Thomas Roberts

“ Captain Roberts does not appear to have been favored with the least chance of distinguishing himself, otherwise than by his careful attention to the trade constantly under his protection. Whilst on that cruise, he fell in with, and used every effort to get alongside of, a French frigate-built privateer, pierced for 36 guns, and apparently full of men; but owing to her superior sailing, and the darkness of night, she effected her escape without being brought to action.
On the renewal of hostilities, in 1803, this zealous officer was one of the first appointed to raise sea-fencibles in Ireland ”

“ There being no other man-of-war then in company, Mr. Roberts, who had been first lieutenant of the Serpent ever since he held a commission, appointed himself successor to Captain Buckoll; but as a commodore was on the coast at the time, the Admiralty did not consider the death vacancy properly filled, and therefore refused to confirm him. After interring the remains of his late commander, at James Fort, Accra, Lieutenant Roberts immediately collected a large and valuable fleet of merchantmen, chiefly bound to Surinam ”

“ Mr. Roberts was a man of firm mind, well educated, and possessed a very retentive memory. He had met most of the early explorers to the coast and was thoroughly conversant with the early history of this country; a man of strict honesty and sterling integrity, his death is a great loss to the community in which he lived..."
George B. Roberts' Cowlitz Farm journal of 1847-51 and his 1878-83 letters to the historian Frances Fuller Victor present various aspects of his unique experience in the Pacific Northwest, separated in time of writing by thirty years. ”

“ During these memorable years he participated in the British Company's success and control in the Pacific Northwest, witnessed the challenge of American trappers and traders by land and sea, the arrival of the first American missionaries and settlers in the Oregon Country, their eventual dominance and the Company's decline and departure.
Like Chief Factor John McLoughlin, Roberts was among those Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural Company officers who became American citizens rather than leave the region which had become their home and where they had families and interests. ”

“ In the first of these skirmishes with the republican fleet, the Bedford was second a-head in the line-of-battle, and warmly engaged with the Ca-Ira 80; her loss consisted of seven men killed, and a lieutenant and seventeen men wounded. After the latter affair, Mr. Roberts returned home, master’s-mate of the Camel store-ship. ”

“ Unlike his friend Edward Huggins, an ex-PSA Company employee who was able to claim part of the Nisqually Farm after the company was reimbursed for its holdings by the U. S. government, Roberts did not carry out his intention to hold the Cowlitz land as a pre-emption claim. [2]
Since Roberts' personality as well as his position ultimately must have played some part in the attitude of the American community toward him, it seems pertinent to include some personal detail, though not much is available directly. The general outline of his life sent to Mrs. Victor in 1878 [3] is sketchy ”

“ At an hour almost unseemly Robert came, of course. And Barbara was gracious to him. As if there had been no estrangement, she talked frankly of Second Westings matters,—of Doctor John's service in the siege of Boston, of Doctor Jim's danger because of his opinions, of Mistress Mehitable's need of her presence at Westings House,—just as if they were Robert's concern as well as hers. The gladness came back to Robert's dark face, and for a moment he was forgetting the barrier between them.
"And what are you doing, Robert? Is it not becoming a little dangerous for you in New York now?" ”

“ There's a sword in the air, John!"
"It's surely a stiff-necked king, Jim," muttered Doctor John.
"The sword of a Gault will ever leap from its scabbard to serve the king!" said Robert, loftily, his grave eyes aglow with exaltation.
As he made this proclamation of his faith, devoting himself to a cause of which she disapproved, and quite ignoring her feelings in the matter, Barbara felt a sudden pang of loneliness. She seemed forgotten, or, at least, grown secondary and trivial.
"Do let us hurry home to Uncle Bob!" she pleaded, her voice pathetic, her eyes tired and dissatisfied. ”

“ Shortly afterwards he met with a stage-coach accident, which induced nervous debility, and he died by his own hand in Dublin in 1826. Six of his pictures hang in the council-room of the Royal Hibernian Academy (Catalogues) . One of Roberts's landscapes, with a river and cattle, was purchased for the National Gallery of Ireland in 1877 (Cat. 1890, No. 116) . A watercolour drawing of St. John's, Kilkenny, is preserved in the South Kensington Museum.
Another brother, John Roberts (d. 1815) , rector of Kill St. Nicholas, Waterford, was father of Sir Abraham Roberts [q. v.] ”

