CHAPTER III

WANDERJAHRE

Smollett’s Lehrjahre were over, his Wanderjahre were about to commence. After passing his examination in Glasgow, he returned for a time to his mother’s house at Dalquharn, glad once more to feel himself among the scenes of his early boyhood. Changes great and manifold had, however, taken place there. His grandfather had, as we have seen, died some years before, so had his uncle, James Smollett; and now another James, the son of the old Commissary’s second son, George, and therefore a full cousin of Tobias, was laird of Bonhill. His mother, though still undisturbed in her tenancy of Dalquharn, was preparing to spend at least one half of each year with her daughter Jane, Smollett’s only sister, who had a month or two before been married to Mr. Telfer. Home was no longer home to him. His eldest brother was away with his regiment, the friends of boyhood’s years were either scattered or had formed new ties. He felt, as he said in one of his letters, ‘like a bird that returns to find its nest torn down and harried.’

For him in his new profession there was of course no opening in his native district. The thriving village of Renton did not come into existence until 1782, eleven years after Smollett’s death. Dumbarton also was well supplied with medical practitioners; therefore his only chance lay in going farther afield. His mother would have liked to keep her Benjamin near her, but Benjamin had all the prodigal son’s love of roving without his vices. Besides, his studies in English literature had inflamed him with the desire to throw himself into the great literary gladiatorial arena—London. His friends were overborne by his enthusiasm. He was brimming over with all youth’s sanguine hopes. He would succeed, in fact, he could not fail to succeed, was his insistent assurance. Alas! he had yet to learn in the hard school of disappointment that in nine cases out of ten the battle is not to the strong, nor the race to the swift, but that literary success then as now was a lottery, wherein the least worthy often bears away the prize.

The days were past when the head of the family, the laird of Bonhill, could afford material assistance to any youthful scion of the house proceeding out into the battle of life. Beyond good wishes and a bulky sheaf of introductions, his cousin, James Smollett, had little to give Tobias. As it was, however, the future novelist carried away from his native place the best of all recommendations and heritages, an unsullied character, with an indomitable love of honest independence that atones for a multitude of less lovely traits. ‘What kind of work you individually can do ... the first of all problems for a man to find out, that is the thing a man is born to in all epochs,’ were the wise and weighty words of Thomas Carlyle in his Rectorial address. To Tobias Smollett the problem in question was one whereto he applied himself with all youth’s jaunty assurance. At nineteen the point at issue usually is not ‘What career am I fit for?’ but ‘What career shall I choose?’ a faculty, a capacity for all being confidently presupposed as a precedent certainty. Youth can make no calculation of probabilities. The ratios of chance are always esteemed likely to favour the young gladiator. So with Smollett. With a light heart he went forth to the deadly battle of life, recking not that the Goliath of failure and disappointment was waiting for him almost at the parting of the ways, and that the only pebbles in his bag were a boyish tragedy, and the certificate of surgical proficiency from an obscure Scottish medical school. With such weapons, would he prove successful in the impending strife? From this second point of view the aphorism is once more apposite, that the battle is not to the strong.

In 1740, therefore, Tobias Smollett took farewell of his Dumbartonshire home, and turned his face Londonwards—one more tiny unit to be sucked down for a time into the moiling, whirling, indistinguishable crowd revolving in the vortex of the mighty social maelstrom. Fearlessly as Schiller’s ‘Diver’ did the youth plunge into ‘the howling Charybdis below’; but, alas! the effects of the sufferings, both mental and physical, which he underwent ere ‘he rose to the surface again,’ were to follow hard on his footsteps, even to the end of life. Even as Thomas de Quincey, sixty years after, was to find Oxford Street a stony–hearted stepmother, so Smollett, alone in the mighty metropolis, was made to realise, with an insistence that burned itself into his inmost heart, that no solitary in the Sahara is more isolated than he who is, unknowing and unknown, an atom in a vast London crowd. Men in after years talked glibly of the irritability of the great novelist. They could not realise in their shallow complacency what a crucifixion those years of failure were to the proud, unbending spirit. Had Smollett been less self–confident, he would have suffered less. To a mind like his, it was the crushing consciousness of a mistaken estimate of his own powers that infused into his nature that strain of gall that manifests itself even in the brightest of his writings.

