William Henry Giles Kingston

“ We were blazing away all this time, raking the Cléopâtre fore and aft. We had lost a good many officers and men, and I saw two midshipmen knocked over not far from me. I looked out for Harry and Reginald Leslie, and I caught sight of them, still standing unharmed amid the smoke, but I had not much time even to think about them or anything else except my duty.
We now fell alongside the enemy head and stern, being still foul of each other. Her larboard-main-topsail studden-sail-boom iron having hooked the leach-rope of our maintop-sail, I had still good reasons to tremble for our mainmast. ”

“ Susan frequently went up to see Jane; and the ladies treated her, notwithstanding what had occurred, as kindly as ever; but the captain ceased to inquire after me, and he evidently had not got over his annoyance, and still believed that Susan and I, if we had not encouraged Harry, might have at all events prevented him from falling in love with Miss Fanny. The poor young lady had not recovered her spirits; and Susan said she was afraid that if anything should happen to Harry it would bring her to her grave. This of course made us more than ever anxious to hear again from Jerry. ”

“ I did not want to go to sea, and I did not care about being an officer; indeed I had never thought about the matter, but I had no choice in it. I was but a very little chap, and liked playing at marbles, or “chuck penny,” in our backyard, better than anything else.
“He is too small yet to be a sailor,” said mother.
“He is big enough to be a powder-monkey,” observed my father; and as he was not a man who chose to be contradicted, he the next day took me aboard his ship, then fitting out in Portsmouth harbour, to carry the flag of Admiral Sir Edward Hawke. ”

“ A number of boats from the men-of-war had, however, got up to the spot, and they were better able to go in among the spars and rigging than was our light wherry with the sea which was then running. Now that I was safe myself, I was anxious to learn who among my shipmates had escaped; but then I had the little boy to look after, who was all wet and shivering, and I knew too that the news of the accident would soon reach Susan, and that she would be in a fearful state of alarm if I did not let her know that I had been preserved. ”

“ I had one day walked down to the beach, when a wherry from Portsmouth came to an anchor, and soon after a boat reached the shore with several people in her. Among them was a one-legged man, with white hair, who looked to my eyes like an old post-captain or admiral. I went up to him, at first with some doubt in my mind, but soon saw that it was no other than my old shipmate Jerry.
He put out his hand and shook mine cordially, saying as he did so, “You are less changed than I am, Ben, but years make a difference in a man. ”

“ I observed; “I daresay he will blame himself when he finds it out, but that won’t make him excuse you. I wish you would tell Miss Fanny what I say. The best thing you can now do is to set each other free; and if she remains unmarried, and you obtain your promotion and discover that you are of a family to which her father would not object, you can then come forward openly and claim her.”
This, I am sure, was good advice.
“But, father, I cannot say this to Fanny; she would think me hard-hearted and that I did not really love her,” said Harry. ”

“ I then saw that he had a timber leg, and that the ship was placed on a stand with a lump of lead fixed to the end of a bent iron rod at the bottom, which made it rock backwards and forwards.
“Oh yes! oh yes! all you good people, lend a ear to poor Jack’s yarn,” he continued; “and you pretty girls with the blue eyes and rosy cheeks, and you with the dark ones, who does more harm with your blinkers, when you’ve the mind, among the hearts of young fellows than ever our ships gets from the guns of the Frenchmen. ”

“ I asked, having a feeling that something had happened to my father, though I scarcely dared to ask what.
“As I was saying, Ben, you have a friend in me if you have no other,” said Jerry, again taking my hand. “You will grieve, my boy, I know, but it can’t be helped; so I must out with it. We have not lost many men, but one has gone who was worth a dozen of the best; the Frenchman’s round shot coming aboard took off his head, and deprived you of your father and us of our bo’sun.” ”