“ Tom and I set out after an early supper, in the buggy, with brandy in our flasks and blankets under the seat, in case we should find old Ruben by the wayside. In the shafts was Young Bill. I have known many tall horses and many silly horses, but never any other one horse so tall and so silly as Young Bill. But he always meant well, did Young Bill. There was Clyde in him, quite obviously, and a plumping strain of Percheron, I suspect, and a dash of rocking-horse and some saw-horse. What else, I cannot imagine; but Tom spoke vaguely of Morgan blood. Tom thought him a wonder; and Tom was right. ”

“ I am with all the great and wise of old, who have taught that patriotism is a man's highest duty. Yet what have you done, Robert? You vow you love me! Indeed! And you prefer a stupid, far-off, half-crazy tyrant, whom you call your king, and whom you have never seen, to your country, which has borne and cherished you—and to me!"
"Oh, Barbara!" cried Robert, desperately. "What are king or country, what are heaven and earth, to me, compared with you? But what would my love be worth to you if, for the sake of my own happiness, I could be a rebel and a traitor? ”

“ Thereupon, Deblore reshouldered his load, and barged by old Ruben, brushing him aside. I followed. The hall was narrow and dark, and musty. We ascended the narrow staircase, each step of which was soft with dust. The handrail was slender and of mahogany. There was light at the top, from the open door of a front room; I followed Tom into this room; and he immediately deposited his load on the floor and shut the door.
"We live mostly in the wing," he said. "It's warmer—but this'll be warm enough from now on till winter. You can make a fire if you ever feel chilly." ”

“ Tom's blistered face twisted into the lines of a painful but genuine smile.
"By the lord, Trim, you're human!" he exclaimed. We looked toward the road, attracted by sounds of wheels and hoofs. "And here come more of them, more humans," he continued. "Smiths and Watsons, men and women, and Stack Glashner back with our team. No, it's not a matter of money, I guess, nor of lumber and carpentry. There'll never be such another house on my ancestral acres as the old mansion, but if you folks like the new house better, I'll be satisfied. ”

“ He did not care whether old Ruben lived or died.
"You'll come with us, Stack," I said. "The Jeanbards can get along very well without you. They escaped death without your help. We need you, and they don't."
That got under his skin. He cursed a bit, but he headed for Moosemeadows with Tom and me and Young Bill. Tom drove and Stack and I walked. Young Bill could have pulled a ton with no more effort than a hundredweight; but our consideration was for the harness and the buggy. Stack sulked for a mile, then told me the truth of the mysterious shot at the lantern out on the hardhack. ”

“ This appeal was to every one, but it was Robert, at last awaking from his rapture and finding breath, who answered:
"There was never anything else so wonderful in all the world," he said, solemnly.
Doctor John and Doctor Jim, with one impulse, jumped up, each seized one of Barbara's hands, and plucked her to her feet. They then stood hand in hand in a row before Mistress Mehitable and Robert, bowing their thanks for such appreciation of their poor efforts to please.
"We are going to London to perform before the king!" declared Doctor Jim. ”

“ Ye played in luck, lad, when ye tumbled head first onto the rocks o' me own little water hole. Lay back now an' I'll fetch 'e some good broth."
He lowered Griffon's head and went nimbly from the shelter, light on his feet as a cat, but queerly stooped from the hips. Griffon felt an upflame of hope. He rolled over onto his sound shoulder and eyed Big Tom, who was now polishing the empty dish.
"Who is he, Tom?" he asked. "And where are we?"
"Dat the man we need most in dis whole island," replied the revived giant. "Sailor Penny am his name. Henry tell me. ”

