University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
HIS ESCAPE FROM THE HOUSE, WITH VARIOUS ADVENTURES
FOLLOWING.

HE started at the funereal aspect of the room, into which,
since he last stood there, undertakers seemed to have
stolen. The curtains of the window were festooned with
long weepers of crape. The four corners of the red cloth
on the round table were knotted with crape.

Knowing nothing of these mournful customs of the
country, nevertheless, Israel's instinct whispered him that
Squire Woodcock lived no more on this earth. At once
the whole three days' mystery was made clear. But what
was now to be done? His friend must have died very
suddenly; most probably struck down in a fit, from which
he never more rose. With him had perished all knowledge
of the fact that a stranger was immured in the
mansion. If discovered then, prowling here in the inmost
privacies of a gentleman's abode, what would befall the
wanderer, already not unsuspected in the neighborhood of
some underhand guilt as a fugitive? If he adhered to the
strict truth, what could he offer in his own defence without

convicting himself of acts which, by English tribunals,
would be accounted flagitious crimes? Unless, indeed, by
involving the memory of the deceased Squire Woodcock
in his own self-acknowledged proceedings, so ungenerous
a charge should result in an abhorrent refusal to credit
his extraordinary tale, whether as referring to himself or
another, and so throw him open to still more grievous
suspicions?

While wrapped in these dispiriting reveries, he heard
a step not very far off in the passage. It seemed approaching.
Instantly he flew to the jamb, which remained
unclosed, and disappearing within, drew the stone after
him by the iron knob. Owing to his hurried violence
the jamb closed with a dull, dismal and singular noise.
A shriek followed from within the room. In a panic,
Israel fled up the dark stairs, and near the top, in his
eagerness, stumbled and fell back to the last step with a
rolling din, which, reverberated by the arch overhead, smote
through and through the wall, dying away at last indistinctly,
like low muffled thunder among the clefts of deep
hills. When raising himself instantly, not seriously bruised
by his fall, Israel instantly listened, the echoing sounds
of his descent were mingled with added shrieks from
within the room. They seemed some nervous female's,
alarmed by what must have appeared to her supernatural,
or at least unaccountable, noises in the wall. Directly he
heard other voices of alarm undistinguishably commingled,
and then they retreated together, and all again was still.

Recovering from his first amazement, Israel revolved
these occurrences. “No creature now in the house knows

of the cell,” thought he. “Some woman, the housekeeper,
perhaps, first entered the room alone. Just as she entered
the jamb closed. The sudden report made her shriek;
then, afterwards, the noise of my fall prolonging itself,
added to her fright, while her repeated shrieks brought
every soul in the house to her, who aghast at seeing her
lying in a pale faint, it may be, like a corpse, in a room
hung with crape for a man just dead, they also shrieked
out, and then with blended lamentations they bore the
fainting person away. Now this will follow; no doubt
it has followed ere now:—they believe that the woman
saw or heard the spirit of Squire Woodcock. Since I
seem then to understand how all these strange events have
occurred, since I seem to know that they have plain common
causes, I begin to feel cool and calm again. Let
me see. Yes. I have it. By means of the idea of the
ghost prevailing among the frightened household, by that
means I will this very night make good my escape. If
I can but lay hands on some of the late Squire's clothing,
if but a coat and hat of his, I shall be certain to succeed.
It is not too early to begin now. They will hardly come
back to the room in a hurry. I will return to it and see
what I can find to serve my purpose. It is the Squire's
private closet, hence it is not unlikely that here some at
least of his clothing will be found.”

With these thoughts, he cautiously sprung the iron
under foot, peeped in, and, seeing all clear, boldly re-entered
the apartment. He went straight to a high,
narrow door in the opposite wall. The key was in the
lock. Opening the door, there hung several coats, small-clothes,

pairs of silk stockings, and hats of the deceased.
With little difficulty Israel selected from these the complete
suit in which he had last seen his once jovial friend.
Carefully closing the door, and carrying the suit with him,
he was returning towards the chimney, when he saw the
Squire's silver-headed cane leaning against a corner of the
wainscot. Taking this also, he stole back to his cell.

