Outalissi; a Tale of Dutch Guiana

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Chapter XIII. The Conflagration.

‘Dum Latium Teucri recidivaque Pergama quærunt
Non satius cineres patriæ insedisse supremos,
Atque solum quo Troja fuit?
     Æneid.

The fortress where Mr. Cotton was confined is to the extreme windward of the town, and altogether detached from it by a small intervening plain, so that he was quite safe from the fire; but his house, where Matilda resided, was about the centre of the town, and of course exposed to its greatest fury. I should have told my readers that Paramaribo, like most of the towns in the West Indies, is built entirely of wood, and contains perhaps about ten thousand inhabitants. Matilda's intention was, if the fire approached at all near, to join her father in the prison, and wait there till it was extinguished; but so unexampled was the rapidity of its progress, that when, after making the best arrangements she could for the preservation of papers and furni-

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ture, she attempted to put her intention into execution, she found the interposing houses nothing but a solid mass of fire, completely interrupting in fact all access from the leeward to the windward side of the town. Many families fled wild and distracted into the leeward savannahs; but this afforded little security, as there was not a drop of rain, and if the wind had risen at all, the flames must soon have overtaken them, or in case of rain they would have perished perhaps still more miserably from sleeping out of shelter on the swampy ground; and such was the disgraceful panic and confusion that prevailed, that the streets (for a lady at least) were almost equally dangerous. Matilda Cotton therefore calmly resigned herself to Providence, and continued in the house. The troops employed themselves principally in staving in the casks, and knocking off the necks of the wine bottles, and before the end of the day were in consequence so drunk, and so much increased the confusion, that could Outalissi have re-collected his party, he might easily have overpowered them.

Edward Bentinck was of course upon duty, and by dint of taunts and threats, but not without great difficulty, he kept his men in tolerable order. Three or four of them, who wore the Waterloo medal, but seemed strongly disposed to tarnish it by

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following the example of their undisciplined comrades, he fortunately restrained by asking if they were not ashamed, with such a noble badge of true military glory upon them, to turn mere marauders, and that against their own friends and countrymen in the extremity of their distress, for whose protection they were sent out there - like the ruffians on some parts of the coast of England, who were charged with being constantly on the look out for shipwrecks, not to save the unhappy and defenceless sufferers, but to murder and plunder them, and if an opportunity occurred, decoying any ships in distress, without distinction of country, to their destruction for that very purpose? With these three or four steady men Edward Bentinck found it practicable to controul the rest of the party.

He had procured a station as near as he could to Mr. Cotton's house, which in less than three hours from the commencement of the fire, was, with all the adjoining ones, enveloped in flames. Matilda had retired to an upper room, and was calmly anticipating her fate, (her domestics having fled in all directions by her express commands,) when Edward presented himself with half a dozen files of men before her windows.

‘Mr. Bentinck,’ said Matilda, ‘do not, I entreat you, waste your assistance here, the lower

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part of the house has been burning some time, and the staircase is already smoking, so that to attempt its ascent must be suffocation, and it is impossible that you should reach me alive.’

There was no reply to be made; bursting the doors with the butt ends of his men's muskets, and leaving them at the bottom of the staircase, in half a minute Edward was at her side, followed by the flames which burst from every part of the staircase almost before he entered the room; retreat therefore by the same road was now really impossible, and the whole house was in danger of falling in from moment to moment.

‘Mr. Bentinck,’ said Matilda, ‘I must thank you, but you have acted very wrong; my life was of no value comparatively, yours of much and immediate importance; we must now both perish in the same grave.’

‘A grave,’ said Edward, ‘equally worthy of a soldier and a devoted friend, Miss Cotton! since you deny me a still better claim to it; but I am confident we may still avoid it, if you will trust yourself for two minutes in my arms, if not, I promise you that I will share your fate.’

If Matilda had not been habitually superior to all affectation, in such circumstances she felt that she had no right to relinquish any reasonable

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chance of saving her own life, much less if by so hesitating she should involve that of another.

‘But I see,’ said she, ‘no possible way in which your arms can avail me, or certainly I would gladly embrace it.’

