[Literature] Charles Dickens: The Wreck of the Golden Mary #2/47

We walked an hour and
more, for he had much to say to me. He had
a scheme for chartering a new ship of their
own to take out cargo to the diggers and emigrants
in California, and to buy and bring
back gold. Into the particulars of that
scheme I will not enter, and I have no right to
enter. All I say of it, is, that it was a very
original one, a very fine one, a very sound
one, and a very lucrative one, beyond doubt.

He imparted it to me as freely as if I had
been a part of himself. After doing so, he
made me the handsomest sharing offer that
ever was made to me, boy or man—or I believe
to any other captain in the Merchant
Navy—and he took this round turn to finish
with:

“Ravender, you are well aware that the
lawlessness of that coast and country at present,
is as special as the circumstances in
which it is placed. Crews of vessels outward-bound,
desert as soon as they make the land;
crews of vessels homeward-bound, ship at
enormous wages, with the express intention
of murdering the captain and seizing the
gold freight; no man can trust another, and
the devil seems let loose. Now,” says he,
“you know my opinion of you, and you know
I am only expressing it, and with no singularity,
when I tell you that you are almost
the only man on whose integrity, discretion,
and energy—” &c., &c. For, I don’t want to
repeat what he said, though I was and am
sensible of it.

Notwithstanding my being, as I have mentioned,
quite ready for a voyage, still I had
some doubts of this voyage. Of course I
knew, without being told, that there were
peculiar difficulties and dangers in it, a long
way over and above those which attend all
voyages. It must not be supposed that I was
afraid to face them; but, in my opinion a
man has no manly motive or sustainment in
his own breast for facing dangers, unless he
has well considered what they are, and is
able quietly to say to himself, “None of these
perils can now take me by surprise; I shall
know what to do for the best in any of them;
all the rest lies in the higher and greater
hands to which I humbly commit myself.”
On this principle I have so attentively considered
(regarding it as my duty) all the
hazards I have ever been able to think of, in
the ordinary way of storm, shipwreck, and
fire at sea, that I hope I should be prepared
to do, in any of those cases, whatever could
be done, to save the lives entrusted to my
charge.

As I was thoughtful, my good friend proposed
that he should leave me to walk there
as long as I liked, and that I should dine with
him by-and-by at his club in Pall Mall. I
accepted the invitation, and I walked up and
down there, quarter-deck fashion, a matter of
a couple of hours; now and then looking up
at the weathercock as I might have looked
up aloft; and now and then taking a look into
Cornhill, as I might have taken a look over
the side.

All dinner-time, and all after-dinner-time,
we talked it over again. I gave him my
views of his plan, and he very much approved
of the same. I told him I had nearly decided,
but not quite. “Well, well,” says he,
“come down to Liverpool to-morrow with
me, and see the Golden Mary.” I liked
the name (her name was Mary, and she
was golden, if golden stands for good), so
I began to feel that it was almost done when
I said I would go to Liverpool. On the next
morning but one we were on board the
Golden Mary. I might have known, from
his asking me to come down and see her,
what she was. I declare her to have been
the completest and most exquisite Beauty
that ever I set my eyes upon.

We had inspected every timber in her, and
had come back to the gangway to go ashore
from the dock-basin, when I put out my hand
to my friend. “Touch upon it,” says I, “and
touch heartily. I take command of this ship,
and I am hers and yours, if I can get John
Steadiman for my chief mate.”

John Steadiman had sailed with me four
voyages. The first voyage, John was third
mate out to China, and came home second.
The other three voyages, he was my first
officer. At this time of chartering the
Golden Mary, he was aged thirty-two.