Chapter XV: Part 15

The King had promised the insurgent peasantry that serfage should be abolished, that liberty should be accorded to all to buy and sell in the markets, and that land should be let at fourpence an acre, that a general amnesty should be accorded. To all these he had acceded with charters signed and sealed; but so soon as the disturbances were over he repudiated his undertakings, and we cannot doubt that he did so at the advice of Tresilian, who pronounced them illegal.

Richard did, indeed, in the next Parliament, urge the abolition of villainage, but the proposal was coldly received, not pressed, and rejected. Moreover, on the occasion of his marriage with Anne of Bohemia, which took place soon after, a general amnesty was proclaimed.

The people were, however, disaffected. The imposition of a poll tax levied on rich and poor at the same sum on all over fifteen, and the scandalous manner in which it had been collected, had given general dissatisfaction, and it was, in fact, this which had roused Wat Tyler to march on London to obtain redress.

The King had surrounded himself with favourites, and his uncles were excluded from his council. The country was divided between the party of the King and that of the Duke of Gloucester. There is not the least reason to suppose that the latter had at heart the welfare of the people of England, any more than had the creatures who surrounded the King. The Duke was moved by resentment, pride, and ambition, and many believed that he aimed at the crown.

The chief favourites of Richard were Michael de la Pole, whom he created Earl of Suffolk, and Robert de Vere, a young and handsome man, who was made Marquis of Dublin, receiving, at the same time, the extraordinary grant of the whole revenue of Ireland, out of which he was to pay a yearly rent of five thousand marks to the King. He was soon after created Duke of Ireland. The other advisers of the King were Worth, Archbishop of York, Sir Simon Burley, and Sir Robert Tresilian. These certainly judged rightly when they opposed the prosecution of the war in France, and the subvention of the claims of the Duke of Lancaster to the Crown of Castile. The country was being drained of men and money in these profitless wars. But the nobles, headed by Thomas of Gloucester, opposed this policy, and naturally had the support of those who made money out of the wars. To defeat the plans of the council, Gloucester demanded the dismissal of Suffolk. The King petulantly answered that he would not at his command dismiss a scullion-boy from his kitchen. Suffolk was, however, impeached by the Commons for undue use of his influence, and the King was obliged to submit to the fining and imprisonment of his favourite. It was next proposed that a council should be appointed to reform the State. At this proposition Richard threatened to dissolve the Parliament. A member of the Commons thereupon moved that the statute deposing Edward II should be read, and the King was warned that death might be the penalty of a continued refusal. He yielded. The commission was appointed, and Gloucester and his friends, who formed the great majority, were masters of England. In yielding, Richard limited the duration of the commission to a year. The King was now twenty years of age, but he was reduced to as mere a cipher as when he was a boy of eleven.

In the month of August in the following year, 1387, acting under the advice of Tresilian, he assembled a council at Nottingham, and submitted to some of the judges who attended it this question--Whether the Commission of Government appointed by Parliament, and approved of under his own seal, were legal or illegal? Tresilian led the rest of the judges to certify that the commission was illegal, and that all those who had introduced the measure were liable to capital punishment; that all who supported it were by that act guilty of high treason; in short, that both Lords and Commons were traitors.

On the 11th November following the King returned to London, when he was alarmed by hearing that the Duke of Gloucester, the Earls of Arundel and Nottingham, the Constable, Admiral, and Marshal of England were approaching the capital at the head of forty thousand men. The decision of Tresilian and the judges and of the King had, in fact, forced them into rebellion, as it was pretty evident that Richard aimed at taking their lives.

So soon as Richard's cousin, the Earl of Derby, heard of the approach of Gloucester, he quitted the Court with the Earl of Warwick, went to Waltham Cross, and there joined him. The members of the Council of Eleven were there already. On Sunday, the 17th of November, the Duke entered London with an irresistible force and "appealed" of treason the Archbishop of York, De Vere, Duke of Ireland, De la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, Sir Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice of England, and Sir Nicolas Brember, Knight, a London grocer and Lord Mayor of London.

The favourites instantly took to flight. De la Pole, the condemned Chancellor, succeeded in reaching France, where he died soon after; De Vere, Duke of Ireland, got to the borders of Wales, where he raised an army, acting in concert with the King; it was resolved he should march to London. The Archbishop of York escaped to Flanders, where he spent the rest of his days as a village priest.

The fate of Chief Justice Tresilian must be told in the words of Sir John Froissart.

Richard had gone to Bristol to organize an army against the Duke of Gloucester, and De Vere, the Duke of Ireland, was with him there.

"While the army was collecting, the King and the Duke in secret conference, determined to send one of their confidential agents to London, to observe what was going forward, and if the King's uncles still remained there, to discover what they were doing. After some consultation, they could think of no proper person to send on this errand; when a knight who was cousin to the Duke, called Sir Robert Tresilian, stepped forth, and said to the Duke, 'I see the difficulty you have to find a trusty person to send to London; I, from love of you, will risk the adventure.' The King and the Duke, well pleased with the offer, thanked him for it. Tresilian left Bristol disguised as a poor tradesman, mounted on a wretched hackney. He continued his road to London, and lodged at an inn where he was unknown; for no man could have ever imagined that one of the King's counsellors and chamberlains would have appeared in so miserable a dress.

