Chapter 5

"Mr. Gillon," replied the Captain, "I shall see to it that you and your young charge are safely provided for; and that you may be perfectly easy on that score, I now inform you that when I take possession of that merchantman, I shall make arrangements for you to be taken in her to a suitable port, whence you can find your way to your friends. Be composed now, and pay such attention to Miss St. Clair as the unusual occasion may seem in your judgment to require. In a few moments we shall have something to do, and perhaps a necessity to use our guns. But I hope not. If you will retire to the cabin, Mrs. Templeton will entertain you there better than you are likely to be on deck."

There was so much politeness in the Captain's manner, and yet evident fixedness of purpose, that Albert attempted no answer. There was now no doubt that their hospitable entertainers were pirates. They retired to the cabin, and sat there in profound silence. Soon Mrs. Templeton came in, and in her gentle winning manner began to prepare Mary for the scenes that might transpire.

"You must not be alarmed, my dear. You will be perfectly safe. I only regret we are so soon likely to lose your company."

"O Mrs. Templeton!" said Mary, "how can you prosecute such a life! It is so wicked! Excuse me, ma'am, but I cannot suppress my feelings of horror."

At this moment the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Captain Templeton, who, with a calm countenance, said:--

"Wife, I perceive that there are several guns on that vessel, and I judge that the crew and passengers are somewhat numerous. We shall have to proceed with caution, and as we are likely to have somewhat of a warm time, I think I should feel better satisfied to have a season of prayer."

Albert knit his brow in moody silence. Mary heaved a deep sigh. Mr. Gracelius was called in, and having read the 20th Psalm, he offered up the following prayer:--

"Oh! Thou mighty God of Jacob, who didst accompany Thine ancient Israel through all their trials, and didst fight their battles for them, we thank Thee that Thou hast taught us to put our trust in Thee. And we beseech Thee, oh! blessed Father, for the sake of Thine own Son Jesus Christ, to help us at this time in our endeavor to appropriate to the support of this branch of thy Zion, the treasures which, for the mere purposes of an unhallowed commerce, are being transported to that people who have ever distinguished themselves by their infidelity, and by their scorn of all true religion; who have also by their mighty leaders devastated kingdoms and shed seas of blood to gratify a vain-glorious ambition.

"Oh! Lord, we would not shed blood needlessly, and we therefore pray Thee to enable us in the approaching conflict, to have a single eye to Thy glory, and thus preserve a calm and kind temper, whatsoever may be the resistance offered on this occasion. And wilt Thou, O Lord, assist our beloved captain to do his duty, and to so command his men and order the battle, that when all shall be over, he may have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man. And whatsoever treasures may come to us, may we gratefully employ in Thy service and to Thy glory, remembering that Jesus Christ, who died for us and rose again for our justification, first became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich, and therefore that we ought to use our wealth to the advancement of Christianity in our own souls and among our fellow-beings, as the best evidence of our gratitude for our earthly prosperity, and for those treasures which are laid up for us in heaven; and to Thy gracious name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be the praise forever. _Amen_."

The tone of the chaplain's voice, the fervid manner and the striking pathos of this short prayer, had a strong effect upon Captain Templeton and his wife. They both rose from their knees with tears in their eyes.

The Captain grasped the hand of Mr. Gracelius, and earnestly said: "I feel strengthened, my brother; and I can now say, If the Lord be for us, who can be against us!" He then passed out and resumed his position on the deck.

"Miss St. Clair," said Mrs. Templeton, "do you think that can be wickedness which the Lord sanctifies with his communion?"

Before Mary could reply, the loud report of a cannon gave notice that the action had commenced.

The struggle was a short one, the French vessel was captured, with the loss of her commander, who fell at the first fire. It took but a short time to have all on the merchantman in fetters, and the vessel manned by the pirates.

It was not until the morning after the capture that matters became composed on the pirates' vessel, and everything in usual order.

At breakfast Mary took the liberty to ask the Captain what he designed to do with his prisoners.

"I always endeavor," he replied, "to remember the obligations of humanity and Christianity. Sometimes, for our own safety, we are compelled to put our captives to death, but I do so always with great reluctance, and never without prayer to God that their souls might be saved. In this case I think we shall not be under this painful necessity."

"Captain," said Albert, "it is perfectly unaccountable to me how a man of your naturally humane and benevolent disposition can engage in this business of robbery and murder."

"Well, Mr. Gillon," replied the Captain, "I make every allowance for one who has been educated as you have been, and taught that pirates were only worthy of the gallows; although I cannot but feel that your language is not such as your refined and polished manners would warrant me to expect and require. Our business is not robbery and murder. The laws under which we live, both social and political, are as decidedly opposed to such crimes as among any other people."

