Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Legends -- England -- Yorkshire; Yorkshire (England) -- Miscellanea
"I remember Martin well, and sailed with him first about 1803. He was
always skittish. We used to say that he was fitter for a parson than a
sailor; nicknamed him Parson Saxe. He was often sulky and idle. He did
not pray much, but was inclined to argue on religious subjects; he said
he had a light that we had not, and that he held meetings in his dreams.
He told extraordinary and unaccountable tales; but," said Mr. Nicoll,
"they have gone from me, as I treated them as fudge and palaver." Mr.
Nicoll adds that Martin was jolly as any at one time, and would drink
and dance and be merry as the rest; at another time he would weep
bitterly. Some were angry with him, others ridiculed him; "but I," said
Mr. Nicoll, "thought him more rogue than fool. I remember his saying
that a book was shot from his hands at Cadiz, and that he considered it
a warning from heaven. Some one told him he should have been otherwise
employed than in reading at such a time; in reply to which he abused the
person who rebuked him. It was my opinion that he shammed a good deal
for a sulk. He was particularly fond of viewing and conversing about the
celestial bodies, but had a dread of any one pointing to a star,[25] and
would not believe that they were other worlds; and, indeed, grew quite
angry at such an assertion. I have often said such things as a scot
(jest), to draw him on, and he has abused me. He was hale enough, but
used to complain of weakness, and, as I thought, sham sick."
A Greenwich pensioner, who served with him, says:--"I knew Jonathan
twenty-three years ago and upwards; he was a good sailor, but had fits
of melancholy, and then would talk of dying and a future state. I have
often told him that our days were fixed, and he blamed me for saying so.
I remember somebody larking in the top, and he, Martin, fell, catching
the hair of the sailor in his way; he actually tore off a portion of his
scalp; he saved himself by clinging to the cross-trees. He quarrelled
with and fought a man named Dobson, who died in Greenwich Hospital some
years since. They sat across a bench and fought. Martin was beaten. He
was laughed into this quarrel."
Martin gives the following account of his escape:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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