis, and on the way we had a little bit of a brush w ith five sail of French ships — three forty-four 158 BEN BRACE. gun frigates, a corvette of twenty-four, and a brig of twelve guns. We only mustered three hundred and forty-five men; for we had left some behind in prizes captured off Toulon, and some we had landed. We soon got into action; but it was playing at long balls. The Frenchmen had the heels of us, and although we maintained a running fight for three hours with one of the frigates, we had nearly silenced her, when a change of wind soon gave her the advantage of escaping, and left us nicely riddled about the rigging. The other ships, which had crowded all sail to her assistance, did not renew the action with us ; and we were left to repair damages, whilst they made sail and escaped altogether. From Tunis we rejoined the admiral ; and shortly afterwards we were despatched with a small squadron to co-operate with General Paoh, in Corsica. Here we had plenty to do — for Nelson kept us most actively employed : we were cutting out one day, landing the next, and so on during the whole time, un- til some misunderstanding took place be- BEN BRACE. 159 tween the Admiral and General Dundas about the attack on Bastia. Lord Hood then resolved to reduce it by the naval force alone, and he came himself with a large part of the fleet to Bastia. Nelson was the oldest captain employed upon this service, for the admiral had left his senior officers to blockade Toulon. The only men we had from the army were a few artillerymen ; and we began the siege with eleven hundred and eighty-three soldiers, artillerymen, and marines, and two hundred and fifty sailors, — all belonging, with the exception of the artillery, to the fleet. " We are but few," said Nelson, " but of the right sort. Our general at St. Fiorenzo ^vill not give us one man of the five regiments he has there lying idle." It was on the 4th April, 1794, that we landed, under the command of Lieutenant- colonel Villettes and Nelson. To be sure, we had work enough. We lugged the guns which we landed, on heights which at first' seemed only to be got at by monkeys ! Nel- son cheered us; he was everywhere, his eye 160 BEN BRACE. was on every one of us ; and, one and all, we put a willing hand to the rope. We were con- stant in our exertions. Nor were our enemies idle. They had borrowed fresh courage from our delay : they built new works, and repaired the old : night or day made no difference. We saw them at work ; and we perceived that one hour of wavering is a year to a besieged enemy. Their furnaces were in readiness ; and it was evident that they had the greatest confidence of success ; firstly, from our slender number, — and secondly, from their increased fortifications. But, as we advanced our works, the enemy gradually gave way, and on the 20th May, one thousand regular troops, fifteen hundred national guards, and a large party of Corsican troops, laid down their arms to one thousand two hundred soldiers, marines, and seamen. It was one of those bloodless victories which are gained by steady perseverance and undaunted courage. The cartel which conveyed the prisoners to Toulon brought back information that the French fleet were all a taunto, and ready for sea ; BEN BRACE. 161 and we were soon under weigh, in company with Lord Hood, for Hieres. We saw the French fleet off St. Tropez ; but the wind was so scant, that we were unable to get between them and the land, and cut them off: besides which, their boats came out from Antibes, and lent a hand to tow them within the shoals of Gourjean Roads, and placed them under the protection of the batteries on the islands of St. Honore and St. Marguerite. We looked at them like men who wanted an action : but it was of no use; we must have warped in, and that was impos- sible under the fire we must have sustained. They say that Lord Hood had planned an attack which would have been irresistible could we have entered the harbour. We had just time to smell the enemy, when we were despatched to cooperate at the siege of Calvi. Sir Charles Stuart com- manded the land forces ; and never was there a more gallant fellow in the British army : he slept every night in the advanced battery, and whenever a shot came, Stuart heard the whizz of it. Well I remember that business! it was smok- 162 BEN BRACE. ing hot ; and we toiled through the day and night in dragging cannon, and in removing our sick. We had no respite from labour, — and out of two thousand men, we had the half in the hospitals, and the remainder volunteers for it. Ay, very few men know what it is to be fired at all day ; melted with the heat, worn out with fatigue, and then to have the darkness robbed from them ; hardly to know the comfort of sleep, to be nurses by night, and soldiers by day, and then to get no reward when the toil is over. It was at this siege, which terminated suc- cessfully, that|Nelson lost his eye. A shot struck the ground near him, and drove the sand and gravel with considerable force in his face : some entered his eye, and ultimately blinded him ; although at first he thought so lightly of the wound — if wound it could be called, as to laugh at it : he wrote to the admiral, and only allowed it to confine him for one day. I remember the nice work he made of it when he found his name omitted amongst the wounded ; he did not con- ceal his mortification. " One hundred and ten days," said he, " I BEN BRACE. 163 have been actually engaged at sea and on shore against the enemy : three actions against ships, two against Bastia in my ship, four boat actions, and two villages taken, and twelve sail of vessels burnt : I do not know that any one has done more. I have had the comfort to be always applauded by my commander-in-chief, but never to be rewarded ; and, what is more mor- tifying, for services in which I have been wounded others have been praised, who, at the same time, were actually in bed far from the scene of action. They have not done me justice." But he was not the only one who has been overlooked for his services : many 's the man who gets a pension for doing nothing, or be- cause his father was born before him ; whilst others are left to rot with the rank of lieu- tenant who have seen service enoug^h to make an inheritance. There was, not many years back, a man on that list who v/as lieutenant in Byng's action, and who never was promoted, because his admiral was murdered to satisfy party rancour. You might as well expect to 164 BEN BRACE. make a marine-officer a bishop, as to forward those deficient in interest. Why, I should like to add up how many years I served and never got a warrant ; I might have had one after- wards, but I preferred following Nelson. Half the world never read of these actions, and why ? Who sees the stars when the sun 's out ? Many have heard of all the great actions, and they have lost sight of the others in the remem- brance of the most splendid. We lost plenty of men by sickness after we had taken Calvi : out of one hundred and fifty left in their beds, fifty lost the number of their mess. Lord Hood was now superseded by Admiral Hotham, and we had lots of irons heating in the fire : the whole of the Mediterranean was in confusion, and the French fleet, consisting of seventeen sail of the line and five smaller vessels, put to sea. The admiral was at Leghorn ; but he was at sea in a moment, and we were not long before we caught sight of them. I will here give a slight account of an action — it's hardly worth calling a victory; but it was a kind of oyster before dinner — it gave BEN BRACE. 165 US an appetite for more. And hang me, if I don't think there is a great similarity between oysters and actions : the more you have of them, the more you want ; and get as many of them as you like, they never satisfy your appetite. Our fleet consisted of fourteen sail of the line English, and one Neapolitan seventy-four, and we mustered in all seven thousand six hun- dred and fifty men, and the Frenchman had sixteen thousand nine hundred. The first day that we saw them, the 13th of March, 1795, they began what philosophers call manoeuvring, but which I take to be tacking or wearing, getting into two lines, then into one, and such like ; but before long they bore up, and we were in chase of them in a moment. One of their line-of-battle ships, the Qa-Ira, during the chase carried away her main-top- mast; and Captain Freemantle, who commanded the Inconstant frigate, and who was far ahead of us all, darted at her like a dolphin after a flying-fish. He was one of the right sort, and so are all his breed : he befjan to rake her, and to harass her so confoundedly, that 166 BEN BRACE. he gave us time in the old Agamemnon to come up with her. Nelson was never be- hind, you know, and he came up in good time, for the Inconstant was getting seriously injured. It was the height of bravery in Free- mantle to stand it as long as he did; and he would have remained a little longer, had not a French frigate come up, which, after Free- mantle had hauled off, took the (^a-Ira in tow ; whilst the Sans-culottes, of one hundred and twenty guns, and the Jean Barras, seventy- four, kept within shot on the weather-bow. This was just the kind of attack for Nelson : he had no ship of the line within three or four miles to support him ; the Inconstant was done up for the day, and we had all the pleasure to ourselves. The Frenchman, as we drew within shot, opened his stern guns upon us with an aim by no means comfortable ; hardly one shot miss- ed us. But Nelson was watching how fast we gained upon her, not what we got from her ; and on we went without returning a gun, until we began to be riddled aloft, and were within BEN BRACE. 167 a hundred yards of her. " Now then, my lads," said he, " stand by, and don't be in a hurry. Hard a-starboard," said he. "Ay, ay, sir," said the master. " Square the cross jack-yard ; brail up the spanker." 'Twas done before you could say hulloa ! — and, my soul! did not we give her a salute, Turkish fashion, which made them open their eyelids ! Then it was, "Avast firing! brace up the cross jack-yard, out spanker :" and we stood after her again. We served her this trick for more than two hours, by which time we had cut away her mizentop- mast and sail, and the cross jack-yard was telegraphing, French fashion, like their Semi- phores. The French frigate which had her in tow, hove in stays, and got the Qa-Ira's head towards the Agamemnon, and both frigate and liner opened their fire upon us. We stood on until we passed within pistol-shot, receiving all they chose to give us ; and not being un- grateful, we did all we could to repay them with an equal kindness. When our aftermost gun was fired, round we came directly, touch- ing the Frenchman up in stays, but it was no 168 EEN BRACE. go ; the Sans-culottes had wore, and some of the other ships were coming to rescue their wounded duck ; and the admiral throwing out the signal to close, we made all sail to rejoin him, whilst our late adversary sent his com- pliments after us as long as we remained within gun-shot. We lost seven men, and the Qa-Ira one hundred and ten. At daylight, on the 14th, we got a north- west breeze, and the Frenchmen kept a south- erly wind. Our large friend had been unable to get up a new topmast during the night, although we have known a frigate at the conclusion of the war, after a hard day"'s work with an enemy of larger size all day, get up three jury-masts during the night and be in chase in the morning. She was about three miles distant from us, being towed by the Censeur, a seventy-four, the remainder of their fleet being about two miles from them. We were after the lame duck directly ; and the French fleet made sail to rescue her. The Censeur cast off" the tow, and we steered right between the two : we got it right and left. BEN BRACE. 169 and we answered it from both broadsides. We could not miss if we would, — it was muzzle to muzzle, and blaze away, my hearties ! " There 's for your grand nation, and sans culottes !'' said Bill Simmons, who spoke French like a Spanish cow. — " And there 's for your soup meagre tureen !" said Tom Sykes, the man that afterwards, in the battle of Tra- falgar, fixed the worm into a Frenchman's jacket, and hauled him overboard, shaking him off like you would a wad. It was " blaze away, my hearties !" until down came both their tri- coloured rags ; and Andrews, one of our lieu- tenants — a man. Nelson said, who was as gal- lant an officer as ever stepped a quarter-deck — hoisted the English colours on board of both of them. The rest of the French fleet escaped ; but had Hood or Nelson commanded : — But, avast there ! we must not be throwing poison- ed shot at any of our admirals ! The attack was daring ; the resistance, as far as concerns the two ships captured, desperate ; and bravery is more shown in the advance into action than VOL. I. I 170 BEN BRACE. in the noise and the tumult, when a man, although a coward by nature, fights naturally. I think in that business of Napier's, who they call Cape St. Vincent, the gallantry of the action was in the determination to attack so superior a force; and none but a really brave man would have ventured on so despe- rate an action. Some envious men say, the Miguelite fleet did not fight ; — no, they did not fight as they might have done, that is true enough; but that cannot detract from the bravery of the English leader who planned the attack, and who made it, almost entirely un- supported. I have called our fight a brush, and I '11 tell you why — Nelson called it only a brush — and here 's his letter. " Agamemnon, Porto Especia, "March 22nd, 1795. " My dear sir, " The event of our brush with the French fleet you will know long before this reaches BEN BRACE. 171 you, and I know you will participate in the pleasure I must have felt in being the great cause of our success. Could I have been sup- ported, I would have had Ca Ira on th? 13th, which might probably have increased our suc- cess on the next day. The enemy, notwith- standing their red-hot shot and shells, must now be satisfied (or we are ready to give them further proofs) that England yet reigns mis- tress on the seas ; and I verily believe our sea- men have lost none of their courage, and sure I am, that had the breeze continued so as to have allowed us to close with the enemy, we should have destroyed their whole fleet. They came out to fight us, and yet, when they found us, all their endeavours were used to avoid an action. But accidents will happen to us as to others : a few days after the action we met with a very heavy gale of wind, which has driven the Illustrious on shore ; but we have some faint hopes she may yet be saved. Our prizes are almost refitted ; and to-morrow we sail for Corsica. I beg leave to trouble you with a letter for Mrs. Nelson, and have to beg you will give my kindest remembrances to Mrs. Suckling, Miss Suckling, and all the family, i2 172 BEN BRACE. not forgetting Mr. Rumsey and family. Be- lieve me ever " Your most affectionate, " Horatio Nelson.'' I thought Nelson would have gone mad when he saw the French fleet steering unpur- sued away ; and when he heard the admiral say, " We must be contented ! we have done well enough !" — " Why," said he, " if I had taken ten sail and allowed the eleventh to escape, when it had been possible to have just got at her, I should never have called it well done. Ay," said he, " if I had commanded on the 14th, either the whole fleet would have graced my triumph, or I should have been in a con- founded scrape.'' They made him a colonel of marines about this time, because, I suppose, he had com- manded so like a soldier at Calvi ; and he was pleased at this, for I have often heard him say, '^ that he thought he deserved it." We were all of us now more fit for the dock -yard than the Gulf of Lyons; we were miserably BEN BRACE. 173 short in regard to numbers, and although Admiral Man arrived with a squadron from England, consisting of five sail of the line, yet the French had a vast superiority as to num- bers. But we were more used to the work ; we did not mind shot, as Nelson said of us, no more than peas ; and we were very anxious to have another brush. 174 BEN BRACE. CHAPTER VIII. Should the foe bear in sight, and all hands call'd on deck, Don't think jolly sailors are cow'd : No — we'll teach them the old British flag to respect, And bid them defiance aloud. Sea Song. Many 's the tough yarn we used to twist on board the old Agamemnon, and very little time had we to sleep or play 'sling the monkey. But it is often when the moon shines bright, and the ship slips through the water steadily and quietly, — (like some men get through life, the ripple under the bows, and the bubbles as they pass, being something like the rebukes we meet with, and the pleasures which we have left far, far behind us,) — that some one or two, grown careless as to rest from their constant BEN BRACE. 175 activity, would bring themselves to an anchor under the lee of the bulwark, or forni a circle before the foremast, and spin out their long stories of themselves and their actions. I cannot stop here, however, to clear away the cobwebs of my memory, and tell the sprees of a seaman's life, for I am close on board the battle of St. Vincent. After the brush we were sent to co-operate with the Austrian and Sardinian armies under General de Vins, and we had to run away from our enemy, or we should have paid a visit to Toulon. We used to laugh at Nelson's run- ning away ; but thus it happened. We fell in off Cape del Mele with the whole of the French fleet, and, as we were only three ships, they made sail after us. Well, we turned tail and made sail for St. Fiorenzo, where we had left our fleet, watering and refitting ; and for seven hours it was a toss up if we went to heaven or to prison ; but when the evening began to close in, the French made sail away. During the night. Admiral Hotham managed to get out, and we went in pursuit of the 176 BEN BRACE. enemy. The fifth day we saw them, but we were cursed with those Mediterranean calms, which, like a lady's face, is ready to show the smallest breeze which comes over the placid countenance. The French got in-shore of us, and we were becalmed about seven miles to the westward. We had, however, brought on a par- tial engagement, and the Alcides, a seventy-four, struck ; but before we could get on board of her she caught fire. It was owing to some of those combustible rubbish, which is of no use on board a ship, where men fight like gentle- men, having been placed in the fore-top, and which accidentally caught fire. Tom's yarn of the fire is sufficient to give you a slight description of the rapidity with which a ship blazes when the rigging had been newly tarred ; — she was in a blaze in a second : the whole of the foremost part seemed to burst out at once, and although the boats of our fleet — for they were out in a moment, and did their best to save the Frenchmen ; — for, do you see, when a ship has struck, we do as much to save the crew as if they were our own BEN BRACE. 