The Noank's Log: A Privateer of the Revolution Read online

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  _The_ NOANK'S LOG

  A PRIVATEER OF THE REVOLUTION

  BY W. O. STODDARD

  Author of "Guert Ten Eyck," "Gid Granger," etc.

  ILLUSTRATED BY WILL CRAWFORD

  BOSTON

  LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY

  COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.

  Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood, Mass. U.S.A.

  PREFACE.

  The latter half of the year 1776 and the whole of the year 1777 havebeen vaguely and erroneously described as "the dark hour" of the warfor American independence. It is true that our armies, hastilygathered and imperfectly equipped, had been outnumbered and defeated inseveral important engagements. Beyond that purely military fact therewas no real darkness. Upon the sea the success of the Americans hadbeen phenomenal. Before the end of the year 1777, the commerce ofGreat Britain had suffered losses which dismayed her merchants. Asearly as the 6th of February, 1778, Mr. Woodbridge, alderman of London,testified at the bar of the House of Lords that the number of Britishships taken by American cruisers already reached the startling numberof seven hundred and thirty-three. Of these many had been retaken, butthe Americans had succeeded in carrying into port, as prizes, fivehundred and fifty-nine. The value of these and their cargoes wasdeclared to be moderately estimated at over ten millions of dollars.Only a few of the American cruisers were public vessels, sent outeither by individual states or by the United States. All the otherswere private armed ships, "letters of marque and reprisal" privateers.Something of their character and cruising is set forth in this story ofthe old whaler _Noank_, of New London.

  Something is also told of the condition and feeling of the people onthe land during the misunderstood gloomy days. The years of theRevolutionary War were not altogether years of disaster, devastation,and depression. They were rather years of development and prosperity.The war was fought and its victory won not only for political, but forsocial, industrial, and financial freedom. All the energies of theAmerican people had been fettered. As the war went on, and withoutwaiting for its close, all these energies became free to work out thegreat results at which the world now wonders.

  We are justly proud of our navy. It was founded by our sailorsthemselves, without the help of any Navy Department, or TreasuryDepartment, or national shipyards, or naval academies. There were,however, very good admirals, commodores, and captains among theself-taught heroes who went out then in ships in which, ton for ton andgun for gun, they were able to outsail and outfight any other cruisersthen afloat.

  CONTENTS.

  I. A Wounded Nation at Bay II. More Powder III. The Unforgotten Hero IV. The News from Trenton V. The Brig and the Schooner VI. The British Fleet VII. Hunting the _Noank_ VIII. Contraband Goods IX. The Picaroon X. The Black Transport XI. A Dangerous Neighborhood XII. A Prize for the _Noank_ XIII. The Bermuda Trader XIV. The Neutral Port XV. A Coming Storm XVI. Irish Loyalty XVII. Very Sharp Shooting XVIII. Down the British Channel XIX. The Spent Shot XX. Anchored in the Harbor

  THE NOANK'S LOG.

  CHAPTER I.

  A WOUNDED NATION AT BAY.

  It is well to fix the date of the beginning of a narrative.

  Through the mist and the icy rain, with fixed bayonets and steadfasthearts, up the main street of Trenton town dashed the iron men from thefrost and famine camp on the opposite bank of the Delaware.

  Among their foremost files, leading them in person, rode theircommander-in-chief. Beyond, at the central street crossing, a party ofHessian soldiers were half frantically getting a brace of field-piecesto bear upon the advancing American column. They were loading withgrape, and if they had been permitted to fire at that short range,George Washington and all the men around him would have been swept away.

  Young Captain William Washington and a mere boy-officer named JamesMonroe, with a few Virginians and Marylanders, rushed in ahead of theirmain column. Nearly every man went down, killed or wounded, but theyprevented the firing of those two guns. Just before their rush, thecause of American liberty was in great peril. Just after it, thevictory of Trenton was secure.

  So it is set down in written history, and there are a great manycurious statements made by historians.

  This was a sort of midnight, it is said,--the dark hour of theRevolutionary War.

  Manhattan Island, with its harbor and its important military and navalfeatures, had been definitely lost to the Americans and occupied by theBritish. Its defences had been so developed that it was nowpractically unassailable by any force which the patriots could bringagainst it. From this time forward its harbor and bay were to be thesafe refuge and rendezvous of the fleets of the king of England. Herewere to land and from hence were to march, with only one importantexception, the armies sent over to crush the rebellious colonies.

