Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843

Meantime, the good seed Captain Ready had sown, brought the honest Yankee but a sorry harvest. His employers had small sympathy with the feelings of humanity that had induced him to run the risk of carrying off a Spanish state-prisoner from under the guns of a Spanish battery. Their correspondents at the Havannah had had some trouble and difficulty on account of the affair, and had written to Philadelphia to complain of it. Ready lost his ship, and could only obtain from his employers certificates of character of so ambiguous and unsatisfactory a nature, that for a long time he found it impossible to get the command of another vessel.

In the autumn of 1824, I left Baltimore as supercargo of the brig Perverance, Captain Ready. Proceeding to the Havannah, we discharged our cargo, took in another, partly on our own account, partly on that of the Spanish government, and sailed for Callao on the 1st December, exactly eight days before the celebrated battle of Ayacucho dealt the finishing blow to Spanish rule on the southern continent of America, and established the independence of Peru. The Spaniards, however, still held the fortress of Callao, which, after having been taken by Martin and Cochrane four years previously, had again been treacherously delivered up, and was now blockaded by sea and land by the patriots, under the command of General Hualero, who had marched an army from Columbia to assist the cause of liberty in Peru.

Of all these circumstances we were ignorant, until we arrived within a few leagues of the port of Callao. Then we learned them from a vessel that spoke us, but we still advanced, hoping to find an opportunity to slip in. In attempting to do so, we were seized by one of the blockading vessels, and the captain and myself taken out and sent to Lima. We were allowed to take our personal property with us, but of brig or cargo we heard nothing for some time. I was not a little uneasy; for the whole of my savings during ten years' clerkship in the house of a Baltimore merchant were embarked in the form of a venture on board the Perseverance.

The captain, who had a fifth of the cargo, and was half owner of the brig, took things very philosophically, and passed his days with a penknife and stick in his hand, whittling away, Yankee fashion; and when he had chapped up his stick, he would set to work notching and hacking the first chair, bench, or table that came under his hand. If any one spoke to him of the brig, he would grind his teeth a little, but said nothing, and whittled away harder than ever. This was his character, however. I had known him for five years that he had been in the employ of the same house as myself, and he had always passed for a singularly reserved and taciturn man. During our voyage, whole weeks had sometimes elapsed without his uttering a word except to give the necessary orders.

In spite of his peculiarities, Captain Ready was generally liked by his brother captains, and by all who knew him. When he did speak, his words (perhaps the more prized on account of their rarity) were always listened to with attention. There was a benevolence and mildness in the tones of his voice that rendered it quite musical, and never failed to prepossess in his favour all those who heard him, and to make them forget the usual sullenness of his manner. During the whole time he had sailed for the Baltimore house, he had shown himself a model of trustworthiness and seamanship, and enjoyed the full confidence of his employers. It was said, however, that his early life had not been irreproachable; that when he first, and as a very young man, had command of a Philadelphian ship, something had occurred which had thrown a stain upon his character. What this was, I had never heard very distinctly stated. He had favoured the escape of a malefactor, ensnared some officers who were sent on board his vessel to seize him. All this was very vague, but what was positive was the fact, that the owners of the ship he then commanded, had had much trouble about the matter, and Ready himself remained long unemployed, until the rapid increase of trade between the United States and the infant republics of South America had caused seamen of ability to be in much request, and he had again obtained command of a vessel.

We were seated one afternoon outside the French coffeehouse at Lima. The party consisted of seven or eight captains of merchant vessels that had been seized, and they were doing their best to kill the time, some smoking, others chewing, but nearly all with penknife and stick in hand, whittling as for a wager. On their first arrival at Lima, and adoption of this coffeehouse as a place of resort, the tables and chairs belonging to it seemed in a fair way to be cut to pieces by these indefatigable whittlers; but the coffeehouse keeper had hit upon a plan to avoid such deterioration of his chattels, and had placed in every corner of the rooms bundles of sticks, at which his Yankee customers cut and notched, till the coffeehouse assumed the appearance of a carpenter's shop.

The costume and airs of the patriots, as they called themselves, were no small source of amusement to us. They strutted about in all the pride of their fire-new freedom, regular caricatures of soldiers. One would have on a Spanish jacket, part of the spoils of Ayacucho—another, an American one, which he had bought from some sailor—a third a monk's robe, cut short, and fashioned into a sort of doublet. Here was a shako wanting a brim, in company with a gold-laced velvet coat of the time of Philip V.; there, a hussar jacket and an old-fashioned cocked hat. The volunteers were the best clothed, also in great part from the plunder of the battle of Ayacucho. Their uniforms were laden with gold and silver lace, and some of the officers, not satisfied with two epaulettes, had half-a-dozen hanging before and behind, as well as on their shoulders.