Slipping off his own clothing, he deliberately arrayed
himself in the borrowed raiment, silk small-clothes and
all, then put on the cocked hat, grasped the silver-headed
cane in his right hand, and moving his small shaving-glass
slowly up and down before him, so as by piecemeal to
take in his whole figure, felt convinced that he would well
pass for Squire Woodcock's genuine phantom. But after
the first feeling of self-satisfaction with his anticipated success
had left him, it was not without some superstitious
embarrassment that Israel felt himself encased in a dead
man's broadcloth; nay, in the very coat in which the deceased
had no doubt fallen down in his fit. By degrees
he began to feel almost as unreal and shadowy as the
shade whose part he intended to enact.

Waiting long and anxiously till darkness came, and then
till he thought it was fairly midnight, he stole back into
the closet, and standing for a moment uneasily in the
middle of the floor, thinking over all the risks he might
run, he lingered till he felt himself resolute and calm.
Then groping for the door leading into the hall, put his
hand on the knob and turned it. But the door refused
to budge. Was it locked? The key was not in. Turning
the knob once more, and holding it so, he pressed firmly

against the door. It did not move. More firmly still,
when suddenly it burst open with a loud crackling report.
Being cramped, it had stuck in the sill. Less than three
seconds passed when, as Israel was groping his way down
the long wide hall towards the large staircase at its opposite
end, he heard confused hurrying noises from the
neighboring rooms, and in another instant several persons,
mostly in night-dresses, appeared at their chamber-doors,
thrusting out alarmed faces, lit by a lamp held by one
of the number, a rather elderly lady in widow's weeds,
who by her appearance seemed to have just risen from
a sleepless chair, instead of an oblivious couch. Israel's
heart beat like a hammer; his face turned like a sheet.
But bracing himself, pulling his hat lower down over his
eyes, settling his head in the collar of his coat, he advanced
along the defile of wildly staring faces. He advanced
with a slow and stately step, looked neither to the
right nor the left, but went solemnly forward on his now
faintly illuminated way, sounding his cane on the floor as
he passed. The faces in the doorways curdled his blood
by their rooted looks. Glued to the spot, they seemed
incapable of motion. Each one was silent as he advanced
towards him or her, but as he left each individual, one
after another, behind, each in a frenzy shrieked out,
“The Squire, the Squire!” As he passed the lady in
the widow's weeds, she fell senseless and crosswise before
him. But forced to be immutable in his purpose, Israel,
solemnly stepping over her prostrate form, marched deliberately
on.

In a few minutes more he had reached the main door

of the mansion, and withdrawing the chain and bolt,
stood in the open air. It was a bright moonlight night.
He struck slowly across the open grounds towards the
sunken fields beyond. When midway across the grounds,
he turned towards the mansion, and saw three of the
front windows filled with white faces, gazing in terror
at the wonderful spectre. Soon descending a slope, he
disappeared from their view.

Presently he came to hilly land in meadow, whose
grass having been lately cut, now lay dotting the slope
in cocks; a sinuous line of creamy vapor meandered
through the lowlands at the base of the hill; while beyond
was a dense grove of dwarfish trees, with here and
there a tall tapering dead trunk, peeled of the bark,
and overpeering the rest. The vapor wore the semblance
of a deep stream of water, imperfectly descried; the grove
looked like some closely-clustering town on its banks,
lorded over by spires of churches.

The whole scene magically reproduced to our adventurer
the aspect of Bunker Hill, Charles River, and Boston
town, on the well-remembered night of the 16th of June.
The same season; the same moon; the same new-mown
hay on the shaven sward; hay which was scraped together
during the night to help pack into the redoubt so
hurriedly thrown up.

Acted on as if by enchantment, Israel sat down on
one of the cocks, and gave himself up to reverie. But,
worn out by long loss of sleep, his reveries would have
soon merged into slumber's still wilder dreams, had he
not rallied himself, and departed on his way, fearful of

forgetting himself in an emergency like the present. It
now occurred to him that, well as his disguise had served
him in escaping from the mansion of Squire Woodcock,
that disguise might fatally endanger him if he should be
discovered in it abroad. He might pass for a ghost at
night, and among the relations and immediate friends
of the gentleman deceased; but by day, and among indifferent
persons, he ran no small risk of being apprehended
for an entry-thief. He bitterly lamented his
omission in not pulling on the Squire's clothes over his
own, so that he might now have reappeared in his former
guise.

