in felon array, that he might report it in Dublin. Curious that
this should have happened twice. In Dublin also I had to put
on the convict dress and strip it off again instantly. Come, my
Lord Clarendon, either I am a felon or not a felon.
But perhaps they do this to vex and hurt me, not knowing
how callous I am.
Wrote this evening to my wife, a cheerful letter, telling her
everything that is pleasant in my situation, and how I am to be a
gentleman, at least while on board the Scourge. But I fear now
that her expected letter will not arrive before I sail, and then I
may not hear for months anything that has befallen since I took
leave of her in Newgate : what seizures have been made by the
police ; what she is going to do with the house in Dublin ; where
she means to live ; how my children are. My wardrobe, too, is
somewhat scanty, for a " gentleman," seeing that they brought me
away from Newgate in an old brown summer coat, old shoes, and
a glazed cap ; and the trunk I wrote for cannot come in time. Mr.
Grace, however, has kindly taken the trouble of procuring for me
at Cove a few changes of linen and other small indispensables.
The surgeon of the establishment, a young man from the county
Monaghan, came to request some autographs from me. It seems
the women in Cove importuned him ; so I indulged him with
half-a-dozen, and wish the sweet girls much joy with them.
Speaking of this surgeon, I must not forget to record that the
first time he saw me he made most minute inquiries about my
health ; and when I told him I was in perfect health, and never
had been better in all my life, he remarked that I looked rather
delicate perhaps I had been subject occasionally to some com-
plaint ? Told him I had to asthma, now and then ; but was at
present quite free from it. He said that would do. ' ' Do what ? ' '
14 JAIL JOURNAL
I asked. Whereupon he told me that it might be necessary, in
order to justify Mr. Grace in not setting me to work, to have a
certificate from him that my health was rather delicate. All this
passed on Monday last, and before Mr. Grace had received orders
from the Castle not to use me as a convict.
I set down all these trifling particulars relating to my usage
here because I foresee the worthy " Government " will have
occasion to tell official falsehoods on the subject before all is
over ; otherwise, they are of no importance to me at all.
At five o'clock to-morrow morning a boat is to come ashore
for me.
June i st. It was on a raw, damp morning that I took my last
look of Irish land. The first lieutenant of the Scourge, in full
costume, with cocked hat and sword, came for me with a boat full
of marines. The Scourge lay about a mile distant a long, low
rakish-looking steamer, with black hull and two funnels. In a
few minutes I stepped on deck, and was presented to the captain,
who was walking on the quarter-deck. He lifted his cap, and
asked me to go below, and he would show me my quarter. The
principal cabin is very handsome, divided into two rooms, of which
the one farthest aft is to be occupied by me as a sleeping-cabin.
It has couches, chairs, and a table, and is lighted by all the stern
windows. During the day both rooms are to be open to me ; and
the captain said, that as he is obliged to consider me as a prisoner,
ihere will be a marine always stationed on sentry at the foot of the
companion-ladder ; and that whenever I desire to go upon deck,
which I may do when I please, I am to inform the sentry, who will
summon a sergeant that for the rest, he hoped his hours would
suit me, when breakfast, dinner, and so forth, will be served in the
chief cabin. He is a quiet, saturnine, bilious, thin man of about
fifty, with a very low voice not at all a bluff seaman, or a jolly
tar, or the like ; yet I dare say he is an excellent officer, and will
execute his orders.
Mr. Grace had promised to go to Cove and inquire for my letter ;
and the vessel lay for an hour, waiting his return. He came and
brought a letter. I snatched it eagerly, and found in it a small
religious trad, which an unknown lady had sent me. No letter
from home. Ten minutes after this we were steaming southward,
at ten knots an hour. So my moorings are cut.
JAIL JOURNAL 15
It rained dismally. The wind sung ruefully in shrouds and
figging ; and huge grey rain-clouds darkened over shore and sea.
We were out of sight of land almost as soon as the ship had
cleared the headlands of the bay. I waved my hand north-east-
by-north, then went below, and ate a tremendous breakfast.
