In ship and prison

Ten minutes after her flag was run down I was upon her deck with a prize crew. Midshipman Blinn was with me, and I soon sent him back to the frigate with a report that gave both officers and crew much satisfaction. The prize was the ship Martha, Captain Peter McIntosh, bound from London to New York with a cargo of provisions, stores, and merchandise, valued at eighty thousand pounds sterling. The crew consisted of thirty-nine officers and men, and there were five passengers, making a total of forty-four.

Master Blinn returned in a short time with an order from Captain Tucker, putting me in temporary charge of the vessel, and directing me to first send her crew and passengers to the Boston for safe keeping, and then, since it was nearly night, to tack ship and follow the frigate on her course until morning.

At dawn a change was made in my ship’s company. Midshipman Blinn was recalled to the Boston, and Midshipman LeMoyne was substituted in his place, to act as my executive. Philip Mohyes, a quartermaster, was also sent over to be my second officer. With him came six new men, increasing my crew to fifteen. Master LeMoyne brought with him the following letter:

As rapidly as possible I made my arrangements for a departure, and soon signalled the frigate that I was ready to sail. A salute of seven guns was fired, and then with every stitch of canvas set I bore away west-north-west to reach the latitude assigned me, and along which I was to make my way home.

Three days passed without special incident. We reached the thirty-seventh parallel, and proceeded westward. Once or twice we caught sight of distant sails, but if they saw us they did not think we were worth the chasing. So when the sun went down on the third night after we had parted from the frigate our log showed we had made four hundred knots and all was well.

All was well when the sun set; all was not so well when the sun arose; for there, not over two miles away, was an English frigate of thirty-two guns, and a few minutes of watching revealed that she was fast overhauling us.

I could not then, nor can I after all these years, discover any reason why we were to blame for the dilemma in which we now found ourselves. I had strictly obeyed the orders which Captain Tucker had given me. We had carried no lights during the night, and it could not therefore have been these that had attracted the attention of the enemy, and led him to pursue us. It was clearly one of those cases of happen so, over which we have no control. The Britisher had happened to be cruising in that locality; the dawn had disclosed our proximity, and she had given chase.

But whatever the circumstances, they could not change the fact that we were pursued by a foe so formidable that, should she overhaul us, it would be folly to resist her. Our only hope was to keep out of her clutches, and even this I confess was not at that time very reassuring. Still we did all we could to distance her. I gave orders to spread every sail, and to put the ship on a course where I knew she would do her best. An hour passed, and so far as we could detect, our pursued was no nearer than when we had discovered her. Our hopes brightened. Could we only hold our present rate of speed throughout the day, we might with the coming of the night elude her.

Noon came. The frigate was nearer us than in the morning, but still too far away to reach us with her cannon. The rate she was gaining on us made it doubtful that she would come within firing distance before sunset. Every man on our ship breathed easier.

At four o’clock she fired a shot, but it fell fifty fathoms short of us—far enough away to escape us, yet too uncomfortably near to be pleasant. It was disagreeable to feel that a gain of three hundred feet would allow the ball to drop on our deck.

I had already resorted to nearly every device I could conceive of to increase the speed of our craft. One remained—the wetting of our sails—but the low temperature had prevented me from trying that. It would not only mean cold work for us, but also an icy deck and sails. Still, anything was preferable to our falling into the hands of the enemy, and I therefore turned to Master LeMoyne, and asked him the advisability of making the experiment.

“Do you notice how the jibs are bellowing?” he responded. “Why not try the water on them? It will enable them to hold the wind, and may be sufficient to keep the ship out of the Britisher’s reach until dark.”

I accepted the suggestion, and in five minutes had our brave men dashing the icy water on the canvas. It was not long before the effect was noticeable. We actually gained upon the frigate, and at sundown she was over a mile away.

The night came rapidly on, but not so dark as we could wish. Still I hoped that with no lights set we might get beyond the vision of the pursuer, and then, changing our course, elude her. Anxiously we waited for the moment to come when it would be safe for us to make the attempt.

It was long in coming, for the man-of-war did not hesitate to put out her own lights, and was therefore plainly invisible to us, while it made it difficult for us to decide whether she could see us or not. Not far from nine o’clock, however, I concluded we could not discern the frigate were it not for her lights, and reasoned that she could no longer perceive us. So I ordered our course changed to due east. Two minutes later our pursuer altered her own course and followed us. It was clear she could still make us out notwithstanding the darkness.

After a half-hour’s run to the eastward I became convinced that we were losing ground, and resumed our former course. The English craft as promptly swung in behind us.

“They have good eyes on board yonder frigate,” I remarked to Quartermaster Mohyes, who stood near me.

