A Roving Commission: or, Through the Black Insurrection at Hayti

"Yes, she is six hundred tons, and the brigantine is about three hundred. However, it has all gone very fortunately. In the first place, we have rescued some fifteen gentlemen and ladies, and twice as many seamen, from the death that they would certainly have met with; and in the next place, we have thrashed this pirate; we shall get both credit and prize-money, and a good sum for the recapture of the Thames, which the chief officer has just told me carries a very valuable cargo. Lastly, I am happy to say that, although several of the crew are injured, I have not lost a single life among them. I am sorry that one of your men fell in the fight."

"But they have sadly spoiled the appearance of your ship," Valerie Pickard said. "There are three or four great holes along the side, and a ball has gone through your cabin, and the sails, which were so white and pretty, have lots of holes in them."

"Yes, we shall want a good many new cloths," he said; "but that is a very minor matter."

"Monsieur Turnbull is hurt, I hear!"

"Yes, madame; happily it is not very serious – a blow which he only partly parried struck him on the shoulder. It looks a very serious wound, but the doctor says there is no need for any great uneasiness about him; and being seriously wounded in action has its advantages, as it always counts towards promotion. Mr. Lippincott has had one of his ears nearly slashed off, and is not pretty to look at at present, with his head done up in bandages, but the surgeon thinks that, as it was attended to so soon, it is likely that it will heal up."

"And you have escaped altogether, Monsieur Glover?" Louise said.

"Yes, for once I have had good luck. Hitherto I have always come out of a fight more or less damaged; this time I have escaped without a scratch."

"I should feel very proud if I were you," the girl said, "at having done so much with such a small ship – and you so young, too! Why, you do not look more than a year or two older than Valerie, and you have rescued us and all the people on the other ship, and taken a pirate and the vessel they had captured. It seems almost impossible. And you look so quiet and nice, too."

"Louise, you should not talk like that," her mother corrected.

Nat said gravely:

"Mademoiselle, do you know that you are talking to the commander of one of his majesty's ships on his own quarter-deck, where he is, as it were, the monarch of all he surveys, and might inflict all sorts of terrible punishments upon you for your want of respect?"

The girl laughed merrily.

"I am not afraid," she said, "not one little bit, and I don't see why you should mind being told that you are young and quiet-looking and nice, when you are."

"I do not mind in the least," he said, "and certainly I am young; but I can assure you that my former captain would not tell you that I was quiet, for I had the reputation of being the most troublesome middy on board his frigate. But, you see, responsibility has sobered me, and I can assure you that there is a great deal of responsibility in commanding a small craft like this, which has nothing but her speed and her luck to rely on if she happens to fall in with a strongly-armed vessel."

"How can you say that, monsieur," Valerie said indignantly, "when you have taken this pirate, which is ever so much stronger than you are?"

"There may be a little good management in it, but more luck, mademoiselle. If one of his shot had damaged me instead of one of mine damaging him, we should all have had our throats cut two hours ago."

"I don't believe it," she said. "I believe that you would have beaten him anyhow."

"Ladies very often think what they wish," he said with a laugh, "and no doubt we should have fought to the last; but I can assure you that we should have had no chance with them, and the best I could have done for you would have been to have fired the last shot of my pistol into the magazine."

"Please don't talk about it," Madame Pickard said with a shudder. "And now I suppose that you have had fighting enough, and are going to carry us quietly into port?"

"Yes, madame, to Jamaica; but if you would prefer to be landed at Cape François or Port-au-Prince I shall be happy to give you a passage back again."

"We do not want to go there at all, but my husband will go to wind up his affairs, and sell his house there. We have been talking it over, and agree that we should never like to go back to the estate again. Even if things did quiet down the memories are too terrible; and, besides, having once broken out, the blacks might do so again at any time."

"I think you are perfectly right, madame; but I am afraid you will not get much for your estate."

