Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 342, April, 1844
"Rowley, all is over—let us die like men. God have mercy on our souls!"
Rowley was a few paces higher up the barranca. He made me no answer, but looked at me with a calm, cold, and yet somewhat regretful smile upon his countenance. Then all at once he ceased the efforts he was making to resist the stream and gain the bank, folded his arms on his breast and gave a look up and around him as though to bid farewell to the world he was about to leave. The current was sweeping him rapidly down towards me, when suddenly a wild hurra burst from his lips, and he recommenced his struggles against the waters, striving violently to retain a footing on the slippery, uneven bed of the stream.
"Tenga! Tenga!" screamed a dozen voices, that seemed to proceed from spirits of the air; and at the same moment something whistled about my ears and struck me a smart blow across the face. With the instinct of a drowning man, I clutched the lasso that had been thrown to me. Rowley was at my elbow and seized it also. It was immediately drawn tight, and by its aid we gained the bank, and began ascending the side of the barranca, composed of rugged, declivitous rocks, affording but scanty foot-hold. God grant the lasso may prove tough! The strain on it is fearful. Rowley is a good fifteen stone, and I am no feather; and in some parts of our perilous ascent the rocks are almost as perpendicular and smooth as a wall of masonry, and we are obliged to cling with our whole weight to the lasso, which seems to stretch, and crack, and grow visibly thinner. Nothing but a strip of twisted cow-hide between us and a frightful agonizing death on the sharp rocks and in the foaming waters below. But the lasso holds good, and now the chief peril is past: we get some sort of footing—a point of rock, or a tree-root to clutch at. Another strain up this rugged slope of granite, another pull at the lasso; a leap, a last violent effort, and—Viva!—we are seized under the arms, dragged up, held upon our feet for a moment, and then—we sink exhausted to the ground in the midst of the Tzapotecans, mules, arrieros, guides, and women, who are sheltered from the storm in a sort of natural cavern. At the moment at which the hillock had given way under Rowley and myself, who were a short distance in rear of the party, the Mexicans had succeeded in attaining firm footing on a broad rocky ledge, a shelf of the precipice that flanked the barranca. Upon this ledge, which gradually widened into a platform, they found themselves in safety under some projecting crags that sheltered them completely from the tempest. Thence they looked down upon the barranca, where they descried Rowley and myself struggling for our lives in the roaring torrent; and thence, by knotting several lassos together, they were able to give us the opportune aid which had rescued us from our desperate situation. But whether this aid had come soon enough to save our lives was still a question, or at least for some time appeared to be so. The life seemed driven out of our bodies by all we had gone through: we were unable to move a finger, and lay helpless and motionless, with only a glimmering indistinct perception, not amounting to consciousness, of what was going on around us. Fatigue, the fever, the immersion in cold water when reeking with perspiration, the sufferings of all kinds we had endured in the course of the last twenty hours, had completely exhausted and broken us down.
The storm did not last long in its violence, but swept onwards, leaving a broad track of desolation behind it. The Mexicans recommenced their journey, with the exception of four or five who remained with us and our arrieros and servants. The village to which we were proceeding was not above a league off; but even that short distance Rowley and myself were in no condition to accomplish. The kind-hearted Tzapotecans made us swallow cordials, stripped off our drenched and tattered garments, and wrapped us in an abundance of blankets. We fell into a deep sleep, which lasted all that evening and the greater part of the night, and so much refreshed us that about an hour before daybreak we were able to resume our march—at a slow pace, it is true, and suffering grievously in every part of our bruised and wounded limbs and bodies, at each jolt or rough motion of the mules on which we were clinging, rather than sitting.