"When in London, he picked up all the news that was possible, for he could do no more, respecting the King's uncles and the citizens. Having heard that there was to be a meeting of the Dukes and their council at Westminster, he determined to go thither to learn secretly all he could of their proceedings. This he executed, and fixed his quarters at an ale-house right opposite the palace gate. He chose a chamber the window of which looked into the palace yard, where he posted himself to observe all who should come to this Parliament. The greater part he knew, but was not, from his disguise, known to them. He, however, remained there at different times, so long, that a squire of the Duke of Gloucester saw and recognized him, for he had been many times in his company. Sir Robert also at once recollected him, and withdrew from the window; but the squire, having his suspicions, said, 'Surely that must be Tresilian.' To be certain on this point, he entered the ale-house, and said to the landlady, 'Dame, tell me, on your troth, who is he that is drinking in the room above; he is alone and not in company.' 'On my troth, sir,' she replied, 'I cannot give you his name; but he has been here some time.' At these words, the squire went upstairs to know the truth, and having saluted Sir Robert, found he was right, though he dissembled by saying, 'God preserve you, master! I hope you will not take my coming amiss, for I thought you had been one of my farmers from Essex, as you are so very like him.' 'By no means,' said Sir Robert; 'I am from Kent, and hold lands of Sir John Holland, and wish to lay my complaints before the Council against the tenants of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who encroach much on my farm.' 'If you will come into the hall,' said the squire, 'I will have way made for you to lay your grievances before the lords.' 'Many thanks,' replied Sir Robert; 'not at this moment, but I shall not renounce your assistance.' At the words the squire ordered a quart of ale, and having paid for it, he said, 'God be with you!' and left the ale-house.

"He lost no time in hastening to the council-chamber, and called to the usher to open the door. The usher, knowing him, asked his business. He said, 'he must instantly speak with the Duke of Gloucester, on matters that mainly concerned him and the council.' The usher, on this, bade him enter, which he did, and made up to the Duke of Gloucester, saying, 'My lord, I will tell it aloud; for it concerns not you only but all the lords present. I have seen Sir Robert Tresilian, disguised as a peasant, in an ale-house close by the palace gate.' 'Tresilian!' exclaimed the Duke. 'On my faith, my lord, it is true; and you will have him to dine with, if you please.' 'I should like it much,' replied the Duke; 'for he will tell us some news of his master, the Duke of Ireland. Go, and secure him; but with power enough not to be in danger of failing.'

"The squire on these orders, left the council-chamber, and having chosen four bailiffs, said to them, 'Follow me at a distance; and so soon as you shall perceive me make you a sign to arrest a man I am in search of, lay hands on him, and take care he do not, on any account, escape.' The squire made for the ale-house where he had left Sir Robert, and, mounting the staircase to the room where he was, said, on entering: 'Tresilian, you are not come to this country for any good, as I imagine; my Lord of Gloucester sends me for you, and you must come and speak with him.' The knight turned a deaf ear, and would have been excused by saying, 'I am not Tresilian, but a tenant of Sir John Holland.'

"'That is not true,' replied the squire; 'your body is Tresilian's, though not your dress.' And, making a sign to the bailiffs, who were at the door, they entered the house and arrested him, and, whether he would or not, carried him to the palace. You may believe, there was a great crowd to see him; for he was well known in London, and in many parts of England.

"The Duke of Gloucester was much pleased, and would see him. When in his presence, the Duke said: 'Tresilian, what has brought you hither? How fares my Sovereign? Where does he now reside?' Tresilian, finding that he was discovered, and that no excuses would avail, replied: 'On my faith, my lord, the King has sent me hither to learn the news. He is in Bristol, and on the banks of the Severn, where he hunts and amuses himself.'

"'How!' said the Duke, 'You do not come dressed as an honest man, but like a spy. If you had been desirous to learn what was passing, your appearance should have been like that of a knight or a decent person.' 'My lord,' answered Tresilian, 'if I have done wrong, I hope you will excuse me, for I have only done what I was bid.' 'And where is your master, the Duke of Ireland?' 'My lord,' said Tresilian, 'he is with the King, my lord.' The Duke then added: 'We have been informed that he is collecting a large body of men, and that the King has issued his summons to that effect. Whither does he mean to lead them?' 'My lord, they are indeed for Ireland.' 'For Ireland!' said the Duke. 'Yes, indeed, as God may help me,' answered Tresilian.

"The Duke mused awhile, and then spoke: 'Tresilian, Tresilian, your actions are neither fair nor honest. You have committed a great piece of folly in coming to these parts, where you are far from being loved, as will shortly be shown to you. Yes, and others of your faction have done what has greatly displeased my brother and myself, and have ill-advised the King, whom you have stirred up to quarrel with his chief nobility. In addition, you have excited the principal towns against us. The day of retribution is therefore come, when you shall receive payment; for whoever acts unjustly receives his reward. Look to your affairs, for I will neither eat nor drink till you be no more.'

"This speech greatly terrified Sir Robert (for no one likes to hear of his end) by the manner in which it was uttered. He was desirous to obtain pardon, by various excuses, and the most abject humiliation, but in vain. The Duke had received information of what was going on at Bristol, and his excuses were frivolous. Why should I make a long story? Sir Robert was delivered to the hangman, who led him out to the place of execution, where he was beheaded, and then hung by the arms to a gibbet. Thus ended Sir Robert Tresilian."

