Eager and warm were the greetings. Ross had so much to ask and so much to tell that he found it difficult to begin.

“Upon my word, captain,” he said at last, “could I have had a prayer answered, you could not have appeared at a more opportune moment. There is the old Harry to pay in France—upon no account must you return there, for——”

“I have no such intention,” was Conyngham’s answer, interrupting. “Sure our friend de Vergennes gave me hint enough for that. I shall, if I can, pick up some scrap iron here and something to throw it with, go back and pay the old country a fleeting visit, and then across the wide sea to America. But how goes it with all our friends?” he added.

“That is what I am about to tell you,” replied Ross. “Poor Hodge is in the Bastile, and my brother and Allan are confined in the prison at Dunkirk.”

“All on my account?” asked Conyngham.

“On our joint account. Charge it to the Revenge,” was the reply. “Hodge and Allan went on your bond, and at the first news that you were cruising de Vergennes remarked that ‘it was a bad matter to lie to a king,’ which he claimed they both had done, and clapped them into prison.”

Conyngham frowned and looked puzzled.

“But, upon my soul, the sheep attacked me first,” he said. “So my Lord Stormont has yet some influence.”

“But never fear,” Ross went on. “Hodge is being treated well; and as for my brother, he dines with the commandant every evening. Good news has come from America, and all things point to an early alliance between our country and France. And now,” he added, “tell me of yourself, and what do you mean by ‘scrap iron’?”

In a few words Conyngham related the story of his narrow escape and the loss of his guns, and the necessary jettisoning of his anchors and armament.

“We will arrange for all that,” was Ross’s comforting comment when he had finished. “There is money in the treasury, and the commissioners are well satisfied. There must be some now to your credit. If you should care for an accounting——”

“Let it stand,” replied Conyngham. “I desire no more than is customary for an officer in the regular service—two twentieths—and will wait for my accounting until the business is finished. By the Powers, I only ask to be at sea again.”

“The very person to help us out is Signor Lazzonere,” exclaimed Ross. “Although a Frenchman, he has strong connections here in Spain, and there is neither a Stormont nor a de Vergennes to be dealt with. Money can do a great deal when backed with a little influence.”

The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the merchant himself, and all then adjourned to Signor Lazzonere’s inner office.

In a few minutes Conyngham came out, a smile on his lips and a light of satisfaction dancing in his eyes.

That very night the Revenge was warped in with a small kedge and moored alongside a large bark that lay close inshore. Under cover of darkness there was transferred to the cruiser the very thing that her captain most wished for—a long twelve-pounder. It was hidden beneath a canvas covering in such a way that its shape took on the innocent appearance of a pile of wine casks, and the following evening work was again resumed and eight six-pounders and ten short swivels—what the French called demi-cannon—were put on board. By the fourth day the Revenge’s armament was practically complete. In fact, she was, if anything, in better fighting trim than ever before, and her crew was again recruited to its full strength. The Spanish authorities had paid not the least attention to the goings on, and no attempt was made to prevent her sailing, although by this time her character must have been known to every longshoreman in the port. Many Englishmen in Corunna were in high dudgeon, and as usual would have prevented her sailing if they could. But on the tenth day after her arrival, at noon of a Sunday, she made sail and put out into the rolling waters of the Bay of Biscay. The crew, all of whom had been paid part of their prize-money, looked to their young captain to bring them safely through any adventure that might be in store. Before the cruiser was out of the bay she had taken two prizes, and almost at the very spot where she had made her sensational escape she took a third. But it was in the Irish Channel that her run of luck began. No less than twelve richly laden craft were despatched to Spanish ports, and of them but two were recaptured. Nearly all of the merchantmen surrendered without making any resistance, either completely taken by surprise or, not being prepared for fighting, concluding that it would be wiser to give in at the very first summons.

But this rather inglorious method of warfare did not altogether suit Captain Conyngham’s adventurous spirit, and time and again he wished for a brush with one of the king’s cutters before his crew and his stores were depleted by the manning of so many prizes. As yet he had found no occasion to use the long twelve-pounder. But the opportunity was soon to come, and the way it happened was this:

The Revenge was running short of water, and owing to the necessity of dividing her stores with some of the coasters that were provisioned for voyages of only one or two days’ duration, the crew was at last forced to accept half rations, and sailors will grumble quicker at this than at any form of dangerous hardship.

Once, forced by a hard blow, Conyngham had boldly made into the mouth of the English harbor of Ravenglass, in Lancashire, where of course he dared not go ashore, and owing to the presence of a British thirty-four-gun frigate he could not cut out any of the numerous fleet of merchant vessels by which he was surrounded. When the storm was over he sailed out of the harbor as boldly as he had entered it, and none of the English fleet imagined that the natty little craft that dropped anchor among them was the dreaded Yankee “pirate.”

