Henty George Alfred
At Aboukir and Acre: A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt
"I was going to send her to Gibraltar to be sold. I do not think that we can do better than buy her to carry home your cargo. I will call a court of four officers to put on her the price they consider it probable that she will fetch, which, I should say, if she were sold at Gibraltar, would not be over eight or nine hundred pounds. You, Mr. Blagrove, can buy her in the name of your father, and I will take your bill at three months upon him. Then there is the question of the crew. As to the officers, I can send you home, Mr. Wilkinson, with despatches. I have not had an opportunity of forwarding any for some weeks now; and to you, Mr. Blagrove, I can give three months' leave on urgent private business. As to men, we have small craft coming over here constantly from Sicily with fruit and fresh provisions, and I have no doubt that, with the offer of good wages, you would be able to pick up ten or twelve men without much difficulty.
"On board our ships there are, I should say, at least twenty men who have been invalided by boards of doctors as being unfit for service, either from the effects of wounds or climate, and this would be a good opportunity for sending them home. Many of them are still fit for easy work, and would, at any rate, counterbalance your Italian crew. Of course I should formally take a passage for them in Mr. Blagrove's ship. The prize mounts six guns, but I would advise you to keep well out of the way of French privateers. Of course the final result of the sale of the merchandise would have to be paid by your father, Mr. Blagrove, into the prize court for division among those entitled to it.
"With the ship, as your father's property, the case is different; that is his private venture. He will, of course, charge freight on the merchandise, and he will get two or three pounds a head for taking the invalids home. As he will certainly get double the price the brig would fetch at Gibraltar, that and the freight would a good deal more than clear all expenses, and he will of course have the usual prize-agent's commission on the sales he effects. What do you think of that plan?"
Both the midshipmen were highly pleased with the proposal, and thanked their commander very heartily for his kindness. A board of officers assembled on the following day and assessed the value of the French brig at £850, and Edgar formally bought her in his father's name for that sum, and drew a bill upon him for payment in three months.
He had several times heard from him since he had entered on board the Tigre, and in the first letter Mr. Blagrove gave a hearty approval of the course that he had adopted, and said that a year or two at sea would give him a thorough knowledge of ships and be a considerable advantage to him in their business. The receipt of Edgar's first letter, and of a heavy budget containing the account of his doings in Egypt from the day on which he was left behind to that on which he sailed, had been an immense relief to them all, for hitherto they had been in absolute ignorance of what had taken place. His father, however, thought that he had, even according to his own account, run a very needless risk in taking part in the rising at Cairo, although he saw that, having for the time become so thoroughly associated with the Arabs, it would have been difficult for him to avoid acting with them when there was danger in so doing.
CHAPTER XVI.
A VISIT HOME
The new purchase, which was named the Suzanne, was towed alongside the Tigress, and the crew began at once to get up the cargo and transfer it to her hold. More method was observed in restowing the cargo than had before been possible. The dried fruit, as the heaviest of the goods, was placed in the middle of the brig; the European goods, whose brands and packing enabled them to be easily distinguished from the rest, were placed forward; and the Eastern bales packed aft. This was done under the direction of the petty officers.
During the four days that it took to complete the work, Edgar boarded several of the Italian craft, and succeeded in inducing ten active young sailors to join him, by the offer of a rate of pay several times higher than that they earned in their native craft, and of a free passage back on the first opportunity. Condor was appointed to the command of the Tigress, as two supernumerary lieutenants and four midshipmen had been sent out from home to the Tigre, and two midshipmen received acting orders as his lieutenants. There was much satisfaction among the junior officers of the Tigre when they heard from Wilkinson the nature of the spoil he had gathered, and all sorts of guesses were hazarded as to its value.
"I cannot help you there in the least," he said. "I know that Turkish and Eastern carpets fetch a big price at home; and of course silk, and gold and silver embroideries, are valuable; but, as I only know the contents of about a hundred bales, I have no more idea of what the total is likely to come to than you have."
"You did not get any money, Wilkinson, or jewels?"