Our path lay over hill and dale, perpetually rising and falling. We soon got out of the district or zone that had been swept by the preceding day's hurricane, and after nearly an hour's ride, we paused on the crest of a steep descent, at the foot of which, as our guides informed us, lay the land of promise, the long looked-for rancho. While the muleteers were seeing to the girths of their beasts, and giving the due equilibrium to the baggage, before commencing the downward march, Rowley and I sat upon our mules, wrapped in large Mexican capas, gazing at the morning-star as it sank down and grew gradually paler and fainter. Suddenly the eastern sky began to brighten, and a brilliant beam appeared in the west, a point of light no bigger than a star—but yet not a star; it was of a far rosier hue. The next moment a second sparkling spot appeared, near to the first, which now swelled out into a sort of fiery tongue, that seemed to lick round the silvery summit of the snow-clad mountain. As we gazed, five—ten—twenty hill tops were tinged with the same rose-coloured glow; in another moment they became like fiery banners spread out against the heavens, while sparkling tongues and rays of golden light flashed and flamed round them, springing like meteors from one mountain summit to another, lighting them up like a succession of beacons. Scarcely five minutes had elapsed since the distant pinnacles of the mountains had appeared to us as huge phantom-like figures of a silvery white, dimly marked out upon a dark star-spangled ground; now the whole immense chain blazed like volcanoes covered with glowing lava, rising out of the darkness that still lingered on their flanks and bases, visible and wonderful witnesses to the omnipotence of him who said, "Let there be light, and there was light."
Above, all was broad day, flaming sunlight; below, all black night. Here and there streams of light burst through clefts and openings in the mountains, and then ensued an extraordinary kind of conflict. The shades of darkness seemed to live and move, to struggle against the bright beams that fell amongst them and broke their masses, forcing them down the wooded heights, tearing them asunder and dispersing them like tissues of cobwebs; so that successively, and as if by a stroke of enchantment, there appeared, first the deep indigo blue of the tamarinds and chicozapotes, then the bright green of the sugar-canes, lower down the darker green of the nopal-trees, lower still the white and green and gold and bright yellow of the orange and citron groves, and lowest of all, the stately fan-palms, and date-palms, and bananas; all glittering with millions of dewdrops, that covered them like a ganze veil embroidered with diamonds and rubies. And still in the very next valley all was utter darkness.
We sat silent and motionless, gazing at this scene of enchantment.
Presently the sun rose higher, and a flood of light illumined the whole valley, which lay some few hundred feet below us—a perfect garden, such as no northern imagination could picture forth; a garden of sugar-canes, cotton, and nopal-trees, intermixed with thickets of pomegranate and strawberry-trees, and groves of orange, fig, and lemon, giants of their kind, shooting up to a far greater height than the oak attains in the States—every tree a perfect hothouse, a pyramid of flowers, covered with bloom and blossom to its topmost spray. All was light, and freshness, and beauty; every object seemed to dance and rejoice in the clear elastic golden atmosphere. It was an earthly paradise, fresh from the hand of its Creator, and at first we could discover no sign of man or his works. Presently, however, we discerned the village lying almost at our feet, the small stone houses overgrown with flowers and embedded in trees; so that scarcely a square foot of roof or wall was to be seen. Even the church was concealed in a garland of orange-trees, and had lianas and star-flowered creepers climbing over and dangling on it, up as high as the slender cross that surmounted its square white tower. As we gazed, the first sign of life appeared in the village. A puff of blue smoke rose curling and spiral from a chimney, and the matin bell rang out its summons to prayer. Our Mexicans fell on their knees and crossed themselves, repeating their Ave-marias. We involuntarily took off our hats, and whispered a thanksgiving to the God who had been with us in the hour of peril, and was now so visible to us in his works.
The Mexicans rose from their knees.
"Vamos! Senores," said one of them, laying his hand on the bridle of my mule. "To the rancho, to breakfast."
We rode slowly down into the valley.