As we sat smoking, whittling, and quizzing the patriots, a side-door of the coffeehouse was suddenly opened, and an officer came out whose appearance was calculated to give us a far more favourable opinion of South American militaires. He was a man about thirty years of age, plainly but tastefully dressed, and of that unassuming, engaging demeanour which is so often found the companion of the greatest decision of character, and which contrasted with the martial deportment of a young man who followed him, and who, although in much more showy uniform, was evidently his inferior in rank. We bowed as he passed before us, and he acknowledged the salutation by raising his cocked hat slightly but courteously from his head. He was passing on when his eyes suddenly fell upon Captain Ready, who was standing a little on one side, notching away at his tenth or twelfth stick, and at that moment happened to look up. The officer started, gazed earnestly at Ready for the space of a moment, and then, with delight expressed on his countenance, sprang forward, and clasped him in his arms.

"Captain Ready!"

"That is my name," quietly replied the captain.

"Is it possible you do not know me?" exclaimed the officer.

Ready looked hard at him, and seemed a little in doubt. At last he shook his head.

"You do not know me?" repeated the other, almost reproachfully, and then whispered something in his ear.

It was now Ready's turn to start and look surprised. A smile of pleasure lit up his countenance as he grasped the hand of the officer, who took his arm and dragged him away into the house.

A quarter of an hour elapsed, during which we lost ourselves in conjectures as to who this acquaintance of Ready's could be. At the end of that time the captain and his new (or old) friend re-appeared. The latter walked away, and we saw him enter the government house, while Ready joined us, as silent and phlegmatic as ever, and resumed his stick and penknife. In reply to our enquiries as to who the officer was, he only said that he belonged to the army besieging Callao, and that he had once made a voyage as his passenger. This was all the information we could extract from our taciturn friend; but we saw plainly that the officer was somebody of importance, from the respect paid him by the soldiers and others whom he met.

The morning following this incident we were sitting over our chocolate, when an orderly dragoon came to ask for Captain Ready. The captain went out to speak to him, and presently returning, went on with his breakfast very deliberately.

When he had done, he asked me if I were inclined for a little excursion out of the town, which would, perhaps, keep us a couple of days away. I willingly accepted, heartily sick as I was of the monotonous life we were leading. We packed up our valises, took our pistols and cutlasses, and went out.

To my astonishment the orderly was waiting at the door with two magnificent Spanish chargers, splendidly accoutred. They were the finest horses I had seen in Peru, and my curiosity was strongly excited to know who had sent them, and whither we were going. To my questions, Ready replied that we were going to visit the officer whom he had spoken to on the preceding day, and who was with the besieging army, and had once been his passenger, but he declared he did not know his name or rank.

We had left the town about a mile behind us, when we heard the sound of cannon in the direction we were approaching; it increased as we went on, and about a mile further we met a string of carts, full of wounded, going in to Lima. Here and there we caught sight of parties of marauders, who disappeared as soon as they saw our orderly. I felt a great longing and curiosity to witness the fight that was evidently going on—not, however, that I was particularly desirous of taking share in it, or putting myself in the way of the bullets. My friend the captain jogged on by my side, taking little heed of the roar of the cannon, which to him was no novelty; for having passed his life at sea, he had had more than one encounter with pirates and other rough customers, and been many times under the fire of batteries, running in and out of blockaded American ports. His whole attention was now engrossed by the management of his horse, which was somewhat restive, and he, like most sailors, was a very indifferent rider.

On reaching the top of a small rising ground, we beheld to the left the dark frowning bastions of the fort, and to the right the village of Bella Vista, which, although commanded by the guns of Callao, had been chosen as the headquarters of the besieging army—the houses being, for the most part, built of huge blocks of stone, and offering sufficient resistance to the balls. The orderly pointed out to us the various batteries, and especially one which was just completed, and was situated about three hundred yards from the fortress. It had not yet been used, and was still masked from the enemy by some houses which stood just in its front.

While we were looking about us, Ready's horse, irritated by the noise of the firing, the flashes of the guns, and perhaps more than any thing by the captain's bad riding, became more and more unmanageable, and at last taking the bit between his teeth started off at a mad gallop, closely followed by myself and the orderly, to whose horses the panic seemed to have communicated itself. The clouds of dust raised by the animals' feet, prevented us from seeing whither we were going. Suddenly there was an explosion that seemed to shake the very earth under us, and Ready, the orderly, and myself, lay sprawling with our horses on the ground. Before we could collect our senses and get up, we were nearly deafened by a tremendous roar of artillery close to us, and at the same moment a shower of stones and fragments of brick and mortar clattered about our ears.

