Part 1 (1/2)
Me Jenkin
by Robert Louis Stevenson
PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION
ON the death of Flee Jenkin, his family and friends determined to publish a selection of his various papers; by way of introduction, the following pages were drawn up; and the whole, forland In the States, it has not been thought advisable to reproduce the whole; and thealone, shorn of that other matter which was at once its occasion and its justification, so large an account of a er out of all proportion But Jenkin was a man much more remarkable than the mere bulk or merit of his work approves him It was in the world, in the commerce of friendshi+p, by his brave attitude towards life, by his high moral value and unwearied intellectual effort, that he struck the ure, such as authors delight to draw, and all es of a novel His was a face worth painting for its own sake If the sitter shall not seem to have justified the portrait, if Jenkin, after his death, shall not continue to ether mine
R L S
SARANAC, _Oct_, 1887
CHAPTER I
The Jenkins of Stowting-Fleeoes to sea; at St Helena;Tom; service in the West Indies; end of his career-The Ca's uncle John
IN the reign of Henry VIII, a fa to co the arms of Jenkin ap Philip of St Melans, are found reputably settled in the county of Kent Persons of strong genealogical pinion pass from William Jenkin, Mayor of Folkestone in 1555, to his contemporary 'John Jenkin, of the Citie of York, Receiver General of the County,' and thence, by way of Jenkin ap Philip, to the proper suree-a prince; 'Guaith Voeth, Lord of Cardigan,' the name and style of him It may suffice, however, for the present, that these Kentish Jenkinsa stock of soreealth and consequence in their new hoh in the fact that not only was William Jenkin (as already mentioned) Mayor of Folkestone in 1555, but no less than twenty-three ti century and a half, a Jenkin (William, Thomas, Henry, or Robert) sat in the same place of hun of Charles I, Tho land, and notably, in 1633, acquired theCourt This was an estate of some 320 acres, six , and the Lathe of shi+pway, held of the Crown _in capite_ by the service of six e of the sea at Sandgate It had a chequered history before it fell into the hands of Thoiven from one to another-to the Archbishop, to HerinGods, to the Burghershes, to Pavelys, Trivets, Cliffords, Wenlocks, Beaucharound condemned to see new faces and to be no man's home But from 1633 onward it becah passed on from brother to brother, held in shares between uncle and nephew, burthened by debts and jointures, and at least once sold and bought in again, it remains to this day in the hands of the direct line It is not ive a history of this obscure fay has taken a new lease of life, and becoer study it in quest of the Guaith Voeths, but to trace out some of the secrets of descent and destiny; and as we study, we think less of Sir Bernard Burke and more of Mr Galton Not only do our character and talents lie upon the anvil and receive their teenerations; but the very plot of our life's story unfolds itself on a scale of centuries, and the biography of the man is only an episode in the epic of the fain this notice of a rereat-grandfather, John Jenkin
This John Jenkin, a grandson of Dasley, of the family of 'Westward Ho!' was born in 1727, and hter of Thomas Frewen, of Church House, Northia with their Kentish neighbours to be Kentish folk themselves in all but name; and with the Frewens in particular their connection is singularly involved John and his ere each descended in the third degree from another Thomas Frewen, Vicar of Northiam, and brother to Accepted Frewen, Archbishop of York John's mother had married a Frewen for a second husband And the last complication was to be added by the Bishop of Chichester's brother, Charles Buckner, Vice-Admiral of the White, ice married, first to a paternal cousin of Squire John, and second to Anne, only sister of the Squire's wife, and already theof another Frewen The reader must bear Mrs
Buckner in an life as a poor man Meanwhile, the relationshi+p of any Frewen to any Jenkin at the end of these evolutions presents a problem almost insoluble; and we need not wonder if Mrs John, thus exercised in her iist of all Sussex families, and much consulted' The naeable at will; and yet Fate proceeds with such particularity that it was perhaps on the point of name that the family was ruined
The John Jenkins had a faant and unpractical sons The eldest, Stephen, entered the Church and held the living of Salehurst, where he offered, we e He was a handsoarden, which produced under his care the finest fruits of the neighbourhood; and like all the family, very choice in horses He drove tandem; like Jehu, furiously His saddle horse, Captain (for the names of horses are piously preserved in the faallop as soon as the vicar's foot was thrown across its back; nor would the rein be drawn in the nine e door Debt was the man's proper element; he used to skulk from arrest in the chancel of his church; and the speed of Captain e this unconventional parson hters and one son One of the daughters died unmarried; the other imitated her father, and allantly continuing the tradition, entered the army, loaded hie in the Marines, and was lost on the Dogger Bank in the war-shi+p _Minotaur_ If he did not reat-uncle William, it was perhaps because he never married at all
The second brother, Thomas, as employed in the General Post-Office, followed in all material points the example of Stephen, married 'not very creditably,' and spent all the money he could lay his hands on He died without issue; as did the fourth brother, John, as of weak intellect and feeble health, and the fifth brother, William, whose brief career as one of Mrs Buckner's satellites will fall to be considered later on So soon, then, as the _Minotaur_ had struck upon the Dogger Bank, Stowting and the line of the Jenkin family fell on the shoulders of the third brother, Charles
