HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE II. 67 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE REIGN OF | bidden each other a cheerful good-bye, with

GEORGE II.

NO. VIII. THE SAILOR.

no particular sense of the difference between them! What a strange chaos would this world seem to any spectator, could we but come to knowledge of such, who had the power to watch its simultaneous scenes at a glance from some starry tower of observation or low-placed bastion of heaven.

THERE are few things which give so clear an idea of the multiplicity and diversity of life as the glimpses which history affords us of the different occupations carried on at the same moment by men belonging to the same age and educated under the same circumstances. No doubt the contrast conFew men have come to such note as he tinues through all periods, and becomes but did in his generation of whom there is so greater as civilisation progresses; but yet little to tell as of Anson, apart from the the circumstances of life in the backwoods work which was his hour of revelation. or in the bush, wherever our boys may have About his origin and the preliminaries of gone to carry on the conflict with external his career we know not much more than we nature, are so softened by perpetual tidings do about those of his ship where she was of them, and by all the aids that science built or what became of her, matters of litand knowledge can give, that it strikes the tle importance in comparison with what she, imagination less than in those days when and what he, did in their moment of splenthe highest sophistications of artificial soci- did service and action before the world. ety at home were going on side by side One small book, the scene of which is laid, with the most appalling struggles of primi- not in the haunts of civilised men, but on tive man amid the untamed winds and seas. the high seas and uninhabited islands of the In the eighteenth century science had not Pacific, contains all our sailor's history, penetrated everywhere, inquisitive, yet be- though it embraces only some three or four neficent, with the lamp which is never so years of his life. Eleven big volumes are blessed as when it lights up those blank not enough for Horace, out of whose variwastes of land and water through which the ous editions, commentators, and critics, a wanderer of old had to grope his darkling whole library might be made. But we will way. And nothing can be more startling not attempt to carry on the comparison. and abrupt, for instance, than the contrast Anson was a sea-captain, evidently known between such an impersonation of his pe- to his superiors as a man worthy of trust, riod as Horace Walpole and the man whose but not otherwise remarkable, when he was brief story we are about to tell. About chosen to head the squadron which made the first we know almost everything that him famous. He was "of a family at that can be known-his "long lean" form time new and obscure," says Lord Mahon, stands in the very front of the stage, be-"nor had he the advantage of distinguished powdered, belaced, bescented, not unkind talents. After his expedition it used to be or unattractive in its way, a thing of velvet said of him that he had been round the and embroidery and fine arts and good world but never in it; he was dull and untaste, with his hands full of pleasant dainty ready on land, slow in business and sparing occupations, in which every dilettante (and of speech." A silent unexpansive man, we use the word with no scornful meaning) thinking much and saying little, able to must feel a certain tenderness of sympathy. keep his own counsel, maturing slowly in Yet to think that while he was writing his his mind plans which no urgent need of letters and collecting his anecdotes about sympathy in his nature tempted him to rekings and princes and ministers of state, veal prematurely with a silent sense in and Patapan, his white dog-while he was him- disclosed not by words but by acciunpacking his curiosities and hanging his dental indications of fact-of the beauty pictures and building pasteboard Gothic at and splendour of nature, such as belonged Strawberry, Anson, for his part, was going to few men in his time: and with a steady round Cape Horn! And that the two men force of resolution and modest undemonmight have shaken hands at some antiquated strative valour which no difficulties could street-corner, not many months before, and appal. Such is the aspect in which he ap

pears to us dimly to do his work; not him but his, work being the notable, ever-memorable thing. It is on the standing-ground of this achievement alone that Anson has any right to a place in the chronicles of his country. But to be beyond all rivalry in a nation like England, identified with naval adventure and the supremacy of the seas, the sailor of the age, is no small distinction. to have confused ideas of truth and honour, During the same period there is no English general whom we can identify as its soldier. Marlborough was over; Wellington was not begun. A crowd of incapable second or third rate commanders were doing what they could as they have done more or less in all ages to neutralise the steadfast valour of British soldiers. They gained us a defeat at Fontenoy, glorious, it is true, but no thanks to them; they made the army contemptible in Scotland; they did what they could to reduce its prestige everywhere. But in this unheroic age one man did vindicate for the sister profession its old laurels, and leave a tradition upon which the great seamen of another generation could be formed. He stands between Drake and Nelson, uniting in his sober person something of the romance of individual adventure impersonated in the former, with something of the legitimate warfare and national importance of the other. On him fell the splendid mantle of the adventurers of Elizabeth's time, though his unobtrusive figure bears little resemblance to theirs. While all the other public officers of England were wasting the public money upon unsuccessful expeditions and untrustworthy allies, Anson alone spoiled the enemy. The Spanish galleon, golden romance of merchandise, once familiar to the British imagination, rose again under his sober touch into a wealthy reality before the country's astonished eyes. The South Seas had but recently shaken the whole fabric of society in this island, and made the very kingdom totter. It was a sordid tragedy when played in Change Alley; but it took to itself a noble human investiture when carried out in a second exciting chapter amid the fairy islands and awful rocks of the Southern Seas.

