Chapter XV: The Pressing Tender

As the coach passed out of the city, three or four persons on horseback rode in. Among them was a lady in a light-blue riding-habit, with a feather in her hat. She was Amy Lee!

I dashed my fettered hands through the glass windows, and called aloud to her, in the desperate hope that her friends, who were Colonel Rose and some officers of the 43rd, might rescue me; but the corporal, a stern and merciless old fellow, thrust his bayonet into my left arm, inflicting a wound which gave me considerable pain for weeks after, and the mark of which I shall bear to my grave. Finding there was no remedy for present evil but resignation, I sat still after this; but my cup of bitterness seemed to be filling fast.

Near the entrance of the Kirkgate, Corporal Dhu dismissed the coach, and showed us the priming in the pan of his musket, swearing that he would shoot the first who attempted to escape as dead as Julius Cæsar; a threat which, I believe, he was quite capable of fulfilling. He then marched us straight towards the harbour.

We attracted little or no notice as we proceeded; poor boys, pressed or sent to sea, by order of some tyrant bailie or sheriff, being then a matter of daily occurrence. The old harbour was full of bustle and confusion. Men-of-war boats, manned by smart seamen or smarter marines, each with a standard waving, and a little middy seated in the stern, were shooting to and fro, while the scene was a wondrous medley of nautical uproar. Ships of all kinds, loading or unloading; while piles of goods, waggons, carts, rigging, anchors, boats, casks, and government stores, guarded by seamen with cutlasses, and marines with fixed bayonets, met the eye on every hand; for the North-Sea fleet were moored in the roads. A small corvette, of sixteen guns, was undergoing repairs, and her artillery were placed upon the quay. Near her lay a few small Dutch and French ships, each with the broom, the sign of being for sale, at the foretopmast head. These were prizes, taken at sea. They seemed sad, silent, and deserted, amid the bustle of the harbour.

As we marched past the old Tolbooth of Leith, three fellows, of uncouth aspect, who had been concerned in a robbery, and were chained to the "jouging anchor," were unlocked, and added to our party, as pressed men for his Majesty's navy, for of such material did they make food for gunpowder in those old days "when George the Third was king." This jouging anchor was a ponderous affair; an appendage of some old frigate, it was a mass of rust, and lay before the town prison. Culprits were chained to it by the ankles, until they were accommodated in the cells, or until the Baron Bailie had time to hear and decide upon their cases.

In 1792, Leith was still destitute of wet docks, and where these are now formed, the sea flowed over an open beach, and dashed its waves against the sloping bastions of an old citadel, built in the time of the great civil war. The London smacks had only been established in the preceding year, and smart craft they were, with enormous fore and aft mainsails, all letters-of-marque; being furnished by government with six carronades. They carried the old Scottish flag at their foremast head, and fought their way at sea, without guard or convoy.

We were soon thrust into a man-o'-war's boat, and in less than a quarter of an hour found ourselves alongside the tender--a long, low, and black painted cutter, of most piratical appearance, as she had been a French privateer, and carried a revolving 32-pounder amidships, with a row of brass swivels or patereroes round her stern and quarters.

Lieutenant Cranky, her commander, was a sourvisaged old fellow, of a terrible and buccaneer aspect. He had a queue of coarse grey hair, whipped with common spun-yarn, extending at least three feet down his back, from under a hat shaped liked Napoleon's, and bound with broad yellow braid. He wore a rough pea-jacket, adorned by innumerable brass buttons; a broad waistbelt of black leather, fastened by a square brass buckle, sustained his heavy cutlass, in the rusty hilt of which he generally inserted his left hand. His right was occupied with a long clay pipe, and he walked to and fro, whining away between the stern and capstan, on the head of which stood his invariable companion--a stiff glass of purser's rum-and-water; and as there was daily a flogging on board, the dozens administered always bore a due proportion to the number of glasses he imbibed. Whenever the hands were piped up for punishment, Lieutenant Cranky stuck in his belt a pair of ship-pistols, the ramrods of which were secured by a lanyard, and thus accoutred, he would scowl over the deck, as if he expected an immediate mutiny and rebellion against him and the king.

He had lost an eye--"his starboard glim," as he styled it--at the capture of Havannah; his nose had been flattened by a half-spent musket shot in Rodney's battle off Cape St. Vincent; half his right cheek had been shaved off by a cannon ball somewhere else. His disposition, never a very meek one at any time, had been soured by long disappointment, and exasperated by the tyranny he had borne, and could now exercise in turn; thus, his whole aspect was not calculated to impress me with pleasure or inspire me with hope on beholding him.

"Boat ahoy," he shouted over the quarter as we sheered alongside; "what the devil have you got there?"

"Prisoners, sir, to be handed over to you by the civil authorities," replied Corporal Dhu.

"Been engaged in the riots, eh?"

"Yes, sir," said the corporal, standing erect, and giving Mr. Cranky an old-fashioned salute.

"Bring 'em aboard--all right. We heard some firing yesterday. What the devil was up in that psalmsinging town of yours, eh?"

"The 53rd fired on the mob yesterday."

"Served them right! I would have grapeshotted the mutinous spawn! Any killed?"

"A few, sir."

"A good haul for old Beelzebub, eh? Look sharp, youngster, or damme, I'll have you whipped up to the cross-trees!" he thundered in my ear, as I came slowly and reluctantly on board.

I gave him a furious glance.

"Oons, sirrah--what is your name?" he asked, with some surprise that any one under the rank of admiral had the hardihood to look him full in the face; but, as I disdained to reply, he uttered a terrible oath, and added, "boatswain's mate--here with a rope's end! we'll cure you of sullenness, you mutinous young flatfish."

Seeing now the utter folly of resistance, I gave my name, which was duly entered in a book.

"You look deuced like the young swab who clapped on all sail and gave us the slip yesterday. So take care, my lad, or I'll show you the foretop with a vengeance!" said Mr. Cranky, as he gave a receipt for us to Corporal Dhu, together with the fees for the city chamberlain, and then I found myself hopelessly entered as a ship-boy, seaman, prisoner, or what you will, on board of his Majesty's pressing tender, the _Tartar_.

I gazed in agony after the shore boat, as it was pushed off from the side of the cutter, and saw the brick-red coats of the city guardsmen fading and their figures lessening, as she was pulled into the old harbour.

Lieutenant Cranky, who seemed a thorough officer of the "Captain Oakham" school, eyed us fiercely with his solitary eye.

"Now, my young mudlarks," said he, "I suppose the only kits you have are upon your backs; but we'll soon have you turned over as powder-monkeys to some line-o'-battle ship; so console yourselves. Get down below and under hatch, every man and mother's son of you; and remember that the marines have orders to fire upon any one attempting to escape. If retaken, by ----, I'll flog the hearts out of all of you. Off now, and, d---- my eyes, look out for squalls!"

One of the poor little boys who was with me now began to weep piteously and call on his mother; so the boatswain's mate thrust us all down below, bellowing out as he did so,--

"Pass a rope's-end here, some o' you! Now, my young swabs, stow your precious blubbering, or I'll pound you all into jelly. What a rum carawan of a Noah's ark we should have, if we stood such nonsense aboard a king's ship!"