as my purse (which has but thirteen shillings in it). Grim death
is behind me, among the black cedars. And even should the ill-
favoured demon of asthma give chase, I will outstrip him in this
broad-winged ship he shall have a race for it athwart the ecliptic,
through seventy degrees of latitude, into regions whereon the
Great Bear never shone. And if the Grim Feature overtake me
there, I will fight him while a shot is in the locker.
Our voyage to the Cape, as they calculate, will hold us about
two months. Hurrah ! as poor old Dan used to say " M\
bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne " Africa will be sure tc
JAIL JOURNAL 141
bring forth some new thing, according to the ancient wont of
that iruithil mother of monsters.*
Poor old Dan ! wondertul, mighty, jovial, and mean old man !
with silver tongue and smile ot witchery, and heart of melting
ruth ! lying tongue ! smile of treachery ! heart of unfathomable
fraud I What a royal, yet vulgar soul ! with the keen eye and
potent swoop of a generous eagle oi Cairn Tual with the base
servility of a hound, and the cold cruelty of a spider ! Think of
his speech tor John Magee, the most powerful forensic achieve-
ment since before Demosthenes and then think of the " gorge-
ous and gossamer " theory of moral and peaceful agitation, the
most astounding organon of public swindling since first man
bethought him of obtaining money under false pretences. And
after one has thought of all this, and more, what then can a
man say ? what but pray that Irish earth may lie light on O'Con-
nell's breast and that the good God who knew how to create
so wondrous a creature may have mercy upon his soul.
April 23rd. I find myself provided with a very filthy little
cabm here, having a window that looks forward over the quarter-
deck. On the quarter-deck the soldiers, not on duty, saunter
about, smoking and chatting. Beyond the gangway forward, the
prisoners in their Bermuda uniforms, are swarming over deck,
forecastle, and bulwarks, but are not allowed to come aft. Above
is the poop-deck, where I am privileged to walk long, broad,
and clean, affording ample scope for exercise. On this poop also
saunter and smoke two officers of the military guard.
Dr. Dees, as the " surgeon-superintendent " is named, com-
mands in chief, and wears the epaulettes of a naval surgeon. He
came this morning into my cabin, and divining what he came to
talk about, I was minded to give him a taste of my quality, that
he and I might understand one another, and be at our ease, for the
voyage. He began by telling me that arrangements had been
made at Bermuda by which I was to have the same accommoda-
tions as to board, etc., that they had in the cuddy ; and that if I
wanted anything I should let him, Dr. Dees, know. I answered
that I was quite sure I should want for nothing that at any rate
I made it a rule never to ask for anything, and never to complain
* " Vulgare Graeciae dictum Semper aliquid novi Africam aSerre."
Plin. Nat. Hist. VIII. 16.
142 JAIL JOURNAL
of anything but that as to the special arrangements in my be-
half I was quite at a loss to know what claim I had to any better
accommodations than other prisoners. " All I know about it,"
said he, " is that matters have been so ordered by the Governor of
Bermuda I regret," added the doctor, " that you must live quite
solitary here, and have no access to the cuddy, nor intercourse
with the officers of the guard ; not that I myself would have the
least objection, nor, I presume, the officers either ; but in fact
the fact is "
" The fact is," supplied I, " that you and they would be dragged
before Parliament, like Captain Wingrove, or perhaps tried by
court-martial." " Exactly so : that is just the whole case."
" Well, then, sir," I said, " make your mind very easy about all
that. Ever since I have become a prisoner, and cannot choose my
company, I prefer my own society to any other. The worthy
gentlemen in Parliament are much mistaken if they imagine the
society of any state-cabin in her Majesty's navy would be an
honour or a comfort to me : and as for the military officers you
mention, if they do not obtrude themselves on me, be assured I
shall not obtrude myself on them."
