The Hispaniola Plate

John Bloundelle-Burton

The Hispaniola Plate / (1683-1893)

"We passed the tropics, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phips fished up the silver from the Spanish Plate wreck." -

Defoe ("Colonel Jack").

PREFACE

Most of the maps of the West Indies published during the first half of the present century and anterior to that date mark distinctly the spot where the following story principally takes place. Thirty miles due north of Cape Français, on the north coast of San Domingo, is a reef entitled "Bajo de la Plata, or Phips's Plate," while more modern maps simply describe it as "Silver Bank."

This is, of course, the spot where Sir William Phips-a now forgotten figure in history-obtained the plate mentioned by Defoe; and, so far as I am aware, there is but one detailed account in existence of how he found and secured that plate. This account is contained in a duodecimo volume entitled "Pietas in Patriam: the Life of Sir William Phips," published in London in 1697 anonymously, but guaranteed as accurate by several people who knew him. A production entitled "The Library of American Biography," edited by one Jared Sparks, also professes to give an accurate biography of Phips, but it is simply a garbled and mangled copy of the London publication. I should also mention that the "Biographia Britannica" refers to the expedition in the article on "Christopher Monk, second Duke of Albemarle." So does a work of the last century entitled "The Lives of the Admirals," by Lawrence Echard, and so also do some encyclopædias; but all of them undoubtedly derive their information from "Pietas in Patriam."

This work I have myself carefully followed, because in it alone are to be found the descriptions of the "Frygate Algier Rose," her eighteen guns and ninety-five men, of the various mutinies, of Alderly's arrival on the scene, of the second voyage with the tender, and so forth. Indeed, beyond the requirements of fiction the account is absolutely an account of what happened until the chase after Alderly by Nicholas Crafer, when fiction itself becomes predominant. Alderly, I should add, was as real a character as Phips himself. So was the carpenter who discovered the second mutiny. The rest, with the exception of the Duke of Albemarle, are imaginary.

I may add, in conclusion, that "The Hispaniola Plate" appeared originally in The St. James's Budget.

A NEW NOVELIST

Nothing is more notable in recent literature than the sudden renewal of interest in the historical novel. Mr. Stanley Weyman is the most successful of this group of younger writers, but there is now treading on his heels another young novelist, whose work shows such splendid promise as well as such remarkable achievement, that he bids fair to outstrip Mr. Weyman and come first to the goal. This is Mr. John Bloundelle-Burton, whose story, "The Desert Ship," created such a stir in London a short time ago.

Mr. Burton was born in 1850. His parents intended him for a military life, but when at twenty-one he came into a comfortable inheritance, he determined to see something of the world. Already familiar with the Continent, he turned to fresher pastures and came to Canada; then running over the border into the "States," he lived down South for a considerable period. In Baltimore he first contracted the writing habit, sending an article to a paper there, which accepted it with thanks, but with nothing else. While down South he fell in with "Red Cloud," an Indian chief, picking up much information that was strange and new, and that was later to be utilized in "The Desert Ship." Going back to England, he flitted between London and Paris, the latter being his favorite abode. In the Place de la Madeleine he lived with a company that contained representatives of every class and country. Describing them Mr. Bloundelle-Burton says: "One of our number was a Scotch duke; another a tailor's son, enormously rich and not a bad fellow; another a Spahi, home on leave from Africa; a fourth a Spaniard, rolling in money; another an American, who afterward died in prison while awaiting his trial for killing-absolutely killing-a man in a duel. They could not get over that in Paris; indeed, as a Frenchman said to me, it really looked as if the American had fully intended to murder his countryman."

Living in this way in Paris, our author began to write more and more; first for foreign papers, then for English ones. He began a connection with Galignani, which lasted intermittently for a long interval, and brought him acquaintance with many notable men, among them Jules Grévy, several years later President of the Republic. His next venture was sending English papers news from different popular resorts on the Continent-Switzerland and the Tyrol, Italy and the Riviera. Later on he helped edit a paper called The American Visitor, which told rich Americans where they could spend their money most rapidly, and where they had the best opportunity for catching a glimpse of fashionable society in England and on the Continent.