"Neither one nor the other. I suppose that the money was divided when captured, and the jewels either given to the women or sold. They were things that might be disposed of anywhere. At any rate we found none of them, and the only cash is, as I told you, the twelve thousand five hundred pounds that the prizes fetched, out of which our share is not likely to be more than twenty or thirty pounds each. Still, that is not to be despised."
"It will come to more than that," one of the party said. "I have calculated it up, and though I have not the exact rules—"
"Well, if you haven't got the exact rules, Macleod, your calculations are not worth more than our guesses. It won't be much more than forty pounds anyhow, and I suppose a bit more than that for our share of the prizes captured here. Of course they were worth a good deal more, but then there are all the ships-of-war to share. If our prize turns out as well as I hope, it will come to a good bit more, as it is only to be divided among the Tigre's crew."
"You and Blagrove are going home in the prize, are you not?"
"Yes, I carry Sir Sidney's despatches; Blagrove gets three months' leave."
"Who is going to command the craft that you have bought for your father, Blagrove?"
"I have persuaded the captain of that store-ship that came in yesterday to let me have his second officer for two or three months. She is likely to be here some time; and if we have luck, and his mate gets a return passage soon after he arrives in England, he may be back again in six weeks. From another ship of the same sort I got a young fellow for mate. The ships are chartered by government, and will likely enough be here for months, as they will furnish stores not only to the ships on the coast, but to any that may come down here from the fleet blockading Toulon. In fact they will act as general shore-ships, until they have cleared out their cargo."
"Then he will be your captain?"
"He will be entered on the ship's books as captain," Edgar replied with a laugh; "but I fancy that Wilkinson and myself will not care to be idle on the voyage."
Three days after the cargo was transferred, twenty invalids were placed on board. Two or three had lost limbs, but the rest were men who had been pulled down by fever and could not shake it off so long as they were on the coast. On the following morning the anchor was got up and the Suzanne sailed for England. The nominal captain was a smart young sailor, who was glad indeed of the opportunity, for three or four months of enforced idleness on the Egyptian coast was not at all to his taste. The extra pay that he would receive was a consideration, but the fact that he was to be nominally—for Edgar had explained the situation to him—in command was the great inducement.
He had fortunately passed his examination and obtained his certificate as captain before sailing on the present voyage. Had it not been for this he could not have accepted Edgar's offer. The voyage was a rapid one. They stopped for two days at Gibraltar to take in water. They had some little trouble with the prize-agent there, for of course the ship's papers showed that she had been a prize, and she should have been sent there to be condemned and sold. Sir Sidney Smith, however, had written, saying that as the ships on the station were already short-handed, he could not spare a prize crew, and that he had therefore only the choice of burning the prize or of selling her there, and that a court of officers from the various ships-of-war had fixed her value at £850, and a purchaser having been found at that price, he had deemed it expedient to sell her, and now forwarded his bill for the amount, to be divided in the usual course by the prize officials at Gibraltar, as if they had sold her themselves. He stated that as she had been loaded with munitions of war for the French army, no question could arise as to the lawfulness of her capture.
The officials shook their heads over the irregularity, but as the defence of Acre had made a great sensation in England, and a vote of thanks had been passed by both Houses of Parliament, and by many of the corporate bodies in England, to Sir Sidney and those serving under him, they agreed to set the matter right; and thereupon, on the evidence given by Wilkinson and Edgar as to the circumstances of the capture, they formally condemned the ship and authorized the sale that had been effected. That point satisfactorily settled, they sailed at once, shaped their course, after issuing from the Straits, a hundred miles west of the usual ship track, and met with no suspicious sail until they entered the Chops of the Channel. Then one or two craft that looked like French privateers were observed; but the Suzanne was a fast vessel and kept her distance from them, holding her course up Channel, and one morning, soon after daybreak, dropped anchor among a number of other merchantmen on the Mother bank off Ryde.
Directly the anchor was down the gig was lowered, and Wilkinson, Edgar, and the captain were rowed into Portsmouth, the brig being left in charge of the mate. The former went to the dockyard and reported to the admiral that he had brought home despatches from Sir Sidney Smith for the Admiralty.