So my moorings are cut. I am a banished man. And this
is no mere relegatio, like Ovid's, at Tomi ; it is utter exsilium
interdiction of fire and water ; the loss of citizenship, if citizen-
ship I had ; the brand of whatsoever ignominy law can inflict, if
law there be. Be it so ; I am content. There are no citizens in
Ireland ; there is no citizenship no law. I cannot lose what I
never had ; for no Irishman has any rights at present. As for the
disgrace of " felony," that sits very easy upon me. To make me a
felon needs an act of my own. No " Act of Parliament " can do
it! and what ignominy London " law" can stain an Irishman
withal, I am content to underlie till my dying hour. Be that
disgrace on my head and on the heads of my children.
But for the thought of those children and their mother, and
what temporary inconveniences they may suffer before arrange-
ments can be made for their leaving Ireland but for that I
should absolutely feel jolly to-day. There is something inde-
pendent in setting forth on a voyage of three thousand miles,
with an old brown coat on my back, and a few shillings in my
tricolor purse. The onus is not upon me. You Sovereign Lady,
Queen Nice, have charge of me now ; look you take good care of
me. I am in your majesty's hands at last ; but you may find,
O Queen ! that I am too dear at the price you have paid, and are
like to pay. I will cost you, most dread sovereign, rather more
than my rations.
It has come on to blow hard this evening. Dined on four
teaspoonfuls of arrowroot.
2nd. Blowing still worse. Hoped fervently for a thorough-
going storm. When one is at sea, one may as well have trial of
all the sea can do. Steward came into my cabin ; asked him if it
was a storm. " No, sir ; only half a gale of wind." I cursed its
halfness, and tried to sleep.
yd. Ship still pitching and rolling heavily ; part of the
bulwark, the steward told us, is stove in still no storm. Went
on deck. Storm or no storm, this Atlantic rears grand, mountain-
16 JAIL JOURNAL
ous waves. Porpoises tumbling Storm- Petrel skimming. This
bird is the Mother Carey's Chicken or procellana but I scorn it.
All these things, are they not written in the journal of any young
lady sailing to India for a husband or missionary, or " literary "
(that is, book-spinning) naval officer, spinning as he goes, for a
manufacturer in Paternoster Row ?
Went over the Scourge, and surveyed her fore and aft. She
is a fine ship. A long unbroken flush deck ; one huge mortar,
containing five tons of metal, close behind the mainmast one
" long gun " pointed over the bow one brass field-piece mounted
on a carriage in the stern and four carronades. She is manned
by 1 80 men and boys. The long gun is a tremendous instrument,
The sergeant of marines who has charge of me, a very fat and
good-humoured fellow who rolls in his waddle, as only a fat
Englishman can roll, seems greatly attached to this gun. He saw
me looking at it, and came over to show me all the conditions of
it how it traverses how it is raised and lowered by a graduated
scale for taking aim, and so forth. " Ah ! Sir," said he, " she's a
clever piece she's just a clever piece," he repeated, slapping her
affectionately on the breech as he said it. The men were called
to drill by beat of drum, and here was a new thing to me ; for it
seems all the sailors, as well as marines on board a man-of-war are
regularly drilled as soldiers. They were armed with musket and
bayonet, cutlasses, boarding-pikes, and hatchets altogether most
formidable looking pirates. They were drilled by the principal
gunner, and certainly know how to handle their arms ; but the
ship rolled so much that, as they were ranged along the deck,
they had to balance themselves very cunningly, on toes and heels
alternately ; and sometimes seemed on the point of making an
involuntary charge across the deck with fixed bayonets, pinning
the gunner and half-a-dozen officers to the opposite bulwark.
The organiser and chief mover on board the Scourge is the first
lieutenant. By the first word he addressed to me, I perceived he
was a Derry or Tyrone Irishman told him so, and found that 1
was right. He is a native of Tyrone ; and he and I went to
school in the same city, Derry, at the same time, more than
twenty years ago, but not at the same school. For twenty-four
years he has been in the navy, and is (the captain tells me), a
most admirable officer ; but seems to think he will never be any-
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JAIL JOURNAL 17
thing but a lieutenant. He has not parliamentary connections,
and is an Irishman.
Dined with the captain, whose name is Wingrove. After
dinner, the saturnine man relaxed a little, and even grew cheerful.
He thought I ought to be deeply impressed by my survey of his
ship, and duly awed by a contemplation of the power and majesty
of " England." Yes, it is all very terrible and very grand, Cap-
tain, but if Irishmen had only the sense and spirit to take the
management of their own concerns, you would want carriages for
some of your guns : some of the gilding would be rubbed off your
epaulettes, I apprehend. The herds and harvests that we send
every year to England (getting neither money nor value for them)
would build and man dozens of your spitfire Scourges, besides
frigates, and line of battle ships, what may suffice. Wood,
iron, hemp, gunpowder, would obe}' Irish hands as well as
Carthaginian.