"My husband thinks that, although no white man would buy it, there are plenty of mulattoes who would give, not its real value, but a certain amount, for it. Many of them are rich men who have already large plantations. Ours was one of the most valuable on the island, and with the title from us a purchaser would not be afraid of being disturbed when the soldiers arrive and put down the insurrection; while, even if this should never be done, the negroes, with whom the mulattoes are now friends, would not interfere with him. My husband thinks that perhaps he will get a third of its value, which would be sufficient to keep us all comfortably in France, or wherever we may settle; but our best resource is that we have the whole of last season's produce stored in our magazines at Port-au-Prince."

It was not until the next afternoon that the absolutely necessary repairs to the three vessels were completed, the holes near the water-line covered by planks over which pitched canvas was nailed, the ropes shot away replaced by new ones, and the brigantine's gaff repaired. Then sail was hoisted again, and the three vessels set sail for Kingston, where they arrived on the evening of the third day after starting. No little excitement was caused in the harbour when the Arrow, with her sails and sides bearing marks of the engagement, sailed in, followed by the brigantine flying the British ensign over the black flag, and the Thames with the same flags, but with the addition of the merchant ensign under the black flag, following her. There were two or three ships of war in the port, and the crews saluted the Arrow with hearty cheers. The flag-ship at once ran up the signal for her commander to come on board, and, leaving Lippincott to see to the operation of anchoring, Nat ordered the gig to be lowered, and, taking his place in it, was rowed to the flag-ship.

CHAPTER XIV
THE ATTACK ON PORT-AU-PRINCE

On mounting to the deck Nat was at once taken to the admiral's cabin.

"So you have been disobeying orders, Lieutenant Glover," he said gravely.

"I hope not, sir. I am not conscious of disobeying orders."

"I fancy you were directed not to engage more heavily-armed craft than your own."

"I was, sir, but the circumstances were peculiar."

"I never knew a midshipman or a young lieutenant, Mr. Glover, who did not find the circumstances peculiar when he wanted to disobey orders. However," he added with a smile, "let me hear the peculiar circumstances, then I shall be able to judge how far you were justified. Give them in full. Have you a written report?"

"Yes, sir, I have brought it with me," Nat said, producing the document.

"Well, lay it down on the table. I don't suppose it is very full, and I am somewhat curious to hear how you brought in a pirate brigantine and a recaptured merchantman – so I understood your flags."

Nat related how he had heard the sound of guns on rounding a headland, and had seen the brigantine lying by the side of the barque she had evidently just captured; how he drew her off in pursuit of the schooner, partially crippled her, returned and retook the Thames, released her crew, placed Mr. Turnbull in command, and how, between them, they had captured the brigantine.

"A very smart action," the admiral said cordially when he had brought the narrative to a conclusion. "It does you very great credit, and fully justifies my appointing you to an independent command. What metal does the brigantine carry?"

"Five guns each side, all twelve-pounders like my own."

"And you have only four?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very good indeed, very good! By the way, do you know any of the passengers on board the Thames personally? I observed three ladies on the deck as you came in. I should have thought that they would have had very much better accommodation on the trader than on board your little craft."

"Yes, sir; but they were on board the Arrow before our fight with the brigantine, and although the first mate of the Thames offered them a state cabin they preferred to stay on board, as it was such a short run here."

"Who are they, then?"

"They are refugees, sir. I got them out of the hands of the negroes – three ladies, the husband of the elder one, and seven other white men."

"Is there any story attached to it, Mr. Glover? Let me see, what do you say about it in your report?" and he opened it and read aloud:

I have the honour, sir, to report that, learning there was a white family in the hands of the negroes, I landed with a party and brought them off. They consisted of Monsieur and Madame Pickard and their two daughters, and seven of their white employees. Casualties – eight seamen wounded, none of them seriously.

"Then comes the account of the other affair. Now, please give me the details of this rescue business as minutely as possible."

This Nat did.

"A very risky business, Mr. Glover, though I don't see how you could have acted in any other way. No British officer, I hope, could have been deaf to such an appeal; but if those boats had found the schooner when you all were away, your position would have been well-nigh desperate."