177 brothers, — we are only enemies whilst the flags are up; but let one come down, and we offer a hand in a moment. Well, we only saved about two hundred ; the rest were either burnt or drowned ; and although I have seen one or two glorious " blows up,"* yet I never could have believed that fire on board a ship, and taking place first of all aloft, could be so de- structive. The wind, after this fire, began to blow right into Frejus — the enemy ran in and anchored, and we, with eight frigates, made sail for Genoa. We soon stopped the trade of the neutral vessels, who were assisting the enemy ; and here it was that I first became acting-assistant to the captain''s clerk, and managed to keep a copy of the letter-book. The little man^ as some of his friends called him, had commenced a corre- spondence with the old Austrian general, and they expended more paper in preparing for war, than the marines fired away during the whole time in the shape of cartridges. We had to copy from ten to twenty letters every day, and this extra activity of mind almost wore Nelson I 5 178 BEN BRACE. out. He used to say, " Brace, I don't know which requires the most repair, the captain or the ship." The correspondence was all about fighting, and all we got for our pains, was to write and write again. Nelson wanted the old Austrian to advance, in order that our fleet might have a secure anchorage at St. Nemo, from which place we could have secured the provisions for his army ; but it was useless. About this time Admiral Hotham went home, and Sir Hyde Parker took the command. Nelson had written for a reinforcement of two line-of-battle ships and two frigates, in order to attack a considerable convoy in Alassio; but the new admiral, who did not know Nelson quite as well as Lord Hood did, instead of complying with the request, reduced the squa- dron under our orders to only one frigate and one brig. Old Vins was always too late ; when- ever he attacked a magazine or store, he inva- riably found it empty, and was told, that had he made the attempt a week previous, he would have made a grand prize. At last the French gun-boats harassed the BEN BRACE. 179 left flank of old De Vins^ army at Pietra, and before he could remedy the evil a general panic ensued. The Commander-in-Chief Vins gave up the command in the middle of the battle, pleading ill health, and, (here 's some of Nel- son's letters for the rest.) " From that moment not a soldier stayed at his post — it was the devil take the hindmost. Many thousands ran away who had never seen the enemy, some of them thirty miles from the advanced posts. Had I not, though I own against my inclination, been kept at Genoa, from eight to ten thousand men would have been taken prisoners, and amongst the number General de Vins himself; but by this means the pass of the Bocchetta was kept open. The purser of the ship, who was at Yado, ran with the Austrians eighteen miles without stopping ; the men without arms, officers without soldiers, women without assistance. The oldest officers say they never heard of so complete a defeat, and certainly without any reason. Thus has ended my campaign ; we have established the French republic, which but for us, I verily believe, would never have been settled by such a volatile, changeable people. I hate a French- ISO BEN BRACE. man ; they are equally objects of my detesta- tion, whether royalist or republican ; in some points I believe the latter are the best." After this we went to Leghorn to refit, where we went into dock : it was not before we wanted it, for the hull was so riddled, that we had secured it with cables. Sir John Jervis had now taken command of the fleet, and we being patched up, joined him in St. Fiorenzo Bay ; we afterwards took up our old station off Genoa ; and here it was that we first heard of Bonaparte, and his rapid successes : for, from the time he beat the Aus- trians at Montenotte, a fortnight had scarcely elapsed before the court of Turin acceded to his orders of peace, and all the strongest places in Piedmont were placed in his hands. We managed to get hold of six vessels laden with cannon and ordnance stores, which, for a time, checked the French conqueror. Captain Cock- burn, who commanded the Meleager, assisted at this business ; upon this occasion we drove the convoy under the batteries, silenced them, and took the ships. BEN BRACE. 181 It was in 1796 that the English evacuated Corsica, and Nelson's determined manner was the cause of each English merchant securing his property, which previously had been con- fiscated by the new government ; and on the 14th October we had managed to save public stores to the amount of 200,000/. The French, on the 20th, having landed near Cape Corse, on the 18th entered the town one hour after Nelson, and he was the last man who had left it. Nelson now hoisted his broad pendant on board the Minerva frigate, commanded by Captain George Cockburn. I went with him, of course ; for I was his right-hand valet, his deputy clerk, his coxswain, and his oldest fol- lower. We were bound to Porto Ferrajo, and we did not get there without another brush. The fact is, that we were never out of the way of old Death, and he always had his greedy paw out to catch some of us. We fell in with two Spanish frigates, the Sabina and the Ceres, and of course we attack- ed one of them without loss of time. Nelson 182 BEN BRACE. counted one Englishman was worth two French- men, and consequently six Spaniards. We en- gaged the Sabina for three hours, and we sent one hundred and sixty-four men to their long account. The captain, one Don Jacobo Stuart, . was the only officer left ; he fought like a Briton, and, as his name was Jacob Stuart, there was no wonder in that. Who ever heard of a Stuart, either Irish or Scotch, who did not fight like a trooper ? We had just got the prize in tow, when the Ceres hauls up for a dust : we cast off the prize and tackled her, and in half an hour she had received quite enough of our shots, and had hauled off, when two line-of- battle-ships and two frigates, all enemies, hove in sight. It was no time to be making prizes, so we made sail ; the enemy recaptured their ship ; we got to Porto Ferrajo in safety. The whole naval establishment was withdrawn from Elba, and we then (early in 1797) sailed for Gibraltar with a convoy. It was on the 13th February that we com- municated to the Admiral, Sir John Jervis, that BEN BRACE. 183 we had seen the Spanish fleet off the mouth of the Straits. Nelson was instantly desired to hoist his broad pendant on board the Captain, seventy-four, commanded by Captain R. W. Miller; and by the time I had stowed my hammock in the nettings, I looked aloft on board the admiral's ship, and there was the signal to prepare for action. I had seen that so often that I did not want the signal-book to teach me. At daybreak the next morning we caught sight of them, being then in the order for sail- ing in two lines. The morning was dark and hazy, and at half-past six the Culloden made the signal for five sail in the south-west quar- ter : at eight the signal was flying for '' pre- pare for action.*" It wanted no officer to stimulate the men ; they were warm for the business ; and although La Bonne Citoyenne made the signal that the enemy's fleet con- sisted of twenty-five sail of the line, whilst we had only fifteen sail of the line, four frigates, a sloop, and a cutter ; there was not a man fore and aft the deck that did not think some 184 BEN BRACE. of the Spaniards would be seen in Spithead with an English flag on board of them. When I first saw them distinctly, I began to rub my eyes and look at the commodore : he was all alive and merry ; he walked quickly up and down the deck, rubbed his hands, looked again, and seemed just as pleased as if he was meeting an old friend : but, when I looked out of the main-deck port and I saw a four-decker of at least one hundred and thirty-six guns, six three-deckers of one hun- dred and twelve, two eighty-fours, eighteen seventy-fours, making in all twenty-seven sail of the line, with ten frigates and a brig, I began to think that we were in for a bloody business, out of which we could never retreat, and only to be won by such men as Jervis and Nelson. The ships first telegraphed by the Culloden were, when first discovered, separated from the main body, which was bearing down to join the separated vessels. We first endeavoured to cut off these five ships; but the main body of the fleet becoming too near for this ex peri- BEN BRACE. 185 ment, we formed into " a line of battle ahead,*' giving up the chase and preparing for a serious business. Every man in the navy goes through some awful scenes ; but there is nothing like the dead quiet on board a man-of-war before the fight begins. When everything is ready — and we, God knows ! are ready enough to do our duty — when we get torniquets and devilments to clap on the wounded ; and when we look about us amongst old and tried shipmates, then it is that a curious kind of cold feeling runs through the bravest of us all. There we are, standing to our guns, with nothing to divert the thought ; and then it is that a thousand ideas occur of home and all our dearest friends. Ay, then it was that I thought I should never live to revenge my sister, or to hang the attorney ; but no matter. The morning was foggy, and this concealed our numbers from the enemy, who believed, on the authority of an American, that we had only nine sail of the line : but Admiral Parker with five sail of the line joined, and so did we 186 BEN BRACE. and the Culloden, between the admiral's board- ing the American and the American communi- cating with the Spanish admiral, one Don Joseph de Cordova. At daylight we were in compact order close together, whilst the Spani- ards were stragghng : the look-out ship of the enemy not getting her signal heeded, hoisted another, saying, that our fleet consisted of forty sail of the line : this puzzled old Cor- dova, and frightened the whole fleet ; for it was on the authority of the American that we were so inferior that, instead of going into Cadiz as Cordova intended, he had been in search of our fleet, in order to crush us by his overpowering force ; but when he came to And, by the false signal, that we were nearly double his number, he made a cross and blessed himself. At about twenty minutes after eleven the admiral made the signal to pass through the enemy''s line, but, owing to the press of sail he carried, the enemy could not form in regular order before we were close aboard of them; so that Troubridge, in the Culloden, had hardly BEN BRACE. 187 fired at the enemy's headmost ship to wind- ward, when' the rest of our ships came up, passed right through their straggling line, cut off nine ships from the main body, and then tacked, — then we poured broadside upon broadside into the nearest ships. The part of the Spanish fleet thus completely cut off, formed on the larboard tack, with the inten- tion of passing through, or to leeward of the English line ; but we gave them such a warm salute, and received them so heartily, that they soon tacked and stood off, and did not appear in the action until their comrades had lost the day. Having disposed of this division, the ad- miral made the signal to tack in succession, — I remember it all as yesterday, because I was placed to assist the signal officer, — and accord- ingly the headmost ships did tack ; but Nel- son, who was stationed in the rear of the British line, and who had the better oppor- tunit}^ of remarking all the enemy's tactics, observed the Spaniards bear up, in order to join their scattered ships, and likewise to form 188 BEN BRACE. their line again. It was a well-planned ma- noeuvre ; but Nelson was alive to the conse- quences in a moment, and therefore, without any hesitation, he disobeyed the order to tack, and wore, directly he had passed the Spanish rear. In executing this bold and decisive evolution, the commodore found himself along- side of the Spanish admiral, in the Santissima Trinidada, the four-decker I mentioned be- fore ; she might have swallowed us up. I 'm blessed if I don'^t think she might have stowed us in the main hold, and our trucks would not have come above the combings of the main hatchway ! — but this was a trifle. We had, besides this monster, the San Josef (she that many a time has had an English admiral's flag on board since) of one hundred and twelve guns ; the Salvador del Mundo (we have seen her keeping guard, I think, in Plymouth, for these last five-and-tvventy years) ; the San Ni- cholas, eighty, and the San Isidore, seventy- four. This was odds against us ; and Trou- bridge gallantly made sail to support us in the very unequal fight. We two fought the BEN BRACE. 189 whole batch of them for more than half an hour ; the roar of the guns, the immense smoke, the cries of the wounded, the orders of the commodore, took away from any of us, if we had it, the reflection of tlie unequal contest. Cheers after cheers followed — we were determined to conquer. I have heard some great man say, " They can conquer who be- lieve they can." Up comes the Blenheim, commanded by Captain Frederick ; he passed between us and our enemy, and poured a tre- mendous fire into the Spaniard ; it caused the Salvador del Mundo and San Isidore to drop astern, and there they found, pushing up to our support, the excellent Captain Colling- wood, who took the liberty to break some of the cabin windows, and to spoil the paint and filigree-work abaft. Both ships struck ; and CoUingwood, who thought some one else might pick up the wounded birds, pressed on to sup- port us — for we were getting it rather warmly — when the near approach of Admiral Parker, with the Prince George, Orion, Irresistible, and Diadem, determined the Spanish admiral 190 BEN BRACE. to relinquish his attempt of rejoining the ships to leeward ; and he made the signal for the main body to haul their wind and make sail on the larboard tack. At this time we were hard at it with three first rates: the San Nicholas and two other vessels were firing into us, and we were, of course, returning them as much iron for use as we could spare. It was then that Colling- wood, who never forgot a friend or spared an enemy, said that the Blenheim was ahead disabled, and the Culloden was crippled astern of us; he therefore came up, man-of-war fa- shion, took the mainsail off the Excellent, as if be were going to dine with the admiral, and passing within ten feet of the San Nicholas, he poured in such a broadside as nearly to send her to old Nick — after which, I believe, she was named — and passed on to the Santis- sima Trinidada. The San Nicholas luffed up, — and well she might, for it would have slew- ed any stern, — and fell on board the San Joseph, and we placed ourselves close along- side of them, making three abreast, and thus BEN BRACE. 191 giving both of them the advantage of our generosity, whilst only one of them could re- turn it. We were properly disabled ; every rope was cut to pieces, the fore-topmast was gone, and we had not a shroud left to support a mast ; but we had still a little head-way : and Nelson ordered the captain to put the helm a starboard, and we ran on board the San Nicholas. " Boarders, fore and aft !" was the cry. You may see the picture in the Painted Hall, with the admiral in a cocked- hat heading the boarders. Captain Berry, who had been the com- modore's first-lieutenant, led the way, and was the first man on the enemy's mizen-chains. The spritsail yard of the Captain having passed over the enemy's poop, got foul of the mizen rigging, and thus steadied us. Berry was not a second without a supporter ; for Lieutenant Pearson, who commanded a detachment of the 69th regiment, then doing duty on board as marines, gallantly folio vved the noble ex- ample, and passed into the San Nicholas. One of the soldiers broke the upper quarter gallery 192 BEN BRACE. window and jumped in ; and the commodore and myself were soon at his heels, having lots of our crew close behind us. We found the cabin-doors fastened ; but what's a door to an English sailor but a place to pass through ? which we did in a second, without using the hinges. We pushed on to the deck ; and there was our gallant shipmates in possession of the poop — the Spa- nish ensign down, the ship ours. The comman- der of her was mortally wounded, and Nelson was just in time to receive his sword. Every precaution was instantly taken to secure 'the prize ; but we did not do it in quiet. The stern of the San Josef was directly on the weather-beam of the San Nicholas ; and the enemy opened a brisk and destruc- tive fire upon our men, now on the upper deck of the prize. Nelson saw that to re- main was fatal ; he must either go on or re- treat. He only knew how to do one ; although the other shows the good officer, they say, more than the advance. — More men were sent from the Captain : " Follow me,^'' said Nelson : BEN BRACE. 193 " Westminster Abbey or victory !" Berry as- sisted the commodore into the main-chains, and I was alongside of him. " Forward, my lads I'** was the cry : but it was no use to hurry, for a Spaniard popped his head over the quar- ter-deck rail, and bellowed out that they surrendered. The commodore leapt on the quarter-deck ; and there we were sure enough, without any poking or piking, the conquerors of the San Josef. The Spanish captain de- livered his sword ; for the admiral was below severely wounded, — indeed, dying. There, on the quarter-deck of this noble ship, did the commodore receive the swords, which were handed to me; — to //ze, — think of that ! and I bundled them under my arm as if they had been broomsticks. And what cared we then for the fire of twenty-two sail of the line which were still firing at us ? what cared we for the whole world ? Admiral Jervis, whilst we were boarding, placed his ship, the Victory, (Lord ! how my neart stops whenever 1 mention that ship !) in the lee-q uarter of the rearmost ship of the enemy, the Salvador VOL. I. K 194 BEN BRACE. del Mundo, and poured in such a broadside, that the Spaniard, seeing the Barfleur coming up to pay him equal attention, struck her colours and was captured. Our other ships in the van continued to press the Santissima Trini- dada and her supporters, which formed the rear of the enemy ; but the ships which we had separated from their fleet in the morning hav- ing got together, bore up, and seemed in- clined to renew the action. Sir John Jervis made the signal to heave-to, and then formed a strong line to protect the prizes and the disabled ships. The enemy, as they approached, fired a few broadsides, and then left us to walk off' unmolested with the captured. Thus ended that famous action, in which we upheld the daring character of British seamen. It was an action well calculated to give to Spain a lesson not easily forgotten, of her total inability to meet the English on the high seas ; for it is said that out of a council of war held by the Spanish admiral as to renew- ing the action, (for he could then, had they been equal to us in bravery and skill, have BEN BRACE. 