Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66 No.406, August 1849

When I went down, shaking myself like a Newfoundland, Westwood was swinging in his cot with a book turned to the lamp, reading Don Quixote in Spanish. "Bless me, Ned!" said he, "you seem to like it! paying fair and weathering it too!" "Only a little adventure, Westwood!" said I, laughing. "Why, here have I been enjoying better adventures than we seem likely to have," said he, "without stirring a hand, except for the wild swings you gave me from deck. Here's Don Quixote– " "Don Quixote be hanged!" said I: "I'd rather wear ship in a gale, myself, than all the humbug that never happened —out of an infernal play-book. What's the use of thinking you see service, when you don't? After all, you couldn't expect much till we've crossed the Line – nothing like the tropics, or the Cape, for thickening a plot, Tom. Then there's the Mozambique, you know!" "Well, we'll see," said Westwood, lazily, and half asleep.

The whole next day would have been weary enough in itself, as not a single glimpse of the fair Lota could I catch; and the weather, between the little puffs of air and squalls we had, was fit to have melted poor Ford to the bone, but for the rain. However, that day was sufficient, by fits and starts, to bring us up to the Line; and, before crossing it, which we did by six o'clock in one of the black squalls, half of the passengers had been pretty well ducked by Neptune and his gang, besides. Rare fun we had of it for three or four hours on end; the cadets and writers showing fight in a body, the Yankee being regularly keelhauled, tarred, and feathered, though I believe he had crossed the Line twice by land; while the Scotch surgeon was found out, in spite of his caution, never to have been lower than the West Indies – so he got double ration. A word to Jacobs took Westwood Scot-free; but, for my own part, wishing of course to blind the officers, I let the men stick the tar-brush in my mouth the first word I spoke, and was shaved like the mischief, not to speak of plumping afterwards behind the studding-sail curtain into three feet of water, where I absolutely saved Ford from drowning, he being as sick as a dog.

