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1Author:  Ingraham J. H. (Joseph Holt) 1809-1860Add
 Title:  The midshipman, or, The corvette and brigantine  
 Published:  1997 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: The sun had just set behind a terrace of purple clouds, edged with silver and lined with ermine, and gently the shadows of a mellow twilight were stealing over the bright blue waters of the harbor of Portsmouth. Not a zephyr stirred the pendulous leaf of the feathery elm, or mottled the placid surface of the waters of the small but beautiful bay, with its islands like emeralds in a setting of turquoise, rivalling the sunny green of its pleasant shores. The sun had been down some minutes, yet the skies were as rich with the beautiful dyes as the inner surface of an Indian pearl shell. The waters, like a mirror of steel, caught the rosy colors, and blending and softening them, reflected them back more beautiful still. The roofs and turrets and spires of the old town were yet glowing and rich from the lavish treasures of painted light, which the sun scattered behind him as he departed, and the cot of the poor man was for awhile more gorgeously decorated with mingled orange and crimson, than an eastern palace of pearls and rubies. But the glories of twilight gradually faded as the gray shadows of evening rose up from the sea, and crept upon the land, and covered the green hill tops, till a quiet, sober hue rested upon water and land, and veiling the sky let the stars be seen. Yet it was not night, but twilight lingering between sunset and night; for the outlines of the roofs, the spires, the distant villas, the remote hills, were all clear and defined. It was day arrayed in a quaker garb. The tradesmen in the town closed their shutters and locked their doors to go homeward, yet stopping awhile to chat with their neighbors opposite, or ask the news of the day of some townsmen they meet, look up at the sky and prophecy about the weather tomorrow, and wonder if the wind'll be likely to be fair to bring the craft into port! The cows were all in from pasture and snugly yoked to their stalls, the milk-maid having done her snowy task; the tap-room groups gather about the stoops to smoke their evening pipe and talk politics till it shall grow dark enough to go home; the cart-horse and his master, the stout drayman, both have rest; and the poor sewing girl relinquishes her hated needle, meekly receives her daily pittance, puts on her cheap straw hat and cheaper shawl, and hurries thro' the gathering darkness to her lodging room. The calm repose of evening had settled upon land and water! Suddenly a flash reddened the atmosphere, and a heavy gun fired from a corvette of twenty guns at anchor in the stream, broke upon the sober quiet of the hour with startling distinctness. The blue volumes of smoke had rolled sluggishly away from her bows on the breezeless air and settled upon the water, ere a second gun was discharged, which, like the other, reverberated through the close streets of the town. A third report followed; and slowly and heavily the compact mass of smoke moved towards the quay and covered the streets, tainting the air breathed by the peaceful citizens with the warlike smell of powder. Dear Madam:—Since I have learned your son's resignation of a midshipman's berth on account of a duel, I deem it my duty to advise you of certain matters, touching finances, which I have withheld. I am led to this step from the contents of a letter, received this morning by him, dated at Marseilles on the 1st ult. What I wish to state is this. Besides your draft for five hundred dollars, paid to supply him with funds to take away, he drew on me from Vera Cruz for five hundred more, which draft I paid, having your instructions to supply him with money whenever he wrote to this effect. From Havana, three weeks afterwards, I received another draft at sight for three hundred dollars, which I also paid. Subsequently I paid a draft from Smyrna for eight hundred dollars, one from Constantinople for five hundred, and more recently two from Mahon, one for six and the other for four hundred and fifty dollars; and this morning I have received a brief letter from him, dated at Marseilles, desiring me to transmit to him, without delay, two thousand dollars! As this amount will considerably exceed what I hold at interest, I have concluded to advise you before remitting, though having full confidence in your ability and willingness to refund any advances I might make I trust, madam, that your son has not fallen into evil habits; but the large sams he has drawn, and which could not be expended on board ship, lead me to suspect he has not been pursuing a course altogether upright. My dear Mother:—You will probably have learned by the time you get this, that I have thrown up my birth in the navy, fought a duel, and wounded my opponent. I am sorry to have to say to you that this is all true; though I do not regret the transaction. I was insulted, not once only, but through a