Alexandra (Rammell) Crafton's List: Persuasion

• In short, Mrs. Croft is not speaking objectively when she states, "'Nothing can exceed the accommodations of a man-of-war.'" Indeed, it soon becomes clear that Mrs. Croft's defense of the comforts of ships reflects her reluctance to be separated from her husband more than the actual conditions aboard ship. As she herself explains to Mrs. Musgrove, "'while we were together, you know, there was nothing to be feared.[...] The only time I ever really suffered in body or in mind [...] was the winter that I passed by myself at Deal, while the Admiral (Captain Croft then) was in the North Seas'" (70-71). On the surface, therefore, Wentworth's assessment of the discomforts aboard ship and his concern that women may not be comfortable is more realistic than his sister's assertion that "'[w]omen may be as comfortable on board as in the best house in England'" (69). 

   

  • Evidence of the good marriage of the Crofts
• What comes across most clearly in Mrs. Croft's praise for ships as homes is the value she places on being with her husband. Her dismissal of any discomfort aboard ship as negligible implies the high value that she puts on remaining near Admiral Croft.

• Francis and Charles never lost touch with what was going on in the family. (1)
• hen looks back to his own younger days, before describing "The many comforts" of "Our Chawton home" and their conviction "that when complete / It will all other Houses beat.... You'll find us very snug next year, Perhaps with Charles & Fanny near ..." (Letter of 26 July 1809
• and both were family men,
• the sailor brothers were the members of the family who contributed most, directly and indirectly; to the novels.
• Their lives and experiences provided Jane Austen with the basis for her naval characters and the sailor brothers played an important part in the writing of Mansfield Park and Persuasion, the two naval novels
• s James Edward Austen-Leigh pointed out, it was "with ships and sailors" that his aunt also "felt herself at home," and he noted her "partiality for the Navy" and "the readiness and accuracy with which she wrote about it" (15-16). We have much to thank the sailor brothers for.
• His final report at the Academy commends his "disposition" as "lively and active." At the same time, from beginning to end, it was a path to success. His reports were glowing, his conduct irreproachable, his work exemplary.
• In 1863, at the age of 89, he achieved the Navy's highest rank, Admiral of the Fleet. Two years later, having outlived all his contemporaries, he reached the ultimate pinnacle as Senior Admiral of the Fleet.
• the great disappointment of his life was to miss Trafalgar. His ship was in Nelson's fleet. But just before the Battle, it was away in the Mediterranean, off the coast of North Africa picking up fresh food and water; and it arrived back in Spanish waters only after Trafalgar was fought and won.
• he was posted to Bermuda, where he stayed for six and a half years, serving on the North American station, much of the time patrolling the Eastern seaboard of the United States.

  • Reflected in Persuasion as Mrs. Croft talks about Bermuda etc
• he was posted to Bermuda, where he stayed for six and a half years, serving on the North American station, much of the time patrolling the Eastern seaboard of the United States
• It was in Bermuda that Charles met his wife-to-be, the sixteen-year-old Fanny Palmer. In 1811, he returned to England with Fanny and their two young children.

  • Like Harville
• dear Charles all affectionate, placid, quiet, chearful good humour" (14 October 1813); and whenever his name enters her letters, she writes of him with tenderness and solicitude
• For one thing, his Captain's pay was the family's only source of income, and officers without a ship had to survive on what was called half-pay, and Jane Austen shows us what that meant in Captain Harville's economy existence at Lyme Regis

  • Charles-->Harville
• Charles was blessed with an easy-going nature, and a natural warmth and charm that continued until the very end of his life
• His nephew, Commander George Rice, was with his uncle throughout the campaign. In letters home, George would invariably write of "the dear old Admiral," and the "good old Admiral"; he was "without exception the kindest-hearted and most perfectly gentlemanlike man I ever knew" (qtd. in Hammond 329-32).
• Charles's God was a God of love, of compassion, and forgiveness, and by these qualities he lived his own life, both on land and sea.
• I am sure we glimpse aspects of Charles as he must have appeared those many years ago, returning proudly to the family at Steventon in the 1790s, telling them of his exploits, his promotion and showing off this uniform in just the same way. Perhaps there are traces of him, too, in Wentworth at his most charming and considerate.