195 changed the fate of the day,) only two officers — namely, the captains of the Pelayo and the Principe Conquistador — voted for a continuance of the battle. Sir John Jervis shook my gal- lant captain by the hand on the quarter-deck ; and although he never mentioned him in the despatch, yet in his private letters he was not backward in his praise. K 2 196 BEN BRACE. CHAPTER IX. The action was dreadful ; each ship a mere wreck ; Such slaughter few sailors have seen. Two hundred brave fellows lay strew'd on the deck. Sea Song. In the month of April 1797, Nelson, now Sir Horatio Nelson, was made an admiral, and shortly afterwards shifted his flag from the Captain to the Theseus ; and I went with him. He had offered to promote me to a warrant ; but I said, " No ; if I 'm promoted, I shall not be able to follow you from ship to ship : and I trust, your honour," said I, " that, after all the work we have seen together from the Mos- quito shore to the battle of St. Vincent, you won't allow me to be separated from you." " No, Brace," said he : " if you like to re- BEN BRACE. 197 main my coxswain, you shall ; and I dare say I shall be able to provide for you somehow ; but it is not every one I find so willing to serve me, or to trust in my endeavours to serve them." The Theseus was one of the ships concerned in the mutiny. You have heard about that, I suppose ; or if not, you had better read " The Breeze at Spithead,"" by Captain Glas- cock, for he got all his information about that from an old one at Greenwich : and if you want to know how they hang a man in the navy, you will be more of a villain than a Christian if you don't drop a tear over the execution in the " King''s Own," by that funny fellow Captain Marryat. But I must " go on," as they say to the engi- neer in a steam-boat. Our crew soon became tractable enough. Nelson knew how to go- vern men, and they were soon taught how to obey him : but owing to this awkward business I did not know all the men for a long while after I joined : I was half coxswain, half stew- ard, and was more in the admiral's cabin 198 BEN BRACE. than in the fore-top, without it blew fresh, — and then I never could keep my fingers clear of the reef-points. It was on the 3rd of July, and a fine night, that the admiral, who had the command of the inshore squadron off Cadiz, took with him the Thunder, a bomb- vessel, and the barges and launches of the squadron, in order to blow some of the cobwebs out of the houses of Cadiz. We anchored the Thunder about two thousand five hundred yards from the garri- son ; and Mr. Boyne, a lieutenant of artillery, began to show his skill : but it was soon found that the mortar was so injured from former services as to be useless. The Goliath, Terpsi- chore, and Fox were ordered to protect the bomb-vessel. The Spaniards, seeing the Thun- der withdrawing from the attack, sent out a vast number of mortar gunboats and large arm- ed launches, in order to cut off the retreat of the Thunder, and to capture her before the above-named vessels could come to her assist- ance. The admiral seeing their intention, immediately gave orders for our boats to face BEN BRACE. 199 about and attack them : and we did not re- quire a second call — we went at them in the real good old style. They hardly dared to face us, but fled under their batteries, like so many frightened birds when a hawk heaves in sight : but we were sure to be where the danger was greatest ; and in all my service, which has been a little more than a sailor's in peace-time, I never got into such a situation as we did that night, — the boarding the San Nicholas was nothing to it. The commandant of the Spanish gun-boats, a gallant fellow, one Don Miguel Tyrason, singled out the admiraFs barge, in which we had only ten men besides myself, the admiral, and Captain Freemantle ; and in which was John Sykes, as gallant a sailor as ever took up slops from a purser, or shared his grog with his messmates. Don Miguel ordered his boat to be placed alongside of ours ; and, as you may suppose, we did not object to the meeting, although she was a powerful craft and manned by twenty-six stout- looking chaps. This was a hand-to-hand business. Don 200 BEN BRACE. Miguel led his men bravely ; and to give them the credit they deserve, they were wor- thy of such a gallant commander, and of the honour of being killed by us. Nelson par- ried a blow which would have saved him from being at the Nile ; and Freemantle fought like himself, fore and aft, both boats. It was a desperate struggle, and once we were nearly carried. John Sykes was close to Nelson on his left hand, and he seemed more concerned for the admiraPs life than for his own ; he hardly ever struck a blow but to save his gallant officer : twice he parried blows which must have been fatal to Nelson : for Sykes was a man whose coolness gave him full scope for his science at single-stick, and who never knew what fear was any more than his admiral. It was cut, thrust, fire, and no load again, — we had no time for that. The Spaniards fought like devils, and seemed resolved to win from the admiral the laurel of his former victory : they appeared to know him, and directed their principal attack towards the officers. Twice had Sykes saved him, and now BEN BRACE. 201 he saw a blow descending which would have severed the head of Nelson. In that second of thought which a cool man possesses, Sykes saw that he could not ward the blow with his cutlass — the situation of the Spaniard rendered it impossible. He saw the danger ; that mo- ment expired, and Nelson would have been a corpse ; but Sykes saved him — he interposed his own head ! — his commander was so beloved, that his old follower (for Sykes was with us in the Captain) sought the death he could not otherwise have averted. We all saw it — we were witnesses to the gallant deed, and we gave in revenge one cheer and one tremendous rally. Eighteen of the Spaniards were killed, and we boarded and carried her ; there not beinff one man left on board who was not either dead or wounded. " SykeSj^"' said Nelson, as he caught the gal- lant fellow in his arms, " I cannot forget this."' But my wounded shipmate only looked him in the face, and smiled, as he said-^" Thank God, sir, you are safe."*' Your heroes have the best hearts ; if grati- K 5 202 BEN BRACE. tude could have repaid Sykes, Nelson had done it : he would have made him a lieute- nant ; but the wound rendered him for ever unfit to benefit by the power and disposition of his admiral. He died soon after, but was always a little queer here in the head, and no wonder, for the blow would have split the skull of a negro, or a cocoa-nut ; and Sykes was beyond the help of the noble hero he had saved. This was no brush ; it 's very rarely that men are opposed hand to hand, and sword to sword ; and you may guess how fierce was the fight, when the Spaniards resisted until not a man remained untouched amongst them ; and I can only finish this story, in the words of Admiral Jervis, then Earl St. Vincent : — " Rear -Admiral Nelson's actions speak for themselves — any praise of mine would fall very far short of his merits." We made two more attacks afterwards ; but the Spanish Admirals, Mazaredo and Gravina, warped their fleet out of the range of shells ; and it 's no use fright- ening old women in nurseries. Up to this time BEN BRACE. 203 Nelson seemed to have been protected, either by some angel, or John Sykes ; in all the actions in which he had fought he had never been shot ; his eye was done by the sand, and not by the iron : but we can't all be in- vulnerable. Lord St. Vincent now despatched us on the 15th July, the same year, in order to attack Santa Cruz in the Island of Teneriffe. We had with us four sail-of-t he-line, three frigates and the Fox cutter, and on the 25th, at half past five o'clock in the evening, the squadron anchored in the roads. It is an odd-looking place that Teneriffe ; and you have all heard of the Peak, I suppose, which some people have seen a hundred and sixty-one miles off. The landing-place is a small mole, and even when the wind is lightest, the surf is high, and the approach dangerous ; but when the trade- winds have been strong it is almost impossi- ble to land without some caution, and some good management. But when the wind comes strongly from the valleys the sea is quiet, and the mole secure. 204f BEN BRACE. We had no soldiers with us, for we counted that the seamen and marines would be suffi- cient. There was a regular plan of course: Nelson did nothing without a plan ; and his intention now was to land on the north-east side of the bay, between the fort and the town, take the fort, and then recommend the town to surrender. Owing to the strong winds and currents the first attempt failed, for we never got near the place until daylight, and then we thought it prudent to return. I say we, like the newspaper writers, because we were all concerned in the business, although neither the admiral nor myself were of that party ; but Troubridge commanded, and he would have done it as well as any man if fortune had favoured him. There is more in fortune than in valour. Every man has a certain portion of courage, and in action no man has time to be a coward ; besides, the hatches are fastened down, and there is no retreat. Having failed in the first attack, was no reason why we should fail in the second. It was on the 24;th July, at six in the evening, that the BEN BRACE. 205 signal was made to prepare. The admiral this time commanded in person. One thousand seamen and marines were to be landed from the different ships under the command of Trou- bridge, Hood, Thompson, Miller, and Waller ; and at eleven o'clock the boats left the ships in six divisions, and proceeded to the attack. Nel- son had that night met his captains at supper on board the Seahorse, Captain Freemantle's ship, and his wife was on board ; and when the men, one hundred and eighty, had been placed on board the Fox cutter, and the rest distributed in the different boats, the captains took their different situations ; Freemantle and Bowen remaining with Nelson, who afterwards took the lead, and gave directions as to the attack. I heard Nelson say : " This plan is so simple it cannot be misunderstood. I have directed them to land at the mole, or any- where — for their way cuts the great square — and then act as circumstances require." It was about half-past one a.m., when we were all close to the mole, that the Spaniards discovered us ; they rang their precious alarm 206 BEN BRACE. bell, and lights and fires were blazing in a moment. " Cast off the tow-ropes in the boats !" said Nelson. " Now, my lads ! three good cheers, and hurrah for the first on shore !'' We made some noise, as you may suppose, but they made more ; for they open- ed a fire from about forty pieces of cannon, from all directions, and as for the musquetry, it was as regular as the roll of a drummer. " Give way in the boats !" shouted the hero, as we darted by them in order to be first on shore. The gallant fellows heeded not the musket-balls, the round, grape, or canister, any more than the ladies mind sweetmeats during the carnival at Naples. " Pull away, forward ! — well done, abaft !" was the cry in each boat, and one would have supposed it was a race who should be first at the grog- tub, rather than in a hospital. It was as dark as pitch, and we could not tell the mole-head from any other place, the firing was so continued, and from all quarters at once. Most of the boats missed the land- ing-place, and were carried on shore by the BEN BRACE. 207 surf, Avhich stove them all, and left the men without any retreat. The admiral hit the right place — and when was he wrong in his life ? Freemantle, Bowen, and Thompson, with about half a dozen more boats, were with us. We landed — stormed the battery at its end — carried it, although defended by five hundred men. We spiked the guns, and stood by for a rally into the town ; but the enemy fired too well. What man can beat a Spaniard behind a wall ? We dropped in all directions. The citadel di- rected its fire upon us ; and every rascal who could pull a trigger, and sit on a house-top, did so, to our great loss. So many fell, that we could not advance. Nelson was on the point of landing from his boat, when a shot struck him on the elbow, and he fell back in my arms. His son-in-law, Nesbit, covered the wound di- rectly, and I tore up my shirt to make ban- dages for my gallant admiral. From that time I did not hear the roar of a gun, the 208 BEN BRACE. noise of the surf, or the whizz of a shot. I thought of nothing but saving Nelson. Nesbit bound up the arm with silk handkerchiefs ; we laid him in the bottom of the boat, and then pushed off, for we had grounded. Nesbit pulled the stroke-oar, and I steered the boat, keeping close under the batteries, in order to avoid the tremendous fire. Nelson, hearing Nesbit speak, desired he might be placed up- right; but nothing could be seen but the flashes of the cannon, and nothing heard but their eternal roar, until one loud piercing cry almost silenced the tremendous noise, or was heard above it. It came from the Fox cutter : one shot, which had struck her under water, had sunk her, and those, who never feared death from the shot or shell of the enemy, instinc- tively shrieked when he approached in that unexpected form. In. vain did we stretch our arms to their assistance, — the exertion was almost useless ; the men, armed, and having a great proportion of ball-cartridges, sank in spite of their exertions, and the sea rolled in without a mark to show were ninety-seven BEN BRACE. 209 brave fellows had been swallowed up. Eighty- three were saved in the different boats. Nor was Nelson idle ; his personal exertions con- tributed much to render his wound more dan- gerous and painful. " Steer, Brace, for the first ship," said Nesbit. " It is the Seahorse, sir,*" I answered. " Take me to my own ship," said Nelson ; " I would rather suffer a thousand deaths than alarm Mrs. Freemantle, when I can give her no information of her husband." " A chair for the admiral," said his son- in-law, as we neared the Theseus. " No !" said Nelson, — " the side ropes ;" and as he jumped up the side unassisted, he gave orders for the boat to return to the Fox. " Shove off," said he, but I was by his side on deck — " Shove off, and tell the surgeon to bring up his instruments ; for my right arm must come off, and the sooner the better." In the mean time Troubridge, who had missed the mole, landed close to the citadel; his boats were all stove and knocked to atoms ^10 BEN BRACE. in a moment, and the water did no good to the ammunition in the Jollies'* pouches ; but those marines fight better the more the odds are against them. They are a gallant body of men, and have always been foremost in every battle, and the best behaved in any disturbance. To them, England is much indebted for many victories ; and although we do call them "Jollies,'" why, we don''t mean it as anything personal ; no ! rather that they are a jolly good set of fellows, foremost in every danger, and ready to serve and to save both their friends and their enemies. Captain Waller, of the Emerald, landed with Troubridge : they collected the men, and pushed on to the great square, according to the previous directions ; for they could do nothing against the citadel as the ladders were floating about the bay. Hood and Miller made their landing to the south-west ; and at daylight, 'froubridge mustered in the great square about eighty marines, eighty pikemen, and one hun- dred and eighty small-arm-men : these were all who survived of the many who had made BEN '5RACE. 211 good their landing. It was proposed to try the citadel without the ladders ; but the streets were crowded with Spaniards advancing upon them ; nor were they deficient in field-pieces. The enemy were in thousands ; whilst our brave fellows, amounting only to two hun- dred and forty, stood ready to face them, and eager to begin. But this was no time for fighting; that Russian fellow, SuvarofF, who called lead a fool but steel a wise man, could have effected nothing against the in- creasing and already overpowering numbers. Troubridge ordered Captain Samuel Hood to take a flag of truce to the Spanish com- mandant, Don Juan Antonio Gutierrez, a gal- ant fellow, and one who knew what bravery was. Hood was desired to say that the town would be fired in five minutes, if our men were not allowed to retire unmolested to their ships, the Spaniards finding boats for the embarka- tion. The terms were agreed to ; the wounded were taken into the hospitals, and the lucky fellows who had escaped untouched regained their own ships to tell the sad tale of their 212 BEN BRACE. failure, but of the bravery of the officers and men who had shared in the gallant attempt. In that night we lost, in killed, wounded, drowned, and missing, two hundred and fifty men ; and that determined fellow Bower was killed, and his pockets picked, and Freemantle and Thompson both wounded. They kept Bower'*s gold seals and chain, and his sword, in the Town-house at Teneriffe, until 1810, when they returned them to his brother, the commissioner. No sooner had Nelson been examined by the surgeon, than immediate amputation was recommended. I undressed him myself, and laid him down on the cabin table, making him as comfortable as possible ; but the wound was one which must have been dreadfully painful, for the bone was shattered to pieces, and I never remember to have seen such a fracture before. " I *m ready," said Nelson ; " so, doctor, despatch. You know your business too well for me to fear, or you to cause useless pain." I thought I should have dropped when I BEN BRACE. 