The King's Own ... Illustrated by F. H. Townseud. With an introduction by D. Hannay

Introduction

BY DAVID IIANNAY Honfion MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO. 1896 All rights reserved introduction The Kittys Own, Frank Mildmay, or the Naval Officer, and Newton Forster are the work of Marryat's prentice hand. Frank Mildmay was the first to appear in 1829, while the author was still at sea in command of the Ariadne, but it appears that he had already written The King's Own. The internal evidence would show that it came first in his written work. It is a more interesting book than Newton Forster, and contains several passages which are among the best he ever wrote ; but it has a fault of construction which Marryat's experience had taught him to avoid by the time he had reached his third story. What that fault was he has him self confessed with candour just towards the end, in a passage of rather laboured effusion, to the reader. ' And now she (viz. The King's Own) is afloat, I must candidly acknowledge that I am not exactly pleased with her.

To speak technically, her figure-head is not thrown out enough. To translate this observation into plain English, I find, on turning over the different chapters, that my hero, as I have often designated him, is not sufficiently the hero of my tale. As soon as he is shipped on board a man-of war he becomes as insignificant as a midshipman must unavoidably be from his humble situation. I see the error, but I cannot correct it without overthrowing all " rules and regulations," which I cannot persuade myself to do, even in a work of fiction. Trammelled as I am by "the service," I THE KING'S OWN can only plead guilty to what it is impossible to amend without commencing de novo — for everything and everybody must find their level on board of a king's ship. Well, I've one comfort left — Sir Walter Scott has never succeeded in making a hero ; or, in other words, his best characters are not those which commonly go under the designation of "the hero."

I am afraid there is something irreclaimably insipid in these preux chevaliers.' Now there is truth in the concluding general remark, as well as some artfulness in the use of Sir Walter Scott's example for defensive purposes. The hero — the type commonly called by that name in romances — is always in danger of being insipid. It is his misfortune to be perfect, and your perfect men, as Carlyle said in a characteristic outburst, are 'a limited uninteresting sort.' Where there is no fault and no absurdity, there is also, as a rule, no character. But though the criticism is accurate, the plea is not sufficient, and though the use of Sir Walter's example is artful, it is also a little too flattering to Marryat. The fault of William Seymour, whose real name was De Courcy, is not so much that he is insipid, as that he is, during much the greater part of the story, non-existent.

He disappears, and the actors who fill the stage behave with no reference to him. Now that is not commonly the case with Sir Walter Scott's heroes. Ivanhoe is not so much a 'best character ' as Wamba, nor is Neville by any means so much alive as Monkbams or Edie Ochiltree. Quentin Durward (though he is more than the blameless gallant hero) is over shadowed by Louis XI., by the Duke of Burgundy, and by the Balafre ; but if any of the three were taken out, the story would fall to pieces. Sir Walter Scott's hero is at least the string to the pearls, and gives the story, however loosely it may appear to be constructed, a certain coherence. The

INTRODUCTION.

King's Own is naught, he is not even an ' insipid ' hero, but a mere subordinate personage who drops in and out, in a fashion fairly describable as casual. As a natural con sequence, there is no story, in the proper sense of the word, but only a succession of incidents which have no necessary connection with one another, and might be rearranged in any order without injury. It is, to labour Marryat's own image, not so much that the figure-head is not thrown out enough as that there are no beams and no knee timbers. The King's Own is not a ship, but only a heap of materials for making one. This misfortune was not incurred by the author through want of taking heed. It is clear that Marryat tried seriously to provide The King's Own with a plot according to art, but with the result of showing not only that his strength did not lie in this side of the novelist's work, but that he was still quite without practice in the handling of even the most familiar story machinery.

The plot, such as it is, of The King's Oivn is not perhaps the worse for being very old. We allow and respect the venerable antiquity of ' the long lost heir.' We have no objection to meet him again, and look forward cheerfully to his reappearance in many future stories. But it is not enough to take him ready-made from the property-room of novelists, and apply him in a mechanical manner to a heap of incidents suggested by your experience ; and Marryat did no more. Indeed it is to be noted that he had little other resource than this whenever he wanted to construct a plot. He had recourse to the same device in Newton Forster, in The Pirate, in Percival Keene, with a slight variation, and even in Peter Simple ; for it may surely be said without too much of a bull, that the supposititious child is own brother to the long-lost heir.

