HANNAH HEWIT.
HANNAH HEWIT; OR,
THE FEMALE CRUSOE.
BEING THE HISTORY OF A WOMAN OF
uncommon, mental, and personal accomplishments;
WHO, After a variety of extraordinary and interesting adventures in almost every station of life, from splendid prosperity to abject adversity, WAS CAST AWAY IN THE GROSVENOR EAST-INDIAMAN: And became for three years the sole inhabitant of AN ISLAND, IN THE SOUTH SEAS.
SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY HERSELF.
THERE IS AN ESPECIAL PROVIDENCE IN THE FALL OF A SPARROW.
VOLUME II.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR C. DIBDIN, AT HIS MUSIC WAREHOUSE, NO. 411, STRAND.
HANNAH HEWIT.
BOOK III. THE REVERSES OF HANNAH HEWIT'S FORTUNE FROM HER MARRIAGE TO HER BEING SHIPWRECKED IN THE GROSVENOR EAST-INDIAMAN.
CHAP. I. HANNAH AND JOHN DASH INTO LIFE, AND SUCCEED RAPIDLY.
IT is the custom of writers to terminate a history on the marriage of their Hero and Heroine; forgetting, that as they are then only at the beginning of their cares, the work stands a chance, from that period, of becoming more and more diversified, consequently more and more interesting to the reader.
As to what has befallen me, I can safely say, that some addition has been made to the measure of my care, from the first moment I could remember, which was pretty early, to the moment I am now writing; but, I thank God, my mind has strengthened in proportion to every exigency, and the consciousness of having never, intentionally, brought any misery on my head, affords me a comfort, in the midst of all my afflictions, that the guilty happy, if I may so express myself, might envy.
Previous to the wedding, we had many consultations as to the plan of life we should pursue. I had saved nearly four hundred pounds from my own earnings, and my brother's presents. Hewit expected to receive seven hundred pounds as his share of prize money, and my brother would insist upon giving me five more, as a marriage portion. With this sum it was concluded that we could not do better than set up in business in London; for though we were but a young couple, Hewit being but twenty-three, and I not quite twenty, they paid me the compliment of saying, that with prudence, like mine, success could not fail to crown our endeavours.
To be sure my brother talked something of taking Hewit to sea after the honey moon, as he called it, and, I must own, he himself did not seem very averse to the proposal; but I parried that and every other objection with great success, till finding the Wolverhampton manufacturers were charmed at the idea of my opening a warehouse in town, and that they, one and all, were ready to give us unlimited credit and assistance, it would have been madness to have contended against a plan so very eligible, and so evidently advantageous.
John's master was one of the first that came into the above scheme, and generonsly gave him up his indentures for the purpose, remarking, that as far as he knew the business, he was a very good workman; and, at any rate, he knew enough to superintend a shop of his own, adding, that if he was only careful and industrious, assisted by ingenuity like mine, we could not fail of making a fortune.
All matters being now properly arrainged, it was agreed that we should first go to Bristol to settle my brother's affairs, and those of Hewit, and then to town; and that no time might be lost, Mr. Smallbrook undertook that a friend of his should be instructed to look out for a house and warehouse fit for our purpose.
It must be confessed, my heart warmed at these prospects; and though I felt great regret at the idea of leaving so many valuable friends, yet I had ever considered Wolverhampton as by no means the proper sphere for an emulative mind like mine to move in. I panted for an opportunity of displaying my abilities, such as they were, in the only place where they could be seen to advantage. How many patents had the suggestions of my ingenuity procured for others; how just then that in future the profit should be my own, and again, a consideration above all these, the love of John Hewit would, of course, encrease with my celebrity.
The parting from my friends at Wolverhampton, was truly interesting. Parson Williams told John Hewit, that he had the best wife in the world, and John promised to make the best husband in the world. I took a tender leave of my two female friends, who promised to correspond with me, to be kind to Mrs. Crow, and to superintend my Sunday school. Mr. Smallbrook, and Mr. Gregory, undertook to be our agents at Wolverhampton, and we to be theirs' in London; and now, with hearts full of love and gratitude, accompanied with the good wishes of our friends, we set out for Bristol.
My brother and Hewit, in the course of a few weeks, received their right. But nothing could induce the former to have any thing more to do with the Bristol merchants. He said they were sharks at sea, crocodiles in shoal water, and tygers on land. So giving them a hearty curse, it being now in time of peace, he applied to some friends in London, from whence he soon sailed commander of a fine West-Indiaman.
On our arrival in town, we found that Mr. Smallbrook's friend had not neglected his commission. He took us to see several houses; and, at last, we pitched upon one that seemed extremely well to answer our purpose. It was situated in the most conspicuous part of Cockspurstreet.
I seemed now in the very atmosphere I was born to breathe. I was continually bringing out some improvement on every article in our way. If a thing usually went by a weight, I altered it and made it go by a spring; if wheels went well by being vertical, I made them go better by being horizontal; every square form became, by my direction, an oblong; and every circle lengthened into an oval at my bidding. The business was to make every thing assume an unusual form. Convenience had nothing to do with it. Novelty was the only thing to be thought of. Thus it soon grew as customary to enquire after the last new spring candlestick, or reverberating cheese toaster, at Hewit's, as after the last new comedy, or tragedy, at Drury Lane, or Covent Garden.
Through the medium of our extensive connections, we were soon surrounded with friends; and by continually keeping invention upon the stretch, we had plenty of means to keep up a large and oppulent acquaintance. Hewit was delighted at this, and as the sum of all my wishes was the happiness of my husband, I gave into, perhaps, more extravagance than, at first, was prudent, without the smallest uneasiness, however, for my genius was inexhaustible, and there was no fear but that the spirit of the English would ever be found to encourage ingenuity.
We had an superb Villa, kept a coach and a phaeton, both with springs of my own invention, which, of course, were instantly imitated; and having in the country been advised to work in the garden, on account of a bilious habit, I became, in a short time, an excellent botanist; so that we abounded in town and country elegance, all the result of my fancy.
To crown our felicity, I had now two sweet children, the eldest a fine boy, and the youngest a lovely girl.
We had gone on in this style for five years, visiting and been visited, feasting and being feasted, till there could not be a pitch of fashion which we did not arrive at; and yet, so confirmed was our success, we could command the means to indulge ourselves in much more. But I do not know how it was, I never had a true relish for any of this pleasure; and I have often been more delighted with contemplating the beauty of a leaf, or a flower, in an insulated green-house, and hermitage, which I had built in a large piece of water, and in which I took greater pleasure, than in all the vain tinsel and tawdry trappings of a ball-room.
One reason, perhaps, was this: I could not find in all the variety of characters that surrounded me, a creature like myself. I had a warm heart, and both professed and felt cordial friendship, others were cold, forbidding, and inaccessable; and though they professed as much as I did, they felt nothing. I envied no woman the possession of a handsome and accomplished husband. Every woman seemed to envy me the possession of mine, and every man to envy him the possession of me; for under the mark of vivacity and gallantry, all his friends made love to me, and all mine seemed as if they wished he should make love to them.
This life, of all pleasure and no happiness, threw me at times into a very deep melancholy. Not being able to applaud myself for giving into such folly and absurdity, the applause of the giddy and the vain, operated as a severe satire on my conduct, and many a smile that I forced into my face in public, has been followed by an involuntary tear the moment I was alone.
My greatest pleasure was to take my children to my little island, and watch my improvements. Ah! how often have I indulged there an irresistable impulse, no doubt a foreboding of my present fate, that confidently assured me, were that spot separated from human society, so that I could have my husband, and my children, and merely common necessaries, I should be much more happy than in such a deceitful world.
This train of ideas made me resolve to prevail on my husband, who seemed as if he lived but to oblige me, to save a cer-to retire from the bustle of the world. He came into my proposal, and there appeared, just then, an admirable opportunity of accelerating such a scheme.
A tin mine was said to have been discovered on one side of Salisbury plain, and the shares in it were expected to yield, at least, forty
per cent.
We enquired into the particulars; and finding very solid ground to believe that we should be perfectly secure, we adventured nine thousand pounds in the scheme.
This brought me a good deal about. The expectation of hitting on a way to accomplish my plan of ease and retirement, made me bear the tumult of the world with renewed sprightliness and good humour, and the pleasure this gave my husband, absorbing every other consideration I joined in the throng, and my melancholy, though ever intense, was never perceived.
CHAP II. HANNAH AND JOHN GO ON IN A GREAT STYLE, AND ARE SURROUNDED BY DEPENDANTS OF ALL DESCRIPTIONS.
MY taste was now consulted in every thing. The Hewit cap, the Hewit bonnet, and the Hewit robe were all the fashion; and if I had had vanity enough to credit the assertions of those who partook of our dinners, I possessed more refined elegance than any woman in town.
There was no end to the train that surrounded us. I painted, and every poor artist in town courted my opinion; I wrote, and all the poor poets dedicated their works to me; I understood a little of music, and my patronage was sought by all the frequenters of the Orange Coffee-house.
My sonnets, elegies, and eclogues, I knew not how, got into the papers, under the signature of 'Petrach's Laura.' They were afterwards selected into a pocket volume; and, most impartially celebrated as a model for English poetry in the Reviews. Daubings, that would have disgraced a club-room, were first exhibited, and afterwards engraved by subscription, under an idea, that they had the honour and advantage of my sanction; and many an easy set of sonatos, which it was impossible for any body to play, had a prodigious run, from the fortunate circumstance of my having done them the honour to give them a place on my piano forte; an instrument something between the virginal and the clarichord, struck by hammers; originally made from a suggestion of mine, and which, on that account, had just then became the height of the mode, and has obtained wonderfully since.
I permitted all this nonsence, not to gratify my own vanity, for to consider properly, it was a severe sarcasm to patronize stupidity, but that the poor rogues might eat. Not that every case was alike. All my dependants were bad enough off, but not equally so. My painters, through sign-posts, coach-makers, cheap magazines, or the theatres, could get something to eat; and a musician, with a fiddle under his arm, found no difficulty in scraping up a little bread.
But the case was different with the poor poet. He must shiver in the avenues of Paternoster-row, and watch, with deference and respect, for the fortunate moment of being called in to earn the liberal sum of half a guinea, by doing a magazine. If he be a retainer to a newspaper, he must, while he is torne with hunger, describe sumptuous feasts; while he roams without a lodging, he must expatiate upon gorgeous palaces; and he must minutely particularize every beauty of court dresses, on a birth day, while he is trembling without a coat to his back.
Though I heartily lamented the occasion, I cannot help saying, that it gave me some satisfaction to be able, by a knowledge of these circumstances, to account for the scandalous and shameful rancour with which these poor devils bespatter one another. Literature, by expanding the mind, is surely calculated to convey noble and generous sentiments; and, in proportion as the human intellects are enlarged and improved, so one would think they would become fraught with the divinely social quality of beneficence; but as we are taught to consider self preservation as paramount to all other motives, so it must be that consideration, and that only, in men of enlightened manners and informed minds, which can possibly account for their barking and snarling, and snatching the fluctuating morsel from each others' mouth, like so many half famished curs.
This also I should suppose has an effect on their tempers, and thus their tempers are reflected in their writings. One addresses your feelings in his works in the language of an incendiary, as if he thought you could be bullied into compassion, and reviles the age and every one in it, implying that there is no virtuous man but himself, the prominent feature of whose virtue he convinces you, by his manner, is vain assumption, and impertinent arrogance.
Another, no less hurt, throws into his style all the oily, smoothness of fulsome adulation; and with the same ductile pliability, praises every body, and every thing; but his commendation is an affront, and his flattery a nausea, for no man can be all virtue any more than he can be all vice; and, indeed, even if he spoke his sentiments, he is the last man in the world to judge of what he writes; for while his pen emits milk, his heart overflows with gall; and while he effects the language of candour, he is torne with the gnawings of envy.
As to the lady writers, whose meritorious exertions I had so much admired in the country, they none of them came in my way, being well patronized before; and if they had, there were many reasons why I must have declined assisting them, all which are very probably obvious to the reader; I shall, therefore, only say, that now my judgment had grown more mature, I considerably altered my opinion, and wondered how the age could, with any degree of patience, except in such instances, as my namesake Hannah More, Miss Seward, my dear Miss Margery Williams, and a few others, receive lessons of virtue and morality from women, the notoriety of whose practices gave the broad lie to their precepts.
Being, I own, a little wickedly inclined to impose upon that world which I saw so willing to impose upon itself, I, now and then, helped my poor dependants out, by substituting a portion of my ingenuity to make up their deficiency in merit. If an author had failed by a poem, I made him succeed by a puzzle; if a musician lost money by composing what was easy, I brought him up by shewing him how to compose what was impracticable; if a painter could not succeed by imitating nature, I made him strike into caracature. Every body recollects the cylindrical prints; they were entirely of my invention.
But the thing in which I best suceeded, was an invention of mine to serve Walmesley; who having made one voyage with my brother to the West Indies, determined, on his return, to live peaceably upon Terra Firma. We all contributed towards establishing him; and it was resolved he should open a warehouse for the sale of patent medicines, which, as the reader knows, he was well qualified to counterfeit.
Celebrity, however, is only to be attained by novelty. I, therefore, invented a new medicine, which was to cure, or rather to prevent, every possible species of disorder to which the human frame is liable. The doctrine upon which this assertion hinged was this: All disorders proceed from the blood; and could that fluid be kept pure and uncontaminated, it must be clear to every capacity, that there would immediately be an end of gouts, fevers, and all the long catalogue of complaints inumerated in the bills of mortality.
The virtue of eradicating every species of impurity from the circulation we were to prove that our nostrum clearly possessed; which I went about to do, in the hand bill I drew up for Walmesley, in the following manner:
I called this sovereign remedy, 'The Universal Specific; or, Essence of May Dew, impregnated with Spirit of Owl's Dung.' I then held this argument. The blood is, certainly, in its purest state when both the body and mind are in their strongest vigour. Now the month of May is the most vigorous and healthy month in the year, and the owl is the bird of wisdom, inasmuch as Minerva herself, has the image of that bird for her crest.
May dew has sensibly been called the Essence of Vegetation, and it is believed, by more than one writer on agriculture, to contain particles imbued with nutrimental qualities, which, perforating the pores of the leaf on which the dew falls, penetrate the sap, and consequently contribute to the health of the plant.
Thus I fairly established my position, as far as it related to animal existence by means of fermentation, a quality, I argued, as certainly essential as putresaction; for man is an entity, part animal, part vegetable, hair and nails being brought to perfection as mechanically as cucumbers; for, like them, they are improved by pruning, and, like them, grow best, hair especially, in a hot soil.
To make good the remainder of my argument, I reasoned thus: As animal existence is allowed, in great measure, to depend on putrefaction, as the owl is the bird of all others endowed with most wisdom, and as wisdom is the mind's health; the owl's dung, being the putrefacton of wisdom, the spirit extracted from it must naturally, materially brace and strengthen the mind, and, consequently, assist in promoting the vigour of the body.
By the time this medicine had been seen on my toilette, and on the toilettes of some ladies of my acquaintance, it took beyond credibility; and Walmesley, perfectly in his element, was enabled to lavish what he received from the follies of the rich, to relieve the miseries of the poor.
CHAP. III. FORTUNE GROWS FICKLE, FRIENDS BEGIN TO BE COOL, HANNAH WAKES FROM HER DREAM OF PROSPERITY, JOHN IS AFRAID OF THE BAILIFFS, AND CAPTAIN HIGGINS GETS INTO A PRISON.
BEING now on the very pinnacle of our hopes, having for more than eight years experienced a series of pleasure and profit scarcely credible, we were fated to experience a most dreadful reverse. The tin mines turned out a bubble. After so much money and labour had been lavished away, and disappointment, that had perpetually succeeded to expectation, seemed perpetually to be revived with new hopes, like the projection of a chemist on the eve of finding the philosopher's stone, every thing was flown
in fumo.
No tin was to be found, and now all the world, who had encouraged our hopes, and assured us we could not fail of making a fortune, for the first time, discovered that nothing could be so mad and absurd as to search for tin upon Salisbury Plain.
It was now absolutely necessary immediately to retrench; and, in retrenching, it was necessary to give up our fashionable friends. Poor Hewit thought otherwise, and, Timon like, indulged considerable expectation from the friendship of those to whom we, indeed, had shewn friendship; but he soon found himself egregiously deceived. There was not a single creature in all the buzzing croud, that had fluttered round us, but flew off and left us as if we had been a contagion.
The cry was—How could such upstarts presume to vie with people of fashion? They had better have stuck to their business; but this was always the case; 'twas not the first instance of low people being ruined by aping their superiors. It was plain to see that every thing had been a long time going to rack and ruin. They did not make half such good snuffers as they used to do. In short, the squibs and sarcasms, that flew about, were innumerable; and, though but a month before, had we been actually guilty of any crime, we could have found friends to have proved us immaculate, had we now been accused, though perfectly innocent, it would have gone hard with us; nor did we escape my very artists, I was lampooned in a song, called Pride out of tune, by a musician for whom I got a large subscription; a painter I had taught to caracature others, caracatured me; and my milky poet, who had nauseated me with adulation, now levelled a volley of scurility against me in a poem, under the title of, 'Sappho in the Tin Mines.'
For my own part, had it not been for the loss of fortune, I should have rejoiced at all this, for I had long wished to give Hewit a distaste to the world, and this fairly completed my purpose.
One thing in particular took effect exactly as I had wished; my husband and I, as before mentioned, had a dispute when first we ourselves received the news of our loss, and while it continued unknown to our acquaintance. He, being of opinion that we should keep their countenance and good wishes, and I, that we should be utterly forsaken. I offered to put it at issue, in a way that pleased him very much.
Having a good deal led the fashions, my taste, as I before observed, was looked up to as a pattern of elegance; but, particularly, as to the shape. I altered the waist at any time in a month; and, at the period I am speaking of, I had brought it to such a length, that when a lady sat down the peak of her stays touched the chair. My proposal was, all of a sudden, to shorten the waist to nothing, to tye a sash immediately under the arms, and let all below resemble a promiscuous mass of loose drapery, under an idea that the fashion was Grecian.
At the same time I proposed, that Hewit should have a great coat made without skirts, and his excuse should be that skirts were an inconvenient thing in the rain, and that the upper part would answer all the purpose of warmth for which great coats were worne. We both agreed that the fashion would be followed; the dispute was, whether or not they would continue it when they knew our reverse of fortune.
He agreed to abide the trial; and, on the following Sunday, we drove round the Ring in Hyde Park, dressed in our new Hewits; which were, first, the surprize, and afterwards the admiration of every body. The papers were full of the new Hewits. On the following Sunday many people wore them; on the Sunday after, every body wore them; and on the Sunday after that, our ill fortune getting scent in the interval, every body left them off.
Upon a fair review of our situation there appeared nothing desperate in it; for though Mr. Smallbrook was dead, and Mr. Gregory had retired from business, which, by the way, cut off all communication between me and Miss Binns, who had been gone some time under the care of a friend to the East Indies, yet our Wolverhampton and Pontepool connections were as extensive as ever; and though it did not appear that we could perfect our plan of retirement as soon as could be expected, yet there did not seem to be much danger, with care, of our living in a very comfortable style.
But now came a severe stroke indeed. The business of the tin mines had been as complete a deception as the famous South Sea bubble. Several individuals concerned were declared bankrupts, and it soon became evident that no real money had been employed in it but ours. We began now to tremble for the consequences; for as the whole was completely a partnership, we feared that the solvent parties might be sued for deficiencies. These fears were soon realized; and in the course of a few months, demands were exhibited against us to the amount of almost twelve thousand pounds.
Ruin now stared us in the face. To appease the rapacity of the most importunate, first went the lease of the house in the country, with all my improvements—The carriages had been put down before—Next jewels, then plate, in short, we stript ourselves and yet were as much pestered as ever; nor did misfortune threaten us alone: my elder brother, who had made several very successful voyages to the West-Indies, had been prevailed on by the very same set to trade, according to his own fancy, upon a two years voyage. The plan was his own, and it must be confessed it was a good idea.
He was to purchase commodities at any place he thought proper, where they were cheap, and to fell them in countries where they were dear. They fitted him out with money to their last guinea, and all their expectation of a supply was from what he might have to remit them. He, always just, remitted to the very shilling, drawing upon them for repairs, victualing, and others incurred expences, according to the nature of the exigency. It so happened, that having been at several markets up the Streights, and in different parts of the Mediterranian, he had in his hands, of theirs, upwards of three thousand pounds, which he informed them of; and also that he meant to bring it home, the term of his voyage being nearly expired.
Having put into Leghorn, he was astonished at being applied to for a bill of four hundred pounds, which his owners had refused to accept, and which had, therefore, been protested in form. He paid it of course with their money, but could not help thinking there was something extraordinary in the transaction. He, however, thought it could be some how or other explained, and touched at another part, where a demand, in the same way, was exhibited against him of seven hundred pounds. In short, before he reached the Thames, he had paid upwards of two thousand pounds of his owners' money in this manner.