  • Charles --> Wentworth
• Francis also finds his place in the novels, most evidently in the character of Captain Harville, not only (according to his biographer-grandson, John Hubback [263]) in his carpentry, carving, toy-making and handicraft--"he drew, he varnished, he carpentered, he glued" (P 99)--but also in Harville's gravity and the serious tones in which he discusses matters of suffering and endurance with Anne in the final scenes of Persuasion. Viewed in this light, we can regard Mansfield Park and Persuasion as Jane Austen's tribute to the sailor brothers--to their patriotism, their sense of duty, and their humanity.

  • Francis --> Harville
    Persuasion as a tribute to her brothers
• Charles endured an unhappy passage home to England. We read in his diary how he was caught up in "sad & melancholy reflections"--and these were not only of the shipwreck, for he was also troubled by dreams of his young wife, Fanny, who had died only 18 months before, following the death of their fourth child, an infant barely three weeks old. Night after night he was haunted by these dreams; to quote his own words, dreams "of my lost & ever lamented Fanny and of our poor little ones!
• • Charles mourning his wife --> Anne talking to Harville about men and women's affections
• or all their family ties, the sailor brothers were also part of a larger brotherhood, the brotherhood of the Navy, to whose service they gave their lives. In this brotherhood, their ties were not ties of blood, but, in Nelson's words, ties of friendship, profession and the field of battle.
• • family ties and naval ties
• • navy as home
    
• it was the place where, for many years, they made their homes
• So while we celebrate the lives of Francis and Charles today, at the same time we also rejoice at the wonderful use to which their lives were put in the pages of Mansfield Park and Persuasion
• And of course we have to recognise that the picture of naval life Jane Austen gives us is highly sanitized, or, to use Joanna Trollope's word, "decorous." She brings us nothing of its horrors
• Nor are we witness to great battles and heroism.
• Jane Austen holds our attention on sailors on dry land. A
• And her focus is not on great events but private lives.
• We are reminded of this, if we need reminding, in the very last words of Persuasion, when the narrator tells us, with a gentle undercurrent of quiet amusement, that Anne Elliot "gloried in being a sailor's wife," belonging, as she does, to a "profession ... more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance" (252). So perfectly does Jane Austen handle these "domestic virtues" that the absence of the Navy's "national importance"--with its glamor, excitement, and heroism --is scarcely felt, if at all.
• the larger cast of sailors in Persuasion, bring with them a breath of fresh air, new and invigorating energies; whereas, by contrast, there are signs that the country gentry, the traditional ruling class, is heading for bankruptcy, both moral and financial.
• he advantages of early hardship and discipline, and the consciousness of being born to struggle and endure" (473). Something akin to the Victorian work ethic, this was a stern lesson that Jane Austen had observed for herself in the lives of the sailor brothers
• What is hinted at in Mansfield Park is made explicit in Persuasion. Improvidence drives Sir Walter Elliot from the ancient family home and estate; the Navy, in the person of Admiral Croft, takes over; and Anne, for all her family loyalty, "could not but in conscience feel that they were gone who deserved not to stay, and that Kellynch-hall had passed into better hands than its owners" (125). It is no surprise to learn, on the novel's final page, that Anne "gloried in being a sailor's wife" (252). This is the voice of Jane Austen. Our intuition is confirmed by the testimony of a close friend, Ann Barrett, a young woman who came to live at Alton and knew Jane Austen in later years, at the very time that she was writing Persuasion. She talked with her about that most private of subjects, her own writing. Mrs Barrett's testimony is on record:
• "Anne Elliot was herself; her enthusiasm for the navy, and her perfect unselfishness, reflect her completely" (Chapman 171-74).
• Her enthusiasm for the navy" would be natural enough. After all, it was the Navy that laid the foundations of Britain's success in the war with France; exactly as Anne says, early in the novel, it was the Navy '"who have done so much for us'" (P 19). This would have been the sentiment of any patriot at this time
• But we know that Jane Austen was not merely a patriot; she was a patriot with brothers in the service. A
• her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, explains in the Memoir, "with ships and sailors she felt herself at home, or at least could always trust to a brotherly critic to keep her right" (15-16). So we have much for which to thank those "brotherly" critics, the sailor brothers Francis and Charles, nothing less than the priceless legacy that comes down to us in the pages of Mansfield Park and Persuasion.

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