In ship and prison

I struggled with my captors for a while, not so much because I expected to escape from them, but in hopes that I would thereby aid my companions in their flight. For I could neither see nor hear anything of them, and believed I was the only one who had been seized by the British guards. At length I ceased my efforts, and, yielding to the inevitable, let them lead me away. They conducted me around the prison to its front entrance and took me into the superintendent’s office, where to my amazement I beheld all my comrades, each like myself in the grasp of two soldiers.

There was a broad grin on the face of the prison overseer as he gazed at us, and then addressing himself to Captain Tucker, he said:

“It was a neat little game, Captain, I admit that, and with some it might have succeeded, but not with me. Why, sir, let me show you that I have known of your scheme from the beginning. See here—” and turning to the partition back of his chair, he pushed aside an old garment that was hanging there, disclosing a small aperture, about the size of a walnut on that side of the wall, but tapering down to a small point on the side of our room. “With the coat hanging there to shut out the light,” he continued, “you did not notice the tiny opening, and did not suspect that many times each day I either had my eye upon you, or my ear was where I could hear all you were saying,” and he glanced at his prisoner with a complacent air which said: “I was more than a match for you.”

Then he went on:

“Oh! I knew you were a shrewd fellow, Captain Tucker, and had outwitted more than one of our officers before now, but I was determined you should not outwit me. So I put you and your subalterns in there where I could literally keep you under my eye. I saw you the night you cut out the boards of your berth, and immediately suspected your plan, but purposely allowed you to go on to the end. I was outside the prison watching when your hand first broke through the surface. Then I called my men, for I had arranged a little plan, too, and captured each one of you as you came out of the tunnel, and marched you in here. I assure you the joke is on you,” and he threw back his head and laughed immoderately.

It was no laughing matter for us, however, and we were a crest-fallen group as we stood there looking first at our captors and then at each other, and realizing that our weeks of hard toil had availed us nothing.

But the worst was yet to come.

“Do you know what I am going to do with you?” the jailer asked when his laughter was over. “Of course you don’t, so I will tell you. I am going to put you right back into that room tonight, and leave the passage open, and you are at liberty to go out if you wish. Only remember twelve good men are to be stationed outside with orders to pick you off as you come out of your hole like so many woodchucks,” and again he laughed as though he had perpetrated another good joke.

Nor was he yet done.

“Tomorrow,” he added, “I shall have you fill up the hole you have taken such pains to dig. It will be quite a job to put all that dirt back, but since you thrived while digging it out, you doubtless will enjoy putting it back. The additional exercise will be good for you,” and for the third time he laughed heartily.

This is where the worst came in. He kept his word to the letter. Back into the room we were marched and left to ourselves. There the opening stared silently at us. We knew it led out into the open air, but not one of us cared to make use of it; and the next morning under a guard of soldiers we were forced to fill up the tunnel we had been so long in digging.

The day after this enforced task was completed the overseer came to our room. He looked us over quizzically, and then remarked:

“You look tired, gentlemen, and hardly as though you were in a good condition for a long journey, and yet I am compelled to ask you to take one. The governor seems to think you are going to be more of a burden here than he cares to have on his hands, so he has decided to send you down to Halifax. At sunrise tomorrow you will start, and I wish you a pleasant journey, a safe arrival, and a long stay in the stoutest jail we have in all the colonies,” and with mock politeness he bowed himself out of our presence.

The sun was just peeping above the horizon the next morning when we were taken down to the river and put on board an open boat, already manned with an officer and ten men. The jailer himself had accompanied us, and his directions to the lieutenant in whose care he placed us were brief but to the point:

“Here are the prisoners, sir; and the governor says you are to deliver them alive or dead to the governor at Halifax, and take a receipt for them. It matters little the condition they are in—the point is to deliver them, so you will know what to do if they attempt to make you any trouble,” and the grin we had so often seen was again upon his face.

Then the ropes were cast off, the sail was hoisted, and the voyage begun—a voyage destined to have an outcome very different from what anyone in the boat, or even the watching official on the shore, expected.

The wind was from the north, and we soon ran out of Hillsborough bay into Northumberland Strait, which we crossed to Cape St. George, where we went on shore for dinner.

The officer in charge of us did not mean to give us any opportunity either to run away from him or to overpower himself and men, for the moment the boat touched the shore he marched us up to a large tree not far from the beach. There he made us sit down, and placed six men with loaded guns around us with orders to shoot us down if we even attempted to rise, a thing we should have been glad to do as the long hours in the boat had cramped our limbs and rendered them stiff and uncomfortable.