Having fairly now discovered what men he had to deal with, he determined, the moment he set his foot ashore, to consult some attorney as to what steps he could take against them, for his name was out upon all their engagements.
The attorney informed him, with very little ceremony, that there was a statute of bankruptcy out against his owners, that among the accounts they had given in was one charging him with the value of the ship and her different cargoes, all correctly specified in letters and memorandums received from himself; and, also, three thousand pounds and upwards, which money he had acquainted them remained in his hands before he touched at Leghorn. That as these were large sums, and the assignees were very anxious to receive all monies due to the creditors at large, he had sued out a process against him, to be ready on his arrival, and he might now have his choice of going either to a Spunging-house, or at once to Newgate, as he might think proper.
Thus did I welcome my brother home by visiting him in Newgate, from whence, however, he was soon removed to the Fleet, where we had scarcely seen him safe, but we had reason enough to believe we should soon join him. In the mean time, as we paid enormous sums, through the villainy of the same oppressors, we were told that we might have our remedy against them, among whom, to my confusion, as it came out, upon an investigation, were collaterally concerned the villain Sourby, and my unnatural brother the lawyer.
CHAP IV. HANNAH AND JOHN, TO AVOID THE MALICE OF THE WORLD, ASSUME THE GARB OF HUMILITY.
THE-further we looked into our affairs, the more we were confirmed in the certainty that our ruin and my brother's had been long, regularly, and systematically determined upon. From the moment our good genius took us by the hand and led us on towards prosperity and independence, those fiends, Sourby, and my brother the lawyer, were contriving, in secret, some diabolical scheme to fatten themselves at the expence of our industry.
I own I had, at times, feared something of this; for my brother, the lawyer, had, soon after we settled in town, made several attempts at a reconciliation, which I never would submit to; and Sourby had thrown himself purposely in the way of Hewit at public places, and once, at a coffee-house, he managed to be of a party at a card table, where John was presently cheated out of fifty pounds. Indeed, one evening he had the audacity to address me in a very particular manner at the rout of a person of distinction; and when I repulsed his impertinence in the manner it deserved, he told me, in a very pointed manner, that high as I carried my head at present, I might one day, perhaps, be obliged to humble to him.
It was plain now that we had not a single moment to lose. The first step was to keep Hewit out of the way, that he might not share the fate of my brother. For this purpose we hid him at Walmesley's, where, while I set my face to the weather at home, he drew out a faithful account of our affairs, in order to see what it would be in our power to do to keep our heads above water.
This, however, appeared to be impracticable, for our property had been so impaired by the late various and heavy demands, that we had, of what we could call our own, but little more than would cover the just due of those tradesmen and manufacturers, whose debts, indeed, the only legal debts we owed, we were determined honourably and conscientiously to discharge.
In our counsels, therefore, which we held at my brother's apartment in the Fleet every Sunday, where, by the way, his unconquerable fortitude, and sweetness of temper, had endeared him to every body, it was thought expedient for Hewit to execute a deed of trust in favour of my brother, that the property might be immediately appropriated by him to the payment of our legal debts.
This was done, possession was then given, and our tormentors had no remedy as to property. Circular letters were next written to those creditors we meant to pay, who, as the reader will learn, were honourably paid twenty shillings in the pound.
The villains who had ruined us, were now, of course, so exasperated, that it became more necessary than ever to conceal the person of Hewit. This could not be done at Walmesley's, and to place him any where else, might be attended with aggravated danger, besides being expensive and inconvenient. What to do? We once had an idea of surrendering him to the Fleet, but then it occurred to us, that it might be an imprisonment for life, especially at the instance of such implacable enemies; and, again, why anticipate a fate which it would be time enough to submit to when it should be unavoidable.
A variety of expedients suggested themselves. At last I hit on one which, at any rate, would give us breathing time, and which, I thought, I could fashion so to Hewit's taste, as to divert his mind, now completely depressed; I, therefore, thus explained my scheme to him.
"It is absolutely necessary, my dear Hewit, to exist by our industry, or starve. We have two sweet children, and we must find bread for them. 'Tis true I can earn money, but it will be impossible to be safe where we are known. I have, therefore, a plan to propose to you, which, at first, will look a little romantic, but which, I think, upon reflection, you will approve. I have thought of it with pleasure upon many accounts. In the first place, it will take a load off your mind; in the next place, it will give you an opportunity of laughing at that world which is now laughing at you; again, it will procure me the coveteous happiness of having you entirely to myself; and, lastly, it will strengthen, if possible, your affection for me, by shewing you that I am ready to embrace any fortune, though ever so humble, out of affection to you.
"In short, my love," said I, "this is what I propose. That you should visit those parts of the kingdom where we are unknown, as a Razor-grinder, attended by your wife and children. Our grandeur shall be changed to humility; the hand of necessity shall form our coach into a machine for whetting knives and scissars; our phaeton shall be converted into panniers, and our stud into an ass, as a memento of that folly which taught us to lavish our fortune on an ungrateful world.
"Well," continued I, "how do you relish my scheme? Is it not, at least, as seasible as Walmesley's turning bear? I think it is; and, if I mistake not, I'll make it as amusing. For one thing, suffer what we may, you shall never see me without a smile; indeed, prosperity has often sorced from my eyes those tears to which the children of humility are strangers. The chearfulness of industry smooths the path of poverty; it looks forward with hope, prosperity shrinks backward with fear; and men raise those edifices, brick by brick, that, when they fall, fall all at once."
'By heaven!' said John, 'you are an angel, Hannah, and I'll follow you to the world's end. I will laugh at the world, indeed, oppress me as it may. I have a right to laugh at it, for I have tricked it of you, a prize of more value than all that's left!' I was delighted at his kindness and his willingness to embrace my offer, and it was agreed to put our scheme in execution immediately. Not to detain the reader, Walmesley bought a razor-grinder's travelling apparatus, an ass, and a pair of panniers; I gathered together some necessaries, and such materials as I knew I could turn to account; I concerted with my brother how we should correspond with each other; and when every necessary preliminary was settled, we sallied forth on the 9th of September, 1772, a child in each pannier, John crying, 'Razors to Grind,' and I decked with a string of pincushions and trinkets, for sale on the way.
Till we got at a distance from town, we were rather uneasy; and our apprehension was not a little increased by the very particular notice every body took of us; which, upon reflection, only arose from our exhibiting a perfect picture of industry, for I was dressed so tidy, John looked so clean, and our children so wholesome, that people gave us more work, out of curiosity, than would have fallen to our share had there been nothing particular in our appearance; and, at any rate, more than we wished for, on account of the small distance we had yet got from London.
The reflection was now verified that I had a thousand times made. If people are ever so poor they may be comfortable to themselves, and command the attention of the world, particularly women. Instead of lounging, with a child over the arm in a crampt attitude, listening to the scandal of every washerwoman in the parish, her face all grimed, her cloaths all filth, the wife of a labourer, bestired herself to prepare a cleanly repast for her returning husband, and washed her face that he might see those smiles with which he has a right to be received; I will venture to say cottages might be the seat of content and comfort; and honest, hard working men, would solace themselves with real pleasures at home, instead of being driven by slaternlyness, and ill temper, to seek for artificial pleasures in an ale-house.
This was exemplified at least in me. I had proposed to Hewit that when we found a good place for our purpose, we should settle there for a given time in some comfortable, cleanly cottage; by which means we should be enabled to avoid all the vulgar croud that would otherwise very much annoy us if we took up our residence among the common herd at ale-houses.
I had another reason also for this. As our conversation and conduct, in every respect, were a good deal above the level of persons in our situation, I wished to prevent as much as possible all prying into our affairs; for as I knew, by experience, that people in the country seldom give a kind motive to what they cannot comprehend, I did not know but one of those singular chances which seemed particularly to characterize our fortune, might drag us from our concealment, and send us to join my brother.
In spight of all my caution, however, in the course of our itinerant expedition, there exists scarcely a motive that could possibly apply to our conduct, but was by some person or other attributed to it. The exciseman at Colchester, said he should not wonder if we were smugglers, and declared, one evening at an ale-house, which intelligence we received from a very kind friend, who gave the caution in order to put us upon our guard, that if the lawyer was of opinion he could stand to it, he would undertake to search us.
He added, that Flanders lace was a thing very easy of conveyance; and said that he had suspected that there was something going forward by my being sent for by so many ladies in the neighbourhood, who had, indeed, bought trinkets of me, and concluded by saying, that there was no chance of a reform in smuggling, while the heads of the nation connived at it.
At Harwich, an old drum-major was almost confident we were spies. He had noticed my taking a sketch of the harbour, the light-house, and other objects near the sea; and was almost sure he had heard me say something one day that sounded very like the French lingo.
But the most curious, and, indeed, the most serious thing that happened, was in a large manufacturing town in Yorkshire; where we were suspected of being persons employed by government to mix among the lower classes of the people to detect sedition.
It is certain—the people there being principally dissenters, and full of fanaticism, indeed almost the only laborious body in the kingdom, where the mild doctrines of Mr. Westley, who always recommended a spirit of loyalty, and a love of order, had not prevailed—moody discontent and turbulent disquiet seemed to mark this dingy race. Their faces, their shirts, and their minds, seemed to be equally grimed; and instead of gratitude to providence for placing them in a land the best calculated upon earth to protect their families, and secure their property, these demons, in their fuliginous pandemonium, were perpetually seeking to overturn that order their gloomy souls had no relish for.
Hewit and I, who were both from inclination and duty, firmly loyal, used to combat the nonsense and wickedness of these people; whose sanguinary scheme, though yet in embryo, it was plain to see, if not instantly checked, would, one day, expand to the ruin of all order, and good-fellowship. They instantly became shy of us, and my landlord, having one day picked up a letter from Walmesley, which being interlarded with quotations from plays, seemed to favour his suspicions, I remember one of them was, "The resty knaves are over-run with ease, as plenty ever is the nurse of faction," we received a civil intimation that it would be as safe for us to retire to some other place; a hint we did not fail instantly to profit ourselves of.
I shall not name this place where I saw the seeds of faction lying dormant like the eggs of serpents; if they have been crushed, let oblivion hide them, if they have expanded, and have torne the bowels of the parent that fostered them, let the execration of their fellow creatures be the punishment of those who laid them.
CHAP V. MORE ANIMADVERSIONS ON MEN AND MANNERS, AND A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN HIGGINS.
IN this manner, being strangers every where, come where we would, public curiosity was excited; till, at length, really, it did not seem as if we were born to mix in any sort of society at all; for as our vulgar intrusion into high life had been scouted the moment we became poor; so forcing ourselves into low life, with our decent manners and appearance, exposed us to a suspicion that we were richer than we would be thought; in which case what was the natural conclusion, but that we were afraid of telling who we were?
All we met with, however, treated us civily enough, because we wanted no assistance from them; and even the woman of whom I bought black tea at the chandler's shop, and who had been the whole morning entertaining her customers with stories she had either heard and exaggerated, or invented of me, allowed that, though with my fair skin, and delicate hands, it was plain to see I had never been used to hard work, and, therefore, must have been a gentlewoman; she, for her part, would put no bad instructions upon the thing, and dared to say, that it was all along of my hard hearted parents, who had cut me with a shilling, and disinheritated me for marrying a handsome razor-grinder.
But I saw nothing in their clamour against me that they did not raise against one another. If the farrier's daughter refreshed a lilac ribband with pearl ashes, that was cast off by her ladyship's woman, it was look at Miss with her fine top knot! If the 'squire's gentleman gave Hodge, the pig driver, a pair of shoes to prevent his going bare foot, it was look at the gentleman in his dancing pumps!
Thus was the church-yard of a Sunday, just after the parson had admonished his parishioners, and charged them not to slander their neighbours, filled with sarcastic rustics making satirical remarks; and thus it went, in gradation, all the way up from the washerwoman to the 'squire's lady. The blue apron envied the check, the check the holland, the holland the plain muslin, the plain muslin the sprigged, the sprigged the flounced, the flounced the gauze, and the gauze the blond lace.
What does this say more than that human nature is human nature in all stations; and that, however, the other qualities of mankind may fluctuate and vary, envy is always stationary.
Envy is so natural to the heart of man, that we are not contented with detracting from living merit; but by a horrible effect of that diabolical passion, we cease to regret merit when it is no more; and even the praise of great men, after their death, is extorted from us; for we allow it not out of respect to their virtues, but to throw an envious shadow over those who fill their situations. I declare I have heard as malicious a sarcasm from a rustic in a cottage, aye, and as witty too, as ever I did from the most accomplished pupil of irony in a circle of the first fashion.
Did the limits of this work permit me, I could relate in it the histories of one-third of the kingdom; for let our stay be ever so short in a place, I was sure to hear all that had befallen its inhabitants and their families for a century.
The grandfather of one man of fortune had been a labourer at the time of pulling down an old abbey, where he found a stone coffin filled full of money. Another had a great uncle who was a blue coat boy, and he was bribed at the drawing of the lottery to secrete the ten thousand pound prize, for which piece of roguery he was rewarded with half the amount; and being, afterwards, honest and industrious, he had so thriven in the world, that though he never got rid of the nick name of Tom of Ten Thousand, the family were now worth oceans.
A certain baronet had risen in the world by a little false step which his grandmother made with a Prince, who was lost in a forest a hunting. Another gentleman, a great lawyer, possessed a very large estate in consequence of a distant relation's having contrived to hang an innocent man; but the money never prospered with any of them, for the ghost of the man haunted all the family till they dropt off one by one, and now this only remaining heir was going after the rest, for he was reported to have a wolf in his arm, which made now and then a horrible howling, but the fact was, the noise was occasioned by the gnawings of his conscience.
These and many other stories, was I compelled to hear, and, indeed, compelled to wonder at, otherwise I should have made my own case more enigmatical than it appeared before. My astonishment was, that had what I heard been correctly fact, the foundation of all the wealth in the kingdom must have been a large mass composed of every monstrous and detestable crime, that could humiliate and disgrace human nature.
For my own part I could have wished, had such a thing been possible, to have heard of fortunes which had sprung from honourable desert, true patriotism, or laudable industry; but I could never coax out any acknowledgment of this kind; and even when I alledged, that oppulent men had founded charities, and built hospitals, 'It was very true; but men could not take their money with them, and it was policy to leave strangers to speak well of them after death, that their clamour might drown the voices of those who knew them.'
For nearly three years did we follow this itinerant life, which, though it was attended with many unpleasant circumstances, had its moments of satisfaction. Hewit entered so much into the spirit of regarding the scenes we witnessed, as if looking at a comedy; that though I saw a little further, and, in the end, felt commiseration for that which, at first, I had laughed at, I never checked his good humour, but rather encouraged him to divert himself at the ridiculous side of the picture, than pity the envious reverse of it.
During this time I had frequently heard from my brother, who had honourably, so far, settled our affairs, that all those with whom we had any business, declared they were handsomely satisfied, and perfectly disposed, whenever we thought proper to demand it, to give us credit again. Poor soul he had gone on but indifferently himself, for he was too proud to sue to those he had formerly assisted, which neglect they took comfortably to themselves as a sufficient excuse why they should not assist him.
I cannot describe his situation better than by giving the reader one of his letters.
DEAR HANNAH,
I have been weather bound in this same Fleet now twelve months, and see no more prospect of making land than the first moment I set my foot aboard; however, when the wind won't favour us, we must manoeuvre. The worst of it is, I have been upon such cursed short allowance. It would make you laugh if you knew how I managed.
I first set up a Missisippi Table; but you don't know what that is; it is a plain upon which you trundle an ivory ball with a view to reach a certain mark; but that's no easy matter. There are barriers set to impede its progress, just as there are to prevent an honest man from going through the world; if he can miss them, well and good, if not, the game is up. I was a fool for my pains in this business. The rogues took their winnings and paid their losings, but always ticked for the table; besides, it was just then determined that no tables of chance should be kept but for the purpose of ruining heirs, encouraging of bankers' clerks to cheat their masters, and tradesmen to ruin their families; so, as I had no such virtuous intentions, by the time I had about nine and thirty two halfpenny customers in my debt, the commander of the Fleet gave the signal to break up my table.
After this I turned cobler—What do you laugh at you jade! Why should not I turn cobler as well as Jack Hewit turn razor-grinder? My father always told me, if I was to be a cobler, I should be the best in the street. I did as little at that, however, as the other. How could I expect to mend people's shoes who had none to their feet.
I did not know what to do next; I had some thoughts of going partners with Walmesley, and setting up a bit of a quack shop, but this was worse cobbling than the other, for all the money here goes to buy kitchen physic.
I made after this rackets and balls for the Fives-court, to as little purpose as the rest; for, as in the case of the Missisippi table, I found that shabby gamesters are as averse to paying any thing but their debts of honour, as genteel ones; but, however, though I got but little profit, my occupation supplied me with plenty of amusement, for as marker general, I had a curious number of disputes to arbitrate.
It was not above a week ago that a butcher in Fleet-market, being accused by a baronet of cheating, declared, upon his honour, as a gentleman, that his honour, the baronet, was a shabby ill begotten, no nation rip; and that if he twigged him any of his rum gammon, he'd box his honour for a bellyful. I knew the baronet to be a man of an excellent heart, of strict honour, and of finished manners; and, therefore, that he stood no chance with such a fellow. So I took him off his hands; and hinting to him what I knew would draw on me a volley of abuse, I took that for an excuse for giving him a bellyful, and such a one as, I fancy, prevented his eating for a week. But says you, how came this baronet gaming with a butcher? Alas, my dear girl, misery brings us acquainted with strange companions. Pride is a bad ingredient for a prison; and if I have sat down, at a gaming house, near the court, which I have, with a taylor, a lord, an ambassador, and a marker at a tennis-court, what wonder, in jail, if the tables are turned; and, instead of butchers keeping company with people of fashion, people of fashion should be obliged to keep company with butchers.
Getting this knack of setting people to rights, I was the other day voted unanimously Chief Justice of the Fleet, for you must know we have a regular court, and a code of excellent laws; and I mean to be as equitable as Sancho in his government. I have done but little yet, only reconciled a few family brawls, and prevented some mischief in consequence of two or three religious controversies. What have families to do with quarrelling here! Have they not had enough of quarrelling with the world? And what business have men to talk here upon any subject of religion but patience? It puts me in mind of two cabin boys. How often, said one, have you prayers? Why, said the other, in a gale of wind, and sometimes of a Sunday. Ay now, said the first, there is some sense in that; but our swab of a chaplain makes us say prayers when there is no more call for it than to knock one's head against the main mast.
But I forgot, Hannah, that you are in a situation to make remarks of a piece with mine. Better fortune to us both. Tell Hewit he is a good fellow for paying you so much attention.
Your affectionate brother, THOMAS HIGGINS.
I received several other letters from my brother, one of which, in particular, gave me great pleasure; for it informed me that some person had privately sent him a hundred pounds; which, as he did not know who to return it to, he said he should consider as his own, in hopes he should one day or other find the owner and be able to pay him two for it in return.
Our original intention was to stay away six years, that in case we were persecuted on our return, we might plead the statute of limitations; but before we had accomplished half that term, an extraordinary accident frustrated that, and, apparently, every other pleasureable prospect.
CHAP. VI. AN EXTRAORDINARY MEEETING—AN EXTRAORDINARY PIECE OF INTELLIGENCE—AN EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY—AN EXTRAORDINARY FRIEND—AND AN EXTRAORDINARY REVERSE OF FORTUNE.
BEING at Liecester, as I was one morning going to market to buy our day's provisions, which I always took care, though homely, should be clean and wholesome, I passed by the county jail; and when I came to the begging grate, I dropt a halfpenny in the box, at which a wretched woman, in a melancholy tone, said, 'Heaven bless you good lady.' Alas, I am no lady, said I, I wish I was, and rich enough to relieve all the distress of this prison.
I had scarce uttered these words when a man in a most squalid condition came forward, crying out "Who calls on Achmet! Did not Barbarossa require me here? Nay do not mock me, I am weak and foolish. Methinks I should know you. It is, it is, 'tis Hannah Hewit! I now remember well each circumstance!"
The reader already sees that this curious rhapsody could proceed from nobody but poor Walmesley; but how he came there, and in such a condition, was beyond my conception, and it was utterly impossible to learn it from him at that moment; at the same time, as a mob was gathering round us, I put some silver into his hand, begged him to get some refreshment, and promised him that Hewit and I would pay him a visit in the course of an hour.
The keeper of the jail, who, seeing the people assemble, came to learn what was the matter, paid particular attention to the latter part of our conversation. He seemed extremely pleased at the prospect of conjuring up, a friend for Walmesley, and said, that if Mr. Hewit and I would come and take a bit of dinner, he had a snug little parlour, and would take care that we should be charged very reasonably.
All this I related to Hewit, who agreed to take the children and spend the day with poor Walmesley in the castle, to whom we had previously, however, conveyed some clean things; and, really, what with being thus refreshed, and his pleasure at finding his old friends, by the time we arrived, he looked very decent, and appeared full of vivacity.