To London therefore Smollett repaired with high hopes. That these were based upon his tragedy rather than on his medical acquirements is evident from his letters of this period, as well as from the preface to The Regicide, when, later on, it was published. Like another Scot, who nine years afterwards was to ‘hasten’ to London with his tragedy of Agis, only to meet with like mortification, to wit, John Home, Smollett imagined he had only to present his play to the managers of the leading theatres to secure its instant acceptance. He was roughly disillusionised. In the first place, the merits of The Regicide are of the scantiest. Its boyishness and immaturity, its stiffness and bombast, are perceptible on every page. The characters, again, are perpetually firing off such exclamations and expletives as, ‘Tremendous powers!’ ‘O fatal chance!’ ‘Mysterious fate!’ ‘Infernal homicide!’ and the like, scarce a speech being ungarnished by one of them. No sooner had Smollett arrived in London than he hastened to lay his tragedy before the managers of the theatres. After prolonged delays it was returned to him declined. Though his vanity was cut to the quick by this neglect of his genius, as he considered it, he looked so far to the main chance that he endeavoured to induce Lord Lyttleton to use his interest with Mr. Rich, Mr. Garrick, or Mr. Lacy, the great theatrical managers of the day. The only particular wherein that nobleman seems to have been blameworthy was that, out of excess of amiability, he did not care to wound the author’s feelings by telling him of the lack of merit in his play. Smollett, however, accused him and the managers, along with his other patrons, of well–nigh all the crimes under heaven, because of their failure to perceive in his tragedy beauties that had no place there. To resurrect the whole controversy would be as unprofitable as to retail one of last century’s stale jokes. Those who desire to pursue the investigation will find the circumstances recounted by Smollett in his silly preface to The Regicide, when, some years subsequent, he published it by subscription—that is, after the success of Roderick Random had rendered him famous. He was weak enough, also, to endeavour to satirise the parties to his disappointment in the novel in question. The story of Melopoyn and his attempt to obtain recognition of his dramatic genius is, mutatis mutandis, intended to represent Smollett’s own case.

The small store of guineas which the youth had brought with him from Scotland were meantime fast vanishing. Any remunerative employment seemed as far distant as ever. The prejudice in London against impecunious Scots was then at its height. All very well was it for such men as Arbuthnot, Thomson, Mallet, and Mickle to speak of the favour shown them in London by King, Court, and Government. Against these four, who were wafted into the haven of popularity by propitious gales almost at the very outset of their literary career, how many scores are there, little inferior to them in genius, as well as learning, who sank into Grub Street hacks through not having any patron to recommend their productions? The patronless man was a pariah, even as in feudal days a villein without a lord was ranked as a wild beast.

Although the narrative in Roderick Random of the hero’s treatment at the Navy Office, the examination he passed, the means whereby he was enabled in the end to get appointed as surgeon’s assistant, are exaggerated, still there must have been a solid substratum of fact drawn from the author’s own experience in similar circumstances. Regarding this period of Smollett’s life the information is exceedingly meagre. That he went through terrible privations, can be guessed from the fact that he informed John Home he shuddered whenever he remembered those days. How he obtained a position on board the Cumberland, an eighty–gun vessel in the fleet commanded by Sir Challoner Ogle, there is now no means of ascertaining. Whether through the pressgang, like Roderick Random, or by some other channel more legitimate and honourable, is unknown. Mr. David Hannay, in his admirable and valuable life of Smollett, states that there is no certainty which of the sixteen ships in Ogle’s fleet he served on. Dr. Anderson, in his life of the novelist, relates that Smollett left his name carved on the timbers of the Cumberland. But an examination of her books reveals no such name as Smollett, though a Smalley does occur, and the shadow of a probability is thereby raised that a mistake in names may have been made.

