05 - Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon by Henry Fielding

Embark on a memorable sailing voyage from England to Portugal in the mid-eighteenth century, as narrated by one of the eras leading humorists, satirists, novelists, and playwrights. This poignant work, recorded during the final chapter of his life, interweaves the authors declining health with the captivating details of his journey.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part four of Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon by
Henry Fielding. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
recording by James Carson. In the afternoon, the lady of
the above mentioned mansion called at our inn and left
her compliments to us, with Missus Francis, with an assurance

(00:21):
that while we continued when bound in that place where
she feared we could be but indifferently accommodated, we were
extremely welcome to the use of anything which her garden
or her house afforded. So polite a message convinced us,
in spite of some arguments to the contrary, that we
were not on the coast of Africa, or on some

(00:44):
island where the few savage inhabitants have little of human
in them besides their form. And here I mean nothing
less than to derogate from the merit of this lady,
who is not only extremely polite in her behavior to
strangers of her own rank, but so extremely good and
charitable to all her poor neighbors who stand in need

(01:07):
of her assistance. That she hath the universal love and
praises of all who live near her. But in reality,
how little doth the acquisition of so valuable a character,
and the full indulgence of so worthy of disposition cost
those who possess it. Both are accomplished by the very

(01:28):
awfuls which fall from a table moderately plentiful that they
are enjoyed. Therefore by so few arises truly from their being,
so few who have any such disposition to gratify, or
who aim at any such character. Wednesday, July twenty second,
this morning, after having been maltted as usual, we dispatched

(01:52):
a servant with proper acknowledgments of the lady's goodness, but
confirmed our wants entirely to the productions of her garden.
He soon returned in company with the gardener, both richly
laden with almost every particular which a garden at this
most fruitful season of the year produces. While we were

(02:12):
regaling ourselves with these, towards the close of our dinner,
we received orders from our commander, who had dined that
day with some inferior officers on board a man of war,
to return instantly to the ship, for that the wind
was become favorable and he should weigh that evening. These

(02:33):
orders were soon followed by the captain himself, who was
still in the utmost hurry, though the occasion of it
had long since ceased, for the wind had indeed a
little shifted that afternoon, but was before this very quietly
set down in its old quarters. This last was a
lucky hit for me, for as the captain, to whose

(02:54):
orders we resolved to pay no obedience unless delivered by himself,
did not return till past six, so much time seemed
requisite to put up the furniture of our bed chamber
or dining room, for almost every article, even to some
of the chairs, were either our own or the captain's property.

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So much more in conveying it, as well as myself
as dead a luggage as any to the shore, and
thence to the ship, that the night threatened first to
overtake us a terrible circumstance to me in my decayed condition,
especially as very heavy showers of rain attended with a
high wind, continued to fall incessantly, the being carried through

(03:41):
which two miles in the dark in a wet and
open boat, seemed little less than certain death. However, as
my commander was absolute, his orders peremptory, and my obedience necessary,
I resolved to avail myself of a philosophy which hath
been of notable use to me in the latter part

(04:02):
of my life, and which is contained in the hemistic
of Virgil Superonda omnis fortuna ferendo est, the meaning of which,
if Virgil had any I think I rightly understood and
rightly applied. As I was therefore to be entirely passive
in my motion, I resolved to abandon myself to the

(04:25):
conduct of those who were to carry me into a
cart when it returned from unloading the goods. But before
this the captain, perceiving what had happened in the clouds
and that the wind remained as much his enemy as ever,
came upstairs to me with a reprieve till the morning.
This was I own very agreeable news, and I little

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regretted the trouble of refurnishing my apartment by sending back
for the goods. Missus Francis was not well pleased with this,
as she understood the reprieve to be only till the
morning she saw nothing but lodging to be possibly added,
out of which she was to deduct fire and candle,

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and the remainder she thought would scarce pay her for
her trouble. She exerted therefore all the ill humor of
which she was mistress, and did all she could to
thwart and perplex everything during the whole evening Thursday, July
twenty third. Early in the morning, the captain, who had

(05:29):
remained on shore all night, came to visit us and
to press us to make haste on board. I am resolved,
says he, not to lose a moment. Now the wind
is coming about. Fair for my own part, I never
was surer of a wind in all my life. I
use his very words, nor will I presume to interpret

(05:49):
or comment upon them further than by observing that they
were spoke in the utmost hurry. We promised to be
ready as soon as bracket was over. But this was
not so soon as was expected. For in removing our
goods the evening before the tea chest was unhappily lost.

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Every place was immediately searched, and many where it was
impossible for it to be. For this was a loss
of much greater consequence than it may at first seem
to many of my readers. Ladies and valutarians do not
easily dispense with the use of this sovereign caudial in
a single instance. But to undertake a long voyage without

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any probability of being supplied with it the whole way
was above the reach of patience, and yet dreadful as
this calamity was, it seemed unavoidable. The whole town of
Ride could not supply a single leaf. For as to
what Missus Francis and the shop called by that name,

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it was not of Chinese growth. It did not, indeed,
in the least resemble tea, either in smell or taste,
or in any particular, unless it being a leaf, for
it was in truth no other than a tobacco of
the mondungus species. And as for the hopes of relief
in any other port, they were not to be depended upon,

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for the captain had positively declared he was sure of
a wind, and would let go his anchor no more
till he arrived in the Tajo, when a good deal
of time had been spent, most of it indeed wasted.
On this occasion a thought occurred which every one wondered
at its not having presented itself the first moment. This

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was to apply to the good lady, who could not
fail of pitying and relieving such distress. A messenger was
immediately dispatched with an account of our misfortune, till whose
return we emplored ourselves in the preparatives for our departure,
that we might have nothing to do but to swallow
our breakfast. When it arrived. The tea chest, though of

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no less consequence to us than the military chest to
a general, was given up as lost, or rather as stolen.
For though I would not for the world mention any
particular name, it is certain we had suspicions, and all
I am afraid fell on the same person. The man
returned from the worthy lady with much expedition, and brought

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with him a canister of tea, dispatched with so true
a generosity as well as politeness, that if our voyage
had been as long again as we should have incurred,
no danger of being brought to a short allowance in
this most important article. At the very same instant, likewise
arrived William the Footman, with our own tea chest. It

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had been indeed left in the hoy when the other
goods were relanded, as William, when he first heard it
was missing, had suspected, and whence had not the owner
of the boy been unluckily out of the way. He
had retrieved it soon enough to have prevented our giving
the lady an opportunity of displaying some part of her goodness.