Walmesley told us, that he had been ruined by falling under the displeasure of the college of physicians. They had gained over the two licentiates, who, in consequence of receiving a large share of the profits accruing from the sale of the Universal Specific, had signed his petition and procured him a diploma from Glasgow, which circumstance, by the way, I ought to have mentioned before, and it was unanimously agreed, by way of rendering a general benefit to society, to analyze the medicine, in order to prosecute the vender as an impostor; or, by way of giving their proceedings a colour of impartially to recommend it, provided it should prove genuine in its purport, and salutary in its effect.
After a most elaborate chemical inquisition, they very gravely, and deliberately gave a report that the nostrum in question was a vile imposition, and not in any wise calculated to answer the purposes for which it was intended, being devised, not only to destroy the health, but ridicule the understandings of his majesty's liege subjects; for that the Essence of May Dew, as they had proved by many ingenious experiments, was only an effervescence, produced by sour small beer and magnisia alba; and that the spirit, so far from being the true spirit of owl's dung, was—which had been rendered demonstrable by a most subtle and complex process, from whence had arisen various phenomenae, hereafter to be enumerated in a publication intended for the information of the Royal Society, and the edification of the whole world—neither more nor less than an extract from the excrement of a goose.
These gentlemen learned in physic had, therefore, recourse to other gentlemen learned in the law; and, between them both, poor Walmesley was so handled that he was glad enough to sell off his gallipots stock and block, and decamp with the shattered remains of his fortune.
He immediately endeavoured to find us, but as we had just at that time changed our route, in consequence of our being suspected of belonging to a gang of gipsies, and had not informed my brother of it, he took a wrong road, and had been travelling about as an actor for several months, when chance had brought us together in the extraordinary manner I have above related.
The reader knows that Walmesley was perpetually ruining himself for other people. Upon our asking him how he came there, he said, it was all to save poor Dick Douce from limbo. Well, but, said Hewit, why could not he as well go to limbo as you? 'Oh lord a different thing!' said Walmesley, 'I en't married, I have not got a fine slatternly wife and three filthy children squalling round me, besides the fellow was in the jaundice; looked as yellow as a guinea, a colour his pocket had been long a stranger to. Oh the obligation of my violent love outran the pause of reason! In short I took the thing upon myself, who could refrain that had a heart to love, and in that heart courage to make his love known? And so you see Dick's gone on with the company, and I am here. No more of that, I have done the state some service, and they know it.
'Now, after all, people talk of a prison, what is there in a prison? I dare say I sleep upon as soft a board as any in the place; and then, you see, what a nice clean shirt I have got on; and again, for jail distempers, all a joke, the healthiest place in the world; the devil of any distemper have I had since I came here but hunger.'
When it grew towards dusk, and we were about to take leave of Walmesley, the gaoler came in and said he hoped every thing had been to our satisfaction, he then begged he might be his tiff of punch. After it was brought in, he began to talk of his profession, which he wished to give us an idea he had exercised with a true regard to those feelings which induce men to comfort instead of insult the afflicted.
He said, for example, that if he had the stuff against John Hewit, Esq. late living in Cockspur-street, the Hay-market, and was by accident to surprize him in his travelling dress of a razor-grinder, why did any body think he would go for to treat him, and sweet madam Hewit, in an out of the way manner. No; he knew what breeding was, and how to behave to a gemman that was a gemman. Hollo, said Hewit, why this is the second act of the Vigo business!—Come, come, said I, Sir, if you have any drift in this, let us know it. 'Why then, if you will have the long and the short on't,' said the gaoler, 'I have got the stuff against John Hewit for three hundred and thirty pounds, at the suit of Messrs. Winkworth and Broadhead, and when the attorney writes to town, I expects to have a good deal more.'
"How!' said Walmesley, 'the prince's near ally, my very friend hath got his mortal hurt in my behalf. Away to Heaven respective lenity, and fire eyed fury be my conduct now!" 'Come, come, none of of your fury,' said the gaoler, 'you have been treated pretty well since you have been here, I'm sure; if I had not known you to be an actor man, with your antics and monkey tricks, I should have called in the crowner and put you in a strait waist-before now.'
Well, Sir, said I, there is no need of altercation, we are your prisoners. 'You e'nt, madam,' said the gaoler, I wish you was; though, damme, if I should not like to be your prisoner, for you are a nice, handsome bit.' "Come, Sir," said Hewit, "there is no necessity. to insult my wife; shew me your warrant, and send for the most eminent attorney in your place, you have neither to treat with fools, nor beggars.
'I beg your pardon, 'squire Hewit,' said the gaoler, 'I always knows how to treat they that have money to spend. As for you, ma'am, I beg your pardon too; but I'll be damned if I don't think you as handsome a bit of goods as ever I saw for all that, let your husband be ever so much affronted. I wish you may get clear of the business, for I knows some of the clan, and if what I heard yesterday, should be but true, the brother of a certain lady, in my eye, as the parliament men says in their debates, stands a good chance, if he don't mind his hits, of dancing upon nothing.'
I told him I had no doubt but that his intentions were perfectly handsome, and proper; that, to be sure, in a situation like that, people could expect no favour but in proportion as they paid their way, that, fortunately, we did not want money, and all the service required of the attorney, at present, would be to move my husband by a habeas corpus into the Fleet, where my brother was, with whom we should like to consult as we were all embarked, as it were, in a common cause.
We had truly described our situation to the gaoler; for in case of this very emergency, we had laid by fifty pounds as a deposit to extricate us from all difficulty. As for Walmesley, as the seven debts he stood engaged for, contracted by Douce, amounted to no more than eleven pounds, the sum he had been taken in execution for by virtue of a warrant of attorney, given to one man in trust for the whole, which he had the cunning to manage, in order to avoid multiplying the costs, we compounded them, set him free, and sent him forward to London.
Thus, after waiting all the necessary ceremonies, and being treated very liberally by the gaoler, who had a regard for my elder brother, because he had shewn some civility to a Bristol turnkey, who afterwards turned sailor; and a rooted dislike to my other brother, who had promised to protect a friend of his, a king's evidence, and afterwards got him transported; we came to an anchor, as my brother called it, in his Majesty's Fleet, on the 5th of March, 1775.
Walmesley, who was waiting for us at the gate, said that they had discovered a plot: First, said he, it must be a plot, because there is a lawyer in it; secondly, it must be a plot, because there is a Jew in it; thirdly, it must be a plot, because there is a parliament man in it; and, fourthly, it must be a plot, because—'You stupid fellow you don't know what to make of it,' said my brother, who came up as Walmesley was speaking.
'Hannah, my dear girl,' continued he, 'how are you? Jack give us your hand, come with me; I have something to tell you. I think we shall get afloat if we keep a good look out.'
We went with my brother into his room, where he gave us the following intelligence: A parliament man, who was considerably in debt, had reason to believe that a Jew, to whom he was under many and material obligations, would, on a disolution of parliament, endeavour to secure his person on an execution, under an idea, that during the suspension, the person of a member of parliament was not inviolable.
This gentleman's apprehensions were well grounded, for he was stopt getting into his chaise to set out for his Borough, and the Jew having indemnified the officers, they carried him to a Spunging-house. As there was no parliament to apply to, and his interest in the Borough began so to totter, that he would certainly have lost his seat if he had not been present, finding the Jew inexorable, he commissioned my brother, the lawyer, and Sourby, to tamper with him, giving them the best security he could find in the minority, on which side he happened to be, for five hundred pounds, to be paid on the day of his being returned to parliament.
They knew that tampering with the Jew, like dipping red hot iron in cold water, would only harden him the more. They, therefore, forged in his name, an order to the sheriff's officer to liberate the gentleman; who availing himself of the opportunity, not the fraud, for he did not know one word of that, stole down to the Borough, was re-elected, and thus his person became as sacred as ever.
The moment the newspapers announced the return of the new parliament, and our gentleman as one of the members, the Jew instantly went to consult his attorney, as to how far he could answer to keep him in the custody of the sheriff, where he thought he still had him secure; but when he found that his enlargement was nefariously procured, at a time when his person was as attachable as the person of any body else, both he and the attorney were clearly of opinion that he might go against the sheriff.
Searching further, however, it became evident that neither the sheriff, nor the member had been to blame. The first, or rather his officer, having acted in conformity, as far as he knew, with the Jew's own order; and the other, so far from being accessary to the fraud, on his return to town, had thanked him for his indulgence, and assured him, that as soon as the ministry changed, he would honourably discharge every demand against him.
Upon a minuter enquiry, he found that my brother, the lawyer, and Sourby was at the bottom of it, but he knew their characters so well that he had no doubt, if the matter was to be investigated, they would both swear, to save themselves, that he signed the order in their presence. He, therefore, contented himself with getting it returned to him, and making no further stir about it for the present.
It so happened that the character of this Jew was of a peculiar cast. His common conduct was like the common conduct of his brethren. He enriched himself by taking advantage of folly, but he appropriated his gains by the strict line of true wisdom. He preyed upon vice to
relieve virtue. The riches he wrung from villany, he lavished on goodness; and while he was publickly execrated as a Jew, and a devil, he was privately adored as a christian, and an angel. He was, in gross, what Walmesley was in little; and though he did not go to prison to exonerate his friends, he had his Dick Douces, whom he often came into prison to relieve.
It has sometimes struck me that such a character would do well for the stage. such a man without ostentation, without egotism, beneficent without parade, noble with humility, never the hero of his own little tale, seeking no praise but the testimony of his own heart, a miser in virtue, not in money; though no novelty, I trust, in nature, would certainly be one to the drama.
One kind action, liberally rewarded, sometimes makes amends for many which are returned by ingratitude. This happened in the present case. My elder brother, who had toiled, and risked every thing for his owners, was thrown into prison for his pains. He had on that very voyage done a common act of humanity to this Jew, and mark the difference! The christians had plunged him into distress and obloquy, the Jew, the moment he heard of his situation, meditated how he might relieve him. Nay, it was from him, as the reader probably has guessed, that he received the hundred pounds.
The circumstance was this: The Jew and his family having embarked from Smyrna for England, their ship caught fire at sea. It so happened that my brother was near enough in his ship to lend him assistance; and so well did his inclination stimulate his exertions, that, what with his boats and their own, though the ship burnt to the water's edge, very few lives were lost, and much more of the property was saved than they had the smallest reason to expect.
The Jew, his family, and his property, were saved. My brother was not, at that time, bound for England; he, therefore, put them all on board another Strieghtsman, and wished them a good voyage, refusing to accept any gratuity, his services having been occasioned by mere chance, and performed from motives of common humanity.
The circumstance, however, had never from that moment escaped the Jew, who, when he came to find, upon examining the business of the forgery to the bottom, that my brother, the lawyer, and Sourby, had been indirectly concerned in my brother's ship, and were a part of that nest who had sent him to prison, he was determined to procure him ample redress.
Little, indeed, did he know till that accidental discovery, which was not astonishing, usurers, and other nefarious characters, frequently consulting him as one of their own clan, that his benefactor was languishing in a prison, through the connivance of his own brother. His determination was prompt and efficacious. He first took care to prove, by unquestionable testimony, that he had not been in town on the day the order was signed to release the member of parliament. He then sent for my brother, and Sourby, upon an errand that induced them readily to attend, and told them, in so many words, that they must release my brother from prison, or he would not only hang them both for forgery, but that he would so completely break up their gang, that they should never dare to shew their faces again in the kingdom.
In short he knew what sort of argument to use, and he succeded; but before he lost sight of them, he exacted a conditional bond to the amount of the monies for which my brother was imprisoned, to be forfeited if they did not procure his enlargement by a given day.
With this news the Jew had, on the morning we arrived, acquainted my brother; who, informing him how we had been used, he declared that he would take care, in the settling of the business, to include us in the treaty.
Many days had not elapsed before my brother and Hewit were discharged from confinement, and now general releases passed between all parties that had been either immediately, or collaterally, concerned in any of the transactions.
CHAP. VII. THE SEA OF HANNAH's FORTUNE HAVING BECOME CALM, APPEARS, GRADUALLY, TO BE AGITATED; SHE MEETS, UNEXPECTEDLY, WITH AN OLD FRIEND, WHO SHE HAS SCARCELY SPOKEN TO WHEN JOHN AND SHE ARE OBLIGED TO TAKE SHELTER IN FLIGHT.
WE had now the world to begin again. As for my brother, through the interest of the Jew, he got to be second-mate of an East-Indiaman, with such recommendations as were sure to procure him the command of a ship in the country service on his arrival; and as it was probable he would soon have a good deal in his power, at his earnest entreaty, I trusted my son to his care.
As for ourselves, Hewit got to be foreman to a capital tin man, and I was furnished with as much work in various ways from shops as I could perform; and as for poor Walmesley, he soon after embarked for Ireland, in consequence of a liberal offer made him by the manager of the Dublin Theatre, and the last thing we heard of him was, that he died in consequence of a cold he had caught by lending his bed to accommodate a family in distress.
I own I dropt a tear of the most poignant regret at this news, and thinking on all his various quotations, which were so apt, and had so much of the heart in them, I exclaimed, 'Alas poor Walmesley! he had a mind mild as mercy, and a hand open as day for tender hearted charity.'
In this situation we went on pretty comfortably, and lived so saving, that in less than six months, we furnished a very snug house; and having experienced all the vicissitudes of high and low life, we were now placed in a middle state, that state said to be, of all others, the most to be coveted.
I cannot say, however, that I found any alteration in the world. It was still the same vain supercilious, ridiculous world I had ever known it; and the middle state, by standing between the two extremities, affecting the hauteur of the one, and embibing the vulgarity of the other, exhibited such a strange mixture of pride and meanness, such an incongruous collection of finery and filth, such a heterogenious, pyeballed, jumble of patch work gentility, that it seemed to be both, and neither; like a magpie standing between a crow and a swan.
I could have been extremely well content, nevertheless, in this situation, had fortune ceased to torment us, and had my husband been always with me. It is true when he came home to dinner, or at night, absence gave a zest to our meetings; but then we had always some little unpleasant matter to talk over; and among the rest, our troubles, like embers half extinguished, began, now and then, to shew a disposition to rekindle.
When men are involved in partnerships, and in the habit of signing notes, whether on their own account, or to accommodate others, there is no answering for their safety. One litigation begets another, till they are so involved, that no fortune can make a stand against the various attacks of cunning and chicanery.
Many things of this kind stood out against us, which, certainly, the general releases had virtually done away; but having been improvident enough not to take them up, they got into various hands, and we were perpetually pestered with persons who tendered them for payment. It is true, a court of justice would have relieved us, but who is there that does not find even winning at law a severe loss? A man sued us upon one of these notes for twenty pounds; he was cast; but having thrown himself into the King's Bench, we had our own attorney's bill to pay, which came to seventeen pounds.
These things brought us into every kind of disgrace; our friends began, as formerly, to look cool upon us, we were afraid of our own shadows, and it was, once more, thought expedient to consider what to do to avoid a prison. Hewit proposed following my brother to India, where, he said, we should certainly do great things; but this proposal I strenuously resisted, nor could I ever think of it without shuddering; therefore, at last, he left off urging it. At length, as nothing could prevent our doing extremely well, if we could once be free, we determined to muster all the money we could, and go to France, in order that Hewit might take the benefit of the next act of insolvency as a fugitive.
We were in great forwardness when our operations were retarded by the sickness of our little girl, whose disorder, a violent fever, after I had been her nurse for a fortnight, baffled every skill, and she died in my arms.
As this melancholy event had prevented me from finishing some work, for which I was to be very well paid, I was obliged, as soon as possible, to labour with redoubled assiduity; and this, together with the despondency into which I was thrown at losing my child, brought on a complaint on my spirits, which I very much feared would be attended with serious consequences.
As I grew better, Hewit did the utmost in his power to keep up my spirits; and, among the rest, frequently took me to the play, where we were sometimes accompanied by a lady who had shewn me a great deal of attention; and who, though there was certainly a sort of levity about her that was, at times, not strictly proper, had something extremely engaging, and good natured in her manner.
This lady was a widow, her name was Vint. She had a relation who had a concern in one of the Theatres, and thus she could get orders whenever she pleased. Hewit and I, therefore, availed ourselves of this privilege; and, in return, she passed a good deal of time at our house; which, on account of her sprightly temper, was very agreeable to John, and, indeed, to me, as she had a most happy knack of laughing off that particular chagrin occasioned by pecuniary distress.
We had all three settled it to go to a new play; but Hewit having received a message to call upon an attorney, who he always kept upon the look out, to watch whenever any immediate danger threatened, said, he feared he could not be in time for us; and, therefore, begged we would go, telling us that he would find us at the theatre. I drank tea with Mrs. Vint, and we went from her house together. No Hewit, however, came; at which, indeed, I was no farther concerned than at the loss of his company, and lest his business with the lawyer should have turned out of a more serious nature than he had expected.
The play being over, as we were waiting in the lobby, while a friend of Mrs. Vint was gone in quest of a coach, I thought I saw in the croud a man I knew. At the same moment I caught his eye, and he seemed to know me. Approaching each other I cried out, "Gracious Heaven Mr. Binns!' and he, almost in the same instant reiterated, 'Is it possible that I see my dear Hannah!' "I declare," cried I, "I never was so surprized and so pleased in my life! How is your sister?" 'She is married, my love,' said Binns, 'and as for me—' but seeing every one looking at us in a state of astonishment, 'I cannot,' added he, 'explain any thing here; it would interest you too much; besides I have company with me. Where do you live?' I gave him my address, made him promise to come to me the next day, and as at that moment the gentleman returned with intelligence that the coach was ready, we went towards the door and lost him in the croud.
I sat Mrs. Vint down at her house, and bid the coachman make all the haste he could to mine; for, surprized as I was at seeing Binns, I was still impatient to see Hewit. But this was to be a night of astonishment. I found every thing packed up in readiness to be sent away.
Hewit, who was in the parlour with a broker, told me that an annuity bond, to which I knew he had signed his name as security, had become forfeited; and the news the attorney wanted to inform him of was, that the next day an execution would be brought into the house for two hundred and seventy pounds. In consequence of this, not having a moment to lose, he had sent for a broker, had sold every thing to him, and had received the money. He added, that our cloaths were packed up, a chaise was in readiness, and that he meant, if possible, to reach Dover by the morning, with a view to embark for France, lest they should change their ground and sue out a writ of execution against his person.
As we had determined to take this step as soon as it should be convenient, and necessity now left the time no longer a matter of choice, I consented with alacrity, and in three days we were safely landed at Calais.
CHAP VIII. A DESCRIPTION OF THE FRENCH, HANNAH'S PREDICTION, SHE RETURNS TO ENGLAND, A TEMPORARY CALM IS SUCCEEDED BY FAMILY DISQUIET, WHICH TERMINATES IN A FATAL SEPARATION.
HAVING sufficient money to last us, with oeconomy, while it was probable we might remain in France, I was determined, as I had no other employ, to make myself a proficient in the language, and lay up in my mind a store of literature; which, indeed, was of so much service to me, that it perfectly and completely supplied for me the place of a regular classical education.
I perfected myself also in one study more, which was so obvious, and so necessary, that it was impossible to avoid it. I mean a study of the people, and their manners; and now it was that I saw, if the world was faulty in my own country, how much the term ought to be magnified speaking of France.
Go where I would I found nothing but human wolves disguising their natural ferocity with the grimace of monkies. At market, in a shop, whatever was the comodity, its commendation was sweetened with some gross compliment to induce the purchase of it. Either your gown was a handsome pattern, your hair was a beautiful colour, and then you were English, that was enough; meaning it was enough to afford them an opportunity of cheating you, and laughing at you at the same time.
Among one another the subtilty was more refined. All had some artful point to carry, and to gloss over. Thus a
bon mot
hid a design, a
Jeux d'esprit
covered a
manoeuvre,
and a
coup de vivacite
concealed a
coup de grace;
for the more brilliant the wit, the more pointed the sally, the more it resembled the gleam that precedes the stroke of a lifted dagger.
But the most shocking trait of their dissimulation was their affecting to believe in a religion which, in secret, they laughed at. This went to the root of all social order; for to impose upon each other what no one credited, was, in its nature, such a blasphemy, and begat such a rooted hypocrisy, that neighbour could not be safe with neighbour.
Oh how I have contemplated this people! Specious, guarded, fawning, fraudful, faithless, volatile, sanguinary, and merciless; and these qualities they put off to strangers for openness, carefulness, breeding, prudence, vivacity, gallantry, courage, and greatness. In short, I found a Frenchman an animated lie, that should be reversed to be understood. Alas! said I, these were the Gauls that were so faithless to Caesar! What are they, now that they have added to their native ferocity, consummate art? I tremble for their country; I dread, lest in one horrible moment, the French nation, memorable for crime, memorable for treachery, memorable for barbarity; shall undergo a tremendous internal convulsion, and that, like Etna, it shall vomit forth its own bowels to desolate the country around,
I saw the Court of France; I saw it in the moment of its most splendid brilliancy. It was when the Emperor was there to solicit the hand of the King's sister. But he never married her. That man contemplated the country as I did. He thought, probably, an alliance with it might endanger his own crown. He saw there could be no security where there was no honour; no stability where there was no sincerity. He saw his own sister the puppet of that court. He saw it, and lamented it. Poor, splendid, beautiful, amiable, unhappy wretch; falsely deified by designing men, whose ambitious views were to make her beauty their bait, to lure her to destruction.