Dr. Dees was silent a little while, and then said, " The truth is,
that in your case all official persons who have to do with you
seem to be constantly well watched ; and, after the proceedings of
Parliament and the Admiralty Board in respect of Captain Win-
grove and the officers of the Shearwater, we are all afraid of being
involved in something unpleasant." " It seems," I answered,
" that in my case, formal conviction and actual deportation are
not enough ; it needs the continued and strenuous exertions of
both branches of the legislature and the Admiralty, and the
Colonial Office, to keep me in my new position of a felon, or even
to force their own officers to pretend for one moment that they
regarded me as a convict or a felon at all." He laughed, and said
that was true enough, " But, indeed," he added, " it has been
rather a hard matter to know what to do with you ; the Govern-
ment, I feel sure, have not been disposed to treat you with
harshness, or to give you the usage of a common convict ; yet, on
the other hand, they have public opinion to satisfy. On the
whole, there has been a good deal of puzzle about it altogether."
" No wonder," I said ; " there is always puzzle and embarrass-
JAIL JOURNAL 143
ment in carrying through any dishonest transaction. If I were
indeed a felon, you know, there ought to be no puzzle at all ; and
what, pray, do you mean by ' harshness/ and by not wishing
to treat me as a convict. Absolutely, I am either a felon or not a
felon." To this formula of mine the doctor assented. " And," I
continued, " if I am not a felon, then those who sent me here are
felons." To this he apparently thought it prudent neither to
assent nor demur ; and I did not press him. " Public servants,"
quoth the doctor, making a general remark, " are sometimes un-
safe, even in acting precisely according to their instructions ; for
they are not permitted to reveal those instructions, if the matter
should become a subject of public censure, but must allow the
blame and consequences to fall on themselves rather than on the
Government." " I am well aware of that practice," I answered ;
"it is one of the privileges of a superior officer in the British
service to invent and publish any story he pleases, to screen him-
self and Government, at the expense of a subordinate ; and one
of the duties of inferior officers to support him in his story, though
to their own ruin. Captain Wingrove can tell something of that
practice, and so could Captain Elliott, from his experience in
China. Perhaps you do not know that he acted in China accord-
ing to his plain instructions, and when the transaction was sup-
posed to have turned out unfortunate, and Parliament and the
press were raving, he durst never plead those orders, but had to
let Ministers make up what story they liked. Indeed, I have no
doubt that Government, after directing Captain Wingrove to do
just what he did, would now stand coolly by, and see him con-
victed by a court-martial, of conduct unbecoming an officer and
a gentleman ; so you cannot be too cautious, Doctor." The
Doctor seemed to be growing a little uneasy at the tone of my
remarks ; yet his politeness, I saw, was restraining him from
stopping me, as he had clearly authority to do ; so I changed
the subject. He is a mild, well-bred, and amiable man ; I
believe I shall like him for a gaoler.
All this day there has been a perfect calm ; and the light-house
of Bermuda is still in sight. One of the prisoners has been
assigned me, as usual, to attend me as a servant ; and with his
help I have been arranging matters in my little cabin. I shall
feel quite at home for two months.
CHAPTER IX
April 24, 1849. At sea We spoke to-day the brig Palos, of
Boston, homeward bound from Buenos Ayres. Her captain, a
broad-hatted, lean-faced Yankee, cast an indifferent glance over
our swarming deck, as he asked what port we were bound for.
He seemed to understand the nature of our cargo right well.
Britain's convict-ships are well known in all seas.
20lh. We have a fine breeze from the east to-day, and are
running southward at a rapid rate.
