Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 16
General
Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 16
Scottish Borders (Scotland) -- Fiction
Next morning found us under weigh, and the Island of Jamaica sinking
under our stern. I missed my friend sadly, having formed no new
intimacy; for there was not one on board, in my estimation, to supply
his place. He had formed my mind for higher enjoyments than could have
been relished or shared with me by any of my shipmates; yet we had on
board a mass of talent, in all its variety, debased, no doubt, by evil
passions and low dissipation. There were, indeed, among us some rough
but honest, unsophisticated children of nature; but they were like
jewels dug from the mine, placed in a package with flints, and shaken on
a rough road, losing by attrition their asperities, but taking no
polish. A few, too, there were who had, with care, been bred by their
parents for higher objects, but had sunk from their station, by vice and
folly, even to a lower level than the standard of our crew. I had thus
small choice, and fell back on the memory of the pleasures I had enjoyed
in the conversation of my friend. We had been out from port about three
weeks, without seeing anything save one or two of our merchant ships,
and one from Liverpool bound for New York, with passengers, from the
latter of which we impressed six stout young men, who were on their way
for the New World. Such are the miseries of war, that liberty is invaded
and all human ties severed by the necessity it engenders. The case of
one of these young men was truly hard. He was on his way to New York, to
take possession of some property left him by an uncle, who had died
there the year before; and his intention was to remain and settle upon
his late uncle's farm. A few days before he had left his native village,
in Ayrshire, with a young woman whom he had long loved, and at last
married. Their all had been expended in their passage money and outfit,
but young hope, love, and joy, were the companions of their voyage,
until our boat, under the command of our second lieutenant, appeared as
the demon that was to put these to flight. The crew and passengers were
mustered upon the deck, and many forced from their hiding-places, where
they had stowed themselves away below among the cargo. George Wilson
(for that was his name), fearful for his Jane, had remained by her side;
he was ordered into the boat; his supplications were as nothing; and the
tears and agonies of his young wife, if possible, less. It is a fact
worthy of the consideration of the philosopher, that the actions of men,
forced to perform an unpleasant duty, are often fretted into greater
harshness by appeals to feeling. We were short of hands, and, goaded by
necessity and duty, I verily believe that some who seized the youth more
sharply when he was attempted to be taken from them by the female, would
not have been slow to weep for her in other circumstances. There was
another case not less cruel--that of an only son of a family, called
Grant, who were emigrating, consisting of a father and mother, two
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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