PIRATE TRELAWNY

Edward John Trelawny, a younger son of Charles Brereton Trelawny, came into this world on the 2nd or 3rd of November, but in what year is not certain. It is said that he was born in 1792, but either this is a wrong date, or else Colonel Vivian, in his _Visitations of Cornwall_, errs, for he gives that year as the one in which Harry Brereton Trelawny, the eldest son, was born. Charles Brereton Trelawny was the son of Harry Trelawny, a lieutenant-general in the army and Governor of Landguard Fort.

Of his father, Edward John entertained no favourable opinion. "My father, notwithstanding his increased fortune, did not increase his expenditure; nay, he established, if possible, a stricter system of economy. The only symptom he ever showed of imagination was castle-building; but his fabrications were founded on a more solid basis than is usually to be met with among the visions of day-dreamers. No unreal mockery of fairy scenes of bliss found a resting-place in his bosom. Ingots, money, lands, houses, and tenements constituted his dreams. He became a mighty arithmetician by the aid of a ready reckoner, his pocket companion; he set down to a fraction the sterling value of all his and his wife's relations, the heirs at law, their nearest of kin, their ages, and the state of their constitutions. The insurance table was examined to calculate the value of their lives; to this he added the probable chances arising from diseases, hereditary and acquired, always forgetting his own gout. He then determined to regulate his conduct accordingly; to maintain the most friendly intercourse with his wealthy connexions, and to keep aloof from the poor ones. Having no occasion to borrow, his aversion to lending amounted to antipathy. The distrust and horror he expressed at the slightest allusion to loans, unbacked by security and interest, had the effect of making the most imprudent and adventurous desist from essaying him, and continue in their necessities, or beg, or rob, or starve, in preference to urging their wants to him.

"It was his custom to appropriate a room in the house to the conservation of those things he loved--choice wines, foreign preserves, cordials. This sanctum was a room on the ground floor, under a skylight. Our next-door neighbours' pastime happened to be a game of balls, when one of them lodged on the leaded roof of this consecrated room. Two of my sisters, of the ages of fourteen and sixteen, ran from the drawing-room back window to seek for the ball, and slipping on the leads, the younger fell through the skylight on to the bottles and jars upon the table below. She was dreadfully bruised, and her hands, legs and face were cut, so much so, that she still retains the scars. Her sister gave the alarm. My mother was called; she went to the door of the store-room; her child screamed out, for God's sake to open the door; she was bleeding to death. My mother dared not break the lock, as my father had prohibited any one from entering this, his blue chamber; and what was worse, he had the key. Other keys were tried, but none could open the door. Had I been there, my foot should have picked the lock. Will it be believed that, in that state, my sister was compelled to await my father's return from the House of Commons, of which he was a member? At last, when he returned, my mother informed him of the accident, and tried to allay the wrath which she saw gathering on his brow. He took no notice of her, but paced forward to the closet, when the delinquent, awed by his dreadful voice, hushed her sobs. He opened the door and found her there, scarcely able to stand, trembling and weeping. Without speaking a word, he kicked and cuffed her out of the room, and then gloomily decanted what wine remained in the broken bottles."

_From a drawing by D. Lucas_]

The mother of Edward John was Maria, sister of Sir Christopher Hawkins, of Trewithen.

That a high-spirited, self-willed, passionate boy like Edward John should get on with such a father was antecedently improbable; and he was sent to sea at the age of twelve in the _Superb_, and had the ill fortune to miss the battle of Trafalgar, through Admiral Duckworth delaying three days at Plymouth to victual his ships with mutton and potatoes.

"Young as I was, I shall never forget our falling in with the _Pickle_ schooner off Trafalgar, carrying the first despatches of the battle and death of its hero. Her commander, burning with impatience to be the first to convey the news to England, was compelled to heave to and come on board us. Captain Keates received him on deck, and when he heard the news I was by his side. Silence reigned throughout the ship; some great event was anticipated. The officers stood in groups, watching with intense anxiety the two commanders, who walked apart. 'Battle,' 'Nelson,' 'ships,' were the only audible words which could be gathered from their conversation. I saw the blood rush into Keates's face; he stamped the deck, walked hurriedly, and spoke with passion. I marvelled, for I had never before seen him much moved; he had appeared cool, firm, and collected on all occasions, and it struck me that some awful event had taken place, or was at hand. The Admiral was still in his cabin, eager for news from the Nelson fleet. He was an irritable and violent man, and after a few minutes, swelling with wrath, he sent an order to Keates, who possibly heard it not, but staggered along the deck, struck to the heart by the news, and, for the first time in his life, forgot his respect to his superior in rank; muttering, as it seemed, curses on his fate that, by the Admiral's delay, he had not participated in the most glorious battle in naval history. Another messenger enforced him to descend in haste to the Admiral, who was high in rage and impatience.

"Keates, for I followed him, on entering the Admiral's cabin said in a subdued voice, as if he were choking, 'A great battle has been fought, two days ago, off Trafalgar. The combined fleets of France and Spain are annihilated, and Nelson is no more!' He then murmured, 'Had we not been detained we should have been there.'

