 | CHAPTER I. The free-trader, or, The cruiser of Narragansett Bay |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
Our story opens in the harbor and
town of Newport in the “Old Colony
Days.” At the period in which we
shall lay the scenes of our romance, this
town was second in New England only
to Boston in wealth and commercial
importance. Its trade was far more extensive
than it is at the present day,
and was mainly carried on with the
West Indies and Spain, with its dependencies,
in vessels of all classes from
the shallop of twenty tons to the imposing
merchant-ship. Its merchants
were enterprising and intelligent, and
rivalled those of Boston in the opulence
of their style of living and show of state.
They dressed in velvet on holidays and
Sundays, and in their counting-rooms
wore ruffles of lace and powdered curls.
Although Newport did not then exhibit
as many beautiful villas about it
as it now does, it nevertheless contained
substantial mansions which were the
abodes of refinement and intelligence.
Its harbor was then as beautiful as now,
with perhaps more woodland crossing
its shores and darkening its surrounding
uplands.
The small island opposite the town
was then overgrown with a noble grove
with one or two humble tenements visible
near its eastern and southern shore,
the dwellings of fishermen or boatmen;
and on several points on the main-land,
where now the hills appear open and
bleak, grew thick copses of dark pine
and larch. But the town itself was as
compact and nearly as large as it is
now; and its wharves as numerous;
and wearing an aspect of commercial
thrift they have scarcely exhibited since.
The times into which we are about
to carry back the reader, were full of
excitement touching the revenue laws
which Great Britain's fatal obstinancy
persevered in fastening upon the
commerce of her colonies. In vain did
the colonists by protestations, by petitions,
by remonstrances, and finally by
non-importation, urge the removal of
this obnoxious usurpation of the power
of the mother country. In vain did the
Massachusetts men assembled in council,
declare, “We know no Commissioners
of His Majesty's customs, nor of any
revenue His Majesty has a right to establish
in North America.”
The ministry exerted their power to
sent over armed vessels to protect the
commissioners of her customs in the
exercise of their authority.
Upon this the merchants of the colonies
resolved to import goods in defiance
of the laws of revenue and trade; and
smuggling became in the eyes of every
patriotic American a virtue! In Boston,
vessels, when arrived, were taken
possession of by parties of citizens, and
their cargoes discharged in the very
face of the intimidated officers; and
hundreds of men stood around to protect
the workers while engaged in landing
the cargo. Everywhere the spirit
of indignant resistance, (which for
years afterwards, in 1776, broke out
into open rebellion and revolution) was
aroused, and the most determined opposition
to the unjust revenue imposed
by the crown, was resolved upon by
all men, from the highest to the lowest.
The merchants of Newport had
shown a very prominent determination
to set at defiance these laws of the British
ministry, and the most eminent of
them who were engaged in the foreign
and West India trade secretly held a
meeting at the house of one of their
number, at which they passed resolutions,
declaring “that the laws of revenue
imposed by the crown, being unjust
and tyrannical, should be resisted
by every free man.”
The day after the passage of this spirited
resolution, the citizens of Newport
were not a little surprised at the
sight of a British ship-of-war coming up
the bay and dropping anchor within a
mile of the town. That the meeting
and decision of the merchants had not
brought her there so promptly, was very
clear; and all men saw in her presence
there a determination on the part of
he crown to protect its commissioners
in the exercise of their duties. Nevertheless
the officers of the sloop-of war,
when they came on shore, were treated
with hospitality and courtesy by the authorities
of the town.
It was towards the close of the afternoon
of the day on which the British
ship-of-war arrived, that two individuals
were seen standing upon a low eminence
south of the town, from which
the armed sloop was in full sight. One
of these persons, was a man full fifty
years of age, but with the hardy frame,
and sun-burned visage of an old seaman,
though his dress was of the land, consisting
of a well-worn blue coat, with
broad skirts, a flapped brown vest, and
knee-breeches fastened with paste
buckles. His hat was, however, a seaman's
glazed chapeau. He wore at his
side, hanging from a leathern belt, a
straight sword with a rusty iron handle.
His head was grizzled, and also his
whiskers, which were immensely large
covering half his cheeks and chin. In
height he was far from being a tall
man, but his shoulders were broad and
square, and he was built like a man of
great strength.
He carried beneath his arm a small
spy glass, and when he was not pacing
up and down the green mossy rock on
which the signal-staff stood, he was looking
down the bay with his glass at his
eye.
The other person was a female. She
was coarsely dressed in a faded chintz
frock that had once been very gay, and
wore a man's hat with a broad brim;
about her shoulders was drawn a scarf
that had doubtless once graced the
form of some one of the fair daughters
of the wealthy colonists, but which had
now lost all its richness, save the costliness
of its texture. She had on a pair of
worked Indian moccasins, and in her
of gold beads. She was about eight-and-thirty
years of age, with a bold
and still handsome profile, and a dark
Egyptian skin. Her eyes were large
and lustrous and seemed to burn with
their own fire. By her, upon the ground,
lay a stout staff, crooked at the end, with
a serpent's head carved upon it. She
was seated upon a large stone a few
feet from the flag-staff, her elbows resting
upon her knees and her chin supported
in the hollow formed by her two
hands. She kept her eyes fixedly, and
with a stern compression of the mouth
upon the sloop-of-war, which was at anchor
directly opposite the height. In
her whole appearance there was something
wild and unusual. The man who
paced to and fro, occasionally glanced at
her, as if familiar with her presence, but
she paid no attention to him or anything
but the British ship. She had approached
him from the town about a quarter of
an hour before, as he was looking
through his glass down the bay, and
without saying a word had seated herself
upon a rock and fixed her immovable
gaze upon the ship.
