Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers by J. H. Hubback (top 10 novels .TXT) 📖
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After these two minor troubles, a very difficult matter came before Francis Austen, and his skill and courtesy in dealing with it earned him the unqualified thanks of the East India Company, besides some more substantial recognition. Just when the St. Albans and her convoy were prepared to put to sea again, they were informed that the “Chops” would not be granted to them, or the ships allowed to depart. The reason given was that a Chinaman had been killed in the town, and, it was stated, by an Englishman. This was a serious matter to deal with, as the evidence was most difficult to collect—the Chinese were thorough-paced liars—and every day of delay now made it more and more likely that the convoy would encounter bad weather on the way home. The Viceroy insisted that the English officers should themselves discover the offender, while Captain Austen pointed out that they had no means of knowing anything about the matter, even if the culprit were one of their own men, and that the police of Canton were more likely to be successful in discovering the offender. In a letter to Admiral Drury, Commander-in-Chief in India, Francis Austen feelingly remarks: “I need not detail to you, Sir, who are so well aware of them, the difficulties that oppose and retard the discussion of any question with the Chinese from various causes, but especially from the want of efficient means of getting our sentiments properly and faithfully rendered into Chinese, nor the pertinacity with which they adhere to any opinion they have once assumed, or assertion once made, in defiance of justice, equity and common sense. You know them all. But when 1 reflect upon these obstacles, and the general character of the people, I cannot help feeling in how very arduous a situation I am placed, and what important consequences may result from my conduct.” The evidence of the two witnesses was certainly not of a sort to make matters easy for the Committee appointed to examine the question. “One states there was neither noise nor fighting, the other that there was noise and he saw fighting for ten minutes, although not being present at the commencement of it he knew not how much longer it might have been going on. Again one of them stated that he knew nothing of the business and was not with the deceased when he was stabbed, and immediately afterwards stated that he saw him stabbed, and was only four cubits from him at the time. One of them states it to be quite dark, and the other that it was moonlight.”
In spite of all this, when the insufficiency of the evidence was pointed out to the Mandarins, they, “like true Chinese Mandarins (which designation, perhaps, comprises every bad quality which has disgraced human nature), insisted that, as we must now be clearly convinced that the offender was an Englishman, we could no longer have any pretence for withholding him from justice, and therefore would, of course, give him up to be tried according to the laws of China. A Mandarin is not a reasoning animal, nor ought to be treated as a rational one.”
The matter was finally settled by allowing the British ships to depart on condition that there was an inquiry held during the voyage home, the result of which was to be communicated from England to China on the arrival of the St. Albans and convoy. This seems a truly Chinese mode of arrangement, but not wholly unsatisfactory, as it was discovered that three of the men on the Cumberland (one of the Indiamen) had been engaged in the riot, and carrying arms at the time, so that there was some presumptive evidence for their being the actual perpetrators of the deed. The St. Albans was back in England by July, with the convoy, calling at St. Helena on the way.
His long service as midshipman must have made the navigation in the China Seas tolerably familiar to Captain Austen. The points mentioned in this part of the log have a peculiar interest at the moment of writing this chapter (May 1905), when we have all been watching the great drama of the Russian fleet’s approach to Japanese waters, followed by their destruction, more complete than that of the vanquished at Trafalgar. Cape Varella, Natuna and Saputa Islands, and the Paracels, are all amongst the log records. Passing the latter group seems to have been always an anxious time, as shoals are frequent northward of Singapore, which town, by the way, had no apparent existence in 1809.
There is a curious correspondence, partly by signal, on the passage down the China Seas:
“March 16, 1810.—At 1 P.M. telegraph signal to Perseverance (one of the tea-ships of the convoy): ‘Do you know anything of the shoal called the Dogger Bank, and which side would you recommend passing it?”
“Perseverance answers, ‘The shoal is doubtful. I should wish to pass to the eastward of it.’
“At 3 o’clock the Glatton (another of the tea-laden Indiamen) made signal to speak with us. Shortened sail.
“At 4, Captain Halliburton informed me that the Dogger Bank is by no means doubtful, having himself been in a ship which was aground on it. They found it exceedingly irregular.”
The connection of the name with the “untoward incident” of October 1904 and the Russian fleet is a coincidence.
One of the outline sketches which occur in the logs is that of Krakatoa Island, in the Straits of Sunda. This mountain was partially destroyed in 1882 by the immense eruption of volcanic matter, which coloured the sunsets all over the world many months afterwards.