‘Put yourself into this sling,’ said Edward, tying the two ends of his sash together, ‘and if you will make a seat of one end of it, I will put the other round my neck; and then, if you will also put one of your arms round and hold firmly, I have no doubt that mine are sufficiently strong, by the help of the lamp irons and a rope made of two or three of your shawls, to convey you safe from the windows to the street,’ which accordingly in that way without much difficulty he effected.

But when Edward Bentinck, with his lovely burden, had reached the street, he was almost as much at a loss how to dispose of her as ever; for if the fire had been produced by incendiaries it would probably be followed by an insurrection of the slaves, and it was impossible to tell what outrages might accompany it. At length he prevailed on her to allow him to carry her on board the William the First, a ship of five hundred tons burthen lying in the harbour, in which he had come from Holland, and the captain of which was a man of great respectability; with whom, therefore, having

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as he thought left her in temporary safety, he returned to his duties in the town.

The conflagration continued to rage with ungovernable fury, so that, in fact, in the space of less than eight hours from the commencement, the core of the town was burnt to a stump, and the houses in the skirts and suburbs continued blazing all night. At eight o'clock the dome of the beautiful octagon brick church, which was covered with shingles, a sort of wooden tiles, and stood in the very centre of the town, burst into a flame, and threw up one unbroken circular column of blaze of eighty feet diameter. At twelve o'clock at midnight a report, which sounded like the discharge of a piece of ordnance from one of the ships, attracted all eyes to the harbour, where they saw the flames playing about the shrouds and rigging of the William the First, which had caught fire from the intense heat and constant shower of blazing spars and burning ashes from the town, some of which had fallen into the hold, and in ten minutes her whole deck from stem to stern burst into a flame, and her cabin looked through her stern windows like the furnace of a glass-house, or that which was prepared by Nebuchadnezzar for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The Betsy, a large ship of three hundred tons, lying close to her, next caught fire,

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and both were burned to the water's edge. Not a hand could be spared from the other vessels, the captains of which were now only intent on saving themselves and cargoes by cutting their cables, and warping, drifting, or towing out of danger; and a second time the life of poor Matilda was suspended on a hair. The captain and several of his sailors had been blown up at the time of what was thought to be the discharge of a piece of ordnance, but which, in fact, was an explosion of a case of gunpowder in the hold, whilst they were pouring water down the gangway. Matilda, at the moment of this explosion, was in the cabin, to which the flames had not yet extended; and the surviving seamen, either forgetting Matilda in the cabin, or concluding that she must have shared the fate of the captain and their messmates, sprang from the forecastle, and were disposed of between the sharks and the other ships, which one or two of them only reached in safety, the ropes of the ships' boats had soon been burnt asunder, and the boats gone adrift. In this extremity Matilda was seen for a few seconds in an imploring attitude in the mizen chains, till her clothes caught fire, and then she plunged into the water, the ship having by this time been carried out by the tide a considerable distance from the shore.

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The agony of Edward Bentinck, when he saw the William the First in flames, and reproached himself that by the persuasion he had used to prevail on Miss Cotton to take refuge there, he had been the author of her present danger, was greater probably than even that of Matilda herself. After waiting many seconds in a vain attempt to launch a canoe through a bank of mud, on which it had been left by the ebb tide, he was upon the point of plunging from the quay to swim towards the vessel; but would never probably have reached it, much less succeeded in returning with Matilda in the same manner, who must therefore have perished if a quicker eye and stronger arm than Edward's, and a heart at least equally bold and faithful had not interposed to rescue her a second time from her impending fate.

‘Sir,’ said Outalissi, who had watched and knew every thing, and rushed to the harbour when he saw the flames had reached the shipping, seizing Edward by the shoulder, and holding him back at the instant he was about to spring into the water, ‘If I cannot save the lady, I am sure you cannot; and if you should accompany me and sink in the effort, you will only embarrass and may entangle us both. If I was encumbered with your ridiculous and suffocating dress, I could not possibly

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succeed myself; but lend me your sword,’ said he, at the same time gently snatching it out of Edward's hand, and springing like a flying fish nearly twenty feet from the quay, he reached the mizen chains of the William the Third, just in time to receive Matilda in his left arm as she threw herself into the water; and propelling himself principally by his feet, and making violent sweeps through the water with Edward's sword in his right-hand, the bright blade of which, by reflection from the blazing ship, made a stream of light about them which probably scared away all the water-christians, (as Outalissi used to call the sharks and alligators,) he brought her safe on shore, where he was received with a loud shout of acclamation; and returning his sword to Edward Bentinck, he committed Matilda to his charge.