Late at night, the breeze held and freshened; and, being Saturday night, the gentlemen in the cuddy kept it uproariously after their troubles, drinking and singing songs, Tom Little's and your sentimental affairs; till, being a bit flushed myself, I was on the point of giving them one of Dibdin's, when I thought better of it, and went on deck instead. The mate was there, however, and his red-whiskered Scotch sub with the twisted snout, leaning on the capstan with their noses together. The night was dark, and the ship made a good noise through the water; so "hang it!" thought I, "somehow or other I'll have out a stave of 'Black-eyed Susan' at the top of my pipe, though overboard I go for it!" There was an old spare topsail-yard slung alongside to larboard, as far as the quarter-boat, and I went up to the poop to get over and sit on it; especially when I found Ford's friend, the fat midshipman, was in the boat itself, "caulking"9 his watch out, as he did every night in a fresh place. I was no sooner there, again, than I saw a light in the aftermost gallery window, and took it in my head if I sung there, why, in place of being afraid there was some one under her casement, that and the wind and water together would put her to sleep, if she was the worse of last night – in fact I may say I was a little "slewed"10 at the time. How to get there, though, was the matter, it being rather nice practice to sling over an Indiaman's quarter-gallery, bulging out from her steep counter: accordingly, first I took the end of a coil round the mizen-shrouds, and made a bowline-knot to creep down the stern-mouldings with, and then swing free by help of a guide-line to boot. Just before letting go of the taffrail, another fancy struck me, to hitch the guide-line to the trigger of the life-buoy that hung ready for use; not that I'd the notion of saving myself if I went overboard, but just because of the good joke of a fellow slipping his own life-buoy, and then cruising away with a light at his masthead back to the Line. 'Twas curious – but when I was "two or three cloths in the wind," far from growing stupid, I used always to get a sort of cunning that would have made me try and cheat a purser; so away I lowered myself till the rope was taut, when I slipped easy enough round the counter, below the window. Every time she rolled, out I swung, and in again, till I steadied with my feet, slacking off the other line from one hand. Then I began to give voice like old Boreas himself, with a sort of a notion, at each shove I got, how I was rocking the Indiaman like a big cradle, as Jacobs did his baby. All at once, I felt the rope was giving off the belaying-pin, till I came down with a jolt under the window below; only singing the louder, as it was half open, and I could just look in. With every wash of the waves, the water, a couple of fathoms under my feet, blazed up like fire, and the wake ran boiling out from the black stern by the rudder, like the iron out of a furnace: now and then there came a sulky flare of dumb lightning to leeward, and showed the black swell out of the dark for miles. I fancied I didn't care for the water, but I began to think 'twas rather uncomfortable the notion of sousing into such an infernally flame-looking stream: I was actually in a fright at being boiled, and not able to swim. So I dropped chorus to haul myself up; when of a sudden, by the lamp inside the state-room, I saw Winterton and Ford come reeling in, one after the other, as drunk as lords. Winterton swayed about quietly on his legs for a minute, and then looked gravely at Ford, as if he'd got a dreadful secret to make known. "Ford!" said he. "Ay," said Ford, feeling to haul off his trousers, – "ay – avast you – blub-lub-lubber!" "I say, Ford!" said the cadet again, in a melancholy way, fit to melt a marlinspike, and then fell to cry – Ford all the time pulling off his trousers, with a cigar in his mouth, till he got on a chest, and contrived to flounder into his cot with his coat on. After that he stretched over to put the lamp out, carefully enough; but he let fall his cigar, and one leg of his nankeen trousers hung out of the cot, just scraping the deck every time he swung. I watched, accordingly, holding on by the sill, till I saw a spark catch in the stuff – and there it was, swinging slowly away in the dark, with a fiery ring creeping round the leg of the trousers, ready to blow into a flame as soon as it had a clear swing. No doubt the fool would come down safe enough himself with his cot; but I knew Winterton kept powder in the cabin sufficient to blow up the deck above, where that sweet girl was sleeping at the moment. "Confound it!" I thought, quite cooled by the sight, "the sooner I get on deck the better!" However, you may fancy my thoughts when I heard men at the taffrail, hauling on the spanker-boom guys, so I held on till they'd go forward again: suddenly the mate's voice sung out to know "what lubber had belayed the slack of a topsail-clueline here?" Down I went with the word, as the rope was thrown off, with just time to save myself by a clutch of the portsill at arm's-length – where, heaven knew, I couldn't keep long. The mate looked over and caught sight of my face, by a flicker of the summer lightning, as I was slipping down: I gave him one curse as loud as I could hail, and let go the moulding – "Man overboard!" shouted he, and the men after him: however I wasn't altogether overboard yet, for I felt the other part of the rope bring me up with a jerk and a swing right under the quarter-boat, where I clung like a cat. How to get on deck again, without being seen, was the question, and anxious enough I was at thought of the burning train inside; when out jumped some one over my head: I heard a splash in the water, and saw a fellow's face go sinking into the bright wake astern, while the boat itself was coming down over me from the davits. I still had the guide-line from the life-buoy round my wrist, and one moment's thought was enough to make me give it a furious tug, when away I sprang clear into the eddies. The first thing I saw at coming up was the ships' lighted stern-windows driving to leeward, then the life-buoy flaring and dipping on a swell, and a bare head, with two hands, sinking a few feet off. I made for him at once, and held him up by the hair as I struck out for the buoy. A couple of minutes after, the men in the boat had hold of us and it; the ship came sheering round to the wind, and we were very shortly aboard again. "Confound it, Simm, what took you overboard, man?" asked the mid in the boat at his dripping messmate, the fat reefer. "Oh, bother!" said he, "if you must know – why, I mistook the quarter-boats; I thought 'twas the other I was in, when you kicked up that shindy! Now I remember, though, there was too much rain in it for comfort!" "Well, youngster," said Tom, the man-o'-war'sman, "this here gentleman saved your life, anyhow!" "Why, mate," whispered Bill, "'tis the wery same greenhorn we puckalowed so to-day! Didn't he jump sharp over, too?" "Pull! for your lives, my lads!" said I, looking up at Ford's window; and the moment we got on deck, below I ran into the state-room, and cut Ford down by the heels, with the tinder hanging from him, and one leg of his trousers half gone. As for the poor reefer, a pretty blowing-up he got; the men swore I had jumped overboard after him, and the mate would have it that, instead of sleeping, he wanted to get into the Judge's cabins; especially when next day Sir Charles was in a rage at his daughter being disturbed by some sailor or other singing outside.

FOR THE LAST PAGE OF "OUR ALBUM."

