Newton Forster ... With illustrations by E. J. Sullivan, and an introduction by David Hannay

Introduction

BY DAVID HANNAY Hontion MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY i897 All rights reserved

INTRODUCTION.

Newton Forster stands third in order, both of publication and composition, among Captain Marryat's novels. It appeared in 1832, and was probably written in the previous year. He had resigned his last command in 1830. The story, therefore, belongs to his first period of freedom on shore, and it must be acknowledged to be none the better on that account. What we know of Marryat's life proves that he made haste to enjoy his liberation from servitude, and that he lived in circumstances by no means favourable to careful composition. Then, although he had already written two books, he had still not quite found his way. There are indications in Newton Forster that he was making experiments in what is unquestionably one of the most fatal of all styles, unless the note is struck very exactly indeed. 'So now, reader,' he says in a superfluous introductory chapter, ' you may understand that I continue to write, as Tony Lumpkin says, not to please my good-natured friends, but because I can't bear to disappoint myself; for that which I commenced as an amusement, and continued as a drudgery, has ended in becoming a confirmed habit.' The reader's answer to this example of the* hoity-toity style is easy: ' Write to please yourself by all means, my dear sir, but you will permit me not to like your work, unless it is written to my taste.' Carlyle reminded the bookmaker who boasted of NEWTON FORSTER the speed with which he had written, that the question was not how quickly he wrote, but how well.

It would in deed be pedantic to get up a case against Marryat for this ill-advised piece of ostentation ; to point out to him that a confirmed habit of writing by no means justifies a confirmed habit of printing what you write, for there are waste-paper baskets ; or to accuse him of unpardonable swagger on the strength of this longer, and yet more foolish, passage from the same ' overture ' — ' The author of Cloudesley, enumerating the qualifications necessary to a writer of fiction, observes, "When he introduces his ideal personage to the public, he enters upon his task with a preconception of the qualities that belong to this being, the principle of his actions, and its necessary con comitants," etc. That such preparation ought to be made, I will not deny ; but were I to attempt an adherence to these rules, the public would never be troubled with any productions of mine.

It would be too tedious a journey in perspective for my wayward intellect ; and if I calculated stages before I ordered my horses, I should abandon the attempt and remain quietly at home. Mine is not a journey of that methodical description ; on the contrary, it is a ramble hand-in-hand with Fancy, with a light heart and lighter baggage; for my whole wallet, when I set off, contains but one single idea — but ideas are hermaphrodite, and these creatures of the brain are most prolific. To speak more intelligibly, I never have made any arrangement of plot when I commenced a work of fiction ; and I often finish a chapter without having the slightest idea of what materials the ensuing one is to be constructed. At times I feel so tired that I throw down the pen in despair ; but it is soon taken up again, and like a pigmy Antaeus, it seems to have imbibed fresh vigour from its prostration.'

INTRODUCTION.

Now, it would be only too easy to point out in how many particulars this rather fleering claim to wayward genius is contradicted by Marryat's own work. That he did not build his story with the care and workmanlike finish of Lord Lytton is obvious, but he did arrange a plot when he wrote The King's Own, and in Newton Forster itself there is much which was done with forethought. The rescue of Amber by Edward Forster, and the simultaneous recovery of the box containing the evidence of her parentage by the hero, were not incidents which came in by accident. Nor did Mr. and Mrs. Revel, and their scheme for getting rid of their daughters, occur to the writer's mind without also providing him with the means of conferring a fitting heroine on his hero. What we see in the story is not so much want of intention to have a plot, as want of originality in devising one, and a certain ineptitude in handling the machinery, which in itself is as old as the Greek tales of adventure, finally adopted.

