Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

FROM THE HONOURABLE CAPTAIN BERKELEY, R.N. C.B.

Admiralty, 27th April.

In

MY DEAR SIR,-Your letter has been a most severe shock. your Brother I have lost a most sincere and valued friend, and the service one of its very best officers.

Would that anything I could write could lessen the poignancy of your feelings: but I know full well that is impossible.

Yours very sincerely,

W. F. F. BERKELEY.

FROM CAPTAIN SIR GEORGE BACK, R.N.

106, Gloucester Place, London, August 4th, 1847.

DEAR SIR,-The letter you were kind enough to write to me, with the sad intelligence of your poor Brother's death, I only got yesterday, it having been to Italy and back. My impression was that he was in perfect health, and very likely to obtain employment. You may imagine, therefore, how my heart sunk on knowing the truth; for, as you may be aware, we were much attached, and in losing him one of my strongest ties to the service is for ever severed. I cannot tell you, my dear Mr. Sainthill, how this unthought-of bereavement has depressed me, and how sincerely I condole with Mrs. Forster, yourself, and your family. Pray remember me kindly to her, and, with equally good wishes to yourself,

Believe me, very truly yours,

GEO. BACK.

Richd. Sainthill, Esq.

EXTRACT FROM A REVIEW OF THE TABLEAUX DE LA LITTERATURE PENDANT LE DIXHUITIEME SIECLE.

ROUSSEAU. Speaking of the celebrated profession of faith by the Vicaire Savoyard, the author of the Tableaux says, "One is

surprised to see him ascend at first by a noble flight up to the knowledge of a God, and then take his departure from that point to the rejection of all positive religion and forms of worship. But such a march is conformable to the whole philosophy of Rousseau. The idea of a Divinity, a vague sentiment of gratitude and respect towards Him,-in a word, whatever is called natural religion, all this is within the province of imagination. One may be continually impressed with these noble thoughts without feeling their influence in our actions; but worship is the positive application of these sentiments; it is through this medium that they become useful; it is by this alone that they acquire a body, that they assume a reality, and become possessed of some influence over our conduct. examining Rousseau one sees that there is an analogy between religion without worship and virtue without practice."—pp. 131, 132.

In

"To this just and noble passage it is only necessary to add, that the homage which God requires of his creatures is not that of postures and rituals, but of their hearts and lives; a service such as it becomes Him to receive, and which it constitutes our true happiness to render. Doctrines which float only in the imagination are rather contemplated than believed. The reception of divine truths of which the Scriptures speak is their reception by the whole manunderstanding them, feeling them, and loving them."--pp. 304, 305. December 19, 1821.

I was much struck in reading the above with the analogy which may be drawn from the practical unbelief of many who in this our day, having been born of Christian parents, and living in a Christian country, imagine that they inherit Christianity as they inherit their names and armorial bearings; although they neither attend public worship, read the Bible, nor possibly ever address a prayer in private to God. They would set down that man as insane who should consider himself qualified to preside in a court of law, or to lead the band at the opera house, who never looked into a law book, and was ignorant even of the gamut; and yet they rest secure of obtaining eternal happiness without ever inquiring on what terms it has been offered!

T. Crofton Croker, Esq.

RD. SAINTHILL, Jr.

JOHN TRANCKMORE, OF TOPSHAM.

At p. 321 of the Olla Podrida, I have shewn the affinity of our family, by the marriage of Mary Tranckmore to John Sainthill, to the mariner so wonderfully delivered from a watery grave, as related in Mr. James Janeway's Legacy to his Friends, 1683, 12mo.* from which I now extract the "22d Remarkable Deliverance," at full:

66

22ND REMARKABLE SEA DELIVERANCE, p. 50.

Captain John Trankmore, Commander of a ship belonging to Apsom, near Exeter, in one of his voyages of late years, being at sea in a dark night and foul weather, fell foul of another ship unexpectedly; then not knowing what each other was, but a sea parting them again; in the interim, Captain Trankmore's ship shipt a great sea, which washed the said Trankmore overboard, and another sea cast or hove him into the other ship, which fell out to be an Englishman bound for Plimouth: thus, in the dark, the wind and sea part the said ships, that without having knowledge of each other, Captain Trankmore concluding that his own ship was foundered, and all his men lost, and God had wrought a wonder of mercy in his preservation. But it so fell out, that one Samuel Snytal, who was his apprentice, had obtained such knowledge of the art of navigation, and his master being gone, as they supposed drowned, being washed overboard, was necessitated to improve his skill, and by God's blessing, he carried the ship safe home to Apsom; where, arriving, although he had made a good voyage, yet the sorrow for the loss of the master eat up all the comfort and smiles that a prosperous voyage otherwise would have made. But so Providence ordered that

66

"Mr. James Janeway's Legacy to his Friends.