213 saw the first cut. I watched my admirars face, for I had mixed some wine and water in case he should require it ; and I knew how grateful is the least drop when a wounded man calls aloud for drink. I have seen men at the gangway, who took no immediate heed of the boatswain''s mate''s cat as it whizzed through the air and fell with cutting violence on the bare back ; I have seen men receive dozens without expressing the slightest mur- mur : but when they ask for water, if it is not brought, I have heard how pettishly they continue the demand; — and that's the reason I always keep my throat moist, for I do not wait to allow my curiosity to get the better of my comfort. Nelson's face never moved. His lips, it is true, were closely pressed together ; but that, I have been told, is a strong sign of deter- mination. His cheeks were pale from the loss of blood ; and he appeared faint from the exertion of rescuing some of the men whom he saved from the Fox. Oh, how I felt when I saw the long knife, bright as the binnacle 214 BEN BRACE. lamp, dazzling all around. Nelson looked at it ; and in a moment it was down to the bone, right round and round the arm. He did not flinch from this; but just before, when the surgeon drew the skin back, he looked up. Then came the saw ; and I ^m blessed if the carpenter, sawing off the heel of a studding- sail boom, could have set to work with more coolness than the doctor. Off fell the limb — Nelson'*s good right arm — one that in the at- tack, not a month previous, with the Spanish gun-boats, had defended its owner, and saved his life, as well perhaps as John Sykes's skull. In taking up the arteries, the surgeon, in his haste, took up a nerve, and bound the two together with a piece of silk thread ; and this caused the devil's own torture for months after, which at the time did not increase the sufferings. No sooner was the limb dressed — the knives removed — the assistant-surgeon despatched to look after others, than up gets the admiral ; and, " Brace," says he, " get some paper and write down the despatch as I tell you." And BEN BRACE. 215 it 's as true as the Gospel ; he told me every word, and held the paper, and read it himself, to see that it was all correct, although it was eleven o'clock at night before it was finished. That accident of the nerve kept up a con- tinual pain ; and in those days the surgeons, according to the French practice, used silk instead of waxed thread. Nelson became so ill after this, that he was obliged to leave active service, and he retired on his arrival in England to lodgings in Bond- street ; I being his servant on shore, as I had served him on board. Upon his recovery he went to court, and I shall not forget his an- swer to the king when he was presented. *' You have lost your right arm," observed the king. " But not my right hand^ replied Sir Hora- tio, " as I have the honour of presenting Captain Berry. And besides, may it please your majesty, I can never think that a loss which the performance of my duty has oc- casioned; and so long as I have a foot to stand on, I will combat for my king and my country !" 216 BEN BRACE. They now gave him a pension of lOOOZ. a year; and I copied out the memorial which it was necessary or customary to present. It is here : — " To the King's most excellent Majesty, &c. " That, during the present war, your memorialist has been in four actions with fleets of the enemy, viz. on the 13th and 14th March 1795, on the 13th July 1795, and on the 14th Februar}^ 1797 ; in three actions with frigates ; in six engagements against batteries ; in ten ac- tions in boats employed cutting out of har- bours, in destroying vessels, and in taking three towns. Your memorialist has also served on shore four months, and commanded the batteries at the sieges of Calvi and Bastia. That, during the war, he has assisted at the capture of seven sail of the line, six frigates, four corvettes, and eleven privateers of different sizes; and taken and destroyed near fifty merchant vessels. And your memorialist has actually been engaged against the enemy upward of one hundred and twenty times ; in which your memorialist has BEN BRACE. 217 lost his right eye and right arm, and been severely wounded and bruised in his body. All of which services and wounds your memorialist most humbly submits to your majesty's most gracious consideration."" This was useful to me; for when I came to apply for Greenwich, I copied Nelson's me- morial word for word, adding to it the Nile and Trafalgar ; and I got my cocked-hat and breeches, with the allowances, and one small pension. It is a different thing to work head- work and to work handwork, as the black fel- lows say ; but no one ever heard Ben Brace grumble at what his admiral justly earned. No, no ; thank God ! I loved him too much for that ; and the Greenwich men callinsr me Old Nelson is quite compliment enough, when added to the pay, pension, and allowances. Why, if they made me a lord, what should I do.'' — and old Susan my wife, only to think of her in a satin dress, and called my lady ! — Hah, hah ! And now I think of it, why should I not be a lord, when I have been in every VOL. I. L 218 BEN BRACE. action with Nelson, just as well as some of the talking people, who get peerages for words, and not for deeds ? Well, they gave the admiral snuff-boxes, and freedoms, and such like ; but although I stood behind him the whole time when that cross squinting fellow Jack Wilkes addressed him, yet I'm blessed if, when he spoke of all these services, he ever mentioned my name, once, not once ! — That was personal, and so I thought ; so I took huff and walked home : and as 1 went through the streets, I told every one who would listen, that if I was not Sir Horatio Nelson, I was his coxswain, valet, and secretary. It was on the 13th December that the sur- geon who attended him turned him out of the doctor"'s list, and told him he might go on deck again. He returned thanks in St. George's church for his recovery, and applied for a command all at once. The parson preach- ed the first, and the Admiralty granted the last; and they ordered him to hoist his flag on BEN BRACE. 219 board the Vanguard; and on the 1st April 1798, we sailed with a convoy for Spithead. Between the snuffbox huff and my new ship, I went to Cawsand. L 2 220 BEN BRACE. CHAPTER X. D'ye mind me, a sailor should be, ev'ry inch, All as one as a piece of the ship ; And with her brave the world without off'ring to flinch. From the moment the anchor 's a trip. As for me, in all weathers, all times, sides, and ends. Nought's a trouble from duty that springs ; My heart is my Poll's, and my rhino my friend's, And as for my life, 'tis the King's. DiBDIN. 1 THINK the man who goes through life with- out meeting with any adversity, is like a piece of wood in a stream where there are no shal- lows or rocks — all goes smoothly, but there is a great sameness : now when a man is up in the clouds one moment and down at the bottom of the sea the next, he has some changes and chances. One thing I have learnt, and that is, to keep my temper. Nothing ruffles me now ; I can hear of ships sinking with their crews on board, without cursing the lubberly captains; BEN BRACE. 221 and I can listen to a good murder without jumping up and asking for Jack Ketch; and this I hold to be the great secret of life. Your man who is never quiet, never contented, is always a disagreeable fellow to himself and to his neighbours ; but many of the shots which wound others whizz harmless by a man like myself, who takes everything as it comes, with a cheerful countenance and forgiving heart. What's the use of getting in a rage, or of being uncomfortable before the mischief is at hand ? No, no ! wait patiently ; the danger always grows less as we calmly look it in the face ; as a hill seems a precipice at a distance, but becomes merely a gentle slope when we are near its foot : but if a man 's inclined to be frightened, it is like objects on a rail-road ; it's a speck one second and a waggon the next. Now, if a man keeps his temper he sees all clearly and distinctly before him ; he is neither flustered into fear nor blinded by anger. It is well for me I kept mine, or I should now be snug enough under water with my throat cut. 222 BEN BRACE. When Nelson began to recover, which was just after Duncan''s victory, and whilst England was in a riot all day and a blaze all night, I got leave to visit Caw sand ; and I started in a small vessel which sailed from the Thames. The skipper of her refused to take any passen- ger but myself, although two or three offered. A precious fool I was for my pains ! because there are such things as French privateers ; and, let me tell you, no set of men are more desperate, with the exception of Deal boatmen and smugglers. She was a sloop called the Nancy of Plymouth, and we started on the 12th of October. At those times it used to blow a good deal ; but, somehow, I think lat- terly the seasons are altered. Away went the Nancy with a flowing sheet ; and I remember passing by this hospital, and wondering, as I stood on the deck of the sloop hitching up my trousers, if I was ever to moor ship in Greenwich-reach. I was as sound as a roach then ; I had never been hit : and I was as proud as a prince. Away we went, and I used to sing the old ditty — BEN BRACE, 223 "When I sail'd from the Downs in the Nancy, My jib ! how she smack'd through the breeze." The skipper lugged out the long bottle of brandy, and we got as jolly as lords or judges : the little vessel behaved beautifully, and we ran through the Downs with a spanking breeze on the quarter. Although I was a gentleman, — according to him who defined a gentleman to be a man who paid for a place in the cabin of a stage-coach, but went on the quarter-deck (the roof), for I had paid for a place in the cabin yet always walked on the quarter-deck, for I considered the coxswain of the Theseus and under secre- tary's assistant to Sir Horatio Nelson quite as good as any skipper of a coastinsj vessel, — yet I could not keep my hands off the helm, and whenever anything was to be done I was in the way to do it. Well, one night, just as we were about Brighton, I think, and the skipper was getting a sheet or two in the wind, he says to me, " Fearnay," says he, (you see I shipped a purser's name,) '' don't you think an active fellow like you might make money enough to 224) BKN BRACE. ' get a vessel of your own, and be independent, instead of brushing about after other people ?''' " I beg your pardon," said I, " Mr. Skip- per ; but I don"'t brush about after other people : I belongs to Admiral Nelson.*" '' Well,"" said the skipper, " he is a great man, no doubt ; but he will never make an independent man of you. And only think what it is to be independent, — to clap your hands in your pocket and find plenty of money, and to know where to get more ! Why, according to your account, you have been at sea ever since 1770, and now we are in 1797, making twenty- seven years, and you have not got enough money, I 'll be bound, to jingle on a tomb- stone." " That 's wrong," said I, as I unstowed my magazine : " here 's five-and-twenty pounds ; and I have more due for prize-money." " Well, what 's that ? You know you make it like horses, and spend it like asses ; and then you are obliged to slave for more. Besides, what can be worse than being at the mercy of any capricious character ; to be seized up to BEN BRACE. 225 the grating — to be flogged like a boy — to be placed in a black list — to work, and to work worse than any negro in the West Indies ? And, after all, what do you gain ? — twenty-five pounds ! Now, you are just the lad I want: you are quick, brave, intelligent, a seaman and a sailor : you might do for a lord-chan- cellor, for you can speak Spanish after a fashion, and can write a good hand. If you will serve me, I '11 serve you ; so let "^s have another glass, and we'll see if we can't make a bargain." " Much obliged I 'm sure I am to you, sir," said I ; " but I might have been a baker, and lived like a lord at Cawsand Bay : but I couldn't leave Nelson ; so I gave up Susan to one Tapes, and went to sea again." " What, do you know Tapes ?" said the skipper. ** To be sure I do ; and I fancy he knows me, for I left my mark upon him. But, ship- mate, are you much acquainted at Cawsand ?" " To be sure I am ; and I fancy they know me pretty well," he replied. '' Why, l5 226 BEN BRACE. what the devil are you looking at ? Do you think you ever saw me before, — or do you see double already ?"''' To tell the truth, I did not like my man : he was one of the surliest-looking fellows I ever knew. There was a great quickness in his manner, and he was one of the stoutest- looking men alive. His crew were more afraid of him than of a press-gang ; and whenever he was displeased, he used to say, " I '11 ship you on board a man-of-war ; and then you wdll know what slavery is, under the glorious name of ' British Sailor,"* ' Lords of the Ocean,"* and ' Bulwarks of England^"* and so on. Well, I looked at him, and I thought I had some recollection of his features : but although I looked and looked again, and turned over the log-book of my memory, yet I could not recall to my mind that I had actually ever seen him before ; and yet 1 was quite convinced that his features and his manner w^re well known to me. When people are only half-drunk, they are either excessively kno^^ing or confoundedly BEN BRACE. 227 quarrelsome. Now I was never the latter ; because I had had quarrelling enough with the Spaniards to last me until the admiral re- covered his health; and as to the former, why I must say, that I was just in that humour to have bet I could have counted the number of patches on the skipper's counterpane without a mistake ; and, therefore, giving a very know- ing wink with my right eye, I remarked that I hoped it was not personal, but that I once did remember having seen a man nearly as ugly as himself in the West Indies. " Where, and when ?" said he. " I think,'' said I — and you know how we sailors remember dates, — "I think in the Badger, in 1779, in Jamaica." He looked at me — right through me; and his eyes, neither blue nor black, seemed on fire ; then they became rather dead, as he seemed to retrace in his memory scenes long since almost forcrotten. Then followed one of those slio-ht twinges which crawl over the countenance when a man tells a falsehood ; it is a kind of ac- knowledgment from the heart that it jrues acainst 22S BEN BRACE. the natural pulsation. I soon found that I was on the wrong tack, for this fellow could have pounded me to a jelly ; so, by way of making it up, said I, " Why, now I come to think of it again, you are not like that fellow Tackle, although you have just his surly look and his fiery eyes." " Come, Master Fearnay, no more of this personality, if you please. Who this fellow was you are kind enough to think resembling me, I neither know nor care." " He was the most cursed villain unhung !" I interrupted. " Maybe," continued the captain ; " but there is many a prime minister and clergy- man who escapes punishment in this world ; so leave villains alone, and talk to an honest man. Will you join my craft ?" " Much obliged to you, sir," said I, "but I cannot : I belong to the Royal Navy, and I 'm proud of the service ; I like it better than carrying merchandise from London to Ply- mouth, and back again." " Merchandise.^" said the skipper with a BEN BRACE. 220 sneer : " now, Mr. Fearnay, do you think I look like a man to carry carpets ? Here," said he, opening a panel near his bed-place, and discovering a regular stand of arms. There they were — short cutlasses with baskets round the handles, pistols, tomahawks, and every other invention for cutting throats, breaking heads, or shooting sailors. " Why, do you think that a man of my build and power goes groping along the coast for cod-fish, or that I could have a comfortable house on shore by such like twopenny tradings ?^'' " Umph !" said I, giving him a wink, and running my forefinger across my throat; then pointing with my forefinger, like Kean the actor used to do when he said, * In the deep bosom of the ocean buried,' I looked at him and said, " Ay ?'' " No," said he, " not exactly that. No, not a pirate, but a little given to this," (touch- ing the brandy-bottle ;) " some of the right sort — real Guernsey, and so on. Do you twig ? " " Smuorgler," said I in a whisper, as if I was afraid the very deck should overhear me. 230 BEN BRACE. " That's it, as right as a trivet — only a little risk, you know. Besides, I have lots of companions in Cawsand, and that is the place where I run the cargo." " Why, you have got none on board now, have you ?" said I. *' Not yet," he replied ; " but before we get in I shall have enough to supply half the parliament-men in England.*" " Where do you find it ?''' said I. " Will you join ?" said he. " No,*" said I ; " Nelson never liked your profession." " Nor I yours," said he, " although I once be- longed to it, when But no matter — listen, and mind, you've a man, and a desperate man, to deal with. You heard me refuse to take a score of those long-tailed-coated gentry who wanted a passage, and yet I took you at half-price : I saw you had a little devil in your composition, and I took a wonderful lik- ing to you. Now pay attention : I am going to place myself in your power ; but remem- ber, you are in mine. I could soon drown the BEN BRACE. 231 secret with you. — Ah ! you need not look at that locker; you nor no one else can open it now. Last voyage, when I had another vessel, we were opposed in running our cargo, and the mate was killed : I fired, and he was reveng- ed ; — he was just your build, but he had more heart. The scuffle was long and serious ; for a man-of-war's boat happened to be at Cawsand, and joined the custom-house officers. It was the first time we were obliged to fire. We should have been taken, had not my twelve men '' *' Why," said I, interrupting, " twelve men ! Why, you have but two and a boy !" " I dare say," he continued, " we shall find fourteen before we arrive. But listen. We lost our cargo, which we had already landed. Owing to the fishermen who are our friends, being ap- prehensive that a discovery was certain, they left us; and we fought as gallantly as men can fight who fear transportation or a man-of-war, or per- haps a gallows. 