Francis Austen was superseded in the St. Albans in September 1810 by his own wish. He naturally wanted a short time without employment to spend with his wife, who had not had much of his society since their marriage.
From December in the same year till May 1811 he was stationed off the coast of France as Flag-Captain to Lord Gambier in the Caledonia. After this there was another holiday of about two months, spent with his wife and children in paying visits. Jane’s letters speak of their being at Steventon, and of a projected visit to Chawton.
On July 18, 1811, he took command of the Elephant, and became again concerned in the Napoleonic wars.
THE time of Captain Austen’s service in the Elephant is divided into three periods. For over a year she was employed with Admiral Young’s fleet in the North Sea, which was stationed there to watch Vice-Admiral Missiessy, then at anchor at the mouth of the Scheldt, ready to slip out if occasion offered. The ships under his command had been newly built in Napoleon’s great dockyard of Flushing, which was rendered ineffective by the constant British blockade. In the autumn of 1812 the Elephant was cruising off the Azores with the Ph���be and Hermes. The disputes concerning trade had by this time resulted in war with the United States. On this cruise we have the record in the log of the capture of an American privateer, the Swordfish.
“December 27.—At two, saw a strange sail bearing W. by N. Made the signal to the Hermes with a gun. Made all sail in chace. At sunset, chace distant two miles. The chace had all the appearance of an armed vessel.
“28.—Fired several shots at the chace. At five minutes to two perceived her hoist two lights and bring to. At two shortened sail, hove to, boarded, and took possession of the chace, which proved to be the American schooner privateer Swordfish, out sixteen days from Boston, armed with twelve six-pounders and eighty.two men. During the chace ten of her guns and several spars were thrown overboard.”
After her return to England with the prize and another turn at the Flushing blockade, the Elephant was ordered to the Baltic. They were engaged in convoying vast numbers of small vessels through the Sound and the Belt past the coasts of Denmark, which was still under the power of France, and in keeping at a distance such armed craft of the enemy as were dangerous. We find, in these short cruises to and fro, as many as two hundred and fifty or three hundred sail in company, under the charge of three or four men-of-war. An entry in the log on October io will show the nature of the work: “A boat from the Zealous came with letters for the Admiral, and to say that the galliott chaced yesterday was one which had drifted out of the convoy the preceding night, and was captured in the morning by a row-boat privateer off Nascoi, which, on the Zealous’ approach, abandoned her and escaped into Femerin. It appearing on examining the master of the galliott that he never had belonged to the convoy, but had merely joined them off Anholt and continued with them for security sake, without applying for instructions, it was decided to consider the vessel as a recapture, and to take her on to Carlskrona as such. She is called the Neptunus, Daniel Sivery, master, belonging to Gottenberg, and bound from that place to Stralsund with a cargo of rice, sugar, coffee, and indigo.”
The Island of Anholt, captured in 1809, was a possession of great importance to the English when engaged in this work, on account of its lighthouse, which could signal to the ships of the convoy and keep them all in their places. Of this island Captain Austen had a few words to say which show that its importance lay therein alone. After a lengthy and minute description of the lighthouse and all which appertained to it, he continues: “The garrison at present consists of about three men of a veteran battalion, and a few marine artillery, which form by many degrees the most considerable portion of the population, for, exclusive of the military and their appendages of wives and children, there are but sixteen families on the island, who all reside at the only village on it, near the high ground to the westward, and whose principal occupation is fishing, in which they are generally very successful during the summer.
“Antecedent to the war between England and Denmark and the consequent occupation of the island by the English, the Anholters paid a small rent to the proprietor of the soil, who is a Danish nobleman residing at Copenhagen; but at present they are considered and fed as prisoners of war by the English. They are an exceedingly poor people, and seem to enjoy but a small proportion of worldly comfort.”
The Island of Rugen, which was another anchoring station for the Elephant, was the only portion of the conquests of Gustavus Adolphus which still remained under the Swedish flag. The whole tract of country which he conquered was called Swedish Pomerania, but the mainland districts had lately been occupied by part of Napoleon’s army under Marshal Brune.
Of Rugen, Captain Austen writes: “The British ships of war were not supplied with fresh beef and vegetables whilst the Elephant was there, and I understood because (though they might have been procured) the price was too great, which may probably be in a great degree owing to the neighbouring part of Pomerania having been last year occupied by the French troops, and having suffered much from the effects of war, as well as having still large armies in its vicinity, which must of course very materially affect the state of the markets for provisions of all kinds.”
While the Elephant was employed in this way in
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