But now to the adventure: The supply of water was growing less and less. It became an absolute necessity to fill the casks in some fashion, and also to procure some fresh provisions, for scurvy, the dreaded enemy of sailors of that day, had begun to appear—at least there were signs of it, and the crew were grumbling louder than ever. So Conyngham bethought him of his promise to pay a visit to the land of his birth; and after skirting the Isle of Man in a fruitless search for a safe landing-place or a well-provisioned prize, he crossed the Channel and entered the harbor of a little Irish fishing port (the name of which he fails to record in his log) about twenty miles or so to the north of the town and harbor of Wicklow.

Probably the fisher folk were simple and unsuspicious; mayhap they did not care to inquire closely into the mission of a polite fellow countryman who claimed to be a peaceable merchantman, for here Conyngham allowed his original nationality to be unmistakably plain if he did conceal his calling; or maybe it was the sight of the Spanish gold with which he paid for everything that blinded them; but they were eager and willing to help him to the things he wanted; and as many hands make light work, twelve hours sufficed to fill his casks with fresh water and his forehold with potatoes—the best cure for scurvy. Stores of various kinds to replace those he had sent to Spain were also taken on board.

It was a misty, foggy day, with very little wind. The red evening sun could not pierce the thick clouds, and the falling barometer proved that heavy weather might be expected. Conyngham was anxious to be off. He did not relish being kept longer in port than was necessary; for, although he had seen that no vessel, even of small size, had sailed out the harbor, he could not tell but that some suspicious person had traveled overland to Wicklow bearing the news that the dreaded Revenge was lying in the harbor. So, just before darkness set in, he bade good-by to his friendly countrymen, and getting up his anchor drifted out with the tide toward the Channel.

There was a steep headland to the south, and just as the Revenge was rounding it a vessel came into full view that, from her appearance, could be none other than a British cutter. There was hardly enough wind to fill her sails, and like the Revenge she was drifting slowly with the tide.

It would be hard to conjecture what it was that caused her captain to be suspicious, but immediately upon sighting Conyngham’s vessel two boats were lowered from the cutter’s side and filled with armed men. They pulled out as if to intercept him. There were altogether in the Revenge’s crew at this time but some thirty men left, but at once the long twelve was cast loose and the short broadside guns were double-shotted. Before the boats had traversed half the distance they were stopped by a challenging shot from the twelve-pounder, and with all haste they made back to their vessel. Although she was evidently of heavier metal, had Conyngham had his full complement of men he would not have shrunk from engaging her, but under the circumstances, as he had once remarked before, “discretion was the better part of valor,” and at long range a drifting fight began.

If the people of the little fishing port had been at all in doubt as to who their visitor was, all such uncertainty was put at rest by the appearance the next morning of the cutter with her jib-boom and topsail-yard shot away and three shot holes in her hull, one at the water-line that necessitated immediate attending to.

The Revenge had escaped all injury except to her larder, a chance shot having entered at her cabin window and completely spoiled the captain’s dinner; thence glancing into the galley, it broached a barrel of fine salt pork, and ended by lodging in one of the deck beams.

The cruise had ended in an adventure at last, although a rather tame one, and, satisfied with results, Captain Conyngham determined to set sail for America.

Another prize was added to his list before he was quite free of the Channel, and this was ordered to meet him at a port in the Spanish West Indies, toward which he now laid his course, as he deemed it much wiser to ascertain how matters stood in America before making for any home port, which, for all he knew, might be in possession of the enemy.

He was satisfied with the work that he had accomplished, and well he might be. Perhaps the result of his cruises had been exaggerated, but he had prevented the sailing of two loaded transports, and from the very fear of his name over forty sail of vessels of all kinds, to quote from a contemporaneous account, “lay at anchor cooped up in the Thames.”

As Silas Deane wrote to Robert Morris and to the home Government, “His name has become more dreaded than that of the great Thurot, and merchants are constrained to ship their cargoes in French or Dutch vessels.”

Not a guard-ship on the coast but had received specific orders to be on the lookout for him, and yet he had cruised in the English and Irish Channels for month after month. Another fact that he regarded with satisfaction was that he had accomplished all this not merely as a privateersman, but as a regularly commissioned officer in the navy of his country. The prize-money due him as such, now amounting to a large sum, he regarded as safe in the hands of the commissioners.

After reaching the West Indies, where he spent some time, he learned from the American consul of the condition of affairs at home, and after waiting for the arrival of the latest prize he set sail for Philadelphia. The one thing that he regretted was the fact that he did not have in his possession the commission signed by John Hancock, then president of Congress, and given to him by Franklin in Paris, but he did not doubt that the good doctor had it in his possession and would produce it at the proper time. Without mishap, the Revenge sailed up the coast, slipped by the British guard-ships off the capes of Delaware, and early in February, 1779, Conyngham was home at last!