THE BRITISH FLEET. 26
Were the question proposed to us, What is the most extraordinary, complete, and effective instance of skill, contrivance, science, and power, ever combined by man? we should unhesitatingly answer, an English line-of-battle ship. Take the model of a 120 gun ship—large as it may be for a floating body, its space is not great. For example, it is not half the ordinary size of a nobleman's mansion; yet that ship carries a thousand men with convenience, and lodges them day and night, with sufficient room for the necessary distinctions of obedience and command—has separate apartments for the admiral and the captain, for the different ranks of officers, and even for the different ranks of seamen—separate portions below decks for the sleeping of the crew, the dining of the officers, and the receptacle for the sick and wounded. Those thousand men are to be fed three times a-day, and provisions for four months are to be stowed. One hundred and twenty cannon, some of them of the heaviest metal, are to be carried; and room is to be found for all the weight of shot and quantities of powder, with other missiles, rockets, and signal fires, necessary for service. Besides this, room is to be provided for the stowage of fresh rigging, sails, ropes, cables, and yards, to replace those lost by accident, battle, or wear and tear. Besides this, too, there is to be a provision for the hospital. So far for the mere necessaries of the ship. Then we are to regard the science; for nothing can be more essential than the skill and the instruments of the navigator, as nothing can be more fatal than a scientific error, a false calculation, or a remission of vigilance. We shall do no more than allude to the habits of command essential to keep a thousand of these rough and daring spirits in order, and that, too, an order of the most implicit, steady, and active kind; nor to their knowledge of tactics, and conduct in battle. The true definition of the line-of-battle ship being, a floating regiment of artillery in a barrack, which, at the beat of a drum, may be turned into a field of battle, or, at the command of government, may be sent flying on the wings of the wind round the world. We think that we have thus established our proposition. If not, let any thing else be shown which exhibits the same quantity of power packed within the same space; and that power, too, increasing daily by new contrivances of stowage and building, by new models of guns, and new inventions in machinery. England is at this moment building two hundred steam-ships, with guns of a calibre to which all the past were trifling, with room for a regiment of land troops besides their crews, and with the known power of defying wind and wave, and throwing an army in full equipment for the field, within a few days, on any coast of Europe.
It is remarkable that the use of the navy, as a great branch of the military power of England, had been scarcely contemplated until the last century. Though the sea-coast of England, the largest of any European state, and the national habits of an insular country, might have pointed out this direction for the national energies from the earliest period, yet England was a kingdom for five hundred years before she seems to have thought of the use of ships as an instrument of public power. In the long war with France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ships were almost wholly mercantile; and, when employed in wars, were chiefly employed as transports to throw our troops on the French soil. It was the reign of Elizabeth, that true birth of the progress of England, that first developed the powers of an armed navy. The Spanish invasion forced the country to meet the Armada by means like its own; and the triumph, though won by a higher agency, and due to the winds and waves, or rather to the Supreme Providence which watched over the land of Protestantism, awoke the nation to the true faculty of defence; and from that period alone could the burden of the fine national song be realized, and Britain was to "rule the main." The expeditions against the Spanish West Indies, and the new ardour of discovery in regions where brilliant fable lent its aid to rational curiosity, carried on the process of naval power. The war against Holland, under Charles II., though disastrous and impolitic, showed at least that the fleet of England was the true arm of its strength; and the humiliation of the only rival of her commerce at once taught her where the sinews of war lay, and by what means the foundations of naval empire were to be laid. But it was not until the close of the last century that the truth came before the nation in its full form. The American war—a war of skirmishes—had its direct effect, perhaps its providential purpose, in compelling England to prepare for the tremendous collision which was so soon to follow, and which was to be the final security of the Continent itself. It was then, for the first time, that the nation was driven to the use of a navy on a great scale. The war, lying on the western shore of an ocean, made the use of naval armaments necessary to every operation. The treacherous hostility of the French cabinet, and the unfortunate subserviency of Spain to that treachery, made corresponding energy on the part of England a matter of public demand; and when France and Spain sent out fleets of a magnitude till then unknown, England was urged to follow their example. The defeats of the combined navies excited the nation to still more vigorous efforts; and the war closed with so full a demonstration of the matchless importance of a great navy to England, that the public feeling was fixed on giving it the largest contribution of the national confidence.