  Nevertheless, Great Britain had won back just so much of American land,and no more, as her troops could continuously control with forts andcamps. Upon all of her land, everywhere beyond the range of Britishcannon and the visitation of British bayonets and sabres, the colonistswere as firm as ever. It is an exceedingly remarkable fact thatprobably not one county in any colony south of the Canadas contained anumerical majority of royalists, or "Tories." Still, however, thesewere numerous, sincere, zealous, and they fully doubled the effectivestrength of the varied forces sent over from beyond the sea.

  The tide of disaster to the American arms had hardly been checked atany point in the north. Fort Washington had bloodily fallen; Fort Leehad been abandoned; the battle of White Plains had been fought, withsharp losses upon both sides. After vainly striving to keep together adissolving army, General Washington, with a small but utterly devotedremnant, had retreated to contend with cold and starvation in theirdesolate winter quarters beyond the Delaware.

  For a time, the red-cross flag of England seemed to be floatingtriumphantly over land and sea. All Europe regarded the American causeas hopelessly lost. The American character and the actual condition ofthe colonies was but little understood on the other side of theAtlantic. The truth of the situation was that the men who had wrestedthe wilderness from the hard-fighting red men, and who had beensteadily building up a new, free country, during several generations,were unaware of any really crushing disaster. At a few points, whichmost of them had never seen, they had been driven back a little fromthe sea-coast, and that was about all. Among their snow-clad hills andvalleys they were sensibly calculating the actual importance of theirmilitary reverses, and were preparing to try those battles again, orothers like them. A bitter, revengeful, implacable feeling waseverywhere increasing, for several aggravating causes. In the winterdays of 1776-77, wounded America was dangerously AT BAY.

  It was on Christmas morning, at the hour when the Hessians of ColonelRahl were giving up their arms and military stores in Trenton town. Atthat very hour, a group of people, who would have gone wild withdelight over such news as was to come from Trenton, sat down to aplentiful breakfast in a Connecticut farm-house. It was a house in theoutskirts of New London, near the bank of the Thames River, and in viewof the splendid harbor. As yet there were several vacant chairs at thetable.

  "Guert Ten Eyck," said a tall, noble-looking old woman, as she turnedaway from one of the frosted windows, "of what good is thy schooner andher fine French guns? Thee has not fired a shot with one of them. Howdoes thee know that thee can hit anything?"

  "Yes, we did, Rachel Tarns," was very cheerfully responded from acrossthe table. "We blazed away at that brig. We hit her, too. GoodQ
uakers ought not to want us to hurt people."

  "Guert," she tartly replied, "thee has done no harm, I will instructthee. If thee is thyself a Friend, thee must not use carnal weapons,but if thee is one of the world's people thee may do what is in theefor the ships and armies of thy good King George. Do I not love himexceedingly? Hath he not seized my dwelling for a barracks, and hathhe not driven me and mine out of my own city of New York, for what hisservants call treasonable utterances?"

  "Rachel!" came with much energy from the head of the table. "I can'tfight, any more'n you can. You love him just the way you do for prettygood reasons. So do I, for 'pressing my husband and sons into hisnavy. Thank God! they've all escaped now, and they're ready to sinksuch ships as they were flogged in--"

  "Mother Avery," interrupted a stalwart young man at her side, "that'swhat we mean to do if we can. British men-o'-war are not easy to sink,though. We've something to think of just now. If our harbor batteriesaren't strengthened the British could clean out New London any day.Their cruisers steer out o' range of Ledyard's long thirty-twos, butthere's not enough of 'em. We haven't powder enough, either."

  "Vine," said Rachel Tarns, "does thee not see the peaceful nature ofthy long cannon? They keep thy foes at a distance, and they preventthe unnecessary shedding of blood. I am glad they are on thy fort."

  "Rachel Tarns," said Guert, "you gave Aleck Hamilton the first powderhe ever had for his field-pieces. You're a real good Quaker. I wishyou'd come on board the _Noank_, though, and see how we've armed her.She's all ready for sea."

  "What we're waiting for," said Vine Avery, "is a chance to dosomething. Father won't say just what his next notion's goin' to be."

  "He says he won't wait much longer," said Guert. "Mother, you said Imight go with him?"

  "You may!" she answered firmly, and then her face grew shadowy.

  He was a well-built, wiry looking young fellow, with dark and piercingeyes. His face wore at this moment a look that was not onlycourageous, but older than his apparent years seemed to call for. Itwas a look that well might grow in the face of an American boy of thatday, whether sailor or soldier.

  Others had now come in to fill the chairs at the table. At the end ofit, opposite Mrs. Avery, sat a strong looking, squarely built man whomnobody need have mistaken for anything else than a first-rate Yankeesea-captain.