Under his direction, the other four men built a fire, cooked the dinner, and with himself partook of it. The four fed soldiers then changed places with four of our guards, who had their rations. The remaining two were then relieved for their repast. When they were done a small amount of food was brought to us, but there was no time during our halt when we were not under the guard of at least six men, who had their muskets ready for instant use.

During the afternoon we rounded the Cape, and going down St. George’s Bay, passed through the gut of Canso to Chedabucto Bay, where we ran in to the Isle of Madame for the night. Within the walls of the garrison and under a strong guard furnished by the commander, we were kept securely until the morning, when our journey was resumed.

So far there had been no opportunity for us to have a single word of private conversation with one another, and if the same vigilance was maintained by our guards, we certainly should not have one. No plan for any concerted action towards our freedom could therefore be arranged by us. Yet we all knew by the looks the Captain occasionally gave us that he was watching for the moment when we might make such an effort with some hope of success, and we were all on the alert to assist him when such a move was made.

During the night the wind had whipped around, and now blew mildly from the south. It took us some time, therefore, to beat out around Cape Canso to the ocean, and when there what breeze there was left us. For a long time we lay there, gently tossing on the ground swell with the hot sun beating down upon our heads. The natural effect was for us to grow drowsy, and after a while even the men holding the guns were nodding sleepily.

When the lieutenant joined us in the morning he had the appearance of a man who had been up a good part of the night at his cups, and it now began to tell upon him. For a while he struggled to keep awake, and then, handing over the tiller to one of his men whom he sternly cautioned to keep a sharp lookout, he put himself in as comfortable a position as possible, with his head on the gunwale for a nap.

The heat had a similar effect on us Yankees, but we had an inducement to keep awake the red-coats did not have. By a glance at us Captain Tucker gave us to understand that the favorable moment for our action was close at hand, and with the prospect of our liberty before us we had no difficulty in keeping our eyes open.

Soon after the English officer dropped asleep, Captain Tucker changed his own position in the boat to one near the sleeping man. Here he assumed an easy posture as though he too would take a nap, yet we knew he was awake and was preparing to act.

That move came, however, sooner than we looked for it and in a way we had not expected. Catching the lieutenant suddenly by the feet, he tumbled him overboard, and so adroitly was it done that to all of his nodding men it had the appearance of an accidental fall into the sea.

Captain Tucker’s next move also seemed to confirm this view. Springing to his feet as though aroused by the splash, he called out excitedly:

“Quick, men! Put out your sweeps! You must save him! I’ll steer!”

He took the tiller from the bewildered soldier, and again cried out for the men to get out their oars.

In the excitement that followed—an excitement increased by the unfortunate officer’s calls for help, for his sword and pistols were weighing him down—the red-coats dropped their guns and put out the oars. They were awkward about it, however, and the Captain so managed the tiller that we were a few minutes in coming up with the struggling man. Those few minutes were enough for us, his comrades, to seize the discarded weapons. Dropping overboard all but five, we so placed ourselves that, when the British officer was drawn into the boat again, we were in command of it.

Under the stern orders of Captain Tucker, enforced by our loaded muskets, the discomfited soldiers pulled to the shore where they were disembarked.

“It cannot be far across the point to Canso, where you will find friends,” the Captain announced when they were on the beach. “Your boat and your provisions we shall need. Good-by,” and with a bow as polite as that the British jailer had given us a day or two before, he waved his hand for us to pull the craft out to sea.

Early in the afternoon the breeze sprang up again, and we headed the sloop down the coast, homeward bound, for after some discussion we decided to run the risk of a voyage in the open boat to Boston.

In the month of August the sea is usually light and the weather serene from Nova Scotia to Massachusetts Bay. We found it so now, and on the seventeenth arrived in port without mishap.

Bidding good-bye to our comrades, the Captain and I repaired to Marblehead, where we awaited the further orders of the Naval Committee. But two months later Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, and the war for the independence of the Colonies was over.

The navy, therefore, no longer needed us, and we resigned our commissions to go back to the foreign trade. For several years the Captain ran a large ship to French and Spanish ports, on which I served as first mate. Then I was given command of a brig in the East India trade and the Captain and I did not see each other for some years.

The War of 1812 sent us back to the navy in which he rose to the rank of a Commodore, while I won a Captain’s commission. At its close he retired to a farm he had purchased in Bristol, Maine, while I again sailed for foreign ports.

It was never my good fortune to visit him in his new home but once; but I have many times since stood by his grave and read the few lines written on his tombstone, a just tribute to the man and his service:

In Memory of
COMMODORE SAMUEL TUCKER
Who Died
March 10, 1833
A Patriot of the Revolution

To this I would personally add:

“And the truest friend I ever knew.”

The End.