AN OLD SEA-DOG

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 78, 29 September 1934, Page 27

AN OLD SEA-DOG

PRISONER OF THE DUTCH

THE DIARY OF EDWARD

BARLOW

COLOURFUL STORY

I One of the most remarkable jour- ! rials of life at sea is that which has I come down to us from Edward Barlow, born at Prestivick in 1642, tho son of a poor husbandman, says a writer in the "News-Chronicle." It was a common tiling for naval officers, master mariners, and deep-water mates to keep private' logs; Barlow, however was a common seaman in King's ships .and merchantmen. But he kept a journal of some 225,000 words, closely and beautifully written on thick, hand-made foolscap, covering his life from the age of thirteen, when he left home to become a "whitester" or bleacher, Up to the clay when ho left sea at' sixty-one. Further, ho illustrated it meticulously with 127 sketches of ships and ports, sea birds and fish, in colour, and iiftyfivc pencil drawings of coastlines for the assistance of navigators.

Mr. Basil Luboek, in transcribing from tho original MS., claims that Barlow stands alone in his artistry and can bear comparison with contemporary sea diarists such as the admiral, Lord Montagu, firgt Earl of Sandwich; the naval chaplain, Henry Teougc; the slave-trader, Captain Nathaniel Uring; the buccaneers, Dnmpier and Bartholomew Sharp; and tho , privateersmen, Woodes, Rogers, and Shelvocke. But. how Barlow managed "to write and draw bo boautifully in tho dank, dark forecastles of ships, which rolled and tossed like barrels in even the slightest sea, is beyond my comprehension. Probably his only writing desk and drawing-board were the lid of his sea chest and his only light a purser's tallow dip, which in the foul air of a foc's'le, crowded .to suffocation by tircd-ont, heavy-breathing seamen, must often have refused to do more than gutter.'' CAPTUEED. The first dozen or so chapters were written when he was-.a prisoner o£ the Dutch in oppressive Batavia; tho rest mainly at sea. Barlow records in graphic detail his capture, in 1672, _ in. the Straits of Banca, where eight Dutcn ships intercepted his own, tho Experiment, and made a prize of her.■■ The Dutchmen swarmed aboard, "plundering and breaking up chests, up and down the ship and cabins, and one carrying away his arms full of silk^one place, and another his pockets full of gold in another . ... some B*tfang-hWe tnough, yet would bo sure to fill then bellies full of good drink, which they found plentiful about the ship, making themselves drunk as beggars, all being prizo what they found." ■■ Barlow, spying an open hatch, slipped past them into the hold, unlocked his chest, took gold and silver out, hid tho best part of tho gold in his shoes— "where I kept it above a yoar longer —and gave three shipmates four pounds each to hold for him. Tlio ensuing months wore a time 01 great hardship. The prisoners^ were called "English Dogs" by their captors and "beaten niaay times it wo did but deny to work for them, which was against all reason to force prisoners to work, for they do no more to their slaves in- Turkey, and-many times-.ttie slaves get their bellyful of/.victuals, but we could not get our half full, unless we could" cat it full of Sry rico, which has as much heart in it as a picco of wood." . . Simple Barlow's cup of bitterness overflowed when, asking his shipmates in "Patavia" for tho money he had committed to their keeping, they would give him only half of it.- - HIS CONSOLATION. His one consolation was lxis journal, ■begun hero in' the hope that friends "may understand in part what dangers and troubles poor seamen pass through and also of the manner and situation of most places which I havo been at since I first went to sea." Barlow was not of your gay "sailors don't care" school. He cared a great deal about the short rations and 'the lamentable quality thereof, the constant sleeping in one's clothes, so as to be ready- to "go up into the maintop or foretop to take in our topsails, half awako- and half asleep, with one shoe on and the other off, not having time to put it on," tho ordeals By storm and other dangers. Even in the fairest weather "the least fire may set a ship on fire, many ships having been burnt by Bomo careless man in smoking a pipe of tobacco; and in carelessess of tho cook in not putting the fire well out at night; and of burning of a candle in a man's cabin, he falling asleep and forgetting to put it out; and by burning of brandy and other strong liquors; and in many other ways a ship is set alight, and when they are on fire it is a huudrod to one if that you put it out, everything being so pitchy and tarry that the least fire setteth it all in flame; and also there is great danger of powder, for the least spark with a hammer or anything else in the room where itis, or" the snuff of a candle causeth all to be turned into a blast, and in a moment no hopes of any person's lives being saved from death in the twinkling of an eye." . SHARE OP ADVENTURE. Barlow certainly had his share of adventure. He served against the Barb'ary pirates under Lord Sandwich in 1661-62; fought at the Battle of Lowestoft, and saw the ship of the Dutch Admiral Opdam blow up; and was knocked over by a spent ball in the Four Days' Fight; took part in the victory of St. James' Day; and was shipwrecked on the Goodwins in 1675. The naive Beaman is frankly superstitious about this laat affair. At North Bergen, from which port the ship sailed, aomo of tho men refused to pay for thoir lodgings, the akippor refused to pay for- them, and tho irate landladies heaped curses on ship and crew. The master, in the courso of tho voyage, ' < told me once that he could not take any rest in tho night, and always when ho was almost asleep ho was still tift'rightod with the old woman that ho had doniod to pay money which was duo to her, when wo came away, from some of our men, and that she was ready to pull him out of his bod, and so he was troubled every night, and wo had much bad weather and cross winds." furthermore, ii black cat was discovered on board. Small wonder, then, when the Morentine struck the sands in a gale in the dark and had to be abandoned before she broke up, Barlow only just managed to dive below for his precious Journal ana get away with it with the help of the Deal boatmen. "Heathens," Barlow called them, for they claimed two-thirds of overything salved from tho ship; "the Turks could do no more."

Barlow's entries concern happenings on shore as %yell as at sea. He gives an account of Charles ll's return which makes an interesting contrast with that of Popys, and of tho finding of a great whftlo at Greenwich in June, 16S8, recorded also in Evelyn's diary. Barlow actually stood on the whale's back and Baw bits of him, "the bigness of a man's finger," being sold as mementoes at twopence or threepence a time; for which excursion he, being a lad, received a heating.