1 got on board my craft again, leaving the mate dead ; and having lost the cargo, this has made me more desperate and more cunning. I have now two vessels concerned 232 BEN BRACE. in the traffic. You will find that when I make the Eddystone, which I shall do after dark to- morrow if the breeze lasts, that a fishing-boat will show me two lights in answer to my three : she has a small cargo on board, with a hand or two to spare. We shall shift all this, and be in Caw sand Bay before daylight. Tapes is awake to our coming, and he has his con- federates in readiness. We are going to place the tubs in his wife's bakehouse.'"* " Susan's f says I. " Hulloa ! Why, how do you know Susan ? I say, young man, you had better make a clean confession, or out of this vessel you never stir, excepting to be transported. Now mark me, you are concerned with us. Here you are, and we are going to run the cargo. You will as- sist — or, by G — !" (and he made the sign I had made to indicate a pirate). He looked me steadfastly in the face — " My life," said he, " is in your hands— my security is in your death ; it is but a toss overboard, and the waves will roll over William Fearnay as quietly and as secretly as they rolled over the custom-house BEX BRACE. 233 shark I decoyed last year. You think we are alone, but there are others who hear, and who are nearer than you expect.*" This was a stopper over all : he had me safe enough, I felt ; and I heard a low whispering close to me. I was now snugly entrapped by a man who owned to having shot one man to revenge his mate, and drowned another to re- venge the loss of his cargo ; and I could not get out of my mind but that he was Tackle : he was just the same surly, sulky savage; and nature never made them in pairs, out of com- passion for the rest of the world. " Answer !"*^ said he : " will you be one of us, or will you swim like a stone for it ? Don't say we took you unawares. Here, freshen your draught with the Frenchman'*s water of life, and when you have imbibed some of their spi- rits, perhaps we may find you a man of more mettle. I went too far before my danger so- bered me : now I am alive to my own situation, and I 'm not the man to be trifled with. An- swer !"" " Sir," said I, (for I saw that civility was the 2S4f BEN BRACE. best policy, and if his danger had sobered him my apprehensions had awakened my cunning,) "I will answer you plainly and straightforward. — You ask me to become a smuggler ; — I will not. You tell me that I shall sink by myself, or swim with you : that is optional only with you ; and in this world and the next you will answer for it. But I cannot see the necessity of your adding another murder to your num- bers. You have decoyed me here ; you have endeavoured to wean me from the service I most like, — and you seem ready to murder me because I refuse your offer. Stop, sir, and hear me out. I see the determination already taken in your mind, but I'm not the man to look on with a white face. No ; I have faced death too often to be afraid of it ; but I ""m not fond of paying him a visit before my time. I will not join you, 1 repeat : but by all that is in heaven or hell I swear that I never will be a witness against you ! I now leave it to you to trust me, or to consult your better safety by my death." " Safety I'' said he : " What is my danger ? BEN BRACE. 235 You could be no witness against me. What have you seen as yet ? Go look in the hold, and see if there is a tub of liquor, or a pound of tobacco. I tell you I don't care for your death a straw ; and when I die I'll turn a black face on the world. Your own folly would be ray best argument to get rid of you. There is but one man alive, — ay, perhaps he is not alive, — that can hold up his hand against me ; and that is that old fisherman, Brace. — What ! do you know him, that you start so ?'''' " I have heard of him," I answered coolly. '' He had a son ?'' " A fellow on whom,'' he continued, " I would give all I am worth to be revenged : not that he ever injured me much, but because his father opposed my marriage with his sister. But Tackle was not the boy to be baulked by such an old dotard : I prevailed over the girl and — left her. My plan is not ripe yet. — Come, drink; and we'll talk of the business to-mor- row night before we make the Eddystone. — Why, what the devil is the matter with you, young man ? are you afraid to sleep ?" 2S6 BEN BRACE. " I never was afraid of doing anything since I was born, but " " But what ?'' said he. *' But — " (I was going to say, ' being in the company of a murderer, and drinking out of the glass of him I could have murdered,') " being a smuggler.'' " Why, what a boy you are to be frightened at a shadow ! But let 's talk of something else. I'll tell you of Jane Brace — that will amuse you. She was a pretty plaything : never did a girl look more artless than Jane when she was sixteen. She was far above her situation, and I loved her ; — yes, Fearney, I loved her ! I don't think I was ever blessed with a good temper, and it was made none the better for the obstacles thrown in my way : but I was above my situ- ation also : I had been educated at a regular school ; I could write, and I had read. It made all my energies the greater when I saw Jane, and 1 resolved to marry her. I never harboured an idea against her virtue. I was then the very reverse to what I am now : it is true I was obstinate ;— but who masters BEN BRACE. 237 his passions when in love ? — who could be cool and temperate, and yet have Jane before his eyes, with all the obstacles to his union which were prepared for me ? Jane told me how her mother hated — how her father de- spised me, and I became more resolute. At last Jane even wavered, — the girl who had lis- tened to me with delight, and to her parents with distrust. She met me at Edgecumbe, in one of the m^ny walks which look towards Ply- mouth Sound. It was in Julyj and the evening was calm and beautiful : we walked until we nearly came to the projecting point which forms the bridge leading into Hamoaze. I had re- peated to her over and over again my vows of love, — I had formed plans by which we were to be, comparatively speaking, rich ; and she turned her large and beautiful dark eyes upon me ; but she never said she would consent, for she feared to disobey her parents, and I there- fore saw the greatest barrier to my happiness. " The sun had set, and the cool evening suc- ceeded the sultriness of the day. The Sound was unruffled : it was a calm, — a dead, still 238 BEN BRACE. calm ; the waters met against the shore without a murmur, and the sea resembled one large mir- ror, in which the stars and the bright full moon beheld themselves. I looked her tenderly in the face ; and in her eyes I read her soul's inmost wishes, although the strong arm of parental duty withheld her. A kind of flush crossed my cheek ; it was the rising of unbridled pas- sion. I succeeded. The flower was nipped, — she was mine. Her own safety, now her own inclination, was to follow me — to marry me. But I was not now so eager for the match : I felt she was in my power, — to be the slave of my will ; and I was far from wishing to rivet the shackle she would have imposed upon me. During our return home I agreed to take her away that night, and I saw her to the door. I afterwards observed her sitting with her feet near the fire, her head resting in her hands, absent as to her mother's questions, lost in her own shame. " Why, what do you fidget about for, Fear- ney ? — take some more brandy. Why, a wo- man lost and left is no such strange event," he BEN BRACE. 239 said as he watched me. " Why, what are you about with that knife, hacking my table ?" I was thinking of cutting his throat : murder was busy at work within me ; and when I heard the incarnate villain glowing with delight over the highly-wrought description, I had nearly revenged her, and lost my own life. But I commanded myself, and I knew myself. Philo- sophers say, "Keep your temper;" and, as I said before, when a man can keep his temper he is always on his guard. I recovered myself the instant he made the remark, and I told him that I felt for the girl. " Feel !" said he with a sneer : " what should you feel for ? Was I not as good as she ? And how many of that kind of creatures es- cape either me or my betters ? — Pooh ! that affair does not trouble my conscience ; although I confess I should like to see the whole family in the poor-house: then the measure of my revenge would be complete, when I stepped in and offered them a penny to buy bread. " There is no revenge like apparently condol- ing and comforting your greatest enemy; it cuts 240 BEN BRACE. him up — it is poison to him : the very idea that his most inveterately detested enemy has as- sisted him, or has tendered hfl assistance, is heaping coals of fire upon his head, which all the waters of the big ocean can never smother or extinguish. Take this lesson, Fearney, from one who knows human nature well : Whenever you seek to destroy, do it by kindness ; add a little pity, and the poisons of the chemist are healing medicines in comparison. — Come, boy, to bed. There, give us your hand — Good night ; and to-morrow morning, when we see the sun, we'll talk over the matter. You don't know half the story of Jane yet. But it gets late, and to-morrow night we shall not close our eyes." Saying this, he threw himself upon his bed ; and I, overcome by what I had heard, and alarmed at my own situation, was glad to lay my head upon my pillow and ponder on what I had heard. Here was I, drinking with the man who had ruined my sister, was rejoicing in the prospect of seeing my poor old father die in a workhouse, and who, if I discovered myself, BEN BRACE. ^41 would have witnessed against me falsely, and perhaps delivered me over to the law as a smuggler. I turned restlessly in my narrow crib, for I had thoughts of murder about me; and I never had felt throughout my life as I then felt. To join him whom I so hated was impos- sible, — to escape was impracticable. His crew, although I had only seen two, — yet those two were of that brawny cast, that I should have been a baby in their hands. And, oh ! to write what passed in my mind that night is utterly impossible. I never slept for I kept my eyes fixed on his bed-place ; and, strange as it may appear, he slept — ay, in utter forgetfulness, as if he had no conscience, — as if his life had been creditable, — as if no secret monitor, no small still voice, as the parson says, witnessed against him. He slept soundly — he never turned or spoke ; and I thought what a mind his must be to overcome the truth. At the first dawn of day I was on deck. The cool air refreshed me much ; and I hardly felt the Channel mist which allowed this cursed vessel to glide along unperceived by our nu- VOL. I. M 242 BEN BRACE. merous cruisers. Of course, I had resolved, in the event of our being boarded, to follow Tackle's advice, and, by my kindness, get him transported, — a kind of favour for which he would no doubt have been very grateful : but no vessel hove in sight. Once, when I was steering, we saw a brig, and I edged towards her ; but it was a Smyrna-man, making a run for it. The tide of ill luck was regularly set against me, and I had nothing else for it than quietly to meet the danger I could not avert. We breakfasted together, and I then brought his features better to my recollection. He was in high spirits, and talked of his future life of affluence. It appears that he had been regu- larly educated by Tapes, and having an inquisi- tive mind, soon became, as he stated, far above his situation. He very seldom spoke as we sailors speak : but he was a kind of long-togged sailor — more of a gentleman than a seaman ; and yet he understood his vessel well, and worked her properly. The day passed slowly away, and by seven o'clock in the evening it was pitch dark, and the easterly wind rather BEN BRACE. 243 high and cold. We were now near Torbay, and the skipper made his only preparation, which was to have the lanterns all ready. We went down into the cabin a little before eight : he placed the brandy-bottle upon the table, and began directly at me. " Well, young man," said he, " I have not bothered you all day, in order that you might undisturbed consider my offer. I shall just finish Jane'*s history, and then we will get to business. " At midnight she left her father's house. I at that time was sent by Tapes to his brother at Exeter, in order that I might know some- thing of the business for which I was intended. My father was a smuggler before me ; and Tapes wanted me to learn a little French, to write a good hand, and to understand accounts, so that I might be left at Guernsey, and do the business a little quicker than those over- employed gentlemen. I had that morning re- ceived some money from Tapes; and as I was rather tired of myself, I thought I would take Jane with me. My first intention was, to have M 2 244 BEN BRACE. had a regular cruise at Dock, and then to have left her there, to make the best of life she could ; and I had some hopes that she might in some of her visits on board a man-of-war have been discovered by her brother, who was a sailor on board the Badger, and then he would have had some pleasant remembrance of Tackle. " The girl was good enough in her way ; she cried a good deal, and talked some non- sense of bringing her mother''s grey hairs in sorrow to the grave : but when she saw that I was beginning to be tired of her tears, she en- deavoured to become more cheerful. I then thought that she would do as well as another, and we started off to walk to Exeter. I made her carry the bag in which were our traps ; and before I had got three miles out of Plymouth, notwithstanding she earnestly besought me to marry, I told her I was determined not to do so. Thus we went on until we got to Exeter ; when I put her in a small lodging, and began my own career under Robert Tapes, wine and brandy merchant, who, I soon found out, was BEN BRACE. 245 deeply engaged with his brother, the attorney, in receiving and selling the smuggled goods. " We went on pretty well for about six months. Jane was then in the way to become a mother ; when Tapes sent me to Hertford to transact some business. It struck me, that as I should be there exactly three months, it would be the best opportunity I could ever get of ridding myself of the baggage by which I was hampered. I knew the parish would get me to a certainty if she remained at Exeter ; so I mustered up money enough to put her in a cart, and we got without any adventures to Hertford, Here I remained for two months and some days ; and it had now become evident that in a week I should be a father. My busi- ness was done, and I was to return to Exeter. I therefore bade Jane farewell ; kissed and consoled her ; and swore that I would always work for her and her child : and when she was a little reassured, I left her, and never have seen her from that time to this — poor fool !"" " Damnation !" said I, " are you a savage ? — have you no feeling ? — are you such a devil?'' 246 BEN BRACE. " There 's the Eddystone on the starboard bow V said one of his men. He looked at me searchingly ; then said, *' Keep her off a couple of points, and give us a hail when it bears south-west/'' By this time I had swallowed my wrath, and had resolved to dissemble a little. " Hah ! hah !" said I ; " you did her there." " You may say that. What has become of her I do not know or care. I returned to Exeter, then to Cawsand ; was sent to Guern- sey, and there continued until my father^s trans- portation ; when I took the sea line, and have been successful in every trip but one, — am now well to do in the world, and want such a fellow as you, young, hardy, and resolute, to make one or two trials first, and afterwards to take the sea business, whilst I retire to manage it on shore. "It's a life of danger ; but that danger has its charms. A woman is not worth win- ning when there is no opposition to the love, — and a fortune is more satisfactory when it is made by perils, and in defiance of the law. A BEN BRACE. 247 Stolen kiss is always the sweetest. Your gen- tleman, who inherits his fortune which his fa- ther has toiled for, cannot feel the glow you have felt when the enemy has struck his co- lours, and the prize has been gained by courage and hard work. — Ckjrae, this is no time for long words ; here 's my hand upon it : serve me well this night, — be my friend" — (I thought I should have dropped when I heard that word) — "be my companion in danger, and you shall not go un- rewarded." (I shook my head.) " What !" continued he, " you refuse ? Consider, before your word is passed ; — again, will you join me ?" " No !" said I, " never ! — never !" " Then this night," said Tackle coolly, "'you shall see, if there is a dust, how easy it is to grin through bars, and afterwards to visit fo- reign parts at the King's expense.'* *' There 's a vessel on the larboard bow, sir !'' said a man who had been placed to look out. Tackle went forward, and I jumped into the cabin in order to get a pistol : but I could not open the locker; so I whipped a large sharp- pointed carving-knife inside my shirt ; and I 248 BEN BRACE. shivered when I felt the cold steel against my own flesh, and thought how soon it would pe- netrate another's. I was on deck before Tackle came aft ; and I managed to stow away my only defence in such a manner as to baffle Tackle's quick eye, and to hinder its wounding myself. BEN BRACE. 249 CHAPTER XI. Different deaths at once surround us ; Hark ! what means that dreadful cry ? Sea Song- The vessel which we had seen, was a fish- ing-boat, under easy sail on the larboard tack ; and I shortly saw two lights on her deck, as if by accident, and not shown as any signal. " That 's her !" said one of the seamen ; and our three lights were held over the lee quarter ; then her two were shown more boldly? and we shot up alongside of her and hove-to. " Hooker, ahoy !" said Tackle. " How are you in the Nancy ?