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Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon

In the afternoon the lady of the above-mentioned mansion called at our inn, and left her compliments to us with Mrs. Francis, with an assurance that while we continued wind-bound in that place, where she feared we could be but indifferently accommodated, we were extremely welcome to the use of anything which her garden or her house afforded. So polite a message convinced us, in spite of some arguments to the contrary, that we were not on the coast of Africa, or on some island where the few savage inhabitants have little of human in them besides their form. And here I mean nothing less than to derogate from the merit of this lady, who is not only extremely polite in her behavior to strangers of her own rank, but so extremely good and charitable to all her poor neighbors who stand in need of her assistance, that she hath the universal love and praises of all who live near her. But, in reality, how little doth the acquisition of so valuable a character, and the full indulgence of so worthy a disposition, cost those who possess it! Both are accomplished by the very offals which fall from a table moderately plentiful. That they are enjoyed therefore by so few arises truly from there being so few who have any such disposition to gratify, or who aim at any such character. Wednesday, July 22.—This morning, after having been mulcted as usual, we dispatched a servant with proper acknowledgments of the lady's goodness; but confined our wants entirely to the productions of her garden. He soon returned, in company with the gardener, both richly laden with almost every particular which a garden at this most fruitful season of the year produces. While we were regaling ourselves with these, towards the close of our dinner, we received orders from our commander, who had dined that day with some inferior officers on board a man-of-war, to return instantly to the ship; for that the wind was become favorable and he should weigh that evening. These orders were soon followed by the captain himself, who was still in the utmost hurry, though the occasion of it had long since ceased; for the wind had, indeed, a little shifted that afternoon, but was before this very quietly set down in its old quarters. This last was a lucky hit for me; for, as the captain, to whose orders we resolved to pay no obedience, unless delivered by himself, did not return till past six, so much time seemed requisite to put up the furniture of our bed-chamber or dining-room, for almost every article, even to some of the chairs, were either our own or the captain's property; so much more in conveying it as well as myself, as dead a luggage as any, to the shore, and thence to the ship, that the night threatened first to overtake us. A terrible circumstance to me, in my decayed condition; especially as very heavy showers of rain, attended with a high wind, continued to fall incessantly; the being carried through which two miles in the dark, in a wet and open boat, seemed little less than certain death. However, as my commander was absolute, his orders peremptory, and my obedience necessary, I resolved to avail myself of a philosophy which hath been of notable use to me in the latter part of my life, and which is contained in this hemistich of Virgil:— ——Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est. The meaning of which, if Virgil had any, I think I rightly understood, and rightly applied. As I was therefore to be entirely passive in my motion, I resolved to abandon myself to the conduct of those who were to carry me into a cart when it returned from unloading the goods. But before this, the captain, perceiving what had happened in the clouds, and that the wind remained as much his enemy as ever, came upstairs to me with a reprieve till the morning. This was, I own, very agreeable news, and I little regretted the trouble of refurnishing my apartment, by sending back for the goods. Mrs. Francis was not well pleased with this. As she understood the reprieve to be only till the morning, she saw nothing but lodging to be possibly added, out of which she was to deduct fire and candle, and the remainder, she thought, would scarce pay her for her trouble. She exerted therefore all the ill-humor of which she was mistress, and did all she could to thwart and perplex everything during the whole evening. Thursday, July 23.—Early in the morning the captain, who had remained on shore all night, came to visit us, and to press us to make haste on board. "I am resolved," says he, "not to lose a moment now the wind is coming about fair: for my own part, I never was surer of a wind in all my life." I use his very words; nor will I presume to interpret or comment upon them farther than by observing that they were spoke in the utmost hurry. We promised to be ready as soon as breakfast was over, but this was not so soon as was expected; for, in removing our goods the evening before, the tea-chest was unhappily lost. Every place was immediately searched, and many where it was impossible for it to be; for this was a loss of much greater consequence than it may at first seem to many of my readers. Ladies and valetudinarians do not easily dispense with the use of this sovereign cordial in a single instance; but to undertake a long voyage, without any probability of being supplied with it the whole way, was above the reach of patience. And yet, dreadful as this calamity was, it seemed unavoidable. The whole town of Ryde could not supply a single leaf; for, as to what Mrs. Francis and the shop called by that name, it was not of Chinese growth. It did not indeed in the least resemble tea, either in smell or taste, or in any particular, unless in being a leaf; for it was in truth no other than a tobacco of the mundungus species. And as for the hopes of relief in any other port, they were not to be depended upon, for the captain had positively declared he was sure of a wind, and would let go his anchor no more till he arrived in the Tajo. When a good deal of time had been spent, most of it indeed wasted on this occasion, a thought occurred which every one wondered at its not having presented itself the first moment. This was to apply to the good lady, who could not fail of pitying and relieving such distress. A messenger was immediately despatched with an account of our misfortune, till whose return we employed ourselves in preparatives for our departure, that we might have nothing to do but to swallow our breakfast when it arrived. The tea-chest, though of no less consequence to us than the military-chest to a general, was given up as lost, or rather as