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To search the hoy was indeed too natural a suggestion
to have escaped any one, Nor did it escape being
mentioned by many of us. But we were dissuaded from
it by my wife's maid, who perfectly well remembered she
had left the chest in the bed chamber, for that
she had never given it out of her hand in
her way to or from the hoy But William perhaps

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knew the maid better and best understood how far she
was to be believed, for otherwise he would hardly of
his own accord, after hearing her declaration, have hunted out
the hoyman with much pains and difficulty. Thus ended this scene,
which began with such appearance of distress, and ended with

(09:54):
becoming the subject of mirth and laughter. Nothing now remained
but to pay our ti taxes, which were indeed laid
with inconceivable severity. Lodging was raised sixpence fire in the
same proportion, and even candles, which had hitherto escaped were
charged with a wantonance of imposition from the beginning, and

(10:17):
placed under the style of oversight. We were raised a
whole pound, whereas we had only burned ten in five nights,
and the pound consisted of twenty four. Lastly, an attempt
was made which almost as far exceeds human credulity to
believe as it did human patience to submit it. This

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was to make us pay as much as existing an
hour or two, as for existing a whole day, and
dressing dinner was introduced as an article, though we left
the house before either pot or spit had approached the fire. Here,
I own my patients failed me, and I became an
example of the tree truth, of the observation that all

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tyranny and oppression may be carried too far, and that
a yoke may be made too intolerable for the neck
of the tamest slave. When I remonstrated with some warmth
against this grievance, Missus Francis gave me a look and
left the room without making any answer. She returned in

(11:23):
a minute, returning to me with pen, ink and paper
in her hand, and desired me to make my own bill,
for she hoped, she said, I did not expect that
her house was to be dirtied and her goods spoiled
and consumed for nothing. The whole is but thirteen shillings.
Can gentlefolk lie a whole night at a public house

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for less? If they can? I am sure it is
time to give off being a landlady. But pay me
what you please. I would have people know that I
value money as little as other folks. But I was
always a fool, as I says to my husband, and
never knows which side my bread is buttered of. And yet,

(12:08):
to be sure, your honor shall be my warning not
to be bit so again. Some folks knows better than
other some how to make their bills candles? Why, yes,
to be sure, why should not travelers pay for candles?
I am sure I pays for my candles, and the
chandler pays the King's majesty for them, And if he

(12:31):
did not, I must so, as it comes to the
same thing in the end. To be sure, I am
out of sixteens at present, but these burn as white
and as clear, though not quite so large. I expects
my chandler here soon, or I would send to Portsmouth
if your honor was to stay any time longer. But

(12:53):
when folks stays only for a wind, you knows there
can be no depending on such. Here she put on
a little slyness of aspect, and seemed willing to submit
to interruption. I interrupted her accordingly by throwing down half
a guinea and declared I had no more English money,

(13:16):
which was indeed true, And as she could not immediately
change the thirty six shilling pieces, it put a final
end to the dispute. Missus Francis soon left the room,
and we soon after left the house. Nor would this
good woman see us or wish us a good voyage.

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I must, not, however, quit this place, where we had
been so ill treated, without doing it impartial justice and
recording what may with the strictest truth be said in
its favor. First, then as to its situation, it is
I think most delightful and in the most pleasant spot

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in the whole island. It is true wants the advantage
of that beautiful river which leads from Newport to cows
But the prospect here extending to the sea, and taking
in Portsmouth, Spithead and Saint Helen's, would be more than
a recompense for the loss of the Thames itself, even

(14:18):
in the most delightful part of Berkshire or Buckinghamshire, though
another Denham or another Pope should unite in celebrating it.
For my own part, I confess myself so entirely fond
of a sea prospect that I think nothing on the
land can equal it, And if it be set off
with shipping, I desire to borrow it no ornament for

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the terra firma. A fleet of ships is, in my opinion,
the noblest object which the art of man hath ever produced,
and far beyond the power of those architects who deal
in brick, in stone or in marble. When the late
Sir Robert Walpole, one of the best of men and
of ministers, used to equip us a yearly fleet at Spithead,

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his enemies of taste must have allowed that he at
least treated the nation with a fine sight for their money,
a much finer indeed, than the same expense in an
encampment could have produced. For what indeed is the best
idea which the prospect of a number of huts can
furnish to the mind, but of a number of men

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forming themselves into a society. Before the art of building
more substantial houses was known, This perhaps would be agreeable enough.
But in truth there is much worse idea ready to
step in before it, and that is of a body
of cut throats, the supports of tyranny, the invaders of

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the just liberties and properties of mankind, the plunderers of
the industrious, the ravishers of the chaste, the murderers of
the innocent, and in a word, the destroyers of the
plenty the peace and the safety of their fellow creatures.
And what, it may be said, are these men of
war which seem so delightful an object to our eyes?

