Our cargo was now nearly all taken in; and my old friend, the Pilgrim, having completed her discharge, unmoored, to set sail the next morning on another long trip to windward. I was just thinking of her hard lot, and congratulating myself upon my escape from her, when I received a summons into the cabin. I went aft, and there found, seated round the cabin table, my own captain, Captain Faucon of the Pilgrim, and Mr. R⸺, the agent. Captain T⸺ turned to me and asked abruptly—
“D⸺, do you want to go home in the ship?”
“Certainly, sir,” said I; “I expect to go home in the ship.”
“Then,” said he, “you must get someone to go in your place on board the Pilgrim.”
I was so completely “taken aback” by this sudden intimation, that for a moment I could make no reply. I knew that it would be hopeless to attempt to prevail upon any of the ship’s crew to take twelve months more upon the California in the brig. I knew, too, that Captain T⸺ had received orders to bring me home in the Alert, and he had told me, when I was at the hide house, that I was to go home in her; and even if this had not been so, it was cruel to give me no notice of the step they were going to take, until a few hours before the brig would sail. As soon as I had got my wits about me, I put on a bold front, and told him plainly that I had a letter in my chest informing me that he had been written to, by the owners in Boston, to bring me home in the ship, and moreover, that he had told me that I was to go in the ship.
To have this told him, and to be opposed in such a manner, was more than my lord paramount had been used to.
He turned fiercely upon me, and tried to look me down, and face me out of my statement; but finding that that wouldn’t do, and that I was entering upon my defence in such a way as would show to the other two that he was in the wrong—he changed his ground, and pointed to the shipping papers of the Pilgrim, from which my name had never been erased, and said that there was my name—that I belonged to her—that he had an absolute discretionary power—and, in short, that I must be on board the Pilgrim by the next morning with my chest and hammock, or have someone ready to go in my place, and that he would not hear another word from me. No court or star chamber241 could proceed more summarily with a poor devil, than this trio was about to do with me; condemning me to a punishment worse than a Botany Bay242 exile, and to a fate which would alter the whole current of my future life; for two years more in California would have made me a sailor for the rest of my days. I felt all this, and saw the necessity of being determined. I repeated what I had said, and insisted upon my right to return in the ship.
I “raised my arm, and tauld my crack,
Before them a’.”
But it would have all availed me nothing, had I been “some poor body,” before this absolute, domineering tribunal. But they saw that I would not go, unless “vi et armis,”243 and they knew that I had friends and interest enough at home to make them suffer for any injustice they might do me. It was probably this that turned the matter; for the captain changed his tone entirely, and asked me if, in case anyone went in my place, I would give him the same sum that S⸺ gave Harris to exchange with him. I told him that if anyone was sent on board the brig, I should pity him, and be willing to help him to that, or almost any amount; but would not speak of it as an exchange.
“Very well,” said he. “Go forward about your business, and send English Ben here to me!”
I went forward with a light heart, but feeling as angry, and as much contempt as I could well contain between my teeth. English Ben was sent aft, and in a few moments came forward, looking as though he had received his sentence to be hung. The captain had told him to get his things ready to go on board the brig the next morning; and that I would give him thirty dollars and a suit of clothes. The hands had “knocked off” for dinner, and were standing about the forecastle, when Ben came forward and told his story. I could see plainly that it made a great excitement, and that, unless I explained the matter to them, the feeling would be turned against me. Ben was a poor English boy, a stranger in Boston, and without friends or money; and being an active, willing lad, and a good sailor for his years, was a general favorite. “Oh, yes!” said the crew, “the captain has let you off, because you are a gentleman’s son, and have got friends, and know the owners; and taken Ben, because he is poor, and has got nobody to say a word for him!” I knew that this was too true to be
