The Man Without a Country, and Other Tales Read online

  THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA.

  FROM THE INGHAM PAPERS.

  [The Florida, Anglo-Rebel pirate, after inflicting horrible injuries onthe commerce of America and the good name of England, was cut out byCaptain Collins, from the bay of Bahia, by one of those fortunatemistakes in international law which endear brave men to the nations inwhose interest they are committed. When she arrived here the governmentwas obliged to disavow the act. The question then was, as we had her bymistake, what we should do with her. At that moment the NationalSailors' Fair was in full blast at Boston, and I offered my suggestionin answer in the following article, which was published November 19,1864, in the "Boatswain's Whistle," a little paper issued at the fair.

  The government did not take the suggestion. Very unfortunately, beforethe Florida was got ready for sea, she was accidentally sunk in acollision with a tug off Fort Monroe, and the heirs of the Confederategovernment or the English bond-holders must look there for her, if theBrazilian government will give them permission.

  For the benefit of the New York Observer I will state that a despatchsent round the world in a spiral direction westward 1,200 times, wouldnot really arrive at its destination four years before it started. It isonly a joke which suggests it.]

  * * * * *

  SPECIAL DESPATCH.

  LETTER FROM CAPTAIN INGHAM, IN COMMAND OF THE FLORIDA.

  [Received four years in advance of the mail by a lightning express,which has gained that time by running round the world 1,200 times in aspiral direction westward on its way from Brazil to ourpublication-office. Mrs. Ingham's address not being known, the letter isprinted for her information.]

  No. 29.

  BAHIA, BRAZIL, April 1, 1868.

  MY DEAR WIFE:--We are here at last, thank fortune; and I shall surrenderthe old pirate to-day to the officers of government. We have beensaluted, are to be feted, and perhaps I shall be made a Knight Commanderof the Golden Goose. I never was so glad as when I saw the lights on theSan Esperitu head-land, which makes the south point of this Bahia orbay.

  You will not have received my No. 28 from Loando, and may have missed 26and 24, which I gave to _outward_ bound whalemen. I always doubtedwhether you got 1, 7, 9, and 11. And for me I have no word of you sinceyou waved your handkerchief from the window in Springfield Street on themorning of the 1st of June, 1865, nearly four years. My dear child, youwill not know me.

  Let me then repeat, very briefly, the outline of this strange cruise;and when the letters come, you can fill in the blanks.

  The government had determined that the Florida must be returned to theneutral harbor whence she came. They had put her in complete repair, andsix months of diplomacy had made the proper apologies to the Braziliangovernment. Meanwhile Collins, who had captured her by mistake, had, byanother mistake, been made an admiral, and was commanding a squadron;and to insure her safe and respectful delivery, I, who had been waitingservice, was un shelved, and, as you know, bidden to take command.

  She was in apple-pie order. The engines had been cleaned up; and Ithought we could make a quick thing of it. I was a little dashed when Ifound the crew was small; but I have been glad enough since that we hadno more mouths. No one but myself knew our destination. The men thoughtwe were to take despatches to the Gulf squadron.

  You remember I had had only verbal orders to take command, and after wegot outside the bay I opened my sealed despatches. The gist of them wasin these words:--

  "You will understand that the honor of this government is pledged forthe _safe_ delivery of the Florida to the government of Brazil. You willtherefore hazard nothing to gain speed. The quantity of your coal hasbeen adjusted with the view to give your vessel her best trim, and thesupply is not large. You will husband it with care,--taking everyprecaution to arrive in Bahia _safely_ with your charge, in such time as_your best discretion_ may suggest to you."

  "_Your best discretion_" was underscored.

  I called Prendergast, and showed him the letter. Then we called theengineer and asked about the coal. He had not been into the bunkers, butwent and returned with his face white, through the black grime, toreport "not four days' consumption." By some cursed accident, he said,the bunkers had been filled with barrels of salt-pork and flour!

  On this, I ordered a light and went below. There had been some fatalmisunderstanding somewhere. The vessel was fitted out as for an arcticvoyage. Everywhere hard-bread, flour, pork, beef, vinegar, sour-krout;but, clearly enough, not, at the very best, five days of coal!

  And I was to get to Brazil with this old pirate transformed into aprovision ship, "at my best discretion."