The Doctor has sent into my cabin a Daily News, which came
by the mail on Sunday. Now, why could not Mr. Duffy have
made ballads in some quiet place all his days ? As if purposely
to relieve the enemy from all embarrassment in their " vindication
of the law," he has allowed a petition to Government to be got up,
very extensively signed, praying, that as he is totally ruined ; as
he has already been long confined ; as he is an admirable private
character ; as his health is delicate ; as the violent and revolu-
tionary articles in his newspaper appeared during a period of great
excitement, and extended over but a few weeks, the enemy would,
of their mercy, forbear to prosecute him farther the very thing
they wished to have any decent excuse for. I say, he has allowed
this petition because no petitioners could make such implied
promises of amendment without his sanction ; and especially
because he has not disowned the mean proceeding. It is quite in
keeping with his miserable defence upon his last trial, his produc-
tion of evidence to character, and his attempt to evade the
responsibility of articles published by himself. Sir Lucius O'Brien,
too, who presents this memorial to Lord Clarendon, takes occasion
to admit the " guilt " of the culprit. With what joy the enemy
must gloat upon this transaction, and exult over us and our
abandoned cause ! The Daily News seems very glad, as any
British newspaper may well be, at the appearance of this decent
excuse ; says, that for its part, it rather thinks a gentleman, of
so very good a private character, may be now set at liberty with
144
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perfect safety to the public. ^ Shabby and paltry, indeed! A
curse upon his private character ! Yet one cannot be angry with
Duffy, who need not have been expected to get himself hulked
for any principle, object, or cause, whatsoever. Duffy never
could sustain life without puffery ; the breath of his nostrils was
puff ; and these teak timbers are no flatterers. When a man
comes to this, he touches ground all rose-coloured puff-clouds
vanish from beneath him, and drift down the wind. Let no man
live exclusively on that deleterious, flatulent pabulum rilling his
belly with too much east wind. Do we not know that Widenostrils
the swallower of windmills whom Pantagruel saw hi the do-
minions of Queen Entelechie when he could no longer get his
customary diet, but had to chew hard kettles and frying-pans, fell
away in his flesh, and at last died in the very hands of his
physicians. How would Widenostrils have thriven, think you,
upon a dietary of iron bars and leg-bolts ? Verily, in this
Bermuda, nobody seems to be sensible of the merits and fame
of those fine young literary men, who, from their little coterie,
breathed a new soul into Ireland.
You cannot get out of any man what is not in him ; but yet
this miserable grovelling of Duffy's is a bitter disappointment
to me. He had a grander opportunity than any one amongst
us ; and now he will let the " Government " march off the field
with some semblance of having still a rag of law and constitution
to cover them, when he might have torn off every shred, and
shown them as they are an armed garrison, ruling a hostile
country at the bayonet's point.
Even if " Government " should refuse compliance with this
memorial, and bring him to trial again, what juror will have the
heart to stand up for a prisoner who has retreated from his posi-
tion ? Or of what value will be his standing up ? The thing is
bad every way ; but the end is not yet.
I suppose Mr. Duffy and his advisers, by this promise of absti-
nence from politics, mean to intimate that Ireland's cause is
desperate, or is not worth struggling for ; mean, so far as they are
concerned, to give up the country, and let the English " make a
kirk or a mill of it." And this at a time when all colour of law
is taken away or perverted to the ruin of honest men ; when four-
fifths of the inhabitants are avowedly debarred from exercising
10
146 JAIL JOURNAL
the common functions of citizens, one-fifth of them perishing
miserably of hunger, and the island occupied by troops as a
hostile territory. And so the proprietor of the Nation, for his
part, begs pardon meant no harm by all those loud words of
his, but was as constitutional as a Quaker all the time, and will
never do the like again. So precisely the matter stands, unless
this Daily News grossly mis-describes the " memorial."
A plague of all cowards ! The cause is not desperate ; and it
is both base and impudent to say, to mean, to think, or to hint
that it is.
The Ballingarry failure is hardly, I suppose, to be treated as a
criterion. A gentleman a very estimable and worthy gentleman,
certainly goes with three or four attendants (who are wholly un-
known to the people they go amongst) into the counties of Kil-
kenny and Tipperary, and there tells several persons they are to
rise in insurrection under his guidance and free the country. He
has no money, this gentleman, to pay troops : no clothing nor
arms to give them, no food to keep them alive. He just exhibits
a pike, and bids them follow him and free the country. Well,
the people are desirous enough to free the country ; let them be
but //a//-armed, half-clothed, and one-quarter fed, and they will
show what mind they are of. But this abrupt proposal of the
worthy gentleman takes them by surprise. Very few of them
have any arms at all. For fifty years it has been the constant
policy of the hostile Government to disarm them, and twenty
Arms Bills have been enacted since the Union, with that special
purpose. Very politic policy it was ; for the enemy knew that
if once these people became familiar with arms, they would be
sure to put them to the only righteous and Christian use. All
kinds of weapons, therefore, for half a century back, have been
associated, in the minds of Catholic Irishmen, with crime, gaols,
informers, petty sessions, hand-cuffs, and policemen. And, as if
that were not enough, all the influence of the constitutional
agitators, and, in a great measure, of the priests also, has been
exerted to make the use of arms appear a sin against God. They
have not been taught that it is the prerogative of man to bear
arms that beasts alone go without them ; that Arms Bills are
passed by the British Parliament on the same principle on which
other robbers disarm those whom they mean to plunder. No ;
JAIL JOURNAL 147
they have been taught such drivelling maxims as, " Let others
die for their country, we prefer to live for her " ; " One living
patriot is worth a churchyard full of dead ones." Now, this is
not the sort of people, so debased, so benighted, and reduced, to
a beastly helplessness, that you can expect to rise en masse on a
call to arms, be their slavery as intolerable, their wrath as deadly,
as you will. Before there can be any general arming, or aptitude
to insurrection, there must first be sound manly doctrine preached
and embraced. And next, there must be many desultory col-
lisions with British troops, both in town and country, and the
sight of clear steel, and of blood smoking hot, must become
familiar to the eyes of men, of boys, and of women.