stolen, for though I would not, for the world, mention any particular name, it is certain we had suspicions, and all, I am afraid, fell on the same person. The man returned from the worthy lady with much expedition, and brought with him a canister of tea, despatched with so true a generosity, as well as politeness, that if our voyage had been as long again we should have incurred no danger of being brought to a short allowance in this most important article. At the very same instant likewise arrived William the footman with our own tea-chest. It had been, indeed, left in the hoy, when the other goods were re-landed, as William, when he first heard it was missing, had suspected; and whence, had not the owner of the hoy been unluckily out of the way, he had retrieved it soon enough to have prevented our giving the lady an opportunity of displaying some part of her goodness. To search the hoy was, indeed, too natural a suggestion to have escaped any one, nor did it escape being mentioned by many of us; but we were dissuaded from it by my wife's maid, who perfectly well remembered she had left the chest in the bed-chamber; for that she had never given it out of her hand in her way to or from the hoy; but William perhaps knew the maid better, and best understood how far she was to be believed; for otherwise he would hardly of his own accord, after hearing her declaration, have hunted out the hoy-man, with much pains and difficulty. Thus ended this scene, which began with such appearance of distress, and ended with becoming the subject of mirth and laughter. Nothing now remained but to pay our taxes, which were indeed laid with inconceivable severity. Lodging was raised sixpence, fire in the same proportion, and even candles, which had hitherto escaped, were charged with a wantonness of imposition, from the beginning, and placed under the style of oversight. We were raised a whole pound, whereas we had only burned ten, in five nights, and the pound consisted of twenty-four. Lastly, an attempt was made which almost as far exceeds human credulity to believe as it did human patience to submit to. This was to make us pay as much for existing an hour or two as for existing a whole day; and dressing dinner was introduced as an article, though we left the house before either pot or spit had approached the fire. Here I own my patience failed me, and I became an example of the truth of the observation, "That all tyranny and oppression may be carried too far, and that a yoke may be made too intolerable for the neck of the tamest slave." When I remonstrated, with some warmth, against this grievance, Mrs. Francis gave me a look, and left the room without making any answer. She returned in a minute, running to me with pen, ink, and paper, in her hand, and desired me to make my own bill; "for she hoped," she said "I did not expect that her house was to be dirtied, and her goods spoiled and consumed for nothing. The whole is but thirteen shillings. Can gentlefolks lie a whole night at a public-house for less? If they can I am sure it is time to give off being a landlady: but pay me what you please; I would have people know that I value money as little as other folks. But I was always a fool, as I says to my husband, and never knows which side my bread is buttered of. And yet, to be sure, your honor shall be my warning not to be bit so again. Some folks knows better than other some how to make their bills. Candles! why yes, to be sure; why should not travelers pay for candles? I am sure I pays for my candles, and the chandler pays the king's majesty for them; and if he did not I must, so as it comes to the same thing in the end. To be sure I am out of sixteens at present, but these burn as white and as clear, though not quite so large. I expects my chandler here soon, or I would send to Portsmouth, if your honor was to stay any time longer. But when folks stays only for a wind, you knows there can be no dependence on such!" Here she put on a little slyness of aspect, and seemed willing to submit to interruption. I interrupted her accordingly by throwing down half a guinea, and declared I had no more English money, which was indeed true; and, as she could not immediately change the thirty-six shilling pieces, it put a final end to the dispute. Mrs. Francis soon left the room, and we soon after left the house; nor would this good woman see us or wish us a good voyage. I must not, however, quit this place, where we had been so ill-treated, without doing it impartial justice, and recording what may, with the strictest truth, be said in its favor. First, then, as to its situation, it is, I think, most delightful, and in the most pleasant spot in the whole island. It is true it wants the advantage of that beautiful river which leads from Newport to Cowes; but the prospect here extending to the sea, and taking in Portsmouth, Spithead, and St. Helen's, would be more than a recompense for the loss of the Thames itself, even in the most delightful part of Berkshire or Buckinghamshire, though another Denham, or another Pope, should unite in celebrating it. For my own part, I confess myself so entirely fond of a sea prospect, that I think nothing on the land can equal it; and if it be set off with shipping, I desire to borrow no ornament from the terra firma. A fleet of ships is, in my opinion, the noblest object which the art of man hath ever produced; and far beyond the power of those architects who deal in brick, in stone, or in marble. When the late Sir Robert Walpole, one of the best of men and of ministers, used to equip us a yearly fleet at Spithead, his enemies of taste must have allowed that he, at least, treated the nation with a fine sight for their money. A much finer, indeed, than the same expense in an encampment could have produced. For what indeed is the best idea which the prospect of a number of huts can furnish to the mind, but of a number of men forming themselves into a society before the art of building more substantial houses was known? This, perhaps, would be agreeable enough; but, in truth, there is a much worse idea ready to step in before it, and that is of a body of cut-throats, the supports of tyranny, the invaders of the just liberties and properties of mankind, the plunderers of the industrious, the ravishers of the chaste, the murderers of the innocent, and, in a word, the destroyers of the plenty, the peace, and the safety, of their fellow-creatures. And what, it may be said, are these men-of-war which seem so delightful an object to our eyes? Are they not alike the support of tyranny and oppression of innocence, carrying with them desolation and ruin wherever their masters please to send them? This