‘Outalissi,’ said Matilda, ‘you have nobly won your freedom, and I will not rest till I have procured it for you.’

‘At present I am free,’ said Outalissi. ‘Mr. Bentinck can explain to you how I became so; and,’ said he, kneeling on one knee, and respectfully just touching the hand which Matilda offered him with his lips, ‘I have one boon only to request of my sweet and good young mistress, that when she hears my unhappy race cried down below

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the beasts of blood and burden, she will say that she knew at least one African, whose gratitude extended to the cheerful risk of his life;’ and before Matilda could reply, he had disappeared.

‘Where shall I have the honour of conducting Miss Cotton,’ said Edward Bentinck, ‘as I am sorry to say not a vestige remains of her house; and excepting a few trunks and boxes which we contrived to drag out of the hall, and which I have already sent up to Mr. Cotton, not a fragment remains of any furniture!’

‘O, my father! my father!’ said Matilda, ‘since the intervening town is now reduced to a plain of ashes, the gaoler's wife or daughter will supply me with a change of clothes for the present, and my father will be deranged if he has heard of my danger till he is assured of my escape, and I am sure he will find an opportunity of thanking both my kind friends, (for I must never overlook the service of Outalissi,) as they deserve for their generous self-devotion.’

‘I cannot stay now,’ said Edward Bentinck, ‘to receive Mr. Cotton's thanks,’ as he parted from Matilda at the door of the prison, ‘but I shall be overpaid if my exertions on this occasion should restore me to the rank which I once flattered myself that I enjoyed in the good opinion of Miss Cotton.’

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On Matilda's entering her father's apartment he started up, clasped his hands, and folding her to his heart, exclaimed, ‘Now let them take all, since my darling child's preserved to me. How thankful we should be that your brother Charles is still at Anne's Grove. But to whom am I indebted for this great mercy?’

When Matilda had described the occurrences in which she was either party or spectator, ‘I have wronged them both then,’ said Mr. Cotton; ‘I have wronged them grievously, but I trust I may yet live to repair to both the injustice I have done them.’ In fact, Mr. Cotton was exceedingly ill; totally unaccustomed to confinement, its effects only for a few weeks, (added to his apprehension of the probability of greater punishment,) in a miserable close dungeon, had become very evident in his strength, spirits, and appearance, and his agony for the few hours he was in suspense about his daughter, and perhaps the no less agitating surprise of his joy on his ocular conviction of her safety, threw him into a considerable fever, in which I must leave Matilda to attend him for the present, while I pursue the other parts of my story.

On the morning after the fire, the place where Paramaribo had been, resembled only the plain of

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Sodom and Gomorrah; nothing remained within the range of the fire but the brick, stumps, and foundations of the houses and smoking ashes, except two or three houses occupied by British residents, who not giving way to the general panic, by great exertions kept off the flames successfully through the awful night.^* The amount of property destroyed was computed at twelve hundred thousand pounds; and Outalissi could not help leaning against one of the unprostrated columns of the central octagon church for half an hour after sunrise, surveying with great complacency, or rather exultation, the sublime spectacle of desolation of which he was the author, ‘O!’ said he to himself, ‘that those accursed Christians that fired my peaceful village, and with the remorselessness of fiends consigned me and all my tribe to a life of hopeless exile and anguish, and the slow but sure extermination of the coarse, cold, cowardly, material, heartless, hopeless, inexorable^† cruelties of Dutch bondage, could witness this scene!! Although the destruction of ten times the property scarcely deserves the name of vengeance for the enslavement of a single mind, or the wanton extinction of a single life, yet, when they see what

* See Note L.