  "Prendergast," said I, "we will take it easy. Were you ever in Bahia?"

  "Took flour there in '55, and lay waiting for India-rubber from July toOctober. Lost six men by yellow-jack."

  Prendergast was from the merchant marine. I had known him since we werechildren. "Ethan," said I, "in my best discretion it would be bad toarrive there before the end of October. Where would you go?"

  I cannot say he took the responsibility. He would not take it. You know,my dear, of course, that it was I who suggested Upernavik. From the daysof the old marbled paper Northern Regions,--through the quarto Ross andParry and Back and the nephew Ross and Kane and McClure and McClintock,you know, my dear, what my one passion has been,--to see those floesand icebergs for myself. Surely you forgive me, or at least excuse me.Do not you? Here was this fast steamer under me. I ought not to be inBahia before October 25. It was June 1. Of course we went to Upernavik.

  I will not say I regret it now. Yet I will say that on that decision,cautiously made, though it was "on my discretion," all our subsequentmisfortunes hang. The Danes were kind to us,--the Governor especially,though I had to carry the poor fellow bad news about the Duchies and theDanish war, which was all fresh then. He got up a dance for us, Iremember, and there I wrote No. 1 to you. I could not of coursehelp--when we left him--running her up a few degrees to the north, justto see whether there is or is not that passage between Igloolik andPrince Rupert's Headland (and by the way there _is_). After we passedIgloolik, there was such splendid weather, that I just used up a littlecoal to drive her along the coast of King William's Land; and there, aswe waited for little duck-shooting on the edge of a floe one day, as ourluck ordered, a party of natives came on board, and we treated them withhard-tack crumbs and whale-oil. They fell to dancing, and we tolaughing,--they danced more and we laughed more, till the oldest womantumbled in her bear-skin bloomers, and came with a smash right on thelittle cast-iron frame by the wheel, which screened binnacle andcompass. My dear child, there was such a hullalu and such a messtogether as I remember now. We had to apologize, the doctor set herhead as well as he could. We gave them gingerbread from the cabin, toconsole them, and got them off without a fight. But the next morningwhen I cast off from the floe, it proved the beggars had stolen thecompass card, needle and all.

  My dear Mary, there was not another bit of magnetized iron in the ship.The government had been very shy of providing instruments of any kindfor Confederate cruisers. Poor Ethan had traded off two compasses onlythe day before for whalebone spears and skin breeches, neither of whichknew the north star from the ace of spades. And this thing proved ofmore importance than you will think; it really made me feel that thestuff in the books and the sermons about the mariners' needle was notquite poetry.

  As you shall see, if I ever get through. (Since I began, I have seen theConsul,--and heard the glorious news from home,--and am to be presentedto the port authorities to-morrow.) It was the most open summer, Mary,ever known there. If I had not had to be here in October, I would havedriven right through Lancaster Sound, by Baring's Island, and come outinto the Pacific. But here was the honor of the country, and we merelystole back through the Straits. It was well enough there,--all daylight,you know. But after we passed Cape Farewell, we worked her into suchfogs, child, as you never saw out of Hyde Park. Did not I long for thatcompass-card! We sailed, and we sailed,
and we sailed. For thirty-sevendays I did not get an observation, nor speak a ship! October! It wasOctober before we were warm. At noon we used to sail where we thought itwas lightest. At night I used to keep two men up for a lookout, lash thewheel, and let her drift like a Dutchman. One way as good as another.Mary, when I saw the sun at last, enough to get any kind of observation,we were wellnigh three hundred miles northeast of Iceland! Talk of fogsto me!

  Well, I set her south again, but how long can you know if you aresailing south, in those places where the northeast winds and Scotchmists come from! Thank Heaven, we got south, or we should have frozen todeath. We got into November, and we got into December. We were as farsouth as 37 deg. 29'; and were in 31 deg. 17' west on New Year's Day, 1866, whenthe second officer wished me a happy new year, congratulated me on thefine weather, said we should get a good observation, and asked me forthe new nautical almanac! You know they are only calculated for fiveyears. We had two Greenwich ones on board, and they ran out December 31,1865. But the government had been as stingy in almanacs as in coal andcompasses. They did not mean to keep the Confederacy in almanacs.