Among the foremost of these was that horrid wretch the Duke D'Orleans. He who introduced English noblemen, and other foreigners to the Queen, and, afterwards, like a low backbiter, whispered away her reputation. He who converted his countrymen from monkies to bears, by making them ape English grooms. I should not wonder if that man destroyed his country by the hands of villains, and that those villains should make his carcase the foot stool of their power.
Among this frivolous, this contemptible, this proud, this mean, this arrogant, this supercilious people, we resided nearly a year and a half; during which time I saw no one single instance that could induce me to retract an iota of that ineffable pity, and sovereign contempt, which every day's experience of them excited. There may have been virtuous individuals, and no doubt there were; it did not fall to my lot to know them. But I'll give a reason why I suspect there were fewer in France than any where.
The high are too tyranic, the low are too servile, and yet they are the same creature; the lord oppresses his vassal, the vassal domineers over his labourer, the labourer beats his dog, and the dog worries his rat; yet each turns back in resentment. Every Frenchman knows every thing better than any body; is a better calculator, a better politician, a better lawyer, a better ruler than any body; and I should not wonder if upon the same principal that tinsel and calamanco, ape fattin and lace among them; that should ever a revolution take place in that devoted country, which, for the sake of Europe, of the world, of human nature, may Heaven avert; should order be destroyed, virtue confounded, religion anihilated, the crown trampled under foot, and riot, anarchy, and massacre reign triumphant, it would be accomplished by the lowest dregs of the people who would lord it and tyrannize over the rest.
In June, 1778, we arrived in town; and in two months, from that time, John Hewit took the benefit of an act of insolvency that had lately passed; which step, as he had no debts that he could legally consider as his own, his friends, one and all commended.
I could not, however, reconcile him cordially to it. He considered it as a disgrace, and though we began to get forward, his former master having taken him again as his foreman, and the shops being ready, as formerly, to supply me with work, yet his continual cry was that he did not like to have his name recorded among a set of swindlers, and others, who had defrauded honest tradesmen out of their legal demands.
Besides, to clinch this business, some of our creditors, from vexatious motives, were determined to litigate their claims with us. These I began to be afraid were set on by my brother, the lawyer, and Sourby; and to make all sure, the annuity business still stood out against us, except as to Hewit's person; for though the act cleared him up to the time of its date, yet it gave no relief as to property acquired afterwards.
As this kept us perpetually at law with either beggars, or rogues, which always cost us something, and as our fears were more than imaginary, relative to the annuity, I really could not blame Hewit's uneasiness; and, at last, indeed, I began to make myself quite wretched about it. He grew melancholy, his temper was soured, he lost his health; and, though he certainly loved me tenderly, when I have ventured to carress him, he would sometimes received me coldly, while a tear stood in his eye.
Formerly a wish, expressed in a hint, accelerated his endeavours to oblige and please me; now, there seemed to be something unreasonable in all I wished. I had informed him, of course, of my interview with Binns in the lobby of the playhouse, at which time he expressed an anxiety to know what he could mean; now, when I proposed setting about an enquiry how we might find him, and, indeed, I had taken some steps towards it, it was all wrong. What had we to do with Binns? Perhaps he belonged to the gang of rascals who persecuted us; but Binns was such a gallant protector, that no wonder I was constantly thinking of him.
It had been his delight to fondle a sweet girl that fortune blessed me with about eight months after we arrived in France; now he could not bear the sight of the little creature. This I own grieved me to the soul, which very grief became now an offence. I certainly paid the child additional attention for his neglect of it; I offended in that, I was always thinking of nonsense when we ought to consider what was to become of us.
This was hard, and it was not at all in the style of John Hewit. It was unkind, and almost unmanly. It was something like jealousy, but that was impossible; for he never in his life had a moment's cause for suspicion of me. It seemed to be a sort of trial of my affection, as if he wished to excite jealousy in me, but that was equally impossible. I knew him to be all soul, all honour; and though I had been told a hundred idle stories when we were in prosperity, when in adversity, when in midling life, when in France, nay, even, since we returned; my sense of affection was that I ought to have been deprived of his love for ever if I could have been so cruelly ungenerous as to have suspected it.
I could not help thinking now and then that he had some adviser, but who could it be? Nobody came near us but that thoughtless, goodnatured creature Mrs. Vint; who sought us out soon after our arrival in town, and from that time occasionally visited us; and as to her, though out of complaisance he behaved civilly before her face, I believe in my conscience he disliked her most heartily. Nay, when in a moment of affection for me, from which he could not sometimes refrain, and at which time he would treat me as if his conduct was a reparation for some offence meditated or committed, he would declare that no woman upon earth ever loved, or deserved to be loved but me.
If it were proper minutely to dwell upon this part of my history, I should exhibit, perhaps, the most extraordinary and affecting picture of domestic disquiet that ever was drawn. Tender, anxious, solicitous expostulations on my part; sullen, moody, reserved coldness on his. Yet he loved me, tenderly loved me, his whole conduct was love; and, indeed, in the end, I had fatal cause to know it.
I had one evening prepared a ragout for his supper, which I had learnt to cook in France, where of course, I perfected myself in culinary knowledge, and had waited considerably beyond his usual hour of returning, when somebody knocked at the door. My heart fluttered, for I had determined on that evening to come to an explanation with him, and, I believe, I should have fainted if I had not drank a glass of Madeira, a wine I always made a point of indulging him with.
My apprehensions, however, were more excited by the fear of what would happen than the knowledge of what did. It was not Hewit, it was Mrs. Vint; who said she had been at the play, and had come, without ceremony, to eat a bit of supper with us; then, turning round, she expressed her astonishment at not seeing He wit.
I said he was not come home, but that I expected him every moment; at which she said, husbands were strange things; she had had one, but would never have another. She then talked of the play, then asked me if I did not remember that she and I were there together at the time we saw Binns, if I did not think him a handsome fellow; 'indeed,' said she, 'by his raptures, I should have thought you had been old sweethearts. Do you know I have often thought Hewit's sulkiness looked liked jealousy of that man? What he might know of him formerly I cannot tell, but it must be contemptible, indeed, to fly out so about a single interview, and in the presence of five hundred people.
As I never condescended to complain to any one of my husband so I did not chuse to enter into any conversation on the subject; I, therefore, waved her rattling, inquisitive hints, by telling her she was a giddy creature, and that I was sure she knew better how to do justice to every body than seriously to entertain any such absurd suspicions.
She begged my pardon, said, to be sure it was no business of hers, and desired we might have the supper, for that she was hungry, and could plainly see it would be useless to wait for Hewit. Out of complaisance I set it before her, for it was past twelve o'clock, and she are heartily; for my own part I could eat nothing. As time wore, so our surprize encreased; and, at last the clock struck two, and no Hewit. All this while she had grown warmer and warmer in her exclamations against him for his treatment of me; till, at length, she appeared to be a little intoxicated, to which failing, having a weak head, she certainly was now and then addicted; and as there was nobody to see her home, which Hewit usually did, I persuaded her to go to bed, after which I sat counting the hours till day light, in vain expectation of my husband.
It was now nine o'clock, I had just refreshed myself with a dish of tea, Mrs. Vint was yet sleeping, when the people of the house brought me a letter, which they told me was delivered by a porter who went away, saying it required no answer. The letter was from Hewit, and the sensation I felt on opening it, was like the stroke of death.
This letter informed me that he was then underweigh aboard an East-Indiaman; that he was perfectly convinced I held a criminal intercourse with Binns; that he went upon proof, that he knew of our having had frequent interviews, and his evidence went as far as to substantiate that Binns was the father of the child, which, in France, he had fondly imagined to be his. He added, that though he was determined never to see me again, for he could not stomach living with an adulttress, his love for me was unceasing; that it had become so violent, it was, at last, unsafe for him to trust himself in my presence; and that if his religion had not got the better of his madness, I should not have lived long to wrong him, for he had more than once meditated to murder me in my sleep. He concluded by recommending me, wicked as I was, to the care of providence; and hoping whatever became of him, God would bless and prosper me; but he feared I could not expect to prosper after making so good a husband miserable.
With a trembling frame, my heart sunk within me, sick with wretchedness, and petrified with astonishment, did I persevere till I came to the end of this fatal paper. It seemed a delusion, a mockery of that imagination which had maddened into a thousand phantasies during the tedious night in which I had watched and amused myself with inventing a thousand excuses for the strange conduct of that deluded wretch, the cause of all my misery and his own.
It was with the utmost difficulty I could go through it. Line after line my impatience, my astonishment, my wretchedness, and my despair increased. At length, seeing and, indeed, feeling most forcibly, most fatally, most horribly the pressure of the finger of fate, I shuddered with agony, and fell lifeless on the floor.
CHAP IX. HANNAH'S DISTRESS, THE FATE OF LAWYER HIGGINS AND SOURBY; HANNAH DEPARTS FOR INDIA; SEES HER BROTHER THE CAPTAIN: RE-EMBARKS IN THE GROSVENOR, AND IS CAST AWAY UPON THE COAST OF AFRICA.
WHEN I came to myself I was surrounded by the people of the house and Mrs. Vint; who gave me the letter and told me to take care of it. When I grew sufficiently recovered to explain myself, I accounted for what had happened, by saying that the satigue of sitting up all night, in anxiety on account of my husband, and my unexpectedly receiving a letter, which convinced me he was safe, had, I supposed, oceasioned a sensation which had thrown me into the condition they had seen, but that I was now perfectly well.
Mrs. Vint said I was too good to live in this world; and after the people of the house had gone down, told me she had read the letter, and plainly saw that my husband was a villain. I could not bear this, but did not chuse to enter into an explanation of my sensations, which were dictated by a delicacy Mrs. Vint was little calculated to feel; neither did I like her having taken the liberty to read the letter. Indeed one part of my reflections during the night had been on the subject of this lady; who, though inoffensively, I dared say, had always been too prying. I, therefore, under the pretense of wanting rest, and my incapacity of holding any conversation on so peculiar a subject, prevailed on her to retire, and having done so, I resolved, in future, to have as little communication with her as possible.
In the mean time it was necessary to have some friend, and it instantly struck me, that as interest is a surer inducement with mankind to assist one another than any call upon their friendship, or tye upon their gratitude, so I thought I had hit on the very person to execute any trust I should repose in him, with strict rectitude and scrupulous fidelity.
It was a person of the name of Morris, who had employed me to paint fan mounts, paper snuff boxes, enamelled watch cases, and sleeve buttons. He had a wife who, though she never asked me to sit down, always, when I brought home my work, took a glass of cherry brandy herself, and begged me to take another, probably, because she knew I should refuse, and these people, though I had not the smallest expectation that they would advance an insecure sixpence to keep me from starving, I was sure if I would give up my whole time to them, and afford them a lumping pennyworth, would keep my secret inviolably, and protect me most sacredly from all persecution. Besides I wished my exact story to be known by some family of credit, which they really were, by way of evidence in my favour, if it should be necessary hereafter.
Having made my resolution, I took some repose, then I went to these people, and fairly told them my story; proposing that while I sat myself down in a lodging near town, they should report that I had gone abroad, which would make it a better thing for them, at it would enhance the value of those things I might furnish them with. Finding they should have my exclusive labours, they gave into every thing; and I must, in justice, declare that having already given me about the fourth of what I ought to have been paid, they did not so far take advantage of my present necessities as to beat me down in any one article I offered them; and during the time I stayed in England, nothing could be more sacredly kept than was my secret.
Nay, they did every thing they could secretly to get at Hewit, with a view to expostulate with him, and the good woman, who certainly had a most excellent opinion of me, for, said she, 'industrous people are never bad,' assured me, if she could find him, she would have his life out if he did not do me justice, adding, 'fine airs indeed, just like my husband once when we had a handsome apprentice; but I made him buckle to, I soon brought his nose to the grindstone!' All they could do, however, was of no use, for the Vansitart, which was the last ship of that season, from whence he dated his letter, had sailed before they could make any enquiries, and it being now six months before another fleet was to go out, I had no chance of following him even had I ability to do so.
Mr. and Mrs. Morris approved very much of my design of breaking off with Mrs. Vint, saying, which I have no doubt was nothing but scandal, that they had heard but a so soish character of her. I had now taken a lodging at Brumpton, and I earned of Mr. Morris about fifty shillings a week, more than half of which I regularly saved to lay up against a rainy day.
I had continued in this situation about three months, when, one morning, having taken up a newspaper, I found to my great astonishment, that my brother, the lawyer, was condemned to death for forgery; and that Sourby, as his accomplice, though not, on account of some law nicety, implicated capitally, was sentenced to be transported for life.
This sickened me of my native country; and when I reflected that Hewit was gone to India, where both he and my brother had often pressed me to try my fortune, though I never thought of the subject but I turned as cold as ice, and the sweat ran off my forehead, I almost made up my mind to embark with the next fleet, upon this idea, that if I found Hewit, and could appease his causeless anger, I might yet be happy with him; if not, I should be sure to meet with a brother, the only friend on earth able and willing to defend me, and a son, who might, in duty, compensate for his father's cruelty and neglect.
While I was wavering on this subject, like one wishing to plunge into a salutary bath yet afraid of being drowned, my beautiful little girl, and heaven knows Hewit's beautiful little girl, the only vestige of him now left me, first sickened and soon after died. I now grew so melancholy, so sick of disappointment, so heart broken, and so completely let down, that I was ready to follow to, whenever Fate should think proper to beckon. To be brief, I immediately advertised as a companion to any lady of fortune going to India; and having given a reference to Mr. Morris, who gave me a most excellent character, I sailed in the spring of the year, 1781, and arrived, in something less than eight months, at my brother's house in Surat.
He happened to be just arrived from a long voyage; and after a most affectionate welcome, which, unused as I was to kindness, overcame me with delight and melted me into gratitude, I soon learnt that he knew my affairs as well as I knew them myself. He shewed me three letters from Hewit, which, though dated and sent at different times, he had received all together.
The first of these letters, in a most manly manner, delicately and feelingly opened my supposed ill conduct; appealed to him how I ought to be treated; acknowledged he was broken hearted, and that he never should have taken the resolution to part with me but from the fullest conviction, and the dread of what his violent love might have hurried him to. He finished with saying, he should immediately fly to him, as the only friend with whom he could expect to find consolation in such a delicate and wretched situation.
In the second letter, he informed my brother that he had missed of the Vansitart. Missed of her, said I, then if I had been industrious I might have found him out and convinced him of his errors. The letter went on saying, that he was confirmed in his former suspicions, for that he had scarcely turned his back when I went off publickly with Binns, and that I was, at that time, living with him in Ireland. That he had sent that letter by the Packet, and he should positively embark himself by the next fleet.
The third letter contradicted the other two. He said my brother, the lawyer, had sent for him when he was under sentence of death, in Newgate, and had lain open a most iniquitous scene of villainy. He was now convinced I was perfectly innocent, and he had laboured in every possible way to find me out, and make me amends; and among the rest, had inserted several advertisements in the newspapers, drawn up in the most penitent and contrite terms. He said, this letter was written in a hurry, but that he should write again fully as soon as he should get any intelligence; and as he had already learnt that I was in an obscure lodging somewhere near town, he had no doubt of sending in his next the satisfactory intelligence of having found, and being reconciled, to the most amiable and most injured of wives.
I was all anxiety now to get back. 'Avast, avast!' said my brother, 'we must talk this matter over cooly. To be sure if he should hear of your taking this trip, and follow you, it would be awkward enough; but even then it is but a trip home again at worst, and Jack Hewit does not mind a little weather.
'I will tell you how it is with me; I must sail in a fortnight for the Coast of Coromandel with a freight, and after that I am going upon a commission from the Nabob, across the Red Sea, to Grand Cairo, which, I think, is the last voyage I shall make; for, thank God, good friends, and my own industry, I am now grown pretty warm. If, therefore, you have a mind to trust yourself with me, I have no doubt but, either on our way, at Madrass, or some other port, I can put you on board an Indiaman bound for Europe. If not, and you should think it more feasible to stay, here are my premises, house, lascars, palanquin, every thing at your service, till either my return, which, by the way, will be three years, or the arrival of Hewit.
I expressed a very ardent wish to see my son, but this he told me was impossible; for that he was situated in a very good employ at Benares, and that we should not be, at any time, within five hundred miles of him. He assured me he was perfectly well, was very much respected, and in a way to get rich; I, therefore, contented myself with writing him a long letter full of maternal tenderness, and containing advice suitable to his time of life, tending to ensure his happiness, and accelerate his expectations.
Upon deliberate consideration, it was agreed that I should return; and, with this idea, I embarked on board my brother's ship. Our voyage was adverse, and we were driven into Tricomalee just as the Grosvenor was preparing to sail. My brother happening to know captain Coxson, her commander, perfectly well, he took me aboard with great willingness, and promised me every possible accommodation.
We dined on board, and a fair wind springing up, we sailed the next day. I burst into a flood of tears at parting with my brother, which he treated as a joke. 'Good bye, Hannah,' said he, 'I am going over the Red Sea to search for the spirits that are laid there; And if I should fish up one of the wheels of Pharoah's chariot, with the fluke of my anchor, I'll send it for a present to some of the gaming-houses near St. James's.'
In short, after settling all matters, as to Hewit and every thing else, we parted. He, in the highest good humour, and I, in the most pitiable depression of spirits, which continued from that day, the 13th of June, till the 4th of August, when the Grosvenor was shipwrecked, between latitude 27 and 32, on the Coast of Africa.
END OF THE THIRD BOOK.
HANNAH HEWIT.
BOOK IV. THE ADVENTURES OF HANNAH HEWIT, FROM THE TIME SHE WAS SHIPWRECKED TO THE MOST MISERABLE PERIOD OF HER LIFE.
CHAP. I. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE DREADFUL DISTRESS EXPERIENCED BY THE PASSENGERS AND CREW OF THE GROSVENOR EAST-INDIAMAN.
THE moment the ship struck, a universal panic pervaded the whole company as if conveyed by an electrical shock. That fatal blow was the knell of many, perhaps of all there, except me; or, if any survived, if they encountered so many hardships as I did, unless their minds were as well fitted to the trial, better, indeed, had it been for them to have died at that moment.
In the confusion, as it is usual I suppose upon such occasions, every precaution was taken improperly. The carpenters attempted to sound the pumps, when it was impossible to find water; which had run entirely forward, owing to the stern's lying high upon the rocks. Signals of distress were next ordered to be fired; but had common sense been consulted, they would have known, that owing to the water, they could not get to the powder-room.
In this delemma what should have been done first was done last, but not till the experiment was ineffectual. I mean cutting away the masts, which expedient had it been adopted before the vessel had struck so hard and so often by the stern as to wedge herself, as it were, among the rocks, the wind now coming to blow off the land, she would certainly have righted, though, perhaps, with considerable damage.
Every precaution, finding all other hope at an end, was now taken to convey the crew and the passengers ashore. A raft was formed and launched, but it proved as ineffectual an attempt as the rest, for the hawser, to which it was fastened, broke and five men were drowned.
Four expert sailors now attempted to swim ashore, conducting with them the deep sea line, with a view to convey a larger line, and then a larger still, in order that the people might be borne upon it, so as to reach the shore in safety.
Another expedient was to hoist out the yawl, and the jolly boat, but this answered no better purpose than any of the former, for the surf curling in between the pointed fragments of the rocks, instantly dashed them both to pieces.
But none of these methods could apply to the safety of any others than expert sailors; the passengers, and particularly the ladies, must inevitably have perished, had it not been for a most unexpected and providental circumstance, by means of which every soul that then remained got on shore without the smallest difficulty.
The wind chopping directly about, and blowing right on the shore, the bows, which were loose from the rock, being heavy and choaked with water, strained considerably, and the vessel, having nearly broken her back, she fairly snapt in two immediately before the main mast.
The after part, having less to struggle with, and being, of course, considerably lighter, in consequence of being disencumbered of the bows, began, by the force of the wind, and the undulating motion of the surge, which made to the land, to be lifted forwards. Striking, however, frequently, as this part of wreck edged in, a severe shock tore the deck fairly asunder, by which means, as on a raft, that part nearest the shore floated into shoal water, and every creature, except, I believe, about four, were saved.
We had every prospect that the shore, where we had taken shelter, would not prove a very hospitable one, for the inhabitants constantly plundered us, and when we resisted, beat us. My foreboding heart, which always too fatally anticipated my sufferings, had, in the midst of my distraction, providently dictated to me to supply myself with whatever might be useful to me in any emergency. I had, therefore, carefully concealed about me two knives, two pair of scissars, a housewife, very well stocked, pins, and a few other things; and having, besides, made a parade of buckles, ear-rings, and other trinkets, they contented themselves with plundering me of what was visible, and left my concealed stock unmollested.