is indeed too true; and however the ship of war may, in its bulk and equipment, exceed the honest merchantman, I heartily wish there was no necessity for it; for, though I must own the superior beauty of the object on one side, I am more pleased with the superior excellence of the idea which I can raise in my mind on the other, while I reflect on the art and industry of mankind engaged in the daily improvements of commerce to the mutual benefit of all countries, and to the establishment and happiness of social life. This pleasant village is situated on a gentle ascent from the water, whence it affords that charming prospect I have above described. Its soil is a gravel, which, assisted with its declivity, preserves it always so dry that immediately after the most violent rain a fine lady may walk without wetting her silken shoes. The fertility of the place is apparent from its extraordinary verdure, and it is so shaded with large and flourishing elms, that its narrow lanes are a natural grove or walk, which, in the regularity of its plantation, vies with the power of art, and in its wanton exuberancy greatly exceeds it. In a field in the ascent of this hill, about a quarter of a mile from the sea, stands a neat little chapel. It is very small, but adequate to the number of inhabitants; for the parish doth not seem to contain above thirty houses. At about two miles distant from this parish lives that polite and good lady to whose kindness we were so much obliged. It is placed on a hill whose bottom is washed by the sea, and which from its eminence at top, commands a view of great part of the island as well as it does that of the opposite shore. This house was formerly built by one Boyce, who, from a blacksmith at Gosport, became possessed, by great success in smuggling, of forty thousand pound. With part of this he purchased an estate here, and, by chance probably, fixed on this spot for building a large house. Perhaps the convenience of carrying on his business, to which it is so well adapted, might dictate the situation to him. We can hardly, at least, attribute it to the same taste with which he furnished his house, or at least his library, by sending an order to a bookseller in London to pack him up five hundred pounds' worth of his handsomest books. They tell here several almost incredible stories of the ignorance, the folly, and the pride, which this poor man and his wife discovered during the short continuance of his prosperity; for he did not long escape the sharp eyes of the revenue solicitors, and was, by extents from the court of Exchequer, soon reduced below his original state to that of confinement in the Fleet. All his effects were sold, and among the rest his books, by an auction at Portsmouth, for a very small price; for the bookseller was now discovered to have been perfectly a master of his trade, and, relying on Mr. Boyce's finding little time to read, had sent him not only the most lasting wares of his shop, but duplicates of the same, under different titles. His estate and house were purchased by a gentleman of these parts, whose widow now enjoys them, and who hath improved them, particularly her gardens, with so elegant a taste, that the painter who would assist his imagination in the composition of a most exquisite landscape, or the poet who would describe an earthly paradise, could nowhere furnish themselves with a richer pattern. We left this place about eleven in the morning, and were again conveyed, with more sunshine than wind, aboard our ship. Whence our captain had acquired his power of prophecy, when he promised us and himself a prosperous wind, I will not determine; it is sufficient to observe that he was a false prophet, and that the weathercocks continued to point as before. He would not, however, so easily give up his skill in prediction. He persevered in asserting that the wind was changed, and, having weighed his anchor, fell down that afternoon to St. Helen's, which was at about the distance of five miles; and whither his friend the tide, in defiance of the wind, which was most manifestly against him, softly wafted him in as many hours. Here, about seven in the evening, before which time we could not procure it, we sat down to regale ourselves with some roasted venison, which was much better dressed than we imagined it would be, and an excellent cold pasty which my wife had made at Ryde, and which we had reserved uncut to eat on board our ship, whither we all cheerfully exulted in being returned from the presence of Mrs. Francis, who, by the exact resemblance she bore to a fury, seemed to have been with no great propriety settled in paradise. Friday, July 24.—As we passed by Spithead on the preceding evening we saw the two regiments of soldiers who were just returned from Gibraltar and Minorca; and this day a lieutenant belonging to one of them, who was the captain's nephew, came to pay a visit to his uncle. He was what is called by some a very pretty fellow; indeed, much too pretty a fellow at his years; for he was turned of thirty-four, though his address and conversation would have become him more before he had reached twenty. In his conversation, it is true, there was something military enough, as it consisted chiefly of oaths, and of the great actions and wise sayings of Jack, and Will, and Tom of our regiment, a phrase eternally in his mouth; and he seemed to conclude that it conveyed to all the officers such a degree of public notoriety and importance that it entitled him like the head of a profession, or a first minister, to be the subject of conversation among those who had not the least personal acquaintance with him. This did not much surprise me, as I have seen several examples of the same; but the defects in his address, especially to the women, were so great that they seemed absolutely inconsistent with the behavior of a pretty fellow, much less of one in a red coat; and yet, besides having been eleven years in the army, he had had, as his uncle informed me, an education in France. This, I own, would have appeared to have been absolutely thrown away had not his animal spirits, which were likewise thrown away upon him in great abundance, borne the visible stamp of the growth of that country. The character to which he had an indisputable title was that of a merry fellow; so very merry was he that he laughed at everything he said, and always before he spoke. Possibly, indeed, he often laughed at what he did not utter, for every speech begun with a laugh, though it did not always end with a jest. There was no great analogy between the characters of the uncle and the nephew, and yet they seemed entirely to agree in enjoying the honor which the