At length our pens must find repose!With verse, or with poetic prose,Filled is each nook;And these poor little rhymes must closeOur pleasant book!Its every page is filled at last!When on these leaves my eyes I cast,Dull thoughts to cheer,How many memories of the pastSeem written here!Those who behold a river runBright glittering in the noonday sun,See not its source;And few can know whence has begunIts giddy course!And thus the feelings that gave riseTo many a verse that meets their eyesHow few can tell!Yet for those feelings gone, I prizeAnd love it well!Some stanzas were composed to graceAn hour of pleasure, – some to chaseSad care away;And some to help on time's slow paceWhich would delay!In some, we trace affection's toneTo friends then kind, – now colder grownBy force or art:In some, the shade of hopes, now gone,Then, next the heart!Such fancies with each line I weave,And thus our book I cannot leaveWithout a sigh!Fond recollections make me grieveTo lay it by!How other hands, perchance, than mine,A fairer wreath for it might twine,'Twere vain to tell;I can but say, in one brief line,Dear Book, Farewell!

THE INSURRECTION IN BADEN

(TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.)

Sir, – I chanced to be at Heidelberg at the outbreak of the late revolutionary movement, and remained there, or in the neighbourhood, during its entire duration. It occurs to me that a brief narrative of the leading events of that period of confusion and anarchy, from the pen of one who was not only an eyewitness of all that passed, but who, from long residence in this part of Germany, has a pretty intimate acquaintance with the real condition and feelings of the people, may prove suitable to the pages, and not uninteresting to the readers, of Blackwood's Magazine.

At a public meeting held at Offenburg, in the duchy of Baden, on the 13th of May 1849, and which was attended by many of the most violent members of the German republican party, it was resolved that the constitution voted by the national assembly at Frankfort should be acknowledged; that Brentano and Peter should be charged with the formation of a new ministry; that Struve, and all other political offenders, should be forthwith set at liberty; that the selection of officers for the army should be left to the choice of the privates; and lastly, that the movement in the Palatinate (Rhenish Bavaria) should be fully supported by the government of Baden.

For the information of those who have not closely followed the late course of events in Germany, it may be necessary to mention, that early in the month of May a revolutionary movement, the avowed object of which was to force the King to acknowledge the constitution drawn up by the parliament at Frankfort, had broken out in Rhenish Bavaria. A provisional government had been formed, the public money seized, forced contributions levied, and the entire Palatinate declared independent of Bavaria. The leaders of the insurrection had been joined by a portion of discontented military; and, in an incredibly short space of time, the whole province, with the exception of the fortresses of Germersheim and Landau, had fallen into their hands.

Although the declared motive of the Offenburg assembly was to support this movement, and thus oblige the reigning princes to bow to the decrees of the central parliament, there is little doubt that a long-formed and widely-extended conspiracy existed, the object of which was to proclaim a republic throughout Germany. The meeting in question was attended by upwards of twenty thousand persons, many of whom were soldiers, seduced by promises of increased pay, and of the future right to elect their officers. Money was plentifully distributed; and towards evening the mob, mad with drink and excitement, returned, howling revolutionary songs, to their homes. At the very time this was going on, a mutiny in the garrison of Rastadt had placed that fortress in the power of about four thousand soldiers, many of them raw recruits. This extraordinary event, apparently the result of a drunken quarrel, was shrewdly suspected to be part of a deep-laid scheme for supporting the movement, which was expected to follow the next day's meeting at Offenburg. If such were the hopes of the leaders, they were not disappointed; the train was laid, and wanted but a spark to fire it. The result of the Offenburg meeting was known at Carlsruhe by six o'clock in the evening of the day of its occurrence; and on the same evening, some riotous soldiers having been placed in confinement, their comrades insisted on their release. In vain did the officers, headed by Prince Frederick, (the Grand-duke's second son,) endeavour to appease them; they were grossly insulted, and the prince received a sabre cut on the head. It is thought by many persons that if, at this time, energetic measures had been taken, the whole movement might have been crushed.

But with citizens timid or lukewarm, and soldiers the greater number of whom were in open mutiny, it is difficult to say where the repressive power was to have been found. Be this as it may, the barracks were demolished, the stores broken open and robbed; and by eleven o'clock that night the ducal family, and as many of the ministers and attendants as could find the means of evasion, were in full flight. With arms supplied by the plunder of the barracks, the mob next attacked the arsenal, which was under the protection of the national guard. A squadron of dragoons who came to assist the latter were fired on by both parties, and the captain, a promising young officer, was killed on the spot. The dragoons, seeing their efforts to support the citizens thus misinterpreted, retired, and left the arsenal to its fate.