Mr. Burton's first long story was "The Silent Shore," which had quite a career under several different guises. Originally published in volume form, it later appeared as a play at the Olympic Theater, then ran as a serial in Spanish in a South American paper, and ended up as a serial in several English provincial papers. His next story was, "His Own Enemy," in the author's opinion, the best novel he has yet produced, "though not, I hope, the best I shall write," he adds.

"The Desert Ship," Mr. Burton's next book and the first to bring him genuine fame, was published by Hutchinson & Co., in London. It was received with a burst of praise from the critics, even Mr. Labouchere's sarcastic and hard-to-please paper, Truth, declaring it to be "an enthralling story and a book which will mark a period in the existence of anyone who is fortunate enough to get it. It is," the paper added, "as exciting as anything Verne ever wrote, and with the reality of Robert Louis Stevenson." Nothing succeeds like success, as Mr. Burton rapidly learned; editors with orders up their sleeves dropped in upon the rising young author, and he found it hard to satisfy all the demands made upon him. All this solicitation for the work of his pen resulted in a sudden literary output. Two stories appeared in quick succession: "The Gentleman Adventurer," which ran in Young England, and "The Adventures of Viscount Annerly," which was published in the People.

"The Hispaniola Plate," Mr. Burton's last and strongest book, is a semi-historical story. The scene is laid in the West Indies. The two principal characters belong to the Royal Navy, one living in Cromwell's, Charles II.'s and James II.'s reigns, the other in the present day; and the way in which the two periods are blended into the one book exhibits masterly skill. Mr. Burton is a passionate lover of the sea. Descended from a line of ancestors that acquired fame in the British Navy-his grandfather, Lieutenant Jermy, was a noted old commander of English ships and participated in the battle of New Orleans in 1814-he has in his blood a taste for the salt sea wave, and this gives his stories their breezy, out-of-door atmosphere.

Mr. Burton has a pleasant home just out of London at Barnes Common. Like so many other Englishmen of prominence in these days, he is married to an American woman. He is a large, broad-chested man, standing six feet, two inches and a quarter, in his shoes, with dark, piercing eyes. Mr. Burton has decided views about the true methods for literary work. He does not believe in fixing on a good subject for a novel, then selecting a picturesque period, and, after making yourself thoroughly acquainted with the manners and customs of that epoch, planting your characters in it, as is the habit of certain novelists. The story must come to you, you cannot go out and bring it in. "I never think," he says, "of producing a story laid in a period (or about persons) which I have to read up-to 'mug' up, as we used to say at school. But I have been an ardent reader of history and memoirs all my life, and the story arises naturally from periods and incidents with which I am well acquainted."

"I mean," he adds, "that the story should fit into an intimate acquaintance with the mise-en-scène, not that the mise-en-scène should be hunted up to fit the story."

No one who reads this exciting story, "The Hispaniola Plate," and who is held captive by its vivid scenes, its deep, rich coloring, its overmastering air of reality, but will wish long life to this strong and original talent, which already has behind it such remarkable achievement. May we have many such books from his pen!

CHAPTER I.

NICHOLAS CRAFER'S STRANGE WILL

"Gray's Inn Square, Oct. 20th, 1892.

"My Dear Sir, – In answer to your request, I beg to inform you that the terms by which you inherit 'Phips House,' at Strand-on-the-Green, from your late uncle, are as follows-the statement being taken from the last will and testament of your ancestor Nicholas Crafer, made in the year 1695: -

'And I do hereby will and bequeathe that ye house called Phips by me, after my late captain and commander, Sir William Phips, when I purchased yt from Mr. Clitherow of Branford, do forever remaine in the possession of some descendant of mine, male or female, the former for choyce and preference, yet not also debarring, in fault of any bearing the name of Crafer existinge, those descending from the female side to succeed. That is to saye, it is to so remaine forever unless through it whoever doth succeede shall thereinto find the means whereby to obtain unto themselves a fortune of and equivalint unto the summe of Fiftie thousand guineas, the which I do hereby testify the meanes are forthcoming. After whych the house may be disposed of as best beseemeth those who have so found ye fortune. This, therefore, I say, "Seeke and ye shall find, knocke and yt shall be opened unto you."'