That Marryat at first meant Amber to be the heroine, and to become Mrs. Newton Forster, is highly probable. It is also most credible that he failed to work out his original plan, and was driven to bring in Miss Isabel Revel in the middle of the story to supply a want. As it stands, there is a difficulty in understanding what Amber has to do ' in the saga.' But the moral of this is rather that Captain Marryat made plots less well than incidents, than that he did not attempt to make them. He is far less than just to himself when he says that he does not introduce ' his ideal personage to the public ' with ' a preconception of the qualities that belong to this being.' He certainly in later years had 'a preconception' of Mr. Chucks, and Terence O'Brien, and Mesty, and Mr. Midshipman Easy. This deficiency in skill as a constructor of plots, of which Marryat had the less reason to be ashamed because he X NEWTON FORSTER shared it with a majority of our story -writers, might be borne with patience.

Loosely built as Newton Forster is, it is nearly as coherent as more than one of Dickens's. What is less tolerable than a weakness compatible with much excellence, is the deliberate pose avowed in the intro ductory chapter. A wayward intellect may be an excellent excuse for digressions, but it does not justify sheer padding, and of that there is far too much in Newton Forster. The ' overture,' as the introduction is styled by its too complacent author; the fortieth chapter of platitude, which is almost fatuously defended on the ground that it gives the Bombay Castle time to reach Canton ; the disquisitions on Madeira and sherry (in which there is yet some truth and sense) ; on the education of children ; on the Company's rule in India, and the Bombay Marine, form, with other passages of much the same kind, a wearisomely large part of the book.

The most loyal of Marryat's readers must needs confess that they are unmitigated skips. The excessive proportion which they bear to the better parts sufficiently accounts for the little popularity Newton Forster has enjoyed. Neither can it be denied that the story, to adapt a phrase of Marryat's own, is negatively as well as positively bad. It is wanting in those vivacious figures — odd, kindly, or even only grotesque — which abound in his earlier sea stories. The defect is easily accounted for. Marryat knew the sea and the sea life, and was never likely to go far wrong in describing it, but he had never lived in the merchant service. He was not familiar with it through and through, as he was with the Royal Navy. It is true, no doubt, that the gulf between the two types of seamen was not in Marryat's time what it is now.

The practice of turning to the merchant service when peace had ruthlessly cut down the number of billets afloat, had once been common. Even so distinguished and well-born an

INTRODUCTION.

officer as Lord Keith made a trading voyage to the East Indies when he was young, and saw no immediate chances of employment. Marryat's contemporary, the Captain Bartholomew James whose most amusing Journal has lately been published by the Navy Records Society, made several voyages to the West Indies in command of a trading and passenger vessel in the interval between the American and the Revolutionary wars. But though the once intimate connection between the two had not wholly ceased, it was no longer what it had been. In the early eighteenth century, when half-pay was first given to lieutenants in the navy, it was expressly provided that no officer could claim the allowance who was employed in a merchant ship. At that time, then, it was plainly a usual thing to find an officer who had lately held the King's commission turning to the trading vessel when unemployed.

Marryat himself never was at sea, except as a King's officer, and so had not that familiarity with the merchant service which would have enabled him to give the thousand little effective touches of portraiture we find in his long gallery of naval men. Newton Forster, then, must be put among the less good of his books. It has a tiresome fault, and it has a certain want of positive merit, which is only just less fatal than downright error, yet when all is allowed for, it remains more attractive reading than many much better built tales. The reader must skip freely, but when he has exercised that undoubted prerogative he will find a considerable remnant which is of the stuff whereof good tales of adventure are made. Perhaps one is prejudiced in favour of a book wherein one finds a not inadequate picture of that most superb of all known games of brag, the famous fight between Dance and Linois.

Marryat, who cared as little as Lever for mere dates, has misplaced this most brilliant page in NEWTON FORSTER the history of the merchant service. It was just after the breach of the peace of Amiens — not as in the story, in the midst of a war — that the Company's steady old commodore Nathaniel Dance fairly drove a French squadron into flight, merely by keeping a firm countenance, and refusing to be frightened himself. But such details, though they may trouble the pedantry of our time, were despised by our bolder fathers. It makes this event, which would in any case have been delightful, the more agreeable that Linois was the officer who, having very much by luck and very little by merit, escaped destruction at the hands of Sir James Saumarez at Algeciras, was bragged of as if he had beaten an English squadron.