Captain Wingrove has good wine. He had just come from
Madeira and Portugal, when he was ordered off to Bermuda, so
that he has had opportunities. He is evidently curious about
late events in Ireland, but does not like to ask me much about
them. Said he understood there was a practice in Ireland, in the
law courts there, called packing juries, and asked what it meant.
I explained it to him ; but it is clear that he hardly believes me :
indeed, he listens to everything I say with a kind of quiet smile
and sometimes looks doubtfully at me, as if he thought me
slightly insane, and expected me to break out in some strange
manner.
jth. The weather has been very beautiful and warm, for some
days ; but to-day it is rather foggy, to my sorrow, for we are
passing through the Azores between Terceira and St. Michael's,
and cannot see them. They are most lovely islands, with fine
mountains and rivers, rich in grain and fruit. Portugal has
these and Madeira yet ; but perhaps the next war will give an
excuse to the bullying pirates of Carthage to take the Azores
for coal depots, or convict depots, and so create some situations
to relieve the pressure of younger sons.
The officers of the ship seem desirous to make my voyage as
little irksome to me as possible. Several of them have offered to
lend me books and though I had vowed to look on no book save
i JAIL JOURNAL
sea and sky during the passage, I find I must have recourse to
them. A sea voyage is a very tedious affair : the weather indeed
is warm and serene, but I 'gin to be aweary of the sun : he is
advancing fast to his summer solstice, and we are rushing to
meet him at the rate of 180 miles per day. The pure profound
blue of the ocean is most glorious to see. One whose navigation
has been confined to crossing St. George's Channel, with its
short chopping waves and dull leaden colour, has never seen
the sea.
CHAPTER II
June 12, 1848. On board H.M.S. Scourge. Lat. 34 N., long.
40 22' W. No ship has been in sight for five days. The routine
of the Scourge has grown familiar ; and one tires of unbroken fine
weather and smooth seas. No resource for me but the officers'
little library. Therefore I have been sleepily poring over Dana's
" Two Years before the Mast " : a pleasant, rough kind of book,
but with something too much hauling of ropes and " handing " of
sails in it. Dana's voyage was a strange one. He shipped himself
as a common sailor, on board a Boston ship bound to California,
on a two years' trading voyage, and subjected himself to short
rations and the insolence of a brutal captain ; and all because he
had heard the sea was good for weak eyes. In fact, he cured
the weakness in his eyes. Now, I have weak eyes, too. Cannot I
assume this present sea-faring of mine, and my residence in Ber-
muda, to be merely a method I have adopted for the strengthening
of my eyes ? And I will probably have no insolence, or hard
work, or hard fare to put up with, as poor Dana had ; neither
will I be one whit more a prisoner than he was.
Mr. Dana is now, I believe, a successful lawyer in Boston ; and
therefore, perhaps, more a prisoner, drudge, and slave now than
ever. Truly I may think my own position sad enough ; but what
would I say if I were in poor Mr. Dana's ?
I have been reading, also, " The Amber Witch," a most
beautiful German story, translated into admirable English, by
Lady Duff Gordon.
We are in the region now of flying-fish and dolphins not
Arion's dolphins, nor, indeed, any dolphins at all, but what the
ichthyological terminology of the British navy calls dolphins.
Sometimes, also, we pass through whole flotillas of " Portuguese
men-of-war," as the naval branch of the United Service calls those
beautiful little floating mollusks that cruise in these parts under
their opaline sails of purple and rose-coloured membrane. And
again, we are often surrounded by the Gulf-weed, which diffuses
19
20 JAIL JOURNAL
itself hereabouts, after its long navigation from the Gulf of
Mexico if such be really its history, which I doubt.
Met a large ship to-day. We passed at a distance of two miles.
