Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

the pride of the profession to have always in store for small as well as for great occasions. The dead sow was first laid on its back, and then two masses of iron ballast, being placed one on each side of the cheek, were lashed securely to the neck and shoulders in such a manner that the ends of the kentlage met across her nose, and formed, as it was very properly called, an extra snout for piercing the mud. When all was ready, the midship carronade was silently dismounted, the slide unbolted, and the whole removed out of the way. Jean's enormous corporation being then elevated, by means of capstan bars and handspikes, was brought on a level with the port-sill. A slip-rope was next passed between her hind legs, which had been tied together at the feet, and poor Miss Piggy, being gradually pushed over the ship's side, was lowered slowly into the water. When fairly under the surface, and there were no fears of any splash being caused by letting her go, one end of the rope was slipped, upon which the well-loaded carcase shot down perpendicularly at such a rate that there could be no question of its being immersed a fathom deep, at least, in the mud, and, of course, far beyond the reach of the disappointed Chinese!'

The kind-hearted manner of this little narrative is quite characteristic of the captain; and surely the whole history of the pig 'killed with kindness' is very creditable to his crew. Jean does not appear to have been the most brilliant of her race-but the race is really much calumniated; and, indeed, there is no limit to our injustice with respect to certain domesticated quadrupeds, at least. We all talk of the ass as the stupidest of the browsers of the field: yet if any one shuts up a donkey in the same enclosure with half a dozen horses of the finest blood, and the party escape, it is infallibly the poor stupid donkey that has led the way. It is he that alone penetrates the secret of the bolt and latch: many a time and oft have we stood at the other side of a hedge, contemplating a whole troop of brood mares and their offspring, patiently waiting while the intellectual chief of the array was snuffing over a piece of work to which all but he felt themselves entirely incompetent.

To come back to the lords of the creation-we must now take a page from a most amusing chapter on the island of Johanna. We had long been aware that the potentates of the Guinea coast not only assume English titles, but wear under, or in place of, diadems, the cast-off wigs of our Lord Chancellors-but we were not prepared for what follows in the latitude of the Mozambique Channel:

-

We proceeded to our guide's house, where he introduced us, not indeed to his wives, for all these ladies were stowed away behind a screen of mats, but to some of the males of his family, and, amongst others, to a queer copper-coloured gentleman, who styled himself, in his communications with us, "the Duke of Devonshire," and begged very hard to be allowed the honour of having our linen to wash. His Grace was a little dumpy fellow, who stooped considerably, wore nei

ther

ther shoes nor stockings, and exhibited so little of a nose, that when you caught his countenance in profile, the facial line, as the physiognomists call it, suffered no interruption when drawn from the brow to the lips. The poor duke little knew the cause of the laughter which his occupation, title, and the contrast of looks, excited in those of our party who had seen his grace's noble namesake in the opposite hemisphere.'

Most of the natives of Johanna, even the negro slaves, talk a little English; but the best examples of such acquirements were found, where they ought to be, amongst the grandees of the island. The following is a fair specimen of the conversation of the dukes and earls at the capital of the Comoros.-" How do you do, sir? Very glad see you. D-n your eyes! Johanna man like English very much. God d-n! That very good? Eh? Devilish hot, sir! What news? Hope your ship stay too long while, very. D-n my eye! Very fine day." After which, in a sort of whisper, accompanied by a most insinuating smile, his lordship, or his grace, as the rank of the party might be, would add :-" You want orange? You want goat? Cheap! I got good, very. You send me your clothes; I wash with my own hand-clean! fine! very! I got every thing, plenty, great, much! God d-n!" And then, as if to clench the favourable opinion which these eloquent appeals had made, the speaker was sure to produce a handful of certificates from mates of Indiamen, masters of Yankee brigs, and middies of men-of-war; some written in solemn earnest, some quizzically, but all declaring his lordship, the bearer, to be a pretty good washerman, but the sort of person not to be trusted far out of sight, as he would certainly walk off with your clothes-bag if he could safely do so.'-Vol. ii., p. 284.