Marryat con fessed, or it would perhaps be more accurate to say boasted, X THE KING'S OWN in Newton Forster that ' his wayward intellect ' could not submit to the slavery of working out a story on a plan. It came easier to him to follow the simpler scheme of the novela de picaros, of Le Sage and Defoe — to give, that is to say, a succession of adventures, and provide for the unity of his tale by taking care that they should occur to, or at least be connected with, his hero. He had found this out when he wrote Frank Mildmay, and when he was best inspired did not forget his limitations. Another and an exasperating proof of the author's in experience is the unhappy ending. It is contrary to all experience, sense, and reason that the long-lost heir should not enjoy his estate, and the heroine, at the end of his adventures.

If ever there was a story which ought to have ended happily it was The King's Own. Nothing in it makes a disastrous close inevitable, and the poisoning of Willie Seymour only strikes us as a mere piece of awkwardness. The excuse, such as it is, for a sad piece of bungling, must be sought in inexperience. Marryat, one imagines, asked himself how he could stir the emotions of his reader, and hit upon this deplorable device. With a little more practice he soon learnt to avoid the error, which in this case is particularly unfortunate because the sham melodrama of the murder of Seymour and the suicide of Rainscourt is not only quite out of place, but constitutes a clumsy anti climax, coming as it does just after the real tragedy of the driving ashore of the French liner, and the wreck of the frigate.

As for Mr. Rainscourt and his wife, and his murder of his wife, and the unpleasant clowning which follows, they make a very disagreeable excrescence. Marryat forgot now and then that buffoonery can be made nauseous. He invented and wrote the vacant horseplay with Mrs. Rains court's heart in one of his moments of forgetfulness.

INTRODUCTION.

Yet if the manuscript had been shown to a judicious friend he would have abstained from advising Marryat not to publish. When every deduction is made, the story is full of good things, and of promises of better. It may not be well built, and the hero may be a figure-head which has not even the merit of being in place, but it is full of excellent scenes. The novelty of much of its matter would have been in its favour seventy years ago. To-day we have to say of Marryat that he has had no rival as a painter of the sea life. When he wrote he had really no predecessor, if we except Smollett, with whom one may for piety's sake class Falconer. In Frank Mildmay he may be said to have modelled him self on Smollett, but there are no signs of this influence in Tlie King's Own. Here Marryat was writing from his own funds, and the sea-scenes of the book are full of his best qualities.

His essential humanity, kindness, and good sense are to be found in all the mutiny scenes at the beginning. I do not know where a better picture will be found of the ' breeze at Spithead,' or the mutiny at the Nore. It was not easy for a naval officer, living so near events of which it was not the custom of naval officers to speak, to hold the balance fair between the undoubted wrongs of the men, and their no less undoubted excesses. Mutiny was, in his time, a very serious word. Marryat avoids either of the possible extremes open to him. He neither represents the outbreak of the men as wholly criminal, nor does he deny that mutiny, however much it may be provoked by ill-usage, is a crime. As a picture of the combination of oppression and weakness, which culminate in partly driving, and partly tempting, men to mutiny, nothing can be better than the description of the conduct of Captain A .

The his tory of the mutiny at the Nore is not easy to write. It was not much talked about either by those who were THE KING'S OWN responsible, and had therefore motives for being silent, or by those who were not, but were restrained by professional loyalty from speaking out. Yet we know enough to be able to say that Marryat could have quoted chapter and verse for every incident in these opening chapters which is not manifestly invented for the purpose of romance. The battle scenes, again, are no less true. Marryat had himself served in the expedition to Walcheren, and was well acquainted with the nature of a 'combined operation.' He condensed the fruits of his experience in the often-quoted sentence, 'The army thought that the navy might have beaten down stone ramparts ten feet thick ; and the navy wondered why the army had not walked up the same ramparts which were thirty feet perpendicular.' The judicious friend whose advice I imagine would have been in favour of publishing, would unquestionably have been struck by the sober force of Marryat's description of a fight.

Here, we can imagine him saying, is somebody who will interpret all these years of sea-fighting for us — not perhaps the science of it, for which most of us do not care, but its look, the manner of the thing, and its heroism. The driving ashore of the French liner would of itself have saved the book from condemnation in the opinion of any sane judge. Here Marryat was dealing with the tragedy he knew, and his mastery is undeniable. If the official hero of The King's Own is insipid, so is not the real hero, Captain M . The supposition that Marryat drew this model of the naval officer from Cochrane is plausible, but it may easily be pushed too far. There was much in Cochrane which was not in Captain M , and which the imaginary officer was to be complimented on wanting. The truth probably is that Marryat took nothing from Cochrane except his seamanship when he drew this portrait of the perfect

INTRODUCTION.

frigate captain. Neither is it likely that he expressly copied the destruction of Les Droits de I Homme. That feat of Sir E. Pellew's was in fact smaller, less heroic than Captain M 's magnificent piece of devotion. It probably sup plied Marryat with no more than the starting-point. We have to take the driving ashore of the Frenchman as a picture, not of anything which actually happened, but as what might have been done, given a captain of indomitable strength of will, and the fitting occasion. In truth, the book can never have been in danger from a competent judge when once he had begun to make acquaintance with its sailors. M'Elvina, and the Channel Islander, Debriseau, who had a great natural affection both for England and France, and who was prepared to fight for either or to smuggle for both, are a very engaging couple.

