As I cast my eyes over these pages, and see how small a portion of my life they embrace, I feel like one who, having a long journey before him, perceives that some more speedy means of travel must be adopted, if he ever hope to reach his destination. With the instinctive prosiness of age I have lingered over the scenes of boyhood, a period which, strange to say, is fresher in my memory than many of the events of few years back; and were I to continue my narrative as I have begun it, it would take more time on my part, and more patience on that of my readers, than are likely to be conceded to either of us. Were I to apologise to my readers for any abruptness in my transitions, or any want of continuity in my story, I should perhaps inadvertently seem to imply a degree of interest in my fate which they have never felt; and, on the other hand, I would not for a moment be thought to treat slightingly the very smallest degree of favour they may feel disposed to show me. With these difficulties on either hand, I see nothing for it but to limit myself for the future to such incidents and passages of my career as most impressed themselves on myself, and to confine my record to the events in which I personally took a share.

Santron and I sailed from New York on the 9th of February, and arrived in Liverpool on the 14th of March. We landed in as humble a guise as need be. One small box contained all our effects, and a little leathern purse, with something less than three dollars, all our available wealth. The immense movement and stir of the busy town, the din and bustle of trade, the roll of waggons, the cranking clatter of cranes and windlasses, the incessant flux and reflux of population, all eager and intent on business, were strange spectacles to our eyes as we loitered houseless and friendless through the streets, staring in wonderment at the wealth and prosperity of that land we were taught to believe was tottering to bankruptcy.

Santron affected to be pleased with all—talked of the beau pillage it would afford one day or other; but in reality this appearance of riches and prosperity seemed to depress and discourage him. Both French and American writers had agreed in depicting the pauperism and discontent of England, and yet where were the signs of it? Not a house was untenanted, every street was thronged, every market filled; the equipages of the wealthy vied with the loaded waggons in number; and if there were not the external evidences of happiness and enjoyment the gayer population of other countries display, there was an air of well-being and comfort such as no other land could exhibit.

Another very singular trait made a deep impression on us. Here were these islanders with a narrow strait only separating them from a land bristling with bayonets. The very roar of the artillery at exercise might be almost heard across the gulf, and yet not a soldier was to be seen about! There were neither forts nor bastions. The harbour, so replete with wealth, lay open and unprotected, not even a gunboat or a guardship to defend it! There was an insolence in this security that Santron could not get over, and he muttered a prayer that the day might not be distant that should make them repent it.

He was piqued with everything. While on board ship we had agreed together to pass ourselves for Canadians, to avoid all inquiries of the authorities! Heaven help us! The authorities never thought of us. We were free to go or stay as we pleased. Neither police nor passport officers questioned us. We might have been Hoche and Massena for aught they either knew or cared. Not a mouchard tracked us; none even looked after us as we wont. To me this was all very agreeable and reassuring; to my companion it was contumely and insult. All the ingenious fiction he had devised of our birth, parentage, and pursuits, was a fine romance inedited, and he was left to sneer at the self-sufficiency that would not take alarm at the advent of two ragged youths on the quay of Liverpool.

‘If they but knew who we were, Maurice,’ he kept continually muttering as we went along—‘if these fellows only knew whom they had in their town, what a rumpus it would create! How the shops would close! What barricading of doors and windows we should see! What bursts of terror and patriotism! Par St. Denis, I have a mind to throw up my cap in the air and cry ‘Vive la RÉpublique!’ just to witness the scene that would follow.’ With all these boastings, it was not very difficult to restrain my friend’s ardour, and to induce him to defer his invasion of England to a more fitting occasion, so that at last he was fain to content himself with a sneering commentary on all around him; and in this amiable spirit we descended into a very dirty cellar to eat our first dinner on shore.

The place was filled with sailors, who, far from indulging in the well-known careless gaiety of their class, seemed morose and sulky, talking together in low murmurs, and showing unmistakable signs of discontent and dissatisfaction. The reason was soon apparent; the pressgangs were out to take men off to reinforce the blockading force before Genoa, a service of all others the most distasteful to a seaman. If Santron at first was ready to flatter himself into the notion that very little persuasion would make these fellows take part against England, as he listened longer he saw the grievous error of the opinion, no epithet of insult or contempt being spared by them when talking of France and Frenchmen. Whatever national animosity prevailed at that period, sailors enjoyed a high preeminence in feeling. I have heard that the spirit was encouraged by those in command, and that narratives of French perfidy, treachery, and even cowardice, were the popular traditions of the sea-service. We certainly could not controvert the old adage as to ‘listeners,’ for every observation and every anecdote conveyed a sneer or an insult on our country. There could be no reproach in listening to these unresented, but Santron assumed a most indignant air, and more than once affected to be overcome by a spirit of recrimination. What turn his actions might have taken in this wise I cannot even guess, for suddenly a rush of fellows took place up the ladder, and in less than a minute the whole cellar was cleared, leaving none but the hostess and an old lame waiter along with ourselves in the place.

