The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
each successive blast listed the ship right over. The captain then
determined to run back to Port Mercy. The master set the course, as he
thought, to clear the headland; and we steamed at full speed. I was
standing half-way up the bridge ladder holding on to the man-rope in a
violent squall of hail and snow, the hail cutting my cheeks open, when
I saw land right ahead. The fact was that the master had mistaken his
course, and the ship was driving straight on shore, where every man
would have perished. I reported my observation to the first
lieutenant, who merely remarked that it was probable that the master
knew better than I did. But presently he too saw the high rocks
looming ahead through the smother of snow and spray, and the course was
altered just in time. The wind was on the port beam; we edged into it
out to sea; and so were able to clear the headland and get under the
lee of the land. The first lieutenant afterwards handsomely admitted
that it was a good job I was standing where I was "with my eyes open"
at the critical moment. It was in the height of this emergency, that I
first heard the pipe go "Save ship."
We proceeded to Valparaiso, where the ship put in to refit. At
Valparaiso, we were able to get horses, and we organised paper-chases.
It was about this time that the incident of the Impresario occurred.
He was conducting the orchestra from the stage itself, being seated in
a hole cut in the stage, so that his legs {57} rested upon a little
platform below. The refreshment room was underneath the stage, and the
Impresario's legs projected downwards from the ceiling into the room,
where were two or three midshipmen and myself. The temptation was
irresistible. We grasped the legs; hauled on them; and down came the
Impresario. Overhead, the music faltered and died away.
From Valparaiso we proceeded to the Sandwich Islands, whence we were
ordered to take Queen Emma to Panama, on her way to England to see
Queen Victoria. Queen Emma was born Miss Emma Booker. She married
Kamehameha IV in 1856. We took the Queen on board with one native lady
as her attendant. The natives were devoted to their queen, and they
insisted on loading the ship with presents for her. They brought pigs,
masses of yams, sweet potatoes, water-melons and other fruit. The pigs
were housed forward on the main deck, and the other offerings were
piled on the rigging and hammock nettings and about the davit guys, so
that the ship looked like an agricultural show when we sailed for
Panama.
We sighted a schooner flying signals of distress. The life-boat was
called away to go to her assistance. I was in charge of the life-boat.
When a boat is called away at sea, the crew of course take their places
in her before she is lowered. The whole operation, from the sound of
the pipe to the moment the boat touches the water, occupies no more
than a few seconds in a smart ship. There was a little sea-way on, and
the movement of the boat caused a jerk to the falls, unhooking the
safety catch, and dislodging an enormous water-melon, which fell
through about eighteen feet upon the top of my head. I was knocked
nearly senseless. It was the melon that split upon the impact,
deluging me with red pulp; but I thought that it was my skull which had
cracked, and that they were my brains which were spoiling my uniform,
and I remember wondering that my brains should be so queerly and
vividly coloured.
But I recovered from the shock in a few minutes. {58} Boarding the
schooner, I found she was short of water. But the remarkable thing
about that schooner was that although she carried a cargo of six
thousand pounds in Mexican dollars, they had only four men on board,
all told--an easy prize for a pirate.
After touching at Acapulco, which was all heat and flies, we landed the
Queen of the Sandwich Islands at Panama.
Some years afterwards, I went to call upon her Majesty. In all my
voyages, I carried with me a set of tandem harness; and on this
occasion, I hired a light cart and a couple of ponies, and drove them
tandem. Approaching the royal residence, I took a corner too sharply,
the cart capsized, I was flung out, and found myself sitting on the
ground in the Queen's presence.
But before we quitted the Sandwich Islands, an event occurred (of which
I was the humble and unwitting instrument) which nearly brought about
what are called international complications. I should explain that
feeling ran pretty high between the English and the Americans in the
Sandwich Islands with regard to the American Civil War, which was then
waging. It was none of our business, but we of the _Clio_ chose to
sympathise with the South. Now that these unhappy differences have
been so long composed, there can be no harm in referring to them. But
it was not resentment against the North which inspired my indiscretion.
It was the natural desire to win a bet. A certain lady--her name does
not matter--bet me that I would not ride down a steep pass in the
hills, down which no horse had yet been ridden. I took the bet and I
won it. Then the same fair lady bet me--it was at a ball--that I would
not pull down the American flag. That emblem was painted on wood upon
an escutcheon fixed over the entrance to the garden of the Consulate.
I took that bet, too, and won it.
Having induced two other midshipmen to come with me, we went under
cover of night to the Consulate. I climbed upon the backs of my
accomplices, leaped up, caught hold of the escutcheon, and brought the
whole thing down upon {59} us. Then we carried the trophy on board in
a shore-boat. Unfortunately the boatman recognised what it was, and
basely told the American consul, who was naturally indignant, and who
insisted that the flag should be nailed up again in its place. I had
no intention of inflicting annoyance, and had never considered how
serious might be the consequences of a boyish impulse. My captain very
justly said that as I had pulled down the flag I must put it up again,
and sent me with a couple of carpenters on shore. We replaced the
insulted emblem of national honour, to the deep delight of an admiring
crowd. The _Clio_ put to sea. We heard afterwards that the American
Government dispatched a couple of ships of war to capture me, but I do
not think the report was true.