The orderly was stunned by his fall; I was bruised and bewildered. Ready was the only one who seemed in no ways put out, and with his usual phlegm, extricating himself from under his horse, he came to our assistance. I was soon on my legs, and endeavouring to discover the cause of all this uproar.

Our unruly steeds had brought us close to the new battery, at the very moment that the train of a mine under the houses in front of it had been fired. The instant the obstacle was removed, the artillerymen had opened a tremendous fire on the fort. The Spaniards were not slow to return the compliment, and fortunate it was that a solid fragment of wall intervened between us and their fire, or all our troubles about the brig, and every thing else, would have been at an end. Already upwards of twenty balls had struck the old broken wall. Shot and shell were flying in every direction, the smoke was stifling, the uproar indescribable. It was so dark with the smoke and dust from the fallen houses, that we could not see an arm's length before us. The captain asked two or three soldiers who were hurrying by, where the battery was; but they were in too great haste to answer, and it was only when the smoke cleared away a little, that we discovered we were not twenty paces from it. Ready seized my arm, and pulling me with him, I the next moment found myself standing beside a gun, under cover of the breastworks.

The battery consisted of thirty, twenty-four, and thirty-six pounders, served with a zeal and courage which far exceeded any thing I had expected to find in the patriot army. The fellows were really more than brave, they were foolhardy. They danced rather than walked round the guns, and exhibited a contempt of death that could not well be surpassed. As to drawing the guns back from the embrasures while they loaded them, they never dreamed of such a thing. They stood jeering and scoffing the Spaniards, and bidding them take better aim.

It must be remembered, that this was only three months after the battle of Ayacucho, the greatest feat of arms which the South American patriots had achieved during the whole of their protracted struggle with Spain. That victory had literally electrified the troops, and inspired them with a courage and contempt of their enemy, that frequently showed itself, as on this occasion, in acts of the greatest daring and temerity.

At the gun by which Ready and myself took our stand, half the artillerymen were already killed, and we had scarcely come there, when a cannon shot took the head off a man standing close to me. The wind of the ball was so great that I believe it would have suffocated me, had I not fortunately been standing sideways in the battery. At the same moment, something hot splashed over my neck and face, and nearly blinded me. I looked, and saw the man lying without his head before me. I cannot describe the sickening feeling that came over me. It was not the first man I had seen killed in my life, but it was the first whose blood and brains had spurted into my face. My knees shook and my head swam; I was obliged to lean against the wall, or I should have fallen.

Another ball fell close beside me, and strange to say, it brought me partly to myself again; and by the time a third and fourth had bounced into the battery, I began to take things pretty coolly—my heart beating rather quicker than usual, I acknowledge; but, nevertheless, I began to find an indescribable sort of pleasure, a mischievous joy, if I may so call it, in the peril and excitement of the scene.

Whilst I was getting over my terrors, my companion was moving about the battery with his usual sang-froid, reconnoitring the enemy. He ran no useless risk, kept himself well behind the breastworks, stooping down when necessary, and taking all proper care of himself. When he had completed his reconnoissance, he, to my no small astonishment, took off his coat and neck-handkerchief, the latter of which he tied tight round his waist, then taking a rammer from the hand of a soldier who had just fallen, he ordered, or rather signed to the artilleryman to draw the gun back.

There was something so cool and decided in his manner, that they obeyed without testifying any surprise at his interference, and as though he had been one of their own officers. He loaded the piece, had it drawn forward again, pointed and fired it. He then went to the next gun and did the same thing there. He seemed so perfectly at home in the battery, that nobody ever dreamed of disputing his authority, and the two guns were entirely under his direction. I had now got used to the thing myself, so I went forward and offered my services, which, in the scarcity of men, (so many having been killed,) were not to be refused, and I helped to draw the guns backwards and forward, and load them. The captain kept running from one to the other, pointing them, and admirably well too; for every shot took effect within a circumference of a few feet on the bastion in front of us.

This lasted nearly an hour, at the end of which time the fire was considerably slackened, for the greater part of our guns had become unserviceable. Only about a dozen kept up the fire, (the ball, I was going to say,) and amongst them were the two that Ready commanded. He had given them time to cool after firing, whereas most of the others, in their desperate haste and eagerness, had neglected that precaution. Although the patriots had now been fifteen years at war with the Spaniards, they were still very indifferent artillerymen—for artillery had little to do in most of their fights, which were generally decided by cavalry and infantry, and even in that of Ayacucho there were only a few small field-pieces in use on either side. The mountainous nature of the country, intersected, too, by mighty rivers, and the want of good roads, were the reasons of the insignificant part played by the artillery in these wars.

