In ship and prison

Our arrival in Marblehead created quite a sensation. Tidings of Captain Tucker’s imprisonment and the confiscation of his vessel had already reached there, while his escape was unknown. His sudden appearance in the streets of the village therefore brought him almost an ovation, and men, women, and even the children crowded around him, hoping to hear how he had escaped the enemy’s hands.

A few of the townspeople remembered my visit to the place several months before in search of the Captain, and when it became known that I had also been thrown into jail for defying the King, I came in for my own share of public attention; so for some days we both knew what it was to be famous.

Then the excitement subsided, and we were permitted to move among the people in a commonplace sort of way, and unmolested to attend to the daily tasks that fell to us. At the Captain’s request I made my home with him while we awaited our commissions, and, save for a brief visit to my native village early in January, I did not leave him.

It was January 20, (1776) when I returned from my visit. As I had only a small bundle with me, I left the stage at the door of the tavern, and started to walk to the house I now called my home. I had gone but a few yards when I heard the clatter of a horse’s hoofs behind me, and, turning, I saw a man in martial costume and adorned with the trappings of rank riding in hot haste towards me.

His coming had already aroused much curiosity on the part of the villagers, for they were gathering at the windows and on the streets and wharves, to gaze at the trooper as he galloped along. He dashed by me, and took the nearest road to Captain Tucker’s residence on Rowland Hill. Suspecting he was a messenger from the Congressional Committee, I quickened my steps and came in sight of the house in time to witness an amusing scene.

Captain Tucker was out in the yard chopping wood. The gaily decked officer rode up and dismounted. Seeing a person dressed in ordinary garb—a tarpaulin hat slouching over his face, a pea jacket and red waistcoat covering his body, brown breeches on his legs, and a flaming bandanna waving about his neck—he, naturally perhaps, thought he must have come to the wrong place, and so called out roughly:

“I say, fellow, I wish you would tell me if the Honorable Samuel Tucker lives hereabouts!”

“Honorable? Honorable?” questioned the Captain with a shrewd look at the stranger. “There is not any man of that name in Marblehead. He must be one of the family of Tuckers in Salem. I am the only Samuel Tucker here.”

The trooper took his packet from his pocket, looked at it again and again. “Lives in a house, two stories, gable-end, standing by itself on a hill, not far from the bay shore, a piece of woods near it,” he read out slowly. “Surely this must be the place,” he commented, looking sharply around him; and then eying the chopper from head to foot, he continued:

“Captain Glover at Cambridge told me that he knew Master Tucker well, and that he lived in Marblehead, and described his house for me—‘gable-end, on the sea-side, none near it.’ Faith, this looks like the very place.”

The parley, however, soon came to an end, for the messenger was not slow to notice the gallant look and noble appearance of the man before him, and knew he could not be mistaken.

“You yourself must be Captain Tucker,” he declared, handing the packet to the man before him, “and here is your commission as a Captain in the Continental Navy. I also have a midshipman’s commission for Arthur Dunn. Can you tell me where I may find him?”

“He’s right behind you, I reckon,” remarked the captain, taking his packet and waiting for me to take mine. Then he invited the stranger to come into the house and take a rest and refreshments before he returned to Cambridge—an invitation which was gratefully accepted.

With the commissions were our assignments to the frigate Franklin, carrying sixteen guns, and stationed at Beverly. The Captain was also directed to get her in readiness at once for a cruise.

Busy days followed. The stores were shipped, the ammunition was placed on board, and in a week we would have been ready for sea had our outfit of small arms arrived. After three days delay Captain Tucker grew impatient, and, going over to Salem, he purchased the weapons with his own money and had them sent on board. As he saw them arranged in their racks, he turned to me, who had been directing the work, and remarked with satisfaction:

“There! we’ll get off tomorrow morning, Master Dunn.”

He went over to Marblehead that evening and when he returned he carried a huge bundle in his arms. To his executive officer, Lieutenant Fettyplace, he explained:

“It’s a banner my wife has been making for us. Tomorrow, before we sail, we’ll break it out from the masthead.”

Naturally curious to see it, Master Fettyplace, Lieutenant Salter, the second officer, and myself, who stood near, waited for him to show the flag to us. But he did not do it. It was not until my own hands pulled the cord the next morning which unfurled the banner from the frigate’s peak that we saw the beautiful piece which Mistress Tucker had wrought.

There it floated on the gentle breeze: a white field, a green union, made in the form of a pine tree, with the motto beneath it: “An appeal to heaven.” And under that flag we fought until Congress had adopted the stars and stripes.

Ten minutes later with every foot of the ship’s canvas stretched to the north-west wind, we were standing out to sea. Once out of the harbor, our bow was turned towards Cape Cod, and a man was sent to the cross-trees to be on the lookout for prizes. We found not one, but two, much sooner than we expected. The circumstances as near as I can recall were these:

Just before dark, hearing a loud cannonading on our left, and apparently some distance away, we directed our course thither. Before the night fairly shut down, we came near enough to see four vessels engaged in conflict. Two of these, a ship and a brig, were flying the British flag, while the other two were schooners, and clearly American privateers.

Not wishing to take the English vessels from those who had first discovered them, and who had the first right to them as prizes if they could capture them, we refrained from entering into the engagement. But when the enemy beat off our friends, and sailed away towards Boston, we immediately gave chase. The Britishers and our own ship were evidently faster sailers than the privateers, and soon we had left them behind. At nine o’clock they were out of sight, and the chase was all our own. Then the wind nearly failed, and for an hour or two we drifted along a mile behind our prey.

