peter spends the winter of 1806–7 in new york; sails in june in the carnapkin for bristol; a sea tempest; ship becalmed off the coast of england; catch a shark and find a lady’s hand, and gold ring and locket in him; this locket, &c. lead to a trial, and the murderer hung; the mother of the lady visits the ship; sail for home; peter sails with captain williams on a trading voyage; gibralter; description of it; sail to bristol; chased by a privateer; she captured by a french frigate; sail for new york; peter lives a gentleman at large in “the big city of new york.”
author. “what did you do in new york, peter?”
peter. “we laid by and unrigged for winter, and the captain sent to troy and had his family brought down to the city, and i lived in his family that winter as servant; and i had fine times tu, for he was a noble man, and lived as independent as a prince, in broadway, nigh where the astor house stands. i had a fine winter of it, and come spring he hired the carnapkin, one of the biggest and best ships in port, and all rigged. we weighed anchor for bristol, and this was rare sport for me, for we was a goin’ to see old john bull.
“when we’d been out about seven or eight days, we was overhauled by a tremendous storm from the north-east; and it grew worse and worse, and about midnight she lay on her beam ends for some time, and we expected to go to pieces; and the second mate sounded the hold and found four feet water in her, and that started the hair. we got the pumps a goin’ and pretty soon the captain hollers out, ‘she rights,’ and glad enough we was; and the carpenter found her leak, and makes all tight, and by next day all was clear as a bell. the captain found himself off of his course over two hundred miles, and so he hauls on agin; and in about twenty days we made sight of the white coast of old england, and there we was becalmed for two days, and didn’t stir a mile.
“the captain says, ‘now boys, you may go and fish till we git a breeze.’ well, we hadn’t been out long afore we fell foul of a shark, and the first thing he knowed he had the harpoon in him, and we got him aboard, and then we calculated on a great hurrah, and sure enough we did have a melancholy one tu. the captain says, ‘now let’s have his liver cooked,’ for you see a shark’s liver is a great dish at sea. and so i goes to work and cuts him open, and what do you think i found there?
“why the first thing i found was the hand of a human person, and on the middle finger was a gold ring, and on it ’twas wrote who she was in spanish characters. the captain stands by and says, ‘dig carefully a leetle furder and see what you find.’ so on i dug with my butcher-knife, and up comes a gold chain; and i pulled away and out come a gold locket, and it had a lock of hair in it, and a name on it. we hunted along and found human bones, and nails of fingers partly dissolved.
“well, the captain sings out, ‘fling the monster overboard, for we won’t have any thing aboard that devours human flesh; and cook you clean that locket and hand, &c., as clean as you can.’ and so i did, and the hand we preserved in rum, and the captain kept all of ’em till we got to port, and then we found out the end on it, and all about it.
“well, we made port, and then the captain advertises the story of the shark; and the day arter this there come a splendid carriage to the dock, and who should it be but a spanish lady, and she was in great splendor tu, and she comes aboard and calls for the captain; and he waits upon her with great respect down into the cabin, and her servant goes down with her, and she spoke in broken english, and asks him all about the shark, and then he tells all about it, and then showed her the hand; and when i brought it she broke out into ‘my god!’ and she seemed to be grieved and vexed, and broken down, and yit spunky by turns; and then she’d say, as she looked at the locket and hand and ring, ‘sacra venga,’ and swear, and her face would look red and pale by turns; and finally she turns to the captain and says, ‘sir, this was my child,’ and says she ‘there was a young spaniard engaged to my daughter, and they walked out one evening towards the water-side, and that’s the last i’ve heard of my child till now. he went to his own lodgings that night and was inquired of for her, but give no answer, and they made great sarch for her, but nothin’ could we hear. it always seemed to me he killed her, but i couldn’t git any evidence of it, and so i let it rest, and this happened nearly two weeks ago, and to day, you and your crew must come up and testify to the whole transaction.’ so she left.