"Duckworth answered not, conscience-struck, but stalked the deck. He seemed ever to avoid the look of his captain, and turned to converse with the commander of the schooner, who replied in sulky brevity, 'Yes' or 'No.' Then, dismissing him, he ordered all sail to be set, and walked the quarter-deck alone. A death-like stillness pervaded the ship, broken at intervals by the low murmurs of the crew and officers, when 'battle' and 'Nelson' could alone be distinguished. Sorrow and discontent were painted on every face.

"On the following morning we fell in with a portion of the victorious fleet. It was blowing a gale, and they lay wrecks on the sea. Our Admiral communicated with them, and then, joining Collingwood, had six sail of the line put under his command, with orders to pursue that part of the enemy's fleet which had escaped; and I joined the ship to which I was appointed. It is unnecessary to dwell on the miseries of a cockpit life: I found it more tolerable than my school, and little worse than my home."

When paid off he was sent under a Scotch captain, who treated him badly, and then he was in another vessel and resolved to desert the service. This he did at Bombay. So far we can trust what Trelawny has given us in that remarkable book _Adventures of a Younger Son_; but from this point on he romances, but romances with an air of reality. It is not possible to discriminate fact from fiction in what follows. Undoubtedly Pirate Trelawny started on his memoirs with the intent of writing his autobiography, but he was inordinately vain, and delighted in posturing as a hero and in describing marvellous adventures through which he passed, heightening them sensationally with wonderful skill.

What seems probable is that, after deserting from the navy, he was for a while in the merchant service, and then joined a privateer cruising in the India seas. As Mr. E. Garnett well says, "the Younger Son is an excellent stage hero by the finish; he meets and overcomes all odds; it is truly a glorious Trelawny--the Trelawny of his own imagination."

He states that he was married when he was twenty-one, and that the marriage took place in England, so that he must have returned home somewhere about 1813. But we really know nothing authentic of his movements till 1822, when he was in England, and thence went to Italy, where he made acquaintance with Lord Byron and with Shelley. After the lamentable death of the latter poet he attended at the cremation of the body. Thence he went with Byron to Greece in the _Hercules_, to aid the Greeks against the Turks. They arrived at Cephalonia, off the west coast, in the beginning of August, 1823, and there Lord Byron resolved on staying till he could ascertain how things were progressing in Greece and decide on his future course of action. This delay did not at all suit the impetuosity of the character of Trelawny, who called it dawdling, and set forward for the mainland in company with Hamilton Browne, making his way to the seat of the Greek Government. He also sent emissaries to England to endeavour to raise a loan, and then proceeded to Athens. Here the insurgent leader Odysseus was in command, and to his fortunes Trelawny at once attached himself, and married the sister of the Greek chieftain.

Major Temple, resident at Santa Maura, during his mission to the Morea in June, 1824, met Odysseus, and described him as "a perfect Albanian chieftain--savage in manners and appearance, of great muscular strength, and about six feet high."

He had his head-quarters in a huge cavern in the face of the limestone precipices of Mount Parnassus, which he had strongly fortified, and in this he kept his treasure that he had accumulated and lodged his family. In the meantime dissension had broken out among the Greeks, between the leaders of the bands that did all the fighting, under Kolokotroni, and the Executive Government that had been elected by the primates, at the head of which stood Mavrocordato. A complete rupture had ensued at the end of 1823 between the parties, and the guerilla chieftains absolutely refused obedience to the Provisional Government.

In the same winter of 1823-4 Trelawny accompanied Odysseus as _aide-de-camp_ upon an expedition into Negropont, and on their return to Athens, where Colonel Stanhope then was, Trelawny sent a letter to his mother, of which the following is an extract:--

"ATHENS, _18th February, 1824._

"DEAR MOTHER,--I am enabled to keep twenty-five followers,
Albanian soldiers, with whom I have joined the most enterprising
of the Greek captains and most powerful--Ulysses. I am much with
him, and have done my best during the winter campaign, in which we
have besieged Negropont, to make up for the many years of idleness
I have led. I am now in my element, and the energy of my youth is
reawakened. I have clothed myself in the Albanian costume and
sworn to uphold the cause.

"Everything here is going on as well as heart can wish. Great part
of Greece is already emancipated. The Morea is free, and we are
making rapid progress to the westward. Lord Byron spends £5000 a
year in the cause and maintains five hundred soldiers. This will
in the eyes of the world redeem the follies of youth.

"Your affectionate son,
"EDWARD TRELAWNY."

Trelawny and Odysseus desired to get Lord Byron to be with them, but this plan was frustrated by the death of the poet on April 19th, 1824.

Colonel Stanhope proposed a congress of the civil and military leaders, so as to effect a reconciliation between the two embittered elements that were weakening the resistance against the common enemy, the Turk. Odysseus consented to attend this meeting at Salona, and Trelawny also agreed to be present. Mavrocordato looked on Trelawny with suspicion as intimate with Odysseus and as his brother-in-law, and he foisted upon him an English spy named Fenton, and an accomplice of the name of Whitcombe, with secret instructions to make away with him.

After returning from Salona, Trelawny was with Odysseus in Eastern Greece, carrying on the war in guerilla fashion without any great results.

In the autumn he was at Argos, whence a letter (certainly his, though unsigned) was sent to his brother Lieutenant Harry Trelawny, R.N.