"In what ship have you brought them?"
"As there was no ship of war likely to be sailing, a passage was taken for me in a trader, a prize that had been sold, and was being brought home."
"Very well, sir. You will, of course, post with it at once for London. Have any particular events happened there?"
"No, sir. Beyond the fact that a few prizes have been picked up there is nothing doing. But I understood from Sir Sidney that there had been no opportunity of sending home reports for a month, and that therefore he thought it best to take the opportunity of forwarding his despatches by a private ship. She is also bringing home some goods captured from pirates in the Levant by the Tigre's tender, the Tigress, which I had the honour to command. There are also twenty men on board invalided home."
"Very well, Mr. Wilkinson. I have nothing further to say to you, and you will doubtless wish to start without delay. I will send off for the sick men at once."
The captain returned on board to take the brig round to London. The two friends reached town late that night, and Wilkinson went straight to the Admiralty with the despatches. He was at once taken to the room where one of the junior officials was on duty.
"Despatches from Sir Sidney Smith, sir," Wilkinson said.
"Anything important?"
"I believe not. There was an opportunity for sending them, and Sir Sidney availed himself of it."
"Then it will not be worth while to wake up the admiral at this time of night?"
"I should say certainly not. But I thought it my duty to bring them here at once."
The other nodded.
"Where do you put up, Mr. Wilkinson?"
"At the Golden Cross."
"Very well. If you are wanted you can be sent for in the morning. You had best call here about eleven, so that you can answer any questions that the admirals may ask."
In the morning the midshipman went across. Half an hour later his name was called out, and he was at once shown into a room in which two of the naval lords were sitting.
"You are the bearer of the despatches from Sir Sidney Smith, Mr. Wilkinson?"
"Yes, sir."
"He has sent us the report you gave him of your cruise in the brig Tigress among the Greek and Turkish islands. There can be no doubt that you did your work exceedingly well, as is shown by the long list of prizes captured or destroyed. He mentions that he has received also reports from the Pasha of Smyrna and the Governor of Rhodes, speaking in high terms of the services that you have rendered, and saying that for the time piracy appears to have entirely ceased and the seas to be open to peaceful traders. What time have you to serve?"
"I have another six months, sir."
"Well, I think, if you feel prepared, it would be as well for you to take advantage of your being at home to pass, and we will take care that you shall get your promotion as soon as you have served your full time. You would like a couple of months' leave, no doubt, before you return. Would you rather wait before going in to be examined, or would you prefer going in at once?"
"I would rather go in at once, sir. I should enjoy my holiday much better if it was over."
"I do not think it will take very long," the admiral said with a smile. "After having been in command of a ten-gun brig for six months you should be able to satisfy the requirements of the examiners without difficulty. You will be good enough to wait in the ante-room."
The delay was not long. In ten minutes the official messenger requested him to follow him, and took him to a room where three naval captains were sitting. The one in the centre looked up from the papers that he was examining.
"Good-morning, Mr. Wilkinson! I see by these papers that you have for six months been in command of the ten-gun brig Tigress, cruising for pirates among the Turkish and Greek islands."
"Yes, sir."
"I suppose during that time you met once or twice with bad weather?"
"We had one tremendous squall, sir."
"It came suddenly upon you?"
"Yes, sir. Our first intimation of it was that we saw two native craft suddenly lower their sails."
"Let us know exactly the measures that you took and the orders you gave."
Wilkinson described what had passed from the time that the first order was given until the violence of the squall abated.
"That will do as far as seamanship is concerned," the officer said.
Another now asked him a few questions as to navigation, and these being answered correctly, the president, after a word with the others, said:
"That will do, Mr. Wilkinson. You have answered creditably, and, indeed, the mere fact that Sir Sidney Smith should have considered you fit to command the Tigress in so difficult and dangerous a work as cruising among those islands is in itself a better guarantee of your fitness for promotion than the most rigid examination could be."
A few further questions were asked, and then Wilkinson was congratulated upon having passed successfully. He then went to the prize court, saw the President, and presented Sir Sidney Smith's note to him. He read it through, and then glanced at a copy of the bill of lading which had been taken when the cargo was transferred.