"I did not," replied Albert, "intend to be ungentlemanly in my language, and was not aware that these terms were offensive to you. But, sir, you only increase my amazement. I cannot comprehend how you can characterize your business by terms more appropriate. Is it not so that piracy is but the practice of robbery and murder, when it takes away a man's possessions, and then destroys his life to make the booty secure?"

"I perceive, Mr. Gillon, that you labor under the delusion that all pirates are bad and cruel men. I confess, sir, there are many of our people who treat their prisoners with unnecessary severity, and frequently inflict death when the occasion does not demand it. But, my dear sir, this is the abuse of piracy, not its legitimate use."

"And do you really mean to say, Captain Templeton," said Mary, "that piracy can be made an honorable business?"

"Of course I do, miss," replied the Captain, "and I regret that Miss St. Clair can suppose I would engage in a business that I did not believe to be honorable."

"But, Captain, you profess to be a Christian, and it is a great mystery to me how you can reconcile your profession with your practice. Surely you do not believe that the Scriptures justify such a life."

"That is precisely my belief, Miss," replied the Captain. "Piracy is a Bible institution, and if it were not so, I would abandon it at once."

"Ah!" said Albert, "that accounts for it. It is that belief in the Bible that leads the mind and the heart astray from the clear principles of a sound moral philosophy. Even my good Mary, here, is so warped by her reverence for the Bible, that she defends the institution of slavery, which I abhor with all my heart. But, Captain, although I am not surprised at your belief that the Bible sanctions piracy, since it is quoted by Christians in support of all sorts of wickedness, I am surprised that a man of your good sense and keen moral perception in regard to other matters of life, should not perceive that slavery, and piracy, and war, and everything of the sort, are irreconcilable with sound morality."

"I do not know," replied the Captain, "what might be the conclusions of abstract reasoning upon the subject outside of the Bible, for I have never thought very profoundly about it. But I feel satisfied so long as I have the assurance that the revealed Word is on my side."

"But, Captain," said Mary, "I am not willing to allow that the Bible is on your side. It shocks me to hear you say so."

"Well, Miss St. Clair, I must turn you over to brother Gracelius, who is well posted up in Bible matters. He will be able to show you that piracy is a Bible institution."

"Yes, my young sister," said Mr. Gracelius, who had not been inattentive to the conversation, while he was enjoying an excellent cup of coffee. "The Scriptures do most certainly sanction the institution of piracy."

Here Mr. Gracelius took from his pocket a small Bible, and proceeded to say: "On such a question, I am strongly disposed to pass by all ethical and metaphysical dissertation, and appeal at once to the only standard of right and wrong which can prove decisive. It is the responses of the sacred oracles to which we must after all appeal."

"I could wish, Mr. Gracelius," said Albert, "that you would discuss this question rather upon the foundation principles of morality, than by arguments from a volume which sanctions war, slavery, death penalties, and a host of other evils, by the very confessions of Christians themselves."

"I perceive," said Mr. Gracelius, "that you, sir, have never yet learned the true grace of God through regeneration, or you too would bow submissively to the teachings of the sacred Scriptures, and acknowledge them as the highest standard of right and morality. I cannot, therefore, hope to seriously affect your mind by an appeal to the Bible. But Miss St. Clair, being a Christian, will feel the force of such high authority."

"Truly, Mr. Gracelius," said Mary, "I do take the Bible as my highest standard of truth; and it is from the principles taught by the Bible that I have the assurance that piracy is awfully criminal. And I am utterly astonished that a man of your apparent piety, and who so well understands the doctrines of Christianity, can for a moment think that the Bible justifies such crimes."

"My dear young sister," said the minister, "you are begging the question when you call piracy a crime, for that is the very thing you are to prove. But let us see what piracy is:

"In order to clear away rubbish, and to arrive at once at the point, let me remind you that it is simply the _essential_ character of piracy which we are discussing. Piracy itself is nothing more than the appropriating of the products of another's labor and skill, without his consent or contract. The absence of the contract, or the consent of the producer, does not alter the nature and extent of the pirates' right. The case is analogous to that of parents and children. A father has a right to the productions of his child's labor during his minority, without the contract or consent of the child, and he may even transfer that right. But I grant that this does not justify the father in doing anything to the detriment of the child, either morally, intellectually, or physically. And, beyond doubt, this is the true light in which Christianity would have pirates regard their relations. The capture of a vessel, and the treatment of prisoners, involve a great responsibility. Nothing more should be done than is absolutely essential to the maintenance of the peculiar institutions of piracy. It is not the relation of the pirate to the producer or prisoner which is sinful, but infidelity to the solemn trust which that relation creates. It does not follow, because he has a right to the produce of another's labor or skill, that he has also a right to inflict unnecessary violence on his person, or take from him all means of livelihood. Whenever it can be done, without jeopardizing the well-being and interests of our society and institutions, we ought to spare the prisoner's life, make him comfortable while in our hands, place him as soon as possible where he can return to his home, and leave him means enough to keep him from starving or absolute destitution.