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Are they not alike the support of tyranny and oppression
of innocence, carrying with them desolation and ruin wherever their
masters please to send them. This is indeed too true.
And however the ship of war may, in its bulk
and equipment exceed the honest merchantmen, I heartily wish there

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was no necessity for it, For though I must own
the superior beauty of the object on one side, I
am more pleased with the superior excellence of the idea
which I can raise in my mind. On the other,
While I reflect on the art and industry of mankind
engaged in the daily improvements of commerce, to the mutual

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benefit of all countries, and to the establishment and happiness
of social life. This pleasant village is situated on a
gentle ascent from the water, whence it affords that charming
prospect I have above described. Its soil is a gravel, which,
assisted with its declivity, preserves it always so dry that

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immediately after the most violent rain, a fine lady may
walk without wetting her silken shoes. The fertility of the
place is apparent from its extraordinary verdue and it is
so shaded with large and flourishing elms, that its narrow
lanes are a natural grove or walk, which, in the

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regularity of its plantation, vies with the power of art,
and in its wantoned exuberancy, greatly exceeds it in a field.
In the ascent of this hill, about a quarter of
a mile from the sea, stands a neat little chapel.
It is very small, but adequate to the number of inhabitants,

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for the parish doth not seem to contain above thirty houses.
At about two miles distant from this parish lives that
polite and good lady, to whose kindness we were so
much obliged. It is placed on a hill whose bottom
is washed by the sea, and which, from its eminence

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at top, commands a view of great part of the island,
as well as it does that of the opposite shore.
This house was formerly built by one Boyce, who, from
a blacksmith at Gosport, became possessed by great success in
smuggling of forty thousand pound With part of this he

(18:45):
purchased an estate here, and by chance probably fixed on
this spot for building a large house. Perhaps the convenience
of carrying on his business, to which it is so
well adapted, might dictate the situation to him. We can
hardly at least attribute it to the same taste with

(19:05):
which he furnished his house, or at least his library,
by sending an order to a bookseller in London to
pack him up five hundred pounds worth of his handsomest books.
They tell here several almost incredible stories of the ignorance,
the folly, and the pride which this poor man and
his wife discovered during the short continuance of his prosperity.

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For he did not long escape the sharp eyes the
revenue solicitors and was by extense from the Court of Exchequer,
soon reduced below his original state to that of confinement
in the fleet. All his effects were sold, and among
the rest his books by an auction at Portsmouth, for
a very small price. For the bookseller was now discovered

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to have been perfectly a master of his trade, and,
relying on mister Boyce's finding little time to read, had
sent him not only the most lasting wares of his shop,
but duplicates of the same under different titles. His estate
and house were purchased by a gentleman of these parts,
whose widow now enjoys them, and who hath improved them,

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particularly her gardens, with so elegant a taste, that the
painter who would assist his imagination in the composition of
a most exquisite landscape, or a poet who would describe
an earthly paradise, could nowhere furnish themselves with a richer pattern.
We left this place about eleven in the morning, and
were again conveyed with more sunshine than wind aboard our ship.

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Whence our captain had acquired his power of prophecy, when
he promised us and himself a prosperous wind, I will
not determine, it is sufficient to observe that he was
a false prophet, and that the weathercocks continued to point
as before. He would not, however, so easily give up
his skill in prediction. He persevered in asserting that the

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wind was changed, and having weighed his anchor, fell down
that afternoon to Saint Helen's, which was at about the
distance of five miles, and whither his friend the tide,
in defiance of the wind, which was most manifestly against him,
softly wafted him in as many hours. Here about seven

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in the evening, before which time we could not procure it.
We sat down to regale ourselves with some roasted venison,
which was much better dressed than we imagined it would be,
and an excellent cold pastry, which my wife had made
at ride, and which we had reserved uncut to eat
on board our ship. Whither we all cheerfully exulted in

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being returned from the presence of Missus Francis, who, by
the exact resemblance she bore to a fury, seemed to
have been with no great propriet settled in Paradise Friday,
July twenty fourth, as we passed by Spithead. On the
preceding evening we saw the two regiments of soldiers who

(22:12):
were just returned from Gibraltar and Minorca, And this day
a lieutenant belonging to one of them, who was the
captain's nephew, came to pay a visit to his uncle.
He was what is called by some a very pretty fellow,
indeed much too pretty a fellow at his years, for
he was turned of thirty four years, though his address

(22:35):
and conversation would have become him more before he had
reached twenty. In his conversation, it is true there was
something military enough, as it consisted chiefly of oaths, and
of the great actions and wise sayings of Jack and
Will and Tom of our regiment, a phrase eternally in

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his mouth, and he seemed to conclude that it conveyed
to all the officers such a degree of public notoriety
and importance that it entitled him, like the head of
a profession or a first minister, to be the subject
of conversation among those who had not the least personal
acquaintance with him. This did not much surprise me, as

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I have seen several examples of the same. But the
defects in his address, especially to the women, were so
great that they seemed absolutely inconsistent with the behavior of
a pretty fellow, and much less of one in a
red coat. And yet, besides having been eleven years in
the army, he had had, as his uncle informed me,

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an education in France. This I own would have appeared
to have been absolutely thrown away, had not his animal spirits,
which were likewise thrown away upon him in great abundance,
borne the visible stamp of the growth of that country.
The character to which he had an indisputable type was
that of a merry fellow. Souvarrimery was he that he

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laughed at everything he said, and always before he spoke.
Possibly indeed, he often laughed at what he did not utter,
for every speech begun with a laugh, though it did
not always end with a jest. There was no great
analogy between the characters of the uncle and the nephew,
and yet they seemed entirely to agree in enjoying the