† See Note M.

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one bold heart and able hand can do, let them tremble for the certain day of full retribution.

‘When Afric's wrongs shall call to cleanse her shame
That embryo spirit, yet without a name,
That friend of nature, whose avenging hands
Shall burst the Libyans' adamantine bands!
Who sternly marking on his native soil
The blood, the tears, the anguish, and the toil,
Shall bid each righteous heart exult to see
Peace to the slave, and vengeance to the free!’^*

‘O! had there but been two Outalissis, even now the glorious prize of freedom would have here been won; but these Christian cowards at Anne's Grove, as I foreboded, have defeated the best half of my design; either their own hearts have failed them, or they have been betrayed by their sly prophet Mr. Schwartz.’ There was an expression of defiance in the noble figure and attitude of Outalissi during this soliloquy which did not escape the observation of the passengers, and upon an intimation of their suspicions to the town-guard, he was dodged, and from falling into one of the undisclosed cellars amongst the ruins, was ultimately

* I have substituted these beautiful lines of Campbell's for the actual expressions of Outalissi, of which the import was the same, but the energy was conveyed less in the words than the accompanying action. - Note by the Author.

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taken and lodged in another part of the same prison with his soi-disant owner.

I must now return with my readers to the conspirators at Anne's Grove. On the Friday preceding the destruction of the colonial capital, they commenced operations by seizing Mr. Hogshead, with the intention of immediately executing him for his cruelty to Charlotte Venture; after which they were, according to their arrangements with Outalissi, to make a blaze of the buildings, and then proceed directly before there should be time for the soldiers to intercept them, to assist their confederates in confining the whites, and firing the buildings upon all the neighbouring plantations. They recognized willingly the super cession of the Lex Talionis by the Christian religion, and instead of slowly flogging Mr. Hogshead to death, or employing any torture, they were merely proceeding to put a pistol to his brain, when Mr. Schwartz (who knew nothing positively of their intentions but from the general murmurs of dissatisfaction with which Mr. Hogshead, who was the cause of them, could not but be aware, as well as himself,) being now anxiously upon the watch, presented himself to them, and declared, that if they took Mr. Hogshead's life or any other, or had recourse to a single act of violence till they knew

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whether redress in the particular case of Charlotte Venture, and adequate protection against the recurrence of such outrages or any other gross injustice, could be obtained by a firm and general demand of it from the government, he would strike their names out of his list of Christ's disciples in that colony. After a long debate, the negroes were prevailed on to be content with putting the director into the stocks; but hesitation and vacillation in all these cases is almost always fatal. Before they had effected this design, (after losing so much time in discussion with Mr. Schwartz,) a detachment of soldiers had been brought up by one of the pampered and favourite drivers of the director, who had run down unobserved at the commencement of the tumult to the outpost, where Edward Bentinck had been stationed some weeks before, but which was new occupied by the officer who had relieved him.

On the arrival of the soldiers, all the ulterior parts of Outalissi's projects were at once defeated.

The director was of course rescued and set at liberty; the negroes were confined upon the plantation under a strong guard, - and upon Mr. Hogshead declaration to the officer in command, that Mr. Schwartz had been the instigator of the whole business, although this same officer had refused

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only a short time before to attend to or interfere with the complaint of Mr. Schwartz against Mr. Hogshead for rape and murder, Mr. Schwartz, after having had all his papers, even his private journal, seized and taken from him, was sent off on Sunday as soon as their apprehension of further explosion had subsided a little, under a military escort, with a letter from Mr. Hogshead to the fiscal, and another from the ensign on the spot to his commanding officer to Paramaribo, where he arrived with the tide on Monday evening, and was immediately consigned to a share of Outalissi's dungeon. At the same time, Mr. Hogshead, who knew nothing of what had happened at Paramaribo, took the opportunity for the sake of his security of sending up little Charles Cotton to his father, who with some difficulty procured, as a temporary asylum for him and his sister, and her dispersed domestics, one of the houses in a place called the Combay, a sort of suburb to Paramaribo, but to the windward of the fortress, and a little lower down the river.