out of its senses, and all but destroyed its credit and mercantile standing in the world twenty years before. The South Sea Company, as has been already described in these sketches, had gained at this terrible price the privilege of sending one ship a-year to the supposed golden coasts of South America. Trade, which then as always was apt

did what it could to exploiter to the best of its crafty powers this grudging concession; and as the best means of doing so, sent its one ship, attended by a little fleet of smaller vessels, the office of which was to throw in endless contributions of their own cargo as the freight of the first became exhausted, converting the never-emptying hold of the privileged ship into a kind of inexhaustible Widow's cruse. The Spaniards became suspicious of this trick, as was natural. And when a Spanish ship, bigger and stronger than she, encountered on the high seas the seeming innocence of a little English trader, it is not wonderful, perhaps, that questions should be asked in an unamiable way and with disagreeable results.

For, in fact, Anson's expedition was but the dénouement and climax of the strange national whirlwind which had rapt England

were excep

Sea-captains, possessed or possessing themselves of an amateur right of search, are not distinguished for a gentle use of it, whatever their nation may be; and Spanish sea-captains, if tradition speaks truly — tradition which even in very recent times has been awkwardly justified tionably arrogant and cruel. About halfway between the explosion of the South Sea Company and the setting out of Anson's expedition - the opening and concluding acts of the drama - in the year 1731 a certain skipper, named Jenkins, master of the Rebecca, was met at sea and overhauled by a Spanish guarda-costa. As he had nothing contraband on board which could be seized, the unfortunate himself was laid hold upon by the spiteful visitors. They nearly hanged him, frightened him to death, and at last tore off his ear. "Carry that to your king and tell him of it," cried the insolent tyrants throwing it at him. Bleeding and furious the poor man made his way to England, and, "with his owners," hurried out to Hampton Court to lay the facts before the Duke of Newcastle. But Walpole was at the height of his pacific reign, and the Ministry had no desire to be

made acquainted with facts which might | little as careless readers on either side of the sea disturb the peace of the nation. Poor now know it, lay involved. Shall there be a Jenkins carried his ear away with him and Yankee nation, shall there not be? Shall the exhibited it in the clubs, and had it written new world be of Spanish type, or shall it be of about in newspapers. The story became a English? Issues which we may call immense.” historical matter, and rankled slowly in the Of such issues Anson knew nothing, nor national mind. Eight years after, when the thought. His own conception of his miscountry was tired of peace, and Walpole's sion is set forth with much straightforward opponents were vigorous enough to take perspicuity and absence of pretence by Mr. the field against him, Jenkins's ear suddenly Walter, his Chaplain, and the compiler of sprung into sight and worked England up his narrative. "When it was foreseen that into fury. The events thus fall into each a war with Spain was inevitable, it was the other with a logic rarely to be found in opinion of some considerable persons then matters of fact. The South Sea Company charged with the administration of affairs dishonestly abused the privilege (such as that the most prudent step the nation could it was) of sending one ship a-year to South take on the breaking out of the war was America. The Spaniards, seizing the first attacking that Crown in her distant settlesmall stray that came in their way, avenged ments, for by this means it was supposed this big dishonesty on Jenkins, innocent that we should cut off the principal revictim, who had nothing to do with the sources of the enemy, and should reduce matter. And so it came about that the them to the necessity of sincerely desiring English nation, feeling one of its Bersekar a peace, as they would thereby be deimpulses of battle coming on, blazed up prived of the returns of that treasure by into a sudden explosion of long-smoulder- which alone they could be enabled to carry ing wrath, and declared war with Spain. on a war.” The first, and, as it happened, last step taken in the matter was the sending forth of two naval expeditions; one with much flourish of trumpets and immense paraphernalia of war under "Admiral Vernon, which came to miserable failure and ruin. The other, small, badly manned, neglected in all its preliminaries, which was to brighten to its pristine glory the naval renown of England, and add, perhaps, the only fresh and genuine laurel produced by the generation to the national crown.

"The Jenkins-ear question," says Carlyle, in one of those wonderful vivid glances across the mists of history which give his works their greatest charm, "which then looked so mad to everybody, how sane has it now grown! In abstruse ludicrous form there lay immense questions involved in it which were curious enough, certain enough, though invisible to everybody. Half the world lay hidden in embryo under it. Colonial Empire, whose is it to be? Shall half the world be England's for industrial purposes, which is innocent, laudable, conformable to the multiplication-table at least and other plain laws? or shall it be Spain's for arrogant-torpid, sham-devotional purposes, contradictory to every law? The incalculable Yankee nation itself, biggest phenomenon (once thought beautifulcst) of these ages, this too,

a

Such was the cause and such the objects, conscious and unconscious, of Anson's expedition. To molest the Spaniard, steal his treasures, disperse his ships, acquire if possible a standing-ground on those golden shores from whence future expeditions might operate, and avenge the national honour which had been outraged. He had other intentions in his private mind besides; little science, beneficent sailor-thoughts of tracking out the pathless waters on the other side of the world, and leaving a clear road for those who should come after him—and floating dreams, perhaps, of the golden galleons which might make a man's fortune all in the way of his duty; but duty and obedience to orders first of all—the usual complication of motives which are present in every human enterprise, and link on every individual work by its sides and corners to the general plan of life.

