Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843

"I am grieved at the necessity," said the officer, "but you must return with me."

The American captain, who had been contemplating this scene apparently quite unmoved, now ejected from his mouth a huge quid of tobacco, replaced it by another, and then stepping up to the officer, touched him on the arm, and offered him the pass he had received from his passengers. The Spaniard waved him back almost with disgust. There was, in fact, something very unpleasant in the apathy and indifference with which the Yankee contemplated the scene of despair and misery before him. Such cold-bloodedness appeared premature and unnatural in a man who could not yet have seen more than five-and-twenty summers. A close observer, however, would have remarked that the muscles of his face were beginning to be agitated by a slight convulsive twitching, when, at that moment, his mate stepped up to him and whispered something. Approaching the Spaniard for the second time, Ready invited him to partake of a slight refreshment in his cabin, a courtesy which it is usual for the captains of merchant vessels to pay to the visiting officer. The Spaniard accepted, and they went below.

The steward was busy covering the cabin table with plates of Boston crackers, olives, and almonds, and he then uncorked a bottle of fine old Madeira that looked like liquid gold as it gurgled into the glasses. Captain Ready seemed quite a different person in the cabin and on deck. Throwing aside his dry say-little manner, he was good-humour and civility personified, as he lavished on his guest all those obliging attentions which no one better knows the use of than a Yankee when he wishes to administer a dose of what he would call "soft sawder." Ready soon persuaded the officer of his entire guiltlessness in the unpleasant affair that had just occurred, and the Spaniard told him by no means to make himself uneasy, that the pass had been given for another person, and that the prisoner was a man of great importance, whom he considered himself excessively lucky to have been able to recapture.

Most Spaniards like a glass of Madeira, particularly when olives serve as the whet. The American's wine was first-rate, and the other seemed to find himself particularly comfortable in the cabin. He did not forget, however, to desire that the prisoner's baggage might be placed in the boat, and, with a courteous apology for leaving him a moment, Captain Ready hastened to give the necessary orders.

When the captain reached the deck, a heart-rending scene presented itself to him. His unfortunate passenger was seated on one of the hatchways, despair legibly written on his pale features. The eldest child had climbed up on his knee, and looked wistfully into its father's face, and his wife hung round his neck sobbing audibly. A young negress, who had come on board with them, held the other child, an infant a few months old, in her arms. Ready took the prisoner's hand.

"I hate tyranny," said he, "as every American must. Had you confided your position to me a few hours sooner, I would have got you safe off. But now I see nothing to be done. We are under the cannon of the fort, that could sink us in ten seconds. Who and what are you? Say quickly, for time is precious."

"I am a Columbian by birth," replied the young man, "an officer in the patriot army. I was taken prisoner at the battle of Cachiri, and brought to the Havannah with several companions in misfortune. My wife and children were allowed to follow me, for the Spaniards were not sorry to have one of the first families of Columbia entirely in their power. Four months I lay in a frightful dungeon, with rats and venomous reptiles for my only companions. It is a miracle that I am still alive. Out of seven hundred prisoners, but a handful of emaciated objects remain to testify to the barbarous cruelty of our captors. A fortnight back they took me out of my prison, a mere skeleton, in order to preserve my life, and quartered me in a house in the city. Two days ago, however, I heard that I was to return to the dungeon. It was my death-warrant, for I was convinced I could not live another week in that frightful cell. A true friend, in spite of the danger, and by dint of gold, procured me a pass that had belonged to a Spaniard dead of the yellow fever. By means of that paper, and by your assistance, we trusted to escape. Capitan!" said the young man, starting to his feet, and clasping Ready's hand, his hollow sunken eye gleaming wildly as he spoke, "my only hope is in you. If you give me up I am a dead man, for I have sworn to perish rather than return to the miseries of my prison. I fear not death—I am a soldier; but alas for my poor wife, my helpless, deserted children!"