“ We might answer, with a smile, to incite him to become as loyal an American as General Wallace or Mark Twain. Or we might repeat as an answer a statement made to us not long ago by an observant inhabitant of this part of the literary [301] world—"Professor Roberts is quite as good an American as Henry James." But, using American in its fullest sense, Roberts easily comes in under that head. The shadow of the Stars and Stripes falls near his birthplace. His public is largely a purely American public. His residence for the last four years has been New York City. ”

“ Old Ruben rolled and muttered where he lay on the moss beside me.
"The house is afire," he gabbled. "The house is afire. Thar goes Tom—an' them injuns—an' good riddance. Hen, ye're the devil himself! Worse'n ye used ter be. Never a word of Holy Scripture now to sweeten it, like in the old days. The money is all we want, Hen, an' we's good as got our hands on it now. An' a man hadn't ought to burn his own brother to death that a-way. ”

“ It had been arranged that Robert should borrow a horse from Doctor John's stables, ride it over to Gault House, and keep it there till his return to Second Westings. But as he was strolling down the village street before breakfast, he saw, in a paddock beside an unpretentious cottage, a splendid Narragansett pacer, a dark sorrel, one of the handsomest of the breed that he had ever seen. He had long coveted one of these horses, famous in all the thirteen colonies for their easy gait, speed over rough country, and unparalleled endurance. ”

“ Sol had looked so tired after harnessing him that I believe he must have had to stretch each piece of harness in turn to get it on.
"Hope he don't grow no more," Sol had said.
"I like a big horse," Tom had replied. "Saw too many stunted ones in the tropics. Rats."
Young Bill walked on his toes for half a mile, cocking his ears and looking all around as if for applause. Next, he jogged on the flat of his feet, and the buggy rocked and creaked. ”

“ Yet Robert's eye was the eye of the hunter, skilled in the ruses of all quarry. Barbara's woodcraft went immeasurably beyond his,—and perceiving this, her last resentment faded out and she began to initiate him. She named and distinguished for him birds of which he had never even heard, and corrected him with gleeful pride when he innocently mistook the cry of a woodpecker for that of a jay. As for Robert, his delight in this initiation was second only to his delight in his wilful initiator, who was now all earnestness and to him a marvel of abstruse erudition. ”

“ The subjects of human vanity and ignorance did not touch their imaginations, and they were well content with the workings of the hand of Providence.
Tom left the house after breakfast, with a light pack on his shoulder. His heart was light, too, though the sky was gray and a cold and gusty wind blew smothers of icy rain across the clearings. Upon reaching camp he immediately built up the fire, which lay full length across the front of the lean-to, dried himself thoroughly and smoked a pipe. The heat and cheery light beat into the shelter, thrown forward by mighty back-logs. ”

“ An' then—an' then ye'll be mine—an' when Father McQueen comes in June 'twill be time for the weddin'—for that part o' it. Ye've put the names o' coward an' beast on to me—an' by Saint Peter, ye'll live to change them names or to know them!"
Some color came back to Flora's cheeks and her clear eyes shone to their depths.
"If you fight fair," she said, faintly but steadily, "he will give you what you deserve. I am not afraid. God will be with him—and he is the better man!"
The skipper laughed, then stooped suddenly, caught her in his arms and kissed her on the lips. ”

“ Robert felt a fierce hatred of the man George of England, who was so unworthy of his kingship! He was mad to throw himself at Barbara's feet, and tell her all his life was hers to do as she would with, to offer his faith, loyalty, honour, a living sacrifice to her love, and bid her send him to fight under whatever flag she called hers! But—he held the madness in leash. The tough fibre of his will gave a little, but would not break. The drops stood out on his forehead. But all he said was:
"Beloved, beloved, I worship you. You are all I can dream of womanhood. ”

“ There were exclamations of protest from every one, even Doctor John, the avowed and consistent Whig,—every one but Glenowen, who smiled thoughtfully at Barbara's rashness.
"Tut! Tut! You little fire-eater!" exclaimed Doctor John. "You mustn't bring discredit on your party! We will fight with constitutional weapons for our just rights, and bring that pig-headed George to his senses. We must teach him to reign properly, and not to meddle, that's all. No throat-cuttings in the English family!"
"It would break my heart to fight against my countrymen," said Robert, earnestly. ”