The squadron sailed eight months later than had been intended, according to English use and wont, and in such an imperfect 'state of preparation as proves the unity of the official mind in all ages and circumstances. It had been intended that the expedition should be strengthened by a considerable body of effective soldiers—“ Col

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onel Bland's regiment, and three independ- sailors was deficient by three hundred men, ent companies of one hundred men each." who were to be supplied to him at PortsBut when the moment of embarkment mouth; but in place of these all he could came, Anson found that this fine promise muster, after a weary waiting of five or six of land-forces had been transmuted into months, was a hundred and seventy sea"five hundred invalids to be collected from men, made up by some odd marines and the out-pensioners of Chelsea College." other accidental auxiliaries. Thus retarded No wonder that he was greatly chagrined and thwarted at every point, he managed at having such a decrepid detachment allot- to sail at last, in September, 1740 (his inted to him," all the more, no doubt structions being dated January 31). His though of this the historian tells us nothing squadron consisted of his own ship, the that Sir Chaloner Ogle's expedition Centurion, of sixty guns; the Gloucester, "twenty-five big ships of the line, with of fifty; the Severn, of fifty; the Pearl, of three half regiments on board; fireships, forty (these two were soon lost, and rebombketches in abundance, and eighty turned inglorious home); the Wager (which transports, with six thousand drilled ma- has a separate story of its own), of twentyrines," going out to Jamaica to Vernon, to eight; and the little Trial sloop, of eight perish and come to nothing before Cartha- guns. This little cluster of vessels, with gena- was getting ready by his side, and their imperfect crews and hollow-cheeked snatching all the good things in the way of invalids, left Portsmouth, no doubt, with a men from his very mouth. His vehement glare of not ungenerous envy and high inremonstrances, even though backed by dignant mettle, at the " twenty-five big those of Sir Charles Wager, a lord of the ships of the line," which were getting ready Admiralty, had no effect. The pensioners to go to their work the easy way, with were "the properest men that could be em- every appliance for success, while this little ployed," was the judgment of certain "per- devoted expedition went out to make a sons who were supposed to be better judges path for itself across the wildest waters of soldiers" than either of the Admirals, known to man, at a bad season, and with writes the Chaplain, with suppressed indig- everything against it. Not a word says nation. The invalids themselves, however, the mild historian of any such contrast; were of Anson's mind. "All those who had his record been the only one, we should had limbs and strength to walk out of never have known what a wealthy splendid Portsmouth deserted, leaving behind them squadron was preparing side by side with only such as were literally invalids, most the Centurion and the Gloucester. Yet of them being sixty years of age, and some the reader may be permitted to imagine in of them upwards of seventy." "Two hun- such a case some sharper thrill of resoludred and fifty-nine of these unhappy vic- tion, as he cast a last glance on the busy tims of officialism came sadly on board the dockyards, darting through the Commoship, Anson and his sailors no doubt stand- dore's mind. To come home no worse, ing by with disgust and pity. "It is diffi- were least said, than these same brave gencult," says the sympathetic Chaplain, "to tlemen! let storm or foe do their worst to conceive a more moving scene than the em- bring back to England some token of what barkation of these unhappy veterans; they a man can do when least supported by forwere themselves extremely averse to the tune and the great! He is silent, and lets service they were engaged in, and fully ap- fall never a word to tell us what was in his prised of all the dangers they were after- thoughts. But still it would be no wonder wards exposed to; the apprehensions of if that high stimulant of indignation, which which were strongly marked by the concern is so often mixed in the cup of England's that appeared in their countenances, which public servants, should have tingled through was mixed with no small degree of indigna- Anson's veins as he "tided " silently down sion to be thus hurried from their repose the Channel, the wind already in his face, into a fatiguing employ to which neither and his troubles begun. Had he known the strength of their bodies nor the vigour of their minds were any ways proportioned, and where, without seeing the face of an enemy, or in the least promoting the success of the enterprise, they would in all probability uselessly perish by lingering and painful diseases; and this too after they had spent the activity and strength of their youth in their country's service."

Nor was this all: his complement of

what the difference of the coming home would be, it might not, perhaps, have been so well for the discipline of his mind. But at this moment, at least, Vernon, a popular hero, had it all his own way.

And the very winds conspired with the Admiralty and its officials against the brave little squadron. Having been detained so long at home, their only hope of tolerable weather in rounding Cape Horn was that