<h2><SPAN name="chap30"></SPAN>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
<p class="letter">
We lament the fate of our companion—the Captain offers Morgan his
liberty, which he refuses to accept—we are brought before him and
examined—Morgan is sent back into custody, whither also I am remanded
after a curious trial</p>
<p>The news of this event affected my fellow prisoner and me extremely, as our
unfortunate companion had justly acquired by his amiable disposition the love
and esteem of us both; and the more we regretted his untimely fate, the greater
horror we conceived for the villain who was undoubtedly the occasion of it.
This abandoned miscreant did not discover the least symptom of concern for
Thompson’s death, although he must have been conscious to himself of
having driven him by ill usage to the fatal resolution, but desired the captain
to set Morgan at liberty again to look after the patients. Accordingly one of
the corporals was sent up to unfetter him, but he protested he would not be
released until he should know for what he was confined; nor would he be a
tennisball, nor a shuttlecock, nor a trudge, nor a scullion, to any captain
under the sun. Oakum, finding him obstinate, and fearing it would not be in his
power to exercise his tyranny much longer with impunity, was willing to show
some appearance of justice and therefore ordered us both to be brought before
him on the quarter-deck, where he sat in state, with his cleric on one side,
and his counsellor Mackshane on the other. When we approached, he honoured us
with this salutation: “So, gentlemen, d—n my blood! many a captain
in the navy would have ordered you both to be tucked up to the yard’s
arm, without either judge or jury, for the crimes you have been guilty of; but,
d—n my blood, I have too much good nature in allowing such dogs as you to
make defence.” “Captain Oakum,” said my fellow-sufferer,
“certainly it is in your power (Cot help the while) to tack us all up at
your will, desire, and pleasures. And perhaps it would be petter for some of us
to be tucked up than to undergo the miseries to which we have been exposed. So
may the farmer hang his kids for his diversion, and amusement, and mirth; but
there is such a thing as justice, if not upon earth, surely in heaven, that
will punish with fire and primstone all those who take away the lives of
innocent people out of wantonness, and parparity (look you). In the mean time.
I shall be glad to know the crimes laid to my charge, and see the person who
accuses me.” “That you shall,” said the captain; “here,
doctor, what have you to say?” Mackshane, stepping forward, hemmed a good
while, in order to clear his throat, and, before he began, Morgan accosted him
thus: “Doctor Mackshane, look in my face—look in the face of an
honest man, who abhors a false witness as he abhors the tevil, and Cot be judge
between you and me.” The doctor, not minding this conjuration, made the
following speech, as near as I can remember: “I’ll tell you what,
Mr. Morgan; to be sure what you say is just, in regard to an honest man, and if
so be it appears as how you are an honest man, then it is my opinion that you
deserve to be acquitted, in relation to that there affair, for I tell you what,
Captain Oakum is resolved for to do everybody justice. As for my own part, all
that I have to allege is, that I have been informed you have spoken
disrespectful words against your captain, who, to be sure, is the most
honourable and generous commander in the king’s service, without
asparagement or acception of man, woman, or child.”</p>
<p>Having uttered this elegant harangue, on which he seemed to plume himself,
Morgan replied, “I do partly guess, and conceive, and understand your
meaning, which I wish could be more explicit; but, however, I do suppose, I am
not to be condemned upon bare hearsay; or, if I am convicted of speaking
disrespectfully of Captain Oakum, I hope there is no treason in my
words.” “But there’s mutiny, by G—d, and that’s
death by the articles of war!” cried Oakum: “In the meantime, let
the witnesses be called.” Hereupon Mackshane’s servant appeared,
and the boy of our mess, whom they had seduced and tutored for the purpose. The
first declared, that Morgan as he descended the cockpit-ladder one day, cursed
the captain, and called him a savage beast, saying, he ought to be hunted down
as an enemy to mankind. “This,” said the clerk, “is a strong
presumption of a design, formed against the captain’s life. For why? It
presupposes malice aforethought, and a criminal intention a priori.”
“Right,” said the captain to this miserable grub, who had been an
attorney’s boy, “you shall have law enough: here’s Cook and
Littlejohn to it.” This evidence was confirmed by the boy, who affirmed,
he heard the first mate say, that the captain had no more bowels than a bear,
and the surgeon had no more brain than an ass. Then the sentinel, who heard our
discourse on the poop was examined, and informed the court that the Welshman
assured me, Captain Oakum and Doctor Mackshane would toss upon billows of
burning brimstone in hell for their barbarity. The clerk observed, that there
was an evident prejudication, which confirmed the former suspicion of a
conspiracy against the life of Captain Oakum; for, because, how could Morgan so
positively pronounce that the captain and surgeon would d—n’d,
unless he had intention to make away with them before they could have time to
repent? This sage explanation had great weight with our noble commander, who
exclaimed, “What have you to say to this, Taffy? you seem to be taken all
a-back, brother, ha!” Morgan was too much of a gentleman to disown the
text, although he absolutely denied the truth of the comment. Upon which the
captain, strutting up to him with a ferocious countenance, said, “So Mr.
son of a bitch, you confess you honoured me with the names of bear and beast,
and pronounced my damnation? D—n my heart! I have a good mind to have you
brought to a court-martial and hang’d, you dog.” Here Mackshane,
having occasion for an assistant, interposed, and begged the captain to pardon
Mr. Morgan with his wonted goodness, upon condition that he the delinquent
should make such submission as the nature of his misdemeanour demanded. Upon
which the Cambro-Briton, who on this occasion would have made no submission to
the Great Mogul, surrounded with his guards, thanked the doctor for his
mediation, and acknowledged himself in the wrong for calling the image of Cot a
peast, “but,” said he, “I spoke by metaphor, and parable, and
comparison, and types; as we signify meekness by a lamb, lechery by a goat, and
craftiness by a fox; so we liken ignorance to an ass, and brutality to a bear,
and fury to a tiger; therefore I made use of these similes to express my
sentiments (look you), and what I said before Cot, I will not unsay before man
nor peast neither.”</p>
<p>Oakum was so provoked at this insolence (as he termed it,) that he ordered him
forthwith to be carried to the place of his confinement, and his clerk to
proceed on the examination of me. The first question put to me was touching the
place of my nativity, which I declared to be the north of Scotland. “The
north of Ireland more like!” cried the captain; “but we shall bring
you up presently.” He then asked what religion I professed; and when I
answered “the Protestant,” swore I was an arrant Roman as ever went
to mass. “Come, come, clerk,” continued he, “catechise him a
little on this subject.” But before I relate the particulars of the
clerk’s inquiries, it will not be amiss to inform the reader that our
commander himself was an Hibernian, and, if not shrewdly belied, a Roman
Catholic to boot. “You say, you are a Protestant,” said the clerk;
“make the sign of the cross with your finger, so, and swear upon it to
that affirmation.” When I was about to perform the ceremony, the captain
cried with some emotion, “No, no, d—me! I’ll have no
profanation neither. But go on with your interrogations.” “Well
then,” proceeded my examiner, “how many sacraments are
there?” To which I replied, “Two.” “What are
they?” said he. I answered, “Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper.” “And so you would explode confirmation and marriage
altogether?” said Oakum. “I thought this fellow was a rank
Roman.” The clerk, though he was bred under an attorney, could not
refrain from blushing at this blunder, which he endeavoured to conceal, by
observing, that these decoys would not do with me, who seemed to be an old
offender. He went on with asking, if I believed in transubstantiation; but I
treated the notion of real presence with such disrespect, that his patron was
scandalised at my impiety, and commanded him to proceed to the plot. Whereupon
this miserable pettifogger told me, there was great reason to suspect me of
being a spy on board, and that I had entered into a conspiracy with Thompson,
and others not yet detected, against the life of Captain Oakum, which
accusation they pretended to support by the evidence of our boy, who declared
he had often heard the deceased Thompson and me whispering together, and could
distinguish the words, “Oakum, rascal, poison, pistol;” by which
expressions it appeared, we did intend to use sinister means to accomplish his
destruction. That the death of Thompson seemed to confirm this conjecture, who,
either feeling the stings of remorse for being engaged in such a horrid
confederacy, or fearing a discovery, by which he must have infallibly suffered
an ignominious death, had put a fatal period to his own existence. But what
established the truth of the whole was, a book in cyphers found among my
papers, which exactly tallied with one found in his chest, after his
disappearance. This, he observed, was a presumption very near positive proof,
and would determine any jury in Christendom to find me guilty. In my own
defence, I alleged, that I had been dragged on board at first very much against
my inclination, as I could prove by the evidence of some people now in the
ship, consequently could have no design of becoming spy at that time; and ever
since had been entirely out of the reach of any correspondence that could
justly entail that suspicion upon me. As for conspiring against my
captain’s life, it could not be supposed that any man in his right wits
would harbour the least thought of such an undertaking, which he could not
possibly perform without certain infamy and ruin to himself, even if he had all
the inclination in the world. That, allowing the boy’s evidence to be
true (which I affirmed was false and malicious), nothing conclusive could be
gathered from a few incoherent words; neither was the fate of Mr. Thompson a
circumstance more favourable for the charge; for I had in my pocket a letter
which too well explained that mystery, in a very different manner from that
which was supposed. With these words, I produced the following letter, which
Jack Rattlin brought to me the very day after Thompson disappeared; and told me
it was committed to his care by the deceased, who made him promise not to
deliver it sooner. The clerk, taking it out of my hand, read aloud the
contents, which were these;</p>
<p class="letter">
‘Dear Friend,—I am so much oppressed with the fatigue I daily and
nightly undergo, and the barbarous usage of Doctor Mackshane, who is bent on
your destruction as well as mine, that I am resolved to free myself from this
miserable life, and, before you receive this, shall be no more. I could have
wished to die in your good opinion, which I am afraid I shall forfeit by the
last act of my life; but, if you cannot acquit me, I know you will at least
preserve some regard for the memory of an unfortunate young man who loved you.