^'' was the reply. — " All right from Cawsand," continued the stranger. "Any news from the islands?" replied M 5 250 BEN BRACE. Tackle ; and this finished the discourse, which consisted of so many private signals, which no one knew but the two skippers, and consequently a mistake was impossible. The boat of the Nancy was out in a moment, and very shortly afterwards the skipper of the hooker came on board. He shook his worthy partner by the hand, and they both went into the cabin. The conversation was in a low tone of voice, which gradually grew louder, and I soon found that I was the object. I sat by the companion; for the man who ought to have been at the helm had lashed it a-lee, and had gone below to pre- pare for the ensuing struggle. " I really don't know,*" said the stranger, " how we can manage him ; but of this we are certain, that we can contrive, if we are opposed in the landing, to get rid of him without much trouble, but otherwise he might blow the gaff upon us." '' He promised me he never would," replied Tackle ; " and there is something all fair and above-board about him. Let 's have him down and try him again." BEN BRACE. 251 " I "*(! rather he did not see me, so as to swear to me," said the first. *' Never fear, Jacob ; we can always find means to stop any oath. So let me call him ; we must not bear up for the next hour with this breeze — we should be in too soon ; but, as we talk over this business, we will run down within a couple of miles inside the Eddystone, and at one we will make a run for it. Tapes said that he did not imagine we should meet with any opposition ; and he and his men are all ready to assist. What a precious old scoun- drel he is !"" " I think he cheats us finely, Tom," re- plied Jacob. " But wait awhile; they say, when rogues fall out, honest men get their due : it won't be long before we give him a receipt in full." " Was Jane in Cawsand, Jacob, when you went over the other day .?" " Yes : old Brace was near his last, and the old woman and daughter were nursing him ; — the child is a beauty." *' It 's about six years old now, Jacob." 252 BEN BRACE. " And as like you as it can stand, although it is handsome." " Come, Jacob, never mind the child now ; we'll manage all that hereafter. Let's have Fearney down, and see what we can make of him ;" and he called me. I went down, and seated myself against the the foremost bulk-head, only keeping my right side towards them, for I was fearful that the carving-knife might be discovered. They push- ed the brandy towards me, and I took a strong south-wester to keep the cold out and to twist me up a little. '• Now, Fearney," said Tackle, " will you join us or not i*" " No," said I, " I won't ! I feel much obliged to you for the offer, which I dare say might turn out beneficial to me ; but I have followed Nelson ever since he was entered on board a man-of-war, and I could to-morrow be a warrant-officer in the service. I refused promotion to be always near him ; and I now, not in any ill-will, but for the same reason, refuse your offer." BEN BRACE. 253 " Well," said Jacob, who was a stout square- built fellow, with more fire in his eyes than would have blown up a magazine, " that, I must say, is all fair and above-board. But you know that now we are in your power, and you in ours; — will you swear never to give evidence against us under any circumstances ?"*' '' No," said I ; " I will not promise that." (Both of them leaped up in a moment.) " Stop," said I ; " don't be in a hurry. As far as re- gards the unlawful trade you are concerned in, I swear by Heaven that I will never give any evidence against you." " And what other evidence could you give .^" said Jacob, as he locked through me : his eyes no man could face — he kept them fixed upon me. " None," said I, " as yet : but circumstances unconnected Avith this affair might arise." " I say, my lad," continued Jacob, " you are a bit of a sea-attorney, and before half-an hour is over your head your throat will not require a neckerchief. Either this minute join us, or, by the piper who played before Moses, 254f BEN BRACE. you are a dead man in five minutes ! Come, Tom, this fellow is not to be trusted." " I think not," said Tackle : " he is just the man for us, if he could be trusted." " I never yet," said Jacob, " made much of such fellows," as he retired towards the com- panion, and took out of his bosom a pistol, which he very deliberately cocked. " Stand aside, Tom, and we '11 have an enemy the less in a moment." '* No, no," said Tackle, " no murder yet : we may run the cargo without blood ; and if he swears never to appear against us in this affair, that's enough for us. Put up your pistol, Jacob ; we have use enough for that." " Why, Tackle, you must be mad ! The noise of running the cargo will arouse Caw- sand in a moment ; and he is going to remain there. Why, he knows j/om, and they know me : besides, he is aware of some of our confederates. It must not be : either we must take him over to Guernsey, or we must save him the hazard of being false to us." *' No," said Tackle, " say no more about it ; BEN BRACE. 255 I have him fast. Let 's to work. You say the vessel is so deep, that it would take us half the night to change the cargo ; so let us run it in your vessel. The wind seems edging round, so that you may yet be out before day- light, and the tide will float you off in an hour after we run her ashore. Take Fearney with you, and I '11 run in and anchor, and get ready." I can't say I felt very easy under this ar- rangement ; for Jacob was not a man to stand upon trifles, and he seemed rather glad to get me so much under his control. I jumped into the boat without saying a word, because I knew that one word in opposition would be useless. So I hugged my left arm pretty close to my side, and having said a bit of prayer, I made up my mind that if any blood was spilt, mine should have a companion. The night was murky and misty, and a small drizzly rain made it darker and damper. The Nancy bore up for the anchorage; about a quarter of an hour afterwards we did the same. The boat, for so the hooker might 256 BEN BRACE. be called, was exactly the shape and rig of a Cawsand fishing-boat, and she might have laid alongside of any of them without suspicion ; but she was evidently of a better build ; and when she felt her canvass, she walked along through the water at a great rate. I stood on deck watching the land with great anxiety ; and my heart beat quickly when I saw Caw- sand Bay, and remarked one bright light in a house I could not mistake — it was the at- torney's. The Nancy was at anchor close to the shore. It was dead low water, and the sea was harm- less, for the projection of the land rendered the bay smooth. Jacob had been talking to his crew, and had mentioned the plan to be pursued. One of the anchors, to which a strong hawser was bent, was cleared, and before we touched, and about a hundred feet distant from the shore, was let go, and the hawser paid over- board. As the vessel advanced, she grounded easily in the mud, and instant preparations were made to land. There were one or two men ready on shore, and the kegs, slung in BEN BRACE. 257 couples, were thrown out, and conveyed to the shore by the crew, some of whom had jumped overboard, the water not being higher than their waists. Those on shore slung the kegs over their shoulders, and ran along to the bakehouse, in which they were to be deposited ; for it afterwards appeared that Susan had given over the business, and the attorney had only retained the premises as a good stow-hole for his contraband trade. Jacob never landed, and the tide had begun to flow before I thought of my own welfare. I kept a bright look-out, and availing myself of a moment''s inattention of Master Jacob, I w^as over the bows before he could get any of his crew to stop me. He called to those on the mud to seize me ; but I was not bound to Guernsey then. I stepped over the water like a fisherman ; and when the first person put his arms out to hold me, I came the eel over him, and slipped through his fingers before he could clutch me. I did not want to fight — that was no part of my plan, because I should have been overmastered or detained ; but I wanted to f]jet 258 BEN BRACE. clear off : and from these devils I did escape, but not without a slight exchange of blows ; they were too eager to get off themselves to chase me far, and I had had quite enough of their company. When I found they were not in chase, I began to walk rather slowly towards my father''s house ; and it was well I did. The knife was still in my shirt ; and a man who has had such an escape never likes to throw away the friend on whom he principally relied. When I turned the corner, I saw a man listening at the win- dow ; and I knew him in a moment to be Tackle. " Now," said I to myself, — " Now, Ben, you may bring him to action without fear ; for he is blockading a port which is a hostile port, and in which he has committed a piracy." So I walked up gently behind him, put one knee against his back, and before he could recover the haul I gave his collar, he was on the ground, and none the easier for the heavy fall. I knelt upon his breast, and fixing my left hand in his BEN BRACE. 259 neckerchief, I gave it a twist which would have made any man believe the finisher of the law was at work. " Now, you cursed red-headed villain !" said 1, " you are mine ! Look at me, you murder- seeking smuggler ! — look at me ! I am Ben- jamin Brace, the brother of Jane whom you deserted. Now, d — n you ! 1 11 cut your throat !" and I pulled out the carving-knife. He struggled fiercely, and his strength was tremendous ; but I tightened the nip about his throat, and his face was as black as a lobster. " Lie still !" said I, as I found I could master him. " Listen to me. She is there, close to you, and awake, for I heard her. Not if she were here kneeling to pray for you would I forgive you, but upon one condition ; and I W bleed you into weakness in order to insure that. Will you marry her ? will you make an honest woman of her ? will you be a father to your child ? — or will you now, — answer, for delays are dangerous — have your throat cut with your own carving-knife ?' 260 FEN BRACE. I spoke loud, for I was in a high passion, and I only slackened my hold in order that Tackle should not die outright before he gave an answer. He hesitated, and I was about to finish him, when I found my neck encircled by my sister's arms. " Forbear, forbear, for God's sake ! and let not your father at his last gasp know that his son was a murderer. I knew your voice, Ben, and I knew his. Release him, — for Heaven's sake do not harm him ! he is — he is — my husband !" " Avaust there, Jane !" said I ; "he has told me the whole story. No ; if he was your husband, I could not kill him : but as Tackle, the dishonest fellow who ruined and left you, — as a man who has confessed a mur- der, — -as a Avaust there, Ben ! I promised not to hold up my hand against him on that score. Listen, you red-headed ruffian ! Will you marry her ?*" " Say yes, say yes. Tackle, and 1 11 forgive you all the miseries you have inflicted on me — all the shame you have heaped upon me ; — say BEN BRACE. 261 yes, and I '11 marry you to-morrow — I '11 be to you a good and faithful wife." I was so overcome at seeing Jane, who had released my neck and knelt down by Tackle's side, as I knelt upon him with my arm up- lifted and the knife pointed, that I unintention- ally slacked the grip. By G-d ! before I could recover myself. Tackle was on his legs and standing in front of me : a pistol was drawn from his pocket — it was the work of a second — it was cocked, pointed — Jane threw herself between us, the pistol was fired, and she fell a corpse at my feet ! I sprung forward and struck the murderer with the knife, and it entered deeply. But he was off to the beach : his asso- ciates were there ready to resist an attack or to favour a flight. I followed until I saw him amongst his crew, carried on board the hooker, and she afloat, with her sails hoisted. I threw the knife from me, and I returned to my sister. She was dead ; neither had any one approached her. The door of the cottage was open, but the noise of the pistol had been un- heeded. I drew the body towards the door; 262 BEN BRACE. and as I looked in and saw no one moving, I placed it inside and shut the door. A stream of blood still flowed from the wound, and I kissed her, all dead and cold and pale and motionless as she was. I then advanced into the room, and drawing aside the curtain, I saw my father. The hand of death was upon him : but no wife was thereto soothe his last moments; no daugh- ter was ready to wet the dry parched lips, which hardly were separated enough to allow the last breath of life to escape ; no female — and they are the best of nurses in affliction; as they are the best of companions when in health — stood by to proifer assistance or to soothe pain : but there he lay alone, his daughter a corpse, his son perhaps a murderer. " Father," said I, as I approached the bed. He opened his eyes, but there was no knowledge in them ; he fixed them upon me, but he saw me not — I felt he knew me not. The heavy lids soon closed again, and he lay in a state of stupor, horridly pale and inanimate. I looked at him with all the respect an honest man, an affectionate son, could feel; and I remained BEN BRACE. 263 hanging over the bed, my eyes fixed upon my father, my memory retracing scenes of former days, and every now and then endeavouring to bring myself to his recollection. There was occasionally a noise in the streets ; but the door was fastened and guarded by the dead, whose body had fallen down and formed an unnatural barrier to the entrance of the stranger. Again my father opened his eyes, and faintly called for " Drink." There lay some weak brandy and water in a cup upon the table, in which was a sponge : I took it and squeezed some on the parched lips of the old man. He opened his mouth and greedily endea- voured to swallow : it revived him much, and in his eyes returning sense seemed to flash like lightning. '' Jane,*" he said, as he looked at me, — " Jane, is it you ? or, O God ! it is like my son, my dearest boy !" " It is me, father. Look at me, father ; do you not know your boy Ben ? Oh, do not close those eyes upon me without one look of recog- nition ! — Father, it is me."*' 264f BEN BRACE. " Jane,"" he said, — *' Jane, where are you ? Ah ! if my old dame lived, I should not be so neglected." The thought of my mother then first occur- red to me. In the great anxiety for my father, I had forgotten her who gave me life. '' Father, father,'* said I, " tell me of my mo- ther ; tell me — — " His eyes again opened and again closed. Poor old soul ! in vain he called — my mother had died a fortnight previously — Jane died that night; and now none were left to close his eyes, to stretch his limbs in death, but me. I watch- ed him narrowly : he breathed heavily, and his old form was occasionally convulsed a little; and as a kind of foam covered his lips, I washed it off with the sponge, and squeezed some of the spirit and water into his mouth. At last, when it was about four o'clock in the morning, he gaped strongly and sat upright in the bed. The candle on the table, from its long wick, burned but faintly. He held out his withered hand, which felt like that of a skeleton. " Ben,"" said he, " God bless you, my boy ! BEN BRACE. 265 you are come in time to see the last of me I feel it is all over with me ; a few more minutes, and I shall follow your mother, and shall bless you as she did at her last moments. Ben, I have much to say. Take care of Jane. Poor soul ! she is gone to sleep ; she is tired, for she has been by my bedside ever since I was taken poorly. There is her daughter — you must be a father to her. Why, boy, don't be so cast down ! you know we must all muster aloft, and the poor and the rich will have equal judgment. God forgive me for having wished Tackle's death ! but the curse of a father may fall upon the seducer of his child ; — but now I forgive him.'"' ^'' I cannot, father" I said ; "for he is a mur- derer, a smug ■ "" " Look to her, Ben : he may still marry her. I feel weak, very weak : call Jane to hear my last dying prayer, — call her, Ben. Why do you sit staring at me? Go; she is asleep behind the screen." I got up. Who can awake the dead but Him ? I passed round the bed : I saw the body VOL. I. N 266 BEN BRACE. of Jane move — I saw the hand raise. I felt an awful creeping of my flesh — ay, more fear came over me, with its chill, its cold suffocation of my breath, than when I had stood where hundreds fell. Oh ! horror, horror ! well I remember that dreadful scene. My father had followed me with his death-struck look, and as I slowly and cautiously moved towards the dead, a loud shriek paralysed my limbs, and I saw the child striving to shut her mother's eyes; — the cold, glassy stare had frightened her. My father was sitting upright ; — the child shrieked on seeing me, and ran to my father, covered with its mothers blood. One spark of life remained in him to whom she ran for refuge : he, with all his last energies, leapt from the bed, and fell a corpse upon the floor ! I stood like a stone — I did not dare to move, and the child shrunk down behind my father. I roused myself with some effort and placed my father on the bed : I lifted Jane there also, and stretched them both, then drew the sheet over the father and daughter. BEN BRACE. 267 I then turned to the cliild, but it was gone. I had no heart to call it from the seclusion it had chosen. Death is awful to men — to us who know it, who are familar with it, and I did not like to frighten the child ; so I began to speak as if my father still lived, calling myself Jane's brother, the child's uncle, his son. I heard a rustling behind the screen, and when I had stirred the dying embers of the fire, I told little Jane to come to me ; and she came. The sight of the blood scared her and frighten- ed her. I kissed her and fondled her : children know when they are liked more instinctively than men, and infants will run to those who really love them, whilst the words of those who endeavour to express what they cannot feel are discovered in a second. The child kept her eyes upon the bed, and I was not bold enough to look upon it. I knew that the removal of the sheet would show only the dead ; I therefore consoled the child, who shivered with cold, and taking it into its own sleeping-place, I sat by her until she fell asleep. Oh, happy innocence ! who could thus N 2 268 BEN BRACE. slumber where murder had been busy in the hand of man, and where the arm of death had been extended to the sick bed ! I came back to the front room and made a large fire ; for the candle was nearly out, and darkness I could not bear. To go out was impossible, for I thought of the child. I sat down in Jane's chair, and keeping my eyes fixed upon the fire, I endeavoured to cheer up my heart and feel like a man. It was then I became sensible that some people were close to the house: I heard voices, and I was at once aware of the danger of my situation ; for Tackle must have been certain that he had shot Jane and not me, since she fell and I followed to wound him. The pistol had drop- ped from his hand as he retreated ; and this evidence I had secured. Aware that I was the object of search, and that the danger was at hand, I began to turn in my mind the best method of keeping secure until daylight. I soon lulled the child to a sounder sleep, and placed it in its own bed ; I then put a chair, on which I hung a blanket, between the fire BEN BRACE. 