(24:25):
honor which the red coat did to his family. This
the uncle expressed with great pleasure in his countenance, and
seemed desirous of showing all present the honor which he
had for his nephew, who on his side was at
some pains to convince us of his concurring in this opinion,
and at the same time of displaying the contempt he

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had for the parts, as well as the occupation of
his uncle, which he seemed to think reflected some disgrace
on himself, who was a member of that profession which
makes ever man a gentleman. Not that I would be
understood to insinuate that the nephew endeavored to shake off
or disown his uncle, or indeed to keep him at

(25:10):
any distance. On the contrary, he treated him with the
utmost familiarity, often calling him Dick, and dear Dick, and
old Dick, and frequently beginning an oration with damn me Dick.
All this condescension on the part of the young man
was received with suitable marks of complaisance and obligation by

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the old one, especially when it was attended with evidence
of the same familiarity with general officers and other persons
of rank, one of whom, in particular I know to
have the pride and insolence of the devil himself, and who,
without some strong bias of interest, is no more liable
to converse familiarly with a lieutenant, than of being mistaken

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in his judgment of a fool, which was not. Perhaps
so certainly the case of the worthy lieutenant, who, in
declaring to us the qualifications which recommended men to his
countenance and conversation, as well as what effectually set a
bar to all hopes of that honor, exclaimed, No, sir,

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by the devil, I hate all fools. No, damn me,
excuse me for that. That's a little too much, old Dick.
There are two or three officers of our regiment whom
I know to be fools, But damn me if I
am ever seen in their company. If a man hath
a fool of a relation, Dick, you know he can't

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help that old boy such jokes as these. The old
man not only tools in good part, but glibly gulped
down the whole narrative of his nephew. Nor did he,
I am convinced in the least doubt of our as
readily swallowing the same. This made him so charmed with

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the lieutenant that it is probable we should have been
pestered with him the whole evening had not the north
wind dearer to our sea Captain even than this glory
of his family sprung suddenly up and called aloud to
him to weigh his anchor. While this ceremony was performing,
the sea captain ordered out his boat to row the

(27:17):
land captain to shore, not indeed on an uninhabited island,
but one which in this part looked but little better,
not presenting us the view of a single house. Indeed,
our old friend, when his boat returned on shore, perhaps
being no longer able to stifle his envy of the
superiority of his nephew, told us with a smile that

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the young man had a good five miles to walk
before he could be accommodated with a passage to Portsmouth.
It appeared now that the captain had only mistaken in
the date of his prediction by placing the event a
day earlier than it happened. For the wind which now
arose was not only favorable but brisk, and was no

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sooner in reach of our sails than it swept us
away by the back of the Isle of Wight, and,
having in the night carried us by christ Church and
Peveril Point, brought us the next noon, Saturday, July twenty fifth,
oft the island of Portland, so famous for the smallness
and sweetness of its mutton, of which a leg seldom

(28:24):
weighs four pounds. We would have bought a sheep, but
our captain would not permit it, though he needed not
have been in such a hurry, for presently the wind,
I will not positively assert, in resentment of his surliness,
showed him a dog's trick, and slyly slipped back again

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to his summer house in the southwest. The captain now
grew outrageous, and, declaring open war with the wind, took
a resolution rather more bold than wise, of sailing in
defiance of it, and in its teeth. He swore he
would let go his anchor no more, but would beat

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the sea while he had either yard or sail left.
He accordingly stood from the shore and made so large
attack that before night, though he seemed to advance but
little on his way, he was got out of sight
of land. Towards evening, the wind began in the captain's
own language, and indeed it freshened so much that before

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ten it blew a perfect hurricane. The captain, having got
as he supposed to a safe distance, tacked again towards
the English shore. And now the wind veered a point
only in his favor, and continued to blow with such
violence that the ship ran above eight knots or miles
an hour during this whole day and tempestuous night till

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bed time. I was obliged to betake myself once more
to my solitude, for my women were again all down
in their sea sickness, and the captain was busy on deck,
for he began to grow uneasy, chiefly, I believe, because
he did not well know where he was, and would,
I am convinced, have been very glad to have been

(30:17):
in Portland Road eating some sheep's head broth. Having contracted
no great degree of good humor by living a whole
day alone without a single soul to converse with, I
took but ill physic to purge it off by a
bed conversation with the captain, who, amongst many bitter lamentations

(30:39):
of his fate and protesting, he had more patience than
a job, frequently intermixed summons to the commanding officer on
the deck, who now happened to be one Morrison Carpenter,
the only fellow that had either common sense or common civility,
in the ship of Morrison. He inquired every quarter of

(30:59):
an hour concerning the state of affairs, the wind, that
care of the ship, and other matters of navigation. The
frequency of these summons, as well as the solicitude with
which they were made, sufficiently testified the state of the
captain's mind. He endeavored to conceal it, and would have
given no small alarm to a man who had either

(31:21):
not learned what it is to die, or known what
it is to be miserable. And my dear wife and
child must pardon me if what I did not conceive
to be any great evil to myself, I was not
much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them. In truth,
I have often thought they are both too good and

(31:43):
too gentle to be trusted to the power of any
man I know to whom they could possibly be so trusted.
Can I say then I had no fear? Indeed I
cannot reader. I was afraid for thee lest thou shouldst
have been deprived of that pleasure thou art now enjoying,

(32:05):
and that I should not live to draw out on
paper that military character which thou didst peruse in the
journal of yesterday from all these fears. We are relieved
at six in the morning by the arrival of mister Morrison,
who acquainted us that he was sure he beheld land

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very near, for he could not see half a mile
by reason of the haziness of the weather. This land,
he said, was, he believed, the berry Head, which forms
one side of the Torbay. The captain declared that it
was impossible, and swore, on condition he was right, he
would give him his mother for a maid, a forfeit