When he met us again it was not with his back to Spanish forts, with his ships aground, and with a dead calm to keep the English from getting at him, but in the open sea near Palo Aor, and then, as Marryat put it with pardonable national pride, he ran from the men. These men are, for the reason just given, more colourless on Marryat's page than we could wish. The difference be tween his vivid 'preconception of the qualities' of personages drawn from his own service, and his rather loose grip of the merchant sailor, is visible to the most careless reader when he passes from Captain Drawlock of the Honourable Com pany's ship Bombay Castle, to Captain Carrington, R.N. Marryat has not, indeed, either in this story or any other, made all that he might have made of this type of naval officer, when we consider his capabilities.

To a writer who knew the life, who had an eye for a good situation, and who also had a leaning, which now and then becomes a weak ness, for a didactic purpose, it would seem that the boy captain must have had great attractions. Those who have some knowledge of the history of our navy are aware that there is no exaggeration in the account given here of Captain Carrington's promotion. Rodney made his son a post-captain at seventeen. He did more, for he gave the same promotion to Sidney Smith at about the same age, and he came into collision with that formidable person Isaac Coffin by inflict ing on him a body of lieutenants who ought to have been in their proper nursery, the midshipman's mess, learning their business. The great Nelson did little better, for he made his stepson, Nesbit, captain of a frigate very young.

A fine lad (which, by the way, poor Nesbit, who appears to have been a drunkard, and who certainly died mad, was not) spoilt by the cruel kindness of premature promotion, and brought to his senses by experience, would surely have made a capital hero for a sea story. Marryat never thought so, and we must be content with Captain Carrington. As he stands, he is an attractive figure, and one hopes that he was all the better for being refused by Miss Isabel Revel. It follows from the want of colour in the personages who are merchant sailors that their life is but tamely given. The Merchant ■ Service is the second title of the book, but we seldom see the thing in itself. Captain Berecroft sails to the West Indies and away, the Company's ships go to Canton,* and return, but we never see them doing their trading work.

It must have afforded abundant opportunity for the display of character, but unfortunately Marryat did not know the details, and hurried back to the storm and the battle which he did know. It is a thousand pities, for one would give many disquisitions on sherry and Madeira, the education of children, and West Indian slavery, to get one good vivid picture of the Company's factory at Canton. There was a life shut off from the European world, full of contrasts, and assuredly very strange, which is gone for ever. But it is idle to ask Marryat for what he could not give. Of what he could, there are some excellent examples in Newton Forster. He who has described so many good fights V NEWTON FORSTER has done nothing much better than the action with Surcceuf, and the capture of the pirate. If one does not see quite clearly in what respect Captain Oughton differs from a naval officer, at least he is a first-class fighting man.

Our admirers ofthe P.R., who have so oddly discovered that it was the home of heroism, and contrived to forget that it was equally inhabited by the most impudent fraud, may respect his memory. He, at any rate, learnt from it to fight fair, and to die game. The West Indian scenes are, some of them, in Marryat's best style. His rather half-hearted defence of slavery is perhaps to be accounted for mainly on the ground that people were then talking much of that subject. But his little sketches of the negro have an independent merit. Marryat was always attracted by the oddities of the black, and had a kindness for his virtues, his grinning good humour, his capacity for affection and loyalty. The scenes of French Creole life again are attractive. With the history of San Domingo as a warning, one must hesitate to believe that Marryat is wholly right in saying that the French planter was better loved by his slaves than the English.