that arternoon, four gentlemen come in a coach to the ship, and we had to go up to the city hall, i guess ’twas; a large stone building, and it had great pillars in front on it, and i looked at it good i tell you, for ’twas the handsomest buildin’ i ever see. so we got there, and they put us all into a room and locked us up; and we stayed there till two o’clock, and then a man come and took out the captain, and then me, and i was sworn, and told the whole story; and then all the crew was fetched on, and testified the same thing; and the cabin-boy, when he finished his testimony, says, ‘and i believe this lady was killed and flung overboard by some body,’ and he said it with some courage, tu; and at that a young spaniard of a dark complexion and long black eyebrows that come round under a curl at the corner of his eye, and oh! how black his eye was, and he had long mustaches on his upper lip, and a big pair of whiskers, and i tell you he looked as though he could murder as easy as you could eat a meal of victuals. but he looked kind’a chopfallen, and up he got, and says he, ‘i’m the man—i flung her off the wharf, and i give myself up to the law;’ you see he had been taken and brought to the bar. then the king’s attorney gineral, spoke to this prisoner, and i tell you he was dressed splendidly. he had on an elegant blue coat and satin vest, and black satin pantaloons, and buff pumps, and he had on a girdle of red morocco, and it had a gold plate in front, and it had a big star on it, and his head was powdered in great style, and he fixes his eyes on the spaniard like a blaze of fire, and says, ‘prisoner, deliver up that knife in your sleeve;’ and at that the spaniard slips a ribbon off of his wrist and drew out a knife like what we call a bowie knife in this country, and handed it to the attorney, and i tell ye if the spaniard didn’t look beat!
“and then his lawyer got up and made a smart plea for him and set down; but then you might know he was a rowin’ agin the tide, for he was a pleadin’ for the devil himself.
“then the attorney gineral got up, and says, ‘my lords and judges, and gentlemen of the jury, &c. &c.’ and if he didn’t make a splendid plea then i’m no judge—i once could tell all about it, for you see i was all ear when them big fellers spoke and we all talked it over on the v’yge so much, and what one forgot ‘tother recollected, and then besides ’twas published in the bristol papers; and once i could say it all to a t, and i only wish i could remember it word for word, it would be sich great stuff for this book. but my memory has kind’a failed me for a few years; only i know the gineral made all on us cry, he talked so fine, and i do remember the closin’ off sayin’. ‘my lords, i have now finished the defence for the crown, and i submit the case to your lordships, feeling that your verdict will respect the rights of the throne and the liberties and safety of its loyal subjects. my lords i have done.’ and down he sat.
“and there that big room—it was as big as the whole of our big red barn—was crowded full as it could stick and hold, and there was a’most all nations on ‘arth there. and i tell you if i didn’t feel fine to git up afore my lords, (as that ere attorney gineral called ’em,) and all them big bugs, and tell about that poor lady there; and there agin i was treated better than i ever was in an american court in my life; for i never got up in a court room in this country to give testimony or see a black man, who warn’t rather laughed at by somebody. well, when the attorney gineral had finished, three of these ’ere lords i tell on went into another room, and stayed there a few minutes, and come back, and then the chief lord of the establishment got up, and drew on a kind of a black cap, and commanded the attention of all present, and the room was so still you could hear a pin drop. the prisoner was fetched forward, and the judge turns to him and says:—
“‘by the testimony of captain truesdell and crew, and by your own confession, i find you, accordin’ to the laws of our king and country, guilty of this murder; and have you any thing to offer why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon you?’ the spaniard shook his head, and then the judge pronounced his doom.
“‘in the name of the king of the realm, and by the authority of almighty god, i sentence you to be executed this evening at half-past six o’clock, until you are dead, dead, dead; and may god have mercy on your soul.’
“well, the sheriff took the prisoner and ordered us to be sent back in a large carriage and four milk white horses to the ship.
next mornin’ at ten o’clock the spanish lady came aboard, and went down in the cabin with the captain, and sot there and talked a good while about the affair, and cried a good deal, and when she got up she put her hand into her little huzzy and took out twenty doubloons, and give ’em to the captain, and told him to divide that with his crew, and she calls for me and gives me a half-joe, and says she, ‘i give you that for bein’ so good as to find my darter,’ and she went off, and i had a doubloon and a half-joe, and that night we heard the spaniard was hung.
“well, we lay in port about four weeks, and we had fine times and see a good many big characters, and i was in england arter this, and i see some of the biggest kind of bugs they got, and i’ll tell about that when i git to it. well, we took in a load of goods, and weighed anchor for home, and had as fine a passage as ever was sailed over the brine. we made new york and the hands was all paid off, and i had one hundred and sixty dollars in specie except a little on the manhattan bank. then i quit captain truesdell, and he gin me a recommend, and i hired to captain james williams, and we hadn’t been in port but four weeks afore i sailed with him for gaudaloupe. we started in november, on sunday mornin’ jist as the bells begun to ring for church, and weighed anchor for the west indies, and then i see the difference atwixt the sailor’s sunday and a yorker’s, and it made me feel kind’a serious and rother bad.