(32:49):
which became afterwards strictly due and payable for. The captain,
whipping on his night gown, ran up without his breeches,
and within half an hour, returning into the cabin, wished
me joy of our lying safe at anchor in the bay. Sunday,
July twenty sixth, things now began to put on an

(33:11):
aspect very different from what they had lately worn. The
news that the ship had almost lost its mizzen, and
that we had procured very fine clouded cream and fresh
bread and butter from the shore, restored health and spirits
to our women, and we all sat down to a
very cheerful breakfast. But however pleasant our stay promised to

(33:34):
be here we were all desirous it should be short.
I resolved immediately to dispatch my man into the country
to purchase a present of cider for my friends of
that which is called Southam, as well as to take
with me a hogshead of it to Lisbon, for it is,

(33:55):
in my opinion, much more delicious than that which is
the growth of Herefigere. I purchased three hogsheads four five
pounds ten shillings, all of which I should have scarce
thought worth mentioning, had I not believed it might be
of equal service to the honest farmer who sold it me,
and who is by the neighboring gentleman reputed to deal

(34:18):
in the very best, and to the reader, who, from
ignorance of the means of providing better for himself, swallows
at a dearer rate the juice of Middlesex turnip, instead
of that of Vinum pomonae, which mister Giles Leverance of Cheesehurst,
near Dartmouth in Devon, will, at the price of forty

(34:41):
shillings per hogshead send in double casks to any part
of the world. Had the wind been very sudden in shifting,
I had lost my cider by an attempt of a
boatman to exact according to custom, he required five shillings
for conveying my man a mile and a half to
the shore, and four more if he stayed to bring

(35:04):
him back. This I thought to be such insufferable impudence
that I ordered him to be immediately chaste from the
ship without any answer. Indeed, there are few inconveniences that
I would not rather encounter than encourage the insolent demands
of these wretches, at the expense of my own indignation,

(35:26):
of which I own. They are not the only objects,
but rather those who purchase a paltry convenience by encouraging them.
But of this I have already spoken very largely. I
shall conclude therefore with the leave which this fellow took
of our ship, saying he should know it again, and
would not put off from the shore to relieve it

(35:48):
in any distress whatever. It will doubtless surprise many of
my readers to hear that when we lay at anchor
within a mile or two of a town several days together,
and even in the most temperate weather, we should frequently
want fresh provisions and herbage and other emoluments of the shore,
as much as if we had been a hundred leagues

(36:10):
from land. And this too, while numbers of boats were
in our sight, whose owners get their livelihood by rowing
people up and down, and could be at any time
summoned by a signal to our assistance, And while the
captain had a little boat of his own, with men
always ready to row it at his command. This, however,

(36:32):
hath been partly accounted for already by the imposing disposition
of the people, who asked so much more than the
proper price of their labor. And as to the usefulness
of the captain's boat, it requires to be a little
expatiated upon, as it will tend to lay open some
of the grievances which demand the utmost regard of our legislature,

(36:54):
as they effect the most valuable part of the King's subjects,
those by whom the commer of the nation is carried
into execution. Our captain, then, who was a very good
and experienced seamen, having been above thirty years the master
of a vessel, part of which he had served so
he phrased it as commander of a privateer, and had

(37:17):
discharged himself with great courage and conduct, and with as
great success discovered the utmost aversion to the sending his
boat ashore whenever we lay wind bound in any of
our harbors. This aversion did not arise from any fear
of wearing out his boat by using it, but was

(37:37):
in truth the result of experience that it was easier
to send his men on shore than to recall them.
They acknowledged him to be their master while they remained
on shipboard, but did not allow his power to extend
to the shores where they had no sooner set their
foot than every man became sui jurrous, and thought himself

(38:00):
at full liberty to return when he pleased. Now, it
is not any delight that the fellows have in the
fresh air of verdant fields on the land. Every one
of them would prefer his ship and his hammock to
all the sweets of Arabia the happy. But unluckily for them,
there are in every seaport in England certain houses whose

(38:22):
chief livelihood depends on providing entertainment for the gentlemen of
the jacket. For this purpose they are always well furnished
with those cordial liquors which do immediately inspire the heart
with gladness, banishing all careful thoughts and indeed all others
from the mind, and opening the mouth with songs of

(38:44):
cheerfulness and thanksgiving for the many wonderful blessings with which
a seafaring life overflows. For my own part, however whimsical
it may appear, I confess I have thought the strange
story of Circe in the Odyssey no other than an
ingenious allegory in which Homer intended to convey to his

(39:07):
countrymen the same kind of instruction which we intend to
communicate to our own in this digression, as teaching the
art of war to the Greeks was the plain design
of the Iliad, so was teaching them the art of navigation,
the no less manifest intention of the Odyssey. For the
improvement of this this situation was most excellently adapted, and

(39:31):
accordingly we find e Thuicides, in the beginning of his history,
considers the Greeks as a set of pirates or privateers
plundering each other by sea, this being probably the first
institution of commerce before the Rs. Cawpunaria was invented, and merchants,
instead of robbing, began to cheat and outwit each other,

(39:54):
and by degrees changed the metabletic, the only kind of
traffic allowed by our Bristotle in his politics into crematistic.
By this allegory, then I suppose Ulysses to have been
the captain of a merchant ship, and circe some good
ale wife who made his crew drunk with the spirituous

(40:15):
liquors of those days. With this, the transformation into swine,
as well as all other incidents of the fable will
notably agree, and thus a key will be found out
for unlocking the whole mystery and forging at least some
meaning to a story which at present appears very strange

(40:36):
and absurd. Hence, moreover will appear the very near resemblance
between the seafaring men of all ages and nations. And
here perhaps may be established the truth and justice of
that observation which will occur oftener than once in this voyage,
that all human flesh is not the same flesh, but

