Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/295

Rh The appointment of drawer of the bottles of the ocean was not as absurd as Barkilphedro had appeared to make out. The complaints (which would in these times be termed denunciations) of Garcia Fernandez, in his "Followers of the Sea," against the stealing of jetsam, called right of wreck, and against the pillaging of wreck by the inhabitants of the sea-coast, had created a sensation in England, and had secured for the shipwrecked this reform,—that their goods, chattels, and property, instead of being stolen by the country-people, were confiscated by the Lord High Admiral. All the debris of the sea cast upon the English shore (merchandise, broken hulls of ships, bales, chests, etc.) belonged to the Lord High Admiral; but—and here was revealed the importance of the place solicited by Barkilphedro—the floating receptacles containing messages and information received particular attention at the Admiralty. Shipwrecks excite England's deep solicitude. Navigation being her chief occupation, shipwrecks are one of her greatest causes of anxiety. England is kept in a state of perpetual anxiety by the sea. The little glass bottle cast into the waves from the doomed ship contains intelligence precious from every point of view,—intelligence concerning the ship; intelligence concerning the crew; intelligence concerning the place, the time, the manner of shipwreck; intelligence concerning the winds which broke up the vessel; intelligence concerning the currents which bore the floating flask ashore. The office filled by Barkilphedro has been abolished more than a century, but it had its utility. The last holder was William Hussey, of Doddington in Lincolnshire. The man who held it was a sort of guardian of the sea. All the closed and sealed vessels, bottles, flasks, jars, cast upon the English coast by the tide, were brought to him. He alone had the right to open them; he was the first to