260 and the window : the blaze of the wood had expended itself, and the light was barely suffi- cient to make darkness visible. I first looked to the door ; it was fast, and required very little more to render it difficult of being forced. I then got up to the shutter, and I overheard the following conversation, the first speaker being Jacob : no one could mistake that ruffian. " We must have him somehow : Tackle is dangerously wounded, and the woman shot. We must get at him. Is he in here ?" " Ay ; I saw him go in and take the woman with him." " Listen !" continued Jacob ; " do you hear any one stirring ?''\ " No ; all is as still as death." " Is old Brace alive yet .^" continued Jacob. " Yes," was replied by a strange voice ; " but he is not likely to live long." " And the child r " It is still alive also." " Then we have three alive in the house, even if the woman is dead. What o'clock is it r 270 BEN BRACE. " Nearly five : it will be daylight at six ; or, at any rate, many of the fisliermen will be stirring." " Then we must be quick, finish him, and get on board as soon as possible. Tackle is oiF in the hooker, and will not wait beyond day- light ; then the custom-house shark* may over- haul the Nancy from stem to stern and be none the wiser. Did Tackle take his pistol aboard with him ?''^ " No ; he said he had dropped it." " We must search for that ; it would be strong evidence. Look round the cottage and see if there is no way in besides the door." When I heard this, I cleared for action. I saw I was the object, and I knew that if Jacob had only the crew of the Nancy, he had not more than three in his gang ; but three such fellows ! big enough and ugly enough to fight a Norway bear. As the front was secure, I thought it was no time to stow away like a frightened child ; so I lit the re- mains of a rushhght, and blinding the light for fear of disturbing the child, I carefully BEN BRACE. 271 surveyed my castle of defence. I was secure enough behind, for the door which led out that way was more secure than the front. As I looked round the room, I saw one of the child'*s playthings. It was composed of eight or ten pieces of flat wood painted* on both sides^ which when you turned the top one over, the rest followed the example, making a slight clatter. This I lashed on the latch of the door ; so that if they had raised that, the plaything would have warned me of it. \yith this tell-tale secured, I returned into the front room, well knowing that no one therein could break the silence, on which now I mainly depended for safety. The child slept, as innocence always sleeps when health and exercise are its associ- ates : its little mouth was partly open ; the flush of warmth was in her cheek, and as I placed my ear near her bed I could hardly hear her breathe, so softly, so soundly did she rest. I looked at it, — ay, when I knew that around the dwelling of the living and the dead the murderers, the men whose hands were dyed in blood — ay, in the blood of 212 BEN BRACE. their own countrymen, were thirsting for an- other victim ;— I say, I looked at that innocent creature, and thought that /, its now father, protector, and friend, was sought for to be destroyed by him who should have reared the pretty infant as the child of his own bosom. " Now God grant," I said, " that it may sleep through this night ! for death has been an inmate, and murder lurks without." I opened the cupboard, in which I had often seen the bottle deposited, and I took a little en- couragement from the spirit ; for I was dead beat : I had not slept the night previously, and the excitement had wearied me more than the exercise. I rummaged every hole for some powder, but I could not find a grain. Arms there were none : but the poker afforded a sub- stitute ; and I placed that in the embers still burning, but not blazing. I then took up my listening quarters, having extinguished the light and left the passage clear between the two doors. '' There 's a door on the other side," said one of the men. BEN BRACE. 273 '' Have you tried it ?" asked Jacob. '* No ; for I saw a light through the cre- vice, and I thought we might only be disco- vered." " Go," said Jacob, " and try it." A silence of some moments ensued, and then I heard the plaything mark the attempt. The man seemed to have heard the noise, for he ran round to Jacob, and spoke so low and hur- riedly, that I could not make out what he said. But Jacob spoke loud enough when he said, " Then we must go to work boldly." I start- ed as if I had been electrified. I jumped on my legs when I heard two loud raps at the door, which sounded in the chamber of silence like the beat of a sledge hammer. I now ran to the door, and, pretending to have been asleep, answered, " Who 's there ?" '* Me," replied a voice to which I was a stranger. "• Me .'" said I : " why, who the devil is me^ at this time of the morning .'^" " Why, it's me, I want to speak to old Brace about his boat." N 5 274 BEN BRACE. " Well, then," said I, ^' you may top your boom and be off : old Brace won't give you an answer now ; and I 'm none the better obliged to you for having tried to disturb him." " Oh, you Ml do as well : open the door, and 111 talk to you." " Much obliged to you, sir, all the same," said I ; " but it's rather cold, and too early for visiters." " I say, Ben," said Jacob, altering his voice, " here's the devil to pay, and no pitch hot. I know you are here, from Tackle, who is dying. Come along, and I '11 get you out of the scrape, and tell your father where we have stowed you. The constables will soon be after you." " Bless your considerate heart, Jacob," said I ; " but you may tell that to the marines — the sailors won't believe it. I'm awake; and I 'm blest if I don't make more candidates for coffins if you or any of your precious gang attempt to enter in here !" As the silence succeeded my words, I heard the toy rattle at the other door. I was there in a moment, and, imitating another voice, I BEN BRACE. 275 called out, " Ship, ahoy ! If you're a pirate, you had better be stirring, or I'll dust your jacket for you !" Then I hopped back again. The child was awakened, and began to cry with fright ; for she saw me standing before the door with a red-hot poker in my hand. Jacob and his gang made a rush at it ; but it stood firm, thanks to a cross-bar ! " Pop your finger in the hole,'' said Jacob, " and lift the latch, whilst we try another surge." In came the finger against the red-hot poker, and out it went again. " Ah," said I, '• my lad, your finger will be warm enough for the next hour. Hadn't you better try and burn your finger again .^" " This won't do," said Jacob ; '« that fellow is well defended. Let us be off to the con- stable, and tell him of Tackle's murder. We will soon unearth this precious fox." " I say, Jacob," said I, " don't you know that before a murder can be proved the body must be found.?" " You d — d sea-lawyer !" said he, " we will ^76 BEN BRACE. have the stretching of your legs before long. Come away, lads*" I was not much frightened at this declara- tion, because I knew well enough that they were ignorant of Jane's death ; and that before I could be taken up for Tackle's murder, even if he was dead, some one must have identified the body. Moreover, Tackle had sailed in the hooker: I was in that secret, thanks to my ears and my silence ! About a quarter of an hour afterwards I heard footsteps, and up came a devil of a row against the door. '* Open, in the name of the king !" said a strange voice. " No," said I, "Jacob, it won't do, — it won't, I assure you. I'm a king's man, and hope all you Guernsey gentlemen are the same." " I'm a constable, and desire the door may be immediately opened." " Very sorry, sir, I can't obey your orders. If you think I 'm a murderer, you can watch the house until daylight : I can't fly away, or BEN BRACE. 277 get through the keyhole, hke Jacob's friend's finger." " Then we must burst the door open." " The poker is still red-hot." Jacob found 1 was resolved not to be taken by surprise ; and, after one or two more at- tempts, he and his ruffians withdrew. I then got an hour's sleep, and when I awoke it was broad daylight. My own danger had inter- fered with the affection I bore my father and my sister : the dead were beyond human ven- geance, but I was not. Now came in full array against me all that the malice of my enemies might invent ; and yet I felt a security from knowing all concerning the place the smugglers had chosen for the safe stowage of their con- traband articles. I went towards the bed, but I was afraid to look at those who so coldly- occupied it. I dressed the child, and, as well as I could, I made myself look decent. I then opened the window-shutter : there was only one man in the street, and he was an old beggar. Tapes's house was not far distant. 278 BEN BRACE. and I resolved immediately to run to him, for I did not know how to act. He was the only attorney in the place I knew of ; for I was igno- rant then of the fact that attorneys, like par- rots, always fly in pairs : one man can't quarrel with himself ; and one attorney will never get on without another of the same class to keep up the ball of contention. I took the child with me ; and as I went along the street, I was struck by the appearance of a neat house, with a brass knocker, and with a large brass plate, on which was engraved, " Crimp, At- torney."" '' You Ve the man to my mind," said I to myself; and I knocked at the door. I saw the old beggar run away like a hare. " Hulloa !" said I ; ''I smell a rat.'' It was not eight o'clock : Crimp was asleep, and his dirty maid had hardly unbuttoned her eyes, although her tongue seemed to have been prepared for any conversation. " Is your master up, Molly .?" said I. " Molly yourself, Mr. Sailor ; my name 's Martha," said she. BEN BRACE. 279 " Why, you 're like a Yankee," said I ; " you never give an answer. Is your master up ?" " Yes, to be sure he is, upstairs in his room.'^ " Come, Martha, ray pretty girl," said I, " will you tell him that I want to see him on very particular business ? — tell him it 's a mur- der." '^ Lord have mercy upon us !" said she ; " and the blood's upon you now !" And she banged the door in my face, running away, screaming, like an enraged cockatoo, that her throat was cut. " I wish it was !" said Crimp, coming down stairs. " Who is this fellow ?" said he, as he opened the door. He was dressed in a bed-gown, with a white nightcap, and looked for all the world like an Italian butcher. " Sir," said I, touching my hat, " I am come to you for advice how to act. My sister has been murdered, my father is lying dead in the same bed with her, and men are seeking my life. I could not go to Mr. Tapes, for he knows more about last night's business than he ought." 280 BEN BRACE. *' Come in," said he. " Tapes concerned for the defendant, I suppose ? Good case — quarter sessions near at hand — advice, six and eightpence. Let's hear all about it. Pretty child that ! — old Brace's grand-daughter. How is he, Jane .?" '* Dead !" she answered. " Dead .?" said Crimp. " Poor fellow ! — happy release — lost his wife, honest woman ! — honest man ! has a son, far away of course. Why don't you begin, my man ?" " Because I didn't think it right to inter- rupt your honour. I am old Brace's son : I arrived last night." 1 then told him every- thing connected with the business, from the time of my leaving London, sinking that part which referred to the place where the cargo was placed, because I thought of Susan, and I could not bring her into trouble. " Glorious !"" said Crimp : " a beautiful case ! — most delightful murder! Old Tapes con- cerned : I've got him now ! Send for the coro- ner — settle him, and take his business — I mean Tapes of course." BEN BRACE. 281 In a small place like Cawsand Bay such an event was not likely to remain long a secret. Martha had overheard it, and before Crimp's boy could have got to the ferry to cross to Dock to find the coroner, every soul in the town knew all about it. The house was beset with people, and loud and general were the abuses against Tackle. That he never had in- tended to shoot Jane, I knew ; but that his intention was to commit murder was equally evident. Hundreds came to see the murdered daughter, on whom, when living, the breath of scandal had been rested, now stretched upon her last earthly bed, by the side of that good man who had, although poor and of humble birth, led the life of uprightness in this world. Now the voice of envy was stilled, and the faults of Jane were forgotten in her suffer- ings, and in the death she had received from the hand of her betrayer. In the mean time Jacob and his party were not idle. Jacob himself proposed to give me a handsome sum of money to be off; but I de- clined, again saying that in regard to the smug- 282 BEN BRACE. gling I would never hold up my hand against him. Tapes ridiculed the whole business : he declared it was an affair of jealousy with some unknown person ; that Tackle had not been seen in Cawsand for upwards of three years, and that the whole story was improbable and untrue ; — nay, he went so far as to hint that I had murdered my own sister, mistaking her for another. '' Tapes,"" said I, " you are a scoundrel, and you know it better than I do. When we last met it was in anger, and I left my mark upon you : now you think to crush me by the ma- lice of your suspicions. But, Mr. Tapes," said I, as I whispered in his ear, " I don't wonder at your being in such good spirits, since you had so large an importation last night." Tapes looked rather astonished, and kept his mouth open like an alligator catching flies, only shutting it to say " What V " I know all about it, old boy. Let me speak to Susan a minute, and we may yet be friends." BEN BRACE. 283 " Susan indeed ! I should like to know where you learnt manners ?" " Why, on board a man-of-war, to be sure,"" said I : " I don't think you were ever educated in so good a school." I pushed by him and walked into his house, and offered my hand to Susan. She came Cap- tain Grand over me ; she turned up her nose as if she smelt poison, and walked out of the room. I felt that behaviour ; it cut me to the heart ; it made me feel that I was nobody in Susan's estimation. I saw her children run- ning about the room, and could have kissed them for the mother's sake ; but she drove them from me, as if I had or could contami- nate them ; — nay, she said something about the guilty woman having met the fate she merited. My heart misgave me : men cannot control their feelings — at least honest men cannot. I said, — and bitterly I repented it afterwards, for it gave Susan pain and rendered her unhappy, — " Why, Susan, you need not be proud, for it was owing to your own husband that Tackle com- 284f BEN BRACE. mitted the murder : and," I continued, " your husband and yourself are in my hands — in my power. But, Susan,"' I said, frightened at the declaration I had made, " be friends with me— let me hear you speak ; for although you are the wife of another, I love the ground on which you walk.*" " Walk out of my house V said she ; and calling a little scrub of a chap, told him to see me out. I looked at her ; she walked proudly by me, taking a child by each hand, and, without further notice of me, walked away. I watched her ; I saw the last of her dress as she proudly passed me; and I was half inclined to recall to her mind the time when she sat with my mother, and was my correspondent. I kept her letters — I have them now : I must have been more than a man to have kept the secret. Tapes came in as I went down stairs, and he said something to irritate me ; upon which I called out, " I ll transport you and your wife, you nest of smugglers !" *' Smugglers !" said Tapes. BEN BRACE. 285 *' Smugglers," said I ; '* put that in your pipe and smoke it ;" and out I walked like a lord. The coroner came, and I was placed in the witness-box. Tapes attended merely to hear the proceedings ; but Crimp was there to bring the secret to light. I went through the whole of my examination fearlessly. I did not implicate Jacob, because I felt I could bring nothing against him which I could prove ; and he was present, sitting as coolly as an innocent man. By the side of Crimp was an excise officer, who, with the rest, seemed led there from motives of curiosity. I detailed the facts. The coroner asked if there was any other witness ; when Crimp said, " Yes," and put up a young lad of about eighteen, who having had occasion to go to Dock early, had risen before his intended time in consequence of a noise he heard in the street. He saw the scuffle between myself and Tackle, and, after the murder, followed him to the beach, and saw him embark. " Well," said the coroner, '* did you see any one else ?'''' 286 BEN BRACE. " Yes," replied the boy ; "I saw him !" pointing to Jacob. " What had he to do with it ?'' '* Nothing particular ; but he seemed very intimate with the man who fired the pistol, and pushed him into the boat." " Oh !" said the coroner. " Pray, did you see any one else ?''"' " Yes," said the boy ; " I saw Mr. Tapes down there."" '' Down where ?" " By the boat : he was talking to that man ; and the man who fired." " What was he about down there .^" " Why, he was busy getting some kegs from the boat, and taking them to the old bake- house." "Oh !" said the excise officer; and he was off like a rocket, just whispering something to Crimp, who turned his nose up, rubbed his hands, and looked at Tapes with a mighty pretty sneer. Jacob was about to be off : but the coroner detained him for evidence ; during which time BEN BRACE. 