At length she began to mutter in an
under tone, when the man with the spy-glass,
after watching her with something
like superstitious awe in his looks, said,
“Well, Margaret, what is the matter?
Don't you like the cut o' the
sloop's jib, hey?”
“Don't disturb me,” answered the
female, impatiently. “Don't disturb
me, I say. I am putting every soul on
'em under the evil spell. They will do
no mischief after I have looked at 'em
and prayed at 'em till the sun goes
down.”
“It is two bells yet to sun-down, Maggy,”
said the man. “You'll get tired
cursing 'em.”
“I love my country too well to get
tired serving it, mate Finch. Many's
the night I've watched under the stars
and prayed for the colony and cursed
the crown! Don't disturb me now. I
must put this ship under the spell. Soon
as I heard that the British ministry had
sent us a ship, I prepared my herbs and
medicaments, my silver dust and holy
water, my fire and incense, and made up
a curse for her; and now I have come
here to put it on her and hers; on her
hull and on her spars, on her rigging
and on her sails, on her captain and
her crew, on her keel and on her deck,
and on all without and within. So let
me alone that I may curse her ere the
blessed sun goes down.”
And she shook her head fiercely and
impatiently, and settled herself more
firmly to her work, bending her eyes,
that were as bright as the eyes of a serpent,
on the vessel before her. The
man stood regarding her for a few seconds,
with a smile of pity mixed with
fear, and then murmuring, “poor Mag,”
raised his spy-glass to his eye and levelled
it at some object down the bay
which seemed suddenly to have caught
his eye.
“By the king and parliament, it is a
craft of some sort coming in. Now if
it should be the old gentleman's brig,
there'll be a squall here in Newport
afore twenty-four hours goes over it.”
“A squall,” repeated the woman,
turning her head at his words and as if
forgetful of her other purpose, proceeded
violently, “you may say a squall, but
I say a tempest. Not in Newport, tomorrow,
but ere long throughout the
length and breadth of the land. God
is with us, mate. God is against them,
mate! A tempest, I say, menaces the
British throne. Ah, send your armed
ships!” she cried, rising up and stretching
shaking her fingers, while an expression
of withering scorn and contempt mould
ed the features of a face that had once
been beautiful. “Send your cannon
and your troopers, proud king of the
Isles, but we will laugh you to scorn.—
We will mock your power and despise
your arms. God is with us and against
thee. What dost thou see? Nay, I
have eyes that need no aid. It is a
schooner and an enemy's schooner!”
she said, catching with her bright glance
the distant sail.
“Nay, dame, thou canst not tell at
this distance with the naked eye what I
can hardly make out with a glass.”
“Who made that glass?”
“It was made in Paris.”
“It was made by some man?”
“Yes, of course.”
“God's works are better than man's.
God made my eyes. I tell you, believe
me when I speak, I deceive no one. I
say the craft is an armed schooner and
a foe.”
“I don't see how you make it out;
but I see now she is a schooner and not
a brig! I sometimes have thought,
Maggy, that you deal with the old one.”
“As if Sathana had power to make
me see what my own eyes could not
see! as if he was greater than all. But
I see with my understanding. I can
comprehend with my senses, which are
greater than the eye or the ear, that are
only the servants of the senses. I know
that the schooner is an enemy—that she
carries George's flag at her mast head.”
“Well, if turns out to be so, I shall
be afraid of you, Maggy. If you know
so much how is it you don't know what
has become of your boy?”
“My boy! my Harry!” she almost
shrieked, while her face became deadly
pale, and she clasped her hands firmly
across her heart as if compressing it
with all her strength. “Why do you
speak of him? oh, why do you name
him whom I shall never see more? It
is this that hath crazed my poor brain.
It is my boy—my darling, handsome,
noble boy. Oh talk not of him. Let
me not think of him, save when I am
on the sea side, and the waves roll and
the winds roar, and the rocks echo, and
I can shout and let my madness keep
time with the madness around me! But
not here! not in this still summer day,
with the sum shining and the birds singing
and all so peaceful—oh, speak not
of him. I shall go mad.”
“I am sorry, Margaret,” said the
man, looking fearful, and his face expressing
the deepest commisseration.—
“It was a thoughtless question. I ought
to ha' know'd better, coz I knew how it
was when he was mentioned.”
“Hist! Silence! Hush!” she gasped
with a deep painful suspiration between
each word, while she rapidly
walked round and round in a circle, her
hands clasping her heart. Suddenly
she stood still and smiled with terrible
vindictiveness, while she shook her finger
at the British ship:
“Oh, murderers of my boy! Oh, ye
have yet to give him up to the bar of
God. Ye tore him from me! ye wrested
him from my arms! ye robbed me
of my noble one. But it shall not prosper
with you. The curse is upon you,
proud ships of Britain. For my boy's
sake, ill shall befal you. My prayers
have armed the winds and sharpened
the lightnings of heaven against ye.”
“Be calm, mother,” said the man,
gently.
“Well, I will be calm. I will say no
more. But you should not have asked
me about my boy. It makes me mad.
But let me prophesy to you, mate Finch.
glory of England shall be humbled before
the power of this colony, and for
al this oppression we shall be avenged
seven-fold. Let their ships with their
bloody flag come and anchor before our
towns; the day will come when they
will leave their anchors and fly like cowards
before the might and majesty of a
free people.”
“I hope you speak the truth, Margaret,
but I fear it will be worse afore its
better,” said the man. “I do really believe
you are right, and that is an armed
schooner up the bay,” he added,
with his glass once more at his eye.—
“Well, I shall really begin to think you
are what folks say you be.”
He looked round as he spoke, but
she had disappeared around a projecting
rock, and gone in the direction of
a hut near the water.
| CHAPTER I. The free-trader, or, The cruiser of Narragansett Bay | |