"This will, in spite of its quaintness, has ever, and will probably always, hold good, although not law, until one thing occurs of two: either that the house falls down of old age (which it seemed very likely to do when I inspected it after your late uncle's decease) or that some descendant of Commander Nicholas Crafer shall find the means of making the fortune of 50,000 guineas in or through it-a most unlikely thing to happen. For, as you know, many generations of Crafers have searched through the house from basement to garret, imagining that the original testator meant to hint that somewhere about it, was hidden away such a sum of money as he mentions; and always without result. Nor has the ingenuity of one generation after another ever been able to hit upon any hidden meaning which might be contained in the words of the will, or to find anything excepting the scrap of paper once discovered, of which you know; while certainly the land on which it stands-something under three acres-can hardly ever become of such value, or one-twentieth part of it.

"But as you know as much about your ancestor as I can possibly tell you, I need not write further, and I have only to state that, during your absence abroad, everything has been done to facilitate handing over the house to you on your return, and I now propose to prove your uncle's will, and, after the usual formalities, to put you in possession of Phips House and other property left by him. – Yours faithfully,

"A. Bentham."

This was the letter which Reginald Crafer read at his breakfast, one fine autumn morning, as he sat in that good old hostelry, "The George," at Portsmouth-a letter which he had found at the Naval Club after his early morning walk on the Battery-a walk taken with the view of aiding an already exceedingly good appetite, and of having a look at the waves dancing out at the Nab and sparkling in the bright October sunshine.

A better specimen of the young lieutenant of to-day than Reginald Crafer (with "N" after his name to show that he had taken up navigation as his branch) you might not see in any of her Majesty's ships. Tall, but not too tall for a sailor; close-shaven, as becometh the young naval officer of to-day, yet with excellent features that required nothing in the shape of whiskers or moustache to set them off; with clear grey eyes and a wholesome sunburnt skin-what more could a young man desire in the shape of personal gifts? Nay, what more pleasing a sight to gaze upon than this smart, good-looking young officer could the heart of a maiden desire?

Now Reginald Crafer-whom at this present moment you see eating buttered toast and a fried sole, as he reads his lawyer's letter-had just come home from the China Station in the Ianthe (twin-screw cruiser, first-class, armoured, 8,400 tons); and she having been paid off, the young man was on leave for the time being. He had slept at "The George" overnight for two reasons (ordinarily the naval officer rushes to London by the first train that will bear him, when once he has set foot on shore), one being that he wanted to go to a ball at the Commander-in-Chief's to which the officers of the returned cruiser were mostly invited; the other, that he expected to find a letter from the solicitor, Mr. Bentham-which, as you have seen, he did find.

This letter was in reply to one that Reginald had sent to the lawyer from Hong Kong, which in its own turn had also been a reply. For to the young lieutenant there had come at the Station a letter from Mr.. Bentham, stating that his uncle-also a Reginald Crafer-was dead, that he had left the younger Reginald a few thousand pounds (the principal part of his income having been derived from an annuity and a government pension) and "Phips House." Then Reginald had written back for further details, had received the above-quoted answer at the Naval Club this morning, and-voilà tout!