As meditating over this difficulty, he was passing
along, suddenly he saw a man in black standing right
in his path, about fifty yards distant, in a field of some
growing barley or wheat. The gloomy stranger was
standing stock-still; one outstretched arm, with weird
intimation pointing towards the deceased Squire's abode.
To the brooding soul of the now desolate Israel, so strange
a sight roused a supernatural suspicion. His conscience
morbidly reproaching him for the terrors he had bred
in making his escape from the house, he seemed to see
in the fixed gesture of the stranger something more than
humanly significant. But somewhat of his intrepidity
returned; he resolved to test the apparition. Composing
itself to the same deliberate stateliness with which it had
paced the hall, the phantom of Squire Woodcock firmly
advanced its cane, and marched straight forward towards
the mysterious stranger.

As he neared him, Israel shrunk. The dark coat-sleeve

flapped on the bony skeleton of the unknown arm. The
face was lost in a sort of ghastly blank. It was no living
man.

But mechanically continuing his course, Israel drew
still nearer and saw a scarecrow.

AN ENCOUNTER OF GHOSTS.

Not a little relieved by the discovery, our adventurer
paused, more particularly to survey so deceptive an object,
which seemed to have been constructed on the most
efficient principles; probably by some broken-down wax-figure
costumer. It comprised the complete wardrobe
of a scarecrow, namely: a cocked hat, bunged; tattered
coat; old velveteen breeches; and long worsted stockings,
full of holes; all stuffed very nicely with straw,
and skeletoned by a framework of poles. There was a
great flapped pocket to the coat—which seemed to have
been some laborer's—standing invitingly opened. Putting
his hands in, Israel drew out the lid of an old
tobacco-box, the broken bowl of a pipe, two rusty nails,
and a few kernels of wheat. This reminded him of the
Squire's pockets. Trying them, he produced a handsome
handkerchief, a spectacle-case, with a purse containing
some silver and gold, amounting to a little more than
five pounds. Such is the difference between the contents
of the pockets of scarecrows and the pockets of well-to-do
squires. Ere donning his present habiliments, Israel had
not omitted to withdraw his own money from his own

coat, and put it in the pocket of his own waistcoat, which
he had not exchanged.

Looking upon the scarecrow more attentively, it struck
him that, miserable as its wardrobe was, nevertheless
here was a chance for getting rid of the unsuitable and
perilous clothes of the Squire. No other available opportunity
might present itself for a time. Before he encountered
any living creature by daylight, another suit must
somehow be had. His exchange with the old ditcher,
after his escape from the inn near Portsmouth, had familiarized
him with the most deplorable of wardrobes.
Well, too, he knew, and had experienced it, that for a
man desirous of avoiding notice, the more wretched the
clothes, the better. For who does not shun the scurvy
wretch, Poverty, advancing in battered hat and lamentable
coat?

Without more ado, slipping off the Squire's raiment,
he donned the scarecrow's, after carefully shaking out
the hay, which, from many alternate soakings and bakings
in rain and sun, had become quite broken up, and would
have been almost dust, were it not for the mildew which
damped it. But sufficient of this wretched old hay remained
adhesive to the inside of the breeches and coat-sleeves,
to produce the most irritating torment.

The grand moral question now came up, what to do
with the purse. Would it be dishonest under the circumstances
to appropriate that purse? Considering the
whole matter, and not forgetting that he had not received
from the gentleman deceased the promised reward for
his services as courier, Israel concluded that he might

justly use the money for his own. To which opinion
surely no charitable judge will demur. Besides, what
should he do with the purse, if not use it for his own?
It would have been insane to have returned it to the relations.
Such mysterious honesty would have but resulted
in his arrest as a rebel, or rascal. As for the Squire's
clothes, handkerchief, and spectacle-case, they must be
put out of sight with all dispatch. So, going to a morass
not remote, Israel sunk them deep down, and heaped
tufts of the rank sod upon them. Then returning to the
field of corn, sat down under the lee of a rock, about
a hundred yards from where the scarecrow had stood,
thinking which way he now had best direct his steps.
But his late ramble coming after so long a deprivation
of rest, soon produced effects not so easy to be shaken
off, as when reposing upon the haycock. He felt less
anxious too, since changing his apparel. So before he
was aware, he fell into deep sleep.

When he awoke, the sun was well up in the sky.
Looking around he saw a farm-laborer with a pitchfork
coming at a distance into view, whose steps seemed bent
in a direction not far from the spot where he lay. Immediately
it struck our adventurer that this man must be
familiar with the scarecrow; perhaps had himself fashioned
it. Should he miss it then, he might make immediate
search, and so discover the thief so imprudently loitering
upon the very field of his operations.