Facility and self-indulgence are the faes) being at once their quality and their defect; but in the case of Charles, a man of exceptional beauty and sweetness both of face and disposition, the farown to be a virtue, and we find hie and milk-cow of his relatives Born in 1766, Charles served at sea in his youth, and smelt both salt water and powder The Jenkins had inclined hitherto, as far as I can make out, to the land service Stephen's son had been a soldier; Willia) had been an officer of the unhappy Braddock's in America, where, by the way, he owned and afterwards sold an estate on the James River, called, after the parental seat; of which I should like well to hear if it still bears the name It was probably by the influence of Captain Buckner, already connected with the fae, that Charles Jenkin turned his mind in the direction of the navy; and it was in Buckner's own shi+p, the _Prothee_, 64, that the lad n It was in the days of Rodney's hen the _Prothee_, we read, captured two large privateers to ard of Barbadoes, and was 'ed' in both the actions with De Grasse While at sea Charles kept a journal, and e archaic pilot-book sketches, part plan, part elevation, some of which survive for the a, so that here we 's education as an engineer What is stillthe relics of the handsoun-rooraphically represented, for all the world as it would have been done by his grandson
On the declaration of peace, Charles, because he had suffered from scurvy, received his mother's orders to retire; and he was not the man to refuse a request, far less to disobey a command Thereupon he turned fare scale; and we find hihter of a London alloping about the country or skulking in his chancel It does not appear whether he let or sold the paternal manor to Charles; one or other, it , with his wife, his mother, his unmarried sister, and his sick brother John
Out of the six people of whom his nearest family consisted, three were in his own house, and two others (the horse-leeches, Stephen and Thomas) he appears to have continued to assist with ed to the Yeoie and Lucy, the latter coveted by royalty itself 'Lord Rokeby, his neighbour, called hiether life was very cheery' At Stowting his three sons, John, Charles, and Thohter, Anna, were all born to hih the report of this second Charles (born 1801) that he has been looking on at these confused passages of family history
In the year 1805 the ruin of the Jenkins was begun It was the work of a fallacious lady already mentioned, Aunt Anne Frewen, a sister of Mrs
John Twice married, first to her cousin Charles Frewen, clerk to the Court of Chancery, Brunswick Herald, and Usher of the Black Rod, and secondly to Ad very rich-she died worth about 60,000_l_, mostly in land-she was in perpetual quest of an heir Thebefore successive members of the Jenkin family until her death in 1825, when it dissolved and left the latest Alnaschar face to face with bankruptcy
The grandniece, Stephen's daughter, the one who had not 'married imprudently,' appears to have been the first; for she was taken abroad by the golden aunt, and died in her care at Ghent in 1792 Next she adopted Williaest of the five nephews; took him abroad with her-it seems as if that were in the forht hi's Body-Guard, where he attracted the notice of George III by his proficiency in Geruard at St James's Palace, William took a cold which carried him off; and Aunt Anne was once more left heirless Lastly, in 1805, perhaps moved by the Admiral, who had a kindness for his old ood nature of the man himself, Mrs Buckner turned her eyes upon Charles Jenkin He was not only to be the heir, however, he was to be the chief hand in a so Mrs Jenkin, the mother, contributed 164 acres of land; Mrs Buckner, 570, some at Northia to a tenant, and threw the other and various scattered parcels into the common enterprise; so that the whole farm amounted to near upon a thousand acres, and was scattered over thirty miles of country The ex-seaman of thirty-nine, on whose wisdom and ubiquity the scheme depended, was to live in the meanwhile without care or fear He was to check hiances, valuable horses and worthless brothers, were to be indulged in comfort; and whether the year quite paid itself or not, whether successive years left accu deficit, the fortune of the golden aunt should in the end repair all
On this understanding Charles Jenkin transported his family to Church House, Northia the nulimpses of the life that followed: of Ad up from Windsor in a coach and six, two post-horses and their own four; of the house full of visitors, the great roasts at the fire, the tables in the servants' hall laid for thirty or forty for a hbours, many of whom, Frewens, Lords, Bishops, Batchellors, and Dynes, were also kinsfolk; and the parties 'under the great spreading chestnuts of the old fore court,' where the young people danced and e band Or perhaps, in the depth of winter, the father would bid young Charles saddle his pony; they would ride the thirty , with the snow to the pony's saddle girths, and be received by the tenants like princes
This life of delights, with the continual visible coolden aunt, ell qualified to relax the fibre of the lads
John, the heir, a yeoman and a fox-hunter, 'loud and notorious with his whip and spurs,' settled down into a kind of Tony Lu for the shoes of his father and his aunt Thoest, is briefly disood fortune to become a doctor of medicine, so that when the crash came he was not empty-handed for the war of life Charles, at the day-school of Northias became matter of pleasantry and reached the ears of Adh-voiced, formidable uncle entered with the lad into a covenant: every time that Charles was thrashed he was to pay the Admiral a penny; everyday that he escaped, the process was to be reversed 'I recollect,' writes Charles, 'going crying to my mother to be taken to the Admiral to pay my debt' It would see one; yet it is probable it paid indirectly by bringing the boy under ree, and Charles, while yet little reat horse into the pond Presently it was decided that here was the stuff of a fine sailor; and at an early period the name of Charles Jenkin was entered on a shi+p's books
From Northiam he was sent to another school at Boonshi+ll, near Rye, where thehirow,' he used to say And the stripes were not altogether wasted, for the dunce, though still very 'raw,' ress with his studies It was known, round of pre-elory was not altogether future, it wore a present for to Rye behind four horses in the sae with an admiral 'I was not a little proud, you may believe,' says he
In 1814, when he was thirteen years of age, he was carried by his father to Chichester to the Bishop's Palace The Bishop had heard from his brother the Admiral that Charles was likely to do well, and had an order from Lord Melville for the lad's ade at Portsmouth Both the Bishop and the Admiral patted him on the head and said, 'Charles will restore the old faather with some surprise that, even in these days of open house at Northiaolden hope of my aunt's fortune, the family was supposed to stand in need of restoration But the past is apt to look brighter than nature, above all to those enaes of Stephen and Thoiven matter of alarm