We remained a long time undetermined, as to what measures we should pursue; but, after a variety of consultations, we resolved to traverse the country, in hopes, at length, to fall in with some of the Dutch settlements.
This attempt was attended with various success. We passed, at first, from village to village, with but little difficulty; but as we advanced our troubles increased. The natives plundered us, and if we approached the woods, we were terrified, not only with the roarings, but the sight of wild beasts; and, in short, surrounded with so many, and such complicated difficulties, and inconveniencies, that though they were little to those I have sustained since, my heart sinks within me at the remembrance of them.
At length our misfortunes mastered our patience; and instead of enduring with resignation what could not be avoided, we inveighed against each other for the fruitless advice every one had given. The sailors swore that if it had not been for the obstancy of the captain, in not taking proper observations, the ship would never have gone ashore. Some advised going back to the wreck, others to live in the best manner we could, while a party of the most enterprising should go forward and give notice to the Dutch settlers; who, in hopes of a reward from the English East-India Company, would of course send to our relief.
These discontents were augmented by their receiving information from a man, supposed to be a Malayan, that it would be impossible to accomplish what they attempted. This man, who called himself Trout, met us two or three times, and seemed very anxious as to what was to become of us. I had noticed him very little myself, though it is plain I had not escaped his observation.
He was represented as a man who had been guilty of several murders in his own country, and had, therefore, taken shelter among the Caffres, where he was settled and had a wife and a child. This alone was quite enough to deter me from paying him much attention, but his sallow face, his lank black hair, and his wild looks, in which there was an uncommon ferocity, perfectly disgusted me; though I could not help thinking I had somewhere seen a resemblance of him; and, notwithstanding, he spoke Dutch, which language I did not understand, I imagined I had at sometime or other heard his voice.
This man having widened the unhappy breach among us, in a few days it was resolved, that the captain's party should take one route, and the rest another. The mates, the surgeon, the passengers, and in short, all the genteeler part of the company made their election to stay with the captain, and what became of the rest I am entirely ignorant of; and, indeed, of those, except one with whom I was left, for it was my fate, though, perhaps, my life was preserved by it, to be torne from my companions shortly afterwards in the manner I shall relate in its place.
The man who called himself Trout, had met us three several times. What passed at these meetings the ladies knew nothing of but by report, for we were now so bare of necessaries, that it was scarcely decent for us to be seen. We, therefore, walked at a distance from the men; and when they found any refreshment, they left it and we went and fetched it when they were out of sight.
When night concealed our shame, we conversed together; and at those opportunities, we learnt that this man had come to treat with us from the natives, who said, that if we would submit to be their servants, till we were redeemed by the Dutch, they would send an express to the settlers describing our situation, and informing them of our quality, after which we should be delivered whenever we were demanded; and, in the mean time, we should experience very mild and kind treatment.
We journeyed on in the track we were directed, but heard no more of the negociation. One morning we missed one of the carpenter's mates, whose name was M'Daniel, and as we had heard the roaring of wild beasts in the night, we conjectured he had been carried off and torne to pieces.
Our distresses and apprehensions now hourly encreased. Treachery from the natives, destruction from famished wolves, lions, and tygers; raging hunger we could not appease, and parching thirst, which we were obliged to allay in the most shocking and unnatural manner, menaced us in such horrid and various forms, that we seemed like so many devoted wretches waiting for death as the only kind friend we could implore to terminate our shocking and degrading miseries.
Surely, surely human nature never suffered such deplorable humiliation. A set of fine, sensible, gallant men, and handsome, elegant, educated women, reduced to a state more filthy than brutes. Their resolution conquered, their intellects impaired, their strength exhausted, their hopes destroyed. In the course of a few days shrunk, decayed, and emaciated; all loveliness defaced, all delicacy confounded. For this, thought I, did we seek the voluptuous luxury of the East? For this in our sloating palace did we command the winds to waft us with propitious gales to our expecting friends? But it is just. Inordinate pleasure terminates in pain, and extravagant hope is baulked by disappointment.
I cannot say, however, that my observation exactly applied to myself. In going to India, I had no pride to gratify; no splendor to indulge in; nor did I contemplate the satisfaction I should receive on my return, at being gazed on as a meteor, and held up as a prodigy of beauty, wit, and elegance though the glaring medium of a galaxy of diamonds.
CHAP II. HANNAH PARTS FOR EVER FROM HER COMPANIONS IN AFFLICTION; THE CAUSE OF THIS EXTRAORDINARY SEPARATION; SOME CURIOUS PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO TROUT; AND AN AWFUL INSTANCE OF THE JUSTICE OF PROVIDENCE.
I Do not mean, in my last observations, to cast any reflections on my unhappy companions. The moment of wretchedness is but an ill time for the language of admonition; and if it were a proper one, never was it so little necessary as upon the present occasion. I declare my heart bleeds within me when I think of the probable fate of such ornaments of their sex as Mrs. James, Miss Hosea, Miss Wilmot, Miss Dennis, and other ladies, who had the misfortune to be shipwrecked in the Grosvenor.
I only meant to remark, that these ladies having fallen from a greater height than I did, and their disappointment, as to their future prospects, being more elevated than mine, neither my mind was so conquered, nor my body so impaired as theirs. Indeed, if I could not account for it, the superior health, and, I almost said, spirits I was in, would not be credited; but as it is my disposition, upon all occasions, to be provident, so the precautions I adopted, from the first moment of coming ashore, served to prepare me for all I was to suffer.
These precautions I could not prevail on any body else to take. If there was any thing to eat, they would eat voraciously. If what we had was merely a resource, it was despised. Thus by sucking gums, chewing the pith of a tree, extracting juice from leaves, keeping perpetually a stone in my mouth, especially if it contained any saline or nutritious quality, were very salutary resources to me, though for a long time I could not prevail on them to follow my example, and when they wished to have followed it, we were in too dreary a part of the country to find the means.
I was as unfortunate in the resource I had provided, by hoarding up a little stock of necessaries. When we came to be in great extremity, I shared it with them to the last article; but they were so careless, or rather so lost, in consequence of their distresses, that the inhabitants with ease discovered their hoard and plundered them, so that all that remained of it was what I had now left in my possession, consisting of a knise, and a pincase, with some pins, which serve me to reckon the days.
I here mention these matters in some order, because it was on the next day, being the 2d of October, 1782, and exactly eight weeks and three days after the ship struck, that I was torne from my companions in misfortune, never to see them more.
The men came to us towards sun set, and told us they had seen Trout, who said he should be ready for the negociation the next morning, and bid us sing for joy. We, therefore, all determined to yield to the proposals of the Caffres, provided they involved no actual violation of our honour, in which case, it is but little to say, that we would rather have sacrificed our lives than have consented.
And now a number of melancholy reflections sunk our spirits to the dust; and as we laid down to rest, we compared ourselves to the children of Israel in captivity, commanded to sing the Lord's song in a strange land. Indeed, no moment of my life will ever have a more indelible place in my remembrance, than that night. Overcome with fatigue, sunk into melancholy, and our minds softened into a fixed sadness that weighed upon our hearts, every one heightened the despondency of the present moment by the recollection of some happier time, when the smiles of fortune had not a single film to obstruct them.
It was within three hours of morning; and, it being my turn to relate some sad passage of my life, I had scarcely inveighed against the treachery of a false friend, the easy credulity of a jealous mistaken husband, and deplored the loss of a lovely infant, when, all of a sudden, two Caffres rushed upon us, tore me away from my companions, and folding me up in a sort of wrapper, darted with me across the sand. Whether my cries were so smothered as not to be heard, or whether my companions took a false direction in any attempt to rescue me from these wretches I know not, but it was a considerable time before they stopped, and when they did, I was delivered into the power of Trout, who guess my distraction, announced himself as the villain—Sourby!
Oh heavens what did I feel at this moment! No wonder I had shuddered every time I had seen the wretch, though always at a distance, no wonder his person and voice, disguised as they were, seemed familiar to me; no wonder, in short, I should apprehend the worst of perdition, when so malignant a fiend was hovering round me.
His companions had scarcely set me down, when after exchanging a few words with him, in a language I did not understand, they disappeared like lightning. I began to tear the air with my cries, but he entreated me not to be alarmed, said that the moments were precious, and it would be my fault if he made an improper use of them.
He said, that the law having taken hold of him in England, he had determined from that moment to repent and become a valuable member of any country on which he should happen to be thrown. That the captain of the transport ship, had so well liked his behaviour, that he had put him on board a vessel bound to the Brazils, with a recommendation to a merchant there.
This merchant finding him very capable of conducting business, had entrusted him with several commissions to the Cape of Good Hope, where he was going on very prosperously, and would have made a fortune, but for an extraordinary accident, which he was sorry it fell to his lot to relate, because it nearly concerned me. 'Me!' cried I, "Yes, you," said he, "but be not alarmed, your husband is no more; and finding you in this inhospitable place, I entreat that I may be your protector in his stead."
'My husband dead!' said I, "Yes," answered he, "but I revenged him. I put the Dutch villain to death with my own hand, who had dared to lift his against my friend!"
There seemed so much rhodomontade in this that I could not for my life give credit to it; I disembled, however, and with a deep sigh, the offspring of involuntary fear, enquired into the particulars, when I learnt that he had found John Hewit in a fray at the Cape, where a Dutchman had stabbed him with a snickasnee; that he himself, as he informed me before, had immediataly put the Dutchman to death, who being a man of some consideration, he was obliged to fly; that since that time, he had lived amongst the Caffres, who would not admit him till he had taken a wife from their tribe, that he had detested the life he led, that from the moment he saw me, for he knew me immediately, he had meditated my escape, which it was now in his power to effect.
He added, that he had entirely amended his life, that I knew very well that he never loved any woman but me, that he did not consider his marriage among the Caffres as any way binding, and that if I would escape with him to Madagascar, where he had no doubt but we should get very safe, he would there marry me, and called Heaven to witness that if I would trust myself in his care, no violence should be offered to me. He then finished by appealing to me, whether in gratitude I ought not to marry the man who had avenged the death of my husband.
The morning now dawned; and as the day in those countries comes on very fast, I deserned, by the sea shore, a man waiting with a kind of shallop. I considered in a moment, that I should be safer in the company of two men, even though they should be both villains, than with one. I knew it must be deep dissimulation that could impose upon Sourby, yet I was determined to dissemble.
I told him that liberty, nay, even life itself, was, at that time, of very little moment to me; and even if from moral, or religious motives, I could wish to preserve either, what could I possibly hope from him who had made it his uniform pretence to deceive and impose upon me.
He declared he liked me the better for detesting his former character, but he was now no longer that character, his intentions were honourable; and in whatever he might be found deficient, he should consider it the pride of his life to be corrected by my better mind, and superior judgment.
This affected compliment, to my sagacity, by which he thought to impose upon me, was not thrown away. I put that sagacity in practice in a moment; and, penetrating his heart and intentions, though I found him a greater villain than ever, I determined, guarded as I was, to risk every thing for my liberty. I, therefore, reluctantly appeared to consent, assigning such motives as would be most likely to impose upon him; and now as we walked towards the boat, my wrapper still round me, which proved to be a morning gown belonging to poor captain Coxson; I enquired what men were those who carried me off, and where they were gone.
He told me that my question involved the fate of all my companions, the nature of which he would inform me. They were all that morning to be surrounded and taken prisoners, after which a proposal would be made for the men to take Caffre wives, and the women Caffre husbands, which if any refused to do, they would be killed and eaten. That he had with great difficulty kept this business in a state of suspension for the last three weeks, which time he had employed in getting ready the shallop, and stocking it with provisions; that having despaired of getting me away by fair means, he had employed force; and that the two Caffres, which people are always faithful when they were employed, but vindictive if deceived, had undertaken to effect this upon promise of being rewarded.
The reward he had promised the Caffres was three buffaloes, and five deer; which, at parting, he had given them orders to drive to their own kraal, but they would find, he said, no such buffaloes, nor deer, for he had been obliged to part with them to another Caffre, to procure a part of our supply; therefore, said he, you see the necessity of using expedition, for if these men should find out the deceit and return before we get away, I shall become a sacrifice. Nay, this may serve to convince you of my sincerity, for if cruelly you now refuse my forfeit life will soon expiate my former crimes.
Though I saw the villain in every word of this, I affected to believe him; and appearing pleased at this instance of his seeming confidence, I signified some anxiety about getting away. In a very short time we got to the shallop, which I found guarded by the very carpenter's mate whom we had given over as one devoured by wild beasts.
As this young man had demeaned himself with great propriety and decorum, I took heart at the sight of him; but what was my surprize when he caught an opportunity of whispering to me, when Sourby was fetching some things at a distance, "You are in the hands of a villain; seem to trust him by all means. If he behaves ill, I know how to defend you."
Sourby had told me not to contradict him in any thing he should say as to the motives of our intended voyage. He said, he had amused this young man with the promise of mountains when we should reach Madagascar, where he pretended I had a very rich brother. In consequence of these and other promises, he had, from the wreck of the Grosvenor, formed this shallop, which was well built, both for surfs and seas, and plentifully stored, so that there could be no doubt but we should escape in safety.
Placing an implicit trust in providence, I suffered myfelf to be conducted on board. The weather was uncommonly serene and beautiful; and sailing under favour of an awning that protected us from the scorching rays of the sun, we went before the wind under a kind of square sail, at so expeditious a rate, that in about four hours we lost sight of the African coast.
My mind was so fully made up to all consequences, and I knew so well the nature of every risk I could possibly run; that having plenty of provisions, and very comfortable things to wrap myself in, by way of temporary cloathing, I felt as if inspired with new life, I stipulated for a partition to be made for me abaft, where I might retire as often and as long as I pleased, especially when I might be inclined to sleep, and that every attention should be strictly kept, which delicacy and decorum demanded.
These conditions were inviolably observed; and for six days, during which time we kept the sea, the weather being still, mild, and favourable, I cannot say I had any thing to complain of. Sourby appeared to pay me great deference and respect, constantly alluding to the acknowledgements he should receive from my brother, when he should have safely delivered me into his hands, and the carpenter's mate seemed very thankful for the promises that were made him in return for the assistance he was affording us. As to the rest, the fate of my afflicted friends on the coast of Africa, was often the subject of our conversation; and we comforted ourselves with the hope of sending assistance to them from Madagascar, in which hope we were none of us sincere, for we must have known no such thing was practicable.
In proportion as conversation becomes familiar, nothing is so easy as to catch people tripping. Cunning as he was, this was often the case with Sourby, but much oftener with the carpenter's mate, who was more artless; nay, I will not say it did not sometimes happen to me. Thus getting equally distrustful, we grew grave, reserved, and cautious. As for myself, confiding in nothing but my firm and unalterable resolution, I was prepared for any act, however desperate, to free me from impending danger; and for the men, a thousand half hints and significant gestures convinced me that they were bent on each other's destruction.
On the seventh day this moodiness rather encreased than diminished. While we were venturing every possible conjecture, as to our situation, and disputing about it pretty warmly all round, we plainly saw land; and the wind setting fair for the shore, we made towards it pretty fast. This discovery was for ten minutes a subject of general exultation. Presently we had all our different meditations on it. At last it threw such a gloom over us, as each bosom throbbed with its own conslict, that it must have been pitable to have seen us.
I have thought an hundred times what a dreadful degradation of humanity this scene presented. That three beings who dared to tempt the dangerous ocean with so insignificant a protection, who had found in providence a generous safeguard, and an unering pilot; instead of exulting at this unexampled salvation, instead of vowing to devote themselves to the protection of each other, should indulge in nothing but criminal and unfeeling selfishness.
My conduct, however, Heaven knows, had an innocent motive; for I began to fear both my conductors, and had no doubt, when once ashore, when one should have killed the other in rival contention, my honour was to be the prize of the victor.
I had not long, however, to think upon this before we saw a monstrous shark making towards us; at which moment, whether it was his previous intention, or whether his conduct arose from an instantaneous impulse on seeing the shark, I knew not; but Sourby seized a kind of pole ax, and aimed it at the head of the carpenter's mate.
I screamed and catched at his arm, but not so effectually as wholly to prevent the blow, which, however, fell obliquely on the poor man's stomach instead of his head; when, mark the finger of providence! My intervention diverting the arm of Sourby from the direction he intended it should take, and, by that means, throwing his body out of its equipoise, unable to recover his feet, he staggered from the thwart, on which he had stood, and fell into the sea.
My cries were now reiterated, I entreated he might be saved, whatever might be the consequence. He implored, in Christ's name, we would assist him, declaring himself to have been the worst of all villains, but that he would amend his life. The poor carpenter's mate, though almost lifeless, seconded my endeavours, but in vain, for before we could get him into the boat, he uttered, incoherently, 'Binns! Hewit!' Then gave a frightful scream, and was nipt in two by the monster.
If ever unerring justice gave an awful example in the death of any man, it did in the death of this. He had been a shark to his fellow creatures. Peace of mind, domestic felicity, character, honour, loveliness, innocence, had all been a prey to his insatiate rapacity; and now, Oh matchless instance of impartial retaliation! he himself became a prey to the merciless monster, whose remorseless voracity had been his imitation.
CHAP. III. IN WHICH HANNAH HEWIT, AFTER FRESH DISTRESS, OCCASIONED BY ANOTHER DISASTER, FINDS HERSELF ALONE ON A DESOLATE ISLAND.
PENETRATED with horror as I was at this shocking circumstance, I, nevertheless, kept sight of our perilous situation, and fearing lest the sanguinary monster should return to devour us, I conjured M'Daniel to hasten with all expedition to the shore.
Poor fellow he was unable to assist me. He had received his death blow. He attempted to rise, but panted like a bird, and fell backwards; seeing, therefore, I had nothing else for it, I exerted all my resolution. I spread the sprit across the sail, put the head of the shallop right for the shore; and the wind and tide setting in, I dare say it was not more than half an hour when we were scarcely afloat upon an even sand as fair and as firm as the beach at the foot of Portland Island.
I cheered my companion in the best manner I could, leading him with great difficulty up a gradual eminence, where he might sit down in shelter from the flowing tide, and rest himself more at his ease than in the boat. I then fetched him every refreshment I could find; and fearing lest night should surprize me, I moored the shallop in the best manner my strength would permit, and returned to the assistance of M'Daniel, who I yet hoped, with care and attention, would recover.
I was deceived, he grew fainter and fainter, and so far from being able to eat, he could scarcely speak. However, in broken sentences, he told me that Sourby had deluded him from the company under a promise that he should regain his liberty, and make his fortune by means of a gentleman at Madagascar; that he had believed his story, and was willing enough to adventure in his scheme; but upon being told that this gentleman's name was Higgins, a doubt had arisen in his mind, for that he knew captain Higgins, had served under him, and had a great value for him; and also knew that he, at that time, which was the truth, was settled comfortably in India, for he had seen him when he put me on board the Grosvenor.
This doubt had induced him to put other circumstances together, and, upon the whole, he had no doubt but Sourby's intention was to steal me away with some sinister design. Still it was his advice that I should attempt my escape, as he should be at hand to protect me, if it became necessary, and to this he added, that he had himself conceived a violent passion for me from the first moment he saw me, but understanding I was a married woman, had checked it. Believing now, however, that I was single, it was his intention first to have deserved my affection, and then to have offered his.
All this, in a very incoherent, disjointed manner, I got from M'Daniel, who added, that if out of his death should come my preservation, he should heave his last sigh with pleasure.
I omitted nothing that could cherish and comfort him, I tenderly entreated him to take heart, telling him, that though he could never be my husband, he should be my protector and my friend. He scarcely now heard me, life was forsaking him, his respiration was thick, broken, and convulsed; at length he fell into a violent fit of coughing, and the blood pouring in a torrent from his mouth, he dropt lifeless at my seet.
I apprehended that the blow had slightly irrupted a blood vessel about the heart; that thus he had for a time bled inwardly, until the parts being clogged with coagulated and extravasated blood, the coughing was brought on by a violent effort of nature to discharge the inconvenience she laboured under; that this had enlarged the orifice of the irrupted vessel, and thus immediate death was the consequence.
The humanity of the reader will form that picture of my calamitous situation that I am unable to describe. Seated on the bank, scarcely elevated enough to preserve me from the influx of the roaring waves that beat against an inaccessable rock, of which my place of shelter formed the base; my dead friend by my side, the shades of night surrounding me, uncertain where fortune had thrown me, I was so sunk with melancholy, and petrified with horror, that my harrassed faculties could scarcely teach me to think; and sitting with my mind thus torpid and suspended, reflection my torment, and my relief my tears; day, that welcome harbinger of happiness to others, seemed to smile benignly upon creation only to point out the most deplorable object in it.
I had but two things, to perish or to be resolute. If gracious Providence had saved me from shipwreck, afterwards from certain death, or dishonour, among the Caffres, and at length from a perilous voyage in a small vessel upon a tremendous sea, why should I accelerate my fate? Ought not rather the magnitude of my danger to make me look it in the face? To struggle all I could against it; and, at last, if it should overwhelm me, I should sink into peace with the conscious reflection that I had not shortened a life trusted not to my disposal, but the disposal of him who gave it.