The American Revolution was begun by riots " paltry riots,"
on the streets of Boston. The last grand Lombard insurrection
was prepared and ripened by months and years of exasperating
collisions in theatres and at the corners of streets, until society
became one angry ulcer ; and such will for ever be the history of
resistance where the oppressed people are individually high-
spirited, and not emasculated by vicious teaching.
It is nothing but a pitiful excuse for desertion of the cause to
cry out now, " These people do not wish for freedom, are not
worthy of freedom ; they would not rise at Ballingarry." I
affirm that my countrymen are not cowards, and do not love
their chains ; and I do hope, captive and exile as I am, to see
some day an opportunity given them to prove the same.
It is too clear, however, that for the present, one excuse or
another the Ballingarry failure, the " vigour " of Government,
ill-health, etc., will serve the weak and irresolute as good reasons
for falling back on peaceful O'Connellism, or else ! " withdrawing
from politics " what a beggarly phrase and idea ! and so
staying peacably in Ireland, becoming respectable members of
society, and peeping about to find themselves dishonourable
graves.
But the history of Ireland is not over yet.
I see, further, by these latest papers, that the French Republi-
can army is actually battering the walls of Republican Rome, to
compel the Romans to drive away their own chosen Triumviri
(of whom that good and noble Italian, Mazzini, is the chief), and
to reinstate the " monstrous regiment " of priests. There is some
148 JAIL JOURNAL
vile mistake here ; or rather this Bonaparte, with his Odillon
Barrots, and other politic monarchists about him, is a traitor to
Republicanism and to France. There is a strong party opposed
to him and his Government, who are all, without distinction,
branded as " Socialists," by the English Pi ess. But I begin to
imagine that the sincere and thorough-going Republicans are
classed with this very party ; for it is impossible that literal
Fourier-Owenism should be the creed of any large body of men.
Heaven knows the social problem in Modern Europe has come to
be a hard one ; but Fourier-Owenism is not the solution.
Would I could see some French papers : I am in the dark.
One thing is easy to see that a stupid cant has arisen about
" Order," as if order were the chief end of man and of society.
Of course the moneyed people do their best to spread this cant.
Yet what a senseless cant. Order, quotha ! there is more order
in the hulks at Bermuda than in the Champs Elysees.
Hungary keeps Austria gallantly at bay. The Kaiser has
called upon the Czar for aid ; which he will be too ready to give.
Kossuth is a great genius and hero.
But in India, the enemy have obtained a signal victory over
the Seiks, and have taken and robbed Moultan, one of the
cities that Burnes set for them. Moultan was very gallantly
defended.
28ih. We are running near Barbadoes, and, as I hear, must
tack northward again. The weather is lovely, and not oppres-
sively hot. I am in high health, and walk and lounge on the poop
lazily, and with right vacant mind, by night and day. Not being
a " Member of Society," and not having the entree of the cuddy, I
keep my own hours, dress as I like, and hold no communication
save with the Doctor, and with a species of parson or " Instruc-
tor," such as they always send in convict-ships. The skipper is
an old, red-whiskered Scotchman, and the cuddy-circle is com-
posed of the said skipper, the doctor, two tarry individuals called
mates, the first and the second mate, two officers of the gist
regiment, and the parson or instructor. The skipper and the two
mates, tarry but worthy persons, occasionally enter into conversa-
tion with me when I am in the humour to allow them ; but the
caution of the two gallant officers in that respect amuses me :
these gentlemen seem resolved that they shall not be tried by
JAIL JOURNAL 149
court-martial for undue attention to me and so they give me a
wide berth on the poop, walking always on the side opposite to
me. At first they seemed to labour under the apprehension that
I would try to force myself on their society, and looked sidelong
at me as a modest maid might look at some horrid man that she
thinks is meditating her ravishment. They need not be at all
afraid I will not violate their British honour.