Early next morning, a provisional government, headed by Brentano and Fickler, was proclaimed, to which all people were summoned to swear obedience; and, absurdly enough, the very men, soldiers and citizens, who the day before had, with the acquiescence of the duke, taken an oath of allegiance to the empire, now swore to be faithful to the new order of things. The news of the outbreak spread like wildfire. It was received with particular exultation in the towns of Mannheim and Heidelberg; in the latter of which a very republican spirit prevailed, and where, at the first call, the national guard assembled, eager to display their valour – in words. It was not long before their mettle was put to the proof. The Duke, who had taken refuge in the fortress of Germersheim, had been escorted in his flight by about three hundred dragoons, with sixteen pieces of artillery. These brave fellows, who had remained faithful to their sovereign, attempted, after leaving him in safety, to make their way to Frankfort. As every inch of the country they had to traverse was in open revolt, the circumstance was soon known at Heidelberg, where, late in the evening, the tocsin rang, to summon the peasants from the neighbouring villages, and the générale beat through the streets to call the citizens to arms, in order that parties might be sent out to intercept the soldiers. It would be difficult to describe the panic that prevailed in Heidelberg at the first sound of this terrible drum. The most ridiculous and contradictory reports were circulated. That some great danger was at hand, all agreed; and the story generally credited was, that the peasants of the Odenwald were coming down, ten thousand strong, to plunder the town. When the real cause of the disturbance was discovered, it may be doubted whether, to many, the case appeared much mended; for, besides the disinclination a set of peaceable tradesmen might feel to attack a body of dragoons, backed by sixteen pieces of artillery, many of those who were summoned from their beds were secretly opposed to the cause they were called upon to serve. But there was no remedy; and, amidst the tears and shrieks of women, the ringing of bells, and beating of drums, the first detachment marched off. No sooner did they arrive at the supposed scene of action, than, seized with a sudden panic, caused by a row of trees which, in the dark, they mistook for the enemy in battle array, they faced about, and fairly ran for it till they found themselves once more in Heidelberg.

The consequences were more serious to some of the members of a second party, despatched to Ladenburg. In the middle of the night, the sentry posted on the bridge mistook the trotting of some stray donkey for a charge of dragoons, and firing his rifle, without farther deliberation he threw himself over the bridge, breaking a thigh and a couple of ribs in the fall. The others stood their ground; but it is well known that several of the party were laid up next day with nerven feber, (a sort of low typhus,) brought on by the fear and agitation they had undergone.

These facts are merely mentioned to show that, had the government, at the commencement of the outbreak, made the slightest show of firmness, they would not have met with the resistance which they afterwards found.

The dragoons, after dodging about for two days and nights, worn out with fatigue and hunger, at length allowed themselves to be captured near the frontiers of Würtemberg. It seems that the soldiers positively refused to make use of their arms after the Duke's flight, which, indeed, is the only way of accounting for three hundred mounted dragoons, with sixteen pieces of artillery fully supplied with ammunition, falling into the hands of as many peasants, who would undoubtedly have fled at the first shot fired.

Whilst these events passed, the reins of government at Carlsruhe had been seized by Brentano, Peter, Fickler, and Goegg – the latter a convicted felon. Struve and Blind, condemned to eight years' imprisonment for their rebellion the year before, were released, and, with their friends, took a prominent part in the formation of the new ministry. The war department was given to a Lieutenant Eichfeld, who, by the way, had some time previously quitted the service, on account of a duel in which he displayed the white feather. His first measure was to order the whole body of soldiers, now entirely deprived of their officers, to select others from the ranks. The choice was just what might have been expected; and instances occurred in which recruits of three weeks' standing passed at once to the rank of captain and major. All discipline was soon at an end. The army, consisting of 17,000 men, was placed under the command of Lieutenant Sigel, a young man of twenty-two, whose sole claims to preferment seem to have been, that he was compromised in Struve's abortive attempt at Friburg, and had since contributed a number of articles, violently abusive of the government, to some low revolutionary newspapers. Headquarters were established at Heidelberg, where Sigel, accompanied by Eichfeld, arrived on the 19th of May.

