The Noank's Log: A Privateer of the Revolution

Captain Syme and his crew and passengers, transferred to the Noank with their baggage, were a very disconsolate company, even when they were promised a quick trip to the Irish coast, as near Belfast as might be.

"Hard luck for us," remarked Syme. "It's that sleepy corvette that's to blame. I believed I was getting away in good season."

"So you were," replied Captain Avery. "You couldn't ha' suited us better. I like the Syren, too. She's gone over to our old anchorage by this time."

He was mistaken there. The angry, disappointed British commander was putting on all sail, and his cruiser was bowling along the sea-road toward Belfast. No sail was in sight ahead of her, and he was fretted sadly by a suspicion of the truth, that the Killarney, with a prize crew on board, was already headed westward, while the dashing privateer he had missed was taking a northerly course, favored much by the fine topsail breeze that was blowing.

CHAPTER XV

A COMING STORM

There had been a morning, not many days after the Noank sailed away from Porto Rico, when the gunners of the seaward battery of Fort Griswold, New London, ran hastily to their cannon. They put in powder only, and quickly they were firing a salute of welcome, in response to the arrival guns of a handsome bark that was entering the harbor mouth. She was under full sail, she carried the American flag, and with it she also floated the well-known private signal of Captain Avery and the Noank.

"Lyme's taken a big prize!" shouted voice after voice in the fort, while all the people within hearing of the guns understood that they were roaring good news only. Men in shops dropped their tools. Teamsters unhitched their horses from loaded sleighs, to mount and hurry into town. Fishermen pulled in their lines. Women put away their knitting or left their carding and their looms. Such a rousing announcement of stirring news from the sea could not be disregarded, and the excitement grew apace.

An hour or so later Captain Sam Prentice and some of his men were on the central wharf, shaking hands with old neighbors until their own were lame, and telling the story of the old whaling schooner among the West Indies.

"Samuel," remarked Rachel Tarns, "thy story promiseth to be a long one. Thee had better hold thy tongue a moment, and turn thy gray head to see what cometh behind thee."

"Sam! Sam! I'm here!"

"There!" said the old Quakeress, dryly. "It was on my mind that his wife could stop his talking. So she squeezeth him not to death, he may then hug his daughters."

"Glory to God!" shouted good Mrs. Ten Eyck. "My son is safe! Not one of our men has been killed."

"Anneke," suggested Rachel Tarns, "thee may also thank Him that they do not seem to have been led to the killing of other people."

"That isn't jest so," said Sam; "we saved a ship-load of Spaniards from some pirates, and we had to kill a good many of the pirates. We didn't really hurt anybody else."

"I trust thy God will forgive thee concerning those wicked men," said Rachel. "He slayeth the wicked in their wickedness. Thee did no wrong. I think it was a friendly and righteous thing for thee to do. I once had many that were dear to me murdered at sea by those devilish destroyers."

"No mercy for pirates!" shouted more voices than one.

"We didn't have to show any," said Sam. "I can't tell it, jest now."

"The ship thou hast taken seemeth a fine one," said Rachel. "How did thee manage to escape the war vessels of thy good king?"

"Oh! 'Bout that?" he replied. "We had the best kind of luck. There wasn't a cruiser off Nantucket. We came along as safe as a mackerel smack. It was a kind of wonder, though, that we didn't sight a solitary's king's flag hereaway."

"That's explained," he was told by a white-headed fisherman. "The British are goin' after the Continentals down Philadelfy way, and all their cruisers are called off to Delaware Bay and the Chesapeake. Some of 'em's ferryin' troops, ye know. We can't say, yit, as to whether or not Washington has licked 'em. Anyhow, things ain't as bad as they was."

Endless news telling was to come, evidently, concerning events on shore as well as on the sea, and there could be no long lingering at the wharf. Every sailor that could be spared from the ship had somebody eagerly waiting for him, and there were many gladdened households that day.

"This is getting to be a thieves' harbor," remarked Rachel Tarns to a group of which she was the centre. "The wicked rebels against our good king are stealing much. This is the nineteenth British vessel that hath been brought in hither. I trust that all ships designing to enter this port under the American flag will arrive safely. It would be a pity if any of them should be wrecked or otherwise prevented."

She had other things as kindly to say and sincere wishes to express concerning whatever shipping might here and there be under the flag of England. Neither did she forget to extend her benevolence to the tents in all the camps of George the Third.

Those who listened to her were plainly in sympathy with all her friendly or Quakerish aspirations, and it appeared as if she were even a favorite.

After that, indeed, as week after week went by, her hopes and wishes were remarkably fulfilled, for there were other Yankee privateers as capable and as busy as the Noank. Some of them were also much larger craft with heavier armaments. Prize after prize came in, and there were New London merchants whose trade promised to rival that of the ancient house of Opdyke Brothers, of the port of Brest.

Throughout all New England, throughout the greater part of New York, there was undisturbed security. The war was touching the northerly edge of Pennsylvania, and there were savage raids into some districts of that colony. Large areas of New Jersey were desolated, and so were parts of South Carolina and Georgia where the Tory element was strong. The western frontier of New York was severely harried by the Iroquois. The counties of that state nearest the city of New York were entirely ruined.