"... To give you an idea of the misery existing here is beyond all expression. The town is nothing more or less than a chaos of ruins; not a house inhabitable. The fever making great havoc, people actually falling down in the streets. The stench of the place is so great I am obliged to remove my quarters to the once famous Argos, not more than an hour's walk from Agamemnon's tomb, which I have not yet seen. The scenery is beautiful; perfectly romantic. I am now living in a house without doors or windows, every man armed.

"The Commissioners are both sick. Mr. Bulwer has proposed to raise a body of fifty men, but I am afraid it will all evaporate in smoke, like all his undertakings here. I am much afraid nothing is to be done: they look on all foreigners as intruders. Many of the French have behaved most shamefully, but, as I told you before, I will exert every effort. All my hopes are placed in Colonel Gordon's arrival.

"YOUR BROTHER."

* * * * *

The Commissioners referred to were Henry Lytton Bulwer (Lord Dalling) and J. H. Browne, sent out by the Greek Committee in London, when it was too late, to ascertain whether the Greek Provisional Government was sufficiently firmly established, and sufficiently trustworthy, to warrant the paying over to it of that part of the loan raised in England on their behalf not already advanced. The loan was of £800,000, but from this 56.4 per cent was deducted, so that the whole amount to be forwarded to the Greek Government would be only £348,000.

Odysseus was beset with difficulties, as the Provisional Government refused to furnish him with men or money. Trelawny made vain attempts to raise funds.

Ultimately Odysseus made a truce for three months with Omer Pasha, of Negropont, but being regarded with suspicion on both sides, he endeavoured to make his escape, and left Trelawny in charge of the cave and its contents. It was at this time that Fenton, the hired spy, in May, 1825, made the attempt to assassinate Trelawny. He took the opportunity when Trelawny's back was towards him to shoot him.

Odysseus was compelled to surrender to the Government, was carried off to Athens, where he was strangled by order of Mavrocordato.

Trelawny's wounds were so dangerous that he suffered for three months before he could be said to have recovered, and he then escaped from the cavern and landed in Cephalonia in September, 1825, bringing his Albanian wife with him. During the next two years he was engaged in a lawsuit about his wife, whom he treated with brutality, so that she left him and retired to a convent, with purpose ultimately to proceed to Paxo, where lived her sister. Whilst in the convent she was delivered of a child which she sent to Trelawny to be put out to nurse, as they objected in the convent to have the infant there. Trelawny sent it to a woman who undertook to rear it, but it died, whereupon, as Mr. H. Robinson of Zante wrote to Toole on 22nd November, 1827, "he sent the dead body to the Castle Monastery, where she (his wife) was, in a box with her things and a message from him. The wife knew not what was in the box and refused to open it, and there it lay until putrid.

"An examination took place with all the fuss which the courts make about _suspicione d'infanticido_, and ended by T. being fined two dollars for improperly removing a dead body."

In or about the month of July, 1829, Signora Trelawny made petition to the Lord High Commissioner to the following effect:--

"It is perhaps known to Your Excellency that at about the age of thirteen I was given in marriage to Signor Trelawny, my family urging that I should live happily with one brought up in the courtesy and good-breeding of his country; but, as my experience proved, he failed to treat me with that consideration and nobility of character which distinguish the men of his nation. The nature of the long-continued treatment which I have had to endure at the hands of the said Signor Trelawny is not unknown, and at the last, it is perhaps within Your Excellency's recollection that he brought grief to my very eyes by sending me while in the convent, with cunning and brutality, the dead body of my daughter and his."

She then stated that Zante had become lonely for her, as her brothers and mother had gone to Greece. She wanted to go to Paxo to her sister, but the custom of Zante obliged a wife separated from her husband to live in a convent.

She continued: "I venture humbly to ask Your Excellency if, being the wife of an Englishman, I ought to be subject to the custom of the island in which I chance to find myself a resident. Should an Englishwoman be subjected to such treatment as I am?... I promise Your Excellency that, in whatever place or situation I find myself, I will conduct myself always as is proper for the wife of an English gentleman; and though he himself may be wanting in dignity of behaviour, I will do neither him nor myself the dishonour of imitating him.

"TERSITZA PHILIPPA TRELAWNY."

* * * * *

This petition and the letter of Mr. Robinson suffice to show that the story of Trelawny sending his dead child in a box to its mother is not to be rejected as a fable, as it has been by the author of the notice on Edward John Trelawny in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.[27] The poor unfortunate girl, then aged seventeen, obtained a separation from her husband _a mensa et thoro_, by a sentence of the Ecclesiastical Court, and by definitive sentences of the courts of law in Zante and Corfu she was entitled to an aliment from her husband of twenty-five dollars a month, for the payment of which Mr. Barff, the banker of Zante, and Mr. Stevens, of Corfu, were securities. But this was the result of much litigation, causing Trelawny annoyance and angering him to the last degree.

In the autumn of 1828 he visited England, but returned to the Continent in the spring of the following year, feeling out of his element at home. "To whom am I a neighbour?" he wrote, "and near whom? I dwell amongst tame and civilized human beings with somewhat the same feelings as we may guess the lion feels when, torn from his native wildness, he is tortured into domestic intercourse with what Shakespeare calls 'forked animals,' the most abhorrent to his nature." He rambled about; set up a harem in Athens, bought a Moorish girl to be his concubine, wrote his _Adventures of a Younger Son_, and sent the MS. in 1830 to Mrs. Shelley, and it was published in three volumes in 1831, with some excisions of grossness and licentiousness, which the publisher insisted on having removed. As already said, no reliance can be placed on this autobiography as a narrative of the facts of his life, except only of his boyhood, for, as Lord Byron said of Trelawny, "he could not speak the truth even if he wished to do so."