"It would, sir, I quite felt that, but it seemed to me the only possible thing to do. Of course, if I had known that the boats would have come early in the evening, I should have remained on board and beat them off before making a landing, although our chances of success would then have been much smaller. The party who were to attack in the boats were to have been composed of men from the plantation. Their comrades would doubtless have come down to the shore to see us captured, and when they saw their friends beaten off they would have been on the watch, and not improbably, in their fury and disappointment, have massacred all the captives in their hands at once. But I thought it likely that the boats would not put off before they believed us to be asleep, and that I should therefore have time to go up to the plantation and fetch the captives down before they arrived. At any rate, by moving the schooner close inshore I hoped that the boats might not find her. There was no moon, and under the shadow of the rock it was next to impossible to see her, unless a boat happened to pass within a few paces. Having struck the topmasts, the forest behind on steep ground prevented the masts from showing above the sky-line. It was, of course, the choice of two evils, and I took the one that seemed to me to give the greater promise of success."

"You did excellently, the oldest officer in the service could not have done better. I shall be obliged if you will write as full and detailed an account of both affairs as you have given me. I shall send it home with your official report, and with my own remarks upon them. And now about the merchantman; she looks a fine barque. What is her tonnage?"

"Six hundred tons, sir. She is a nearly new vessel, and sails fast for a ship of that kind. Her first mate told me that she has a very valuable cargo on board, principally, I think, tobacco, sugar, coffee, wax, copper, mahogany, and cedar from Cuba. Her passengers are all Spanish."

"She seems to be a valuable prize, and as recaptured from the pirates there will be a handsome sum to be divided, and it is fortunate for you and your officers that the little craft was commissioned independently, not as a tender to one of the frigates. As it is, except the flag's share, it will all fall to yourselves and your crew. How many men have you lost?"

"None at all, sir; though, as you will see by my report, in the two affairs the greater part of them received more or less severe wounds. Mr. Turnbull was somewhat severely wounded, Mr. Lippincott nearly lost an ear, and I escaped altogether."

"Well, it was your turn, Lieutenant Glover. You have come back three times more or less severely hurt already. You say that the brigantine is fast?"

"Yes, sir. She is not so fast as the schooner in a light wind, nor so weatherly, but in anything like strong winds I have no doubt that she would overhaul us."

"Was there anything in her hold?"

"There are a good many bales and cases, sir. I have not opened them, but by their marks they come from three different ships, which she had no doubt captured and sunk before we fell in with her. I questioned one of the prisoners, and he told me that it was only a month since she came out, and he declared that they had not yet chosen any place as their head-quarters. As others questioned separately told the same story, I imagine that it was true."

"Where did she hail from?"

"She came from Bordeaux. They said that she had taken out letters of marque to act as a privateer in case of war breaking out with us, but I fancy that she was from the first intended for a pirate, for it seems that she had only forty hands when she started, and picked up the others at various French ports at which she touched before sailing west. I should say, from the appearance of her crew, that they are composed of the sweepings of the ports, for a more villainous set of rascals I never saw."

"Well, it is fortunate that you should have stopped their career so soon. She might have given us a great deal of trouble before we laid hands on her. We have had comparatively quiet times since the Orpheus destroyed that nest of them, and if she had confined her work to homeward-bound ships it might have been months before we had complaints from home, and found that there was another of these scourges among the islands. I shall row around presently, Mr. Glover, and have a look at your two prizes. When you see my gig coming I shall be obliged if you will meet me on the deck of the brigantine."

At four o'clock in the afternoon the watch on deck reported that the admiral's gig was being lowered, and Nat immediately got into his own boat and was rowed to the brigantine, whose name was the Agile. When the admiral approached, instead of making straight for the accommodation ladder, he rowed slowly round the vessel, making a very careful examination of the hull. When he came on deck, he said:

"Except for a few shot that hit her low down, and the general destruction of her bulwarks, no damage has been done to her."

"No, sir, we aimed high, our great object being to knock away some of her spars. I don't think that her square sails will be of any use in the future, they are riddled with balls from our stern-chasers."

"A new gaff and bowsprit, a new suit of sails, new bulwarks, and a few patches, and she would be as good as ever. What damage have you suffered?"