The farmers of the Mohawk Valley gathered their summer crops safely, but toward them and toward the rebel stronghold at Albany, where the legislature was sitting, there was an avalanche of danger coming down from the north. It was well understood that even the forces under the British generals in the Middle States were not considered so effective, so well furnished, so sure of winning speedy victories, as were the chosen regiments to be led by General Burgoyne for a crushing blow at the heart of the rebellion. He was to be reënforced by the entire power of the Six Nations and the Hurons. If he should succeed, as he and his admirers believed he would, his army would obtain complete possession of New York and New England. All the other colonies would then give up in despair, and the Continental army would disband or surrender.

The British campaign and its intended consequences were thoroughly discussed by the New England people, and a considerable number of them very promptly determined to visit their friends in Albany or in Vermont.

The shore people were deeply interested, for, in addition to all other considerations, their entire sea-going fleet was at stake. No more British prizes would then be brought, for instance, to Boston or New London, and all the privateers at sea would be hopelessly forfeited to the crown. All their prizes in European ports would share the same fate. One, however, was now on its homeward way in charge of Vine Avery, promoted from third mate to skipper. He was handling his ship very well, but he as yet knew very little about her cargo. His orders were to let the taking account of that wait until he should be safe in port.

"The main thing," he had been told by his father, "is to git there. You've a gantlet to run that's thousands o' miles long, and your chances are only jest about even."

"I'll make 'em a good deal more'n even!" Vine had replied, and he had sailed away full confidently.

Three days after the Noank and the Killarney parted company, there was a great stir in a fishing village on the Irish coast. A strange schooner was tacking into the cove in front of the village, and such a thing as that did not happen every day. All the cabins were emptied at once. Even the babies, of which there seemed to be a large number, were carried to the shore by their mothers that they might not lose this chance to see something.

The schooner furled her sails, and dropped her anchor, while her probable or improbable character was undergoing vigorous discussion all along the beach. Not a soul on board the Noank, among her crew, at least, could have understood the primitive Erse dialect in which the fisher people told their opinions of her and the boat-loads of men and women that were quickly put out from her toward the shore. More and more extraordinary became the clatter after the passengers were landed and the boats pulled away for their next cargoes. Trip after trip was made, and all the while there was a vast amount of kindly pity expressed, most of it in Erse, but much in Irish-English, for Captain Syme and all his miscellaneous ship's company. Quite an erroneous opinion appeared to prevail that the American pirates had murdered all their captives entirely before landing them.

Here they were, now, however, not a hair of their heads injured, and Captain Syme even thanked Captain Avery, the privateersman, for having treated him and his so very well.

"We shall find our way to Belfast, sir," he said. "Just how we are to transport them all, I don't know, but the neighboring authorities will take care of that. I shall have them notified at once. You'd better look out for yourself."

"All right," laughed Captain Avery, "but I'm less afraid of a constable than I would be of a three-master with two tiers of guns. Not many o' them in shore, I guess."

Captain Syme had his hands full, he said, and away he went without uttering aloud the reply that was so near his lips: "Three-master? Yes, you rebel pirate! A seventy-four and you and your schooner within point-blank range!"

CHAPTER XVI

IRISH LOYALTY

Captain Avery's boat pulled away toward the Noank, and he remarked as he took hold of the tiller ropes: —

"I'm glad to be rid of all that crowd. Now there'll be more room for the rest of us. We can't afford to take prisoners."

"They'll report us, sir," said one of the sailors.

"They may say we mean to sack Liverpool, for all I care," growled the captain. "I wish we had a supply of fresh provisions, though. We had no time to take in any at Brest."

The whole boat's crew agreed with him, for they had been living on salt rations during many a long week.

The skipper of the Killarney and his friends of all sorts, with their personal baggage, were scattered high and low along the beach. The hospitable commiseration they were receiving was even excessive, and there appeared to be but one opinion among the population of that edge of Ireland concerning the general wickedness of privateering. At the side of the schooner, however, as if waiting for the captain's return, was a stout yawl-boat. It had four rowers and in the stern-sheets sat a large, florid, handsome man, very well dressed.

"It's the captain of this American pirate?" he loudly inquired. "Glad to see you, sir. I'm The McGahan and my place is inshore, yonder. Have ye ony good tobacco aboord, or a drop o' claret, or an anker of old Hollands?"

"Well," said Captain Avery, staring into the broadly smiling face of the handsome Irishman, "we've no liquid, but we've loads o' prime Cuba leaf, plug, and cigars. How are you off for beef and mutton, or, it might be, a little fresh pork?"

"No pork handy, the day," responded The McGahan. "Twinty head o' bafe, though, and all the mutton ye want. It's me sorrow that I couldn't lawfully sell ye huf or horn. The customs patrol is oll along the coast, looking after smoogglers and the like, and it's loyal to the king we are. God bless him!"

"I'm glad you're law abidin'," replied the captain. "I wouldn't ask you to sell me a pound! Guert Ten Eyck, you and the men have up that choice lot from the after cabin lockers. Mr. McGahan; come aboard and make your own selections. I'm not the kind of man to evade the customs. You'd better rob me of a lot of tobacco and whatever else there is. I couldn't help myself, you know."