  The house they were in was of somewhat irregular construction. Itsmain part, the doorstep of which was not many yards from the roadfence, was a square frame building. At the right of its wide centralpassage, or hall, was the ample dining room. Opening into this at therear was a room almost equally large that was evidently much older.Its walls were not made of sawed lumber, nor were they even plastered.They were of huge, rudely squared logs and these had been cut from theprimeval forest when the first white settlers landed on that coast.They had made their houses as strong as so many small forts. In theouter doors of this room, and here and there in its thick sides, werecut loopholes, now covered over, through which the earlier Averys couldhave thrust their gun muzzles to defend their scalps from assaults oftheir unpleasant Pequot neighbors. There were legends in the family ofsharp skirmishes in the dooryard. All of that region had been thebattle-ground of white and red men and this was one reason why suchcaptains as Putnam, and Knowlton, and Nathan Hale had been able torally such remarkably stubborn fighters to march to Breed's Hill and tothe New York and New Jersey battlefields.

  "What's that, Rachel Tarns, about getting news from New York?" at lastinquired Captain Avery, laying down his knife and fork. "I'd ruthergit good news from Washington's army. I'm not givin' 'em up, yet, byany manner o' means."

  "That's all right, father," said his son Vine, "but I do wish we knewof a supply ship, inward bound. I'd like to strike for ammunition forthe _Noank_ and for the batteries. We're not fixed out for a longvoyage till we can fire more rounds than we could now."

  There was a Yankee drawl in his speech, a kind of twang, but there wasnothing coarse in the manners or appearance of young Avery, and hissailor father had an intelligent face, not at all destitute of what iscalled refinement.

  "I wish thee might have thy will," responded Rachel, earnestly.

  "Vine!" exclaimed his mother. "Hark! Somebody's coming. Rachel,didn't you hear that?"

  "I did!" said Rachel, rising. "That was Coco's voice and Up-na-tan's.The old redskin's talking louder than he is used to about something."

  "He can screech loud enough," said Guert. "I've heard him give theManhattan warwhoop. Coco can almost outyell him, too."

  At that moment, the front door swung open unceremoniously, and a pairof very extraordinary human forms came stalking in.

  "Up-na-tan!" shouted Guert, with boyish eagerness. "Coco! All loadeddown with muskets! What have they been up to?"

  "Heap more, out on sled," replied a deep, mellow, African voice. "Olechief an' Coco been among lobsters. 'Tole a heap."

  "Thee bad black man!" said Rachel Tarns. "Up-na-tan, has thee beenwicked, too? What has thee been stealing?"

  "Ole woman no talk," came half humorously from the very tall shapewhich had now halted in front of her. "Up-na-tan been all over ownisland. See King George army. See church prison. Ship prison. Seemany prisoners. All die, soon. Ole chief say he kill redcoat for killprisoner. Coco say, too. Good black man. Good Indian."

  He might be good, but he was ferociously ugly. The only Indianfeatures discernible about his dress were his moccasons and an old buthidden buckskin shirt. Over this he now had on a tremendous militarycloak of dark cloth. On his head was a 'coonskin cap, such as anyConnecticut farmer boy might wear. He now put down on the floor noless than six good-looking muskets, all duly fitted with bayonets.Coco did the same, and he, for looks, was equally distinguished. Histall, gaunt figure was surmounted by an undipped mop of white wool,over a face that was a marvel of deeply wrinkled African features. Healso wore a military cloak, and both garments were such as might havebeen lost in some way by petty officers of a Hessian battalion. Theywere not British, at all events.

  Guert glanced at the muskets on the floor and then sprang out of thedoor to discover what else this brace of uncommon foragers had broughthome with them. Just outside the gate there was quite enough toastonish him. It was not a mere hand-sled, but what the country peoplecalled a "jumper." It was rudely but strongly made of split saplings,its parts being held together mostly by wooden pins. It had no betterfloor than could be made of split shingles, and on this lay, now, aclosely packed collection of muskets, with several swords, pistols, anda miscellaneous lot of belts, cartridge-boxes, and knapsacks. Coco andUp-na-tan had plainly been borrowing liberally, somewhere or other, andGuert hastened back into the house to get an explanation. Curiouslyenough, however, both of the foragers had refused to give anything ofthe kind to the assembly in the Avery dining room.

  "Where has thee been, chief?" had been asked by Rachel Tarns. "Tell uswhat thee and Coco have been doing. We all wish to hear."