"The schooner has half a dozen holes in her bow, sir, and a dozen or so in her sails, nothing that the dockyard could not set right in a fortnight."

He then went below. "Excellent accommodation," he said, after going round, "that is for a fair crew, but she must have been crowded indeed with eighty men. What should you consider to be a fair crew for her, Mr. Glover?"

"Twenty men, sir, if she were a simple trader; I should say from thirty-five to forty would be none too much if she were going to fight her guns."

"Now we will have a look at your craft. You may as well take a seat in my gig. Yes," he went on, as he rowed round her as he had done with the brigantine, "now that the sails are furled she does not seem any the worse for it, except in the bow and those two holes in the bulwarks."

Monsieur Pickard and the ladies were seated on the deck, and rose as the admiral came on board.

"Please introduce me to your friends, Mr. Glover."

Nat did so, and the admiral shook hands with them all.

"I think I may congratulate you on your escape from a very terrible position."

"Yes, indeed," Madame Pickard said. "No words can express the gratitude we feel to Monsieur Glover, his two officers, and the crew. Our position seemed hopeless, the most terrible of deaths and the worst of atrocities stared us in the face."

"I have heard all about it, madame, and consider that Lieutenant Glover managed the whole business with great discretion as well as bravery. He has a bad habit of getting into scrapes, but an equally good one of getting out of them with credit to himself. This is the third time he has rendered signal services to ladies in distress, and I suppose I should add that he has in addition saved the lives of the ladies on board the barque lying astern. If there were a medal for that sort of thing he would assuredly deserve it. He ought to have been born six or seven hundred years ago, he would have made a delightful knight-errant.

"What are the ladies like in the other ship, Mr. Glover?"

"I have no idea, sir. I only saw them for a moment when I ran into the cabin and cut their bonds. I have only seen the gentlemen for a minute or two when they joined the boarders from the Thames under Mr. Turnbull, and I was much too busy to notice them."

"Have you not gone on board since?"

"No, sir, I had nothing to go on board for, and I don't speak any Spanish."

"We tried to persuade him, Monsieur l'Amiral," Valerie said, "but monsieur is modest, he has never let us thank him yet; and although he pretended that he only kept ahead of the other two because his ship was a faster sailer, it was really because he did not wish to be thanked."

"But other people are modest too," the admiral said with a smile. "I have heard of two young ladies who came on board, and who would not stir out of their cabins until they had made themselves new dresses."

The two girls both coloured up at the allusion, and Monsieur Pickard laughed. "Now I will go below, Mr. Glover. She is very small by the side of the brigantine," he said, as he completed his visit of inspection. "I am not surprised that the pirates chased you after your impudence in firing at them, and that they thought they could eat you at a mouthful. Now, we will pay a visit to the barque."

To Nat's great relief, he found that the passengers had all gone ashore. It was certain that they would be detained for some little time, as there would be legal formalities to be gone through, and repairs to be executed, and additional hands to be obtained; and, all feeling terribly shaken by the events that had taken place on board, and the loss in some cases of near relations, they had been glad to land until the ship was again ready for sea. The mate in charge handed to the admiral the ship's manifest and papers.

"You have no seriously wounded on board?" the latter asked him. "Because if so, I should advise you to send them ashore to the hospital at once."

"No, sir. All who fell on the deck were thrown overboard by the pirates as soon as they obtained possession of the ship. I believe that they fastened shot to their feet to make them sink at once."

The admiral nodded. "That is likely enough. Dead bodies drifting ashore might cause inquiries to be made; their intention no doubt was to take all the most valuable part of the cargo out of the ship, and then to scuttle her with all on board."

"Are we likely to be detained here long, sir?"

