A blue-and-yellow macaw (ara ararauna) inside the Santa Maria de Colombo at Madeira. The vessel, built in 1998 under the direction of Rob Wijntje, is a replica of the Santa Maria, Christopher Columbus’s flagship in his first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, in 1492. According to Cochrane, “on board most ships there is a pet animal of some kind”, and his uncle’s ship, the 28-gun frigate HMS Hind (1785), carried a parrot.
Part 1 of 2
THE destination of the Hind was the coast of Norway, to the fiords of which country the Government had reason to suspect that French privateers might resort, as hiding-places whence to annoy our North Sea and Baltic commerce.* We had not, however, the luck to fall in with either convoy or privateers, though for the latter every inlet was diligently searched. The voyage was, therefore, without incident, further than the gratifying experience of Norse hospitality and simplicity; qualities which, it is to be feared, may have vanished before the influence of modern rapidity of communication, without being replaced by others equally satisfactory.
To us youngsters, this Norwegian trip was a perpetual holiday, for my uncle, though a strict disciplinarian, omitted no opportunity of gratifying those under his command, so that we spent nearly as much time on shore as on board; whilst the few hours occupied in running along the coast from one inlet to another supplied us with a moving panorama, scarcely less to our taste than were the hospitalities on shore.
The French Republic created by the bloody revolution of 1789 wanted to extend France to its ‘natural frontiers’ of the Rhine and the Alps, and to spread republicanism to nations groaning under the tyranny of monarchy. Having defeated Prussia and invaded both the Austrian Netherlands and Savoy, France declared war on Britain in 1793 as the British seemed unwilling to liberate themselves, but the action on The Glorious First of June in 1794 showed that they would not be forced; see also Jemima Fawr and the Last Invasion of Britain. The Republic collapsed soon afterwards. Just one year later, the two neighbours were embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars of 1803-1815, as the new French Emperor sought nothing less than European empire.
Précis
When Admiral Cochrane was a young man, he went to Norway with the Royal Navy aboard his uncle’s ship the ]Hind’. The mission was to root out French privateers, but they found none, and the voyage was like an enjoyable vacation, as the scenery was beautiful and the Norwegians very welcoming to their English visitors. (55 / 60 words)
Part Two
A Royal Navy boatswain (pronounced bo-sun) in about 1820, from the National Maritime Museum. The expression on his face was probably not much different from lieutenant Jack Larmour’s, when Polly stole the boatswain’s tune. Admiral Thomas Cochrane was one of Britain’s most daring and most controversial naval commanders, who served with distinction in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and played a decisive role in winning the independence of Chile, Peru and Brazil. He also made the squabbling Greek revolutionaries agree on a united government in 1827.
ON board most ships there is a pet animal of some kind. Ours was a parrot, which was Jack Larmour’s aversion, from the exactness with which the bird had learned to imitate the calls of the boatswain’s whistle. Sometimes the parrot would pipe an order so correctly as to throw the ship into momentary confusion, and the first lieutenant into a volley of imprecations, consigning Poll to a warmer latitude than his native tropical forests.
One day a party of ladies paid us a visit aboard, and several had been hoisted on deck by the usual means of a ‘whip’ on the mainyard.* The chair had descended for another ‘whip,’ but scarcely had its fair freight been lifted out of the boat alongside, than the unlucky parrot piped ‘Let go!’* The order being instantly obeyed, the unfortunate lady, instead of being comfortably seated on deck, was soused overhead in the sea!* Luckily for Poll, Jack Larmour was on shore at the time, or this unseasonable assumption of the boatswain’s functions might have ended tragically.
A whip or gantline is a simple rope and pulley, normally used for lifting cargo on and off the ship. The mainyard is a horizontal spar of the mainmast, from which the mainsail hangs down.
Note that the parrot did not actually say ‘Let go’ in so many words, but piped a command to loose the whip as if on a boatswain’s whistle.
Soused means thoroughly soaked, or plunged into liquid, especially into brine (salty water) for pickling.
Précis
The ‘Hind’ had a pet parrot, which could imitate all the boatswain’s piped commands. One day, a Norwegian party toured the ship, and as one lady was being lifted up onto the deck the parrot piped ‘Let go’. Instinctively, the crew complied, dropping her into the sea. Happily, the lieutenant was on hand to rescue her. (56 / 60 words)