The instructor, whose name is Stewart, a Glaswegian, has very
obligingly placed his books at my disposal during my voyage.
He reads service to a small number of Protestants who are
amongst the convicts sets them to learn reading, and tries to
make some impression on them in the way of reformation. When
he speaks to me, however, he never mentions religion, which
shows his discrimination.
Thus I take reconnaissance of those who are to be my ship-
mates for two months.
July I2lh Twelfth of July. I trust the maniacs in the North
of Ireland are not cutting one another's throats to-day.* Yet, if
they are, there is one comfort in it those whose throats are cut
will not be starved to death.
We are nearly three months at sea : never once in sight of land ;
and have not yet gone half way to the Cape. Such stupid naviga-
tion, I believe, has not been heard of, at least since the invention
of the mariner's compass. Three times we have crossed the line
passed three times slowly and tediously through that belt of
the ocean called the " region of calms." ..The captain has long
since given up all hopes of reaching the Cape without touching
somewhere in Brazil for provisions and water ; and we are now
shaping our course for Pernambuco. The crew and prisoners are
on half-rations and half-allowance of water : the water has grown
very bad, black, hot, and populous with living creatures. Sick-
ness has begun to prevail both among prisoners and soldiers :
and we have already pitched overboard seven corpses to the
sharks. Many were frightfully ill in scurvy : fever is strongly ap-
prehended ; and as this delay has occurred in the hottest region of
* For the elucidation of this passage to American readers, I should
mention that the I2th of July is the principal anniversary consecrated by
the Northern Orangemen, to celebrate the Victories of the Dutch King of
England over their own countrymen.
150 JAIL JOURNAL
the globe (we are eight weeks on the very line, or within three
degrees of it) , the only matter of surprise is that so few have died
yet. A few days ago, the Doctor issued orders to give each person
only quarter-allowance of water namely, a pint and a half in the
day, to serve for cooking, for tea, and for drinking ; but that very
evening down came a tremendous tropical torrent of rain and by
properly arranging the awning, and fitting it with a canvas tube,
ten tons of cool clear water were caught, and conducted into
barrels in the hold, all within six hours. The thermometer has
been for weeks at about 84 of Fahrenheit, and this glorious
shower was high luxury to every one on board. When it grew
dark I went out to the gangway, stark-naked, and stood there
awhile, luxuriating in the plenteous shower-bath.
This gracious shower gives us a prospect of reaching Pemam-
buco on half instead of quarter-allowance of water.
For me, I positively enjoy everything heat and coolness, wet
and dry, whole rations, half-rations, and quarter-rations : and
after basking in the sun like a tortoise all day, I smoke and drink
considerably at night. Not that the sun if one is to speak by
the card really shines much in these equinoctial regions, but the
warm air is quite luxurious enough to bask in.
July i^th.' Your shark is but a puny fish : eight or nine of
them have been dragged on board here since we came within the
tropics, and scores have been swimming around us that would not
take the bait not one of them above five feet long, with an
opening to serve for mouth hardly wide enough to admit a good
cocoa-nut, and innumerable small, flat, cartilaginous, triangular
teeth, so thin and weak that a good kick from a strong boot
would be sure to drive sixty or seventy of them down their
throats. Their flesh looks rank and coarse, and has an evil
smell, even fresh killed, but a few of the sailors and prisoners
eat it.
This weary " region of calms " has a strange and mysterious
aspect, with a Stygian twilight hanging over it, and an infinite
silence, as of the realms of Dis. The air is damp, warm, dark,
almost palpatl.'. Save one black squall, or at most two, in the
day, there is not a breath of wind ; but the sky is an uniform
gray, and there is a heavy swell in the dark, glutinous-looking
waters. We are altogether out of the track of ships, too, and
JAIL JOURNAL 151
have been many weeks rolling upon this sunless sea in ghostly
solitude. I repeat often to myself :
" The very deep did rot O Christ 1