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The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly called Colonel Jack

Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain.

This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them.

In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale-for so they called it-about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world.

After above five weeks' retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it.

I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too.

But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him.

Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja-that is to say, in Old Castile.

Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.

They live, as I have said, in a kind of country retreat at their villas, or, as we would call them in Virginia, their plantations, and, as they do call them, their ingenios, where they make their indigo and their sugars. But they have also houses and warehouses at Vera Cruz, where they go twice a year, when the galleons arrive from Old Spain, and when those galleons relade for their return. And it was surprising to me, when I went to La Vera Cruz with them, to see what prodigious consignments they had from their correspondents in Old Spain, and with what despatch they managed them; for no sooner were the cases, packs, and bales of European goods brought into their warehouses but they were opened and repacked by porters and packers of their own-that is to say, negroes and Indian servants-and being made up into new bales and separate parcels, were all despatched again by horses for Mexico, and directed to their several merchants there, and the remainder carried home, as above, to the ingenio where they lived, which was near thirty English miles from Vera Cruz, so that in about twenty days their warehouses were again entirely free. At La Vera Cruz, all their business was over there, and they and all their servants retired; for they stayed no longer there than needs must, because of the unhealthiness of the air.

After the goods were thus despatched, it was equally surprising to see how soon, and with what exactness, the merchants of Mexico to whom those cargoes were separately consigned made the return, and how it came all in silver or in gold, so that their warehouses in a few months were piled up, even to the ceiling, with chests of pieces of eight and with bars of silver.

It is impossible to describe in the narrow compass of this work with what exactness and order, and yet with how little hurry, and not the least confusion, everything was done, and how soon a weight of business of such importance and value was negotiated and finished, the goods repacked, invoices made, and everything despatched and gone; so that in about five weeks all the goods they had received from Europe by the galleons were disposed of and entered in their journals to the proper account of their merchant to whom they were respectively consigned; from thence they had book-keepers who drew out the invoices and wrote the letters, which the merchant himself only read over and signed, and then other hands copied all again into other books.

I can give no estimate of the value of the several consignments they received by that flota; but I remember that, when the galleons went back, they shipped on board, at several times, one million three hundred thousand pieces of eight in specie, besides a hundred and eighty bales or bags of cochineal and about three hundred bales of indigo; but they were so modest that they said this was for themselves and their friends. That is to say, the several merchants of Mexico consigned large quantities of bullion to them, to ship on board and consign according to their order; but then I know also that, for all that, they were allowed commission, so that their gain was very considerable even that way also.

I had been with them at La Vera Cruz, and came back again before we came to an account for the goods which I had brought on shore in the twenty-one bales, which, by the account we brought them to (leaving a piece of everything to be governed by our last market), amounted to eight thousand five hundred and seventy pieces of eight, all which money my friend-for so I must now call him-brought me in specie, and caused his negroes to pile them up in one corner of my apartment; so that I was indeed still very rich, all things considered.

There was a bale which I had caused to be packed up on purpose in Virginia, and which indeed I had written for from England, being chiefly of fine English broadcloths, silk, silk druggets, and fine stuffs of several kinds, with some very fine hollands, which I set apart for presents, as I should find occasion; and as, whatever hurry I was in at carrying the twenty-one bales of goods on shore, I did not forget to let this bale be one of them, so, when we came to a sale for the rest, I told them that this was a pack with clothes and necessaries for my own wearing and use, and so desired it might not be opened with the rest, which was accordingly observed, and that bale or pack was brought into my apartment.

This bale was, in general, made up of several smaller bales, which I had directed, so that I might have room to make presents, equally sorted as the circumstance might direct me. However, they were all considerable, and I reckoned the whole bale cost me near £200 sterling in England; and though my present circumstances required some limits to my bounty in making presents, yet the obligation I was under being so much the greater, especially to this one friendly, generous Spaniard, I thought I could not do better than, by opening two of the smaller bales, join them together, and make my gift some thing suitable to the benefactor, and to the respect he had shown me. Accordingly, I took two bales, and, laying the goods together, the contents were as follows: -

Two pieces of fine English broadcloth, the finest that could be got in London, divided, as was that which I gave to the governor at the Havannah, into fine crimson in grain, fine light mixtures, and fine black.