(40:57):
that there is one kind of flesh of lafe and
another of seamen. Philosophers, divines and others who have treated
the gratification of human appetites with contempt, have, among other instances,
insisted very strongly on that satiety which is so apt

(41:17):
to overtake them even in the very act of enjoyment.
And here they more particularly deserve our attention, as most
of them may be supposed to speak from their own experience,
and very probably gave us their lessons with a full stomach. Thus,
hunger and thirst, whatever delight they may afford while we

(41:39):
are eating and drinking, pass both away from us with
the plate and of the cup. And though we should
imitate the Romans, if indeed they were such dull beasts,
which I can scarce believe, to unload the belly like
a dung pot in order to fill it again with
another load. Yet would the pleasure be so considerably lessened,

(42:01):
then it would scarce repay us the trouble of purchasing
it with swallowing a basin of camomile tea, a second
haunch of venison, or a second dose of turtle would
hardly allure a city glutton with its smell. Even the
celebrated Jew himself, when well filled with calapash and calipee,

(42:26):
goes contentedly home to tell his money, and expects no
more pleasure from his throat during the next twenty four hours. Hence,
I suppose doctor South took that elegant comparison of the
joys of a speculative man to the solemn silence of
an Archimedes over a problem, and those of a glutton

(42:46):
to the stillness of a sow at her wash, a
simile which, if it became the pulpit at all, could
only become it in the afternoon. Whereas in those putations
which the mind seems to enjoy, rather than the bodily appetite,
there is happily no such satiety. But the more a

(43:09):
man drinks, the more he desires, as if, like Mark
Antony in Dryden, his appetite increased with feeding. And this
to such an immoderate degree would nollus sit desiderio, out
poodor out modus. Hence, as with the gang of Captain, Ulysses,

(43:29):
ensues so total a transformation that the man no more
continues what he was, perhaps he ceases for a time
to be at all, or though he may retain the
same outward form and figure he had before, yet is
his nobler part, as we are taught to call it,
so changed that instead of being the same man, he

(43:53):
scarce remembers what he was a few hours before. And
this transformation being once aained is so easily preserved by
the same potations which induced no satiety. That the captain
in vain sends or goes in quest of his crew,
they know him no longer, or if they do, they

(44:15):
acknowledge not his power, having indeed as entirely forgotten themselves
as if they had taken a large draft of the
river of leth Nor is the captain always sure of
even finding out the place to which Circe hath conveyed them.
There are many of those houses in every port town.

(44:35):
Neither are some where the sorceress doth not trust only
to her drugs, but hath instruments of a different kind
to execute her purposes, by whose means the tar is
effectually secreted from the knowledge and pursuit of his captain.
This would indeed be very fatal, was it not for
one circumstance that the saleor is seldom provided with the

(44:59):
proper base for these harpies. However, the contrary sometimes happens,
as these harpies will bite at almost anything, and will
snap at a pair of silver buttons or buckles as
surely as at the specie itself. Nay, sometimes they are
so voracious that the very naked hook will go down,

(45:21):
and the jolly young sailor is sacrificed for his own
sake in vain. At such a season as this, would
the vows of a pious heathen have prevailed over Neptune, Aeolus,
or any other maritime deity in vain, would the prayers
of a Christian captain be attended with the like success.

(45:44):
The wind may change how it pleases, while all hands
are on shore. The anchor would remain firm in the ground,
and the ship would continue in durance, unless, like other
forcible prison breakers, it forcibly got loose for no good purpose. Now,
as the favor of winds and courts and such like

(46:06):
is always to be laid hold on at the very
first motion, for within twenty four hours all may be
changed again, So in the former case, the loss of
a day may be the loss of a voyage. For
though it may appear to persons not well skill'd in navigation,
who see ships meet and sail by each other, that

(46:28):
the wind blows sometimes east and west, north and south,
backwards and forwards at the same instant, yet certain it
is that the land is so contrived that even the
same wind will not like the same horse always bring
a man to the end of his journey. But that
the gale which the mariner prayed heartily for yesterday, he

(46:51):
may as heartily deprecate to morrow, while all use and
benefit which would have arisen to him from the westerly
wind of tomorrow may be totally lost and thrown away
by neglecting the offer of the easterly blast which blows
to day. Hence ensues grief and disreputation to the innocent captain,

(47:13):
loss and disappointment to the worthy merchant, and not seldom
great prejudice to the trade of a nation, whose manufactures
are thus liable to lie unsold in a foreign warehouse,
the market being forestalled by some rival, whose sailors are
under a better discipline. To guard against these inconveniences, the

(47:34):
prudent captain takes every precaution in his power. He makes
the strongest contracts with his crew, and thereby bids them
so firmly that none but the greatest or least of
men can break through them with impunity. But for one
of these two reasons, which I will not determine. The sailor,

(47:54):
like his brother fish, the eel, is too slippery to
be held and plunges into his elements, with perfect impunity
to speak a plain truth. There is no trusting to
any contract with one whom the wise citizens of London
call a bad man. For from such a one, though
your blood be ever so strong, it will prove in

(48:17):
the end good for nothing. What then is to be
done in this case, What, indeed, but to call in
the assistance of that tremendous magistrate, the Justice of peace,
who can, and often doth lay good and a bad
man in equal durance, And though he seldom cares to
stretch his bonds to what is great, never finds anything

(48:39):
too minute for their detention, but will hold the smallest
reptile alive so fast in his news that he can
never get out till he has let drop through it. Why, therefore,
upon the breach of those contracts, should not an immediate
application be made to the nearest magistrate of this order,