287 the exciseman had made the seizure of the whole concern, had taken steps for the secu- rity of Jacob and Tapes, — and they were in for a nice job. The inquest returned a verdict of " Wilful murder against Thomas Tackle,""* and the coroner issued his warrant for the apprehension. Jacob was detained in order to be examined before a magistrate, one or two of whom had come over to witness the inquest ; and Tapes was seized as a smuggler, the goods being found on his premises, the boy's evidence being conclusive against him. Crimp rose in estima- tion upon the wreck of Tapes ; and Susan — poor dear Susan ! — soon changed her fine house for a hovel near the county gaol. By the kindness of one or two of the gen- tlemen, who saw how I took the murder to heart, and who felt interested about the child, I was saved much expense in the decent fu- neral of my father and sister ; and as I turn- ed from the grave, I felt myself alone in the world, without friend, or relations: I was the last of our name, for the child had hardly 288 BEN BRACE. a legal right to it. I dropped a tear as I put the key of the cottage in Crimp's hand ; and leaving him to arrange matters in that respect, I left Cawsand with the child, and crossing to Dock, soon returned to London and to the admiral. BEN BRACE. 289 CHAPTER XII. Scarce the foul hurricane was clear'd ; Scarce winds and waves had ceased to rattle ; When a bold enemy appear'd, And, dauntless, we prepared for battle. DlBDlN. When I got to town, I went of course to the admirars : I knew he would be over- come by the sight of a pretty girl bereft of parents and of friends. Your parsons some- times tell us that there are visitations of Pro- vidence, and that a death in a family is the vengeance of the Lord. I don't believe a word about it. We are here to-day and gone to-morrow ; and if one argues like the clergy- man, it stands to reason that it must have been predestined that Jane was to die by the VOL. I. o 290 BEN BRACE. hand of Tackle ; and if it was so arranged and so ordained, then Tackle could not help it, and he is not responsible for the deed ! And nobody will persuade me of that, I asked if the admiral was at home, and the maid told me he was. So I ran up to my room, and getting some fresh rigging over my masthead, and washing the child's figure-head, I took her by the hand and walked into the room. Nelson was writing ; but hearing the door open, he looked up and said, " Ah, Brace I you are just returned in time. — Why, who 's that ?''"' looking at the child. " It's all that is left of our family, your honour ; — my sister has been murdered by her husband."" — I did not like to hurt her reputa- tion when the grave covered her shame, and in a good cause I ventured the first lie I ever told to the admiral. — " My father and my mother are dead, and I am here alone in the world, and without your honour I have no friend." Nelson got up. The voice in which I had summed up my losses had found its way to his heart. BEN BRACE. 291 " Come here, my little cherub," he said. " What 's her name ?" " Jane, your honour," said I. " Jane," said he, " come to me, and I '11 be a father and a friend to you." Nelson looked at the child with the fondness of a good man : he patted her little head and played with her hair ; then he placed her on his knee, and began coaxing her to speak. The child grew fond of him directly ; and ever after that, until we sailed, little Jane was much noticed by the admiral and Lady Nelson. Both seemed to like her ; and when we parted to sail for the Straits again, Lady Nelson pro- mised that on our return Jane should be able to write, in order to stand secretary for her uncle, who, she said, one day might be like her husband. That was a compliment I trea- sured up in the store-room of my heart. It was early in the year 1798 that Nelson hoisted his flag on board the Vanguard ; and there was Ben Brace a sort of pet spaniel on board. I was a kind of servant, secretary, and quartermaster, and in action was stationed at the o2 292 BEN BRACE. signals. We had a convoy under our charge, and sailed on the 9th of April for Lisbon, in order to join Lord St. Vincent. I remember, when we parted from Lady Nelson, that the admiral gave Jane to her care with words of great tenderness. Well, we sailed, and joined the commander- in-chief on the 20th off Cadiz. We were then sent off Toulon to watch the French fleet ; and we had with us the Orion and Alexander of seventy-four guns each, the Emerald and Terpsichore frigates, and the Bonne Citoyenne sloop-of-war. The French had in Toulon thirteen ships of the line, seven forty-gun frigates, twen- ty-four smaller vessels of war and about two hundred transports : they were fitting out under Bonaparte, who was then de- termined to take Malta, and afterwards land in Egypt. Our business was to watch these marauders, and to be ready for another brush upon any occasion. Well, we had a brush ; but it was not with the French — it was with the Clerk of the Weather. BEN BRACE. 293 We had got into the Gulf of Lyons ; and a precious place it is for a gale of wind ! for it seems to me as if it never stopped blowing and rolling from one year's end to another. It was on the 19th of May, and it sprang up after noon. We old sailors, who have been half our lives in those seas, know that if a breeze springs up after twelve o'clock in the day, and fresh- ens gradually as the sun goes down, in the night we shall catch it pretty warmly. At first the breeze came from the northward, and then chopped round to the north-west. About three p. m. w^e reefed topsails, and began to look to windward for the mackerel-sky ; but the clouds were blowing out like so many locks of ladies' hair. At sunset, all round us looked like the blacksmith's forge in his dirty shop of a dark night when he is blazing up ; or like the copper-foundry in Portsmouth, or like the prospect of the devil's own gale of wind. About eight p.m. we took every stitch off the ship, with the exception of a mizen staysail ; and the wind came howling and whistling with such force, that one of the after-guard, who 294 BEN BRACE. was coiling the lee fore-brace down by the bits, was blown against one of the boats on the booms, and was jammed there so tightly that he could not move : the pressure was so great against him, that he soon afterwards died. And as for that gale of wind when the captain of the main-top could not cut away the top- sail because the edge of the knife was turned by the wind, or that when every tooth in the quartermaster's head was blown down his throat, they were quite cat's-paws to this ! In all my life I never knew it blow harder. Well, the gale continued. The scud flew over the stars, and the moon was only visible at intervals. The sea looked as if it was all in flames, and more like an angry surf break- ing upon a reef of rocks at the first dawn of day, than a regular roll of even a short sea. The gale now roared through the rigging ; the night got darker and darker as the moon went down, and by midnight we looked like a vessel in a fiery ocean. The sea was run- ning high; the ship worked and creaked. About one A.M. she was struck by one of those top- BEN BRACE. 295 pling waves which come rolling along like a Congreve-rocket : it struck us on the star- board chesstree, flew over us like a foun- tain, and carried away the main-topmast. The hands were on deck, of course ; for the raizen-topmast was over the side also, and it was requisite to clear the wreck. We tried a signal or two ; but it was of no use — the lanterns were playing ' dodge Pompey,"* and the lights were out before the signal could be made. The admiral wished the squadron to wear together, to prevent any mischief from one ship running on board the other : but it blew so hard, that the lights were of no use ; and as for guns, the man who fired them scarcely heard the report or saw the flash ! The ship laboured so much, that the ad- miral endeavoured to wear ; but, at the mo- ment, the foremast went in three places, and the bowsprit was sprung. The captain tried to use the speaking-trumpet ; but the wind blew the voice back into his throat, and the jum- ble of the one coming up and the other going down nearly choked him. We worked like 29G BEN BRACE. sea-horses; and when daylight dawned, there we were, a wreck at the mercy of the waves. But we got her before the wind, by the as- sistance of the remnant of the spritsail ; and Captain Ball, who commanded the Alexander, took us in tow, and we got safe into St. Peter's Island, near Sardinia. Misfortunes never come single. On the day of the gale, the French fleet sailed from Tou- lon, and must have passed us within a few miles. That was a misfortune ; but it would have been a greater one if they had caught us after the gale. But I will give you the ad- miral's account of the storm which he wrote to his wife. "Vanguard, off St. Peter's Island, May 24, 1798. "My dearest Fanny, " I ought not to call what has happened to the Vanguard by the cold name of accident: I believe firmly it was the Almighty goodness, to check my consummate vanity. I hope it has made me a better officer, as I feel it has made me a better man : I kiss with all humility the rod. Figure to yourself, on Sunday evening BEN BRACE. 297 at sunset, a vain man walking in his cabin, with a squadron around him who looked up to their chief to lead them to glory ; and on whom their chief placed the firmest reliance, that the proudest ships, if equal numbers, be- longing to France, would have lowered their flags. Figure to yourself, on Monday morning when the sun rose, this proud, conceited man, his ship dismasted, his fleet dispersed, and himself in such distress, that the meanest fri- gate out of France would have been an un- welcome guest ! But it has pleased Almighty God to bring us into a safe port," &c. Sir Horatio never took any credit to him- self, or gave much of it to Captain Ball : he thought it was to Heaven alone that thanks should be given for such a deliverance. We were four days refitting. Captain Ball and Captain Berry lending us a hand, and at the expiration of that time we had a jury fore- mast. We fished the bowsprit, and on the evening of the fourth day we were at sea again. Some few weeks afterwards we had a rein- forcement of ships sent us. There was Trou- 29S BEN BRACE. bridge in the Culloden ; Foley in the Goliath ; Louis in the Minotaur ; John Peyton in the Defence ; the Bellerophon, Captain Darby ; Majestic, Captain Westcott ; Zealous, Captain Hood ; Swiftsure, Captain Hallowell ; The- seus, Captain Miller ; Audacious, Captain Gould : all of them seventy-fours. The Leander, Captain Thompson, of fifty guns, afterwards joined us. I remember all these names, because they all fought with us at the Nile. There have been many accounts of this fa- mous victory, but it has never yet been told by the coxswain, the valet, the under-secre- tary, the follower, the signal-man of Sir Ho- ratio Nelson : and I flatter myself — not that I want a certificate from any one — that I sig- nalized myself. No sooner had the squadron joined us, than it was " Hurrah for the first man who sees the French fleet !" At daylight, we had half the officers, with their glasses slung over their shoulders, scudding up to the mastheads, and sweeping the horizon as we did the seas. We had no directions from Lord St. Vincent BEN BRACE. 299 what course to steer : the admiral knew that he had given the command to Nelson ; and although one or two older officers complained of this favour and affection, yet St. Vincent knew that he had placed the honour of England in hands well able to maintain it. The first news we had was, that the French fleet had surprised Malta, and that the place had surrendered. We were a day after the fair in that quarter — the mischief was done : we therefore steered towards the Archipelago ; the French fleet having left Goza on the 16th of June, and. it was the 20th when we ar- rived. It was a timepf great excitement. We knew our enemy was out of his harbour ; we knew that Nelson would not allow any opportunity to escape ; and the daily exercising of guns, flourishing cutlasses, and twirling boarding- pikes, gave us clearly to understand that if we did meet the French fleet, an action was determined on. On the 28th of June we arrived off* Alexan- dria : but the French were not there, neither 300 BEN BRACE. could we get any information relative to them. The governor expected them, and was repairing the fortifications, and getting everything ready to give them a warm welcome. We steered away for Caramania ; the admiral and all his officers looking like those people who follow a hearse. Still the enemy were somewhere ; and the one eye of the admiral never closed. We steer- ed along the southern side of Candia, carrying all sail night and day. Nelson often said he should have liked to try Bonaparte on a wind : he had beat us at Vados Bay, but I 'm blessed if we would not have beat him out at sea ! Well, night followed the day, and day followed the night, as the boatswain used to say ; but there was no French fleet that we could find. The ships required a supply of water ; and we were obliged to put into Syracuse, in Sicily, in order to get some of that stuff, which is only good for shaving, on board. We might have been there now if it had not been for a lady. We sailed on the 25th of July from Syracuse, and made the Gulf of Coron on the 28th. Troubridge stood BEN BRACE. 301 in for intelligence, and returned making the signal that the enemy had steered to the south-east four weeks ago. Well, we before- the-mast-men thought that a month was a long time. I have known a frigate come from the Havannah in eighteen days; and it is on record that the admiral on the Newfoundland station breakfasted in his own house one Sun- day, and dined with the admiral at Portsmouth on the next. So that, when we put that and that together, we smoked our pipes in the galley, and cocked our eyes at each other, as much as to say, " Catch a weazel asleep ! Bony is off to Jamaica before this, and has drunk cocoa-nut water at Barbadoes.*" The admiral was as pleased as if he had found them : he walked quickly up and down the quarter-deck, rubbing his hand against the side of his trousers, his face jumping about like Sykes when he was electrified. We had just given it up for a bad job : but the admiral bears up, spreading out the studding-sails, and making the mate of the watch heave the log every quarter of an hour to see how much S02 ' BEN BRACE. faster we went. We steered from Alexandria, carrying on until the masts groaned, and sail- ing close together, every morning keeping the look-out ships well distant from us, and in the evening collecting the squadron together. ** If the French are on the seas," said Nelson, '^ I '11 find them, or it shall not be for sparing the spars or saving the sails." END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. lonjuon: printed by samuel ekntlet, Dorset Street, Fleet Street. NEW NOVELS AND ROMANCES, JUST PUBLISHED BY RICHARD BENTLEY, 8, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. I. In 3 vols, post 8vo. THE OUTLAW. By the Author of " The Buccaneer," &c. " We have from the first been warm admirers of Mrs. Hall's talents, and the present volumes enforce a yet warmer and higher estimate. * The Outlaw' is a bold Rembrandt sketch, admirably lelieved. The personages of the time are drawn with much spirit and historical truth ; great variety of female character is introduced, and the description of the heroine herself is exceedingly sweet." — Literary Gazette. II. In 3 vols, post 8vo. CHRONICLES OF WALTHAM. By the Author of " The Subalteisn." " Full of deep and almost Crabbe-like interest, and containing a mass of solid information concerning the recent history, and the actual condition and habits of the English peasantry, such as we sincerely believe no other work of any class whatever can supply." — Quarterly Review. III. In 3 vols, post 8vo. MALVAGNA: A ROMANCE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. " This is a stirring and dramatic story. Its chief interest lies in the details it affords of the revolutionary movements in Sicily and Naples, which have all the appearance of being connected with real facts. Brigandage conspiracy, adventure, perils, love, and murder fill the page ; and there is enough of each to carry every reader of romance along to the finale, with the interest necessary to their enjoyment." — Literary Gazette. IV. In 3 vols, post 8vo. TREMORDYN CLIFF. BY FRANCES TROLLOPE. Author of " Domestic Manners of the Americans," &c. " This work undoubtedly surpasses anything we have yet seen by its author both in originality of conception, and force of execution." — Athe- naeum. " A novel of very superior order. Vivacity of thought, smartness of language, and extensive knowledge of the world, characterise its pages."— John Bull. V. In 3 vols, post 8vo. AGNES SERLE. By the Author of " The Heiress," &c. " A dramatic and interesting story." — Literary Gazette. " Tliis is a stirring story — well conceived in point of plot, and told with great spirit. We can recommend tiiis entertaining and very original work." — Literary Times. VI. NEW WORK EDITED BY LADY DACRE. Second Edition. In 3 vols, post 8vo. TALES OF THE PEERAGE. AND THE PEASANTRY. By the Author of "The Chaperon." " Whilst perusing these tales, we feel as if we were reading no fiction, but a chronicle of real life." — Athenasum. VII. In 3 vols, post 8vo. BELFORD REGIS. By the Author of " Our Village," &c. " Miss Mitford is the very Wilson of English story-telling — a pen.and-ink Claude — full of freshness and rural pleasures. Here she is, in the very streets of ♦ Belford Regis,' as delightful as in ' Our Village,' the queen-elect of harm- less gossipings, interspersed with rare poetry and shrewd observations." — Nev/ Monthly Magazine. VIII. In 1 vol. foolscap 4to. with 24 Plates, engraved from Fresco Paintings at Pompeii, TALES AND FABLES. Suggested by the FRESCOES OF POMPEII. By W. B. LE GROS, Esq. " We say, fearlessly, that these are superior to Gay's, or to the fables of any other writer, at least among the moderns. In beauty of versification and incidental adornments, they very far excel anything he ever wrote." — Metropolitan Magazine. " This book is recommended to us by two qualities, each of them of rare excellence. The beauty, the gracefulness, and, above all, the purity of the designs, are full of charm and interest. The author is an admirable painter uf modern manners, and we could find no compliment too great for these ' Fables' in the class to v/hich they belong." — Literary Gazette. IX. In 3 vols, post 8vo. L O D O R E. By the Author of " Frankenstein," &c. " This is one of the best novels it ,ha3 been of late years our fortune to read. The impress of an original mind is visible throughout, and there are many passages of exceeding gracefulness, of touching eloquence, and of intense feeling." — Eraser's Magazine. r ^