red-coat did to his family. This the uncle expressed with great pleasure in his countenance, and seemed desirous of showing all present the honor which he had for his nephew, who, on his side, was at some pains to convince us of his concurring in this opinion, and at the same time of displaying the contempt he had for the parts, as well as the occupation of his uncle, which he seemed to think reflected some disgrace on himself, who was a member of that profession which makes every man a gentleman. Not that I would be understood to insinuate that the nephew endeavored to shake off or disown his uncle, or indeed to keep him at any distance. On the contrary, he treated him with the utmost familiarity, often calling him Dick, and dear Dick, and old Dick, and frequently beginning an oration with D—n me, Dick. All this condescension on the part of the young man was received with suitable marks of complaisance and obligation by the old one; especially when it was attended with evidences of the same familiarity with general officers and other persons of rank; one of whom, in particular, I know to have the pride and insolence of the devil himself, and who, without some strong bias of interest, is no more liable to converse familiarly with a lieutenant than of being mistaken in his judgment of a fool; which was not, perhaps, so certainly the case of the worthy lieutenant, who, in declaring to us the qualifications which recommended men to his countenance and conversation, as well as what effectually set a bar to all hopes of that honor, exclaimed, "No, sir, by the d— I hate all fools— No, d—n me, excuse me for that. That's a little too much, old Dick. There are two or three officers of our regiment whom I know to be fools; but d—n me if I am ever seen in their company. If a man hath a fool of a relation, Dick, you know he can't help that, old boy." Such jokes as these the old man not only tools in good part, but glibly gulped down the whole narrative of his nephew; nor did he, I am convinced, in the least doubt of our as readily swallowing the same. This made him so charmed with the lieutenant, that it is probable we should have been pestered with him the whole evening, had not the north wind, dearer to our sea-captain even than this glory of his family, sprung suddenly up, and called aloud to him to weigh his anchor. While this ceremony was performing, the sea-captain ordered out his boat to row the land-captain to shore; not indeed on an uninhabited island, but one which, in this part, looked but little better, not presenting us the view of a single house. Indeed, our old friend, when his boat returned on shore, perhaps being no longer able to stifle his envy of the superiority of his nephew, told us with a smile that the young man had a good five mile to walk before he could be accommodated with a passage to Portsmouth. It appeared now that the captain had been only mistaken in the date of his prediction, by placing the event a day earlier than it happened; for the wind which now arose was not only favorable but brisk, and was no sooner in reach of our sails than it swept us away by the back of the Isle of Wight, and, having in the night carried us by Christchurch and Peveral-point, brought us the next noon, Saturday, July 25, oft the island of Portland, so famous for the smallness and sweetness of its mutton, of which a leg seldom weighs four pounds. We would have bought a sheep, but our captain would not permit it; though he needed not have been in such a hurry, for presently the wind, I will not positively assert in resentment of his surliness, showed him a dog's trick, and slyly slipped back again to his summer-house in the south-west. The captain now grew outrageous, and, declaring open war with the wind, took a resolution, rather more bold than wise, of sailing in defiance of it, and in its teeth. He swore he would let go his anchor no more, but would beat the sea while he had either yard or sail left. He accordingly stood from the shore, and made so large a tack that before night, though he seemed to advance but little on his way, he was got out of sight of land. Towards evening the wind began, in the captain's own language, and indeed it freshened so much, that before ten it blew a perfect hurricane. The captain having got, as he supposed, to a safe distance, tacked again towards the English shore; and now the wind veered a point only in his favor, and continued to blow with such violence, that the ship ran above eight knots or miles an hour during this whole day and tempestuous night till bed-time. I was obliged to betake myself once more to my solitude, for my women were again all down in their sea-sickness, and the captain was busy on deck; for he began to grow uneasy, chiefly, I believe, because he did not well know where he was, and would, I am convinced, have been very glad to have been in Portland-road, eating some sheep's-head broth. Having contracted no great degree of good-humor by living a whole day alone, without a single soul to converse with, I took but ill physic to purge it off, by a bed-conversation with the captain, who, amongst many bitter lamentations of his fate, and protesting he had more patience than a Job, frequently intermixed summons to the commanding officer on the deck, who now happened to be one Morrison, a carpenter, the only fellow that had either common sense or common civility in the ship. Of Morrison he inquired every quarter of an hour concerning the state of affairs: the wind, the care of the ship, and other matters of navigation. The frequency of these summons, as well as the solicitude with which they were made, sufficiently testified the state of the captain's mind; he endeavored to conceal it, and would have given no small alarm to a man who had either not learned what it is to die, or known what it is to be miserable. And my dear wife and child must pardon me, if what I did not conceive to be any great evil to myself I was not much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them; in truth, I have often thought they are both too good and too gentle to be trusted to the power of any man I know, to whom they could possibly be so trusted. Can I say then I had no fear? indeed I cannot. Reader, I was afraid for thee, lest thou shouldst have been deprived of that pleasure thou art now enjoying; and that I should not live to draw out on paper that military character which thou didst peruse in the journal of yesterday. From all these fears we were relieved, at six in the morning, by the arrival of Mr. Morrison, who acquainted us that he was sure he beheld land very near; for he could not see half a mile, by reason of the haziness of the weather. This land he said was, he believed, the Berry-head, which forms one side of Torbay: the captain declared that it was impossible, and swore, on condition he was right, he would give him his mother for a maid. A forfeit which became afterwards strictly due and payable; for the captain, whipping on his night-gown, ran up without his breeches, and within half an hour returning into the cabin, wished me joy of our lying safe at anchor in the bay. Sunday, July 26.