Our closing quotation shall be from Captain Hall's account of the blockade of New York in 1804.

'We were rather short-handed in those days, and being in the presence of a blockaded enemy, and liable, at half an hour's warning, to be in action, we could not afford to be very scrupulous as to the ways and means by which our numbers were completed, so that able-bodied men were secured to handle the gun-tackle falls. It chanced one day that we fell in with a ship filled with emigrants, a description of vessel called, in the classical dictionary of the cockpit, an "Irish guinea man." Out of her we pressed twenty Irishmen, besides two strapping fellows from Yorkshire, and one canny Scot.

Each of this score of Pats was rigged merely in a great-coat, and a pair of something which might be called an apology for inexpressibles; while the rest of their united wardrobe might have been stowed away in the crown of any one of their hats. Their motives for emigrating to a country where mere health and strength of body are sure to gain an independent provision, were obvious enough; and I must say, that to this hour I have not been able to forget the melancholy cry or howl with which the separation of these hardy settlers from their families was effected by the strong arm of power. It was a case of

necessity,

necessity, it is true, but still it was a cruel case, and one for the exercise of which the officer who put it in force deserves almost as much pity as the poor wretches whose feelings and interests it became his bounden duty to disregard.

In most admired contrast to this bewildered drove of half-starved Paddies stood the two immense, broad-shouldered, high-fed Yorkshiremen, dressed in long-tailed coats, corduroy breeches, and yellowtopped boots, each accompanied by a chest of clothes not much less than a pianoforte, and a huge pile of spades, pick-axes, and other implements of husbandry. They possessed money also, and letters of credit, and described themselves as being persons of some substance at home. Why they emigrated they would not tell; but such were their prospects, that it was difficult to say whether they or the wild Irishers were the most to be commiserated for so untoward an interruption. Be this as it may, it cost the clerk half an hour to write down a list of their multifarious goods and chattels, while a single scratch of the pen sufficed for that of all the Irishmen.

'At last honest Saunders came under review. He was a tall, rawboned, grave-looking personage, much pitted with the small-pox, and wearing a good deal of that harassed and melancholy air, which, sooner or later, settles on the brow of an assistant to a village pedagogue. He was startled, but not abashed, when drawn to the middle of the deck, and asked, in the presence of fifty persons, what clothes and other things he possessed? Not choosing at first to betray his poverty, he made no answer, but looked round, as if to discover where his chest had been placed. He then glanced at his thread-bare sleeve and tattered shoon with a slight touch of dry and bitter humour playing about the corners of his mouth, and a faint sparkle lighting up his grey and sunken eye, as he returned the impatient official stare of the clerk, who stood, pen in hand, ready to note down the items. be frightened, man," said the captain; no one is going to hurt you, your things are quite safe. What does your property consist of?" "A trifle, sir, a trifle," quoth poor Sawney,-" Fourpence ha'penny, and an auld knife!"'—Vol. ii., p. 103-106.

[ocr errors]

"Don't

It is so difficult to choose passages for extracting in a book thus 'rammed' with amusement, that we shall pause here-having left two volumes out of three almost untouched. In the lighter department of materials we admire particularly the chapters on 'A Pic-nic Party at Elephanta ;'-the Hindoo ceremony of 'Throwing the Cocoa-Nut; The Admiralty List;'-and Bombay.' But the graver pages are in their way quite as good. In each volume, we observe, the author introduces, on the principle of ballast we suppose, one or two sections of strictly professional didactics. That on a Method of diminishing Naval Punishments,' in Volume Second, is perhaps the most valuable of all these; but the one in which the utility of the Marines is discussed is exceedingly interesting; and that on the subject of the tradewinds abounds, not only in philosophical reasoning, but in curious