The pecuniary affairs of the insurgents were in the most flourishing condition. Seven millions of florins (about £560,000) were found in the war-chest, besides two and a half millions of paper-money, and large sums belonging to other departments of the ministry. Their stock of arms consisted of seventy thousand muskets, without reckoning those of the national guard and military. Thus equipped and supplied, they would have been able, with a little drill, and if properly commanded, to make a long stand against the regular forces sent against them. By this time, too, the country was fast filling with political refugees of all shades of opinion. Italians, Swiss, Poles, and French were daily pouring in; and the well-known Metternich, of Mayence celebrity, who had not been heard of since his flight from the barricades at Frankfort, again turned up as commander of a free corps. A sketch of his costume will give a pretty fair idea of that adopted by all those who wished to distinguish themselves as ultra-liberals. He wore a white broad-brimmed felt hat, turned up on one side, with a large red feather; a blue kittel or smock-frock; a long cavalry sabre swung from his belt, in which were stuck a pair of ponderous horse pistols; troopers' boots, reaching to the middle of the thigh, were garnished with enormous spurs, and across his breast flamed a crimson scarf, the badge of the red republican.

In order to extend the revolt, and to place Baden in a state of defence before the governments should recover from their panic, the most energetic measures were taken. A decree was issued for arming the whole male population, from eighteen to thirty years of age; and as in many instances the peasantry proved refractory, a tax of fifty florins per day was laid on all recusants, who, when discovered, were taken by force to join the army. Raveaux, Trutschler, Erbe, and Fröbel, the latter that friend of Robert Blum, who so narrowly escaped the cord when his companion was shot, – made their appearance at Carlsruhe. They issued a violent proclamation against the King of Prussia, and, the better to disguise their real object, called on all Germany to arm in defence of the parliament at Frankfort, and the provisional government of Baden. Every artifice, no matter how disreputable, that could serve the cause, was unscrupulously resorted to. It was officially announced that Würtemberg and Hesse-Darmstadt were only waiting a favourable opportunity to join the movement; and to further this object, a public meeting (which it was hoped would bring forth the same fruits at Darmstadt, as that of Offenburg had produced at Carlsruhe) was called by the radicals of the Odenwald. It took place at Laudenbach, a village situated about three miles within the Hessian frontier, and was attended by upwards of six thousand armed peasants, and by three or four thousand of the Baden free corps. The authorities were, however, on the alert; and after a fruitless summons to the insurgents to quit the territory, the military were called out. Before orders to fire were given, the civil commissary, desirous to avoid effusion of blood, advanced alone towards the crowd, endeavouring to persuade them to retire peaceably. He was barbarously murdered; and the sight of his dead body so incensed the Hessian soldiers, that they rushed forward without waiting for the word of command, and with one volley put the whole mob of insurgents to flight.

The spirit displayed on this occasion probably saved the country from a bloody civil war; for had the revolutionary movement passed the frontiers of Baden, at that moment the flame would doubtless have spread to Würtemberg, and thence not improbably to the whole of Germany, with the exception perhaps of Prussia.

To counteract the very unsatisfactory effect of the meeting at Laudenbach, it was resolved, by a council held at Carlsruhe, that a bold stroke should be struck. The Hessians, hitherto unsupported by other troops, could not command anything like the numerical force of Baden, and Sigel received orders to cross the frontier with all his disposable troops. Four battalions of the line, with about six thousand volunteers, were reviewed at Heidelberg before taking the field. They were indeed a motley crew! The soldiers, who had helped themselves from the stores at Carlsruhe to whatever best suited their fancy, appeared on parade equipped accordingly. Shakos, helmets, caps, greatcoats, frocks, full-dress and undress uniforms, all figured in the same ranks. The so-called officers, in particular, cut a pitiful figure. If the smart uniform and epaulette could have disguised the clownish recruit, who had perhaps figured but a few weeks in the ranks, the license of his conduct would soon have betrayed him; for officers and privates, arm in arm, and excessively drunk, might constantly be seen reeling through the streets. The free corps, unwilling to be outdone by the regulars, indulged in all sorts of theatrical dresses, yellow and red boots being in great favour; whilst one fellow, claiming no lower rank than that of colonel, actually rode about in a blouse and white cotton drawers, with Hessian boots and large gold tassels.