‘You’ve got a protection, I suppose, sirs,’ said the woman, approaching us; ‘but still I’ll advise you not to trust to it overmuch; they’re in great want of men just now, and they care little for law or justice when once they have them on the high-seas.’

‘We have no protection,’ said I; ‘we are strangers here, and know no one.’

‘There they come, sir; that’s the tramp,’ cried the woman; ‘there’s nothing for it now but to stay quiet and hope you ‘ll not be noticed. Take those knives up, will ye,’ said she, flinging a napkin towards me, and speaking in an altered voice, for already two figures were darkening the entrance, and peering down into the depth below, while turning to Santron she motioned him to remove the dishes from the table—a service in which, to do him justice, he exhibited a zeal more flattering to his tact than his spirit of resistance.

‘Tripped their anchors already, Mother Martin?’ said a large-whiskered man, with a black belt round his waist; while, passing round the tables, he crammed into his mouth several fragments of the late feast.

‘You wouldn’t have ‘em wait for you, Captain John,’ said she, laughing.

‘It’s just what I would, then,’ replied he. ‘The Admiralty has put thirty shillings more on the bounty, and where will these fellows get the like of that? It isn’t a West India service, neither, nor a coastin’ cruise off Newfoundland, but all as one as a pleasure-trip up the Mediterranean, and nothing to fight but Frenchmen. Eh, younker, that tickles your fancy,’ cried he to Santron, who, in spite of himself, made some gesture of impatience.

‘Handy chaps, those, Mother Martin; where did you chance on’em?’

‘They’re sons of a Canada skipper in the river yonder,’ said she calmly.

‘They aren’t over like to be brothers,’ said he, with the grin of one too well accustomed to knavery to trust anything opposed to his own observation. ‘I suppose them’s things happens in Canada as elsewhere,’ said he, laughing, and hoping the jest might turn her flank. Meanwhile the press leader never took his eyes off me, as I arranged plates and folded napkins with all the skill which my early education in Boivin’s restaurant had taught me.

‘He is a smart one,’ said he, half musingly. ‘I say, boy, would you like to go as cook’s aid on board a king’s ship? I know of one as would just suit you.’

‘I’d rather not, sir; I’d not like to leave my father,’ said I, backing up Mrs. Martin’s narrative.

‘Nor that brother, there; wouldn’t he like it?’

I shook my head negatively.

‘Suppose I have a talk with the skipper about it,’ said he, looking at me steadily for some seconds. ‘Suppose I was to tell him what a good berth you ‘d have, eh?’

‘Oh, if he wished it, I’d make no objection,’ said I, assuming all the calmness I could.

‘That chap ain’t your brother—and he’s no sailor neither. Show me your hands, youngster,’ cried he to Santron, who at once complied with the order, and the press captain bent over and scanned them narrowly. As he thus stood with his back to me, the woman shook her head significantly, and pointed to the ladder. If ever a glance conveyed a whole story of terror hers did. I looked at my companion as though to say, ‘Can I desert him?’ and the expression of her features seemed to imply utter despair. This pantomime did not occupy half a minute. And now, with noiseless step, I gained the ladder, and crept cautiously up it. My fears were how to escape those who waited outside; but as I ascended I could see that they were loitering about in groups, inattentive to all that was going on below. The shame at deserting my comrade so nearly overcame me, that, when almost at the top, I was about to turn back again. I even looked round to see him; but, as I did so, I saw the press leader draw a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and throw them on the table. The instincts of safety were too strong, and with a spring I gained the street, and, slipping noiselessly along the wall, escaped the ‘lookout.’ Without a thought of where I was going to, or what to do, I ran at the very top of my speed directly onwards, my only impulse being to get away from the spot. Could I reach the open country I thought it would be my best chance. As I fled, however, no signs of a suburb appeared; the streets, on the contrary, grew narrower and more intricate; huge warehouses, seven or eight storeys high, loomed at either side of me; and at last, on turning an angle, a fresh sea-breeze met me, and showed that I was near the harbour. I avow that the sight of shipping, the tall and taper spars that streaked the sky of night, the clank of chain-cables, and the heavy surging sound of the looming hulls, were anything but encouraging, longing as I did for the rustling leaves of some green lane; but still, all was quiet. A few flickering lights twinkled here and there from a cabin window, but everything seemed sunk in repose.