  That was the beginning of our troubles. I had to take the old almanac,with Prendergast, and we figured like Cocker, and always kept ahead witha month's tables. But somehow,--I feel sure we were right,--butsomething was wrong; and after a few weeks the lunars used to come outin the most beastly way, and we always proved to be on the top of theAndes or in the Marquesas Islands, or anywhere but in the AtlanticOcean. Well then, by good luck, we spoke the Winged Batavian; could notspeak a word of Dutch, nor he a word of English; but he let Ethan copyhis tables, and so we ran for St. Sacrament. I posted 8, 9, and 10there; I gave the Dutchman 7, which I hope you got, but fear.

  Well, this story is running long; but at St. Sacrament we started again,but, as ill-luck would have it, without a clean bill of health. At thattime I could have run into Bahia with coal--of which I had boughtsome--in a week. But there was fever on shore,--and bad,--and I knew wemust make pratique when we came into the outer harbor here; so, ratherthan do that, we stretched down the coast, and met that cyclone I wroteyou about, and had to put into Loando. Understand, this was the firsttime we went into Loando. I have learned that wretched hole well enoughsince. And it was as we were running out of Loando, that, in reversingthe engine too suddenly, lest we should smash up an old Portuguesewoman's bum-boat, that the slides or supports of the piston-rod justshot out of the grooves they run in on the top, came cleverly down onthe outside of the carriage, gave that odious _g-r-r-r_, which I canhear now, and then, _dump_,--down came the whole weight of thewalking-beam, bent rod and carriages all into three figure 8's, andthere we were! I had as lief run the boat with a clothes-wringer as withthat engine, any day, from then to now.

  Well, we tinkered, and the Portuguese dock-yard people tinkered. We tookout this, and they took out that. It was growing sickly, and I gotfrightened, and finally I shipped the propeller and took it on board,and started under such canvas as we had left,--not much after thecyclone,--for the North and the South together had rather rotted theoriginal duck.

  Then,--as I wrote you in No. 11,--it was too late to get to Bahia beforethat summer's sickly season, and I stretched off to cooler regionsagain, "in my best discretion." That was the time when we had the feverso horribly on board; and but for Wilder the surgeon, and the FalklandIslands, we should be dead, every man of us, now. But we touched inQueen's Bay just in time. The Governor (who is his own only subject) wasvery cordial and jolly and kind. We all went ashore, and pitched tents,and ate ducks and penguins till the men grew strong. I scraped her,nearly down to the bends, for the grass floated by our side like amermaid's hair as we sailed, and the once swift Florida would not makefour knots an hour on the wind;--and this was the ship I was to get intoBahia in good order, at my best discretion!

  Meanwhile none of these people had any news from America. The lastpaper at the Falkland Islands was a London Times of 1864, abusing theYankees. As for the Portuguese, they were like the people Logan saw atVicksburg. "They don't know anything good!" said he; "they don't knowanything at all!" It was really more for news than for water I put intoSta. Lucia,--and a pretty mess I made of it there. We looked so likepirates (as at bottom the old tub is), that they took all of us wholanded to the guard-house. None of us could speak Sta. Lucia, whateverthat tongue may be, nor understand it. And it was not till Ethan fired ashell from the 100-pound Parrott over the town that they let us go. Ihope the dogs sent you my letters. I suppose there was anotherinfringement of neutrality. But if the Brazilian government sends thisship to Sta. Lucia, I shall not command her, that's all!

  Well! what happened at Loando the second time, Valencia, and PuntosPimos, and Nueva Salamanca, and Loando this last time, you know and willknow, and why we loitered so. At last, thank fortune, here we are.Actually, Mary, this ship logged on the average only thirty-two knots aday for the last week before we got her into port.

  Now think of the ingratitude of men! I have brought her in here,"according to my best discretion," and do you believe, these hidalgos,or dons, or senores, or whatever they are, had forgotten she existed.And when I showed them to her, they said in good Portugal that I was aliar. Fortunately the Consul is our old friend Kingsley. He wasdelighted to see me; thought I was at the bottom of the sea. From him welearned that the Confederacy was blown sky-high long ago. And from all Ican learn, I may have the Florida back again for my own private yacht orpeculium, unless she goes to Sta. Lucia.

  Not I, my friends! Scrape her, and mend her, and give her to themarines,--and tell them her story; but do not intrust her again to myown Polly's own

  FREDERIC INGHAM