—Things now began to put on an aspect very different from what they had lately worn; the news that the ship had almost lost its mizzen, and that we had procured very fine clouted cream and fresh bread and butter from the shore, restored health and spirits to our women, and we all sat down to a very cheerful breakfast. But, however pleasant our stay promised to be here, we were all desirous it should be short: I resolved immediately to despatch my man into the country to purchase a present of cider, for my friends of that which is called Southam, as well as to take with me a hogshead of it to Lisbon; for it is, in my opinion, much more delicious than that which is the growth of Herefordshire. I purchased three hogsheads for five pounds ten shillings, all which I should have scarce thought worth mentioning, had I not believed it might be of equal service to the honest farmer who sold it me, and who is by the neighboring gentlemen reputed to deal in the very best; and to the reader, who, from ignorance of the means of providing better for himself, swallows at a dearer rate the juice of Middlesex turnip, instead of that Vinum Pomonae which Mr. Giles Leverance of Cheeshurst, near Dartmouth in Devon, will, at the price of forty shillings per hogshead, send in double casks to any part of the world. Had the wind been very sudden in shifting, I had lost my cider by an attempt of a boatman to exact, according to custom. He required five shillings for conveying my man a mile and a half to the shore, and four more if he stayed to bring him back. This I thought to be such insufferable impudence that I ordered him to be immediately chased from the ship, without any answer. Indeed, there are few inconveniences that I would not rather encounter than encourage the insolent demands of these wretches, at the expense of my own indignation, of which I own they are not the only objects, but rather those who purchase a paltry convenience by encouraging them. But of this I have already spoken very largely. I shall conclude, therefore, with the leave which this fellow took of our ship; saying he should know it again, and would not put off from the shore to relieve it in any distress whatever. It will, doubtless, surprise many of my readers to hear that, when we lay at anchor within a mile or two of a town several days together, and even in the most temperate weather, we should frequently want fresh provisions and herbage, and other emoluments of the shore, as much as if we had been a hundred leagues from land. And this too while numbers of boats were in our sight, whose owners get their livelihood by rowing people up and down, and could be at any time summoned by a signal to our assistance, and while the captain had a little boat of his own, with men always ready to row it at his command. This, however, hath been partly accounted for already by the imposing disposition of the people, who asked so much more than the proper price of their labor. And as to the usefulness of the captain's boat, it requires to be a little expatiated upon, as it will tend to lay open some of the grievances which demand the utmost regard of our legislature, as they affect the most valuable part of the king's subjects—those by whom the commerce of the nation is carried into execution. Our captain then, who was a very good and experienced seaman, having been above thirty years the master of a vessel, part of which he had served, so he phrased it, as commander of a privateer, and had discharged himself with great courage and conduct, and with as great success, discovered the utmost aversion to the sending his boat ashore whenever we lay wind-bound in any of our harbors. This aversion did not arise from any fear of wearing out his boat by using it, but was, in truth, the result of experience, that it was easier to send his men on shore than to recall them. They acknowledged him to be their master while they remained on shipboard, but did not allow his power to extend to the shores, where they had no sooner set their foot than every man became sui juris, and thought himself at full liberty to return when he pleased. Now it is not any delight that these fellows have in the fresh air or verdant fields on the land. Every one of them would prefer his ship and his hammock to all the sweets of Arabia the Happy; but, unluckily for them, there are in every seaport in England certain houses whose chief livelihood depends on providing entertainment for the gentlemen of the jacket. For this purpose they are always well furnished with those cordial liquors which do immediately inspire the heart with gladness, banishing all careful thoughts, and indeed all others, from the mind, and opening the mouth with songs of cheerfulness and thanksgiving for the many wonderful blessings with which a seafaring life overflows. For my own part, however whimsical it may appear, I confess I have thought the strange story of Circe in the Odyssey no other than an ingenious allegory, in which Homer intended to convey to his countrymen the same kind of instruction which we intend to communicate to our own in this digression. As teaching the art of war to the Greeks was the plain design of the Iliad, so was teaching them the art of navigation the no less manifest intention of the Odyssey. For the improvement of this, their situation was most excellently adapted; and accordingly we find Thucydides, in the beginning of his history, considers the Greeks as a set of pirates or privateers, plundering each other by sea. This being probably the first institution of commerce before the Ars Cauponaria was invented, and merchants, instead of robbing, began to cheat and outwit each other, and by degrees changed the Metabletic, the only kind of traffic allowed by Aristotle in his Politics, into the Chrematistic. By this allegory then I suppose Ulysses to have been the captain of a merchant-ship, and Circe some good ale-wife, who made his crew drunk with the spirituous liquors of those days. With this the transformation into swine, as well as all other incidents of the fable, will notably agree; and thus a key will be found out for unlocking the whole mystery, and forging at least some meaning to a story which, at present, appears very strange and