The quay was thickly studded with hogsheads and bales of merchandise, so that I could easily have found a safe resting-place for the night, but a sense of danger banished all wish for sleep, and I wandered out, restless and uncertain, framing a hundred plans, and abandoning them when formed.

So long as I kept company with Santron, I never thought of returning to ‘Uncle Pat’; my reckless spendthrift companion had too often avowed the pleasure he would feel in quartering himself on my kind friend, dissipating his hard-earned gains, and squandering the fruits of all his toil. Deterred by such a prospect, I resolved rather never to revisit him than in such company. Now, however, I was again alone, and all my hopes and wishes turned towards him. A few hours’ sail might again bring me beneath his roof, and once more should I find myself at home. The thought was calming to all my excitement; I forgot every danger I had passed through, I lost all memory of every vicissitude I had escaped, and had only the little low parlour in the ‘Black Pits’ before my mind’s eye, the wild, unweeded garden, and the sandy, sunny beach before the door. It was as though all that nigh a year had compassed had never occurred, and that my life at Crown Point and my return to England were only a dream. Sleep overcame me as I thus lay pondering, and when I awoke the sun was glittering in the bright waves of the Mersey, a fresh breeze was flaunting and fluttering the half-loosened sails, and the joyous sounds of seamen’s voices were mingling with the clank of capstans, and the measured stroke of oars.

It was full ten minutes after I awoke before I could remember how I came there, and what had befallen me. Poor Santron, where is he now? was my first thought, and it came with all the bitterness of self-reproach.

Could I have parted company with him under other circumstances, it would not have grieved me deeply. His mocking, sarcastic spirit, the tone of depreciation which he used towards everything and everybody, had gone far to sour me with the world, and day by day I felt within me the evil influences of his teachings. How different were they from poor Gottfried’s lessons, and the humble habits of those who lived beneath them! Yet I was sorry, deeply sorry, that our separation should have been thus, and almost wished I had stayed to share his fate, whatever it might be.

While thus swayed by different impulses, now thinking of my old home at Crown Point, now of Uncle Pat’s thatched cabin, and again of Santron, I strolled down to the wharf, and found myself in a considerable crowd of people, who were all eagerly pressing forward to witness the embarkation of several boatfuls of pressed seamen, who, strongly guarded and ironed, were being conveyed to the Athol tender, a large three-master, about a mile off, down the river. To judge from the cut faces and bandaged heads and arms, the capture had not been effected without resistance. Many of the poor fellows appeared more suited to a hospital than the duties of active service, and several lay with bloodless faces and white lips, the handcuffed wrists seeming a very mockery of a condition so destitute of all chance of resistance.

The sympathies of the bystanders were very varied regarding them. Some were full of tender pity and compassion; some denounced the system as a cruel ‘and oppressive tyranny; others deplored it as an unhappy necessity; and a few well-to-do-looking old citizens, in drab shorts and wide-brimmed hats, grew marvellously indignant at the recreant poltroonery of ‘the scoundrels who were not proud to fight their country’s battles.’

As I was wondering within myself how it happened that men thus coerced could ever be depended on in moments of peril and difficulty, and by what magic the mere exercise of discipline was able to merge the feelings of the man in the sailor, the crowd was rudely driven back by policemen, and a cry of ‘Make way,’ ‘Fall back there,’ given. In the sudden retiring of the mass I found myself standing on the very edge of the line along which a new body of impressed men were about to pass. Guarded front, flank, and rear, by a strong party of marines, the poor fellows came along slowly enough. Many were badly wounded, and walked lamely; some were bleeding profusely from cuts on the face and temples; and one, at the very tail of the procession, was actually carried in a blanket by four sailors. A low murmur ran through the crowd at the spectacle, which gradually swelled louder and fuller till it burst forth into a deep groan of indignation, and a cry of ‘Shame I Shame!’ Too much used to such ebullitions of public feeling, or too proud to care for them, the officer in command of the party never seemed to hear the angry cries and shouts around him; and I was even more struck by his cool self-possession than by their enthusiasm. For a moment or two I was convinced that a rescue would be attempted. I had no conception that so much excitement could evaporate innocuously, and was preparing myself to take part in the struggle when the line halted as the leading files gained the stairs, and, to my wonderment, the crowd became hushed and still. Then, one burst of excited pity over, not a thought occurred to any to offer resistance to the law, or dare to oppose the constituted authorities. How unlike Frenchmen! thought I; nor am I certain whether I deemed the disparity to their credit!

