I think I would have been willing to have purchased it with my life," writes the captive, and this before his father died alone. No attention was paid to pleas for justice or pity. Yet a sergeant showed much kindness, and his beautiful sister came often to the cell with sympathy and food, and even enabled the prisoner to get a glimpse of his father's coffin as it was hastily covered with earth.[1]
Captain Bradshaw of the Franklin soon got Pattie out of jail for a day by the 'innocent stratagem' of pretending to need his services as an interpreter; and with an eye to business, he made an effort to get permission for the hunters to go to the Colorado and bring the buried furs, but in vain. In the proceedings against Bradshaw for smuggling, Pattie served as interpreter; and later, by reporting certain orders which he had overheard, he claims to have prevented Bradshaw's arrest, and thus to have contributed to the escape of the Franklin.[2] Seth Rogers, A. W. Williams, and W. H. Cunningham are named as other American masters of vessels who befriended the young prisoner, and gave him money.
Echeandía himself also employed Pattie as an interpreter, and at times assumed a friendly tone. The captive took advantage of this to plead his cause anew, to discuss questions of international law, and to suggest that there was money to be made by sending after the buried furs. At the first he had known that every word of kindness pronounced by Echeandía "was a vile and deceitful lie," and after repeated interviews he perceived "that, like most arbitrary and cruel men, he was fickle and infirm of purpose," and
- ↑ He calls the young lady Miss Peaks, and the couple may have been Sergt Pico and his sister. A certain capitan de armas is also mentioned as of a friendly disposition, though he did not dare to brave the tyrant's rage. The reference may be to Portilla or Ruiz. It is remarkable that Pattie came so often into contact with the governor, and not at all with the comandante.
- ↑ See preceding chapter for affair of the Franklin. Pattie's statements that Bradshaw's trial was concluded July 28th, that the Franklin ran out of the harbor in Sept., and that she fired a broadside at the fort, are so positive, so erroneous, and yet so closely connected with details of his own affairs, as to leave a doubt as to the accuracy of those details.