She shows French colours, and is supposed to be a West- India-
man, homeward bound, and for France. In a few days the vine-
yards on Garonne-bank, or the quays of Nantes or Havre, will
welcome her snowy sails. Oh, had I the wings of a dove !
itfh. Gulf-weed, Portuguese men-of-war, flying-fish.
i^th. Flying-fish, Portuguese men-of-war, Gulf- weed.
ibth. Gulf-weed, flying-fish, Portuguese men-of-war.
ijth. Reading for want of something better " Macaulay's
Essays." He is a born Edinburgh Reviewer, this Macaulay ; and,
indeed, a type-reviewer an authentic specimen-page of nine-
teenth century " literature." He has the right, omniscient tone,
and air, and the true knack of administering reverential flattery
to British civilization, British prowess, honour, enlightenment,
and all that, especially to the great nineteenth century and its
astounding civilization, that is, to his readers. It is altogether a
new thing in the history of mankind, this triumphant glorifica-
tion of a current century upon being the century it is. No former
age, before Christ or after, ever took any pride in itself and sneered
at the wisdom of its ancestors ; and the new phenomenon indi-
cates, I believe, not higher wisdom, but deeper stupidity. The
nineteenth century is come, but not gone ; and what now, if it
should be, hereafter, memorable among centuries for something
quite other than its wondrous enlightenment ? Mr. Macaulay,
however, is well satisfied with it for his part, and in his essay on
Milton penny-a-lines thus : " Every girl who has read Mrs.
Marcet's little dialogues on political economy, could teach Mon-
tague or Walpole many lessons on finance. Any intelligent man
may now, by resolutely applying himself for a few years to mathe-
matics, learn more than the great Newton knew after half a
century of study and meditation " ; and so on. If Pythagoras,
now, could only have been introduced to Mrs. Marcet, or even
to one of her premium girls, how humbly would he have sat at
her feet ! Could Aristotle or Hipparchus but have seen Mr.
Pinnock before they died, how would they have sung nunc
dimittas \ This nineteenth century man, and indeed the century
generally, can see no difference between being told a thing
JAIL JOUKNA^ 21
conning it in a catechism, or " little dialogue " and knowing it ;
between getting by heart a list of results, what you call facts,
and mastering science.
Still more edifying, even than Edinburgh wisdom, is the current
Edinburgh ethics. Herein, also, the world has a new development;
and as I am now about to retire a little while from the great
business of this stirring age, to hide me, as it were, in a hole of
the rock, while the loud-sounding century, with its steam-engines,
printing-presses, and omniscient popular literature, flares and
rushes roaring and gibbering by, I have a mind to set down a few
of Macaulay's sentences, as a kind of land-marks, just to remind
me where the world and I parted. For I do, indeed, account
this Reviewer a real type and recognised spokesman of his age ;
and by the same token he is now, by virtue of his very reviewing,
too, a Cabinet Minister.
In his essay on Lord Bacon, he freely admits the treacherous,
thoroughly false, and unprincipled character of the statesmen of
that age ; thinks, however, we must not be too hard on them ;
says, " it is impossible to deny that they committed many acts
which would justly bring down, on a statesman of our time,
censures of the most serious kind " [as that a man is a liar, an
extortioner, a hypocrite, a suborner] ; " but when we consider
the state of morality in their age, and the unscrupulous character
of the adversaries against whom they had to contend," etc.
And the state of morality, it seems, varies, not with the age
only, but with the climate also, in a wonderful manner. For the
essayist, writing of Lord Clive and his villainies in India, pleads
in behalf of Clive, that " he knew he had to deal with men
destitute of what in Europe is called honour ; with men who would
give any promise, without hesitation, and break any promise
without shame ; with men who would unscrupulously employ
corruption, perjury, forgery, to compass their ends." And they
knew that they had to deal with men destitute of what in Asia is
called honesty men who would unscrupulously employ corrup-
tion, perjury, forgery, etc. so, what were the poor men to do,
on either side ? the state of morality was so low ! When one is
tempted to commit any wickedness, he ought, apparently, to
ascertain this point what is the state of morality ? How range
the quotation* Is this an age (or a c^mate) adapted for open
22 JAIL JOURNAL
robbery ? Or does the air agree better with swindling and cheat-
ing ? Or must one cant and pray, and pretend anxiety to con-
vert the heathen to compass one's ends ? But to come back to
Lord Clive, the great founder of British power in India ; when the
essayist comes to that point at which he cannot get over fairly
telling us how Clive swindled Omichund by a forged paper, he
says : " But Clive was not a man to do anything by halves [too
much British energy for that]. We almost blush to write it. He
forged Admiral Watson's name." Almost blush but not just
quite. Oh ! Babington Macaulay. This approximation to blush-
ing, on the part of the blue-and-yellow Reviewer, is a graceful,
touching tribute to the lofty morality of our blessed century.