Whether the Channel Islands, which are very loyal, will accept Debriseau as a true portrait, is possibly a question, but I am inclined to think that Marryat had met him while he was doing 'preventive' work in the Channel. M'Elvina is a type of which Marryat is rather fond : the brisk rogue who by some strange process, not easy to be understood, becomes honest. He is not convincingly true to life, but he is decidedly amusing. The scenes of the gun-room and the midshipmen's mess need no praise. Billy Pitt holds a high place in the long line of Marryat's negroes, and is a most sufficient comic figure. Jerry, too, is entitled to honourable mention, if only because he is the first of Marryat's midshipmen. Nor are Mr. and Mrs. Skrimmage to be forgotten, and the husband's pathetic appeal on her behalf.

As for Captain Capperbar and the 'ship,' they have all the value of ' a document ' ; of itself that is no great matter, but when the document is amusing, it is none the worse for being also instructive. If there are any who incline THE KING'S OWN to treat Marryat as a mere amuser of boys, they may find a worse way of being cured of their heresy than by taking this book, which is not among his four or five best, and when they have read it, summing up the scenes and persons who leave a distinct impression on the memory. Who forgets the escape of the lugger, or the wreck, or the Hoogly pilot who was 'captain of his own ship,' or a good dozen other persons and scenes ? None of these are common place, nor are any merely fantastic. They are all fragments of human life, old-fashioned in their mere trappings, no doubt, valuable for the glimpses they give into a world now passed away, yet not likely to become obsolete, because below the dress and outward form there is truth to universal human nature in them which will always give them vitality. list of illustrations PAGE ' Fare you well, then, sir. May God turn your heart ! ' Frontispiece ' For God's sake, do not fire, Peters ' . . .14 He easily persuaded him to undergo the pain of the operation . 21 ' You have begun well, my boy,' said the old man faintly . 43 ' Let us see — "Delamere!" that's too puppyish.

"Fortescue!" don't like that. " Seymour !" Yes, that will do' . 47 He succeeded in obtaining some wine from the cask . . 53 ' Be honest, always be honest, it's the best policy ' . .58 ' Pat, you'll certainly be hung ' . . . .65 ' Honesty is a scarce commodity, young man,' said he . 7° ' You burnt my dog nose ; vat you mean, sare ? ' . . 78 ' I presume that you would be very much inclined to take him in tow — eh, Miss ? ' . . . . -93 To ascertain whether they were darned or not . .106 The whole household were assembled, lining the hall for the visitors to pass . . . . - .108 ' Then it was to you that I was indebted for that well-timed assistance,' said Captain M , taking the hat from the boatswain's mate . . . . .118 'You may, if you please, madam' . . . .

J25 'I'm afraid, Barney, that I must open it' . . • '47 Gently admitting himself, he discovered Susan sitting opposite to the window, with" her back towards him . .160 THE KING'S OWN PAGE The servants were desired to show him the street door . 172 ' By Jove, I'd as soon see my wife ! ' . . . .174 'Well, I do declare I've lost, Prose' . . . 1 So ' When they would have returned the blows from this stalwart arm, I immediately turned edgeways to them, and was invisible' . . . . . .210 ' Never answered my question, too — well, now that's what I consider to be most excessively annoying ' . . 213 ' Us ne sont que seize, et nous sommes ' . . .221 ' None of your d — d blue skies here ' . . . .261 But the bull had no quarrel with a lady . . . 268 With difficulty she perceived with her swimming eyes that there was a gentleman in the parlour . . . .270 ' Why, to shell peas ' ..... 293 Felt his case to be still more embarrassing . . . 297 ' Don't you think that Miss Rainscourt's nose is rather too straight ? ' . . . . . . 340 ' Marry his wife again ! — no, no, Bill ' . . . 345 Rainscourt's plan had been successful . . . 347 ' I do declare, Mr. Potts, you are a complete fool ' . . 354 ' Take that heart, and throw it away immediately ' . . 357 ' Come, come, Jack, now you're bamming me ' . . 363 The bitterest tears which were shed were those when she threw herself on that sofa ..... 367 ' She's an angel of light ! ' . . . . , 403 ' Pardon, Monsieur, ce n'est pas ma saute ' . . .414 ' Why not get some arsenic ? ' . . . .419 ' Och, och hone ! ' . . . . . . 425 Found Rainscourt dead upon the floor . . .