  "No, no!" interrupted the Indian; "Coco shut mouth. Ole chief tellGuert mother. Where ole woman gone? Want see her!"

  "That's so," said Guert. "Mother's about the only one that can doanything with either of them. They used to live a good deal at ourhouse, you know."

  There had all the while been one vacant chair at the table, waiting forsomebody that was expected, and now through the kitchen door camehurrying in a not very tall but vigorous-looking woman.

  "Mother!" said Guert. "So glad you came in! Speak to 'em! Make 'emtell what they've been doing!"

  She proved that she understood them better than he or the rest did bynot asking either of them a question. She stepped quickly forward andshook hands, with the red man first and then with the black. Shestooped and examined the weapons on the floor.

  "Sled outside," said Up-na-tan. "Ole woman go see."

  Out she went silently, and the dining room was deserted, for everybodyfollowed her. In front of the jumper stood a
very tired-looking pony,and she pointed at him inquiringly. He himself was nothing wonderful,but his harness was at least remarkable. It was made up of ropes andstrips of cloth. Some of the strips were red, some green, and the restwere blue, the whole being, nevertheless, somewhat otherwise thanornamental.

  "Ole chief find pony in wood," said Up-na-tan. "Hess'n tie him ontree. Find sled in ole barn. Hess'n go sleep. Drink rum. No wakeup. Ole chief an' Coco load sled. Feel hungry, now. Tell more by andby."

  His way of telling left it a little uncertain as to whether or notintemperance was the only cause that prevented the soldier sleepersfrom awaking to interfere with the taking away of their arms andaccoutrements. He seemed, however, to derive great satisfaction fromthe interest and approval manifested by Mrs. Ten Eyck.

  "Come in and get your breakfast," she said. "Rachel Tarns and I'llcook for you while you talk. Rachel, they must have the best we cangive them. I've cooked for Up-na-tan. 'Tisn't the first meal he's hadhere, either. He's an old friend of mine and yours."

  "Good!" grunted Up-na-tan. "Ole woman give chief coffee, many time."He appeared, nevertheless, a good deal as if he were giving hercommands rather than requests, so dignified and peremptory was hismanner of speech. No doubt it was the correct fashion, as between anychief and any kind of squaw, although he followed her into the house asif he in some way belonged to her, and Coco did the same.

  "Guert come," he said. "Lyme Avery, Vine, all rest, 'tay in room.Tarns woman come."

  The door into the kitchen was closed behind them in accordance with hiswishes, and the breakfast-table party was compelled to restrain itscuriosity for the time being.

  "We must let the old redskin have his own way," remarked Captain Avery."Nobody but Guert's mother knows how to deal with him. The old pirate!"

  "That's just what he is, or what he has been," said Vine Avery. "Hehardly makes any secret of it. I believe he has a notion, to this day,that Captain Kidd sailed under orders from General Washington and theContinental Congress."

  "Captain Kidd wasn't much worse than some o' the British cruisers,"grumbled his father. "They'll all call us pirates, too, and I guesswe'd better not let ourselves be taken prisoners."

  Mrs. Avery's face turned a little paler, at that moment, but she saidto him, courageously:--

  "Lyme! Do you and Vine fight to the very last! I'm glad that Robertis with Washington. I wish they had these muskets there! No, they maybe just what's wanted at our forts here."

  "More muskets, more cannon, and more powder," said Vine. "Oh! how Iache to know how those fellows captured 'em! There isn't any betterscout than an Indian, but both of 'em are reg'lar scalpers."

  They might be. They looked like it. They were unsurpassed specimensof out and out red and black savagery, with the added advantage, ordisadvantage, of paleface piratical training and experience by sea andland. The very room they were now in was a kind of memorial ofold-time barbarisms, and it might again become a fort--a block-house,at least--almost any day.

  All the farm-houses of Westchester County, New York, not far away, ifnot already burned or deserted, had become even as so many"block-houses," so to speak. They were to be held desperately, now andthen, against the lawless attacks of the Cowboys and Skinners who werecarrying on guerilla warfare over what was sarcastically termed "theneutral ground" between the British and American outposts.

  The huge fireplace, before which Mrs. Ten Eyck and Rachel Tarns beganat once to prepare breakfast for their hungry friends, had an iron barcrossing it, a few feet up. This was to prevent Pequots,Narragansetts, or other night visitors from bringing their knives andtomahawks into the house by way of the chimney. Upon the deerhornhooks above the mantel hung no less than three long-barrelled,bell-mouthed fowling pieces, such as had hurled slugs and buckshotamong the melting columns of the British regulars in front of thebreastwork on Bunker Hill, or, more correctly, Breed's Hill. A sabrehung beside them, and a long-shafted whaling lance rested in thenearest corner at the right, with a harpoon for a companion.

