Chapter 14

I had lain in Gaol more than a month after my Sentence, when Mr. Shapcott, a good Quaker Gentleman of the place (who had suffered much for Conscience' sake, and was very Pitifully inclined to all those who were in Affliction), began to take some interest in my unhappy Self; calling me a strayed Lamb, a brand to be snatched from the burning, and the like. And he, by the humane connivance of the Mayor and other Justices, was now permitted to have access unto me, and to conciliate the Keeper, Mrs. Macphilader, by money-presents, to treat me with some kindness. Also he brought me many Good Books, in thin paper covers; the which, although I could understand but very little of their Saving Truths, yet caused me to shed many Tears, more Sweet than Bitter, and to acknowledge, when taxed with it in a Soothing way, that my former Manner of Life had been most Wicked. But I should do this good man foul injustice, were I to let it stand that his benevolence to me was confined to books. He and (ever remembered) Mistress Shapcott, his Meek and Pious Partner, and his daughter, Wingrace Shapcott (a tall and straight young woman, as Beautiful as an Angel), were continually bringing me Comforts and Needments, both in Raiment and Food. It churns my Old Heart now to think of that Beautiful Girl, sitting beside me in my dank Prison Room, the tears streaming from her mild eyes, calling me by Endearing names, and ever and anon taking my hand in hers, and sinking on her knees to the sodden floor (with no thought of soiling her kirtle), while with profound Fervour she prayed for the conversion of errant Me. Sure there are Hearts of Gold among those Broadbrims and their fair strait-laced Daughters. Many a Merchant's Money-bags I have spared for the sake of Mr. Barzillai Shapcott (late of Aylesbury). Many a Fair Woman have I intermitted from my Furious Will in remembrance of the good that was shown me, in the old time, by that pale, strait-gowned Wingrace yonder, with her meek Face and welling Eyes. Of my deep and grievous Sins they told me enow, but they forbore to Terrify me with Frightful Images of Unforgiving Wrath; speaking to me of Forgiveness alway, rather than of Torment. And once, when I had gotten, through favour of the Keeper, Mr. Dredlincourt his book on Death (and had half frightened myself into fits by reading the Apparition of Mrs. Veal), these good people must needs take it from me, telling me that such strong meat was not fit for Babes, and gave me in its place a pretty little chap-book, called "Joy for Friendly Friends." But that I am old and battered, and black as a Guinea Negro with sins, I would go join the Quakers now. Never mind their broad-brims, and theeing and thouing. I tell you, man, that they have hearts as soft as toast-and-butter, and that they do more good in a day than my Lord Bishop (with his coach-horses, forsooth!) does in a year. And oh, the pleasure of devalising one of these Proud Prelates, as I--that is some of my Friends--have done scores of times!

Nothing would suit the good Shapcotts but that I should write in mine own hand a Petition to the King's Majesty. The Magistrates, who now began to take some interest in me, were for having it drawn up by their Town Clerk, and me only to put my Mark to it; for they would not give a poor little Hangdog of a Black any credit of Clergy. But being told that I could both read and write, after a Fashion, it was agreed that I was to have myself the scrivening of the Document; they giving me some Forms and Hints for beginning and ending, and bidding me con my Bible, and choose such texts as I thought bore on my Unhappy Condition. And after Great Endeavours and many painful days, and calling all my little Scholarship under my Grandmother, the kind old schoolmistress of Foubert's Passage, Gnawbit (burn him!), and Captain Night, I succeeded in producing the following. I give it word for word as I wrote it, having kept a copy; but I need not say that, as a Gentleman of Fortune, my Style and Spelling are not now so Barbarous and Uncouth.

This was my Petition to His Majesty:

"The Humble Pettyshon of Jon Dangerous now a prisinner under centense off Deth in His Maggesty's Gayle at Alesbury to his Maggesty Gorge by the grease of God King of Grate Briton Frans and Eyearland Deffender off the Fathe Showeth That yore Petetioner which I am Unfortunate enuff to be mixed up in this business Me and the others wich have suffered was Cast by the Jewry and Justis Blackcapp he ses that as a Warming and Eggsample i am to be Hanged by the Nek till you are Ded and the Lord have Mercy upon his Soul Great Sur your Maggesty the Book ses that wen the wicked man turneth away from his Wickedness wich he have committed and doeth that wich is Lawful and Rite he shall save his Sole alive Therefore deer Great Sur wich a repreive would fall like Thunder upon a Contrite Hart and am most sorrowful under the Black Act wich it is true I took the deere but was led to it Deere Sur wich Mungo and others was repreeved at the Tree and sent to the Plantations but am not twelve yeeres old And have always been a Prottestant Great Sur i shall be happy to serve his Maggesty by see or land and if the Grannydeere he had not Vexed me but had no other way being in a Korner and all Fiting and so i up with the demmyjon which i hoap he is better And your Petishioner will ever pray your Maggesty's loving Subject and Servant

JON DANGEROUS.

My Granmother was a Lady of Quality and lived in her own House in Hannover Squair and was used after her Deth very cruelly by one Mistress Tallmash and Kadwallader which was the Stoard and was sent in a Waggin like a Beggar Deere Sur Mr. Gnawbit he used me shameful wich I was Blak and Blue and the Old Gentleman he ses you Run away ses he into Charwood chaise and join the Blaks Deere Sur this is All which Captain Nite would sware but as eloped I am now lying here many weekes Deere Sur I shood like to be hanged in Wite for I am Innocent leastways of meaning to kill the Grannydeere."

This was a Curious kind of Schoolboy letter. Different I take it from those one gets from a Brother, asking for a Crown, a Pony, or a Plumcake. But my Schools had been of the hardest, and this was _my_ Holiday letter.

When the Mayor read it, he burst out a-laughing, and says that no such Thieves' Flash must be sent to the Foot of the Throne. But Mr. Shapcott told him that he would not have one word altered; that he would not even strike out the paragraph where I had been irreverent enough to quote a Text (and spell it badly); and that what I had written, and naught else, should go to the King. He took it to London himself, and his Majesty being much elated by some successes in Germany, and the Discovery of a Jacobite Plot, and moved moreover by the intercession of a Foreign Lady, that was his favourite, and who vowed that the little Deer-Stealer's Petition was Monstrous Droll, and almost as good as a Play,--His Majesty was graciously pleased to remit my Sentence, on condition of my transporting myself for life to His Majesty's Plantations in North America.

As to my transporting "myself," that was a Fiction. I was henceforth as much a Slave to my own Countrymen as I was in after days to the Moors. The Shapcotts would willingly have provided me with the means of going to the uttermost ends of the World, but that was not the way the thing was to be done. Flesh and Blood were bought and sold in those days, and it did not much matter about the colour. By that strange Laxity which then tempered the severity of the Laws, I was permitted, for many days after my Fate was settled, to remain in a kind of semi-Enlargement. I suppose that Mr. Shapcott gave bail for me; but I was taken into his Family, and treated with the most Loving Kindness, till the fearful intelligence came that I, with two hundred other Convicts, had been "Taken up" for Transportation by Sir Basil Hopwood, a rich Merchant and Alderman of London, who paid a certain Sum a head for us to the King's Government for taking us to America, where he might make what profit he pleased, by selling our wretched Carcasses to be Slaves to the Planters.

Oh, the terrible Parting! but there was no other Way, and it had to be Endured. My kind friends made me up a packet of Necessaries for the Voyage, and with a Heavy Heart I bade them farewell. These good people are all Dead; but their woman-servant, Ruth, a pure soul, of great Serenity of Countenance, still lives; and every Christmas does the Carrier convey for me to Aylesbury a Hamper full of the Good Things of this Life, and Ten Golden Guineas. And I know that this Good and Faithful Servant (who has been well provided for) just touches the Kissing-crust of one of the Pies my Lilias has made for her, and that she goes straight with the rest, Money and Cates, to the Gaol, and therewith relieves the Debtors (whom Heaven deliver out of their Captivity!). And it is more seemly that she rather than I should do this thing, seeing that there are those who will not believe that after a Hard Life a man can keep a fleshy heart, and who would be apt to dub me Hypocrite if these Doles came from me directly.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

FOOTNOTE:

[N] Captain Dangerous, it will be seen, was, in regard to our criminal code, somewhat in advance of the ideas of his age, but he was scarcely on a level with those of our own, and, I think, would have perused with some surprise the speeches of Mr. Ewart and the _Vacation Thoughts on Capital Punishments_ of the late Mr. Commissioner Phillips.--ED.

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Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page xix, "85" changed to "87"

Page xix, "124" changed to "126"

Page 10, "ha" changed to "had" (Dangerous had suffered)

Page 10, "nee" changed to "need" (was no need)

Page 11, "le" changed to "let" (a mercy to let)

Page 48, "inkeepers" changed to "innkeepers" (the innkeepers were used)

Page 48, "achievments" changed to "achievements" (achievements of his arms)

Page 121, "corse" changed to "corpse" (corpse of my)

Page 144, "wont" changed to "won't" (I won't tell him)

Page 193, word "to" inserted into text. (he whispered to his)

Page 221, "bring" changed to "being" (being a poor)

Page 247, "recal" changed to "recall" (can scarcely recall)

Page 295, "Beneh" changed to "Bench" (Bench and confers)

Varied hyphenation was retained. antechambers, ante-chambers; atop, a-top; cheesecakes, cheese-cakes; Cockpit, Cock-pit; Footguards, Foot-guards; Gatehouse, Gate-house; nowadays, now-a-days; Shrovetide, Shrove-tide.

The text also uses servants' hall and servant's hall.