Having landed the Queen of the Sandwich Islands at Panama, as I have
said, about the middle of June, 1865, we left the Bay early in July,
and proceeded to Vancouver, arriving there in the middle of August.
There we remained until early in December.
I was placed in charge of a working party from the _Clio_, to cut a
trail through the virgin forest of magnificent timber with which the
island was then covered. I was pleased enough to receive an extra
shilling a day check-money. Where the flourishing town of Victoria now
stands, there were a few log huts, closed in by gigantic woods. When I
revisited the country recently, I found a tramway running along what
was once my trail, and I met several persons who remembered my having
helped to cut it, nearly fifty years before.
I believe that Canada will eventually become the centre of the British
Empire; for the Canadians are a splendid nation, gifted with pluck,
enterprise and energy.
The free forest life was bliss to a boy of my age. To tell the truth,
we were allowed to do pretty well what we liked in the _Clio_, which
was so easy-going a ship that she was nicknamed "the Privateer." We
used to go out fishing for salmon with the Indians, in their canoes,
using the {60} Indian hook made of shell. To this day the Indians fish
for salmon in canoes, using shell hooks. I made a trot, a night-line
with a hundred hooks, and hauled up a goodly quantity of fish every
morning. I remember that a party of midshipmen (of whom I was not one)
from another ship were playing cricket on the island, when a bear
suddenly walked out of the forest. The boys instantly ran for a gun
and found one in an adjacent cabin, but there were no bullets or caps.
So they filled up the weapon with stones from the beach. In the
meantime the bear had climbed a tree. The midshipmen levelled the gun
at him and fired it with a lucifer match.
We used to go away into the forest deer-shooting, and on one occasion
we were lost for a day and a night. It was at this time that I made
the acquaintance of the celebrated Mr. Dunsmuir, who became a mayor and
a millionaire, simply because he slept one night in the forest--for the
sake of coolness. When he awoke in the morning, he found that he had
pillowed his head upon a lump of coal. He subsequently obtained an
enormous concession of land from the Government and amassed a huge
fortune in coal. Two of our lieutenants put money in the scheme. I
wrote at the time to my father, asking him to let me have a thousand
pounds to invest in the coal business. But he replied affectionately
but firmly that, until I ceased to exceed my allowance, he did not
think it right that I should embark in a gambling project. The two
lucky lieutenants were eventually bought out by Mr. Dunsmuir for a very
large sum of money.
I was very happy in the _Clio_; but, for reasons, it was considered
expedient that I should be transferred to the _Tribune_. Accordingly,
I turned over to the _Tribune_ early in December, by the orders of my
constant friend, Admiral Charles Eden. He said it would do me good to
serve under Captain Lord Gillford. He was right. It did.
{61}
CHAPTER VI
STRICT SERVICE
Captain Lord Gillford, afterwards Lord Clamwilliam, was one of the
finest seamen, and his ship was one of the smartest ships, in the
Service. The _Tribune_ was what we used to call a jackass frigate.
She was pierced for 31 guns, was of 1570 tons burthen, and 300
h.p.--not that anything could ever induce the captain to use steam.
Before I joined the _Tribune_, she had sprung her foremast so she went
up the Fraser River to cut a new spar out of he forest. Such things
were done in those days. But on the way up she grounded on the bar.
Everything--guns, coal, stores--was taken out of her; anchors were got
out; and every effort was made to warp her off. Still she would not
move. In this desperate pass, when every man in the ship, except one,
was hauling on the purchases, it is on record that when the chaplain
put his weight on the rope, away she came. The power of the man of God
is remembered even unto this day. Then the _Tribune_ sailed up the
river, and they cut a new spar, set it up and rigged it, and she came
home with it.
Captain Lord Gillford prided himself on the speed of his ship under
sail. He had fitted her with all sorts of extra gear, such as they had
in the famous tea-clippers. His tacks and sheets were much thicker
than was usual; strengthening pieces were fitted to the sails; there
were gaffs for topgallant backstays, and extra braces. His order book
was a curiosity, Day after day it bore the same entry: "The course.
Carry sail." Sailing from Vancouver to Valparaiso, the _Tribune_ {62}
beat the _Sutlej_, another fine sailing ship commanded by another
first-class seaman, by two days.
Captain Lord Gillford's orders were that sail should never be shortened
without his permission. One night when it was blowing hard I went down
to the captain's cabin to ask him if we might take in the topmast
studding-sail. The ship was then heeling over. The captain stuck one
leg out of his cot and put his foot against the side of the ship. "I
don't feel any water here yet," says he, and sent me on deck again.
The next moment the sail blew away.
I can never be too grateful for the seamanship I learned on board the
_Tribune_. The captain lost no opportunity of teaching us. On one