The Yankee captain passed his hand across his forehead with the air of a man who is puzzled, then turned away without a word, and walked to the other end of the vessel. Giving a glance upwards and around him that seemed to take in the appearance of the sky, and the probabilities of good or bad weather, he ordered some of the sailors to bring the luggage of the passenger upon deck, but not to put it into the boat. He told the steward to give the soldiers and boatmen a couple of bottles of rum, and then, after whispering for a few seconds in the ear of his mate, he approached the cabin stairs. As he passed the Columbian family, he said in a low voice, and without looking at them,

"Trust in him who helps when need is at the greatest."

Scarcely had he uttered the words, when the Spanish officer sprang up the cabin stairs, and as soon as he saw the prisoners, ordered them into the boat. Ready, however, interfered, and begged him to allow his unfortunate passenger to take a farewell glass before he left the vessel. To this young officer good naturedly consented, and himself led the way into the cabin.

They took their places at the table, and the captain opened a fresh bottle, at the very first glass of which the Spaniard's eye glistened, his lips smacked. The conversation became more and more lively; Ready spoke Spanish fluently, and gave proof of a jovialty which no one would have suspected to form a part of his character, dry and saturnine as his manner usually was. A quarter of an hour or more had passed in this way, when the schooner gave a sudden lurch, and the glasses and bottles jingled and clattered together on the table. The Spaniard started up.

"Captain!" cried he furiously, "the schooner is sailing!"

"Certainly," replied the captain, very coolly. "You surely did not expect, Señor, that we were going to miss the finest breeze that ever filled a sail."

Without answering, the officer rushed upon deck, and looked in the direction of the Molo. They had left the fort full two miles behind them. The Spaniard literally foamed at the mouth.

"Soldiers!" vociferated he, "seize the captain and the prisoners. We are betrayed. And you, steersman, put about."

And betrayed they assuredly were; for while the officer had been quaffing his Madeira, and the soldiers and boatmen regaling themselves with the steward's rum, sail had been made on the vessel without noise or bustle, and, favoured by the breeze, she was rapidly increasing her distance from land. Meantime Ready preserved the utmost composure.

"Betrayed!" repeated he, replying to the vehement ejaculation of the Spaniard. "Thank God we are Americans, and have no trust to break, nothing to betray. As to this prisoner of yours, however, he must remain here."

"Here!" sneered the Spaniard—"We'll soon see about that you treacherous"—

"Here," quietly interrupted the captain. "Do not give yourself needless trouble, Señor; your soldiers' guns are, as you perceive, in our hands, and my six sailors well provided with pistols and cutlasses. We are more than a match for your ten, and at the first suspicious movement you make, we fire on you."

The officer looked around, and became speechless when he beheld the soldiers' muskets piled upon the deck, and guarded by two well armed and determined-looking sailors.

"You would not dare"—exclaimed he.

"Indeed would I," replied Ready; "but I hope you will not force me to it. You must remain a few hours longer my guest, and then you can return to port in your boat. You will get off with a month's arrest, and as compensation, you will have the satisfaction of having delivered a brave enemy from despair and death."

The officer ground his teeth together, but even yet he did not give up all hopes of getting out of the scrape. Resistance was evidently out of the question, his men's muskets being in the power of the Americans who, with cocked pistols and naked cutlasses, stood on guard over them. The soldiers themselves did not seem very full of fight, and the boatmen were negroes, and consequently non-combatants. But there were several trincadores and armed cutters cruising about, and if he could manage to hail or make a signal to one of them, the schooner would be brought to, and the tables turned. He gazed earnestly at a sloop that just then crossed them at no great distance, staggering in towards the harbour under press of sail. The American seemed to read his thoughts.

"Do me the honour, Señor," said be, "to partake of a slight dejeuner-à-la fourchette in the cabin. We will also hope for the pleasure of your company at dinner. Supper you will probably eat at home."