absurd. Hence, moreover, will appear the very near resemblance between the sea-faring men of all ages and nations; and here perhaps may be established the truth and justice of that observation, which will occur oftener than once in this voyage, that all human flesh is not the same flesh, but that there is one kind of flesh of landmen, and another of seamen. Philosophers, divines, and others, who have treated the gratification of human appetites with contempt, have, among other instances, insisted very strongly on that satiety which is so apt to overtake them even in the very act of enjoyment. And here they more particularly deserve our attention, as most of them may be supposed to speak from their own experience, and very probably gave us their lessons with a full stomach. Thus hunger and thirst, whatever delight they may afford while we are eating and drinking, pass both away from us with the plate and the cup; and though we should imitate the Romans, if, indeed, they were such dull beasts, which I can scarce believe, to unload the belly like a dung-pot, in order to fill it again with another load, yet would the pleasure be so considerably lessened that it would scarce repay us the trouble of purchasing it with swallowing a basin of camomile tea. A second haunch of venison, or a second dose of turtle, would hardly allure a city glutton with its smell. Even the celebrated Jew himself, when well filled with calipash and calipee, goes contentedly home to tell his money, and expects no more pleasure from his throat during the next twenty-four hours. Hence I suppose Dr. South took that elegant comparison of the joys of a speculative man to the solemn silence of an Archimedes over a problem, and those of a glutton to the stillness of a sow at her wash. A simile which, if it became the pulpit at all, could only become it in the afternoon. Whereas in those potations which the mind seems to enjoy, rather than the bodily appetite, there is happily no such satiety; but the more a man drinks, the more he desires; as if, like Mark Anthony in Dryden, his appetite increased with feeding, and this to such an immoderate degree, ut nullus sit desiderio aut pudor aut modus. Hence, as with the gang of Captain Ulysses, ensues so total a transformation, that the man no more continues what he was. Perhaps he ceases for a time to be at all; or, though he may retain the same outward form and figure he had before, yet is his nobler part, as we are taught to call it, so changed, that, instead of being the same man, he scarce remembers what he was a few hours before. And this transformation, being once obtained, is so easily preserved by the same potations, which induced no satiety, that the captain in vain sends or goes in quest of his crew. They know him no longer; or, if they do, they acknowledge not his power, having indeed as entirely forgotten themselves as if they had taken a large draught of the river of Lethe. Nor is the captain always sure of even finding out the place to which Circe hath conveyed them. There are many of those houses in every port-town. Nay, there are some where the sorceress doth not trust only to her drugs; but hath instruments of a different kind to execute her purposes, by whose means the tar is effectually secreted from the knowledge and pursuit of his captain. This would, indeed, be very fatal, was it not for one circumstance; that the sailor is seldom provided with the proper bait for these harpies. However, the contrary sometimes happens, as these harpies will bite at almost anything, and will snap at a pair of silver buttons, or buckles, as surely as at the specie itself. Nay, sometimes they are so voracious, that the very naked hook will go down, and the jolly young sailor is sacrificed for his own sake. In vain, at such a season as this, would the vows of a pious heathen have prevailed over Neptune, Aeolus, or any other marine deity. In vain would the prayers of a Christian captain be attended with the like success. The wind may change how it pleases while all hands are on shore; the anchor would remain firm in the ground, and the ship would continue in durance, unless, like other forcible prison-breakers, it forcibly got loose for no good purpose. Now, as the favor of winds and courts, and such like, is always to be laid hold on at the very first motion, for within twenty-four hours all may be changed again; so, in the former case, the loss of a day may be the loss of a voyage: for, though it may appear to persons not well skilled in navigation, who see ships meet and sail by each other, that the wind blows sometimes east and west, north and south, backwards and forwards, at the same instant; yet, certain it is that the land is so contrived, that even the same wind will not, like the same horse, always bring a man to the end of his journey; but, that the gale which the mariner prayed heartily for yesterday, he may as heartily deprecate to-morrow; while all use and benefit which would have arisen to him from the westerly wind of to-morrow may be totally lost and thrown away by neglecting the offer of the easterly blast which blows to-day. Hence ensues grief and disreputation to the innocent captain, loss and disappointment to the worthy merchant, and not seldom great prejudice to the trade of a nation whose manufactures are thus liable to lie unsold in a foreign warehouse the market being forestalled by some rival whose sailors are under a better discipline. To guard against these inconveniences the prudent captain takes every precaution in his power; he makes the strongest contracts with his crew, and thereby binds them so firmly, that none but the greatest or least of men can break through them with impunity; but for one of these two reasons, which I will not determine, the sailor, like his brother fish the eel, is too slippery to be held, and plunges into his element with perfect impunity. To speak a plain truth, there is no trusting to any contract with one whom the wise citizens of London call a bad man; for, with such a one, though your bond be ever so strong, it will prove in the end good for nothing. What then is to be done in this case? What, indeed, but to call in the assistance of that tremendous magistrate, the justice of peace, who can, and often doth, lay good and bad men in equal durance; and, though he seldom cares to stretch his bonds to what is great, never finds anything too minute for their detention, but will hold the smallest reptile alive so fast in his noose, that he can never get out till he is let drop through it. Why, therefore, upon the breach of those contracts, should not an immediate application be made to the nearest magistrate of this order, who should