When the book appeared, the _Athenæum_ considered the hero--Trelawny himself--"a kind of ruffian from his birth," as he had painted himself, leaving out the villainies and brutalities of which he had been guilty.

He was thrice married, and behaved badly to all three wives. He could not be faithful and generous even to his friends. With Byron he had been most intimate, yet when Byron died he wrote to Mary Shelley: "It is well for his name, and better for Greece, that Byron is dead.... I now feel my face burn with shame that so weak and ignoble a soul could so long have influenced me. It is a degrading reflection, and ever will be. I wish he had lived a little longer, that he might have witnessed how I would have soared above him here, how I would have triumphed over his mean spirit." Trelawny soaring!--as a vulture only in quest of carrion.

And when, in 1858, he published his _Recollections of Shelley and Byron_, thirty-four years after the death of the latter, he painted Byron in the harshest colours; and one can hardly escape feeling that this was prompted by jealousy of the esteem in which the world held Byron for his genius. He himself possessed all the bad qualities that he despised in Byron, but did not recognize in himself the superadded brutality which Byron was too much a gentleman to show.

Even Mrs. Shelley, a lifelong friend and correspondent, to whom he had often poured out his heart, and whom he had contemplated at one time marrying, could not be spoken of by him after her death but in disparagement and with a revelation to the world of her little weaknesses.

He was in England again in 1835, went into society, and married for the third time, to make another woman miserable. For a number of years he lived at Putney Hill, and then took a farm at Usk, in Monmouthshire, and amused himself with farming.

In or about 1870, Trelawny, then seventy-eight years old, bought a house and a small plot of land at Sompting, near Wortham, and occupied himself with gardening. One day two men with guns in their hands requested permission to enter his grounds after a bird that had taken refuge there. He answered fiercely, "All the leave I will accord you is to shoot one another."

At Sompting, Trelawny died on August 13th, 1881, at the age of eighty-six. In accordance with his wish to be laid beside Shelley, his body was embalmed in England, cremated at Gotha, and the ashes taken to the Protestant burial-ground in Rome, and laid in the tomb he had bought fifty-eight years before, next to those of his friend.

Trelawny was a very handsome man, tall and well built; he had flashing dark eyes under beetling brows, and an aquiline nose, raven-black hair, and a dusky, Spanish complexion. He spoke very loud. He retained his good looks to the end of his days.

Shelley described him in _Fragments of an Unfinished Drama_:--

He was as is the sun in his fierce youth,
As terrible and lovely as a tempest.

In Millais' painting of "The North-West Passage," exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1874, the old sailor is a portrait of Captain Trelawny; and it has been conjectured that Thackeray delineated him as Captain Sumph in _Pendennis_, I, cap. 35.

The authorities for Trelawny's life are, beside the first part of his _Adventures of a Younger Son_, his _Recollections of Shelley and Byron_, 1858; the new edition of the work, published in 1878, was called _Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author_.

Mr. R. Garnett has a notice of the life of Trelawny prefixed to the edition of the _Adventures of a Younger Son_ of 1890. A lengthy life of Trelawny is in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. An error in this is pointed out by Mr. T. C. Down in the article on "Pirate Trelawny" already referred to and quoted from.

A pleasant account of "Mr. Trelawny and his Friends" appeared in the _Contemporary Review_ for 1878.

Something further about him may be gleaned from Frances A. Kemble's _Records of a Girlhood_, 1878, III, 75, 308-12. There are corrections of some of Trelawny's inaccuracies in D. Guido Biagi's _The Last Days of Percy Bysshe Shelley_, 1898.

FOOTNOTE:

[27] See for the above and more on the subject of "Pirate Trelawny" an article by T. C. Down in the _Nineteenth Century_, May, 1907.

JAMES SILK BUCKINGHAM

Mr. S. C. Hall, writing after the death of J. S. Buckingham, thus expressed his opinion of this truly remarkable man: "Whatever, during his life, envy, jealousy, monopolous interest or satirical hostility may have said to the contrary, there can be little doubt, now he is gone, that the late Mr. James Silk Buckingham was amongst the most useful as well as the most hopeful and industrious men of his time. His career was one remarkable illustration of the well-known line of the old song, 'It's wonderful what we can do if we try'; for at almost every step he took he was met by some disaster or annoyance, yet kept pressing on with the most dauntless persistence, making the best of the worst circumstances, and even when failing in his own personal endeavours, giving such an impulse to the powers of others in whatever cause or course he had engaged, that the end in view was generally attained, and in several notable instances within the period of his own life."

The Buckinghams were a North Devon family, and the grandfather of the subject of this notice had lived in Barnstaple. For several generations they had been connected with the sea. Christopher Buckingham settled at Flushing on a small farm, along with his wife Thomazine, daughter of a Hambley of Bodmin.

James Silk describes his father as wearing a cocked hat, long, square-tailed coat with large pockets and sleeves, square-toed shoes with silver buckles, and as walking abroad carrying a tall, gold-headed cane.