“ I had intended, as in duty bound, to keep Reginald Leslie in the boat, but he leapt on shore among the first, and I was too busy to see what became of him. The hills which rose above our heads were steep and rugged, notwithstanding which, soldiers and bluejackets pushed up them by a long and narrow path, with a rugged precipice on one side. At any moment they might arouse the enemy, who would soon have stopped their progress. ”

“ I agreed with my wife, and Jerry said that he thought so likewise from what he recollected of him; indeed we had not a shadow of doubt on our minds that our dear Harry was the son of Henry Stafford.
“Oh, how I wish he was at home!” cried Susan; “he cannot fail to gain his rights; and then he might marry dear Miss Fanny and be so happy. Ben, I must go and tell her what we have found out about his family, and that she may be sure all will come right. ”

“ He afforded a melancholy example of the condition to which drunkenness and idle habits may reduce a man, who, from birth and education, might have played a respectable part in life. “That’s a fine boy of yours,” observed Jerry when Harry had gone out of the room. “I don’t set up for a prophet, but this much I’m sure of, that if you get him placed on the quarter-deck, he will be a post-captain one of these days. Is he your only one?”
I of course told Jerry that he was not my son, and described how he was rescued from the Royal George. ”

“ I railed off a piece of the garden and laid it down in grass, and on one side I built a house for the animal; but as there was not food enough in the little plot, the captain had it up to a paddock near his house, where it used to scamper about with Harry on its back and enjoy itself.
“It’s an ill wind that blows no one good,” and people used to say that the foundering of the Royal George was a fortunate circumstance for the sheep, as it would long before have been under the butcher’s knife. ”

“ I had just before seen all the port-holes crowded with seamen, trying to escape, and jamming one another so that they could scarcely move one way or the other. The ship now lying down completely on her larboard broadside, suddenly the heads of most of the men disappeared, they having dropped back into the ship, many of those who were holding on being hauled down by others below them. ”

“ There stood the lieutenant, fuming at the way the carpenter had spoken to him. Suddenly, however, it seemed to occur to him that the carpenter was right, and he ordered the drummer to beat to quarters, that the guns might be run into their places, and the ship righted.
“Dick Tattoo” was shouted quick enough along the deck, for everyone now saw that not a moment was to be lost, as the ship had just then heeled over still more. The moment the drummer was called, all hands began tumbling down the hatchways to their quarters, that they might run in their guns. ”

“ The Frenchmen’s shot came flying through our sails, considerably cutting up our rigging, and two thirty-six pound shot struck our hull; but we repaired damages as fast as we could, and, nothing daunted, stood on. Wonderful to relate, all the time not a man had been hit; and if we felt happy when we first got the frigate under way, we had reason to be doubly so when we found ourselves clear of the harbour and not a ship following us. ”

“ Mr Pengelley is a lawyer, and lawyers, as you know, hear a good many things. One day I told him about Harry; he had never heard of a child being saved from the wreck of the Royal George, nor had any people about here that I can make out. The next day he told me that he had been thinking over the matter, and asked me if I had ever in my wanderings been to the house of an old Mr Hayward, living some miles off. I remembered not only the house, which is a very solitary one, half a mile or more from any highroad, but the old gentleman himself, and a lady whom I heard was his widowed daughter. ”

“ As neither of them could row, quickly recovering I took one of the oars, and was about to sit down to help the waterman, when I saw, not far off, several sheep, pigs, and fowls swimming in all directions, while hencoops and all sorts of articles were floating about.
“Let us save the poor beasts,” cried one of the young gentlemen thoughtlessly, just as young people are apt to speak sometimes. ”

“ Captain Mullon, as we afterwards heard was his name, the commander of the French frigate, was seen holding the red cap of liberty in his hand, and making a speech to his crew, on which they all sang out at the top of their voices, Vive la République, and one of the sailors, running up the main rigging, secured the red cap to the masthead. We stood on till our foremost guns could bear on the starboard quarter of the enemy. ”