Whilst we were thus hard at work, who should enter the battery but the very officer we had left Lima to visit? He was attended by a numerous staff, and was evidently of very high rank. He stood a little back, watching every movement of Captain Ready, and rubbing his hands with visible satisfaction. Just at that moment the captain fired one of the guns, and, as the smoke cleared away a little, we saw the opposite bastion rock, and then sink down into the moat. A joyous hurra greeted its fall, and the general and his staff sprang forward.

It would be necessary to have witnessed the scene that followed in order to form any adequate idea of the mad joy and enthusiasm of its actors. The general seized Ready in his arms, and eagerly embraced him, then almost threw him to one of his officers, who performed the like ceremony, and, in his turn, passed him to a third. The imperturbable captain flew, or was tossed, like a ball, from one to the other. I also came in for my share of the embraces.

I thought them all stark-staring mad; and, indeed, I do not believe they were far from it. The balls were still hailing into the battery; one of them cut a poor devil of an orderly nearly in two, but no notice was taken of such trifles. It was a curious scene enough; the cannon-balls bouncing about our ears—the ground under our feet slippery with blood—wounded and dying lying on all sides—and we ourselves pushed and passed about from the arms of one black-bearded fellow into those of another. There was something thoroughly exotic, completely South American and tropical, in this impromptu.

Strange to say, now that the breach was made, and a breach such that a determined regiment, assisted by well-directed fire of artillery, could have had no difficulty in storming the town, there was no appearance of any disposition to profit by it. The patriots seemed quite contented with what had been done; most of the officers left the batteries, and the thing was evidently over for the day. I knew little of Spanish Americans then, or I should have felt less surprised than I did at their not following up their advantage. It was not from want of courage; for it was impossible to have exhibited more than they had done that morning. But they had had their moment of fury, of wild energy and exertion, and the other side of the national character, indolence, now showed itself. After fighting like devils, at the very moment when activity was of most importance, they lay down and took the sièsta.

We were about leaving the battery, with the intention of visiting some of the others, when our orderly came up in all haste, with orders to conduct us to the general's quarters. We followed him, and soon reached a noble villa, at the door of which a guard was stationed. Here we were given over to a sort of major-domo, who led us through a crowd of aides-de-camp, staff-officers, and orderlies, to a chamber, whither our valises had preceded us. We were desired to make haste with our toilet, as dinner would be served so soon as his Excellency returned from the batteries; and, indeed, we had scarcely changed our dress, and washed the blood and smoke from our persons, when the major-domo re-appeared, and announced the general's return.

Dinner was laid out in a large saloon, in which some sixty officers were assembled when we entered it. With small regard to etiquette, and not waiting for the general to welcome us, they all sprang to meet us with a "Buen venidos, capitanes!"

The dinner was such as might be expected at the table of a general commanded at the same time an army and the blockade of a much-frequented port. The most delicious French and Spanish wines were there in the greatest profusion; the conviviality of the guests was unbounded, but although they drank their champagne out of tumblers, no one showed the smallest symptom of inebriety.

The first toast given, was—Bolivar.

The second—Sucre.

The third—The Battle of Ayacucho.

The fourth—Union between Columbia and Peru.

The fifth—Hualero.

The general rose to return thanks, and we now, for the first time, knew his name. He raised his glass, and spoke, evidently with much emotion.

"Senores! Amigos!" said he, "that I am this day amongst you, and able to thank you for your kindly sentiments towards your general and brother in arms, is owing, under Providence, to the good and brave stranger whose acquaintance you have only this day made, but who is one of my oldest and best friends." And so saying he left his place, and approaching Captain Ready, affectionately embraced him. The seaman's iron features lost their usual imperturbability, and his lips quivered as he stammered out the two words—

"Amigo siempre."

The following day we passed in the camp, and the one after returned to Lima, the general insisting on our taking up our quarters in his house.

From Hualero and his lady I learned the origin of the friendship existing between the distinguished Columbian general and my taciturn Yankee captain. It was the honourable explanation of the mysterious stain upon Ready's character.

Our difficulties regarding the brig were now soon at an end. The vessel and cargo were returned to us, with the exception of a large quantity of cigars belonging to the Spanish government. These were, of course, confiscated, but the general bought them, and made them a present to Captain Ready, who sold them by auction; and cigars being in no small demand amongst that tobacco-loving population, they fetched immense prices, and put thirty thousand dollars into my friend's pocket.

To be brief, at the end of three weeks we sailed from Lima, and in a vastly better humour than when we arrived there.

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