Waiting until the man momentarily disappeared in a
little hollow, Israel ran briskly to the identical spot where
the scarecrow had stood, where, standing stiffly erect,

pulling the hat well over his face, and thrusting out his
arm, pointed steadfastly towards the Squire's abode, he
awaited the event. Soon the man reappeared in sight,
and marching right on, paused not far from Israel, and
gave him an one earnest look, as if it were his daily
wont to satisfy that all was right with the scarecrow. No
sooner was the man departed to a reasonable distance,
than, quitting his post, Israel struck across the fields towards
London. But he had not yet quite quitted the
field when it occurred to him to turn round and see if
the man was completely out of sight, when, to his consternation,
he saw the man returning towards him, evidently
by his pace and gesture in unmixed amazement.
The man must have turned round to look before Israel
had done so. Frozen to the ground, Israel knew not what
to do; but next moment it struck him that this very
motionlessness was the least hazardous plan in such a
strait. Thrusting out his arm again towards the house,
once more he stood stock still, and again awaited the
event.

It so happened that this time, in pointing towards the
house, Israel unavoidably pointed towards the advancing
man. Hoping that the strangeness of this coincidence
might, by operating on the man's superstition, incline him
to beat an immediate retreat, Israel kept cool as he might.
But the man proved to be of a braver metal than anticipated.
In passing the spot where the scarecrow had
stood, and perceiving, beyond the possibility of mistake,
that by some unaccountable agency it had suddenly removed
itself to a distance, instead of being terrified at

this verification of his worst apprehensions, the man
pushed on for Israel, apparently resolved to sift this mystery
to the bottom.

Seeing him now determinately coming, with pitchfork
valiantly presented, Israel, as a last means of practising
on the fellow's fears of the supernatural, suddenly doubled
up both fists, presenting them savagely towards him at a
distance of about twenty paces, at the same time showing
his teeth like a skull's, and demoniacally rolling his eyes.
The man paused bewildered, looked all round him, looked
at the springing grain, then across at some trees, then
up at the sky, and satisfied at last by those observations
that the world at large had not undergone a miracle in
the last fifteen minutes, resolutely resumed his advance;
the pitchfork, like a boarding-pike, now aimed full at the
breast of the object. Seeing all his stratagems vain, Israel
now threw himself into the original attitude of the scarecrow,
and once again stood immovable. Abating his pace
by degrees almost to a mere creep, the man at last came
within three feet of him, and, pausing, gazed amazed into
Israel's eyes. With a stern and terrible expression Israel
resolutely returned the glance, but otherwise remained like
a statue, hoping thus to stare his pursuer out of countenance.
At last the man slowly presented one prong
of his fork towards Israel's left eye. Nearer and nearer
the sharp point came, till no longer capable of enduring
such a test, Israel took to his heels with all speed, his
tattered coat-tails streaming behind him. With inveterate
purpose the man pursued. Darting blindly on, Israel,
leaping a gate, suddenly found himself in a field where

some dozen laborers were at work, who recognizing the
scarecrow—an old acquaintance of theirs, as it would
seem—lifted all their hands as the astounding apparition
swept by, followed by the man with the pitchfork. Soon
all joined in the chase, but Israel proved to have better
wind and bottom than any. Outstripping the whole pack
he finally shot out of their sight in an extensive park,
heavily timbered in one quarter. He never saw more
of these people.

Loitering in the wood till nightfall, he then stole out
and made the best of his way towards the house of that
good-natured farmer in whose corn-loft he had received
his first message from Squire Woodcock. Rousing this
man up a little before midnight, he informed him somewhat
of his recent adventures, but carefully concealed his
having been employed as a secret courier, together with
his escape from Squire Woodcock's. All he craved at
present was a meal. The meal being over, Israel offered
to buy from the farmer his best suit of clothes, and displayed
the money on the spot.

“Where did you get so much money?” said his entertainer
in a tone of surprise; “your clothes here don't
look as if you had seen prosperous times since you left
me. Why, you look like a scarecrow.”

“That may well be,” replied Israel, very soberly. “But
what do you say? will you seel me your suit?—here's
the cash.”

“I don't know about it,” said the farmer, in doubt;
“let me look at the money. Ha!—a silk purse come

out of a beggar's pocket!—Quit the house, rascal, you've
turned thief.”

Thinking that he could not swear to his having come
by his money with absolute honesty—since indeed the
case was one for the most subtle casuist—Israel knew not
what to reply. This honest confusion confirmed the farmer,
who with many abusive epithets drove him into the
road, telling him that he might thank himself that he did
not arrest him on the spot.