"To include in the idea of piracy, that also of robbery and murder, is to confound two things entirely distinct, and which really have no sort of connection. If I take from another that which I have no right to by the laws of the society or government under which I live, then I am a robber; for that alone is property which the law makes property, as one of your own great statesmen has very properly said; and if I take life, when not essential to maintain my own rights under the laws of that government which I recognize in my social obligations, I am a murderer. I therefore insist upon it, that, in discussing this subject, we regard as appropriate to the question only the _essential_ elements of piracy, and not its abuses; for piracy may exist without inflicting these aggravated wrongs.

"Christian pirates have great regard for the welfare, temporal and spiritual, of their fellow-beings, and oftentimes exercise the spirit of the most self-denying missionaries. Such men and women do honor to human nature. They are the true friends of their race.

"Now, here is piracy--a system of society and government which gives opportunity to inculcate among graceless men who fall into our hands the principles of the Gospel of Christ; and many an ungodly man has had the opportunity in our cabin of hearing the doctrines of the cross, who, whilst immersed in the business, and cares, and pleasures of life, never darkened the door of a meeting-house on land. And many of them have been converted to the Christian faith, and have become excellent and worthy Christian pirates.

"Those of our captains who have Christian sailors under them have the best-managed vessels; and really their crews do more of effective work, both in battle and in ship duties, than any ungodly crew that can be found.

"No, Sister Mary, depend upon it, you have imbibed a prejudice against piracy, and you suppose it to involve all sorts of crime. But the true question of issue between us is pruned to this:--Is it necessarily a crime in the sight of God to control the property, or curtail the personal liberty, or take the life of a human being in any case?

"Every government has necessarily a right to pass laws indispensable to its existence; and it has a right, also, to establish those regulations which shall best promote the good of the whole population. Now, what political organization is most desirable for a particular people, depends on circumstances; but, whatever be that adopted, whether democracy, or despotism, or piratical confederation, the rights of man, as a human being, are trenched upon; and visionary have proved and will prove all projects of constructing and fashioning society according to philosophical notions and theories of abstract unalienable rights. That piracy or any civil institution interferes with the property of a man, or a class of men (as, for instance, merchants), does not then make it necessarily, and, amid all circumstances, a crime."

Mr. Gracelius here paused, and gave Mary an opportunity to put in a word.

"But," said she, "after taking off what you call the rubbish, Mr. Gracelius, and pruning the question down as much as you please, I cannot possibly admit that the Bible anywhere justifies piracy under any circumstances whatsoever, either abstractly or practically. I call upon you for anything in all the Bible that gives the slightest countenance to such a mode of life, or such a government, as you are pleased to term it."

"I should rather require of you," replied the learned divine, "to make out from the Bible your charge that piracy is a crime. I know not a word from the first of Genesis to the end of Revelation where piracy is once condemned. But I pass this, and, waiving my clear logical rights, undertake to prove the negative, and to show that the Bible does, most explicitly, both by precept and example, bear me out in my assertion, that piracy is not necessarily, and always, and amidst all circumstances, a sin. WHAT GOD SANCTIONED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT, AND PERMITTED IN THE NEW, CANNOT BE SIN.

"I begin with the patriarch Jacob, whose name Israel has been appropriated from his day to this time to the true church. How did Jacob acquire his great riches? Was it not by appropriating the property of Laban to himself? And did not God bless him in thus doing? There is not a word of condemnation; but, on the contrary, Jacob, in telling his brother that he had much property, remarked, that God had dealt graciously with him. Here, you see, is a marked case of an appropriation of another's property by a very adroit stratagem, which is fully justified by the Old Testament, and uncondemned by the New.

"Had Jacob not represented in his person a different community from Laban's, of which he was to be the Patriarch, his mode of acquiring wealth out of Laban would have been censurable. But his conduct towards Laban was consistent with what was subsequently allowed under the Mosaic laws on the part of the Jews towards other nations. They could, for instance, make slaves of the nations round about;--they could take usury of them;--they could despoil them by war, and they could do a variety of things in relation to the people of other nations which would have been robbery, fraud, murder, and so on, if done by Jews to Jews. Thus the idea that that is property which the law makes property, is of divine origin.