  All these things had been taken in at a glance by the two foragers, orscouts, or spies, or whatever duty they had been performing most ofrecently.

  "Keep still, Guert," commanded his mother. "Let the chief tell."

  Gravely, slowly, in very plain and not badly cut up English, with nowand then a word or so in Dutch, Up-na-tan told his story, aided, orotherwise, by sundry sharply rebuked interjections from Coco. Thefirst thing which seemed to be noteworthy was that the British onManhattan Island considered the rebel cause hopeless. Its armedforces, moreover, were so broken up or so far away that the vicinity ofNew York was but carelessly patrolled. There had been hardly anyobstacle to hinder the going in or the coming out of a white-headed oldslave and a wandering Indian. The red men of New York, for thatmatter, were supposed to be all more or less friendly to their BritishGreat Father George across the ocean. All black men, too, wereunderstood to be not unwillingly released from rebel masters, providedthey were not set at work again for anybody else.

  Up-na-tan's greatest interest appeared to cling to the forts and to thecannon in them, but he answered Rachel Tarns quite clearly concerningthe conditions of the American soldiers held as prisoners. All thelarge churches were full of them, he said, packed almost tosuffocation. One or more old hulks of warships, anchored in theharbor, were as horribly crowded. The worst of these was the oldsixty-four gun ship, _Jersey_, lying in Wallabout Bay, near the LongIsland shore. Up-na-tan and Coco had rowed around her in a stolen boatand had been fired upon by her deck guard, and they had seen a dozen atleast of dead rebels thrown overboard, to be carried out to sea by thetide.

  "Redcoat kill 'em all, some day," said the Indian. "Kill men in olechurch. Bury 'em somewhere." He seemed to have an idea that thedoomed Americans did not perish by disease or suffocation altogether.He believed that their captors selected about so many of them everyday, to be dealt with after the Iroquois or Algonquin fashion. Thiswas strictly an Indian notion of the customary usages of war. It didnot stir his sensibilities, if he had any, as it did those of thewarm-hearted Quaker woman and Mrs. Ten Eyck. Guert listened with aterribly vindictive feeling, such as was sadly increasing among all thepeople of the colonies. It was to account for, though not to excuse,many a deed of ruthless retaliation during the remainder of the war.In skirmish after skirmish, raid after raid, battle after battle, theinnocent were to suffer for the guilty. Brave and right-mindedservants and soldiers of Great Britain were to perish miserably,because of these evil dealings with prisoners of war in and aboutManhattan Island.

  "Thy scouting among the forts and camps hath small value," said RachelTarns, thoughtfully. "If Washington knew all, he hath not wherewith toattack the king's forces."

  "No, no!" exclaimed the Indian. "Not now. Washington come again, someday. Kill all lobster. Take back island. Up-na-tan help him. Cocono talk. Ole chief tell more."

  Aided by expressive gestures and by an occasional question from Mrs.Ten Eyck, he made the remainder of his story both clear andinteresting. He and Coco had crossed the Harlem, homeward bound, in anold dugout canoe. They had worked their way out through the Britishlines by keeping under the cover of woods, to a point not far from theWhite Plains battle-field. Here, one evening, they had discovered aHessian foraging party in a deserted farm-house. The soldiers werehaving a grand carouse, thinking themselves out of all danger.

  "Musket all 'tack up in front of house," said Up-na-tan. "One Hess'nwalk up an' down, sentry, till he tumble. Fall on face. Coco findsled in barn. Find pony. Up-na-tan take all musket. Pile 'em onsled. Harness pony, all pretty good. Come away."

  "Didn't you go into the house?" asked Guert, excitedly. "Didn't any of'em know what you were doing? How'd you get your cloak?"

  "Boy shut mouth," said Up-na-tan. "Ole chief want cloak. Coco, too,want more musket, pistol, powder. Hate Hess'n. All in house go sleephard. No wake up. Lie still. Pony pull sled to New London."


  Mrs. Ten Eyck's face was very pale and so was that of Rachel Tarns.They believed that they understood only too well why the Manhattanwarrior and the grim Ashantee who had been his comrade in this affair,preferred to say no more concerning the undisturbable slumber of thatunfortunate detail of Hessians.

  "Guert," said his mother, "go in and get your breakfast. The chief andCoco have had theirs. Rachel, you and I must have a talk with CaptainAvery."