In great dolor at this unhappy repulse, Israel trudged
on in the moonlight some three miles to the house of
another friend, who also had once succored him in extremity.
This man proved a very sound sleeper. Instead
of succeeding in rousing him by his knocking, Israel but
succeeded in rousing his wife, a person not of the greatest
amiability. Raising the sash, and seeing so shocking a
pauper before her, the woman upbraided him with shameless
impropriety in asking charity at dead of night, in a
dress so improper too. Looking down at his deplorable
velveteens, Israel discovered that his extensive travels had
produced a great rent in one loin of the rotten old
breeches, through which a whitish fragment protruded.

Remedying this oversight as well as he might, he again
implored the woman to wake her husband.

“That I sha'n't!” said the woman, morosely. “Quit
the premises, or I'll throw something on ye.”

With that she brought some earthenware to the window,
and would have fulfilled her threat, had not Israel
prudently retreated some paces. Here he entreated the
woman to take mercy on his plight, and since she would

not waken her husband, at least throw to him (Israel) her
husband's breeches, and he would leave the price of them,
with his own breeches to boot, on the sill of the door.

“You behold how sadly I need them,” said he; “for
heaven's sake befriend me.”

“Quit the premises!” reiterated the woman.

“The breeches, the breeches! here is the money,” cried
Israel, half furious with anxiety.

“Saucy cur,” cried the woman, somehow misunderstanding
him; “do you cunningly taunt me with wearing
the breeches? begone!”

Once more poor Israel decamped, and made for another
friend. But here a monstrous bull-dog, indignant that the
peace of a quiet family should be disturbed by so outrageous
a tatterdemalion, flew at Israel's unfortunate coat,
whose rotten skirts the brute tore completely off, leaving
the coat razeed to a spencer, which barely came down to
the wearer's waist. In attempting to drive the monster
away, Israel's hat fell off, upon which the dog pounced
with the utmost fierceness, and thrusting both paws into
it, rammed out the crown and went snuffling the wreck
before him. Recovering the wretched hat, Israel again
beat a retreat, his wardrobe sorely the worse for his visits.
Not only was his coat a mere rag, but his breeches, clawed
by the dog, were slashed into yawning gaps, while his
yellow hair waved over the top of the crownless beaver,
like a lonely tuft of heather on the highlands.

In this plight the morning discovered him dubiously
skirmishing on the outskirts of a village.

“Ah! what a true patriot gets for serving his country!”

murmured Israel. But soon thinking a little better of
his case, and seeing yet another house which had once
furnished him with an asylum, he made bold to advance
to the door. Luckily he this time met the man himself,
just emerging from bed. At first the farmer did not
recognize the fugitive, but upon another look, seconded
by Israel's plaintive appeal, beckoned him into the barn,
where directly our adventurer told him all he thought
prudent to disclose of his story, ending by once more
offering to negotiate for breeches and coat. Having ere
this emptied and thrown away the purse which had played
him so scurvy a trick with the first farmer, he now produced
three crown-pieces.

“Three crown-pieces in your pocket, and no crown to
your hat!” said the farmer.

“But I assure you, my friend,” rejoined Israel, “that
a finer hat was never worn, until that confounded bull-dog
ruined it.”

“True,” said the farmer, “I forgot that part of your
story. Well, I have a tolerable coat and breeches which
I will sell you for your money.”

In ten minutes more Israel was equipped in a gray coat
of coarse cloth, not much improved by wear, and breeches
to match. For half-a-crown more he procured a highly
respectable looking hat.

“Now, my kind friend,” said Israel, “can you tell me
where Horne Tooke and John Bridges live?”

Our adventurer thought it his best plan to seek out
one or other of those gentlemen, both to report proceedings
and learn confirmatory tidings concerning Squire

Woodcock, touching whose fate he did not like to inquire
of others.

“Horne Tooke? What do you want with Horne
Tooke.” said the farmer. “He was Squire Woodcock's
friend, wasn't he? The poor Squire! Who would have
thought he'd have gone off so suddenly. But apoplexy
comes like a bullet.”

“I was right,” thought Israel to himself. “But where
does Horne Tooke live?” he demanded again.

“He once lived in Brentford, and wore a cassock there.
But I hear he's sold out his living, and gone in his surplice
to study law in Lunnon.”