And so saying, he motioned courteously towards the cabin stairs. The Spaniard looked in the seaman's face, and read in its decided expression, and in the slight smile of intelligence that played upon it, that he must not hope either to resist or outwit his polite but peremptory entertainer. So, making a virtue of necessity, he descended into the cabin.

The joy of the refugees at finding themselves thus unexpectedly rescued from the captivity they so much dreaded, may be more easily imagined than described. They remained for some time without uttering a word; but the tears of the lady, and the looks of heartfelt gratitude of her husband were the best thanks they could offer their deliverer.

On went the schooner; fainter and fainter grew the outline of the land, till at length it sank under the horizon, and nothing was visible but the castle of the Molo and the topmasts of the vessels riding at anchor off the Havannah. They were twenty miles from land, far enough for the safety of the fugitive, and as far as it was prudent for those to come who had to return to port in an open boat. Ready's good-humour and hearty hospitality had reconciled him with the Spaniard, who seemed to have forgotten the trick that had been played him, and the punishment he would incur for having allowed himself to be entrapped. He shook the captain's hand as he stepped over the side, the negroes dipped their oars into the water, and in a short time the boat was seen from the schooner as a mere speck upon the vast expanse of ocean.

The voyage was prosperous, and in eleven days the vessel reached its destination. The Columbian officer, his wife and children, were received with the utmost kindness and hospitality by the young and handsome wife of Captain Ready, in whose house they took up their quarters. They remained there two months, living in the most retired manner, with the double object of economizing their scanty resources, and of avoiding the notice of the Philadelphians, who at that time viewed the patriots of Southern America with no very favourable eye. The insurrection against the Spaniards had injured the commerce between the United States and the Spanish colonies, and the purely mercantile and lucre-loving spirit of the Philadelphians made them look with dislike on any persons or circumstances who caused a diminution of their trade and profits.

At the expiration of the above-mentioned time, an opportunity offered of a vessel going to Marguerite, then the headquarters of the patriots, and the place where the first expeditions were formed under Bolivar against the Spaniards. Estoval (that was the name by which the Columbian officer was designated in his passport) gladly seized the opportunity, and taking a grateful and affectionate leave of his deliverer, embarked with his wife and children. They had been several days at sea before they remembered that they had forgotten to tell their American friends their real name. The latter had never enquired it, and the Estovals being accustomed to address one another by their Christian names, it had never been mentioned.

Meantime, the good seed Captain Ready had sown, brought the honest Yankee but a sorry harvest. His employers had small sympathy with the feelings of humanity that had induced him to run the risk of carrying off a Spanish state-prisoner from under the guns of a Spanish battery. Their correspondents at the Havannah had had some trouble and difficulty on account of the affair, and had written to Philadelphia to complain of it. Ready lost his ship, and could only obtain from his employers certificates of character of so ambiguous and unsatisfactory a nature, that for a long time he found it impossible to get the command of another vessel.

In the autumn of 1824, I left Baltimore as supercargo of the brig Perverance, Captain Ready. Proceeding to the Havannah, we discharged our cargo, took in another, partly on our own account, partly on that of the Spanish government, and sailed for Callao on the 1st December, exactly eight days before the celebrated battle of Ayacucho dealt the finishing blow to Spanish rule on the southern continent of America, and established the independence of Peru. The Spaniards, however, still held the fortress of Callao, which, after having been taken by Martin and Cochrane four years previously, had again been treacherously delivered up, and was now blockaded by sea and land by the patriots, under the command of General Hualero, who had marched an army from Columbia to assist the cause of liberty in Peru.

Of all these circumstances we were ignorant, until we arrived within a few leagues of the port of Callao. Then we learned them from a vessel that spoke us, but we still advanced, hoping to find an opportunity to slip in. In attempting to do so, we were seized by one of the blockading vessels, and the captain and myself taken out and sent to Lima. We were allowed to take our personal property with us, but of brig or cargo we heard nothing for some time. I was not a little uneasy; for the whole of my savings during ten years' clerkship in the house of a Baltimore merchant were embarked in the form of a venture on board the Perseverance.