Of course, he knew as much about the mysterious entailment of Phips House as the lawyer did; it would have been strange had he not done so. Eleven different Crafers had held possession of it since Nicholas departed this life in King William III.'s reign: eleven different Crafers, all of whom had sought high and low for the fortune it was supposed to contain, or for some clue as to how the fortune of "Fiftie thousand guineas" was to be obtained; and of those Crafers many had torn their hair in vexation, and others had stamped their feet and cursed and sworn-or, perhaps I had better say, grumbled and growled-at finding nothing. Of such irate descendants the last, the late lamented Reginald, had, however, not been one. Perhaps because he thought that if his ten predecessors could find no fortune in the house, he was not likely to do so; or perhaps because he was himself very comfortably off with his annuity and his pension from a Government office, and his few thousands of invested money-which Lieutenant Crafer now came into-he bothered his head not at all about the chimera of the house at Strand-on-the-Green. Certainly he cursed not over it, neither did he swear-unless it was at the damp from the river! – and, being bald, he had no hair to tear; and he never tapped panels nor prodded walls nor looked for secret doors in the house, contenting himself with letting young "Reg" do all this when he came to stay with him. For the rest, and being a bachelor, he spent much time at his club; he took a faint interest in the curiosity which the legend of Phips House excited in the minds of his friends, as well as of the waterside loafers of Brentford, Kew, Mortlake, and all the immediate neighbourhood; he would even go so far as to invite people to stay with him and hunt about the house for themselves, when they were not enjoying the prospect from the windows of the market-gardens across the river. But of excitement in the legendary fortune, this bald-headed and comfortably situated ex-Civil Servant could get up not one jot; and when a burglar broke into the house, determined on finding, as he informed the barrister who defended him, "the blooming fortune if it was to be found," he went to see him at Pentonville after his trial and told him he sincerely wished he had found it. Thus, to him, the fortune of Phips House was but an allegory or a myth, which he regarded but as a grown-up child regards a fairy-tale; and so, unbelieving in all that pertained to it, he passed away to Kensal Green and Reginald the Second ruled in his stead.

But he, when he was a child-being of a romantic nature-did believe in the fortune of Nicholas Crafer; and when he was a man-being a sailor-had not lost all faith in the romance.

Whether that faith was justified, you who read on shall see.

CHAPTER II.

AN OLD BIT OF HISTORY

Who is he, especially of the London brood, who knows not Strand-on-the-Green? Who knows not that it lies below the choice and savoury town of Brentford and below Kew Bridge also, on the Middlesex shore; that it is composed of a long, straggling row of houses, many of them old and most of them quaint, which are of all shapes, sizes, and uses? One there is in which once dwelt Zoffany, the painter; hard by is a waterman's cottage, where the succulent winkle or shrimp may be purchased and eaten-the former with a pin supplied by the vendor; then comes a row of comfortable houses panelled and wainscotted within, then more tiny shops (with, interspersed all along the row, the genial public-house); then more private houses; and so on to Phips House-old, quaint, gabled, and mullioned, panelled also, and wainscotted. In it are fireplaces in the corners of the rooms-sure proofs of the early Charles II. period; it has also carved wooden doors and carved balustrades and banisters; there are balconies to the front windows having bulging rails to fit the hoops of women belonging to long-forgotten days; and all about it is that genuine look of latter Stuart times which may still be found in very many houses in this locality.

"What did it appear like when Nicholas first bought it?" mused Reginald Crafer to himself a few evenings later than the day he breakfasted at "The George." "Even if it hasn't altered, its surroundings have." Then he turned his eyes around and went on, gazing down the river meanwhile. "The 'White Hart' at Mortlake was there, I think-I have read of Jacobites taking boat from its steps; and so was the Duke of Devonshire's and old Chiswick beyond, with wicked Barbara Villiers standing at the window of her house and shrieking for the return of her lost youth and beauty. But not much else! No main drainage then, no horrible gasworks, no District Railway bridges! It must have changed a good deal since Nicholas hid his fabulous fortune, or the story of it, in the house-if it is fabulous."

He put the key into the door and entered, musing still.

"I wonder what Nicholas did to pass his time? There was no 'Packet Hotel,' no 'Indian Queen,' no 'Star and Garter' then." These places are, it should be told, hostelries of more modern date. "There was not much for him to do to amuse himself," he went on. "He was too late to know Kinde Kit of Kingston, who lived here; too early for the Georgian revels at Kew. Yet he might have often seen William of Orange (it was hard by here they attempted to assassinate him); he might have smoked and drunk at the 'Three Pidgeons,' at Brentford, and known the daughter of Shakespeare's brother-actor, Lowin, who kept the place. Who knows?"