"Not as far as we are concerned. We shall require you to sign in the presence of a magistrate here a formal document acknowledging that the vessel was absolutely captured, and in possession of the pirates, and that she was recaptured by his majesty's schooner the Arrow, and to sign a bond on behalf of the owners to pay the legal proportion of the value of the ship and cargo to the admiralty prize court in London. You will, of course, take her home yourself, but I shall send a naval officer with you, as the ship and its contents remain the property of government until the charges upon her are acquitted. If we were at war with France we should retain her here until she could sail under convoy of a vessel of war homeward-bound, but there is no occasion for doing that now. I do not suppose that you will find much difficulty in obtaining mates and enough sailors to make up your complement here. Scarcely a ship sails from the port without some of her men being left behind, either as deserters or through having been too drunk to rejoin. At any rate you had better be careful whom you pick, and if you should find a difficulty in obtaining men whose discharge-books show that they have hitherto borne a good character, I should advise you to ship eight or ten stout negroes. They are good hands at managing their own craft, and although they might not be of much use aloft, they are as a rule thoroughly trustworthy fellows, and quite as good for work on deck as our own men. I will give you an order on the dockyard for any repairs that you cannot get executed elsewhere. They will of course be charged for, but need not be paid for here, as they will go down in the account against the ship."

Fortunately the dockyard was not busy, and the Agile and the Arrow were the next morning taken into dock, and a strong gang of men at once set to work upon them. Three days later a signal was made for Nat to go on board the flagship.

"I have received the report from the dockyard people, Mr. Glover," the admiral said. "They confirm our opinion that the Agile has not suffered any serious damage; that she is a new and well-built vessel, and well fitted for our service, and she will therefore be retained at the valuation they set upon her. Here is your commission as her commander. Having done so well in the little Arrow, I have no doubt as to your ability and fitness for the post. She will carry forty hands. I shall give you two petty officers, a boatswain's mate and a gunner's mate. I had thought of giving you another midshipman, but I think it would be better that you should take a surgeon. Three or four assistant surgeons came out last week, and I can very well spare you one.

"I shall not give you one of the new arrivals, for it is better that these for a time should serve on larger ships, get accustomed to naval work, and learn the ordinary routine of duty on board. I shall, therefore, send you one from either the Theseus or the Limerick, and fill up his place with a new-comer. Your duties will be precisely the same as those assigned to you in the Arrow, except that I shall not impress upon you the necessity for giving a wide berth to suspicious vessels. You will cruise on the coast of Hayti, take off refugees, communicate, if possible, with chiefs of the insurgents, and see if there is any strong feeling among them in favour of annexation to England. You will be authorized, in case it is absolutely necessary in order to save the inhabitants of any coast town from slaughter from the blacks, either to help the garrison with your guns or to land a portion not exceeding half your crew to aid in the defence."

"I am indeed greatly obliged to you, admiral, and assure you that I will do my best to merit your kindness and confidence."

"It is to yourself rather than to me that you are indebted for what is virtually a step towards promotion. Just at present I do not think that you are likely to have any opportunity of taking advantage of your increased force, as we have heard no complaints of pirates of late. We may hope that these scoundrels, finding that the islands are growing too hot for them, have moved away to safer quarters. At any rate, if there are any of them in these waters, they are likely to be among the northern Cays, and are probably confining their depredations for a time to ships trading between Europe and Florida, or to vessels from here which have passed beyond the general limit of the seas we patrol."

On Nat's return to the dockyard, he delighted Lippincott with the news of the exchange that they were to make. Turnbull was in hospital, but the surgeons had reported that his wound was not so serious as it seemed at first, and that a fortnight's rest and quiet would go far to render him convalescent. The sailors, too, were glad to hear that they were going to be transferred to a craft in which they would be able to meet an enemy with confidence. They were also pleased to hear that there was to be no change in their officers, for they had unbounded trust in their young commander, and had from the first agreed that they had never sailed in a more comfortable ship. After seeing Turnbull and acquainting him with the news, Nat paid a visit to the Pickards. They had landed on the evening of their arrival, and, after stopping a day in an hotel, had established themselves in a pretty house outside the town, which Monsieur Pickard had hired from a merchant who was on the point of sailing for England, and would be absent several months.

Monsieur Pickard had, on arriving, gone to a merchant with whom he had business connections, and to whom he had frequently consigned produce for shipment to England or France when there happened to be no vessel in Port-au-Prince sailing for Europe. He had obtained from him a loan on the security of the season's produce, which had, fortunately, been sent down to be warehoused at Port-au-Prince two or three weeks before the insurrection broke out.