Searching now in my mind for resources, I became more and more determined. I first looked for the boat, but, alas, my feeble strength had not secured it so as to bear the buffetting of the flowing and ebbing tide. No trace of it remained, and, I dare say, that for many hours it had floated out to sea.
I instantly reflected that it was a mercy I had not been carried off by the tide in the same manner, which must have been the case had not the moon been in the wane; for by observing the objects about, I could easily perceive that the spring tides flowed considerably higher than the top of the bank on which I stood; it was, therefore, impossible I could maintain my position for more than a day or two at most. I determined to take my measures without delay; and having vowed to him who gave me my being, that I would not resign it till it should be his pleasure, nor repine any farther than the weakness of human nature compelled me, I began my pious task with consigning, I would I could say, to a peaceful grave, the sad remains of my poor companion.
With a shell, which lay on the shore, I contrived with much difficulty, to dig a hole large enough to hold the body; and having, with great labour and trouble, placed it there, after a short, but fervent prayer to the Deity, I concealed the shocking spectacle from my eyes, though Heaven knows it will never be shut out from my remembrance.
My next care was to see for a safer place of shelter, for which purpose I kept along the shore at the foot of the rock, where having rambled, I suppose, about three miles, I deserned an inlet, whose banks seemed to penetrate into the country; and as the water at the time I discovered it, ran from it towards the sea, I had no doubt but that, at its source, it must be fresh.
This discovery gave me a pleasure which I cannot express. I had hardly, properly speaking, tasted good water since we left Trincomalee. On board of ship every body knows it is very difficult to have good water; that on the coast of Africa, when we could get any at all, which was very rare, was, at best, brackish; and since I left the Caffres, the preserved juice of cooling fruits served us for its substitute.
I was, therefore, very anxious to follow up this discovery, but the attempt was attended with difficulty. The banks, if I may so call them, of this rivulet, were composed of ragged points of rock jetting out, sometimes so bold that they could not be attempted without manifest hazard.
Seeing this I changed my course and took a circuitous route, in a more practicable direction, where the rivulet seemed to wind. By this means, after some fatigue, I got upon an elevation, from whence I could see great part of the country around me, which I found partly rocky, partly verdant, and every where abounding with wildness and luxuriancy.
Roaming about in this uncertain state, if I had hitherto been prevented from tracing the river to its bed, I was made ample amends by another object which I may fairly call manna in the wilderness. It was the plantain tree, which spread its nutrimental golden clusters within my reach; so that, in this short interval, I had a prospect of water and a certainty of bread.
Oh Heaven! what were my sensations now? The gratitude that warmed my soul infused into my heart a glow of delight that inspired me with the felicity of angels.
I now pursued the track of the river with more ardour than ever; and penetrating through a thick cluster of cedars, round which it seemed to wind, still taking care to mark my way, I came to a sloping lawn, down which it gently rolled; its source, apparently, being the top of a very high mountain, skirted with palms, cedars, cocoa trees, and other lofty productions of the East.
These researches having so beguiled the time, that I plainly saw it would be in vain, before the tide set in, to attempt a retreat, I concluded to ramble about and sleep for that night at the foot of a tree, in the mean time, having eaten some fruit of the plantain, and drank some most delicious water, I strolled to that part of the rock next the sea; when coming, unexpectedly, to the prominence which immediately overlooked the bank on which I had so dismally passed the night before, good Heaven! what did I behold?
A huge sea lion had raked the body of the carpenter's mate out of the sand, and was at that moment feasting upon it. I gazed with horror and surprize, and again felt that sweet sensation of gratitude that has so often repaid me, by one moment's exquisite pleasure for days and months of pain. Could I distrust that a particular providence watched over me! Else why did I leave the place where I was sure to meet inevitable destruction? Why was I invited to the wholesome plantain, and the refreshing spring? Was this chance? No; it was the especial care of that power who I knew would never forsake me, so long as I put my trust in him.
Full of these thankful sensations, I hastened to the river, and filled with my chrystal beverage, a small keg, which I had the precaution to sling at my back; I then reascended the rock; and having found a beautiful retreat, interwoven with moss and thick tendrils, I made another salutary meal, and when night approached, confidently resigned myself into the arms of sleep.
CHAP IV. HANNAH'S INGENUITY PUT TO THE TEST, 'TILL HAVING EXERCISED IT PRETTY VARIOUSLY, SHE FINDS HERSELF TOLLERABLY WELL OFF.
I SLEPT in great tranquility for several hours; and having awoke a considerable time before day light, I began to ruminate on my situation, and to consider of every expedient necessary for me to adopt, in order to make it as comfortable as possible.
With the boat I had certainly lost many resources, and the few things I had been able to get ashore, as they consisted only of some provisions we had brought away from the coast of Africa, such as a few jars of potted deer, and preserved fruits, they could now be of no material use to me. The jars, indeed, would have been welcome, but then I thought, perhaps, I might find shells, or some other substitute to answer the purpose as well.
I determined, at all adventures, not to return to the sand bank, and if I should find it necessary, upon any occasion, to seek the sea shore, to do so as carefully as possible. The circumstance of the sea lion, was a very serious caution, and it behoved me to shun every opportunity of exposing myself to danger, from which, if it once surrounded me, it would be impossible for me to extricate myself.
After turning my situation in every possible point of view, and making up my mind, as to my safety, which I was determined never to doubt till the consumation of my fate should fill up the measure of destiny, the smiling morn found me as chearful as itself, what had I to wish for but shelter, food, and rayment, and these the birds that warbled round my head, found easily, and were thankful for the blessing.
Why then should I repine? A thousand houses, built of the most beautiful materials, and erected by the most perfect architect, courted my acceptance. A single rock could furnish for me a magnificent dwelling with all its compartments. For food, I could not have luxuries, but I could imbibe health at every mouthful, and for cloathing, the inhabitants of that part of the world, needed none; and even if it were necessary, to an ingenious mind, something might be easily contrived out of leaves, feathers, and a variety of other materials that I could already perceive I should find in much greater abundance than would be necessary to answer my purpose.
In this cheerful disposition did I walk abroad; and while the birds hymned their gratitude to that power that gave them another day, my heart in silent servency joined the general thanksgiving.
My first idea was to set my face to all that I could stand the smallest possible chance of encountering; for that purpose I set about ascending the mountain whence the river seemed to derive its source; guessing, which I own was my greatest apprehension, that I should thereby discover whether any part of the place was inhabited.
With great difficulty, in about six hours, I accomplished my purpose, when I plainly saw I was upon an island, according to my judgment, of about five miles and a half by about nine miles, the whole view of which, like the Peak of Teneriffe, this emminence commanded. I did not disern the smallest trace of buildings, or any thing that could lead me to believe that human creatures had ever been accustomed to reside there.
I saw some wild deer, and an animal of the buffalo kind, and several species of monkies; but they all ran away from me and took shelter in the woods. I had lost so much time that I was under the necessity of sleeping by the side of an immense bason, which proved to be the source of the river, and which plainly, like the original reservoir at Antigua, was supplied by the clouds to fertilize the island.
I passed, however, a very uncomfortable night; the bellowing, braying and chattering of beasts, and the hissing of snakes, filled my mind with a good deal of apprehension; and though I did not at all repent that I had made this experiment, I determined in future to keep in the more rocky part of the place, as I was convinced I should there be subject to less annoyance.
Mistaking my way I descended by another branch of the river, which led me gradually to a ridge of rocks that extended far into the sea, and at low water appeared small and ragged for a considerable distance, not very unlike the Giants' Causeway in Ireland. I was at first disappointed at this circumstance; but as I went on I found I had no reason to be under much concern, for the plantain grew every where round in great perfection, and what gave me infinite pleasure, I found orange, lime, citron, shaddock, and olive trees; and, in the brakes, there grew in large quantities, a species of wild cotton.
In addition to this welcome discovery I found that the river spread through a verdant plain at the foot of a large rock, and continued upon a level surface for many hundred yards; after which it suddenly disappeared among the brakes, and through fissures, and gave notice, only by its murmuring, that it bent its course to the ocean.
Near the plain, through which, as I before observed, glided the river, a large cavern ran into the rock to a prodigious extent, extremely in appearance like that part of the Derbyshire rocks, near Castleton, which is called one of the wonders of the Peak. Here being supplied with oranges, citrons, and several other fruits, besides that of the plantain tree, having a large canal before my door, and being besides wonderfully sheltered from weather and other inconvenience, I thought I could not do better than set up my rest, especially as it was now high time to square the sort of life I should lead by something like method and regularity.
In the first place I had, by way of cloaths, only the wrapper I spoke of, with a piece of old muslin tied round my head, and a pair of sandals on my feet, made of a buffalo's hide, and tied with thongs of leather. All these were inconveniencies which I had already considered how to remedy.
Again I wanted a comfortable place for repose, for though I had experienced good weather thitherto, I had no idea how long it might last. This place, I thought, I could easily manage to procure myself within the hollow of the rock. Indeed I had formed a hundred projects, which I
had no doubt but I should set about with great facility, and which, as well as being an agreeable bodily refreshment, would serve to amuse my mind, and divert it from that distraction that now and then, in spight of all my fortitude, it was involved in.
The first step I took to effect my purpose was to explore the different recesses of my cavern, which were divided and subdivided into apartments, rude, indeed, but some of them wonderfully compact and convenient. But what pleased me most was that in all my researches I found nothing that could induce me to believe the place was infested by any savage or noxious animals.
As mortals, however, in proportion as they emancipate from their natural state, find many artificial wants, so I felt out the necessity of considerable alterations in my residence before I could make it tenable. Some apartments sweat with humidity, others were choaked up with brambles, and then such an universal gloom pervaded the whole place, that a light would be an article not to be dispensed with.
These difficulties very frequently put me to a stand; but as difficulty stimulates invention, and active minds succeed best when they struggle with opposition, so in a very short time I had surmounted almost every impediment likely to obstruct my operations.
In the first place, having observed a fissure which gave a glimmering of light into the interior part of the cavern, I found it out on the outside, and having widened it by removing the earth and stones about it, which happened to be little more than rubbish, where grew some low shrubbery, I at different times obtained a perforation equal to three feet square.
This threw day into a great part of the the cavern, in the nature of a skylight, but the reader must not suppose I was not aware that rain might enter it also, an inconvenience that it was my care to remedy, which I did in this manner:
I gathered some twigs from a tree, that were as supple as oziers, and wattling them together in the nature of an open-work basket, I formed them into a frame large enough for my purpose. Having done this I got together a quantity of plantain leaves, and wetting those with a gum, that oozed from a tree, which seemed to be a species of the larch, I hardened them in the sun, and they grew tough and pelucid. These I placed on my frame; and having slightly wattled another coat of oziers to secure them, I fixed them into their situation, placing earth, of an adhesive quality like clay, neatly at all the extremities, in the nature of putty, and thus made a complete window by way of skylight.
My next care was to contrive something like a couch to sleep upon. This I managed by forming a basket in the nature of a cot, which I lined with matting made of the rushes that grew in great abundance and variety by the side of my canal. Having done this, I gathered a large quantity of cotton, picked it, and beat it with two sticks, and then spread it out in slakes, or as the wool combers call it slivers; this done, I placed within my cot a layer of cotton and a layer of mats, until the whole formed a succession of mattrasses perfectly elastic; and thus by a little ingenuity, I contrived a most comfortable bed.
Cloaths began now to be a material consideration. I had found the poor captain's morning gown so cumbersome, and inconvenient, that I had reserved only the sleeves and the back of it in their old shape, and had torne all the rest into aprons; but still so many parts of my body and limbs were exposed, that the parching rays of the sun became at last intolerable.
A variety of expedients suggested themselves to remedy this inconvenience, but they were either impracticable for want of implements, or infefficient from the nature of the materials. I had plantain leaves, and the leaves of the catalpa, but could I have sewed them together, their texture would not have borne it so as to last any time.
The first attempt that was attended with any thing like success, was twisting cotton into a kind of ropes, and so winding it round every part, in the same manner as the Hottentots twist round them the intestines of animals, so that had the cotton been of many colours, I should have looked like a fury dressed out in snakes, but this fashion, which I found very uncomfortable, soon gave way to another.
I dressed some fine cotton into as thin flakes as possible, by means of the prickly pear leaf, which is formed exactly like an instrument for carding. This done, I spun with a kind of common distaff, a large quantity of cotton thread, some fine, some coarse; then, with a thorn, that I used for a needle, I sewed the edges of these slivers together till I had got a large piece, but this was making very little progress, for the least tension would have pulled all my work to pieces.
What I had done, however, was a great point gained. My next scheme was to form a net with large open mashes, of an extent sufficient to cover my cotton, which having done on one side I found it necessary to do the same on the other; thus the cotton lay between the two nets, exactly like wadding in a cloak; and the net being fastened at proper distances, by the knots, it kept pretty well together.
To effect all this took me a great deal of time, and was an inconceivable trouble to me; and, at last, I could do nothing with my netting to answer any good purpose, till I had washed it, dipped it in gum water, and stretched it in the sun to dry.
Having pretty well carried this point, I braided cotton thread into laces of given lengths, and, at last, formed a sort of dress cut in the fashion, and laced on in the manner of a harlequin's jacket and trowsers.
But after all, this curious dress so ingeniously contrived, like the first, gave way to another, which, though it did not suggest itself till after I had taken so much trouble, was perfectly obvious, and answered every desired end, being nothing more than a jacket and trowsers, knit with cotton in the nature of knitting a stocking.
For my head I formed a sort of helmit out of rushes, which I lined with fine cotton, and for my feet I made sandals of very small oziers, which I lined with cotton and fastened with laces.
And now, having a habitation, a bed to lie on, cloaths to cover me, two cane charis, a ozier table, covered with a mat, and several other conveniencies, I shall enumerate the time and trouble all this process took me, which will be found very little when it is considered how few resources I had but what immediately resulted from the fertility of my invention, and how little I was assisted by a knowledge of what expedients others had adopted in similar exigencies; for whether it was from a dread of mind, or any other cause, I will not pretend to say, but I had never in my life read Robinson Crusoe, Alexander Selkirk, Peter Quarles, nor any of those books, which of course would have afforded me, in my situation, many serviceable hints.
This last circumstance I mention among other reasons to defend my fame as a writer; and I beg, if it should appear that any of my expedients or contrivances bear a similitude to those of the persons above mentioned, the matter may be candidly weighed, and allowance made for the necessity of adopting similar measures in similar situations.
CHAP. V. IN WHICH HANNAH CONTRIVES TO BEGIN HER HISTORY; SHE IS VISITED BY INNUMERABLE GUESTS OF TWO SORTS; SHE PROVIDES AGAINST THE RAINY SEASON, WHICH, COMING ON, SHE EXPERIENCES VERY DISAGREEABLE EFFECTS FROM IT.
I HAVE said that I left Cafraland on Wednesday the 2d day of October, 1782; so that being six days, and part of the seventh day, at sea, I landed on the desolate island, where I have ever since resided, on Wednesday the 9th; and it was not until Saturday the 30th of November, that I found myself in the comfortable situation I have just described; nay, when it is considered how much I must have had to impede my exertions, the wonder will be how I was able to accomplish it in so short a time.
In the first place, as it was my intention to retire to the sand bank on the evening of the day I left it, I brought nothing with me that could be of any use but a keg and a knife. The knife I unfortunately lost by the way, and this misfortune I very much lamented, for it was indispensibly necessary to have some sharp instrument in such work as cutting and shaping sticks, stakes, ozier twigs, and rushes.
Luckily my keg was strongly hooped with iron, and I had no doubt but I should be able to accomplish, by means of the hoops, after some difficulty, every thing I wanted. A fire was now indispensibly necessary, and my business was either by friction or some other means, to procure one.
I rubbed two sticks together, which certainly, after some trouble, emitted something phosphoric, but which, the wood being green, I could not fairly bring to a burning state. I then struck several hard stones against the hoops of my keg, holding some cotton underneath, but neither were the sparks strong enough, nor the cotton inflamable enough to produce fire.
At length, after a variety of ineffectual experiments, perceiving that some sand, which formed, a few days before, only an incrustation, had now, by the heat of the sun become vitrified, I had great hopes I might effect my purpose through this medium, in the nature of a burning glass, for its form was very nearly concave, and I was not to learn that any thing concave, that has the power of reflection, acts according to the laws of reflection, and inclines the rays of light to a point in their axis, the burning depending upon the union of rays, and the union of rays on the concave sperical figure. Thus I have known gilded wooden mirrors, as they are falsely called, alabaster, covered with gold, or foil, nay, even mirrors made of paper, covered with straw, to emit rays of heat, so as to burn inflamable objects, with which they have come in contact.
I don't know how far an experiment would have answered my purpose, for I did not try one, an accident of a singular nature having prevented me. Looking round where I had swept together a vast quantity of leaves, which I had from time to time stript off the oziers, for I had made an excellent broom, on which heap was thrown heavy rubbish, in order to keep my working place clean, a method I never neglected, a smoke issued from the place. I was instantly astonished at myself, that I had not thought of a thing so self evident, this being a common expedient to procure fire, but it is in our natures to search at random for what reflection would have shewn us in a beaten track.
I encouraged the heat by beating and pressing it down with more stones, till, at length, the smoke encreasing, it burst into a flame, exactly upon the principle of an overheated hay rick, so that at present I left my scheme of trying an experiment on my vetrified incrustation, which I determined, however not to abandon; for finding the composition extremely in the nature of the Chinese petunse, I had no doubt but I should one day be able to make glass, if not porcelaine, the whole progress of which I had completely made myself mistress of during my stay in the vicinage of Derby.
But the necessaries of life being my first object, it was proper that all idea of the luxuries should, at present give way, I therefore, encouraged my fire, and went so well to work, that it turned out of great use to me. I pitched upon a stone of the temper of porphyry, for my anvil; and having taken off the hoops from my keg, I straitened them, and now I was in possession of seven pieces of iron, about twenty-seven inches long, three quarters of on inch wide, and the sixteenth of an inch thick.
I took one of the hoops, and heating it in the fire, I doubled it in two; then again, and again, till having worked them each time with a polished stone into perfect cohesion, I had a solid piece of iron, more than half an inch thick, and about three inches long.
I took another hoop, which I worked with the same kind of labour, into a punch; and having hardened it, I beat my other piece of iron, at one end, to the shape of a bricklayer's lathing hammer. I then punched a hole through the middle large enough to contain a handle, then hardened it, and thus I had a complete hammer, to drive at one end, and cut at the other.
I could now work more handily, and, indeed, I did so to so good a purpose; that before I had used all my hoops, I was in possession of the hammer before mentioned, two very good knives, a pair of scissars, three punches of different sizes, and brads, and nails, to the tune of between three and four hundred. I attempted to make a saw, but finding it would be no use without a file, which was beyond my ability, I thought I had better, as I said before, convert the materials into nails and brads, which I might again transform if I should find it necessary.
Being thus furnished with implements it will not appear extraordinary that I should accomplish all I have already related, especially when it is recollected that I had been perfectly instructed in these matters at Wolverhampton, where I once made a pair of scissars for a wager, though I had never attempted such a thing before.
In my intervals of leisure, during the prosecution of this work, it was my custom to exame every thing around me, as well to see whether I could discover any materials to assist my labours, as to search for shell fish. In this latter pursuit I was particularly fortunate, for I found, towards the shore, plenty of sea snails, limpets, and that delicious dainty known by the name of the hammer oyster.
In a lake also, or bason, formed in a hollow rock, and which communicated both with the sea and my river, according to circumstances, I discovered several sorts of fish, which I apprehended came into the fresh water to spawn, exactly as salmon and other fish are known to do in England. Among these there was a kind of congereel, or rather a sea snake. This gave me particular pleasure, not only on account of the skin, which I knew would serve me for a variety of uses, but for the oil it would yield me.
In this lake also I found part of a shark's skeleton, which creature had, no doubt, ventured, during a spring tide, to follow the fish that took shelter there, and had got into such shoal water, that he was unable to get back again, and was thus starved to death. The bones of this fish, which was of the lamia species, I put to various uses, but the teeth were particularly serviceable to me, every one of them serving for an excelent saw, a tool of all others I stood most in need of.
Being now provided with every thing that could possibly be of use to me, even to a comb, which I formed out of the she'll of a land crab, I thought there would be no crime if I went on even to luxuries, as it would give a new spur to my genius, and employ my mind, ever active in those pursuits best calculated to expand it, and thus diversify my employments, so as to leave no time for the intruder care.