Four pieces of fine holland, of 7s. to 8s. per ell in London.

Twelve pieces of fine silk drugget and duroys, for men's wear.

Six pieces of broad silks, two damasks, two brocaded silks, and two mantuas.

With a box of ribands and a box of lace; the last cost about £40 sterling in England.

This handsome parcel I laid open in my apartment, and brought him upstairs one morning, on pretence to drink chocolate with me, which he ordinarily did; when, as we drank chocolate and was merry, I said to him, though I had sold him almost all my cargo and taken his money, yet the truth was, that I ought not to have sold them to him, but to have laid them all at his feet, for that it was to his direction I owed the having anything saved at all.

He smiled, and, with a great deal of friendship in his face, told me that not to have paid me for them would have been to have plundered a shipwreck, which had been worse than to have robbed an hospital.

At last I told him I had two requests to make to him, which must not be denied. I told him I had a small present to make him, which I would give him a reason why he should not refuse to accept; and the second request I would make after the first was granted. He said he would have accepted my present from me if I had not been under a disaster, but as it was it would be cruel and ungenerous. But I told him he was obliged to hear my reason for his accepting it. Then I told him that this parcel was made up for him by name by my wife and I in Virginia, and his name set on the marks of the bale, and accordingly I showed him the marks, which was indeed on one of the bales, but I had doubled it now, as above, so that I told him these were his own proper goods; and, in short, I pressed him so to receive them that he made a bow; and I said no more, but ordered my negro, that is to say, his negro that waited on me, to carry them all, except the two boxes, into his apartments, but would not let him see the particulars till they were all carried away.

After he was gone about a quarter of an hour, he came in raving and almost swearing, and in a great passion, but I could easily see he was exceedingly pleased; and told me, had he known the particulars, he would never have suffered them to have gone as he did, and at last used the very same compliment that the governor at the Havannah used, viz., that it was a present fit for a viceroy of Mexico rather than for him.

When he had done, he then told me he remembered I had two requests to him, and that one was not to be told till after the first was granted, and he hoped now I had something to ask of him that was equal to the obligation I laid upon him.

I told him I knew it was not the custom in Spain for a stranger to make presents to the ladies, and that I would not in the least doubt but that, what ever the ladies of his family required as proper for their use, he would appropriate to them as he thought fit; but that there were two little boxes in the parcel which my wife with her own hand had directed to the ladies; and I begged he would be pleased with his own hand to give them in my wife's name, as directed; that I was only the messenger, but that I could not be honest if I did not discharge myself of the trust reposed in me.

These were the two boxes of ribands and lace, which, knowing the nicety of the ladies in Spain, or rather of the Spaniards about their women, I had made my wife pack up, and directed with her own hand, as I have said.

He smiled, and told me it was true the Spaniards did not ordinarily admit so much freedom among the women as other nations; but he hoped, he said, I would not think the Spaniards thought all their women whores, or that all Spaniards were jealous of their wives; that, as to my present, since he had agreed to accept of it, I should have the direction of what part I pleased to his wife and daughters; for he had three daughters.

Here I strained courtesies again, and told him by no means; I would direct nothing of that kind. I only begged that he would with his own hand present to his donna, or lady, the present designed her by my wife, and that he would present it in her name, now living in Virginia. He was extremely pleased with the nicety I used; and I saw him present it to her accordingly, and could see, at the opening of it, that she was extremely pleased with the present itself, as indeed might very well be, for in that country it was worth a very considerable sum of money.

Though I was used with an uncommon friendship before, and nothing could well be desired more, yet the grateful sense I showed of it in the magnificence of this present was not lost, and the whole family appeared sensible of it; so that I must allow that presents, where they can be made in such a manner, are not without their influence, where the persons were not at all mercenary either before or after.