and,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

and, as far as we know, novel observations, that must fix the attention of every student of geographical and nautical science. The essay on Taking a Line in the Service,' is another masterly serious piece, full of knowledge, sagacity, and, what distinguishes indeed all the author's professional disquisitions, a generous humanity of thought and sentiment; nor can we say less of that devoted to his favourite text, 'Cheerfulness considered as a duty;' though we doubt the taste of one or two passages, particularly that in which St. Paul is complimented for his very officer-like conduct' during the storm near Melita. The ShipChurch' leads us from a singularly happy specimen of mere description into a pithy little sermon on the importance of religious observances at sea, and the national disgrace of not having a chaplain on board every ship, which we sincerely hope will be studied at the Admiralty as carefully as Captain Hall's anecdotes of pet monkeys and pigs and parrots are likely to be in the cockpit; and all through the book are scattered hints touching the peculiar duties of officers of every order, especially lieutenants and captains, which, from the natural modest style of the expression, and the pregnant wisdom, the fruit of long experience and reflection, of their import, deserve the most serious consideration of the classes for whose benefit they are designed.

The same harmless eccentricities, of which we said something formerly, are quite as copiously visible in these pages as in those that went before them at such things many will smile, and some may occasionally laugh; but take the work as a whole, it is one of the few of these days for which we would venture to prophecy permanent acceptance. It is, in fact, a performance altogether unique in literature; opening at once an accomplished officer's personal history, rich in most varied abundance of anecdote and adventure on flood and field,' and a panorama of nautical existence, habits, and manners, from the skipper's region down to the cabin-boy's, so full and picturesque, that it cannot fail to be in request while any part of the old English character and taste shall remain. Subjects which, in any coarser hand, would have been revolting, become not only inoffensive but delightful in Captain Hall's; and he has contrived to equal the graphic effect, and in many places even the humour, of Smollett's marine pencil, without introducing a single touch that can wound the delicacy of the most refined woman. The style is at once lively and mellow. The author of such a work has merited more of his country than he could have done by almost any service in the active course of his profession; and we are sure the public will be disappointed if he does not give them, by Easter 1833, a third series, devoted entirely to a magnificent subject, which he has on this occasion barely touched-that of India.

ART.

ART. VI.-1. Facts relating to the Punishment of Death in the Metropolis. By Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Esq. London. 1831. 2. Reports from the Select Committee on Criminal Commitments and Convictions. Communicated by the Commons to the Lords, 1828.

3. Ditto, 1829.

HA

AVING no intention to discuss the abstract question of the justice or fitness of capital punishments, but simply to offer some remarks on the question, whether the English penal law, as it exists, can with propriety be mitigated, we beg, as a preliminary, to call our readers' attention to a short view of the past and present condition of that code. In dealing with legislative questions, we think it is most important, before we decide whither we would go, to understand exactly where we are, and to view the steps by which we have arrived at our actual position.

The committee on the Criminal Law in 1819, over which Sir James Mackintosh so ably presided, made the first important and successful steps in the work of mitigating severity of punishment. In compliance with its recommendations, acts were shortly afterwards passed, repealing a variety of capital punishments, some of which ought never to have been enacted, others of which remained wholly unexecuted, or were inapplicable to the existing times. The provisions for putting to death persons taking away women unlawfully;-persons receiving money to procure a return of stolen goods;-bankrupts defrauding their creditors ;-persons pulling down and destroying turnpike-gates, or flood-gates in rivers;Egyptians remaining one month within the realm;-notorious thieves in the border counties of Northumberland and Cumberland;-persons going in masks or disguises in the Mint ;-persons attempting to destroy Westminster, Fulham, and other bridges; * -persons shoplifting to the value of 5s.-were most properly

removed from the statute-book.

Sir Robert Peel, in the valuable acts which he completed in 1826, for the consolidation of the law respecting larceny and malicious injuries to property, and for improving the administration of justice, (which we noticed at large on a former occasion,) introduced still further mitigations into the punishments for crime. He repealed the penalty of death attaching on the offence of purloining in a church, and confined that punishment to the offence of church-robbery with violence. He removed the capital punishment from the crime of stealing in booths or stalls

* These acts were passed in consequence of the watermen, who were injured by the new bridges on the Thames, endeavouring to damage and deface them. The felony of destroying turnpike-gates was created in consequence of the attacks made upon them on their first introduction.

at

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »