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Here I sat and talked with them a good while and then parted, only Sir Christopher Mings and I together by water to the Tower; and I find him a very witty well-spoken fellow, and mighty free to tell his parentage, being a shoemaker's son, to whom he is now going, and I to the 'Change, where I hear how the French have taken two and sunk one of our merchant-men in the Streights, and carried the ships to Toulon; so that there is no expectation but we must fall out with them.
We four sat down presently to our business, and in an hour despatched all our talk; and did inform Sir Thomas Allen well in it, who, I perceive, in serious matters, is a serious man: and tells me he wishes all we are told be true, in our defence; for he finds by all, that the Turks have, to this day, been very civil to our merchant-men everywhere; and, if they would have broke with us, they never had such an opportunity over our rich merchant-men, as lately, coming out of the Streights.
After innumerable voyages aboard men-of-war and merchant-men, fishing-schooners and chebacco-boats, the old salt had become master of a handcart, which he daily trundled about the vicinity, and sometimes blew his fish-horn through the streets of Salem. One of Uncle Parker's eyes had been blown out with gunpowder, and the other did but glimmer in its socket.
Every vessel that comes in here now is sure to lose her crew, and this state of things must continue until the squadron arrives, when, if the men-o'-war-men do not run off too, merchant-men may retain their crews. "The whale-ship Euphrates, of New Bedford, left here a few weeks since, for the United States, to touch on the coast of Chili to recruit.
The governors of some of the West Indies were as keen on the scent of the sea-robbers as the latter were in the chase of merchant-men, and they were unable to see a good many sad goings-on when a few pieces-of-eight were held before their eyes.
We made four such for the Macedonian, to deceive any merchant-men we spoke as to our battery, in case she should report us to an Alabama; and, being carried near the bows, much trouble they gave us, being usually knocked overboard when we tacked ship, or set a lower studding-sail.
But he hath light of five Dutch men-of-war, and taken three, whereof one is sunk; which is very good news to close up the year with, and most of our merchant-men already heard of to be safely come home, though after long lookings for, and now to several ports as they could make them. To church.
It will be pretty to hear their pleas before the great tribunal: one will brag how he mortified his carnal appetite by feeding only upon fish: another will urge that he spent most of his time on earth in the divine exercise of singing psalms: a third will tell how many days he fasted, and what severe penance he imposed on himself for the bringing his body into subjection: another shall produce in his own behalf as many ceremonies as would load a fleet of merchant-men: a fifth shall plead that in threescore years he never so much as touched a piece of money, except he fingered it through a thick pair of gloves: a sixth, to testify his former humility, shall bring along with him his sacred hood, so old and nasty, that any seaman had rather stand bare headed on the deck, than put it on to defend his ears in the sharpest storms: the next that comes to answer for himself shall plead, that for fifty years together, he had lived like a sponge upon the same place, and was content never to change his homely habitation: another shall whisper softly, and tell the judge he has lost his voice by a continual singing of holy hymns and anthems: the next shall confess how he fell into a lethargy by a strict, reserved, and sedentary life: and the last shall intimate that he has forgot to speak, by having always kept silence, in obedience to the injunction of taking heed lest he should have offended with his tongue.
Sir Christopher Mings and I together by water to the Tower; and I find him a very witty well-spoken fellow, and mighty free to tell his parentage, being a shoemaker's son. I to the 'Change, where I hear how the French have taken two and sunk one of our merchant-men in the Straights, and carried the ships to Toulon: so that there is no expectation but we must fall out with them.
She had been up the Levant, and cruising among the Ionian Islands, and then back to Gibraltar, and had returned to Malta; and her blue-jackets and marines had landed on the Spanish and French coasts, and, as they had done before on the Biscay shores, had captured forts, destroyed barracks, and other public buildings, and burnt a town or two, and cut out merchant-men and armed vessels of all sorts; indeed, had done as much mischief as they possibly could.
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