For morality, now Lord bless you ranges very high ; and
Religion, also : through all our nineteenth-century British litera-
ture there runs a tone of polite, though distant recognition of
Almighty God, as one of the Great Powers ; and though not
resident, is actually maintained at His court. Yet British civiliza-
tion gives Him assurances of friendly relations ; and " our vener-
able Church," and our " beautiful liturgy," are relied upon as a
sort of diplomatic Concordat, or Pragmatic Sanction, whereby
we, occupied as we are, in grave commercial and political pur-
suits, carrying on our business, selling our cotton, and civilizing
our heathen bind ourselves, to let Him alone, if He lets us alone
if He will keep looking apart, contemplating the illustrious
mare-milkers, and blameless Ethiopians, and never-minding us,
we will keep up a most respectable Church for Him, and make
our lower orders venerate it, and pay for it handsomely, and we
will suffer no national infidelity, like the horrid French.
For the venerable Church of England, and for our beautiful
liturgy, the essayist has a becoming respect ; and in his essay on
Hallam's Constitutional History, I find a sentence or two on this
point worth transcribing. He is writing about the villains who
reformed religion in England, and the other miscreants who
accomplished the Glorious Revolution, and he says : " It was, in
one sense, fortunate, as we have already said, for the Church of
England, that the Reformation in this country was effected by
men who cared little about religion. And in the same manner it
was fortunate for our civil Government that the Revolution was
effected by men who cared little about their political principles
JAIL JOURNAL 13
At such a crisis splendid talents and strong passions [by strong
passions he means any kind of belief or principle] might have done
more harm than good." But then he immediately adds for we
must keep up an elevated tone of morality now " But narrow-
ness of intellect, and flexibility of principle, though they may be
serviceable, can never be respectable." Why not ? If scoundrels
and blockheads can rear good, serviceable, visible churches for
the saving of men, and glorious constitutions for the governing
of men, what hinders them from being respectable ? What else
is respectable ? Or, indeed, what is the use of the splendid
talents and the strong passions at all ?
I am wasting my time, and exasperating the natural benignity
of my temper, with this oceanic review of the Edinburgh Re-
viewer. But my time at least is not precious just now ; and I
will plunge into the man's essay on Lord Bacon, which cannot
fail to be the most characteristic piece of British literature in
the volumes.
This must be done to-morrow ; for there are two sails reported
in sight on the weather-bow, which is an event of high interest at
sea ; besides, the sun is drawing near his evening bath a grand
imperial ceremony, at which I always assist,
The ships in sight are one American and one Carthaginian.
i8th. Last night, after two bells (one o'clock), I was awakened
by a great trampling, pushing, hauling, and thumping on deck.
Something unusual was certainly going forward. Got up ; went
through the cabin, and to the foot of the companion-ladder ;
found the skylights of the cabin removed, and smooth deck laid
in their place the captain out on deck the companion-ladder
blocked up at the top. The deck was cleared for action. I heard
loud words of command. Spirit of the Constitution ! Has war
been declared since we came to sea ? Is Baudin is Trehouart
upon us ? May the Powers grant it ! Oh, Trehouart, Admiral of
Heaven ! lay yourself alongside here. You can easily wing our
accursed paddle, or send two or three fifty-pounders into us
amidships, to derange the economy of our engine-room. I ran
through the lieutenant's room, telling a boy who was there to run
up before me and report me to my sergeant. At the foot of one of
the funnels I found a ladder that brought me on deck. Ah ! there
was no enemy (no friend) in sight ; it was only British discipline
24 JAIL JOURNAL
that had started British prowess from his sleep, to practise in
the dead of the night. We were alone on the wide, silent sea, and
were going to bombard the moon. Four times we shelled her with
our huge mortar ; not, if truth must be told, with actual bomb-
shells, but with quarter-charges of powder ; four times we
thundered at her with our long-gun ; four times with our carron-
ades ; and then, British energy having blotted the white moon-
shine awhile with his gunpowder smoke, tumbled into his ham-
mock again. No living soul, but those on board, heard that
cannonade for fishes are notoriously deaf. On the convex of
the great globe we are all alone here : and even here amongst
the guns the whole effect is mean, for there is no echo, and each