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Page 43
Here was another accumulation of misfortunes. All visions but those of
eventual imprisonment or starvation vanished from before the present
realities of poor Israel Potter. The Brentford gentleman had flattered
him with the prospect of receiving something very handsome for his
services as courier. That hope was no more. Doctor Franklin had promised
him his good offices in procuring him a passage home to America. Quite
out of the question now. The sage had likewise intimated that he might
possibly see him some way remunerated for his sufferings in his
country's cause. An idea no longer to be harbored. Then Israel recalled
the mild man of wisdom's words--"At the prospect of pleasure never be
elated; but without depression respect the omens of ill." But he found
it as difficult now to comply, in all respects, with the last section of
the maxim, as before he had with the first.
While standing wrapped in afflictive reflections on the shore, gazing
towards the unattainable coast of France, a pleasant-looking cousinly
stranger, in seamen's dress, accosted him, and, after some pleasant
conversation, very civilly invited him up a lane into a house of rather
secret entertainment. Pleased to be befriended in this his strait,
Israel yet looked inquisitively upon the man, not completely satisfied
with his good intentions. But the other, with good-humored violence,
hurried him up the lane into the inn, when, calling for some spirits, he
and Israel very affectionately drank to each other's better health and
prosperity.
"Take another glass," said the stranger, affably.
Israel, to drown his heavy-heartedness, complied. The liquor began to
take effect.
"Ever at sea?" said the stranger, lightly.
"Oh, yes; been a whaling."
"Ah!" said the other, "happy to hear that, I assure you. Jim! Bill!" And
beckoning very quietly to two brawny fellows, in a trice Israel found
himself kidnapped into the naval service of the magnanimous old
gentleman of Kew Gardens--his Royal Majesty, George III.
"Hands off!" said Israel, fiercely, as the two men pinioned him.
"Reglar game-cock," said the cousinly-looking man. "I must get three
guineas for cribbing him. Pleasant voyage to ye, my friend," and,
leaving Israel a prisoner, the crimp, buttoning his coat, sauntered
leisurely out of the inn.
"I'm no Englishman," roared Israel, in a foam.
"Oh! that's the old story," grinned his jailers. "Come along. There's
no Englishman in the English fleet. All foreigners. You may take their
own word for it."
To be short, in less than a week Israel found himself at Portsmouth,
and, ere long, a foretopman in his Majesty's ship of the line,
"Unprincipled," scudding before the wind down channel, in company with
the "Undaunted," and the "Unconquerable;" all three haughty Dons bound
to the East Indian waters as reinforcements to the fleet of Sir Edward
Hughs.
And now, we might shortly have to record our adventurer's part in the
famous engagement off the coast of Coromandel, between Admiral
Suffrien's fleet and the English squadron, were it not that fate
snatched him on the threshold of events, and, turning him short round
whither he had come, sent him back congenially to war against England;
instead of on her behalf. Thus repeatedly and rapidly were the fortunes
of our wanderer planted, torn up, transplanted, and dropped again,
hither and thither, according as the Supreme Disposer of sailors and
soldiers saw fit to appoint.
CHAPTER XVI.
IN WHICH ISRAEL IS SAILOR UNDER TWO FLAGS, AND IN THREE SHIPS, AND ALL
IN ONE NIGHT.
As running down channel at evening, Israel walked the crowded main-deck
of the seventy-four, continually brushed by a thousand hurrying
wayfarers, as if he were in some great street in London, jammed with
artisans, just returning from their day's labor, novel and painful
emotions were his. He found himself dropped into the naval mob without
one friend; nay, among enemies, since his country's enemies were his
own, and against the kith and kin of these very beings around him, he
himself had once lifted a fatal hand. The martial bustle of a great
man-of-war, on her first day out of port, was indescribably jarring to
his present mood. Those sounds of the human multitude disturbing the
solemn natural solitudes of the sea, mysteriously afflicted him. He
murmured against that untowardness which, after condemning him to long
sorrows on the land, now pursued him with added griefs on the deep. Why
should a patriot, leaping for the chance again to attack the oppressor,
as at Bunker Hill, now be kidnapped to fight that oppressor's battles
on the endless drifts of the Bunker Hills of the billows? But like many
other repiners, Israel was perhaps a little premature with upbraidings
like these.
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