continued series of petty insults, which no young man of spirit could put up with, whether from a superior office or not. I recognise no rank above that which is established in the bosom of every gentleman and man of honor. Accepting a junior rank in the navy, does not make me less a gentleman, nor enjoin upon me a slavish submission. I did but assert and maintain my right to courteous treatment, and I was laughed at. I called out the officer who most provoked me, and who took a pleasure in using his power to annoy me. He got behind his privilege as my superior and refused to meet me. I promptly tendered my resignation to the commander, and as a `gentleman,' as I was now acknowledged to be, he was willing to meet me. We fought and he was wounded, but not so severely as to endanger his life. I do not say a word to exculpate myself, for I do not attach to my conduct any blame. My course would be approved by every man of spirit; and since I was not compelled to remain in the navy to subsist, you will not, dear mother, think I have done wrong in resenting insult and petty tyranny. I remained a few days in Mahon, and came over here in a French brig last week. Now I am in Europe, I shall avail myself of the opportunity afforded me of travelling, and shall visit Paris and London. You may see me home in about six months. I shall then remain with you, in your society and that of Grace, to whom I enclose a line. I shall, I trust, perfectly enjoy myself. Dearest Grace:—With the vivid recollection of your parting words, reiterated in your sweet letters to me, warning me firmly, but gently against my giving way to what you termed my `peculiar notions of honor,' I scarcely know how to address you. Before you receive this, the corvette will have reached Boston, and the papers will probably have bruited the intelligence of a duel between me and Lieutenant — .Now I am not about to defend myself. If you knew the circumstances you would exculpate me, I am confident. I had borne with a patience and forbearance which would have commanded your respect and approval; injuries to my feelings, till patience was no longer a virtue, and forbear ance became cowardice. Let me recount a few instances as a specimen of the whole. I had been but three days out, and then ignorant of the peculiar exclusiveness of the quarter deck, I was walking on the weather side, when the first lieutenant seeing me, approached me and said in a peremptory tone— Dear Francis:—Your letter to me I have received and read with great care. That you have done wrong in resigning and fighting a duel, there is no question. By the one act you have sinned against God; by the other deprived yourself of distinction in an honorable profession. But while I censure you I cannot but feel that you have had provocation; but not enough to lead to such results. If you had properly reflected upon the necessity of degrees of rank in the service, and the necessity of discipline, you might have better borne the evils of a system which originated in necessity. To obey is not degrading. To obey, one by no means parts from one jot of his self-respect. Have you not heard the remark that one must learn to obey before one can command! This, it strikes me, is truth. William the Fourth was, when a prince, a midshipman, and obeyed like others. Did he lose any of his real dignity of character? But it is past now, Frank! I only wish you could have borne it with more forbearance still. But to resign was enough. To resign at once freed you from your situation. It cured at once the evil. What need was there to fight a duel afterwards? The evil of which you complained no longer remained, why should you fight? Alas, I fear it was a feeling of revenge that as ill became a gentleman as submission to authority, Frank! After you had quit the navy you should have let the act thrown a veil of oblivion over the past. You should have resigned to be free, not to take the life of a foe. Your motive, therefore, in resigning was a bad one! When the resignation in itself would free you from your condition, what was the use in trying to blow out the lieutenant's brains afterwards? Your favor of August 1st, drawing on me at sight for two thousand dollars, was duly received, and contents duly made known to your respected mother, there not being funds in my hands sufficient to meet it. Your other drafts having exhausted all but six hundred dollars, by a mortgage on Meadow Farm, and forward it to you. I effected the mortgage, and was about to enclose you a bill on Paris for two thousand dollars, when intelligence reached me that your house had been destroyed the day before yesterday by fire. I shall therefore wait further instructions from your mother before I remit; as doubtless she may be put to straits for means under this calamity. Trusting, when you have got through your wandering abroad, you will return to her who protected your infancy, I am sir, `PIRACY!—ROBBERY OF THE BARQUE SELMA OF THIS PLACE, OFF EASTPORT, THREE DAYS AGO!
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