“ We were standing in the porch of the cottage on the last day, when we saw a young lady in black, leading a little boy, coming along the road. The little chap had a sailor’s hat and jacket on, though he did not seem much more than three years old.
“She is some officer’s widow,” I remarked to Susan as we watched her.
“She seems almost too young to be the mother of that child; she is his sister, more likely,” answered Susan. ”

“ The captain at once ordered a boat to put off to their assistance, but the sea was so heavy that the boat’s crew held back, thinking that they should lose their own lives if they made the attempt.
“I never order men to undertake what I dare not do myself,” exclaimed Captain Hood, springing into the boat. ”

“ I was a good swimmer myself, and I should, had I not been, have lost my life long ago; and I have often thought what a pity it is that all seamen do not learn to swim. Many more might have been saved; but those who could not swim got hold of the men who could, and all were drowned together. If all had struck out from the ship when they found her going over, a greater number would have been picked up; instead of that, afraid to trust themselves in the water, they stuck by her, and they and a large number who got into the launch were drawn down with the ship, and all perished. ”

“ It was curious that the youngest midshipman, Mr Crispo, and probably one of the smallest children, our little chap, should have been saved, while so many strong men were drowned.
I have known many a man come to grief through having too much grog aboard; but one of the midshipmen, who had taken more than was good for him, having overslept himself at the Star and Garter on the beach at Portsmouth, when he awoke in the morning found that his ship was at the bottom, and most of his messmates drowned. ”

“ There aren’t many men in the navy of Old England who has seen queerer sights, or gone through more ups and downs in life than the timber-toed old tar who stands afore you, and who lost his leg in action aboard the Thunderer, seventy-four, when we took a Frenchman and hauled down his colours afore he knew where he was. There aren’t many either, I’ve a notion, who’ve been worse rewarded, or more kicked about by cruel fate, or you wouldn’t find him playing the fiddle and singing songs for your amusement. ”

“ We were now surrounded by more enemies than even our fire-eating captain thought it prudent to contend with. However, either the Spaniards forgot to put shot in their guns, or fired them wildly, for we received but little damage, only two more men having been hit; we quickly hauled to the wind and stood out from among them, unharmed, although they were blazing away as fast as they could get their guns to bear on us. ”

“ We sailed immediately for the Mediterranean, where we joined Lord Hood’s fleet lying in the harbour of Toulon. The French Royalists had given up the city to the English and Spaniards, who were at that time our allies, and their troops assisted to man the fortifications. A Republican army, however, invested the place, and a good deal of fighting had been going on. The English had, however, not quite two thousand men on shore, and, though they could trust the French Royalists, the Spaniards, Neapolitans, and other troops could not be relied on. ”

“ I have not time to describe one-tenth part of the events in young Harry’s career.
After serving in the Nymph some time longer, I was transferred to the Juno frigate; and Captain Leslie succeeded in getting the two youngsters appointed to her. I had belonged to her when she was first in commission in the West Indies, commanded by Captain Hood. A braver man never stepped. I remember an incident which will show his character. We were lying at Saint Anne’s Harbour, Jamaica, a heavy gale of wind blowing, when the look-out from the masthead discovered far out at sea a raft ”

“ Thus a year or more passed by; we had visited Cadiz, and had taken a trip up the Mediterranean, when we were ordered home with despatches. One day I observed Harry was looking less merry than usual; I asked him what was the matter. At first he did not like to tell me. At last he said—
“The truth is, father, that my messmates have found out that I was saved when the Royal George went down, and that Saint George is not my real name.”
“Never mind that, Harry,” I answered; “you have as much right to it as they have to theirs. ”

“ My yarns go in at one ear and out at the other, and, supposing them worse than they are, they can’t be dwelt upon like those in books. I never speak of a real man except to praise him; and if I paint a scoundrel, I always give him a purser’s name. I produce many a hearty laugh, but never cause a blush to rise on a maiden’s cheeks; and so, Ben, don’t be hard on me. ”