(48:59):
who should be empowered to convey the delinquent, either to
ship or to prison, at the election of the captain,
to be fettered by the leg in either place. But
as the case now stands, the condition of this poor
captain without any commission, and of this absolute commander without
any power, is much worse than we have hitherto shown

(49:21):
it to be. For, notwithstanding all the aforesaid contracts to
sail in the good ship the Elizabeth, if the sailor should,
for better wages, find it more his interest to go
on board the Mestorship the Mary, either before the air
setting out or on their speedy meeting in some port.
He may prefer the latter, without any other danger than

(49:44):
that of doing what he ought not to have done,
contrary to a rule which is seldom Christian enough to
have much at heart. While the captain is generally too
good a Christian to punish a man out of revenge,
only when he is to be at a considerable expense
for so doing. There are many other deficiencies in our

(50:04):
laws relating to maritime affairs, and which would probably have
been long since corrected had we any seamen in the
House of Commons. Not that I would insinuate that the
legislature wants a supply of many gentlemen in the sea service.
But as these gentlemen are, by their attendants in the House,

(50:24):
unfortunately prevented from ever going to sea, and there learning
what they might communicate to their landed brethren. These latter
remain as ignorant in that branch of knowledge, as they
would be if none but courtiers and fox hunters had
been elected into Parliament, without a single fish among them.

(50:45):
The following seems to me to be an effect of
this kind, and it strikes me the stronger as I
remember the case to have happened, and remember it to
have been dispunishable. A captain of a trading vessel of
which he was art owner, took in a large freight
of oats at Liverpool, consigned it to the market at Berkeley,

(51:07):
and this he carried to a port in Hampshire, and
there sold it as his own, and, freighting his vessel
with wheat for the port of Cadiz in Spain, dropped
it at a porto in his way, and there, selling
it for his own use, took in a lading of wine,
with which he sailed again, and, having converted it in

(51:28):
the same manner, together with a large sum of money
with which he was intrusted for the benefit of certain merchants,
sold the ship and cargo in another port, and then
wisely sat down, contented with the fortune he had made,
and returned to London to enjoy the remainder of his days,
with the fruits of his former labors and a good conscience.

(51:52):
The sum he brought home with him consisted of near
six thousand pounds, all in specie, and most of it
in that point which Portugal distributed so liberally over Europe.
He was not yet old enough to be past all
sense of pleasure, nor so puffed up with the pride
of his good fortune as to overlook his old acquaintances,

(52:14):
the journeyman tailors, from among whom he had been formerly
pressed into the sea service, and having there laid the
foundation of his future success by his share in prizes,
had afterwards become captain of a trading vessel, in which
he purchased an interest, and had soon begun to trade
in the honorable manner above mentioned. The captain now took

(52:38):
up his residence at an ale house in Drury Lane, where,
having all his money by him in a trunk, he
spent almost five pounds a day among his old friends,
the gentlemen and ladies of those parts. The merchant of Liverpool,
having quickly had notice from a friend during the blaze
of his fortune, did, by the assistance of a justice

(53:00):
of peace, without the assistance of the law recover his
whole loss. The captain, however, wisely, chose to refund no more. But,
perceiving with what hasty strides Envy was pursuing his fortune,
he took speedy means to retire out of her reach,
and to enjoy the rest of his wealth in an

(53:21):
inglorious obscurity. Nor could the same justice overtake him time
enough to assist the second merchant, as he had done
the first. This was a very extraordinary case, and the
more so as the ingenious gentleman had steered entirely clear
of all crimes in our law. Now, how it comes

(53:43):
about that a robbery, so very easy to be committed,
and to which there is such immediate temptation always before
the eyes of these fellows, should receive the encouragement of
impunity is to be accounted for only from the oversight
of the legislation, as that oversight can only be, I think,

(54:03):
derived from the reasons I have assigned for it. But
I will dwell no longer on this subject. If what
I have here said should seem of sufficient consequence to
engage the attention of any man in power, and should
thus be the means of applying any remedy to the
most inveterate evils. At least I have obtained my whole desire,

(54:27):
and shall have lain so long when bound in the
ports of this kingdom to some purpose, I would indeed
have this work, which, if I should live to finish
it a matter of no great certainty, if indeed of
any great hope to me, will be probably the last
I shall ever undertake to produce some better end than
the mere diversion of the reader. Monday, this day, our

(54:52):
captain went ashore to dine with a gentleman who lives
in these parts, and whoso exactly resembles the character given
by Homer of Axelus, that the only difference I can
trace between them is the one living by the highway
erected his hospitality chiefly in favor of land travelers, and
the other, living by the water side, gratified his humanity

(55:16):
by accommodating the wants of the mariner. In the evening,
our commander received a visit from a brother Bishaw, who
lay when bound in the same harbor. This latter captain
was a Swiss. He was then master of a vessel
bound to Guinea, and had formerly been privateering, when our

(55:36):
own hero was employed in the same laudable service. The
honesty and freedom of the Switzer, his veracity, in which
he was in no respect inferior to his near neighbors
the French, the awkward and affected politeness, which was likewise
of French extraction, mixed with the brutal roughness of the

(55:57):
English tar for he had served under the color of
this station, and his crew had been of the same,
made such an odd variety, such a hotch potch of character,
that I should have been much diverted with him, had
not his voice, which was as loud as a speaking trumpet,
unfortunately made my head ache. The noise which he conveyed

(56:18):
into the deaf ears of his brother captain, who sat
at one side of him. The soft addresses with which,
mixed with awkward bows he saluted the ladies on the
other were so agreeably contrasted that a man must not
have been void of all taste of humor and insensible
of mirth, but duller than Cheaber is represented in the dunciade,