I had here now a most happy and comfortable retreat, though it was a kind of an exile. Here I enjoyed everything I could think of that was agreeable and pleasant, except only a liberty of going home, which, for that reason perhaps, was the only thing I desired in the world; for the grief of one absent comfort is oftentimes capable of embittering all the other enjoyments in the world.

Here I enjoyed the moments which I had never before known how to employ-I mean that here I learned to look back upon a long ill-spent life, blessed with infinite advantage, which I had no heart given me till now to make use of, and here I found just reflections were the utmost felicity of human life.

Here I wrote these memoirs, having to add to the pleasure of looking back with due reflections the benefit of a violent fit of the gout, which, as it is allowed by most people, clears the head, restores the memory, and qualifies us to make the most, and just, and useful remarks upon our own actions.

Perhaps when I wrote these things down I did not foresee that the writings of our own stories would be so much the fashion in England, or so agreeable to others to read, as I find custom and the humour of the times has caused it to be. If any one that reads my story pleases to make the same just reflections which I acknowledge I ought to have made, he will reap the benefit of my misfortunes perhaps more than I have done myself. 'Tis evident by the long series of changes and turns which have appeared in the narrow compass of one private, mean person's life, that the history of men's lives may be many ways made useful and instructing to those who read them, if moral and religious improvement and reflections are made by those that write them.

There remains many things in the course of this unhappy life of mine, though I have left so little a part of it to speak of, that is worth giving a large and distinct account of, and which gives room for just reflections of a kind which I have not made yet. Particularly, I think it just to add how, in collecting the various changes and turns in my affairs, I saw clearer than ever I had done before how an invincible overruling Power, a hand influenced from above, governs all our actions of every kind, limits all our designs, and orders the events of everything relating to us.

And from this observation it necessarily occurred to me how just it was that we should pay the homage of all events to Him; that as He guided, and had even made the chain of cause and consequences, which nature in general strictly obeyed, so to Him should be given the honour of all events, the consequences of those causes, as the first Mover and Maker of all things.

I, who had hitherto lived, as might be truly said, without God in the world, began now to see farther into all those things than I had ever yet been capable of before, and this brought me at last to look with shame and blushes upon such a course of wickedness as I had gone through in the world. I had been bred, indeed, to nothing of either religious or moral knowledge. What I gained of either was, first, by the little time of civil life which I lived in Scotland, where my abhorrence of the wickedness of my captain and comrade, and some sober, religious company I fell into, first gave me some knowledge of good and evil, and showed me the beauty of a sober, religious life, though, with my leaving that country, it soon left me too; or, secondly, the modest hints and just reflections of my steward, whom I called my tutor, who was a man of sincere religion, good principles, and a real, true penitent for his past miscarriages. Oh! had I with him sincerely repented of what was past, I had not for twenty-four years together lived a life of levity and profligate wickedness after it.

But here I had, as I said, leisure to reflect and to repent, to call to mind things past, and, with a just detestation, learn, as Job says, to abhor myself in dust and ashes.

It is with this temper that I have written my story. I would have all that design to read it prepare to do so with the temper of penitents, and remember with how much advantage they may make their penitent reflections at home, under the merciful dispositions of Providence, in peace, plenty, and ease, rather than abroad, under the discipline of a transported criminal, as my wife and my tutor, or under the miseries and distresses of a shipwrecked wanderer, as my skipper or captain of the sloop, who, as I hear, died a very great penitent, labouring in the deserts and mountains to find his way home to Virginia, by the way of Carolina, whither the rest of the crew reached after infinite dangers and hardships; or in exile, however favourably circumstanced, as mine, in absence from my family, and for some time in no probable view of ever seeing them any more.

Such, I say, may repent with advantage; but how few are they that seriously look in till their way is hedged up and they have no other way to look!

Here, I say, I had leisure to repent. How far it pleases God to give the grace of repentance where He gives the opportunity of it is not for me to say of myself. It is sufficient that I recommend it to all that read this story, that, when they find their lives come up in any degree to any similitude of cases, they will inquire by me, and ask themselves, Is not this the time to repent? Perhaps the answer may touch them.