And first I panted to gratify what I had always a longing for, which was no less than, by some means, to set down the eventful particulars of my strange history. I had seen at Surat, a Malabar manuscript, which seemed to be wrought, not written, on palm leaves, by the intervention of some medium which bit in the letters exactly upon the same principle as acquafortis is used for etching upon copper. This art certainly came from the antients, who, when they had occasion to set down any thing they composed, used tablets coated with wax, on which they wrote with a needle, pointed at one end for the purpose of marking the words, and flatted at the other for the purpose of effacing the errors. In this they must have used some composition; for in order to promulgate their opinions, fair copies were taken upon a sort of paper called charta, made from the plant papyrus, which grows in Egypt; or else upon a sort of parchment, or vellum made from the skins of animals, which was called membranas, indeed, the origin of writing must have been leaves, the divisions of a book being to this day called by that name.
In imitating of these methods, I dried plantain leaves, took the soundest of them, and having spread a thin gum over them, I used a corrosive substance, something of the nature of what issues from the mangeneal tree, which marked upon the leaf pretty well; but I was very awkward at first, especially as I had to mark every thing with a point, and afterwards fill up the interstices with the composition. Habit, however, rendered the task pretty practicable; and having at last managed to make an iron pen, I lowered my ingredient to the consistency of ink, and afterwards wrote with tolerable facility.
Before I began my grand work I cleared my way; and having wiped off those different calculations of what had happened to me at particular times since I had been deprived of the usual methods of communication, and which calculations I had made by means of pins, knots in a string, stakes driven into the ground, shells placed at particular distances, or any other method that struck me at the time as proper to answer the purpose, I was prepared by the 1st of January, 1783, to begin my history.
The main chance, however, was the object most necessary for my attention; and though I was determined to give as much time as I could properly spare, to recording my life, even though my labours should never see the light, yet prudence whispered to me, that there were many important duties also to be performed if I expected to be comfortable.
In the first place the weather had been wonderfully favourable for me thitherto, but I knew so well the nature of that climate, that I must not expect it to continue so for any length of time, my business, therefore, was to guard against every emergency; and, in particular, I considered that it would be necessary to furnish myself with such a stock as should answer every purpose, in case I should be obliged during the rainy season, to keep house.
As, however, this urgency did not seem so very pressing as, at present, to demand a sacrifice of every thing else; I apportioned my time so as to have alternately some labour and some amusement. This was my general mode of passing the twenty four hours.
I arose soon after the sun; and having offered up a most sincere thanksgiving to him who had permitted me to survive so many trials, I walked out; and according as I was guided by the tide, either sought for shell fish, angled in my river, or searched for such food as should be necessary, for my present and future purposes.
Having stocked myself to my mind, I retired home to breakfast, which meal, by this time, I had made very comfortable. In an infusion from the sagoe tree, I found a pleasanter and more nutritive beverage than tea, and the plantain fruit, kneaded and baked, produced me an eatable, at least, equal to Yorkshire cakes.
After breakfast I went about all the manual labour, necessary for that day, till twelve o'clock, when I set about my cookery, which generally consisted of limpets stewed with rice, or Indian wheat, with both of which I was now stocked; or else the hammer oyster roasted, or some other fish, of which, particularly one very delicious, and extremely like the baracoota, my lake abounded.
Immediately after dinner I went to writing. This was my employment till four o'clock, then I indulged myself with a most delightful walk, in which I often made new discoveries. This was the most pleasing, yet the most melancholy part of the day; for though every object furnished me with a new motive for contemplation; and though every day's experience gave my heart a fresh reason to throb with gratitude for the tranquility I enjoyed, yet the declining sun never failed to cast a gloom over me, which nothing, perhaps, but the imbecility of human nature can, either account for or excuse.
Before the day set in I illuminated my apartments, for by this time I had made several lamps with layers of dried catalpa leaves cemented with gum, in the same manner as fire workers make their small mortars for
pots de brins, pots des aigrettes.
&c. The oil I had boiled from the sea snake, I purified till it became superior to the best spermacaeta oil I ever saw, and my wicks of course, were made of cotton. I had it in contemplation to make candles, but the lamps answered my purpose, at least for the present, full as well.
My supper was generally boiled rice, or else a sort of millet, which I sweetened with an extract from the locust tree; and having taken this and closed the day with the same gratitude to the Creator that I commenced it, I retired to my couch, sometimes cheerful, sometimes with a sigh, and now and then, perhaps, with a tear, and then resigned myself to repose.
Thus I went on with very little variation, except improving all my old schemes, and contemplating new ones, and among the rest, painting and music, both of which I had concerted how to bring about, till early in the month of March.
One morning, I shall never forget it, As I took my walk, a small cloud, as it appeared to me, all of a sudden dimned the sun. It grew larger and larger, and more and more grew the gloom. Dismayed at I knew not what, I stood in a state of stupefaction; my terror encreased, till by and by, the monstrous mass made towards the island which it seemed large enough to cover. When I had recovered a little my suspended faculties, I discerned the truth; it was a cloud of birds; nor was it long before I was convinced of it by their chattering and screaming. At length, with the most hideous yells, they pitched every where about me; and I soon divined, these creatures, like the birds that at certain seasons of the year, build their nests in many islands, particularly the Isle of Wight, had for that purpose paid my place a visit, and thus I should be troubled with them, perhaps, a few weeks, after which they would disappear with their young. It now struck me, that if I had adroitness enough, I should not only furnish myself with eggs, but feast upon the young ones.
I found nothing, except their hideous noise, that was disagreeable to me. In a day or two, they began without any ceremony to build their nests, and I soon saw that with little difficulty I should supply myself with as many eggs as I pleased; but it was not a week before another phenomenon appeared, which gave me much more uneasiness than the birds. This was no less than a whole swarm of monkies, who seemed to have as great a relish for birds eggs as myself.
Many of these I had seen in the wood on the top of the mountain, as I before mentioned, where they took no notice of me; I was soon convinced, however, this would not be the case here. It is true, that at first they avoided me; but as my form became more familiar to them, they came nearer and nearer, and demonstrated by their chattering, that they had no objection to be more familiar with me. This gave me great uneasiness, especially as I perceived several among them of the large baboon kind.
I had luckily before the monkies made their appearance furnished myself with a large stock of eggs. I, therefore, thought I had better stay at home, and give up the idea of searching for young birds; for that, probably, if I concealed myself for a time, when the birds went away, the monkies might disappear also.
This answered my purpose very well for nine or ten days; but one morning, while at my work, I was surprized by a monstrous large baboon. The hideous wretch caught hold of me in a moment, and it was with great difficulty I shook him off. I instantly menanced him in the most determined manner, and he seemed so terrified at my voice that he slunk away. He returned, however, and cringed, and fawned, and played so many monkey's tricks, that the striking resemblance of his grimaces to the pert addresses of a coxcomb would have provoked me to laughter, had it not been that I saw plainly he grew bolder and bolder. At last, as he most impudently advanced towards me, with one blow of my hammer, which I happened to have in my hand, I laid him dead at my feet.
I next dragged the horrid creature out of the cavern and threw it down the rock, where it stuck on a craggy point as if in terorem to the rest, and this effect I really began to think it had taken, for I presently saw the monkies in a croud chattering very busy about it, and in a very few days they all disappeared.
I had nothing now but the birds to encounter, and not having eaten animal food so long, except fish, I took a nest of young ones, and found them an exceedingly fine dish. They had very much the slavour of wheatears, but were as large as pigeons. What a store to have some of these potted? I set to work immediately, prepared a number of shells; and through the medium of the wild alspice, and other pungent aromatics, made so excellent a seasoning, that I am sure, could it have been sent from any distance in London, as a rariety, my dish would have been considered as a delicious luxury at the first tables.
I had now taken every precaution in case the rainy season should set in, and in one instance, it was well I did. I had very soon found that my visitors, the birds, fed wholly on the plantain fruit; and before they decamped, if I did not take care, would fairly strip all the trees in my neighbourhood, I therefore made a quantity of it into biscuit, and baked it hard for the purpose of serving me like a sea store.
And now came a most dreary time indeed. The birds, on the information of a few clouds, assembled one morning, and on the very next went gradually off in the same order I had seen them approach. They took their course northward, lessening, until, to my view, they became a point, and then nothing.
In two days more it began to rain, and in a few hours the clouds seemed to embrace the island, threatened to overwhelm it. My river swelled, torrents of water poured down the rock, and an ordinary mind would have been terrified at the apprehension of a compleat inundation. My only fear was that when the immense bason on the top of the mountain should overflow the natural receptacles for carrying off the water, would become ineffectual, and my situation, being not only subterraneous, but in some degree subaqueous, some torrent might force its way through the different hollows of the rock, so as to fill my habitation, in which case I must have inevitably perished.
Perceiving nothing of this kind, however, and finding the rain, though continual, by no means violent; I made the best of my lot, and amused myself as well as I could. I had got on pretty forward in my history, which was now almost my only employment; and, really, when upon perusing the different passages of my life, it called to my recollection that in a peopled world I had found as little assistance, except from my own exertions, as in a desolate island, I could not help, through the medium of pity, for the follies of my fellow creatures, taking to myself some satisfaction for the rectitude of my intentions compared with the duplicity of theirs.
In this manner did I go on, amusing myself, and beguiling the dreary time, until one morning—it was my birth-day—Oh Heaven, what a birth-day! I had in a long and sincere prayer thanked that Being for all his mercies, who had graciously permitted me to see thirty nine years pass over my head, I had breakfasted, felt myself uncommonly light and alert, when just as I had laughed heartily at the whimsical manner that Walmesley always made light of his misfortunes, I was seized with a vertigo, and fell lifeless on the ground.
When I came to myself, a cold shivering succeeded, my knees knocked together, and my teeth chattered in my head. I heaped fuel on my fire, and beginning to glow from its effects, I fell into a most violent fever, but finding myself extremely dizzy, and feeling every symptom of an approaching delirium, I instantly took an emetic, which I had prepared from the ipecacuanha root, and to that, I have no doubt, I owe my life; for what the practice in England may be now I know not, but, though it was at one time very much scouted, I was one of the first that induced the physicians in Warwickshire to give emetics in an early stage of a fever.
Could I have been comfortably lodged, I have no doubt but I should have been well in a day or two, but owing to the humidity every where around, which, in proportion as the rain continued, sweat through every pore of the rock, and to catching one cold upon another, I grew so weak and so emaciated, that I began seriously to think my unfortunate days would very shortly be numbered.
To add to my wretched state, I was so nervous, that the least noise threw me into the horrors. I fancied a thousand dreadful things. I have found myself conjuring the firm rock not to fall upon my head; the sea not to swell up and drown me; I have held conversations with death, who condescendingly deigned to visit me that I might be familiarized to his presence. I had determined, for fear of surprize, to make my coffin, and one morning I actually caught myself digging my own grave.
I had sustained this dreadful complication of complaints about six weeks, for ill as I was, I never failed to know how the time passed, when, to add to my shocking distress, it began to blow such a hurricane as if all nature was threatened with annihilation. Pieces of the rocks were torne from their base, and hurled into the sea, trees were blown about like feathers; yet it had one good effect, it certainly relieved my nerves; and though I was bowed down to the earth, yet, the emergency being great, my mind met it with its usual fortitude. I was alarmed, but I thanked God that I was at last firm.
CHAP VI. HANNAH IS DREADFULLY ALARMED, WHENCE THE ALARM PROCEEDED; HER APPREHENSIONS INCREASE; SHE IS WITNESS TO DISTRESS, WHICH SHE CANNOT RELIEVE; AND ESCAPES DEATH HERSELF IN A WONDERFUL MANNER.
REDUCED both in body and mind to the deplorable condition I have just described, I one night reclined upon my couch, expecting, and, indeed, wishing for a speedy termination of all my cares. The elementary contention, that for two days had raged with so much violence, seemed to increase, and the horizon, on which I had been accustomed to see the sun descend with majesty, and a serenity that gave piety to contemplation, was now tinged with a thick dusky red, which reflected on the waves, and broken into a thousand shades by their agitation, gave the prospect an effect so horribly tremendous, that it seemed as if devoted nature was instantly to be engulphed in a sea of blood.
Dreadful as this idea was, the enfeebled condition of my distracted frame still heightened it; I stretched out my hand, and having taken a little of a beverage I had that day made, which my stomach seemed to receive with unusual pleasure, I soon found myself inclined to sleep.
It was now quite dark, and I had scarcely recommended myself to that providence, which had hitherto so graciously watched over and protected me, and implored the same protection for my husband, when I insensibly sunk into the arms of sleep, but what words shall describe my next sensation!—
I had slept about eight hours, and was lost in one of those delicious dreams, which, though they cannot be described, must be remembered by every one, who, in sickness, has experienced the moment at which delirium resigns the mind to renovation, when the firm rock trembled under me, the caverns groaned with a terrific noise, and the whole island seemed as if sinking into nothing. The noise grew fainter and fainter, and, at length, I could hear nothing more than the agitated waves, and the whistling winds.
I had lain a few minutes in stupid astonishment, scarcely acknowledging life, or knowing how to use it, when another tremendous concussion, like the former, shook the island. The moment recollection had succeeded to wonder, I concluded it was an earthquake, and expected every moment to be swallowed up; I, therefore, fell on my knees, and having put up a short but sincere prayer to the Deity, waited my fate in that posture with calm and determined resignation.
The fervour which my ejaculations had called forth in my mind, gave me uncommon collection; and the noise being again repeated, I easily noticed that its continuation, and gradually dying away, proceeded from a succession of echoes. I, therefore, supposed that the violence of the storm had torne away the prominent fragments of a rock, which falling into a hollow had caused the noise and all its consequences. This, of course, dispelled every apprehension of personal danger, for which I uttered a pathetic thanksgiving, and rose.
Finding myself wonderfully refreshed by sleep, I made my way towards the door to see if I could discover whether the storm had abated. Instantly a flash beamed across the cavern, which was followed by the noise in the same manner as before. I should have conceived that my alarm had proceeded from thunder, had I not particularly remarked, that the noise had nothing disjointed, or continual in it. It was one single burst like an explosion, which was multiplied only by the echoes from the surrounding rocks.
A gleam of hope at this instant darted across my mind. It could not proceed from what I first conjectured, because of the flash. It could not be thunder—What then could it be but the explosion of a cannon? And from what could the explosion of a cannon proceed but from some ship in distress in the Offing? I resolved, therefore, to sally forth and fire a beacon, which I one day had raised when my mind seemed to anticipate this very accident.
Despair lends strength to the weak, and resolution to the timid. I accomplished my purpose; and now what a variety of sensations agitated my mind! Who knew how many lives I might have been born to preserve? Who knew but my own wanderer, the author of all my wretchedness, might be sent at last to alleviate my deplorable condition! Four times did I hear the signal, and four times did I add fuel to my pile. At length the day appeared, and all my hopes vanished into nothing.
I must here mention a circumstance that I reflected on a long time with great horror. While I was attending the fire a most hideous and frightful creature passed by me, and made its way towards the inaccessable part of the rock, the summit of which, as I before noticed, was covered with a thick wood. It appeared to me of the lion or tyger kind, and I concluded that its intention was to make me its prey; but alarmed by the fire, it had ran from that it meant to have pursued.
As the discovery of one of these creatures denoted the existence of more, I had no doubt but the island was overrun with wild beasts, a reflection of so shocking a nature, that it for a time absorbed every other consideration, nay, even that of my probable preservation by means of the ship; but, alas, Hope now seemed determined to desert me in every thing.
Day having dawned, it presented a dismal spectable to my sight. I diserned, about three miles from the foot of the rock, a ship firmly aground. The waves yet ran mountains high, and if it had not been for my entrenched situation, I could not have kept my footing to make my remarks. Looking further, I saw two boats full of people, striving to stem the fury of the surge, and in seeing them, I knew I saw so many people devoted to destruction. The surf, curling round the imperceptable jagged points of the rock, were so many vortexes from which it was impossible for them to escape. In short my fears were prophecies. The boats all sunk, and every soul perished.
Almost the whole day had I been in this anxious, distressing state, with nothing to offer towards the succour of these poor shipwrecked wretches but my prayers, when the storm came on to rage with a degree of violence more dreadful than ever, accompanied with torrents of rain, sheets of vivid lightning, and peals of terrifying thunder. Indeed soon did I witness the difference between the ineffectual thunder invented by man, and that which speaks the Deity; for if the poor ship's signal of distress alarmed me in the morning, so transcendantly awful was what I now heard, that nothing but an implicit trust in him, in whom we live and move, and have our being, weak and ill as I was, could have preserved my reason, or, perhaps, my life.
Indeed I could not venture within the cavern, drenched as I was in rain, and weak for want of food, till the thunder had gone by, for there I knew the effect must be much stronger. The thunder ceased, but the storm continued with equal, if not encreased violence, and the tide setting in, the sprays, beat in such volumes against the rock that they seemed to threaten its very summit.
Night now threw its suneral paul over these devoted wretches, and I crept back, with difficulty, to my shelter; when lighting my lamp, and throwing myself upon my couch, I began to reflect on the various vicissitudes of that unfortunate day. After such a series of misery, chequered with expectation, after so much promise, and so much disappointment, I lamented my fate in terms of the deepest despondency. I wept aloud; and bewailing myself in expressions of bitterest agony, I had well nigh arrainged that providence on which I had so often and so effectually relied.
This interval, in which the weakness of human nature got the better for a moment, of that strength of mind which had hitherto borne me out through all my trials, though poignant, was short; I soon resumed my wonted fortitude; and the recollection that self preservation was a duty I owed that Being who gave me a life to preserve, induced me to sustain nature in the best manner I could; and after a humiliation, in which my tears wonderfully relieved me, I determined to seek for means to preserve life, whatever misery that life might occasion me.
I kindled a fire and heated some rice; but finding this food not sufficiently nutritious to appease the gnawings of hunger, I roasted three or four limpits, which I devoured rather than ate, after which I drank rather profusely of my new beverage, and retired to my couch.
I was instantly seized with a delirium; my head swelled, respiration was obstructed, and I expected every moment would be my last. A violent vomiting, however, succeeded; and exertion of mind and body being at length exhausted, I fell into a sort of sleep, or rather trance, out of which, after viewing, as in a dream, all the circumstances of my life, I awoke in a very emaciated condition about ten o'clock the next morning.
My mind was at that moment in such a state that it feared to repine. Like a threatened child, it dreaded the rod, and deprecated that chastisement which it was not conscious it deserved. I felt myself the offspring of humiliation, and determined, as far as human perseverance would allow me, to suffer and smile. Nor ever had I such cause to admire by what unseen ways the unerring hand of Providence permits evil for our good.
I was about to drink of that beverage from which I had felt such salutary effects; when, like a filmy phantom, beautiful at first to the sight, and afterwards changed to filth and deformity, I nauseated its view, its smell, and its taste. I instantly, of course, forbore to touch it. The truth beamed across my mind in a moment. I had swallowed poison. The first dose being a small quantity, operated on my distempered frame in the cordial and restorative manner I there described, but the second, being more potent, had it not been for the opposition from the quantity of the food I had eaten, and particularly the limpits, which are very muscular, and hard of digestion, it would have deprived me of existence.
Having found, as I imagined, the melongena, or egg plant; which every body knows, and which, particularly abroad, is esteemed as a stimulus, especially for the purpose of throwing warmth through the circulation and to the extremities when, owing to any obstruction, the vital heat is confined round the region of the heart, I made it into what I thought a restorative cordial; which I have frequently tasted; but it is plain I had mistaken this plant for that species of the mandragore called the mad apple, which is a solanum and a deadly poison.
Reflecting on this circumstance in every view, I was profuse in my acknowledgments to Providence that had preserved me. Had I not been hurried from the cavern by the signal of distress, I should have had recourse to that beverage whose salutary effects I had experienced the night before, and that way been poisoned. Had I found opportunity during the course of the day, I should have attended the same experiment, and so have been poisoned. Had I not strongly felt the calls of hunger when I came back, and eat inordinately, I should, in that case, have been poisoned. The humility, the sanctity, the confidence, the fortitude, and, above all, the gratitude, and the serenity that these considerations raised in my mind, I shall ever feel, but shall never be able to describe.
I was determined after this never to call any thing an affliction; and, as the storm continued with undiminished rage, I resolved to stay at home, and endeavour to restore my strength before I made any further observations.
CHAP. VII. A PROSPECT OF RELIEF BROUGHT ABOUT BY A MOST EXTRAORDINAY ACCIDENT, AND AN INSTANCE OF HANNAH'S PIETY, WHICH SEEMS TO HAVE FOUND ITS REWARD.
I STEWED some limpits, and made a beverage from raisons, which I cooled by the addition of small pieces of a chalky substance, that were scattered about among the viens in the rock, and strongly impregnated with nitrous particles. The limpet broth, which I took sparingly, proved a powerful restorative, and the beverage, which by the infusion of a root corresponding with our liquorice, became a very good ptisanne, refreshed me and kept off the fever; and in the course of two days, by which time the storm entirely subsided, I was able, without risk, to salley forth again and make my observations.
My perquisitions were completely in vain. I could discern no trace, not even a single vestige of the ship, the boats, nor any human creature, dead or alive; and after traversing every accessable port, and even venturing to the very verge of the promontary, I was obliged to conclude that the tempest had borne the ship from the place where she struck, and had either sunk her at a distance from the shore, or dashed her to pieces against some other part of the island.
