If He Had Lived At The Present Day He
Would Infallibly Have Been A Naval Expert, Better Informed Than
Most And More Trenchant Than All; But Recognizably One Of The
Species, Artist In Words And Amateur Of Ocean-Strategy.
[Smollett
had, of course, been surgeon's mate on H.M.S. Cumberland, 1740-41.]
His first curiosity at Nice was raised concerning the port,
the harbour, the galleys moored within the mole, and the naval
policy of his Sardinian Majesty.
His advice to Victor Amadeus was
no doubt as excellent and as unregarded as the advice of naval
experts generally is. Of more interest to us is his account of
the slave-galleys. Among the miserable slaves whom "a British
subject cannot behold without horror and compassion," he observes
a Piedmontese count in Turkish attire, reminding the reader of
one of Dumas' stories of a count among the forcats. To learn that
there were always volunteer oarsmen among these poor outcasts is
to reflect bitterly upon the average happiness of mankind. As to
whether they wore much worse off than common seamen in the
British navy of the period (who were only in name volunteers and
had often no hope of discharge until they were worn out) under
such commanders as Oakum or Whiffle [In Roderick Random.] is
another question. For confirmation of Smollett's account in
matters of detail the reader may turn to Aleman's Guzman
d'Afarache, which contains a first-hand description of the life
on board a Mediterranean slave galley, to Archenholtz's Tableau
d'Italie of 1788, to Stirling Maxwell's Don John of Austria
(1883, i. 95), and more pertinently to passages in the Life of a
Galley Slave by Jean Marteilhe (edited by Miss Betham-Edwards in
1895). After serving in the docks at Dunkirk, Marteilhe, as a
confirmed protestant, makes the journey in the chain-gang to
Marseilles, and is only released after many delays in consequence
of the personal interest and intervention of Queen Anne.
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