About this time our lookout reported another sail some distance away off our starboard. It was too dark to make her out, and Captain Tucker immediately ordered out a boat, and putting me in charge, directed me to go over and reconnoitre the strange vessel.

“Take a dark lantern with you, Master Dunn,” he said, “and, if she prove to be an English cruiser, suspend your light near the edge of the water as a signal of your immediate return. We’ll be on the lookout for you. If, however, she be an American vessel, then elevate your light in the air, and we’ll come down, pick you up, and speak with her.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” I responded, and descending to the yawl, I gave the order to pull away.

When near enough for the sound of our oars to be detected, we muffled them, and cautiously advanced, seeking to get under the stern of the craft without being discovered. At length we were near enough to discern through the darkness that she was a trim schooner carrying ten guns, and that her course showed she was trying to overhaul the British vessels. This fact made me a little suspicious of her character, for it seemed to me a daring attempt for her to be following up two vessels, each larger than herself, with an idea of attacking them. I called the attention of our boatswain, Joseph Lewis, to this circumstance, asking in a low tone:

“Does it not seem to you, Master Lewis, that she must be a Britisher, a consort of the ship and brig, and is endeavoring to overhaul them?”

“Two things are agin that, sir,” he replied in the same cautious way. “Fust, thar’s her build. She came from Yankee stocks as sure as my name is Joe Lewis. Then thar’s the flag she carries. I can’t jest make it out, sir, but it ain’t the English colors. As for her followin’ two vessels larger than herself, that doesn’t signify. We’ve got Capt’ns who’d do it with half her guns, hopin’ to find a way to cut out one or t’other of them. I’m sure, sir, we’ll find she’s a friend. I’m ready to risk runnin’ right up to her.”

“I hardly think we’ll do that,” I answered. “But we’ll work up under her stern, and make sure who she is.”

“I beg yer pardon, sir,” he continued, “but if ye’ll order all the men to lie low in the boat, an’ git down yerself, an’ let me have an oar, I’ll scull her up under the schooner in no time without their ’specting we’re thar.”

I gave the necessary command, and, stooping as low as he possibly could and yet work an oar, he sent our yawl noiselessly forward in the wake of the stranger. Five minutes later he touched my arm. I looked up and he made a quick upward gesture. I understood, and opened my dark lantern enough to send a single ray of light on the stern of the schooner which was now just above our heads. With a thrill of delight I read her name—Katy—and her port—Providence in the Rhode Island Plantations.

Dropping behind her far enough to make it safe to signal our frigate, we raised our light high in the air with an oar, and waited. It was not long, light as the breeze was, before the ship was alongside of us, and, picking us up, she went on after the schooner. In ten minutes we spoke with her, and her captain, Abraham Whipple, came on board.

Captain Tucker and he speedily came to an agreement to join forces and attack the English vessels, and since Captain Tucker held his commission from the Continental Congress, it was arranged that both of the Yankee crafts should be under his command. These preliminaries completed, we hastened on as fast as the light wind would permit us after the enemy. It was clear by their course that they were striving to make Boston harbor; and equally clear after an hour or two of watching that all four vessels were about equally matched in speed.

As we drew near Long Island clouds overcast the dim stars, shutting out what light we had, and we were uncertain whether the ships we were pursuing took the east or west channel. So Captain Tucker signalled the Katy to go up the east side, while he went up the west side of the island. It was our good fortune to speedily overtake the transports which, running too close to the flats, got aground.

Clearing away our guns, we ran abreast the Britishers and poured in a broadside. They both responded from their starboard batteries, the only ones they could use. Our shots were low and did great havoc among the troops and crew of the enemy. On the other hand, their guns were aimed too high and the balls passed above our heads, riddling our sails and doing much damage to our spars and rigging; then they swept on, endangering the Rhode Island schooner, which lay on the other side of the island, becalmed, in range of the English cannon, and unable to change her position or to render us any assistance.

For a half-hour the battle raged until the commander of the British ship was slain, when she struck her colors, and her consort quickly followed. I was with Lieutenant Fettyplace when he boarded the larger craft, finding her to be the George, from Glasgow, Scotland. Lieutenant Salter went off to the brig, and reported her to be the Annabella from the same Scottish port. Each vessel carried a large cargo of ammunition, clothing and stores for the British army, while on the latter were two hundred and fifty Highland soldiers, under command of Colonel Archibald Campbell, and belonging to General Frazer’s corps.

In the conflict we had not lost a man, nor had any of the ship’s company been seriously wounded. In short, our only damage was to our sails and rigging. But the enemy had suffered greatly. More than two score men were more or less injured, while thirty-six, including the captain of the George, lay dead.

One of the saddest sights I remember in all my naval experience was that of the next day, when we buried the dead Scotchmen on the island. It was heartrending to see the women, who had accompanied the troops, weeping with loud lamentations, and to hear the bag-pipes play the funeral dirge.

The hours before the sad burial had been spent in floating the prizes, and transferring our prisoners to the Franklin. A stiff breeze from the south-west had enabled the Katy to rejoin us. So the funeral once over, prize crews were placed on the captured vessels, and we sailed for Lynn.

There we turned them over to the Continental agent, and had the satisfaction of knowing that their cargoes—save one item—went to Washington’s army at Cambridge. The exception was the store of canvas we found among the prize goods. This was used to furnish us with a new set of sails, and we were soon off to sea again.