Chapter I

However boldly their warm blood was spilt, Their life was shame, their epitaph was guilt ; And this they knew and felt, at least the one, The leader of the band he had undone, — Who, born for better things, had madly set His Use upon a cast, which linger'd yet. Byron. There is perhaps no event in the annals of our history which excited more alarm at the time of its occurrence, or has since been the subject of more general interest, than the Mutiny at the Nore, in the year 1797. Forty thousand men, to whom the nation looked for defence from its surrounding enemies, and in steadfast reliance upon whose bravery it lay down every night in tranquillity, — men who had dared everything for their king and country, and in whose breasts patriotism, although suppressed for the time, could never be extinguished, — irritated by ungrateful neglect on the one hand, and by seditious advisers on the other, turned the guns which they had so often manned in defence of the English flag against their own countrymen and their own home, and, with all the acrimony of feeling ever attending family quarrels, seemed determined to sacrifice the nation and themselves, rather than listen to the dictates of reason and of conscience.

Doubtless there is a point at which endurance of oppression ceases to be a virtue, and rebellion can no longer be considered as a crime ; but it is a dangerous and intricate problem, the solution of which had better not be attempted. It must, how ever, be acknowledged, that the seamen, on the occasion of the first mutiny, had just grounds of complaint, and that they did not proceed to acts of violence until repeated and humble remonstrance had been made in vain. >/ b 1 E Whether we act in a body or individually, such is the infirmity and selfishness of human nature, that we often sur render to importunity that which we refuse to the dictates of gratitude, — yielding, for our own comfort, to the demands of turbulence, while quiet unpretending merit is overlooked and oppressed, until, roused by neglect, it demands, as a right, what policy alone should have granted as a favour.

Such was the behaviour, on the part of Government, which produced the mutiny at the Nore. What mechanism is more complex than the mind of man ? And as, in all machinery, there are wheels and springs of action not apparent without close examination of the interior, so pride, ambition, avarice, love, play alternately or conjointly upon the human mind, which, under their influence, is whirled round like the weathercock in the hurricane, only pointing for a short time in one direction, but for that time steadfastly. How difficult, then, to analyse the motives and inducements which actuated the several ringleaders in this dreadful crisis ! Let us, therefore, confine ourselves to what we do really know to have been the origin of discontent in one of these men, whose unfortunate career is intimately connected with this history.

Edward Peters was a man of talent and education. He had entered on board the in a fit of desperation, to obtain the bounty for a present support, and his pay as a future pro vision for his wife, and an only child, the fruit of a hasty and unfortunate marriage. He was soon distinguished as a person of superior attainments ; and instead of being employed, as a landsman usually is, in the afterguard, or waist, of the ship, he was placed under the orders of the purser and captain's clerk as an amanuensis. In this capacity he remained two or three years, approved of and treated with unusual respect by the officers, for his gentlemanlike appearance and behaviour : but unfortunately a theft had been committed, — a watch, of trifling value, had been purloined from the purser's cabin ; and, as he was the only person, with the exception of the servant, who had free ingress and egress, suspicion fell upon him — the more so as, after every search that could be made had proved ineffectual, it was supposed that the purloined property had been sent on shore to be disposed of by his wife, who, with his child, had frequently been permitted to visit him on board.

Summoned on the quarter-deck — cross-examined, and harshly interrogated — called a scoundrel by the captain before conviction, — the proud blood mantled in the cheeks of one who, at that period, was incapable of crime. The blush of virtuous indignation was construed into presumptive evidence of guilt. The captain, — a superficial, presuming, pompous, yet cowardly creature, whose conduct assisted in no small degree to excite the mutiny on board of his own ship, — declared himself quite convinced of Peters's guilt, because he blushed at the bare idea of being suspected ; and punishment ensued, with all the degradation allotted to an offence which is never forgiven on board of a man-of-war. There is, perhaps, no crime that is attended with such serious consequences on board a ship as theft. A succession of thefts undiscovered will disintegrate a ship's company, break up the messes, destroy all confidence and harmony, and occasion those who have been the dearest friends to become the greatest enemies : for whom can a person suspect, when he has lost his property, in so confined a space, but those who were acquainted with its being in his possession, and with the place in which it was deposited ? — and who are these but his own messmates, or those in whom he most confided ?