Yet those French West Indian Islands, which escaped the worst effects of the Revolution, have contrived to solve the question how to get on with the free black better than we. The wicked sceptic has been known to say that it is because they have not made him too free, but perhaps the easy affability attributed to the French Creole by Marryat, who knew him well, deserves part of the credit. Madame de Fontanges and her husband are at any rate very pleasant people. If it were one's fate to be a negro slave, one would like to be the slave of Madame de Fontanges. There is just a suggestion of polissonnerie in the story of the lady's capture by the pirates, but for that Marryat might have pleaded many French examples. If we do not take the incident too seriously, il n'y a pas de mal. PAGE 13 21 25 39 54 77 S5 91 97 100 107 115 126 XV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ' Pass the bottle, brother ' . . .

Frontispiece It was the body of an infant, apparently a few months old In a quarter of an hour he had gained a position close to the wreck Nicholas Forster did eventually discover that he was more short-sighted in his choice than an optician ought to have been Mr. Hilton, Mr. Dragwell, and Mr. Spinney Mrs. Forster uttered a hideous yell, and threw the animal at the heads of the spectators .... ' Ay, it will be your turn next, my cock,' cried Roberts ' For once you may think yourselves fortunate in having been placed in my very respectable company ! ' He was swept away with a rapidity which threatened to carry him out to sea ...... The convoy left Falmouth seventy-five in number At an early hour the party set off upon mules . ' You may do anything you please in this climate, only be temperate, and don't check the perspiration ' ' Suppose you want go one way, he go anoder — suppose you pull him back by tail, he go on more ' . . .

A blow from a handspike struck him senseless, and he fell back into the lee-scuppers ..... NEWTON FORSTER PAGE ' I beg your pardon ! Pardon me, Mr. Newton, I was drunk at the time ' . 13° In a few minutes the boat was steering herself 136 'I say — God dam — ' Newton smiled. 'Oui, monsieur, c'est un Anglais '..... 141 ' Joli garcon,' bawled out Cupidon, coming up to Newton, and pointing to himself ..... 151 'York, you're wanted,' observed the lieutenant abaft to the marine officer ...... 162 Newton, with great presence of mind, caught up two of the oars from the boat hanging astern, and darted over to the assistance of both ..... 165 Newton stopped at a shop in Fleet Street, on the doors of which was written in large gilt letters — ' Law Bookseller ' i9i ' Sit down on that chair, and tell me what you came for ' ' My watch goes very well when it's left alone.

Do me the 200 favour to hand it to me ' 205 Isabel Revel 2l6 Captain Drawlock lost his footing, and was thrown to leeward 226 ' Stop,' cried Captain Drawlock, in a loud voice 230 ' Humph ! ' said John Forster 236 ' Gentlemen, Mr. Sullivan ! I allow no gentleman but yourself. Are you sure that you are quite sober ? ' . 249 ' Did you say yes or no ? ' inquired Newton, who had caught her eye. ' I'll change my mind,' said Isabel, smiling 264 House-hunting 275 ' You'll excuse me, sir,' said Newton. ' I'll be d — d if I do, sir ! ' interrupted the colonel, in a rage. ' Who the devil are you ? ' 2S0 ' I asked you for your advice, and you have only given me your arm.' ' I am afraid it is all I shall ever have to offer,' replied Newton .... 289 The Royal George leading into action 3°i Prince Fizzybelli enters LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE They took advantage of the time when Captain Oughton was every day employed with the ship's reckoning to fight a main ....... 333 ' Wait a moment, my dear lad,' said Captain Oughton, faintly, ' it's a finisher — can't come to time — I die game ' ' Ah ! mon Dieu ! — c'est Monsieur Nu-tong ! ' 354 359 Jackson ! 367 She was dead ! 38o ' Why, you expect to have a family, do you not ? '

Chapter I

' And what is this new book the whole world makes such a rout about ? — Oh ! 'tis out of all plumb, my lord — quite an irregular thing ; not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle. I had my rule and compasses, my lord, in my pocket. — Excellent critic ! ' Grant me patience, just Heaven ! Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world — though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, the cant of criticism is the most tormenting.'— -Sterne. What authors in general may feel upon the subject I know not, but I have discovered, since I so rashly took up my pen, that there are three portions of a novel which are extremely difficult to arrange to the satisfaction of a fastidious public. The first is the beginning, the second the middle, and the third is the end.