I have only to add to what was then written, that my kind friends the Spaniards, finding no other method presented for conveying me to my home-that is to say, to Virginia-got a license for me to come in the next galleons, as a Spanish merchant, to Cadiz, where I arrived safe with all my treasure; for he suffered me to be at no expenses in his house; and from Cadiz I soon got my passage on board an English merchantship for London, from whence I sent an account of my adventures to my wife, and where, in about five months more, she came over to me, leaving with full satisfaction the management of all our affairs in Virginia in the same faithful hands as before.

END OF THE LIFE OF COLONEL JACQUE

THE TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN

AN EXPLANATORY PREFACE

It is not that I see any reason to alter my opinion in anything I have written which occasions this epistle, but I find it necessary, for the satisfaction of some persons of honour as well as wit, to pass a short explication upon it, and tell the world what I mean, or rather what I do not mean, in some things wherein I find I am liable to be misunderstood.

I confess myself something surprised to hear that I am taxed with bewraying my own nest and abusing our nation by discovering the meanness of our original, in order to make the English contemptible abroad and at home; in which I think they are mistaken. For why should not our neighbours be as good as we to derive from? And I must add that, had we been an unmixed nation, I am of opinion it had been to our disadvantage. For, to go no further, we have three nations about us as clear from mixtures of blood as any in the world, and I know not which of them I could wish ourselves to be like-I mean the Scots, the Welsh, and Irish; and if I were to write a reverse to the satire, I would examine all the nations of Europe, and prove that those nations which are most mixed are the best, and have least of barbarism and brutality among them; and abundance of reasons might be given for it, too long to bring into a preface.

But I give this hint to let the world know that I am far from thinking it is a satire upon the English nation to tell them they are derived from all the nations under heaven-that is, from several nations. Nor is it meant to undervalue the original of the English, for we see no reason to like them the worse, being the relics of Nomans, Danes, Saxons, and Normans, than we should have done if they had remained Britons; that is, than if they had been all Welshmen.

But the intent of the satire is pointed at the vanity of those who talk of their antiquity and value themselves upon their pedigree, their ancient families, and being true-born; whereas it is impossible we should be true-born, and if we could, should have lost by the bargain.

Those sort of people who call themselves true-born and tell long stories of their families, and, like a nobleman of Venice, think a foreigner ought not to walk on the same side of the street with them, are owned to be meant in this satire. What they would infer from their own original I know not, nor is it easy to make out whether they are the better or the worse for their ancestors. Our English nation may value themselves for their wit, wealth, and courage, and I believe few will dispute it with them; but for long originals and ancient true-born families of English, I would advise them to waive the discourse. A true Englishman is one that deserves a character, and I have nowhere lessened him that I know of; but as for a true-born Englishman, I confess I do not understand him.

From hence I only infer that an Englishman, of all men, ought not to despise foreigners as such, and I think the inference is just, since what they are to-day we were yesterday, and to-morrow they will be like us. If foreigners misbehave in their several stations and employments, I have nothing to do with that; the laws are open to punish them equally with natives, and let them have no favour.

But when I see the town full of lampoons and invectives against Dutchmen only because they are foreigners, and the King reproached and insulted by insolent pedants and ballad-making poets for employing foreigners, and for being a foreigner himself, I confess myself moved by it to remind our nation of their own original, thereby to let them see what a banter is put upon ourselves in it, since, speaking of Englishmen ab origine, we are really foreigners ourselves.

I could go on to prove it is also impolitic in us to discourage foreigners, since it is easy to make it appear that the multitudes of foreign nations who have taken sanctuary here have been the greatest additions to the wealth and strength of the nation, the great essential whereof is the number of its in habitants. Nor would this nation have ever arrived to the degree of wealth and glory it now boasts of if the addition of foreign nations, both as to manufactures and arms, had not been helpful to it. This is so plain that he who is ignorant of it is too dull to be talked with.