"You do not know the contents of all those bales and casks, Mr. Wilkinson?"
"No, sir. The greater portion of them have never been opened. Some, of course, one could recognize from the nature of the packing, and I put them down as nearly as I could guess—Manchester goods, woollen, hardware, and so on; but, as we wanted to be off, and it was better that the things should remain in their original packing, we did not trouble to open them, and they were received as cargo consigned to you."
"The Eastern goods you know nothing about, I suppose?"
"Nothing whatever."
"Well, when the brig arrives in the river the captain will, of course, call here, and I will give him instructions where to land them."
"I understand," he went on, looking again at the letter, "that Mr. Blagrove, to whom Sir Sidney asks me to intrust the sale of these goods, is an expert in this special line?"
"Yes, sir; he has been for many years established as a merchant in Alexandria, and Sir Sidney thought that he would not only be able to estimate accurately the value of the goods, but would know exactly where to place them, and would, by bringing them gradually forward, get far larger sums for them than if they were thrown all at once upon the market."
"I see the vessel is his property, Mr. Wilkinson?"
"It is so, sir, his son purchased it in his name. He is a fellow-midshipman of mine in the Tigre, and was with me in the craft with which we captured all these goods and the vessels that have been sold for twelve thousand five hundred. This I have brought up with me in gold, and will pay into the hands of anybody you may appoint, to be added to the proceeds of the sales, for division by the court."
"Have you any idea of the value of these Eastern goods?"
"Not in the slightest, sir; only a few of the bales were opened in the presence of Sir Sidney Smith. He himself said that it would be better not to open more, as there were no facilities for repacking."
"I think that it was a very good idea of Sir Sidney's to suggest that it would be for the advantage of all concerned to vary the usual course, and to place these goods in the hands of an expert instead of selling them by auction. I should like to see Mr. Blagrove. I suppose you know his address. Is he in town?"
"He is living in Dulwich, sir."
"Well, will you let him know that if he calls upon me to-morrow morning I will give him full authority to act in the matter, and then we can settle whether to stow that portion of the cargo in our warehouses or whether to make other arrangements. I will myself write to Sir Sidney Smith to thank him for his suggestion with respect to the sale of these goods, and to say that I have so arranged it. The question of freight is, of course, a matter altogether separate, and I shall give Mr. Blagrove a cheque for the amount arranged between his representative and Sir Sidney Smith at the rate of three pounds per ton when he brings me the receipt of the officer in charge of the warehouse of his having received the stores in good order from the ship."
Edgar had, on reaching London, stopped at the Golden Cross for the night, and the first thing in the morning taken a hackney-coach and driven at once to Dulwich, where his father had taken a house close to that of his brother. It was now the first week in December. Edgar drove up to the entrance to the garden in which the house stood, paid the coachman, and then rang the bell. The servant opened it, and looked somewhat surprised at seeing a young naval officer standing there.
"Are Mr. and Mrs. Blagrove in?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, they are both in."
"All right!" he said; "show me to the room where they are. You need not announce me; I am their son."
The girl at once led the way into the house, and Edgar walked into the room, where the party were seated at breakfast. Mr. Blagrove was sitting with his back to the door, and did not see him come in. His mother and sisters looked up in surprise as he entered unannounced. It was two years since they had seen him, and they scarcely recognized in the tall young officer the lad whom they had last seen at Alexandria on their departure for England. Mr. Blagrove, on seeing their eyes fixed on the door, turned round, and leapt to his feet.
"My dear Edgar," he exclaimed as he warmly embraced him, "where have you sprung from? Your last letter was from Smyrna three months ago. Mother," he went on, turning round, "let me introduce your boy to you."
For some minutes there was little coherent conversation.
"Now, sit down, Edgar," Mr. Blagrove said at last, "and let us hear what unexpected chance has brought you home. I suppose, as you are in uniform, that you have not left the service."
"Not at all, sir; I am home on three months' leave, having come home in the Suzanne, a brig belonging to yourself."
"Belonging to me!" Mr. Blagrove said in astonishment. "What on earth do you mean?"