James Silk was born at Flushing on the 25th August, 1786. He had two brothers and a sister. His father died in 1794.

"The port of Falmouth," wrote he in his unfinished memoirs, "being nearest to the entrance of the Channel, there were permanently stationed here two squadrons of frigates, one under the command of Sir Edward Pellew (afterwards Lord Exmouth), the other under the command of Sir John Borlase Warren. The former, as commodore, hoisted his pennant on the _Indefatigable_, the latter on the _Révolutionaire_. Each squadron consisted of five frigates of thirty-two and forty-four guns each; and, in addition to these, there were continually arriving and departing from Carrick Roads, the outer anchorage of Falmouth, line-of-battle ships and smaller vessels of war; while the prizes taken from the French were constantly brought into the port for adjudication and sale. There were two large prisons, with open courts, for the reception of the French prisoners thus taken, and every month added many to their inmates.

"Both the naval commodores, as well as such captains of the frigates belonging to the squadrons as were married, had their families residing at Flushing, and the numerous officers of different grades, from the youngest midshipman to the first lieutenant, were continually coming and going to and fro ... so that the little village literally sparkled with gold epaulets and gold-laced hats and brilliant uniforms."

He tells a curious story of his childhood. Corn, owing to the war, had mounted to famine price, and the miners of Cornwall went about in gangs waging war against all forestallers, regraters, and hoarders of grain, and demolishing bakers' shops, mills, and grain stores.

"A body of some three or four hundred of these men entered Flushing, and as they were all dressed in the mud-stained smock frocks and trousers in which they worked underground, all armed with large clubs and sticks of various kinds, and speaking an uncouth jargon, which none but themselves could understand, they struck terror wherever they went. Their numbers were quite equal to the whole adult male population of the little village, so that the men stood aghast, the women retired into their houses, and closed their doors, and the children seemed struck dumb with affright. The moment of their visit, too, was most inopportune, for on that very day a large party of the captains and officers of the packets residing at Flushing were occupied in storing a cargo of grain that had just been discharged from a coasting vessel at the quay, and locking it up in warehouses to secure it from plunder."

At this time it happened that all the ships of war were absent on their cruising grounds. The situation was dangerous, and the men threatened an attack on the warehouses, and were muttering and brandishing their clubs, and falling into ranks, when Captain Kempthorne snatched up little James Silk, then an urchin of six or seven, seated him on a sack of corn, and bade him strike up a hymn.

With his shrill little pipe, he started--

Salvation, O! the joyful sound,
'Tis music to our ears.

Whereupon at once the mob took up the chant, sang the hymn, with their strong masculine lungs; the clubs were let fall, and, the hymn ended, they dispersed harmlessly.

James Silk went to sea in the _Lady Harriet_, a Government packet. On his third voyage to Lisbon he was captured by a French corvette and assigned to prison at Corunna; he was then about ten years old, and the gaoler's daughter of the same age fell in love with him, and softened the rigour of his captivity by bringing him dainties from her father's table. She tried to induce the boy to elope with her, but James had sufficient English common sense not to accept the offer, and finally he was sent to Lisbon, obliged to tramp the whole way, several hundred miles, barefooted, and begging food and a lodging on his way. At Lisbon he was taken on board the _Prince of Wales_, and returned to England, where his mother induced him to leave the sea, and provided him with a small stationer's and bookseller's shop on the Fish Strand, Falmouth. His mother died in 1804, and when James Silk was aged only nineteen he married Elizabeth Jennings, a farmer's daughter. He got tired of being a shopkeeper and volunteered on board a man-of-war; but on seeing a seaman flogged round the fleet for mutiny, was so disgusted with the sight that he deserted, and started a bookshop at Plymouth Dock. However one of the trustees of his wife's inheritance had speculated with the money in smuggling ventures and lost all, so that J. S. Buckingham became bankrupt. He went to sea again, and was appointed chief officer on board the _Titus_, bound for Trinidad, Captain Jennings, perhaps a kinsman of his wife.

At the age of twenty-two he became commander of a vessel, and made several voyages to the West Indies and in the Mediterranean. In these latter he rapidly acquired a knowledge of and even fluency in speech in French, Italian, Greek, and Arabic, and this determined him to undertake mercantile life at Malta; but the plague having broken out there in 1818, he was prevented from landing, and resolved to try his fortune at Smyrna, but was unsuccessful. He then went to Alexandria, and thence to Cairo, where he made the acquaintance and gained the esteem of Mahomet Ali, then Pasha of Egypt.

He now formed the scheme of connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean by a canal, and for this purpose surveyed the Isthmus of Suez and convinced himself that the cutting of such a waterway was quite feasible, and that such a connection would be of enormous advantage to English trade with India. He laid his plans before Mahomet Ali. "No sooner had the idea of renewing the ancient commerce between India and the Mediterranean by way of the Red Sea taken possession of my mind," wrote Buckingham, "than I began to think how much this would be facilitated by the juncture of the two seas by a navigable canal; and I bent all my thoughts to the object." But Mahomet Ali would not hear of the project. He shrewdly asked, "Whose ships would mostly use the canal?"

"The English vessels assuredly."

"Ah! and then the English would begin to think how nice it would be to have Egypt so as to secure the passage. I am not going to sharpen the knife that would cut my own throat."