Containing twenty-seven famous instances of God's Providences in and about Sea Dangers and Deliverances; with the names of several that were eye-witnesses to many of them. Whereunto is added a Sermon on the same subject.

'Go up now, look towards the sea; and he went up and looked, and said, there is nothing; and he said, Go up seven times; and at the seventh time he said, Behold there ariseth a little cloud,' &c.—1 Kings, xviii. 44.

'Come and hear all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.'-Psalm lxvi. 16.

"London: Printed for Dorman Newman, and to be sold by Thomas Malthus, at the Sun in the Poultry, 1683."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

about the same time, or three or four days after, the other ship arrived safe at Plimouth, where the said Frankmore landed very sorrowful and dejected, having, as he supposed, lost his ship (wherein he was deeply concerned as an adventurer himself and all his men), was in the morning walking on the Hope at Plimouth very dejectedly, he providentially meets with one of his executors or Apsom neighbours, who looks him in the face with astonishment, knowing him well, and yet believing the report of his being dead or lost, in amaze salutes him with these expressions: What, Captain Trankmore!' who replies, A poor Captain, having lost my ship richly laden, and after a good voyage, with all my men, not a soul saved but myself.' Whom, by a miracle, God wrought salvation for, as before recited, giving the gentleman his neighbour an account of the Providence towards him; which after a little pause, his friend imbraces him, and with admiring of the Providence, bids him be of good heart, for his ship and all his company was well and safe arrived at Apsom, for his man Samuel Snytal had brought her safe home, and all the sorrow and cry there was for the loss of him. Which reply struck the said Trankmore in as much amaze on the other hand, being almost incredulous of truth, till his friend positively affirming it, and then consulting his own mercy, saw and was made sensible there was no mercy too great for God to work, and from thence took heart, recovering himself went home rejoyceing, where he found his expectation answered, and a welcome gives to all persons with him concerned.

"For the truth I have heard it acknowledged by Captain Trankmore's own mouth, at my house in Bristol, and further, the same Snytal was my predecessor's son, and I have heard his mother-inlaw speak of it to several, and hath affirmed it to me for a truth."

It is a curious circumstance, that the licences of marriage of the grand-parents of both John Sainthill and Mary Tranckmore were taken out on the same day, in the Bishop of Exeter's Court, and are returned to me by the Registrar thus::

"1631.

"June 9. Emať Liña ma1 inter Joħem Tranckmore de Shoram in com. Sussex et Mariam Parker de Topsham, vid."

"June 9. Emť Liña ma" int Franciscum Sainthill de Rockbere et Susannam Pyne de Whimple."

"170.

"Feb. 27. L'a mri inter Johannem Sainthill de Topsham, et Elizabetham Trankmore de eadem, spinster."

In addition to the circumstances narrated by Janeway, there is a tradition in our family that when Captain Tranckmore returned from Plymouth, on coming to the ferry on the River Exe, at Topsham, the boatman being on the Topsham side, pulled over on seeing a customer, but lay on his oars when he perceived the figure to be that of Tranckmore, supposed to have been lost at sea. The latter, naturally impatient to reach his family, called out to him angrily to hasten over, to which the ferryman replied, “I know who you are, and I'm not coming any nearer;" and it was with great difficulty Tranckmore persuaded the boatman that it was not a ghost he was talking to.

I have some relics of the ancient mariner. His portrait with a finely painted sea, a stormy sky, and the ships in the distance; in the foreground of the picture, there is an hour-glass, scull, and an open book, the pages of which inculcate religious thoughts and moral actions. I have also his seal, and drinking goblet, both of silver, and on each are the same armorial bearings: Quarterly per fesse indented or and azure, four lion's heads erased counterchanged. Crest, A demi antelope, transpierced through the neck with an arrow bendwise, both proper. A napkin depicting Judith and Holofernes, marked J. M. T. at one corner, closes the list.

I find, by an examination of the parish registers, that Tranckmore's apprentice Samuel Snytal settled at Topsham, and was buried there 1 May, 1698. Janeway, who was an Independent Minister at Bristol, speaks of him as the son of his predecessor; and the names of Snytal's children indicate that, though he joined the Church, his connections or predilections were of a dissenting nature. On the 12th December, 1671, his son Isaiah; 12 April, 1677, his daughter Sara; 26 Sep. 1679, Susanna; and the 18th April, 1683, Samuel; appear in the register of baptisms. Janeway does not give the year when this wonderful sea deliverance occurred, nor am I able to supply his omission. But these memoranda, which I have added, prove the accuracy of his narrative of Tranckmore; and we have therefore every reason to suppose that his other deliverances are equally founded on facts.

« ZurückWeiter »