This young man, you see, was well acquainted with the history of the neighbourhood in which stood the house he had now inherited. It was not remarkable that he should be so. From his earliest childhood his fancy had been strongly taken by all the gossip connected with the property that must some day be his if his uncle remained unmarried, and never did he by haphazard see the names of Brentford, Kew, or Strand-on-the-Green printed but he studied every word in connection with them. Thus, he was neither erudite nor pedantic, but only very interested in all that concerned the spot, and, therefore, very well informed about it.

What he did not know was-in common with his forerunners-much about the mysterious Nicholas Crafer, who had contrived, by arousing the curiosity of his descendants through the medium of his strange will, to keep his memory very green. And not only the curiosity of his descendants, but also of most people brought into the slightest connection with the spot. The waterside hands, the barge-loaders and the lookers after private skiffs and gigs, the keepers of local refreshment-houses, whether "publics" or those chaste bowers which have upon their fronts the mystic legends, "Tea and hot water 9d." (how can there be tea-drinking without hot water?); even the hands of the steamers passing up and down-of the Cardinal Wolsey for Hampton Court (which place it reacheth not without arduous struggles and terrible delay), and the captains of the Bridegroom and the Wedding Ring (graceful names well suited to riparian jaunts!) – all knew the legend of Phips House as well as its new owner. So, too, did the dwellers on Kew Green, the respectable City men who resided on the Kew Gardens estate and were on familiar terms with the parson, and the City clerks who abode in great numbers in modern Gunnersbury and modern Chiswick. All knew, I say, the legend of Phips House; all had heard of Nicholas Crafer, who was considered to have been a pirate and buccaneer; all-watermen, City men, and City clerks-were proud of their local history of Nicholas and their-in a way-connection with him.

What was, however, really known of him by the family-reduced now to Reginald alone-what had filtered through the eleven generations with regard to him, was no more than this: He had been an officer in the navy of the Commonwealth, being but a lad at that time, and serving under Blake during its last two years of existence; then under Charles II. in the royal navy; and then under James II., in whose first year of misrule he retired. Many a fight did he engage in in those days, as was well known to his descendants: he was in the destruction of the Spanish ships at Santa Cruz in 1657, and at the defeat of Van Wassenaer by James, Duke of York, in 1665, in the "four days' fight" in 1666, and he assisted in the capture of the Golden Horse corsair in 1681, and many other valiant deeds besides.

Yet were none of these martial feats so romantic as one other thing he did, or, rather two other things. He accompanied Sir William Phips, then plain Captain Phips, in both his expeditions for the fishing up of the Hispaniola Plate-the second attempt proving successful. Now, as not all the world knows, but as his descendants of course knew, 'twas in the Algier Rose that Phips made his first attempt to get this plate in the reign of that most high and puissant prince, King Charles II., of ever-gracious memory. 'Twas that great monarch who put at his disposal the Algier Rose, after listening to Phips's tale in the embrasure of a window at Whitehall-what time he was playing with the silky ears of a spaniel on his knee and leering at a young country lady fresh come to Court-a tale narrating how the Spanish plate ship, or carrack, was sunk off Hispaniola-or, as we now call it, San Domingo and Hayti; and how he, Phips, felt sure he could fish it up. But Phips came back without the plate, and the august Charles, being dead, could help him no more, nor would the saintly James, his successor, do so.

Phips was therefore now on what he would, perhaps, have called his "beam-ends," and so were some of his officers, including Nicholas Crafer; and on them he would doubtless have remained had not his good fortune thrown in his way at this moment a friendly patron. This was none other than Christopher Monk, second Duke of Albemarle, a nobleman who loved much the bottle-which fondness led to his death shortly afterwards, when Governor of Jamaica-and who also took great interest in stories of buried treasure, and listened to tales of such things with eagerness. To him, therefore, Phips opened up the subject of the Spanish plate. He swore that though he had failed once in finding it he would never fail again; and he so much impressed his drunken Grace with his energy and sincerity that, at last, he sailed once more for the West Indies as captain of a private ship commissioned to hunt for the plate, and with him Nicholas sailed too as second officer. Much money had been advanced for the quest; Albemarle taking six shares, while three were allotted to Phips, one to Nicholas, and one between the other officers, and the remainder amongst those adventurer-merchants who had assisted in finding the necessary capital.