The Pasha had a plan of his own; he had purchased two beautiful American brigs then in the harbour of Alexandria, and he proposed arming them and sending them round the Cape of Good Hope into the Red Sea, for he desired to open up a trade with Egypt from India. But Buckingham pointed out to him that he could not do this without great risk of losing them, as the East India Company had supreme command of all the Indian Ocean eastward of the Cape, and would seize and confiscate all vessels found in those seas without their licence, French and Portuguese vessels alone excepted.

James S. Buckingham now ascended the Nile beyond the cataracts to Nubia, but was there seized with ophthalmic blindness. To add to his distress, on his way to Kosseir he was attacked in the desert by a band of mutineers of the army of the Pasha, who plundered and left him entirely naked on the barren waste, many miles from any village, food, or water; and even when he reached Kosseir, he was obliged to retrace his steps, as the vessel which should have conveyed him forward had been seized by the mutineers.

Buckingham next occupied himself with an endeavour to master the hydrography of the Red Sea, visiting every part in the costume of a Bedouin Arab.

The Pasha now proposed to him that he should go to India and sound the merchants there as to establishing a through trade to Europe by the Red Sea, and a Company of Anglo-Egyptian merchants took the matter up with zest. But on his proceeding to Bombay he found that the proposition was coldly received.

Whilst there, in May, 1815, Buckingham had the offer of the command of the _Humayoon Shah_, a vessel built at the Portuguese port of Damann, north of Bombay, by the Imaum of Muscat, for trade with China. The retiring captain, named Richardson, in three successive voyages had cleared £30,000, and the situation had been sought by several of the marine officers of the East India Company. When these disappointed men heard that Buckingham had secured the appointment, they were angry, and applied to the Company to eject him from India and close every port there in their power against him. This they did by refusing him a licence to remain in India.

The British Government, in granting a charter of exclusive trade to India and China to the East India Company, gave that Company thereby a right to expel from their dominions all British-born subjects who had not their licence to reside there, this being deemed necessary to protect them from the competition of "interlopers" as they were called, who might undersell them in their own markets. But though the British Government might thus condemn all the twenty million of its own native-born subjects to this state of ignominious dependence on the will or caprice of a handful of monopolists, a body of some twenty-four directors only--in whose hands lay the power of granting licences or banishing those who did not possess them--it could not authorize the exercise of such powers against the natives of any foreign state; consequently James Silk Buckingham was advised to become nationalized as an American citizen, in which case the East India Company would be powerless to expel him.

In point of fact, the case stood thus: all foreigners who had no natural claim on India as a part of their dominions might visit it freely and reside and trade in it as long as they pleased, without licence from its rulers; whereas British-born subjects, who had contributed by their payment of taxes to support the very Government that made the charter, were unjustly excluded, although the conquest of India had been made by British blood and British treasure, and the country was still held under the British flag. In short, all foreigners were free men there, and the freeborn Englishman alone was a slave.

Buckingham so felt the iniquity of this system that later, when he came to England, he agitated and wrote against the continuance of the charter.

Buckingham returned to Egypt and occupied himself with making a chart of the Red Sea. But the Anglo-Egyptian merchants, not relishing their defeat by the East India Company, entered into a compact with Mahomet Ali to send Buckingham to India as his envoy and representative; and as such the Company could not refuse to allow him to reside there. Accordingly, habited as a Mussulman, turbaned and long-robed, with his speaking eye, jovial face, and dark, flowing beard, he looked every inch of him a true-born Oriental, and his extraordinary knowledge of various languages stood him in good stead as he made his way overland to India, by Palestine and Bagdad. Proceeding still on his course, he entered Persia, crossed the chain of the Zagros, and embarked at Bushir in a man-of-war of the East India Company that was bound on an expedition against some Wahabee pirates in the Persian Gulf, and going ashore at Ras el Khyma, acted as interpreter to Captain Brydges, Commander of the Squadron, assisted in bombarding the town, and then proceeded to Bombay, which he reached after a journey of twelve months. But his mission was again unsuccessful; either the Bombay merchants had no confidence in the Egyptian Government, or they were jealous of any interference with their own line of trade.

Now, however, the Company's licence reached him, authorizing him to remain in their territories, and he regained the appointment to the vessel _Humayoon Shah_, in the service of the Imaum of Muscat, and he remained navigating the Eastern waters till Midsummer, 1818, when, having received commands from the Imaum to proceed to the coast of Zanzibar, on a slaving expedition, he threw up his engagement, worth £4000 per annum, rather than be implicated in such a nefarious trade.

Buckingham next became proprietor and editor of the _Calcutta Mirror_, a Liberal paper, that instantly obtained an extensive sale, and brought in to its founder a net profit of £8000 a year. But his resolute advocacy of Free Trade, free settlement, and free Press, and an exposure of the misdoings of the East India Company, brought down on him the heavy hand of Mr. John Adams, the temporary Governor-General. His paper was suppressed, and he was ordered to quit Calcutta. His little fortune was sacrificed in a vain attempt to fight the Governor and the Company, and he was thrown back on the world, almost as poor, save in experience, as when a youth he trudged from Corunna to Lisbon. He left his magnificent library at Calcutta, in the hopes of being able to return, after having obtained redress at home. But the redress he hoped for never came. Too many interests were involved to accord it to him, and his library, like his fortune and his hopes, was wrecked.