"I bought her in your name, father, and you will have a bill presented in the course of a couple of months or so for eight hundred and fifty pounds. At any rate you will not be a loser by her. There will be from six to seven hundred pounds, I cannot say how much exactly, for the cargo was not weighed, but it is somewhat over two hundred tons at three pounds a ton, and there is, besides, a hundred pounds for the passage-money of twenty invalid sailors, so you see you get the ship for practically about a hundred pounds, to which there will have to be added the payment of a captain, mate, and ten Italian sailors. She was valued by a court of naval officers at eight hundred and fifty pounds, that being the price they considered that she might fetch if sold there. I should say that she is worth quite double that. She is about three hundred tons, and carried six guns, so at any rate you are likely to make a thousand by the transaction.
"Then I have to inform you that, at Sir Sidney Smith's request, which I have no doubt will be complied with, you will be appointed, by the president of the prize court, agent for the sale of what Eastern goods there are on board her. The cargo is made up of European goods, dried fruits, and Eastern goods. They are what we captured from the pirates, and Sir Sidney Smith suggested that it would be as well to intrust to one who knew the value of the Eastern goods the work of selling them privately, instead of putting them up to auction, and he requested that the agency should be given to you. Wilkinson, who has come home with me, is going to see the president of the prize court this morning, and he is to come up here afterwards. Of course Sir Sidney did it chiefly to oblige me, but he thought that the goods would really fetch more if sold in that way. He said, of course, that you would get a commission on the sale, and as you said in the last letter that I received that you were getting very sick of having nothing to do, I thought you might like the job."
"Certainly I should like it, Edgar, and that purchase of the ship seems a very satisfactory one, though, of course, the profit will be yours and not mine, as I had nothing to do with it."
"Oh, yes, it is your business, father; she is bought with your money, and I am glad that I have been able to do something for the firm. I shall soon be getting my prize money, which will keep me in cash for a very long time."
"We won't argue about that now, Edgar. At any rate I shall be glad to see to the sale of these Eastern goods, though, of course, it will be but a small thing."
"I don't know, father. I think that it will be rather a large thing. At any rate there is something between eighty and a hundred tons of them."
"Between eighty and a hundred tons!" his father replied. "You mean with the dried fruits, of course."
"Not at all, father! The fruits will be sold in the ordinary way in the prize court."
"Then, what can these things be?"
"I should say the great proportion of them are carpets—Turkish, Persian, and Syrian."
"A hundred tons of such carpets as those, Edgar, would be worth a very large sum, indeed; surely you must be mistaken?"
"It's the accumulation of years of piracy, father; perhaps from hundreds of ships captured by those scoundrels. But, of course, they are not all carpets. There are silks, muslins, embroidered robes, Egyptian scarves and manufactures, and other sorts of things. We have not opened above a dozen bales out of some twelve hundred, and have, therefore, no idea of the relative value of the others. We were a tender of the Tigre's, our craft being a prize taken by her, and all of us, officers and men, being borne on her books, the whole ship divides. Still, if the things are worth as much as we think, it will bring us in a handsome sum. And there is, besides, twelve thousand five hundred in cash, the proceeds of the sale of the vessels we captured; and we also share with the other ships under Sir Sidney Smith's command in the value of the vessels and cargoes they have captured as they tried to reach an Egyptian port. They say they were worth something like forty thousand, of which the Tigre's share will be about half."
"Well, Edgar, if there are a hundred tons of such goods as you describe, your cargo must be a valuable one indeed. Of course I can tell nothing about it until I see them opened. At any rate it will give me occupation, and I should say a good paying occupation, for some time."
"I suppose you got that letter, father, that I sent from Constantinople, from Mr. Muller?"
"Yes, and a very satisfactory one it was. It reconciled me to some extent to staying here. It was not pleasant to think that one was living upon one's capital, but I found from his statement that my share of the business he was doing would fully cover my expenses here. And now, let us hear something more about your doings. Your letter from Constantinople told us about your adventures in Egypt; then we had one written the day after the French had retreated from before Acre, and the one that we received from Smyrna two months since; but that was a short one, and beyond saying that you had been very lucky in capturing and destroying a number of pirates, and that you were enjoying your cruise very much, you did not give us any detail. You may as well tell us that part first."