The captain, who had a fifth of the cargo, and was half owner of the brig, took things very philosophically, and passed his days with a penknife and stick in his hand, whittling away, Yankee fashion; and when he had chapped up his stick, he would set to work notching and hacking the first chair, bench, or table that came under his hand. If any one spoke to him of the brig, he would grind his teeth a little, but said nothing, and whittled away harder than ever. This was his character, however. I had known him for five years that he had been in the employ of the same house as myself, and he had always passed for a singularly reserved and taciturn man. During our voyage, whole weeks had sometimes elapsed without his uttering a word except to give the necessary orders.

In spite of his peculiarities, Captain Ready was generally liked by his brother captains, and by all who knew him. When he did speak, his words (perhaps the more prized on account of their rarity) were always listened to with attention. There was a benevolence and mildness in the tones of his voice that rendered it quite musical, and never failed to prepossess in his favour all those who heard him, and to make them forget the usual sullenness of his manner. During the whole time he had sailed for the Baltimore house, he had shown himself a model of trustworthiness and seamanship, and enjoyed the full confidence of his employers. It was said, however, that his early life had not been irreproachable; that when he first, and as a very young man, had command of a Philadelphian ship, something had occurred which had thrown a stain upon his character. What this was, I had never heard very distinctly stated. He had favoured the escape of a malefactor, ensnared some officers who were sent on board his vessel to seize him. All this was very vague, but what was positive was the fact, that the owners of the ship he then commanded, had had much trouble about the matter, and Ready himself remained long unemployed, until the rapid increase of trade between the United States and the infant republics of South America had caused seamen of ability to be in much request, and he had again obtained command of a vessel.

We were seated one afternoon outside the French coffeehouse at Lima. The party consisted of seven or eight captains of merchant vessels that had been seized, and they were doing their best to kill the time, some smoking, others chewing, but nearly all with penknife and stick in hand, whittling as for a wager. On their first arrival at Lima, and adoption of this coffeehouse as a place of resort, the tables and chairs belonging to it seemed in a fair way to be cut to pieces by these indefatigable whittlers; but the coffeehouse keeper had hit upon a plan to avoid such deterioration of his chattels, and had placed in every corner of the rooms bundles of sticks, at which his Yankee customers cut and notched, till the coffeehouse assumed the appearance of a carpenter's shop.

The costume and airs of the patriots, as they called themselves, were no small source of amusement to us. They strutted about in all the pride of their fire-new freedom, regular caricatures of soldiers. One would have on a Spanish jacket, part of the spoils of Ayacucho—another, an American one, which he had bought from some sailor—a third a monk's robe, cut short, and fashioned into a sort of doublet. Here was a shako wanting a brim, in company with a gold-laced velvet coat of the time of Philip V.; there, a hussar jacket and an old-fashioned cocked hat. The volunteers were the best clothed, also in great part from the plunder of the battle of Ayacucho. Their uniforms were laden with gold and silver lace, and some of the officers, not satisfied with two epaulettes, had half-a-dozen hanging before and behind, as well as on their shoulders.

As we sat smoking, whittling, and quizzing the patriots, a side-door of the coffeehouse was suddenly opened, and an officer came out whose appearance was calculated to give us a far more favourable opinion of South American militaires. He was a man about thirty years of age, plainly but tastefully dressed, and of that unassuming, engaging demeanour which is so often found the companion of the greatest decision of character, and which contrasted with the martial deportment of a young man who followed him, and who, although in much more showy uniform, was evidently his inferior in rank. We bowed as he passed before us, and he acknowledged the salutation by raising his cocked hat slightly but courteously from his head. He was passing on when his eyes suddenly fell upon Captain Ready, who was standing a little on one side, notching away at his tenth or twelfth stick, and at that moment happened to look up. The officer started, gazed earnestly at Ready for the space of a moment, and then, with delight expressed on his countenance, sprang forward, and clasped him in his arms.