Nat's friends, too, heartily congratulated him on obtaining the command of a larger vessel.

"After the troubles and anxiety we have of late gone through, Monsieur Glover, we feel the comfort of being under the protection of the British flag, and shall enjoy it all the more now that we know that you are not going to sea again in that pretty little vessel, for if you fell in with another large corsair you might not be so fortunate as you were last time. As you have said, if an unlucky shot had struck one of your spars, you would have been at her mercy, and we know what that mercy would mean. I intend to stay here for a short time, till madame and the girls get quite accustomed to their new home, before sailing for Port-au-Prince; but whether I am at home or away you know how welcome you will be here whenever you happen to be in port. How long do you think it is likely to be before you are off?"

"I was speaking to the superintendent of the dockyard before I came out, and he says that he will get the Agile ready for sea in three weeks' time. He cannot possibly manage it before; the hull could be ready in a week, but the suit of sails will require three times as long, though he has promised to take on some extra hands if he can get them. Orders have, however, been given by the Thames to the chief native sail-maker of the place to patch some of the sails and to make several new ones, and he has taken up some of the best hands in the town. Then, no doubt, whoever gets the command of the Arrow will be wanting her sails pushed forward, though that is not certain, for it is not unlikely that, now the Agile has been bought into the service, the Arrow will be sold. Indeed, one of the principal merchants here would be glad to buy her as a private yacht if he had the chance, as he often has business at the other islands, and she is just the craft that would suit him. He said that by putting up shorter topmasts twelve men would be enough to sail her, and that he would exchange the guns for eight-pounders, as from what he had heard she could outsail almost any craft she was likely to meet with, and small guns would be quite sufficient to prevent any of these little native piratical craft from meddling with her. However, I think the superintendent will keep his word, and that in three weeks' time I shall be off."

"I may possibly be at Port-au-Prince before you, then," Monsieur Pickard said. "I am thinking of chartering a small brig and going in her to Port-au-Prince, and bringing my goods back from there. Now that the mulattoes are up in arms, the place cannot be considered as absolutely safe; and as I calculate they are worth from eight to ten thousand pounds, I think it will be well to get them over as soon as possible."

"I quite agree with you, Monsieur Pickard, and should certainly advise you to lose no time. Unless I get instructions to the contrary, I shall, in the first place, cruise round the shore of the bay of Hayti."

Ten days later, indeed, Monsieur Pickard sailed in the brig that he had chartered. Nat had called to say good-bye the evening before, and, to his embarrassment, was presented by him with a very handsome gold watch and chain, the former bearing the inscription that it was a small token of the deepest gratitude of Eugene Pickard, his wife and daughters, for having saved them from the most terrible fate.

"It is only a little thing, Monsieur Glover," the planter said – "a feeble token of our gratitude, but something which many years hence will recall to your memory the inestimable service that you have rendered us."

The superintendent of the dockyard kept his word, and in three weeks the Agile was afloat again, and the next morning twenty men drafted from the war-ships in the port were transferred to her. Those of the Arrow, with the exception of five still in the hospital, had shifted their quarters to her a fortnight previously. Turnbull had rejoined the evening before. His arm was still in a sling, but otherwise he was quite convalescent. Lippincott had that morning given up the bandage round his head, which had kept him almost a prisoner until now, for he had refused to go into the town until after nightfall with his head bound up, although Nat had many times assured him that an honourable wound would not be regarded as any disadvantage by the young ladies at Kingston. The assistant surgeon, James Doyle, a cheery young Irishman, also joined that morning.

"It is glad I am to be out of all the ceremony and botheration on board the frigate," he said as he shook hands with Nat, "and to be afloat on my own account, as it were. Saunders, the surgeon, was enough to wear one out with his preciseness and his regulations; faith, he was a man who would rather take off a man's leg than listen to a joke, and it put me on thorns to hear him speak to the men as if they were every one of them shamming – as if anyone would pretend to be ill when he had to take the bastely medicines Saunders used to make up for them."