Be this as it may, one fact is certain,—Smollett was present at the expedition to Carthagena, whatever might be the ship in which he sailed, and whatsoever the capacity wherein he served. On this point Carlyle’s statements in Frederick the Great (to be cited further on), though pronounced by some critics only another example of Carlylean exaggeration, are by no means wide of the mark. The expedition to Carthagena was one of the most gigantic crimes ever perpetrated by a Government, while its mismanagement is an ineffaceable blot on the British army and navy. Spain had looked with a jealous eye upon the progress of the British American colonies. All that lay in her power she did to harass them. British commerce was suffering, but the Ministry of Sir Robert Walpole seemed utterly indifferent to the prestige of the national arms, or even to the safety of the colonial possessions. As Smollett long years afterwards stated in his History of England, ‘no effectual attempt had been made to annoy the enemy. Expensive squadrons had been equipped, had made excursions, and had returned without striking a blow. Admiral Vernon had written from the West Indies to his private friends that he was neglected and in danger of being sacrificed. Notwithstanding the numerous navy of Great Britain, Spanish privateers made prizes of the British merchant ships with impunity.’ A complete paralysis seemed to have fallen on the national energies, consequent on the laissez–faire policy of the peace–loving Whig Premier, Sir Robert Walpole. At last the exasperation of the nation, with the disgraces that had fallen upon it, both in Europe and South America, burst all bounds, and swept Minister and Government along with the popular enthusiasm.

As Jamaica had long been threatened by certain Spanish ships of war with land forces on board, Sir Challoner Ogle was ordered to proceed with his vessels thither to effect a junction with Admiral Vernon. Accordingly, the fleet, of which the Cumberland was one, set sail in November, and reached Jamaica on the 9th January 1741. Vernon now found himself at the head of the most formidable naval force that had ever visited those seas, while the land forces were also strong in proportion. Had this armament been ready to act under the command of wise and experienced commanders, united in counsels and steadily attached to the honour and interests of their country, the whole of Spain’s possessions in the Western Hemisphere would now have belonged to Britain. But, owing to the death of Lord Cathcart, the general in command of the land forces, the command devolved on General Wentworth, a man utterly unfit for the position. Admiral Vernon (also a nincompoop) and he spent their time and energies in counteracting each other’s influence, and actually taking steps to frustrate each other’s plans. Finding that the Spanish admiral, De Torres, had retired from Jamaica, in place of following him to Havannah, Vernon decided to attack Carthagena, and sailed thither, despite Wentworth’s remonstrances. This was blunder No. 1. The second was in attempting to prosecute the enterprise in the face of such divided counsels. The consequence was a terrible loss of life by disease and the risks of war, because neither commander seemed to care how many were killed, provided they were not his own men. Therefore neither supported the other. The horrors of that expedition are past belief. Smollett’s grim and ghastly picture of them, in his ‘Account of the Expedition against Carthagena,’ in the Compendium of Voyages and Travels, and in Roderick Random, is not over–coloured. We shall note it in its place, but meantime let us see what Carlyle has now to say to the case. In chapter xii. of Frederick the Great, under the heading ‘Sorrows of Britannic Majesty,’ he writes of the Carthagena expedition: ‘Most obscure among the other items in that Armada of Sir Challoner’s just taking leave of England; most obscure of the items then, but now most noticeable or almost alone noticeable, is a young surgeon’s mate—one Tobias Smollett, looking over the waters there and the fading coasts, not without thoughts. A proud, soft–hearted, though somewhat stern–visaged, caustic, and indignant young gentleman; apt to be caustic in speech, having sorrows of his own under lock and key, on this and subsequent occasions. Excellent Tobias, he has, little as he hopes it, something considerable by way of mission in this expedition and in this universe generally. Mission to take portraiture of English seamen, with the due grimness, due fidelity, and convey the same to remote generations before it vanish. Courage, my brave young Tobias, through endless sorrows, contradictions, toils, and confusions. You will do your errand in some measure, and that will be something.’