"Take now the case of the Israelites in their exodus from Egypt; they were positively enjoined by the Divine command to borrow of their Egyptian neighbors their various costly jewelries, not with the idea of returning them, but of appropriating them permanently to their own benefit.

"David, who was a man after God's own heart, did not regard it robbery to obtain from the Priest the shew-bread itself, although to do so he deceived the Priest by telling that which, under other circumstances, would be called a lie. It was essential to his life--to his support. It was not therefore criminal to tell the falsehood in order to obtain the bread. Now, it is upon this very principle that your government and all civil governments employ diplomatic agents, in order to secure by adroitness and craftiness commercial and other advantages; and it is upon the same principle that we pirates justify our proceedings. It is essential to the support and maintenance of our people; and there is as much in the Scriptures to warrant our stratagems to decoy vessels and get the benefit of their cargoes, as for your government to obtain advantages by diplomatic adroitness. We must have a living.

"But you say we not only rob but murder. But as all appropriations of others' possessions are not essentially robbery, so all killing is not essentially murder. If you will look into the Book of Judges, xiv. 19, you will find that the taking of spoil even by violence and bloodshed, is not necessarily a crime--is not necessarily robbery and murder. It is the case of Samson when he had to give thirty changes of raiment to those who had expounded his riddle. It is said: "And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to Askelon and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle." Now, notice this particularly, that Samson did all this under the influence of God's Spirit. And you will remember that Paul in Hebrews mentions Samson with special commendation.

"Now, if Samson, and David, and Jacob did such things, we feel justified in proceeding accordingly.

"But as I have not time to go into very minute detail, I pass at once to two very important points in the New Testament. The first occurs in Christ's parable of the unjust steward. There the steward is commended for making an arrangement by which he secured his permanent interest by adroitly subtracting from what was due his Lord by his debtors. He had acted unjustly in the office of steward, being bound by honor to fulfil its duties and his obligations to his employer, but so soon as his obligations to his employer ceased on being ordered out of the stewardship, and his very living cut off, then it was no longer unjust, but commendable to do that which before would have been fraud or robbery.

"The other case is that of our blessed Lord himself. He sent his disciples to take away from the place where they were tied an ass and her colt; and he told them how to escape should they be caught at it, by saying: 'The Lord hath need of them.' Now, when we take away the property of others, we may reply to those who question us, 'The Lord hath need of them,' for every good pirate will endeavor so to use what he obtains as to promote the best interests of religion, and to glorify our blessed Redeemer.

"And now, my dear young sister, what more need I say to establish the point that piracy is not essentially sinful--that it is not _malum in se_? Indeed, it stands upon the same footing that slavery does, and is vindicated by the same process of reasoning. The argument for slavery is identically the same in principle as for piracy. And you know it is upon the ground that slavery is not under all circumstances a sin, that Christians in the Northern States hold communion with you of the South. And I admire that charitable spirit which induces them to believe that Southern Christians do not uphold the barbarous features which wicked and cruel masters impress upon the system of slavery. They give you, therefore, very properly, the right hand of Christian fellowship, which they could not do if slaveholding were sin in itself. And I doubt not they would as readily commune with Christian pirates, since it is evident that piracy is not, any more than slavery, _malum in se_."

Mary made no reply, but sat musing with a countenance overwhelmed with sadness.

Mr. Gracelius looked as though he had accomplished a decided victory; and Captain Templeton smiled with approbation.

Albert after a short silence exclaimed with great emphasis: "I thank God _my_ Bible is my _reason_, my _conscience_, and my _heart_. I this day glory in being an infidel."

"Oh! Albert, Albert!" cried Mary, and burst into tears.

Albert seeing he had wounded the feelings of one he loved so dearly, tried to soothe her by remarking that he had met at the North with some persons who maintained that the Bible was misunderstood and misinterpreted by the most of the commentators and theologians, and that when rightly explained and received, would be found to be perfectly in harmony with the sympathies and philanthropic emotions of the human heart, and with the principles of enlightened reason. But as these persons were generally called fanatical and visionary, he had not paid much attention to their strictures. "I intend, however," he added, "to take an early opportunity to investigate the Bible for myself, and if it prove itself to be better than its commentators and expounders, perhaps I shall become a Christian. But I cannot be a Christian if Christianity props up slaveholding and piracy."

Here the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of a messenger, who announced that every preparation had been made, and that Mr. Gillon and Miss St. Clair could now go on board the merchant vessel. On rising to depart, Albert with much feeling addressed the Captain: