Peter spends the winter of 1806–7 in New York; sails in June in the Carnapkin for Bristol; a sea tempest; ship becalmed off the coast of England; catch a shark and find a lady’s hand, and gold ring and locket in him; this locket, &c. lead to a trial, and the murderer hung; the mother of the lady visits the ship; sail for home; Peter sails with captain Williams on a trading voyage; Gibralter; description of it; sail to Bristol; chased by a privateer; she captured by a French frigate; sail for New York; Peter lives a gentleman at large in “the big city of New York.” Author. “What did you do in New York, Peter?”
Peter. “We laid by and unrigged for winter, and the captain sent to Troy and had his family brought down to the city, and I lived in his family that winter as servant; and I had fine times tu, for he was a noble man, and lived as independent as a prince, in Broadway, nigh where the Astor House stands. I had a fine winter of it, and come spring he hired the Carnapkin, one of the biggest and best ships in port, and all rigged. We weighed anchor for Bristol, and this was rare sport for me, for we was a goin’ to see old John Bull.
“When we’d been out about seven or eight days, we was overhauled by a tremendous storm from the north-east; and it grew worse and worse, and about midnight she lay on her beam ends for some time, and we expected to go to pieces; and the second mate sounded the hold and found four feet water in her, and that started the hair. We got the pumps a goin’ and pretty soon the captain hollers out, ‘she rights,’ and glad enough we was; and the carpenter found her leak, and makes all tight, and by next day all was clear as a bell. The captain found himself off of his course over two hundred miles, and so he hauls on agin; and in about twenty days we made sight of the white coast of old England, and there we was becalmed for two days, and didn’t stir a mile.
“The captain says, ‘now boys, you may go and fish till we git a breeze.’ Well, we hadn’t been out long afore we fell foul of a shark, and the first thing he knowed he had the harpoon in him, and we got him aboard, and then we calculated on a great hurrah, and sure enough we did have a melancholy one tu. The captain says, ‘now let’s have his liver cooked,’ for you see a shark’s liver is a great dish at sea. And so I goes to work and cuts him open, and what do you think I found there?
“Why the first thing I found was the hand of a human person, and on the middle finger was a gold ring, and on it ’twas wrote who she was in Spanish characters. The captain stands by and says, ‘dig carefully a leetle furder and see what you find.’ So on I dug with my butcher-knife, and up comes a gold chain; and I pulled away and out come a gold locket, and it had a lock of hair in it, and a name on it. We hunted along and found human bones, and nails of fingers partly dissolved.
“Well, the captain sings out, ‘fling the monster overboard, for we won’t have any thing aboard that devours human flesh; and cook you clean that locket and hand, &c., as clean as you can.’ And so I did, and the hand we preserved in rum, and the captain kept all of ’em till we got to port, and then we found out the end on it, and all about it.
“Well, we made port, and then the captain advertises the story of the shark; and the day arter this there come a splendid carriage to the dock, and who should it be but a Spanish lady, and she was in great splendor tu, and she comes aboard and calls for the captain; and he waits upon her with great respect down into the cabin, and her servant goes down with her, and she spoke in broken English, and asks him all about the shark, and then he tells all about it, and then showed her the hand; and when I brought it she broke out into ‘my God!’ and she seemed to be grieved and vexed, and broken down, and yit spunky by turns; and then she’d say, as she looked at the locket and hand and ring, ‘sacra venga,’ and swear, and her face would look red and pale by turns; and finally she turns to the captain and says, ‘Sir, this was my child,’ and says she ‘there was a young Spaniard engaged to my daughter, and they walked out one evening towards the water-side, and that’s the last I’ve heard of my child till now. He went to his own lodgings that night and was inquired of for her, but give no answer, and they made great sarch for her, but nothin’ could we hear. It always seemed to me he killed her, but I couldn’t git any evidence of it, and so I let it rest, and this happened nearly two weeks ago, and to day, you and your crew must come up and testify to the whole transaction.’ So she left.
That arternoon, four gentlemen come in a coach to the ship, and we had to go up to the City Hall, I guess ’twas; a large stone building, and it had great pillars in front on it, and I looked at it good I tell you, for ’twas the handsomest buildin’ I ever see. So we got there, and they put us all into a room and locked us up; and we stayed there till two o’clock, and then a man come and took out the captain, and then me, and I was sworn, and told the whole story; and then all the crew was fetched on, and testified the same thing; and the cabin-boy, when he finished his testimony, says, ‘and I believe this lady was killed and flung overboard by some body,’ and he said it with some courage, tu; and at that a young Spaniard of a dark complexion and long black eyebrows that come round under a curl at the corner of his eye, and oh! how black his eye was, and he had long mustaches on his upper lip, and a big pair of whiskers, and I tell you he looked as though he could murder as easy as you could eat a meal of victuals. But he looked kind’a chopfallen, and up he got, and says he, ‘I’m the man—I flung her off the wharf, and I give myself up to the law;’ you see he had been taken and brought to the bar. Then the king’s Attorney Gineral, spoke to this prisoner, and I tell you he was dressed splendidly. He had on an elegant blue coat and satin vest, and black satin pantaloons, and buff pumps, and he had on a girdle of red morocco, and it had a gold plate in front, and it had a big star on it, and his head was powdered in great style, and he fixes his eyes on the Spaniard like a blaze of fire, and says, ‘prisoner, deliver up that knife in your sleeve;’ and at that the Spaniard slips a ribbon off of his wrist and drew out a knife like what we call a Bowie knife in this country, and handed it to the Attorney, and I tell ye if the Spaniard didn’t look beat!
“And then his lawyer got up and made a smart plea for him and set down; but then you might know he was a rowin’ agin the tide, for he was a pleadin’ for the devil himself.
“Then the Attorney Gineral got up, and says, ‘My Lords and Judges, and Gentlemen of the Jury, &c. &c.’ And if he didn’t make a splendid plea then I’m no judge—I once could tell all about it, for you see I was all ear when them big fellers spoke and we all talked it over on the v’yge so much, and what one forgot ‘tother recollected, and then besides ’twas published in the Bristol papers; and once I could say it all to a T, and I only wish I could remember it word for word, it would be sich great stuff for this book. But my memory has kind’a failed me for a few years; only I know the Gineral made all on us cry, he talked so fine, and I do remember the closin’ off sayin’. ‘My Lords, I have now finished the defence for the crown, and I submit the case to your lordships, feeling that your verdict will respect the rights of the throne and the liberties and safety of its loyal subjects. My Lords I have done.’ And down he sat.
“And there that big room—it was as big as the whole of our big red barn—was crowded full as it could stick and hold, and there was a’most all nations on ‘arth there. And I tell you if I didn’t feel fi............