‘Give him a glass of water!’ I heard the officer say, as he leaned over the litter; and the crowd at once opened to permit some one to fetch it. Before I believed it were possible to have procured it, a tumbler of water was passed from hand to hand till it reached mine, and, stepping forwards, I bent down to give it to the sick man. The end of a coarse sheet was thrown over his face, and as it was removed I almost fell over him, for it was Santron. His face was covered with a cold sweat, which lay in great drops all over it, and his lips were slightly frothed. As he looked up I could see that he was just rallying from a fainting-fit, and could mark in the change that came over his glassy eye that he had recognised me. He made a faint effort at a smile, and, in a voice barely a whisper, said, ‘I knew thou’d not leave me, Maurice.’

‘You are his countryman?’ said the officer, addressing me in French.

‘Yes, sir,’ was my reply.

‘You are both Canadians, then?’

‘Frenchmen, sir, and officers in the service. We only landed from an American ship yesterday, and were trying to make our way to France.’

‘I’m sorry for you,’ said he compassionately; ‘nor do I know how to help you. Come on board the tender, however, and we’ll see if they’ll not give you a passage with your friend to the Nore. I’ll speak to my commanding officer for you.’

This scene all passed in a very few minutes, and before I well knew how or why, I found myself on board of a ship’s longboat, sweeping along over the Mersey, with Santron’s head in my lap, and his cold, clammy fingers grasped in mine. He was either unaware of my presence or too weak to recognise me, for he gave no sign of knowing me; and during our brief passage down the river, and when lifted up the ship’s side, seemed totally insensible to everything.

The scene of uproar, noise, and confusion on board the Athol is far beyond my ability to convey. A shipwreck, a fire, and mutiny, all combined, could scarcely have collected greater elements of discord. Two large detachments of marines, many of whom, fresh from furlough, were too drunk for duty, and were either lying asleep along the deck, or riotously interfering with everybody; a company of Sappers en route to Woolwich, who would obey none but their own officer, and he was still ashore; detachments of able-bodied seamen from the Jupiter, full of grog and prize-money; four hundred and seventy impressed men, cursing, blaspheming, and imprecating every species of calamity on their captors; added to which, a crowd of Jews, bumboat women, and slop-sellers of all kinds, with the crews of two ballast-lighters, fighting for additional pay, being the chief actors in a scene whose discord I never saw equalled. Drunkenness, suffering, hopeless misery, and even insubordination, all lent their voices to a tumult, amid which the words of command seemed lost, and all effort at discipline vain.

How we were ever to go to sea in this state, I could not even imagine. The ship’s crew seemed inextricably mingled with the rioters, many of whom were just sufficiently sober to be eternally meddling with the ship’s tackle; belaying what ought to be ‘free,’ and loosening what should have been ‘fast’; getting their fingers jammed in blocks, and their limbs crushed by spars, till the cries of agony rose high above every other confusion. Turning with disgust from a spectacle so discordant and disgraceful, I descended the ladders, which led, by many a successive flight, into the dark, low-ceilinged chamber called the ‘sick bay,’ where poor Santron was lying in, what I almost envied, insensibility to the scene around him. A severe blow from the hilt of a cutlass had caused a concussion of the brain, and, save in the momentary excitement which a sudden question might cause, left him totally unconscious. His head had been already shaved before I descended, and I found the assistant-surgeon, an Irishman, Mr. Peter Colhayne, experimenting a new mode of cupping as I entered. By some mischance of the machinery, the lancets of the cupping instrument had remained permanently fixed, refusing to obey the spring, and standing all straight outside the surface. In this dilemma, Peter’s ingenuity saw nothing for it but to press them down vigorously into the scalp, and then saw them backwards the whole length of the head—a performance the originality of which, in all probability, was derived from the operation of a harrow in agriculture. He had just completed a third track when I came in, and, by great remonstrance and no small flattery, induced him to desist. ‘We have glasses,’ said he, ‘but they were all broke in the cock-pit; but a tin porringer is just as good.’ And so saying, he lighted a little pledget of tow, previously steeped in turpentine, and, popping it into the tin vessel, clapped it on the head. This was meant to exhaust the air within, and thus draw the blood to the surface—a scientific process he was good enough to explain most minutely for my benefit, and the good results of which he most confidently vouched for.

‘They’ve a hundred new conthrivances,’ said Mr. Colhayne, ‘for doing that simple thing ye see there. They’ve pumps, and screws, and hydraulic devilments as much complicated as a watch that’s always getting out of order and going wrong; but with that ye’ll see what good ‘twill do him; he’ll he as lively as a lark in ten minutes.’

