Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers - J. H. Hubback (novels for students txt) 📗

time of our poor army, whose state seems dreadfully critical.” “I am sorry to find that Sir J. Moore has a mother living, but, though a very heroic son, he might not be a very necessary one to her happiness. Deacon Morrel may be more to Mrs. Morrel. I wish Sir John had united something of the Christian with the hero in his death. Thank heaven, we have no one to care for particularly among the troops, no one, in fact, nearer to us than Sir John himself. Colonel Maitland is safe and well; his mother and sisters were of course anxious about him, but there is no entering much into the solicitudes of that family.”

It was in November of 1898 that Mrs. Edward Austen, the ‘Elizabeth’ of the letters, died. Great grief was evidently felt by all her husband’s family. Jane’s letters at the time are full of love and sympathy. Cassandra was staying with her brother, and Frank got a few days’ extra leave in order to go there, about a month after the death.

Jane writes to tell his plans.

“November 21.

“Your letter, my dear Cassandra, obliges me to write immediately, that you may have the earliest notice of Frank’s intending, if possible, to go to Godmersham exactly at the time now fixed for your visit to Goodnestone. He resolved almost directly on the receipt of your former letter to try for an extension of his leave of absence, that he might be able to go down to you for two days, but charged me not to give you any notice of it, on account of the uncertainty of success. Now, however, I must give it, and now perhaps he may be giving it himself; for I am just in the hateful predicament of being obliged to write what I know will somehow or other be of no use. He meant to ask for five days more, and if they were granted to go down by Thursday’s night mail, and spend Friday and Saturday with you; and he considered his chance of success by no means bad. I hope it will take place as he planned, and that your arrangements with Goodnestone may admit of suitable alteration.”

During Francis Austen’s commands of the Leopard, Canopus, and St. Albans, covering the eventful years of the Boulogne blockade, and of Trafalgar, and up to 1819, Charles Austen was serving on the North American station in command of the Indian sloop. The work to be done on the coast of the United States was both arduous and thankless. It consisted mainly in the enforcement of the right of search for deserters, and the curtailment of the American carrying trade, so far as it was considered illicit.

British war policy had made it necessary to forbid trading by neutrals between European countries under the sway of Napoleon, and their dependencies in other parts of the world. American ingenuity succeeded in evading this prohibition by arranging for the discharge and reshipment of cargoes at some United States port, en route. The ship would load originally at a West Indian port with goods for Europe, then sail to a harbour in Massachusetts (for example), where the cargo was warehoused, and the vessel repaired. When ready for sea, the captain got the same cargo on board again, and departed for the designated market on this side of the Atlantic. No wonder that American vessels were so frequently spoken by the Canopus and the St. Albans, for in i 8o6 and the following years nearly all the carrying trade was done under the Stars and Stripes. American shipmasters were able to pay very high wages, and desertions from British men-of-war were frequent. Our cruisers had to take strong measures in face of this growing evil, and finally an American frigate was boarded, and several of the crew forcibly removed as deserters. Such action was possible only on account of the great strength of the British naval force, a practical blockade of the United States ports being enforced along the whole Atlantic seaboard. This had been done in consequence of decisions of the Admiralty Court against some of the reshipments, which were held by the Judges to be evasions of the actual blockades of hostile ports. The state of tension gradually became acute, but both Governments were so loth to fight that negotiations were on foot for several years before the President of the United States declared war in 1812. In 1809 a settlement seemed to have been reached, and a fleet of six hundred American traders had already got to sea, when it was discovered that the treaty could not be ratified. It was indeed almost impossible for England to alter her policy as regards neutral traders, or to abandon the right of search for deserters, so long as every resource was necessary in the struggle against Napoleon.

Captain Mahan, writing on the “Continental System,” puts the matter in a nutshell when he says: “The neutral carrier, pocketing his pride, offered his services to either (combatant) for pay, and the other then regarded him as taking part in the hostilities.”

In 1808 the Indian, Charles Austen’s ship, captured La Jeune Estelle, a small privateer, but the work on the North-American station was unprofitable as regards prize-money. In 1810 Charles gained post rank as captain of the Swiftsure, flagship to Sir John Warren. The great event of these years for him was his marriage in 1807 with Fanny Palmer, daughter of the Attorney-General of Bermuda.