"Captain Ready!"

"That is my name," quietly replied the captain.

"Is it possible you do not know me?" exclaimed the officer.

Ready looked hard at him, and seemed a little in doubt. At last he shook his head.

"You do not know me?" repeated the other, almost reproachfully, and then whispered something in his ear.

It was now Ready's turn to start and look surprised. A smile of pleasure lit up his countenance as he grasped the hand of the officer, who took his arm and dragged him away into the house.

A quarter of an hour elapsed, during which we lost ourselves in conjectures as to who this acquaintance of Ready's could be. At the end of that time the captain and his new (or old) friend re-appeared. The latter walked away, and we saw him enter the government house, while Ready joined us, as silent and phlegmatic as ever, and resumed his stick and penknife. In reply to our enquiries as to who the officer was, he only said that he belonged to the army besieging Callao, and that he had once made a voyage as his passenger. This was all the information we could extract from our taciturn friend; but we saw plainly that the officer was somebody of importance, from the respect paid him by the soldiers and others whom he met.

The morning following this incident we were sitting over our chocolate, when an orderly dragoon came to ask for Captain Ready. The captain went out to speak to him, and presently returning, went on with his breakfast very deliberately.

When he had done, he asked me if I were inclined for a little excursion out of the town, which would, perhaps, keep us a couple of days away. I willingly accepted, heartily sick as I was of the monotonous life we were leading. We packed up our valises, took our pistols and cutlasses, and went out.

To my astonishment the orderly was waiting at the door with two magnificent Spanish chargers, splendidly accoutred. They were the finest horses I had seen in Peru, and my curiosity was strongly excited to know who had sent them, and whither we were going. To my questions, Ready replied that we were going to visit the officer whom he had spoken to on the preceding day, and who was with the besieging army, and had once been his passenger, but he declared he did not know his name or rank.

We had left the town about a mile behind us, when we heard the sound of cannon in the direction we were approaching; it increased as we went on, and about a mile further we met a string of carts, full of wounded, going in to Lima. Here and there we caught sight of parties of marauders, who disappeared as soon as they saw our orderly. I felt a great longing and curiosity to witness the fight that was evidently going on—not, however, that I was particularly desirous of taking share in it, or putting myself in the way of the bullets. My friend the captain jogged on by my side, taking little heed of the roar of the cannon, which to him was no novelty; for having passed his life at sea, he had had more than one encounter with pirates and other rough customers, and been many times under the fire of batteries, running in and out of blockaded American ports. His whole attention was now engrossed by the management of his horse, which was somewhat restive, and he, like most sailors, was a very indifferent rider.

On reaching the top of a small rising ground, we beheld to the left the dark frowning bastions of the fort, and to the right the village of Bella Vista, which, although commanded by the guns of Callao, had been chosen as the headquarters of the besieging army—the houses being, for the most part, built of huge blocks of stone, and offering sufficient resistance to the balls. The orderly pointed out to us the various batteries, and especially one which was just completed, and was situated about three hundred yards from the fortress. It had not yet been used, and was still masked from the enemy by some houses which stood just in its front.

While we were looking about us, Ready's horse, irritated by the noise of the firing, the flashes of the guns, and perhaps more than any thing by the captain's bad riding, became more and more unmanageable, and at last taking the bit between his teeth started off at a mad gallop, closely followed by myself and the orderly, to whose horses the panic seemed to have communicated itself. The clouds of dust raised by the animals' feet, prevented us from seeing whither we were going. Suddenly there was an explosion that seemed to shake the very earth under us, and Ready, the orderly, and myself, lay sprawling with our horses on the ground. Before we could collect our senses and get up, we were nearly deafened by a tremendous roar of artillery close to us, and at the same moment a shower of stones and fragments of brick and mortar clattered about our ears.