(56:42):
who could be unentertained with him a little while? For
I confess such entertainment should always be very short, as
they are very liable to Paul, but he suffered not
this to happen at present, for having given us his
company a quarter of an hour only. He retired after
many apologies for the shortness of his visit. Tuesday, the

(57:07):
wind being less boisterous than it had hitherto been since
our arrival here, several fishing boats, which the tempestuous weather
yesterday had prevented from working, came on board us with fish.
This was so fresh, so good in kind, and so
very cheap, that we supplied ourselves in great numbers, among

(57:30):
which were very large soles at fourpence a pair, and
whitings of almost a preposterous size at ninepence a score.
The only fish which bore any price was a John Dorry,
as it is called. I bought one of at least
four pounds weight for as many shillings. It resembles a

(57:52):
turbot in shape, but exceeds it in firmness and flavor.
The price had the appearance of being considerable when posed
to the extraordinary cheapness of others of value, but was
in truth so very reasonable when estimated by its goodness,
that it left me under no other surprise than how

(58:12):
the gentlemen of this country, not greatly eminent for the
delicacy of their taste, had discovered the preference of the
dory to all other fish. But I was informed that
mister Quinn, whose distinguishing tooth hath been so justly celebrated,
had lately visited Plymouth and had done those honors to

(58:33):
the Dory, which are so justly duet from that sect
of modern philosophers, who, with Sir Epicure Mammon or Sir
Epicure Quinn their head, seem more to delight in a
fish pond than in a garden, as the old Epicureans
are said to have done. Unfortunately, for the fishmongers of London,

(58:56):
the dory resides only in those seas. For could any
of this company but convey one to the Temple of
Luxury under the piazza, where Macklin, the High Priest, daily
serves up his rich offerings to that goddess. Great would
be the reward of that fishmonger in blessings poured down
upon him from the Goddess, As great would his merit

(59:19):
be towards the High Priest, who could never be thought
to overrate such valuable incense. And here having mentioned the
extreme cheapness of fish in the Devonshire Sea, and given
some little hint of the extreme dearness with which this
commodity is dispensed by those who deal in it in London,

(59:40):
I cannot pass on without throwing forth an observation or
two with the same view with which I have scattered
my several remarks through this voyage, sufficiently satisfied in having
finished my life as I have probably lost it in
the service of my country. From the best of moti,
though it should be attended with the worst of success.

(01:00:04):
Means are always in our power, ends are very seldom so.
Of all the animal foods with which man is furnished,
there are none so plenty as fish. A little rivulet
that glides almost unperceived through a vast tract of rich
land will support more hundreds with the flesh of its

(01:00:25):
inhabitants than the meadow will nourish individuals. But if this
be true of rivers, it is much truer of the seashoers,
which abound with such immense variety of fish, that the
curious fisherman, after he hath made his draft, often calls
only the daintiest part and leaves the rest of his

(01:00:46):
prey to perish on the shore. If this be true,
it would appear, I think that there is nothing which
might be had in such abundance and consequently so cheap
as fish, of which nature seems to have provided such
inexhaustible stores, with some peculiar design. In the production of
terrestrial animals, she proceeds with such slowness that in the

(01:01:11):
larger kind a single female seldom produces more than one
a year, and this again requires three, four or five
years more to bring it to perfection. And though the
lesser quadrupeds, those of the wild kind, particularly with the birds,
do multiply much faster, yet can none of these bear

(01:01:34):
any proportion with the aquatic animals, of whom every female
matrix is furnished with an annual offspring almost exceeding the
power of numbers, and which in many instances at least
a single year is capable of bringing to some degree
of maturity. What then, ought in general to be so plentiful,

(01:01:58):
What so cheap fish? What then so properly the food
of the poor? So in many places they are, and
so might they always be in great cities, which are
always situated near the sea or on the conflux of
large rivers. How comes it, then, to look no farther
abroad for instances that in our city of London the

(01:02:22):
case is so far otherwise that, except that of Sprat's,
there is not one poor pallet in a hundred that
knows the taste of fish. It is true, indeed, that
this taste is generally of such excellent flavor, that it
exceeds the power of French cookery to treat the palates
of the rich with anything more exquisitely delicate. So that

(01:02:47):
was fish the common food of the poor, it might
put them too much upon an equality with their betters
in the great article of eating, in which at present,
in the opinion of some, the great difference in happiness
between man and man consists. But this argument I shall
treat with the utmost disdain. For if ortolons were as

(01:03:09):
great as buzzards, and at the same time as plenty
as sparrows, I should hold it yet reasonable to indulge
the poor with the dainty, And that for this cause,
especially that the rich would soon find a sparrow, if
as scarce as an ortolon, to be much the greater,

(01:03:30):
as it would certainly be the rarer dainty of the two,
vanity or scarcity will be always the favorite of luxury,
but honest hunger will be satisfied with plenty. Not to
search deeper into the cause of the evil, I should
think it abundantly sufficient to propose the remedies of it.

(01:03:51):
And first I humbly submit the absolute necessity of immediately
hanging all the fishmongers within the bills of mortality. And
however it might have been some time ago the opinion
of mild and temporizing men that the evil complained of
might be removed by gentler methods, I suppose at this

(01:04:13):
day there are none who do not see the impossibility
of using such with any effect. Councta prius tentanda might
have been formerly urged with some plausibility, but councta prius
tentata may now be replied. For surely if a few
monopolizing fishmongers could defeat that excellent scheme of the Westminster market,

(01:04:38):
to the erecting which so many justices of peace, as
well as otherwise and learned men, did so vehemently apply themselves,
that they might be truly said not only to have
laid the whole strength of their heads but of their
shoulders too to the business. It would be a vain
endeavor for any other body of men to attempt to

(01:05:01):
remove so stubborn a nuisance. End of Part four