be empowered to convey the delinquent either to ship or to prison, at the election of the captain, to be fettered by the leg in either place? But, as the case now stands, the condition of this poor captain without any commission, and of this absolute commander without any power, is much worse than we have hitherto shown it to be; for, notwithstanding all the aforesaid contracts to sail in the good ship the Elizabeth, if the sailor should, for better wages, find it more his interest to go on board the better ship the Mary, either before their setting out or on their speedy meeting in some port, he may prefer the latter without any other danger than that of "doing what he ought not to have done," contrary to a rule which he is seldom Christian enough to have much at heart, while the captain is generally too good a Christian to punish a man out of revenge only, when he is to be at a considerable expense for so doing. There are many other deficiencies in our laws relating to maritime affairs, and which would probably have been long since corrected, had we any seamen in the House of Commons. Not that I would insinuate that the legislature wants a supply of many gentlemen in the sea-service; but, as these gentlemen are by their attendance in the house unfortunately prevented from ever going to sea, and there learning what they might communicate to their landed brethren, these latter remain as ignorant in that branch of knowledge as they would be if none but courtiers and fox-hunters had been elected into parliament, without a single fish among them. The following seems to me to be an effect of this kind, and it strikes me the stronger as I remember the case to have happened, and remember it to have been dispunishable. A captain of a trading vessel, of which he was part owner, took in a large freight of oats at Liverpool, consigned to the market at Bearkey: this he carried to a port in Hampshire, and there sold it as his own, and, freighting his vessel with wheat for the port of Cadiz, in Spain, dropped it at Oporto in his way; and there, selling it for his own use, took in a lading of wine, with which he sailed again, and, having converted it in the same manner, together with a large sum of money with which he was intrusted, for the benefit of certain merchants, sold the ship and cargo in another port, and then wisely sat down contented with the fortune he had made, and returned to London to enjoy the remainder of his days, with the fruits of his former labors and a good conscience. The sum he brought home with him consisted of near six thousand pounds, all in specie, and most of it in that coin which Portugal distributes so liberally over Europe. He was not yet old enough to be past all sense of pleasure, nor so puffed up with the pride of his good fortune as to overlook his old acquaintances the journeymen tailors, from among whom he had been formerly pressed into the sea-service, and, having there laid the foundation of his future success by his shares in prizes, had afterwards become captain of a trading vessel, in which he purchased an interest, and had soon begun to trade in the honorable manner above mentioned. The captain now took up his residence at an ale-house in Drury-lane, where, having all his money by him in a trunk, he spent about five pounds a day among his old friends the gentlemen and ladies of those parts. The merchant of Liverpool, having luckily had notice from a friend during the blaze of his fortune, did, by the assistance of a justice of peace, without the assistance of the law, recover his whole loss. The captain, however, wisely chose to refund no more; but, perceiving with what hasty strides Envy was pursuing his fortune, he took speedy means to retire out of her reach, and to enjoy the rest of his wealth in an inglorious obscurity; nor could the same justice overtake him time enough to assist a second merchant as he had done the first. This was a very extraordinary case, and the more so as the ingenious gentleman had steered entirely clear of all crimes in our law. Now, how it comes about that a robbery so very easy to be committed, and to which there is such immediate temptation always before the eyes of these fellows, should receive the encouragement of impunity, is to be accounted for only from the oversight of the legislature, as that oversight can only be, I think, derived from the reasons I have assigned for it. But I will dwell no longer on this subject. If what I have here said should seem of sufficient consequence to engage the attention of any man in power, and should thus be the means of applying any remedy to the most inveterate evils, at least, I have obtained my whole desire, and shall have lain so long wind-bound in the ports of this kingdom to some purpose. I would, indeed, have this work—which, if I should live to finish it, a matter of no great certainty, if indeed of any great hope to me, will be probably the last I shall ever undertake—to produce some better end than the mere diversion of the reader. Monday.—This day our captain went ashore, to dine with a gentleman who lives in these parts, and who so exactly resembles the character given by Homer of Axylus, that the only difference I can trace between them is, the one, living by the highway, erected his hospitality chiefly in favor of land-travelers; and the other, living by the water-side, gratified his humanity by accommodating the wants of the mariner. In the evening our commander received a visit from a brother bashaw, who lay wind-bound in the same harbor. This latter captain was a Swiss. He was then master of a vessel bound to Guinea, and had formerly been a privateering, when our own hero was employed in the same laudable service. The honesty and freedom of the Switzer, his vivacity, in which he was in no respect inferior to his near neighbors the French, the awkward and affected politeness, which was likewise of French extraction, mixed with the brutal roughness of the English tar—for he had served under the colors of this nation and his crew had been of the same—made such an odd variety, such a hotch-potch of character, that I should have been much diverted with him, had not his voice, which was as loud as a speaking-trumpet, unfortunately made my head ache. The noise which he conveyed into the deaf ears of his brother captain, who sat on one side of him, the soft addresses with which, mixed with awkward bows, he saluted the ladies on the other, were so agreeably contrasted, that a man must not only have been void of all taste of humor, and insensible of mirth, but duller than Cibber is represented in the Dunciad, who could be unentertained with him a little while; for, I confess, such entertainments should always be very short, as they are very liable to pall. But he suffered not this to happen at present; for, having given us his company a quarter of an hour only, he retired, after many apologies for the shortness of his visit. Tuesday.