The prophecy was destined to a perfect fulfilment, for poor Santron, who lay motionless and unconscious up to that moment, suddenly gave signs of life by moving his features, and jerking his limbs to this side and that. The doctor’s self-satisfaction took the very proudest form. He expatiated on the grandeur of medical science, the wonderful advancement it was making, and the astonishing progress the curative art had made even within his own time. I must own that I should have lent a more implicit credence to this paean if I had not waited for the removal of the cupping-vessel, which, instead of blood, contained merely the charred ashes of the burnt tow, while the scalp beneath it presented a blackened, seared aspect, like burnt leather. Such was literally the effect of the operation; but as from that period the patient began steadily to improve, I must leave to more scientific inquirers the task of explaining through what agency, and on what principles.

Santron’s condition, although no longer dangerous, presented little hope of speedy recovery. His faculties were clouded and obscured, and the mere effort at recognition seemed to occasion him great subsequent disturbance. Colhayne, who, whatever may have been his scientific deficiencies, was good-nature and kindness itself, saw nothing for him but removal to Haslar, and we now only waited for the ship’s arrival at the Nore to obtain the order for his transmission.

If the Athol was a scene of the wildest confusion and uproar when we tripped our anchor, we had not been six hours at sea when all was a picture of order and propriety. The decks were cleared of every one not actually engaged in the ship’s working, or specially permitted to remain; ropes were coiled, boats hauled up, sails trimmed, hatches down, sentinels paced the deck in appointed places, and all was discipline and regularity. From the decorous silence that prevailed, none could have supposed so many hundred living beings were aboard, still less, that they were the same disorderly mob who sailed from the Mersey a few short hours before. From the surprise which all this caused me I was speedily aroused by an order more immediately interesting, being summoned on the poop-deck to attend the general muster. Up they came from holes and hatchways, a vast host, no longer brawling and insubordinate, but quiet, submissive, and civil. Such as were wounded had been placed under the doctor’s care, and all those now present were orderly and servicelike. With a very few exceptions they were all sailors, a few having already served in a king’s ship. The first lieutenant, who first inspected us, was a grim, greyheaded man past the prime of life, with features hardened by disappointment and long service, but who still retained an expression of kindliness and good-nature. His duty he despatched with all the speed of long habit—read the name, looked at the bearer of it, asked a few routine questions, and then cried ‘Stand by,’ even ere the answers were finished. When he came to me he said—

‘Abraham Hackett. Is that your name, lad?’

‘No, sir. I ‘m called Maurice Tiernay.’

‘Tiernay, Tiernay,’ said he a couple of times over. ‘No such name here.’

‘Where’s Tiernay’s name, Cottle?’ asked he of a subordinate behind him.

The fellow looked down the list—then at me—then at the list again—and then back to me, puzzled excessively by the difficulty, but not seeing how to explain it.

‘Perhaps I can set the matter right, sir,’ said I. ‘I came aboard along with a wounded countryman of mine—the young Frenchman who is now in the sick bay.’

‘Ay, to be sure; I remember all about it now,’ said the lieutenant, ‘You call yourselves French officers?’ ‘And such are we, sir.’

‘Then how the devil came ye here? Mother Martin’s cellar is, to say the least of it, an unlikely spot to select as a restaurant.’

‘The story is a somewhat long one, sir.’

‘Then I haven’t time for it, lad,’ he broke in. ‘We’ve rather too much on hand just now for that. If you ‘ve got your papers, or anything to prove what you assert, I’ll land you when I come into the Downs, and you’ll, of course, be treated as your rank in the service requires. If you have not, I must only take the responsibility on myself to regard you as an impressed man. Very hard, I know, but can’t help it. Stand by.’

These few words were uttered with a most impetuous speed; and as all reply to them was impossible, I saw my case decided and my fate decreed, even before I knew they were under litigation.

As we were marched forwards to go below, I overheard an officer say to another—

‘Hay will get into a scrape about those French fellows; they may turn out to be officers, after all.’

‘What matter?’ cried the other. ‘One is dying; and the other Hay means to draft on board the TÉmÉraire. Depend upon it, we’ll never hear more of either of them.’

This was far from pleasant tidings; and yet I knew not any remedy for the mishap. I had never seen the officer who spoke to me ashore since we came on board. I knew of none to intercede for me; and as I sat down on the bench beside poor Santron’s cot, I felt my heart lower than it had ever been before. I was never enamoured of the sea-service; and certainly the way to overcome my dislike was not by engaging against my own country; and yet this, in all likelihood, was now to be my fate. These were my last waking thoughts the first night I passed on board the Athol.