“That they have, sir,” he assented, “and unless we get a cloudy sky before morning I fear we shan’t shake them off at all, sir.”

It was a fear that kept every one of us on the deck that night—a fear that grew more and more into a certainty. Ten times I changed our helm; ten times the pursuing vessel took our trail—and morning came with her less than a half mile behind us.

To add to our discomfiture the stiff breeze of the last twenty-four hours died away to an occasional puff. Under the light wind with our heavy cargo we scarcely moved, while the frigate, of lighter draft, crept steadily down upon us.

At seven o’clock a shot from her bow gun carried away our maintopmast, and sent sails and spars tumbling to the deck. This crippled us and enabled her to gain rapidly upon us, and soon she was where she could pour a broadside in upon us.

“Heave to, or we’ll sink you,” her commander shouted out, and with a heavy heart I gave the order to heave to the ship; then I hastened below, where, mindful of Captain Tucker’s command, I destroyed the record of his signals, and his letter to me.

When I came out of the cabin a boat from our capturer was at our side. An instant later the officer in charge mounted to the deck and called out in per-emptory tones:

“What craft is this? And who is in command of her?”

“The ship Martha, a prize of the Continental frigate Boston, Midshipman Arthur Dunn with a crew of fifteen in charge, and bound for Boston,” I replied with the best grace I could assume.

“Show me the ship’s original papers,” he demanded.

Having anticipated such a request I had the papers with me, and now handed them to him. He looked them over, and then began to laugh uproariously. Finally he managed to say:

“This is rich. Thought you’d got a fine prize, didn’t you? Planned to carry this cargo into Boston to feed your Yankee soldiers? Well, let me tell you ‘there’s many a slip between the cup and lip,’ and they’ll be a hungry lot before they ever eat of these stores. Captain Watson will see that they are sent to New York where they were designed to go. I’ve got a brother there to whom I shall write the whole story. Won’t he and his comrades laugh when they hear how we took the bread right out of the mouth of your fellows!”

I made no reply, perhaps because I was not in sympathy with his hilarity. Then he called a half dozen of his men to the deck and put the ship in their care, while he went back to the frigate to report to his commander.

Something in his report, or else the long chase I had led him, had ruffled the captain’s temper, for he made quick work in disposing of us. In fifteen minutes we were transferred to the man-of-war, and confined in her brig.

The hatch that imprisoned us shut the Martha from our view, and we thought we had seen the last of her. Some of us had, but it was my privilege to see her again some months later and to learn her remarkable history.

The frigate put a strong crew upon her, and ordered her to sail in her wake to Halifax, the nearest British port. During the following night she in some way became separated from her consort, and before she could rejoin her was captured by a Continental privateer, who took her into Boston. So, contrary to the boast of the officer into whose hands I had surrendered her, our Yankee soldiers did feed upon her stores.

Had we known this not only as we lay in the darkness of the hold of the Royal Prince, but during the more trying days that followed, I am quite sure our hearts would have been lighter. As it was, to the sufferings we had to bear was added the chagrin of the loss of the valuable vessel which had been entrusted to our care. At times I wondered what Captain Tucker would say when the tidings reached him. Would he blame us? Then I would think: “It matters little, for we shall never meet again.”

Three days of darkness, of vermin, of filth and of scanty fare made us ready to exchange our quarters in the frigate for any other—it mattered not what they were or where. We knew they could not be worse. So three days later when we heard the rattling of the chains which told the vessel had come to anchor, and our hatch was opened and we were bidden to come forth, we obeyed the summons with delight.

The bright sunshine, the fresh air, never seemed so good before, and as we entered the waiting boats, and were taken ashore—in a town which I at once recognized as Halifax—we were almost happy. Even when our captors, after our landing, conducted us up the street to the massive jail, we did not despair. There would at least be light there, even if the filth and fare were the same we had experienced on shipboard, and that would be something for the better. So with a firm tread and good courage we passed through the massive portals, where we were thrust into a room already overflowing with prisoners.

In five minutes we were ready to go back to the ship’s hold without a murmur; and I hesitate to write the reason why lest the reader may think I state an untruth. It hardly seems possible that the worst of men could be guilty of so atrocious an act. Yet I am giving here the simple fact. We had been put into a room where the smallpox was raging. Nearly one-half of the score of men there were sick with the foul disease, and yet without medical attendance of any kind.

The place reeked with filth; the air was poisoned with contagious germs; the room was too small for the number of prisoners already there; the condition of the place must have been known to the prison authorities; yet into this pest-hole I was thrust with my fifteen men. No foe could have perpetrated a more gross cruelty; no fiends in human shape could have shown a greater malignity.