In this temper I moved slowly back again to the cavern, where though, through the infirmity of human nature, I shed a flood of tears, I would not permit my tongue to utter a single murmur. An involuntary sigh, however now and then escaped me; and, in the bitterness of my reflections, I could not help wishing that if either of the boats had contained John Hewit, that I had but seen him and perished in his arms.
Exploring the different recesses of the cavern in search of mofs, and that chalky substance I spoke of before, I took a turn by accident round a sort of natural column and got into another large chamber like that I occupied, As this was further remote from the entrance, and consequently more sheltered from the weather, I rejoiced at the discovery, and concluded it might be expedient for me to change my habitation.
This induced me to pay every attention to the situation of the place, and for that purpose I struck out of it into a passage which seemed to lead on a descent to a considerable distance. I had my lamp with me all this while, but observing a cranny through which beamed a glimmer of light, in order to discover whence it came, I laid the lamp down and walked up to the place without it.
I soon discovered that it was only a reflection from another opening in a loftier situation, and much larger, and this last seemed to be dammed up with some substance that prevented it from conveying the light so clear and pure as it had been immediately received from the atmosphere. In short, I conjectured that other fragments of the rock, built higher and higher, made their way into the air, and obstructed the free communication of light by means of this opening.
I don't know what induced me to follow up my discovery, for one thing it struck me, that I might with greater facility than I had been accustomed to, get at the eggs of those fowls, another season, which had proved so nutritious.
Something more than this curiosity certainly urged me on, nay I trembled, I knew not why, at every step. My sensations, however, were not induced by fear, on the contrary I was full of a solicitous anxiety, such as I had often felt, but, I think, never so forcibly. That mixture of pleasurable and painful suspence that has assailed me on the eve of every great event during my life, produced a presentiment that convinced me such an event was at hand, nor was I long before my expectations were verified.
When I arrived at the opening in the rock I could plainly perceive that the object which obstructed the light was a part of some ship; and presently afterwards I crept into her without difficulty through one of her ports. I next got up the forecastle, and there perceived, by her form, that she could be no other than the vessel I had seen ashore, but how she could have come into that situation, jammed into a cleft of a rock, I could not for the life of me imagine.
Examining, however, around, I concluded, that as the tide set in, the violence of the tempest had brought the ship along with it, and by the influence of a tornado had thrown her into that situation; where the storm having abated, she was safe from danger as in a dry dock; and putting circumstances together, I found nothing extraordinary in this, for in the year 1778, or thereabouts, the hurricanes in the West-Indies, did actually tear vessels from their moorings and thrown them into the towns. One instance of which happened at Fort Royal, in Jamaica, and another at St. Kitts.
If I was ungrateful enough to murmur at my former disappointment, how did I take shame to myself at the present moment. To see succour, comfort, convenience, nay, even luxury, brought, as it were, to my very door! Oh how my grateful heart ran over! I almost gloried in my strong trials, convinced that I was still the care of Providence, whose inscrutable decrees, however weak sighted mortals may dare to dispute them, permit not a fly to perish in vain.
When my mind became a little more calm, I determined to examine the ship. By her size she must have been of seven or eight hundred tons burthen, she was coppered bottomed, and wore, in every respect, the appearance of an Indiaman; and by her lading, I soon found she was homeward bound. In examining her more particularly, I discovered that a large part of her cargo yet remained on board, some of which had been materially damaged in consequence of her having filled with water, though she was perfectly dry at this time, the water having ran out again through her leaks.
And now a dreadful spectacle presented itself to my view. Five dead bodies lay between decks in a most lacerated state; a little further, three more; and at the door of a cabin, which I found afterwards to be the purser's, a man and woman of genteel appearance, were locked in each other's arms. I sustained all this misery with the best fortitude I could, determined, before I considered the living, to pay every due respect I could to the dead.
Among these poor wretches were three women and seven men. I searched their pockets with a view to learn who they were, but in this my expectation failed, except in four instances. The gentleman and lady I found in each other's arms, were Mons. and Madame D'Oliviere, a young man, well dressed, was called D'Aubignac, and a woman, apparently an attendant, was named Jeannotte Du Bois.
This intelligence I gathered from letters, pocket books, and other documents I found about them; I also found other things, such as knives, scissars, houswives and articles of use, which to me turned out of singular convenience, and now having, by way of refreshment, eaten some buscuit and drank a small quantity of excellent arrack to give me spirits, I began my pious work.
I unpacked a bale of chintz, and sewed up each body in a double piece of it, as tight as my poor strength would permit me, and as much as possible in the shape of a mummy, except the husband and wife, who I wrapt up in each others arms as I found them, which I considered as fulfilling the will of the dead, their last wish, apparently, being never to be seperated.
This awful task took me up nearly three hours. My next care was to see for a place where to deposit these relics of mortality; and on looking from the side of the ship I saw a hole of about a yard diameter, which seemed to be profound.
Here I determined these unfortunate wretches should find a sepulchre; and having, by means of a rope, which I formed with a block into a sort of tackle drawn each miserable carcass to the edge of one of the ports, I let it down as gradually as I could, followed it with my eyes till they were dimmed with tears, and then repeating a short requiem, bid it an earthly adieu.
This pious ceremony I performed to each till the earth had hid them all from my view. I then fell upon my knees, put up a fervent prayer for their everlasting felicity, and followed it with a thanksgiving for my own miraculous preservation. After this a ray of comfort beamed across my mind, which I shall never forget; and, though I could not help pitying from my soul all those poor wretches, who had vainly enterprized for so much treasure, yet so impulsive is the vanity of human nature, that my mind would, for a moment, admit no other consideration than that it was sent to me as a recompense for so much resignation in so many alarming trials.
The radiant sun was now hastening to hide his lessening beams within the glowing ocean. Being, therefore, heartily fatigued, and having, besides, little opportunity to explore what fortune had sent me that evening, I contented myself with examining the purser's cabin for refreshment, where I found a case of cordials, some biscuits, and other things; and having sparingly refreshed myself with what I thought would best agree with me, and determined to stay till morning, I changed my strange weeds for some night cloaths of Madame D'Oliviere, and went to sleep for the first time during eleven months in a bed.
CHAP VIII. GOOD FORTUNE PRESENTS HANNAH WITH ONE STORE AFTER ANOTHER, OF ALL WHICH SHE IS DEPRIVED, IN A SINGLE MOMENT, BY A FATAL ACCIDENT.
I WAKED with the day, which arose with a garb as pearly and delicate as that was crimson and grand, in which the former had set. My first wish was to have a dish of tea, which I knew I could easily get. I, therefore, went to the galley, kindled a fire, by means of a pistol tinder box, and while it was burning, I returned through the rock to my brook, and coming back set on my kettle. It is inconceivable how these familiar objects delighted my mind. The contrast was so directly opposite to the inconveniences I had been accustomed to experience, that no pleasure could be much more perfect than was mine at this moment.
Having breakfasted I began to examine my wealth, I plainly perceived that I had lost much of the private stock which the officers and passengers had lain in for their own convenience. To make me amends, however, the purser's store-room, the slop-room, and every other part, where the substantial materials for food and clothing are always deposited, were perfectly safe, nor were any articles, except those which salt water can spoil, materially injured. I found plenty of salt beef, dried tongues, hams, potted sish, portable soup, and many other articles in high perfection, and though the wet had perished a great deal of the buscuit, I got from first to last more than three hundred weight that was very good.
Flour, Indian wheat, rice, barley, potatoes, and a great choice of oriental seeds, I found in abundance, most of which, except part of the flour, was in a pretty good condition. Several forts of wine, particularly some cape wine, and two pipes of Madeira, were also as good as ever; besides these, in the different cabins I found cordials, sweetmeats, spices, and almost every delicacy that the Eastern world affords; and now having a stock of necessaries, that, with care, would last me for many years, and by cultivation, procure me enough for many more, I proceeded to see what merchandize I was in possession of.
Among an astonishing number of other things, bales of cottons, muslins, ginghams, shawls, and ornamental paper presented themselves to my view. Tea I found in plenty, but the greatest part of that in the chests was damaged. The private stock was, however, in general, so well secured that it had taken no harm; but what pleased me most, was the carpenter's chest, the master's, and the doctor's. In the first I found whatever tools I might stand in need of; in the second were several case
of instruments for the purpose of navigation; and in the third were medicines and physical books, together with chirurgical instruments. I had scarcely got possession of the master's chest but I took an observation, and finding myself in the latitude of thirteen degrees, eighteen minutes south, I concluded I was upon one of the Comora Islands.
In the chest also, of different individuals, I found colours, chemical compositions, besides china, and utensils of various kinds out of all calculation. In short, every thing that is usually to be found in a French homeward bound East Indiaman, was now in my exclusive possession, for the papers, particularly several journals of the officers, which were all written in French, informed me that the name of this ship was the Entrepreneur, and that she was bound from Rajapore to Bourdeaux.
This survey, which was attended with a good deal of fatigue, lasted me six or eight hours, after which I proceeded to convey into my cavern what I might most stand in need of; and, to be brief, for it would be endless and irksome to the reader, beyond idea, to go over particulars, in about ten days, all which time, as the weather was fair, I slept aboard, I had got together more articles, both for utility and pleasure, than I stood a chance of wanting as long as I should live.
A true mortal, my ideas enlarged with my possessions, and that chamber which I had hailed with awful veneration, which had afforded me an assylum, like the cell of a saint, I now considered as no place for one of my towering expectations. It was dreary, cold, and inconvenient in moist weather, and reflected such a humid gleam when the sun shone powerfully, that I not only determined to have recourse to it for culinary and other household purposes alone, but I resolved to build me a new habitation, consisting of different apartments, on the lawn before the cavern.
To effect this I conveyed piece meal into the cavern, a large number of spare yards, capstern bars, handspecks, marlinspikes, and other useful pieces of timbers, together with an entire new suit of sails, which were stowed away in the hold, besides hoops, staves, a framed capstern, blocks, the machinery of a chain pump, and innumerable other articles. My next determination was to uncopper the ship, for which purpose I constructed a swinging scaffold, and suspending it occasionally from the chains, or other prominent parts of the hull, I got, in the course of three days, a prodigious quantity of copper; but, as this seems a work not only beyond the strength but the ingenuity of any individual, lest I should be suspected of exaggeration, I shall minutely explain the nature of my operations.
The principle of a tackle is extremely well known to seamen, and to them it will not seem extraordinary that I should be able to hoist and lower ten times the weight that I could have managed by my proper strength, through the means of such an engine, especially as I had all sorts of ropes and blocks ready at hand for my purpose. I have seen three seamen bowse a pipe of Madeira into the Grosvenor, from the waters edge, which must, at least, have been twenty feet perpendicular, and that pipe of Madeira must have weighed twelve hundred weight; but this is but a trifling instance, for any one who knows the doctrine of nautical mechanics, will join with me in allowing that ten times more than this is practicable from a large complication of pullies, so placed as to assist the purchase of one another.
As to my swinging scaffold, nothing could be more simple nor more secure than it was. I got some of the nettings under the bowsprit, and fixed it to a bottom of wood, about two foot square. This enclosed me as in a cage, or to give a more familiar idea, exactly like a cabbage net with a wooden bottom. The top of this net, or cage, I fastened to a block with one pulley, from whence went a rope to another block with two pullies, and the block at bottom, being fixed to that at top, in a working state, I could hoist or lower myself at pleasure, always taking care safely to belay my rope when I found myself in the desired situation to go on with my work. Thus I loaded my cage with copper; and when it contained a sufficient quantity, I ran myself up, unladed, then lowered and went to work again.
I could not refrain from going into this explanation, because I should be extremely shocked, if in this work, probability were a single moment neglected. Fertile in expedients, as I naturally am; and, indeed, as any one would be in the same situation; yet many points in this history may seem extraordinary to those determined to doubt, which, through the allowance of a liberal latitude, will only appear a lively ingenuity impelled by necessity.
For three weeks, with very little intermission did I continue this work, by which time I was completely furnished with every material I could possibly want. My next task was to convey my building materials to the mouth of the cavern; which, with all my contrivance, I began to fear would be utterly impracticable. At last I determined to accomplish it by means of my framed capstern, which I fancied I should find no difficulty in setting up at every turning, and so gradually draw what I pleased to any given point upon the principal of warping a ship.
As I had some fear lest a sudden hurricane might again remove the wreck from its present situation, or shatter it to pieces, I was now determined to content myself with what was in my possession, and run no further risks. Curiosity, however, or rather fate impelled me to pay the ship another visit, to examine whether there was any thing further that might be of use to me.
Having penetrated into the bottom of the hold, I looked at a variety of things; but I had so many duplicates of them, and grew so anxious to set about my grand plan, that I was coming away resolved to search no further; when, all of a sudden, I saw something glisten, and going up to examine what it was, guess my astonishment, reader, at finding the name of John Hewit studded upon a chest in small brass nails! My very blood froze within me, the place swam round with me, and I fell with violence to the ground, and so near the hole into which I had precipitated the dead bodies, that it was a miracle I had not fallen into it.
How long I lay deprived of life I know not: but when I recovered my senses, and with them the recollection that my hopes and apprehensions concerning my husband when the ship was cast away, were but too true, I screamed aloud, tore my hair, and acted the part of a bedlamite. In this extremity, not considering how cautiously I ought to have stept from plank to plank, my foot slipt, and I fell through a hole in the bows into a hollow of the rock, not less than a distance of eighteen feet; and if I had not, as it were by instinct, caught hold of a rope in my fall, I must have been inevitably dashed to pieces.
Now was my state deplorable indeed! I was shut out in one moment from all that comfort which I had so completely in my power. By one fatal instance of imprudent curiosity, I not only lost all that could make life endurable, but come to the knowledge of that which made me regret the possession of life itself. In that situation I lifted up my streaming eyes to Heaven and most earnestly implored some pitying power to take my life to ease my affliction.
CHAP IX. HANNAH LOSES SIGHT OF ALL HOPE AND EXPECTATION; AND, AT LENGTH, HER LIFE IS MENACED BY A DANGER FROM WHICH NOTHING LESS THAN A MIRACLE COULD HAVE PRESERVED HER.
WHEN my grief had a little subsided, I looked most piteously around me; and as recollection succeeded to stupefaction, I blamed my own ambitious pride for all that had befallen me. Had I been contented with the necessaries of life, without panting for luxuries, I might have borne my situation, sad as it was, with resignation and fortitude, and glided through existence, though a forgotten, yet an inoffensive sufferer. Now, through my pride, my folly, and my indiscretion, I was not only fated to perish in sight of plenty, but my last moments were to be embittered with the torture of reflection.
I next upbraided myself with having dared to repine after so many solemn vows to the contrary; and though my eyes still were traitors to my promises, I would not suffer my heart to acknowledge the treason. I, therefore, bruised as I was, looked about me to see if I could regain the ship, but, alas, I too fatally saw it was impossible. The rope which had so miraculously preserved me, at its length, would not have reached within ten feet of the ground; but, unluckily, on my quitting it, it had receded and twirled in a kink round a shattered piece of the cathead, and as to any other means they were impracticable.
The bows of the ship lay as in a cradle over a prominence, which was worse than perpendicular, it was oblique, the base bending inward; and to get beyond it on either side was utterly impossible; for had I fallen only a few paces any way from where I happened to alight. The distance from the ship must have been thirty yards, therefore, my preservation was every way providential.
When I reflected on this a faint glimmer of hope again revived in my mind. I might by some other passage regain my cavern; I might in my way make some useful discovery; nay, I might again visit the fatal chest, and agreeably undeceive myself. John Hewit was a very common name, and it might belong to somebody else and not my husband. Nay, even if it were his, he might have sold it after having no further use for it; for, after all, what could be so unlikely as that he who was so excellent an English sailor should belong to a French ship.
With these fond and weak, but consolatory ideas, with which hope seldom fails to flatter misery, did I cheer myself till I had called into action a portion of my wonted fortitude. It being yet early in the day, I thought by perseverance I might get round the bottom of the rock and so make some discovery of importance before night should overtake me, trusting to chance as to what wild fruit I might find in my way to eke out the small portion of buscuit which, by good fortune, I happened to have in my pocket, and from what chrystal spring I might quench my thirst.
With a heavy heart did I crawl and clamber from one craggy point to another, taking that direction which I considered as most likely to lead me round to my habitation. The further I ventured, however, the more I got astray, no vestige of any known object presented itself to my view; on the contrary, my journey was retarded by dangerous breaks, overgrown with brambles, in which it required the utmost judgment to avoid being enthralled.
I had wandered about in this hopeless and forlorn condition for several hours, sometimes directing my way towards the place of my destination, and sometimes meeting with obstructions that obliged me to take a contrary direction, when getting into a kind of irregular valley, tremendously ridged with rocks on each side, and sloping towards the sea, I determined to see where it would lead, in the hope that I should at the bottom of it regain the ridge of rocks on the shore, which, though it would be a work of infinite labour, would, in the end, lead me to my cavern.
This valley led me to an extensive lawn covered with the most beautiful verdure, and planted, as if with some human hand, with clumps of orange, citron, and a prodigious variety of other oriental fruit trees. At the back, which received the full south sun, a ridge of rocks ran nearly in the form of an amphitheatre, while vines of all sorts twining in great luxuriance interlaced their rugged face. To the westward, from a cleft in the rock, burst in a large volume a beautiful cascade, which being regorged from the sissures, it perforated and bounded with redoubled force over the craggy prominencies, that being thus washed, looked like a rich mixture of porphory, marble, granate, and spar; it then made its way to the base with a most majestic and awful concussion, and thence ran off in an ample and profound stream, which emptied itself into a capacious bason about five hundred yards beneath it.
To the east a ridge of cedars, cocoa trees, pines, and other Eastern productions of the largest kind, like a towering wood reached to the very surface of the mountain.
Thus the valley I descended was nearly in the center of this beautiful lawn, which being fringed round in the manner I have described to the right and left, with ridges of rocks and trees, the whole is an amphitheatrical form, spread on in a gradual slope to the distance, I suppose, strait on, of half a mile, and in breadth a mile and a half, the front bounded by a polished rock beneath, which at high tide was washed by the sea, but which was situated so high, that the sea seldom or ever washed over it.
Struck by the awful grandeur of this beautiful scene, I paused and wondered. I could scarcely think but that art had combined with nature in forming it. These were my reflections. Perhaps the island had been some time or other inhabited, and that wild beasts, with which I had received one shocking proof it abounded, had devoured the inhabitants. Who knew but that some other part of the Grosvenor's people might have, like me, found a temporary shelter, and alas, like me, a devoted grave.
I was in this mood, and had scarcely time to eat some of my biscuit and drink a little water, when night overtook me. I now crept into a close interwoven thicket, and having secured myself from all dangers in the best manner I could, I committed myself to the care of Providence.
I had scarcely fallen asleep when I was roused by a most terrifying noise, which I too well knew to be the roar of a lion. Heavens what were my feelings at that moment! Annihilation would have been mercy to me. I was convulsed with horror, my whole mass of blood curdled in my veins; and frantic with despair, as I knelt with my hands clasped in agony, I knew not whether my distracted prayer to Heaven implored death or mercy.
The noise encreased. Twenty lions seemed to be in search of their prey. At legth it died off, and having listened with a death like silence for more than an hour, my mind and body tired out, nature again yielded to repose, but Oh what a dream ensued.
I dreamt John Hewit came to me all bloody. He told me he had been torne by the jaws of a lion, and begged me to hide him. When I attempted it the lion came and tearing him from me, scattered his limbs upon the plain. I expected to be devoured in my turn, instead of which the lion lay down before me, fawned on me, and kissed my feet. In an instant I lost it, and being transported to a barren wild, I was set upon by thieves. Binns rescued me from their violence; and as I approached him he bade me stand off for that he had married his sister. What succeeded was delirium, and I waked just after day break in a violent fever.
Parched with thirst, I tottered, I scarcely knew how, towards the verge of the precipice that faced the sea, where I had the day before found some ripe oranges. When I arrived there I entered a recess, from whence issued a most delicious odour occasioned by the orange and citron flowers that bloomed every where about me. I gathered several branches of these, and distracted as I yet was with the burning fever, I formed them into wreaths and garlands, singing incoherently bits and scraps of melancholy ditties.
My intellects, however, were not so impaired but I soon became sensible enough of a danger that seemed to threaten me with inevitable destruction. Getting to the very verge of the rock, over which hung luxuriant branches of the orange trees, loaded at the same time with fruit and blossoms, I disturbed a monstrous lioness as she was stretched with a cub by her side. My situation, in one moment, was exactly the same as that of the horse in Stubbs's beautiful picture, except that, unlike him, I knew my danger, and therefore, my blood instead of filling my veins receded to my heart, and actuated by that knowledge, and, perhaps, my distemper, for nothing is so quick as madness, I instantly meditated how to escape; but before I could give my dreadful situation a single thought, catching the glow of the monster's eye, I was fairly under the power of facination. A moment after I saw her in the act of springing at me when I measured my length upon the ground and died away.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.