In Jane’s letters there are constant mentions of him.

“December 27.&mdashh;I must write to Charles next week. You may guess in what extravagant terms of praise Earle Harwood speaks of him. He is looked up to by everybody in all America.”

“January 10.—Charles’s rug will be finished to-day, and sent tomorrow to Frank, to be consigned by him to Mr. Turner’s care; and I am going to send ‘Marmion’ out with it—very generous in me, I think.” “Marmion” was then just published. She was a great admirer of Scott, and doubtless felt the parting from his latest work, even when making a present of it to Charles. In another of her letters she writes:

“Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profits enough as a poet, and ought not to be taking the bread out of other people’s mouths. I do not mean to like ‘Waverley’ if I can help it, but I fear I must.”

We hear one more small piece of news concerning Charles in a letter of Jane’s dated January 24, 1809: “I had the happiness yesterday of a letter from Charles, but I shall say as little about it as possible, because I know that excruciating Henry will have a letter likewise, to make all my intelligence valueless. It was written at Bermuda on the 7th and 10th of December. All were well. He had taken a small prize in his late cruise—a French schooner laden with sugar; but bad weather parted them, and she had not yet been heard of. His cruise ended December 1st. My September letter was the latest he had received.”

We have the sequel to this incident in a letter from Charles to Cassandra, dated from Bermuda on December 24, in which he says:

“I wrote to Jane about a fortnight ago acquainting her with my arrival at this place and of my having captured a little Frenchman, which, I am truly sorry to add, has never reached this port, and, unless she has run to the West Indies, I have lost her—and, what is a real misfortune, the lives of twelve of my people, two of them mids. I confess I have but little hopes of ever hearing of her again. The weather has been so very severe since we captured her. I wish you a merry and happy Xmas, in which Fan joins me, as well as in bespeaking the love of her dear Grandmother and Aunts for our little Cassandra. The October and November mails have not yet reached us, so that I know nothing of you of late. I hope you have been more fortunate in hearing of me. I expect to sail on Tuesday with a small convoy for the island of St. Domingo, and, after seeing them in safety, open sealed orders, which I conclude will direct me to cruise as long as my provisions, &c., will allow, which is generally a couple of months. My companion, the Vesta, is to be with me again, which I like very much. I don’t know of any opportunity of sending this, but shall leave it to take its chance. Tom Fowler is very well, and is growing quite manly. I am interrupted, so conclude this by assuring you how truly I am

“Your affectionate friend

and attached brother,

“CHARLES JNO. AUSTEN.”

Charles stayed only five months in the Swiftsure. In September 1810 he took command of the Cleopatra, and brought her home in the following April, after an absence of six and a half years.

Jane’s letters show how gladly the news of our own particular little brother’s ” homecoming was welcomed. In an account of an evening party given at the Henry Austens’, she tells how she heard that Charles was soon to return. “At half-past seven arrived the musicians in two hackney coaches, and by eight the lordly company began to appear. Among the earliest were George and Mary Cooke, and I spent the greatest part of the evening very pleasantly with them. The drawing-room being soon hotter than we liked, we placed ourselves in the connecting passage, which was comparatively cool, and gave us all the advantage of the music at a pleasant distance, as well as that of the first view of every new comer. I was quite surrounded by acquaintances, especially gentlemen; and what with Mr. Hampson, Mr. Seymour, Mr. W. Knatchbull, Mr. Guillemarde, Mr. Cure, a Captain Simpson, brother to the Captain Simpson, besides Mr. Walter, and Mr. Egerton, in addition to the Cookes, and Miss Beckford, and Miss Middleton, I had quite as much upon my hands as I could do. This said Captain Simpson told us, on the authority of some other captain just arrived from Halifax, that Charles was bringing the Cleopatra home, and that she was by this time probably in the Channel; but as Captain S. was certainly in liquor we must not depend on it. It must give one a sort of expectation, however, and will prevent my writing to him any more. I would rather he should not reach England till I am at home, and the Steventon party gone.”

A curious time and place to receive such news, and a still more curious informant according to the ideas of these days, when men do not appear at an evening party “in liquor.”

In November 1811 Charles was appointed to the Namur, as Flag Captain to his old friend, Sir Thomas Williams, who was now Commander-in-Chief at the Nore.