The painter who, in times of yore, exposed his canvas to universal criticism, and found, to his mortification, that there was not a particle of his composition which had not been pro nounced defective by one pseudo-critic or another, did not receive severer castigation than I have experienced from the unsolicited remarks of ' d — d good-natured friends.' ' I like your first and second volumes,' said a tall, long chinned, short-sighted blue, dressed in yellow, peering into my face as if her eyes were magnifying glasses, and she was obtaining the true focus of vision ; ' but you fall off in your last, which is all about that nasty line-of-battle ship.' ' I don't like your plot, sir,' bawls out, in a stentorian voice, an elderly gentleman ; ' I don't like your plot, sir,' repeated he, with an air of authority, which he had long assumed from supposing, because people would not be at the trouble of contradicting his opinions, that they were incontrovertible — 'there is nothing but death.' B I £ ' Death, my dear sis,' replied I, as if I was hailing the look out man at the mast-head, and hoping to soften him with my intentional bull ; ' is not death, sir, a true picture of human life ? ' ' Ay, ay,' growled he, either not hearing or not taking ; ' it's all very well, but — there's too much killing in it.' ' In a novel, sir, killing's no murder, you surely will admit ; and you must also allow something for professional feeling — '"tis my occupation" ; and after five-and-twenty years of con stant practice, whether I wield the sword or the pen, the force of habit ' ' It won't do, sir,' interrupted he ; ' the public don't like it.

Otherwise,' continued this hypercritic, softening a little, ' some of the chapters are amusing, and, on the whole, it may be said to be rather — that is — not unpleasantly written.' ' I like your first and third volumes, but not your second,' squeaked out something intended to have been a woman, with shoulder-blades and collar-bones, as De Ville would say, most strongly developed. 'Well, now, I don't exactly agree with you, my dear Miss Pegoo ; I think the second and third volumes are by far the most readable,' exclaimed another thing, perched upon a chair, with her feet dangling half-way between her seat and the carpet. ' If I might presume upon my long standing in the service, Captain ,' said a pompous general officer, whose back appeared to have been fished with the kitchen poker — ' if I might venture to offer you advice,' continued he, leading me paternally by the arm a little on one side, ' it would be, not again to attempt a defence of smuggling : I consider, sir, that as an officer in His Majesty's service, you have strangely com mitted yourself.' ' It is not my defence, sir : they are the arguments of a smuggler.' ' You wrote the book, sir,' replied he sharply ; ' I can assure you that I should not be surprised if the Admiralty took notice of it.' ' Indeed, sir,' replied I, with assumed alarm.

I received no answer, except a most significant nod of the head, as he walked away. But I have not yet arrived at the climax, which made me inclined to exclaim, with the expiring Lion in the fable A midshipman — yes, reader, a midshipman — who had formerly belonged to my ship, and had trembled at my frown, ranged up alongside of me, and with a supercilious air, observed — ' I have read your book, and — there are one or two good things in it.' Hear this, admirals and captains on half-pay ! hear this, port-admirals and captains afloat ! I have often heard that the service was deteriorating, going to the devil, but I never became a convert to the opinion before. Gracious Heaven ! what a revengeful feeling is there in the exclamation, ' O that mine adversary had written a book ! ' To be snarled at, and bow-wowed at, in this manner, by those who find fault because their intellect is not sufficient to enable them to appreciate !

Authors, take my resolution, which is, never to show your face until your work has passed through the ordeal of the Reviews. Keep your room for a month after your literary labour. Reviews are like Jesuit father-confessors, guiding the opinions of the multitude, who blindly follow the suggestions of those to whom they may have entrusted their literary consciences. If your work is denounced and damned, still you will be the gainer ; for is it not better to be released at once from your sufferings by one blow from the paw of a tiger, than to be worried piecemeal by creatures who have all the will, but not the power, to inflict a coup de grace f The author of Cloudesley, enumerating the qualifications necessary to a writer of fiction, observes, ' When he introduces his ideal personage to the public, he enters upon his task with a preconception of the qualities that belong to this being, the principle ofhis actions, and its necessary concomitants,' etc. etc.