—The wind being less boisterous than it had hitherto been since our arrival here, several fishing-boats, which the tempestuous weather yesterday had prevented from working, came on board us with fish. This was so fresh, so good in kind, and so very cheap, that we supplied ourselves in great numbers, among which were very large soles at fourpence a pair, and whitings of almost a preposterous size at ninepence a score. The only fish which bore any price was a john doree, as it is called. I bought one of at least four pounds weight for as many shillings. It resembles a turbot in shape, but exceeds it in firmness and flavor. The price had the appearance of being considerable when opposed to the extraordinary cheapness of others of value, but was, in truth, so very reasonable when estimated by its goodness, that it left me under no other surprise than how the gentlemen of this country, not greatly eminent for the delicacy of their taste, had discovered the preference of the doree to all other fish: but I was informed that Mr. Quin, whose distinguishing tooth hath been so justly celebrated, had lately visited Plymouth, and had done those honors to the doree which are so justly due to it from that sect of modern philosophers who, with Sir Epicure Mammon, or Sir Epicure Quin, their head, seem more to delight in a fish-pond than in a garden, as the old Epicureans are said to have done. Unfortunately for the fishmongers of London, the doree resides only in those seas; for, could any of this company but convey one to the temple of luxury under the Piazza, where Macklin the high-priest daily serves up his rich offerings to that goddess, great would be the reward of that fishmonger, in blessings poured down upon him from the goddess, as great would his merit be towards the high-priest, who could never be thought to overrate such valuable incense. And here, having mentioned the extreme cheapness of fish in the Devonshire sea, and given some little hint of the extreme dearness with which this commodity is dispensed by those who deal in it in London, I cannot pass on without throwing forth an observation or two, with the same view with which I have scattered my several remarks through this voyage, sufficiently satisfied in having finished my life, as I have probably lost it, in the service of my country, from the best of motives, though it should be attended with the worst of success. Means are always in our power; ends are very seldom so. Of all the animal foods with which man is furnished, there are none so plenty as fish. A little rivulet, that glides almost unperceived through a vast tract of rich land, will support more hundreds with the flesh of its inhabitants than the meadow will nourish individuals. But if this be true of rivers, it is much truer of the sea-shores, which abound with such immense variety of fish that the curious fisherman, after he hath made his draught, often culls only the daintiest part and leaves the rest of his prey to perish on the shore. If this be true it would appear, I think, that there is nothing which might be had in such abundance, and consequently so cheap, as fish, of which Nature seems to have provided such inexhaustible stores with some peculiar design. In the production of terrestrial animals she proceeds with such slowness, that in the larger kind a single female seldom produces more than one a-year, and this again requires three, for, or five years more to bring it to perfection. And though the lesser quadrupeds, those of the wild kind particularly, with the birds, do multiply much faster, yet can none of these bear any proportion with the aquatic animals, of whom every female matrix is furnished with an annual offspring almost exceeding the power of numbers, and which, in many instances at least, a single year is capable of bringing to some degree of maturity. What then ought in general to be so plentiful, what so cheap, as fish? What then so properly the food of the poor? So in many places they are, and so might they always be in great cities, which are always situated near the sea, or on the conflux of large rivers. How comes it then, to look no farther abroad for instances, that in our city of London the case is so far otherwise that, except that of sprats, there is not one poor palate in a hundred that knows the taste of fish? It is true indeed that this taste is generally of such excellent flavor that it exceeds the power of French cookery to treat the palates of the rich with anything more exquisitely delicate; so that was fish the common food of the poor it might put them too much upon an equality with their betters in the great article of eating, in which, at present, in the opinion of some, the great difference in happiness between man and man consists. But this argument I shall treat with the utmost disdain: for if ortolans were as big as buzzards, and at the same time as plenty as sparrows, I should hold it yet reasonable to indulge the poor with the dainty, and that for this cause especially, that the rich would soon find a sparrow, if as scarce as an ortolan, to be much the greater, as it would certainly be the rarer, dainty of the two. Vanity or scarcity will be always the favorite of luxury; but honest hunger will be satisfied with plenty. Not to search deeper into the cause of the evil, I should think it abundantly sufficient to propose the remedies of it. And, first, I humbly submit the absolute necessity of immediately hanging all the fishmongers within the bills of mortality; and, however it might have been some time ago the opinion of mild and temporizing men that the evil complained of might be removed by gentler methods, I suppose at this day there are none who do not see the impossibility of using such with any effect. Cuncta prius tentanda might have been formerly urged with some plausibility, but cuncta prius tentata may now be replied: for surely, if a few monopolizing fishmongers could defeat that excellent scheme of the Westminster market, to the erecting which so many justices of peace, as well as other wise and learned men, did so vehemently apply themselves, that they might be truly said not only to have laid the whole strength of their heads, but of their shoulders too, to the business, it would be a vain endeavor for any other body of men to attempt to remove so stubborn a nuisance. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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