After positive conviction, no punishment can be too severe for a crime that produces such mischief; but to degrade a man by corporal punishment, to ruin his character, and render him an object of abhorrence and contempt, in the absence of even bare presumptive evidence, was an act of cruelty and injustice which could excite but one feeling ; and, from that day, the man who would have gloried in dying for his country became a discontented, gloomy, and dangerous subject. The above effect would have been produced in any man ; but to Peters, whose previous history we have yet to narrate, death itself would have been preferable. His heart did not break, but it swelled with contending passions, till it was burst and riven with wounds never to be cicatrised. Suffering under the most painful burthen that can oppress a man who values reputation, writhing with the injustice of accusation when innocent, of conviction without proof, and of punishment un merited, it is not to be wondered at that Peters took the earliest opportunity of deserting from the ship.

There is a particular feeling pervading animal nature, from which man himself is not exempt. Indeed, with all his boasted reason, man still inherits too many of the propensities of the brute creation. I refer to that disposition which not only inclines us to feel satisfaction at finding we have companions in misfortune, but too often stimulates us to increase the number by our own exertions. From the stupendous elephant, down to the smallest of the feathered tribe, all will act as a decoy to their own species, when in captivity themselves ; and, in all compulsory service, which may be considered a species of captivity, man proves that he is imbued with the same pro pensity. Seamen that have been pressed themselves into the navy are invariably the most active in pressing others ; and both soldiers and sailors have a secret pleasure in recapturing a deserter, even at the very time when they are watching an opportunity to desert themselves.

The bonds of friendship seem destroyed when this powerful and brutal feeling is called into action ; and, as has frequently occurred in the service, before and since, the man who was selected by Peters as his most intimate friend, the man with whom he had consulted, and to whom he had confided his plans for desertion, gave information of the retreat of his wife and child, from which place Peters was not likely to be very distant ; and thus, with the assistance of this, his dearest friend, the master-at-arms and party in quest of him succeeded in his capture. It so happened that, on the very day on which Peters was brought on board and put into irons, the purser's servant was discovered to have in his possession the watch that had been lost. Thus far the character of Peters was reinstated ; and as he had declared, at the time of his capture, that the unjust punishment which he had received had been the motive of his desertion, the captain was strongly urged by the officers to overlook an offence which had everything to be offered in its extenuation.

But Captain A was fond of courts-martial ; he imagined that they added to his consequence, which certainly required to be upheld by adventitious aid. Moreover, the feeling, too often pervading little minds, that of a dislike taken to a person because you have injured him, and the pre ferring to accumulate injustice rather than to acknowledge error, had more than due weight with this weak man. A court-martial was held, and Peters was sentenced to death ; but, in consideration of circumstances, the sentence was mitigated to that of being ' flogged round the fleet.' Mitigated ! Strange vanity in men, that they should imagine their own feelings to be more sensible and acute than those of others ; that they should consider that a mitigation in favour of the prisoner, which, had they been placed in his situation, they would have declared an accumulation of the punishment.

Not a captain who sat upon that court-martial but would have considered, as Peters did, that death was by far the more lenient sentence of the two. Yet they meant well — they felt kindly towards him, and acknowledged his provocations ; but they fell into the too common error of supposing that the finer feelings, which induce a man to prefer death to dishonour, are only to be recognised among the higher classes ; and that, because circumstances may have placed a man before the mast, he will undergo punishment, however severe, however degrading — in short, every ' ill that flesh is heir to,'- — in preference to death. As the reader may not, perhaps, be acquainted with the nature of the punishment to which Peters was sentenced, and the ceremonies by which it is attended, I shall enter into a short description of it.

A man sentenced to be flogged round the fleet receives an equal part of the whole number of lashes awarded, alongside each ship composing that fleet. For instance, if sentenced to three hundred lashes, in a fleet composed of ten sail, he will receive thirty alongside of each ship. A launch is fitted up with a platform and shears. It is occupied by the unfortunate individual, the provost-marshal, the boatswain and his mates, with their implements of office, and armed marines stationed at the bow and stern. When the signal is made for punishment, all the ships in the fleet send one or two boats each, with crews cleanly dressed, the officers in full uniform, and marines under arms. These boats collect at the side of the ship where the launch is lying, the hands are turned up, and the ship's company are ordered to mount the rigging, to witness that portion of the whole punish ment which, after the sentence has been read, is inflicted upon the prisoner.