The Adventures of Roderick Random
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;
‘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,
‘William Thompson.’
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.
CHAPTER XXXI
I discover a subornation against me, by means of a quarrel between two
of the evidences; in consequence of which I am set at liberty, and
prevail upon Morgan to accept of his freedom on the same
terms—Mackshane’s malice—we arrive at Jamaica, from whence in a short
time we beat up to Hispaniola, in conjunction with the West India
squadron—we take in water, sail again, and arrive at
Carthagena—Reflections on our conduct there
Meanwhile, a quarrel happening between the two modern Greeks, the one,
to be revenged of the other, came and discovered to us the mystery of
Mackshane’s dialogue, as I have explained it above. This detection
coming to the ears of the doctor, who was sensible that (now we were in
sight of Jamaica) we should have an opportunity of clearing ourselves
before a court-martial, and, at the same time, of making his malice and
ignorance conspicuous, he interceded for us with the captain so
effectually, that in a few hours we were set at liberty, and ordered to
return to our duty. This was a happy event for me, my whole body being
blistered by the sun, and my limbs benumbed by want of motion: but I
could scarce persuade the Welshman to accept of this indulgence, he
persisted in his obstinacy to remain in irons, until he should be
discharged by a court-martial, which, he believed would also do him
justice on his enemies. At length I represented to him the precarious
issue of a trial, the power and interest of his adversaries, and
flattered his revenge with the hope of wreaking his resentment with his
own hands upon Mackshane after our return to England. This last
argument had more weight with him than all the rest, and prevailed upon