Early in the afternoon Wilkinson arrived. As Edgar had spoken warmly of his kindness to him when he had first joined the Tigre, and of the friendship that had sprung up between them, he was very cordially received by Mr. and Mrs. Blagrove. The former was well pleased when he heard the details of the interview with the president of the prize court, and said that he would go up and see him in the morning.
"I will hire a warehouse for a month or two," he said. "It will be much more satisfactory than working in a place where a lot of other business is being transacted. The bales will all have to be opened and examined, the goods classed and assorted, and I shall have to bring people down there to examine them. The expense will be nothing in comparison to the advantage of having a quiet place to one's self."
On the following morning Mr. Blagrove went up and had a very satisfactory talk with the president of the prize court. The Suzanne arrived four days later, having made a fast run from Portsmouth. By that time Mr. Blagrove had engaged a warehouse, where, in a short time, the whole of the goods of which he was to dispose were safely stored. Wilkinson went down on the day after his arrival to his people in Devonshire, and Edgar established himself as assistant to his father. As bale after bale was opened, the latter was astonished at the beauty and value of some of the contents. A few only of the bales contained common country cloths, and it was evident that such goods of this sort as had fallen into the hands of the pirates had been sold at once, as there was a ready market for them at the towns and villages of the islands and the mainland. Many of the carpets were of great size. Some of the very large ones Mr. Blagrove valued at fully £500, and there were scores worth from £50 to £100. Some of the silks and embroideries he pronounced to be almost priceless.
"They must," he said, "have been specially woven and worked for the ladies of the Sultan's harem."
When, after a month's stay, Edgar prepared to rejoin with his friend Wilkinson, not more than one-third of the contents of the warehouse had been sold, but these had fetched over £40,000, and his father had no doubt that he should obtain a proportionate sum for the remainder. The Italian sailors who had aided to bring the Suzanne home had been sent off a week after her arrival by a vessel bound for Naples, and the brig herself had, as soon as the cargo was all cleared out, fetched £1800 by auction, being almost a new vessel.
"I have no doubt," Mr. Blagrove said, "that ere long a British army will be sent out, and the French compelled to leave Egypt. If I thought that the war was likely to go on for some time as at present, I should say that you had better leave the service. As it is, you would not be doing much good if you stayed here, and so may as well hold on."
It was the first day of March, 1800, when the vessel with supplies for the troops, in which Wilkinson and Edgar had taken their passage, joined the fleet off Alexandria, and until the beginning of December they took part in the somewhat tedious work of blockading the Egyptian coast. In spite of their efforts the fleet were not always successful, for from time to time one or other of the ships was forced to sail to Cyprus to obtain fresh supplies, although quite a fleet of small vessels was employed in bringing water, fresh meat, and vegetables for the use of the fleet, as the health of the seamen would have suffered much from living for so long a period upon salt meat.
In November news was received that the army under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, which had for so long been engaged in watching Cadiz, was to sail upon an expedition for the reconquest of Egypt. It was stated that the expedition would, in the first place, sail for Syria, there to join the army that the Sultan assured the English government was in readiness to advance. Sir Sidney Smith was ordered to sail at once for that coast, to ascertain the real state of things, and to decide upon the spot where the fleet had best assemble, for, from its long absence from England, there were many repairs needed, and it was desirable that the situation should be such that the ships could be careened, and a portion at least of the weeds that had accumulated be scraped off.
His absence was in one respect unfortunate, for some of the other blockading ships were, after a very heavy gale, obliged to go to Cyprus to repair damages; and two French men-of-war heavily laden with troops and ammunition managed to run safely in to Alexandria, thereby increasing the strength of the French army by four thousand seasoned soldiers, and by an ample supply of ammunition. It was a great disappointment to the crews when, on their return to their stations off the coast, they found that the French had taken advantage of their absence, and that the result of their eighteen months of incessant vigil had been wasted.