That such preparation ought to be made, I will not deny ; but were I to attempt an adherence to these rules, the public would never be troubled with any production of mine. It would be too tedious a journey in prospective for my wayward intellect ; and if I calculated stages before I ordered my horses, I should abandon the attempt, and remain quietly at home. Mine is not a journey of that methodical description ; on the contrary, it is a ramble hand-in-hand with Fancy, with a light heart and a lighter baggage ; for my whole wallet, when I set off, contains but one single idea — but ideas are hermaphrodite, and these creatures of the brain are most prolific. To speak more intelligibly, I never have made any arrangement of plot when I commenced a work of fiction, and often finish a chapter without having the slightest idea of what materials the ensuing one is to be constructed.

At times I feel so tired that I throw down the pen in despair ; but it is soon taken up again. Like a pigmy Antæus, it seems to have imbibed fresh vigour from its prostration. I remember when The King's Own was finished, I was as happy as a pedestrian who had accomplished his thousand miles in a thousand hours. My voluntary slavery was over, and I was emancipated. Where was I then ? I recollect ; within two days' sail of the Lizard, returning home, after a six weeks' cruise to discover a rock in the Atlantic, which never existed except in the terrified or intoxicated noddle of some master of a merchant vessel. It was about half-past five in the evening, and I was alone in my after-cabin, quite alone, as the captain of a man-of-war must be, even when in presence of his ship's company. If being sent to sea has been pronounced by the officers and men to be transportation, being the captain of the ship may truly be designated as solitary confinement.

I could not send for any one to whom I could impart the intelligence — there was no one whom I could expect to sym pathise with me, or to whom I could pour out the abundance of my joy ; for that the service prohibited. What could I do ? Why, I could dance ; so I sprang from my chair, and singing the tune, commenced a quadrille movement — ' Tal de ral la, tal de ral la, lity, lity, lity liddle-um, tal de ral la tal ' ' Three bells, sir,' cried the first lieutenant, who had opened my door unperceived by me, and showed evident surprise at my motions. 'Shall we beat to quarters?' — 'Certainly, Mr. B ,' replied I, and he disappeared. But this interruption produced only a temporary cessation : I was in the height of ' Cavalier seul,' when his head popped into the cabin — 'AU present and sober, sir,' reported he, with a demure smile. ' Except the captain, I presume you are thinking,' replied I. ' Oh ! no, indeed, sir ; I observed that you were very merry.' ' I am, Mr. B , but not with wine ; mine is a sort of intellectual intoxication not provided for in the Articles of War.' ' A what ! sir ? ' ' Oh ! something that you'll never get drunk upon, as you never look into a book — beat a retreat.' ' Ay, ay, sir,' replied the first lieutenant ; and he disappeared.

And I also beat a retreat to my sofa ; and as I threw my self upon it, mentally vowed that, for two months at the least, I never would take up a pen. But we seldom make a vow which we do not eventually break ; and the reason is obvious. We vow only when hurried into excesses ; we are alarmed at the dominion which has been acquired over us by our feelings, or by our habits. Checked for a time by an adherence to our resolution, they gradually recover their former strength, until they again break forth, and we yield to their overpowering influence. A few days after I had made the resolution, I found myself, like the sailor, rewarding it by writing more indefatig ably than ever. So now, reader, you may understand that I continue to write, as Tony Lumpkin says, not to please my good-natured friends, ' but because I can't bear to disappoint myself ; for that which I commenced as an amusement, and continued as a drudgery, has ended in becoming a confirmed habit. So much for the overture. Now let us draw up the curtain, and our actors shall appear upon the stage.