The time was at hand when the trial was to involve every interest of England and mankind. The first grand struggle of revolutionary France with England was to be on the seas; and the generation of naval officers who had been reared in the American war, then rising into vigour, trained by its experience, and stimulated by its example, gallantly maintained the honour of their country. A succession of sanguinary battles followed, each on the largest scale, and each closing in British victory; until the republic, in despair, abandoned the fatal element, and tied her fortunes in the easier conflicts of the land. The accession of Napoleon renewed the struggle for naval supremacy, until one vast blow extinguished his hopes and his navy at Trafalgar. Peace now exists, and long may it exist! but France is rapidly renewing her navy, taking every opportunity of exercising its strength, and especially patronising the policy of founding those colonies which it idly imagines to be the source of British opulence. But whether the wisdom of Louis Philippe limits the protection of French trade to the benefits which commerce may confer on his vast kingdom, or looks forward to the support which a mercantile navy may give to a warlike one, we must not sleep on our posts. The life of any individual is brief on a national scale; and his successor, whether regent or republican, may be as hot-headed, rash, and ambitious, as this great monarch has shown himself rational, prudent, and peaceful. We must prepare for all chances; and our true preparation must be, a fleet that may defy all.
It is a remarkable instance of the slowness with which science advances, that almost the whole scientific portion of seamanship has grown up since the middle of the seventeenth century, though America had been reached in 1492, and India in 1496; and thus the world had been nearly rounded before what would now be regarded as the ordinary knowledge of a navigator had been acquired. England has the honour of making the first advances. It was an Englishman, Norwood, who made the first measurement of a degree between London and York, and fixed it at 122,399 English yards. The attention of the world thus once awakened, Huygens and Cassini applied themselves to ascertain the figure of the earth. The first experiments of the French savans were in contradiction to Newton's theory of the flattening of the poles; but the controversy was the means of exciting new interest. The eyes of the scientific world were turned more intently on the subject. New experiments were made, which corrected the old; and finally, on the measurement of the arc in Peru, and in the north, truth and Newton triumphed, and the equatorial diameter was found to exceed the polar by a two hundred and fourth part of the whole. This was perhaps the finest problem ever solved by science; the most perplexing in its early state—exhibiting for a while the strongest contradiction of experiment and theory, occupying in a greater degree the attention of philosophers than any before or since, and finally established with a certainty which every subsequent observation has only tended to confirm. And this triumph belonged to an Englishman.
The investigation by measurements has since been largely adopted. In 1787, joint commissions were issued by England and France to connect the Greenwich and Parisian observations. Arcs of the meridian have since been measured across the whole breadth of France and Spain, and also near the Arctic circle, and in the Indian peninsula.
In navigation, the grand point for the sailor is to ascertain his latitude and longitude; in other words, to know where he is. The discovery of the latitude is easily effected by the quadrant, but the longitude is the difficulty. Any means which ascertained the hour at Greenwich, at the instant of making a celestial observation in any other part, would answer the difficulty; for the difference in quarters of an hour would give the difference of the degrees. But clocks could not be used on shipboard, and the best watches failed to keep the time. In the reign of Anne, Parliament offered a reward of L. 5000, perhaps not far from the value of twice the sum in the present day, for a watch within a certain degree of accuracy. Harrison, a watchmaker, sent in a watch which came within the limits, losing but two minutes in a voyage to the West Indies; yet even this was an error of thirty miles.
But, though chronometers have since been considerably improved, there are difficulties in their preservation in good order which have made it expedient to apply to other means; and the lunar tables of Mayer of Gottingen, formed in 1755, and subsequently improved by Dr Maskelyne and others, have brought the error within seven miles and a half.
Improvements of a very important order have also taken place in the mariner's compass; the variation of the needle has been reduced to rules, and some anomalies arising from the metallic attraction of the ship itself, have been corrected by Professor Barlow's experiments. The use of the marine barometer and thermometer have also largely assisted to give notice of tempests; and some ingenious theories have been lately formed, which, promising to give a knowledge of the origin and nature of tempests, are obviously not unlikely to assist the navigator in stemming their violence, or escaping them altogether.
