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"And whereas, the said Alfred Rubery is of the immature age of twenty years, and of highly respectable parentage; "And whereas, the said Alfred Rubery is a subject of Great Britain, and his pardon is desired by John Bright, of England;
"Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, these and divers other considerations me thereunto moving, and especially as a public mark of the esteem held by the United States of America for the high character and steady friendship of the said John Bright, do hereby grant a pardon to the said Alfred Rubery, the same to begin and take effect on the twentieth day of January 1864, on condition that he leave the country within thirty days from and after that date."
Madness and folly seem to have ruled the half-hearted conspirators of California. An ALABAMA or two on the Pacific would have been most destructive scourges of the sea. The last days of opportunity glide by. The prosaic records of the Federal Court in California tell of the evanescent fame of Harpending, Greathouse, Rubery, Mason, Kent, and the other would-be buccaneers.
Here it's nearly midnight and no captain." "He's not with us," said Harpending quietly. But his face paled. Navigator William Law was the only one of whom he had a doubt. But the men must not suspect. "Law will be along soon," he added. "Let us all get aboard and make ready to sail." The men followed him and went below. Harpending, Greathouse and Rubery paced the deck.
Pell mell, Rubery and Greathouse followed. A couple of hundred yards away they looked into the trained guns of the Federal warship Cyane. Several boatloads of officers and marines were leaving her side. From the San Francisco waterfront a police tug bore down on the Chapman. Greathouse stumbled back into the cabin. "Quick, destroy the evidence," he shouted.
The other was an English boy named Alfred Rubery, large, good-looking, adventurous, nephew of the great London publicist, John Bright. It was he who spoke first in a guarded undertone: "Is everything ready safe?" "Far as I can tell," responded Harpending. "How many men d'you get?" asked Rubery. "Twenty ... that's enough. We'll pick up more at Manzanillo.
When a young man, a friend of Bright's, an Englishman, had been caught here in a plot to seize a vessel and make her into another Alabama, John Bright asked mercy for him; and here are Lincoln's words in consequence: "whereas one Rubery was convicted on or about the twelfth day of October, 1863, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of California, of engaging in, and giving aid and comfort to the existing rebellion against the Government of this Country, and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, and to pay a fine of ten thousand dollars;
"He's drunk probably," commented Greathouse savagely. "Tut! Tut!" cried Rubery, "let us have no croaking." But at two o'clock, the navigator had not shown his face. They could not sail without a captain. Wearily they went below and left a sentinel on watch. He was a young man who had eaten heavily and drunk to even more excess. For a time he paced the deck conscientiously.
Harpending he knew and liked, despite his Southern sympathies; Rubery he had met; an English lad, high-spirited and well connected. In fact, John Bright soon had his errant nephew out of jail. And when, a few months later, Harpending and Greathouse were released, Benito deemed the story happily ended. He heard nothing from McTurpin. No doubt the fellow was dead.
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