The satire, therefore, I must allow to be just till I am otherwise convinced, because nothing can be more ridiculous than to hear our people boast of that antiquity which, if it had been true, would have left us in so much worse a condition than we are in now; whereas we ought rather to boast among our neighbours that we are a part of themselves, or the same original as they, but bettered by our climate, and, like our language and manufactures, derived from them and improved by us to a perfection greater than they can pretend to.

This we might have valued ourselves upon without vanity; but to disown our descent from them, talking big of our ancient families and long originals, and stand at a distance from foreigners, like the enthusiast in religion, with a "Stand off; I am more holy than thou!" – this is a thing so ridiculous in a nation, derived from foreigners as we are, that I could not but attack them as I have done.

And whereas I am threatened to be called to a public account for this freedom, and the publisher of this has been new-papered in gaol already for it, though I see nothing in it for which the Government can be displeased, yet if at the same time those people who, with an unlimited arrogance in print, every day affront the King, prescribe the Parliament, and lampoon the Government may be either punished or restrained, I am content to stand and fall with the public justice of my native country which I am not sensible I have anywhere injured.

Nor would I be misunderstood concerning the clergy, with whom, if I have taken any license more than becomes a satire, I question not but those gentlemen, who are men of letters, are also men of so much candour as to allow me a loose at the crimes of the guilty without thinking the whole profession lashed, who are innocent. I profess to have very mean thoughts of those gentlemen who have deserted their own principles, and exposed even their morals as well as loyalty, but not at all to think it affects any but such as are concerned in the fact.

Nor would I be misrepresented as to the ingratitude of the English to the King and his friends, as if I meant the English as a nation are so. The contrary is so apparent, that I would hope it should not be suggested of me; and, therefore, when I have brought in Britannia speaking of the King, I suppose her to be the representative or mouth of the nation as a body. But if I say we are full of such who daily affront the King and abuse his friends, who print scurrilous pamphlets, virulent lampoons, and reproachful public banter against both the King's person and Government, I say nothing but what is too true. And that the satire is directed at such I freely own, and cannot say but I should think it very hard to be censured for this satire while such remain unquestioned and tacitly approved. That I can mean none but such is plain from these few lines: -

 
"Ye Heavens, regard! Almighty Jove, look down,
And view thy injured monarch on the throne.
On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take
Who sought his aid and then his part forsake."
 

If I have fallen upon our vices, I hope none but the vicious will be angry. As for writing for interest, I disown it. I have neither place, nor pension, nor prospect; nor seek none, nor will have none. If matter of fact justifies the truth of the crimes, the satire is just. As to the poetic liberties, I hope the crime is pardonable. I am content to be stoned provided none will attack me but the innocent.

If my countrymen would take the hint and grow better-natured from my ill-natured poem, as some call it, I would say this of it, that though it is far from the best satire that ever was written, it would do the most good that ever satire did.

And yet I am ready to ask pardon of some gentlemen too, who, though they are Englishmen, have good-nature enough to see themselves reproved, and can bear it. Those are gentlemen in a true sense that can bear to be told of their faux pas and not abuse the reprover. To such I must say this is no satire; they are exceptions to the general rule; and I value my performance from their generous approbation more than I can from any opinion I have of its worth.

The hasty errors of my verse I made my excuse for before; and since the time I have been upon it has been but little, and my leisure less, I have all along strove rather to make the thoughts explicit than the poem correct. However, I have mended some faults in this edition, and the rest must be placed to my account.

As to answers, banters, true English Billingsgate, I expect them till nobody will buy, and then the shop will be shut. Had I wrote it for the gain of the press, I should have been concerned at its being printed again and again by pirates, as they call them, and paragraph-men; but would they but do it justice and print it true according to the copy, they are welcome to sell it for a penny if they please.

The pence indeed is the end of their works. I will engage, if nobody will buy, nobody will write. And not a patriot-poet of them all now will, in defence of his native country-which I have abused, they say-print an answer to it, and give it about for God's sake.