The construction of ships for both the merchant and the public service has undergone striking improvements within this century. Round sterns, for the defence of a vessel engaged with several opponents at once; compartments in the hold, for security against leaks; iron tanks for water, containing twice the quantity, and keeping it free from the impurities of casks; a better general stowage; provisions prepared so as to remain almost fresh during an East Indian voyage; every means of preserving health, suggested by science, and succeeding to the most remarkable degree; a more intelligent system of shipbuilding, and a constant series of experiments on the shape, stowage, and sailing of ships, are among the beneficial changes of later times. But the one great change—steam—will probably swallow up all the rest, and form a new era in shipbuilding, in navigation, in the power and nature of a navy, and in the comfort, safety, and protection of the crews in actual engagement. The use of steam is still so palpably in its infancy, yet that infancy is so gigantic, that it is equally difficult to say what it may yet become, and to limit its progress. It will have the one obvious advantage to mankind in general, of making the question of war turn more than ever on the financial and mechanical resources of a people; and thus increasing the necessity for commercial opulence and intellectual exertion. It may expose nations more to each other's attacks; but it will render hostility more dreaded, because more dangerous. On the whole, like the use of gunpowder, which made a Tartar war impossible, and which rapidly tended to civilize Europe, steam appears to be intended as a further step in the same high process, in which force is to be put down by intelligence, and success, even in war, is to depend on the industry of peace; thus, in fact, providing a perpetual restriction on the belligerent propensities of nations, and urging the uncivilized, by necessity, to own the superiority, and follow the example of the civilized, by knowledge, habit, and principle.
It is not to be forgotten, even in this general and brief view of the values of the British fleet, that it has, within these few years, assumed a new character as an instrument of war. The Syrian campaign, the shortest, and, beyond all comparison, the most brilliant on record, if we are to estimate military distinction, not only by the gallantry of the conflict, but by the results of the victory—this campaign, which at once finished the war in Syria, gave peace to Turkey, reduced Egypt to obedience, rescued the sultan from Russian influence, and Egypt from French; or rather rescued all Europe from the collision of England, France, and Russia; and even, by the evidence of our naval capabilities, taught American faction the wisdom of avoiding hostilities—this grand operation was effected by a small portion of the British navy, well commanded, directed to the right point, and acting with national energy. The three hours' cannonade of Acre, the most effective achievement in the annals of war, exhibited a new use of a ship's broadside; for, though ships' guns had often battered forts before, it was the first instance of a fleet employed in attack, and fully overpowering all opposition. The attack on Algiers was the only exploit of a similar kind; but its success was limited, and the result was so far disastrous, that it at once fixed the eye of France on the invasion of Algiers, and disabled and disheartened the native government from vigorous resistance. The victory of the fleet at Acre will also have the effect of changing the whole system of defence in fortresses and cities exposed to the sea.
But a still further advance in the employment of fleets as an instrument of hostilities, has since occurred in the Chinese war—their simultaneous operation with troops. In former assaults of fortresses, the troops and ships attacked the same line of defence, and the consequence was the waste of force. From the moment when the troops approached the land, the fire of the ships necessarily ceased, and the fleet then remained spectators of the assault. But in this war, while the troops attacked on the land side, the fleet ran up to the sea batteries, and both attacks went on together—of course dividing the attention of the enemy, thus having a double chance of success, and employing both arms of the service in full energy. This masterly combination the Duke of Wellington, the highest military authority in Europe, pronounced to be a new principle in war; and even this is, perhaps, only the beginning of a system of combination which will lead to new victories, if war should ever unhappily return.
We now revert to the history of a naval hero.