I recommend it to you, to beware of Mackshane, whose revenge is implacable. I
wish all prosperity to you and Mr. Morgan, to whom pray offer my last respects,
and beg to be remembered as your unhappy friend and countryman,</p>
<p class="right">
‘William Thompson.’</p>
<p>This letter was no sooner read, than Mackshane, in a transport of rage,
snatched it out of the clerk’s hands, and tore it into a thousand pieces,
saying, it was a villainous forgery, contrived and executed by myself. The
captain and clerk declared themselves of the same opinion, although I insisted
of having the remains of it compared with other writings of Thompson, which
they had in their possession; and I was ordered to answer the last article of
my accusation, namely, the book of ciphers found among my papers. “That
is easily done,” said I. “What you are pleased to call ciphers, are
no other than the Greek characters, in which, for my amusement, I keep a diary
of everything remarkable that has occurred to my observation since the
beginning of the voyage, till the day in which I was put in irons; and the same
method was practised by Mr. Thompson, who copied mine.” “A very
likely story,” cried Mackshane; “what occasion was there for using
Greek characters, if you were not afraid of discovering what you had wrote? But
what d’ye talk of Greek characters? D’ye think I am so ignorant of
the Greek language, as not to distinguish its letters from these, which are no
more Greek than Chinese? No, no, I will not give up my knowledge of the Greek
for you, nor none that ever came from your country.” So saying, with an
unparalleled effrontery, he repeated some gibberish, which by the sound seemed
to be Irish, and made it pass for Greek with the captain, who, looking at me
with a contemptuous sneer, exclaimed, “Ah, ah! have you caught a
tartar?” I could not help smiling at the consummate assurance of this
Hibernian, and offered to refer the dispute to anybody on board who understood
the Greek alphabet. Upon which Morgan was brought back, and, being made
acquainted with the affair, took the book, and read a whole page in English,
without hesitation, deciding the controversy in my favour. The doctor was so
far from being out of countenance at this detection, that he affirmed Morgan
was in the secret, and repeated from his own invention. Oakum said, “Ay,
ay, I see they are both in a story;” and dismissed my fellow-mate to his
cockloft, although I proposed that he and I should read and translate,
separately, any chapter or verse in the Greek Testament in his possession, by
which it would appear whether we or the surgeon spoke truth. Not being endued
with eloquence enough to convince the captain that there could be no juggle nor
confederacy in this expedient, I begged to be examined by some unconcerned
person on board, who understood Greek. Accordingly, the whole ship’s
company, officers and all, were called upon deck, among whom it was proclaimed
that, if anyone of them could speak Greek, he or they so qualified should
ascend the quarter-deck immediately. After some pause, two foremast men came
up, and professed their skill in that language, which, they said, they acquired
during several voyages to the Levant, among the Greeks of the Morea. The
captain exulted much in this declaration, and put my journal book into the
hands of one of them, who candidly owned he could neither read nor write; the
other acknowledged the same degree of ignorance, but pretended to speak the
Greek lingo with any man on board; and, addressing himself to me, pronounced
some sentences of a barbarous corrupted language, which I did not understand. I
asserted that the modern Greek was as different from that spoken and written by
the ancients, as the English used now from the old Saxon spoke in the time of
Hengist: and, as I had only learned the true original tongue, in which Homer,
Pindar, the Evangelists, and other great men of antiquity wrote, it could not
be supposed that I should know anything of an imperfect Gothic dialect that
rose on the ruins of the former, and scarce retained any traces of the old
expression: but, if Doctor Mackshane, who pretended to be master of the Greek
language, could maintain a conversation with these seamen, I would retract what
I had said, and be content to suffer any punishment be should think proper to
inflict. I had no sooner uttered these words than the surgeon, knowing one of
the fellows to be his countryman, accosted him in Irish, and was answered in
the same brogue; then a dialogue ensued between them, which they affirmed to be
in Greek, after having secured the secrecy of the other tar, who had his cue in
the language of the Morea, from his companion, before they would venture to
assert such an intrepid falsehood. “I thought,” said Oakum,
“we should discover the imposture at last. Let the rascal be carried back
to his confinement. I find he must dangle.” Having nothing further to
urge in my own behalf, before a court so prejudiced with spite, and fortified
with ignorance against truth, I suffered myself to be reconducted peaceably to
my fellow-prisoner, who, hearing the particulars of my trial, lifted up his
hands and eyes to Heaven, and uttered a dreadful groan: and, not daring to
disburden his thoughts to me by speech, lest he might be overheard by the
sentinel, burst forth into a Welsh song, which he accompanied with a thousand
contortions of face and violent gestures of body.</p>
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