This was all news to Israel, who, from various amiable
remarks he had heard from Horne Tooke at the Squire's,
little dreamed he was an ordained clergyman. Yet a
good-natured English clergyman translated Lucian; another,
equally good-natured, wrote Tristam Shandy; and
a third, an ill-natured appreciator of good-natured Rabelais,
died a dean; not to speak of others. Thus ingenious and
ingenuous are some of the English clergy.

“You can't tell me, then, where to find Horne Tooke?”
said Israel, in perplexity.

“You'll find him, I suppose, in Lunnon.”

“What street and number?”

“Don't know. Needle in a haystack.”

“Where does Mr. Bridges live?”

“Never heard of any Bridges, except Lunnon bridges,
and one Molly Bridges in Bridewell.”

So Israel departed; better clothed, but no wiser than
before.

What to do next? He reckoned up his money, and
concluded he had plenty to carry him back to Doctor
Franklin in Paris. Accordingly, taking a turn to avoid
the two nearest villages, he directed his steps towards
London, where, again taking the post-coach for Dover,
he arrived on the channel shore just in time to learn
that the very coach in which he rode brought the news
to the authorities there that all intercourse between the
two nations was indefinitely suspended. The characteristic
taciturnity and formal stolidity of his fellow-travellers—
all Englishmen, mutually unacquainted with each other,
and occupying different positions in life—having prevented
his sooner hearing the tidings.

Here was another accumulation of misfortunes. All
visions but those of eventual imprisonment or starvation
vanished from before the present realities of poor Israel
Potter. The Brentford gentleman had flattered him
with the prospect of receiving something very handsome
for his services as courier. That hope was no more.
Doctor Franklin had promised him his good offices in
procuring him a passage home to America. Quite out
of the question now. The sage had likewise intimated
that he might possibly see him some way remunerated
for his sufferings in his country's cause. An idea no
longer to be harbored. Then Israel recalled the mild
man of wisdom's words—“At the prospect of pleasure
never be elated; but without depression respect the
omens of ill.” But he found it as difficult now to comply,
in all respects, with the last section of the maxim,
as before he had with the first.

While standing wrapped in afflictive reflections on the
shore, gazing towards the unattainable coast of France,
a pleasant-looking cousinly stranger, in seamen's dress,
accosted him, and, after some pleasant conversation, very
civilly invited him up a lane into a house of rather secret
entertainment. Pleased to be befriended in this his strait,
Israel yet looked inquisitively upon the man, not completely
satisfied with his good intentions. But the other,
with good-humored violence, hurried him up the lane
into the inn, when, calling for some spirits, he and Israel
very affectionately drank to each other's better health and
prosperity.

“Take another glass,” said the stranger, affably.

Israel, to drown his heavy-heartedness, complied. The
liquor began to take effect.

“Ever at sea?” said the stranger, lightly.

“Oh, yes; been a whaling.”

“Ah!” said the other, “happy to hear that, I assure
you. Jim! Bill!” And beckoning very quietly to two
brawny fellows, in a trice Israel found himself kidnapped
into the naval service of the magnanimous old gentleman
of Kew Gardens—his Royal Majesty, George III.

“Hands off!” said Israel, fiercely, as the two men
pinioned him.

“Reglar game-cock,” said the cousinly-looking man.
“I must get three guineas for cribbing him. Pleasant
voyage to ye, my friend,” and, leaving Israel a prisoner,
the crimp, buttoning his coat, sauntered leisurely out of
the inn.

“I'm no Englishman,” roared Israel, in a foam.

“Oh! that's the old story,” grinned his jailers. “Come
along. There's no Englishman in the English fleet. All
foreigners. You may take their own word for it.”

To be short, in less than a week Israel found himself
at Portsmouth, and, ere long, a foretopman in his Majesty's
ship of the line, “Unprincipled,” scudding before the
wind down channel, in company with the “Undaunted,”
and the “Unconquerable;” all three haughty Dons bound
to the East Indian waters as reinforcements to the fleet
of Sir Edward Hughs.

And now, we might shortly have to record our adventurer's
part in the famous engagement off the coast of
Coromandel, between Admiral Suffrien's fleet and the
English squadron, were it not that fate snatched him on
the threshold of events, and, turning him short round
whither he had come, sent him back congenially to war
against England, instead of on her behalf. Thus repeatedly
and rapidly were the fortunes of our wanderer
planted, torn up, transplanted, and dropped again, hither
and thither, according as the Supreme Disposer of sailors
and soldiers saw fit to appoint.