To describe in detail the hideous drama of mismanagement and sacrifice of valuable lives that ensued in consequence of Wentworth’s incapacity, and of the strained relations between him and Admiral Vernon, would be out of place here. Suffice it to say that, though British valour, in spite of adverse circumstances, gained one or two successes, the expedition as a whole was a ghastly failure. Let us instead exhibit the awful picture Smollett afterwards drew of the condition of things immediately prior to the breaking up of the siege—a picture that thrilled England with horror, and led eventually, along with one or two other contributory circumstances, to the complete reorganisation of the naval service of the country. In addition, it blasted for ever, and deservedly so, the careers of monsters so inhuman as Wentworth and Vernon. ‘As for the sick and wounded,’ says Smollett, ‘they were next day sent on board of the transports and vessels called hospital ships, where they languished in want of every necessary comfort and accommodation. They were destitute of surgeons, nurses, cooks, and proper provision; they were pent up between decks in small vessels, where they had not room to sit upright; they wallowed in filth; myriads of maggots were hatched in the putrefaction of their sores, which had no other dressing than that of being washed by themselves with their own allowance of brandy; and nothing was heard but groans, lamentations, and the language of despair, invoking death to deliver them from their miseries. What served to encourage this despondence was the prospect of those poor wretches who had the strength and opportunity to look about them. For there they beheld the naked bodies of their fellow–soldiers and comrades floating up and down the harbour, affording prey to the carrion crows and sharks, which tore them in pieces without interruption, and contributing by their stench to the mortality that prevailed. The picture cannot fail to be shocking to the humane reader, especially while he is informed that while these miserable objects cried in vain for assistance, and actually perished for want of proper attendance, every ship of war in the fleet could have spared a couple of surgeons for their relief; and many young gentlemen of that profession solicited their captains in vain for leave to go and administer help to the sick and wounded; but the discord between the chiefs was inflamed to such a degree of diabolical rancour, that the one chose rather to see his men perish than ask help of the other, who disdained to offer his assistance unasked, though it might have saved the lives of his fellow–subjects.’

Such, then, was the frightful fiasco of the Carthagena expedition, in which the young Tobias served, and, by his serving as a humble surgeon’s mate, was able to render a service to his country, the beneficial effects of which are felt to this day. Not only did he expose the awful consequences of personal animosity between the leaders of a great naval–military expedition. Great as was that service, the second was greater still. David Hannay felicitously remarks: ‘It was Smollett’s good fortune that he saw the navy at the very lowest ebb it has reached since there was a navy in England. In 1740 it was as little organised as it had been in the seventeenth century. There was more flogging and more callous cruelty in every way than there had been a century earlier.’ A truer statement of fact could scarcely be made. The navy at that period was suffering in common with the army from the disastrous effects of the Whig Walpole’s peace–at–any–price policy. In fact, there was no proper Admiralty supervision by permanent officials. Everything was at the mercy of party scheming and intrigue. Incompetency ruled in all departments. Not until the accession of the elder Pitt was there a change for the better. British prestige was dragged through the mire of disgrace in every corner of the world, and the affairs of the navy were simply left to direct themselves, while the individuals nominally in charge squabbled and plotted for place and power.

It was by his immortal pictures in Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle of the horrors of navy service, and of the ignorance and brutality characterising the men who were proudly termed ‘the tars of Old England,’ that Smollett really revolutionised the navy. Slow though the improvements might be in filtering through the various strata of the service, from Admiralty to seamen, the first note of reform was struck when Smollett penned that awfully realistic picture of life on board the Thunder man–of–war, with the characters of Captain Oakum, Surgeon MacShane, and the others connected with that floating hell. In our concluding chapters we shall examine the truthfulness or otherwise of Smollett’s character–painting. Here, however, it may be remarked that the description of the facts, as well as the local ‘atmosphere,’ have been reported by those present at the attack on Carthagena, and serving in the navy at the time, to be absolutely correct.

After the failure of the expedition, the shattered and disgraced fleet betook itself to Jamaica to refit. While here, Smollett decided that he had seen enough of navy life, and that henceforth his labours would lie ashore. The beauty of the island tempted him to settle there. Accordingly, he retired from the service after fifteen months’ experience of it, and started practice as a doctor in the island. What his success was cannot now be ascertained. In less than two years he is found in London, namely, in the beginning of 1744, striving once more to gain a living in the great metropolis.

Only one influence followed him into life from the sunny island of Jamaica. He there wooed and won Miss Anne or Nancy Lascelles, a young Kingston heiress. When he returned to London, he returned as an engaged man. In one of his unpublished letters, he expressly states that he was not married until 1747, when Miss Lascelles came to England. But, on the other hand, there is evidence in Jamaica that some sort of ceremony was performed before Smollett left the island in the end of 1743. However this may be, Smollett’s Wanderjahre or years of wandering were now over. He settled down straightway to do the work Heaven laid to his hand, with all the energy that in him lay.