John Jervis, the second son of Swynfen Jervis, Esq., was born on the 20th of January 1735. He was descended, on both the paternal and maternal side, from families which had figured in the olden times of England. The family of Jervis possessed estates in Staffordshire as far back as the reign of Edward III. The family of Swynfen was also long established in Worcestershire. John Swynfen was a public character during the troubled times of Charles I. and Cromwell, and until a late period in the reign of Charles II. He had been originally a strong Parliamentarian; but, thinking that the party went too far, he was turned out of parliament for tardiness by the Protector. But his original politics adhered to him still; for, even after the restoration, he was joined with Hampden, the grandson of the celebrated patriot, in drawing up the Bill of Exclusion. Among his ancestors by the mother's side was Sir John Turton, a judge in the Court of King's Bench, married to a daughter of the brave Colonel Samuel Moore, who made the memorable defence of Hopton Castle in the Civil War.
But no man less regarded ancestry than the subject of the present pages, who, in writing with reference to his pedigree, observed, in his usual frank and straightforward language—"They were all highly respectable; but, et genus et proavos, nearly all the Latin I now recollect, always struck my ear as the sound maxim for officers and statesmen."
His first school was at Burton-upon-Trent, where a slight incident seemed to designate his future politics and fortitude. In 1745, when the Pretender marched into the heart of the kingdom, without being joined by his friends or opposed by his enemies, as Gibbon antithetically observed, all the boys at the school, excepting young Jervis and Dick Meux, (afterwards the eminent brewer,) wore plaid ribands sent to them from home, and they pelted their two constitutional playmates, calling them Whigs.
His father designed young Jervis for the law; but, in 1747, removing to Greenwich on being appointed Counsel to the Admiralty and Auditor to the Hospital, naval sights were too near not to prove a strong temptation to the mind of an animated and vigorous boy. His parents were still strongly for the adoption of his father's profession; but there was another authority on the subject, the family coachman, one Pinkhorne, who, saying that it was a shame to go into a profession where all were rogues, determined the future hero; and, before the year was over, he ran away, to commence life as a sailor. He was reclaimed, however, by his family, and was regularly entered in the navy, in January 1748, on board the Gloucester, fifty guns, Commodore Townshend—twenty pounds being all that was given to him by his father for his equipment. The Gloucester sailed for the West Indies; and thus, at the age of thirteen, young Jervis began the world. It appears that the rigid economy of his father, combined with the singular good sense of this mere child, urged him to every means of acquiring the knowledge of his profession. The monotonous life of a guard-ship already seemed to him a waste of time, while the expenses on shore must have been ruinous to his slender finances. He therefore volunteered into whatever ship was going to sea. He thus writes to his sister from on board the Sphinx, 1753:—"There are many entertainments and public assemblies here, but they are rather above my sphere, many inconveniences and expenses attending them; so that my chief employ, when from my duty, is reading, studying navigation, and perusing my own letters, of which I have almost enough to make an octavo volume."
At length, however, his twenty pounds were exhausted; and, at the end of three years, he drew for twenty pounds more. It is vexatious to say that his bill was dishonoured; and he never received another shilling from any one. It is scarcely possible to conceive that so harsh a measure could have been the result of intention; but it subjected this extraordinary boy to the severest privations. To take up the dishonoured bill, he was obliged to effect his discharge from one ship into another, so as to obtain his pay tickets, which he sold at forty per cent discount. His remaining six years on the station were spent in the exercise of a severe economy, and the endurance even of severe suffering. He was compelled to sell all his bedding, and sleep on the bare deck. He had no other resource than, generally, to make and mend, and always to wash, his own clothes. He never afforded himself any fresh meat; and even the fruit and vegetables, which are so necessary and so cheap, he could obtain only by barter from the negroes, for the small share of provisions which he could subduct from his own allowance. True as all this doubtless is, it reflects more severely on the captain and officers of his own ship, than even upon his parents. The latter, on the other side of the Atlantic, might have no knowledge of his difficulties; but that those who saw his sufferings from day to day could have allowed them to continue, argues a degree of negligence and inhumanity, of which we hope that no present instance occurs in our navy, and which at any period would appear incomprehensible. In 1754, young Jervis returned to England, and passed his examination for lieutenant with great credit.