“the captain had started on a tradin’ and carryin’ v’yge; so when we’d cruised round some months in the west indies, we took a load and sailed for gibralter, and if that gibralter warn’t a pokerish lookin’ place i never see one. we come into the bay and cast anchor under the fort, and they fired three guns over our ship, as a shakin’ hands, to let us know we was welcome, and then the captain and officers had to go ashore and account for themselves. as we lay there and looked up, we could see three tiers of cannon one above another, and soldiers with blue coats trimmed with red, and horseskin caps (as i calls them) paradin’ there. and as soon as the captain got leave of tradin’ back and forth from the governor, all these ’ere cannons was drawn back.
“the english colors way flyin’ from the top of the rock, and at twelve o’clock every day the drums beat, and they played what they called ‘the roast beef of old england.’ in the mornin’ the revelie beat and six cannon was fired from the fort, and if any armed ships lay in the harbor they answered ’em; and every single hour in the night we could hear the sentinel’s heavy tread on the rock, and his cry, ten o’clock and all’s well, eleven o’clock and all’s well, &c., and so he kept it up all night. some on ’em told me they’d had distressed times round the old rock afore this. about the time of our revolutionary war the french and spaniards leagued together and got hundreds of ships and thousands of sogers together, and battered away at the old fort, and shot more red hot cannon balls agin it than you could shake a stick at; but they only went ‘bum, bum,’ and shivered the rock a little, and fell down into the sea, and they attacked the fort on the land side and worked away there, day arter day, but they didn’t hurt a hair of the old rock’s head, and finally they agreed to quit it.—why sir, all the nations on the globe could not take that fort. the english will always have it till the end of the world. well i looked up through the straits, and it did look beautiful; i could see the african shore; yis, the same africa where so many millions of my poor brothers and sisters had been stole and carried off into slavery—oh! i felt bad. well, we sold our load of provisions to the governor of the rock, and bought a few things and started for england.
“when we’d been out four days we was chased by a privateer, and once they got in a quarter of a mile on us, but we had the most canvass, and we histed the sky scrapers, moon rakers, and star gazers, and water sail, and a good wind. but they fired on us all the time they was near enough. they chased us two days, and then we fell in with a french frigate, and they hailed us, and wanted to know if we’d seen a privateer along the coast, and so the captain told all about it and they gin three cheers and bore away arter her.
“in a few hours we heard a dreadful cannonadin’, and a great cloud of smoke riz out of the sea, and we concluded they’d overhauled her, and we left her in good hands. we sailed on for bristol, and arter we’d been there five days, the news come that a french frigate had captured a spanish privateer, but didn’t take any of her crew, for no sooner than they found themselves taken than they blew up their ship.
“we stayed in bristol some time, and started at last for new york. on our passage out, we come across a wreck, and we sailed within forty rods on her, and sent out a small boat, and there warn’t a livin’ soul aboard to tell the story, and there she lay bottom side up, and as handsome a copper bottom as ever you see; but we couldn’t do any thing with her, and so we left her and sailed on.
“about a week arter, we was a sailin’ along afore a pleasant breeze, and the moon shinin’ on the waters, and they looked like melted silver, the first thing we knew up come a seventy-four gun ship right alongside, her guns run out, and men standin’ with burnin’ torches jist ready to fire, and we felt streaked enough, for we expected to be blown up every minute, and there we stood a tremblin’ and didn’t dare to say one word; and she passed right by and never fired a pistol, and in one minute she was out of sight—she come and she went and that’s all you can say. now that’s what the sailors call ‘the phantom ship.’ you see there’s no ship about it, only some curious appearances on the sea, that always scares sailors, and makes them think they are a goin’ to be captured. well, we had a fine v’yge home, and made the new york light the first of november, arter a cruise of nearly twelve months. i didn’t like captain williams, and i quit him, and he paid me off one hundred and fifteen dollars, and i had now two hundred and fifty dollars, and i kept it safe. and a part of the time i went round new york with a saw-buck on my shoulder, and part of the time i was a gentleman at large in the big city—and so i spent that winter.
