Chapter XI: The Confessional (3)

Of course, I immediately performed my promise. I had always intended that not only the young lady, but her father, should know what we thought of Patrick, and what he might have been, if he had lived. I wrote to that potential personage, telling him of all the facts of the case, except the poverty, which might be omitted as essentially a slight and temporary circumstance. I reported of his life of industry and simple self-denial,--of his prospects, his friendships, his sweet and gay decline and departure, and his honorable funeral. No answer was needed; and I had supposed there would hardly be one. If there should be one, it was not likely to be very congenial to the mood of Patrick's friends: but I could hardly have conceived of anything so bad as it was. The man wrote that it was not wonderful that any young man should get on under the advantage of my patronage; and that it was to be hoped that this young man would have turned out more worthy of such patronage than he was when he ungratefully returned his obligations to his employer by engaging the affections of his daughter. The young man had caused great trouble and anxiety to one who, now he was dead, was willing to forgive him; but no circumstance could ever change the aspect of his conduct, in regard to his treacherous behavior to his benefactor; and so forth. There was no sign of any consciousness of imprudence on the father's own part; but strong indications of vindictive hatred, softened in the expression by being mixed up with odious flatteries to Patrick's literary friends. The only compensation for the disgust of this letter was the confirmation it afforded of Patrick's narrative, in which, it was clear, he had done no injustice to his oppressor.

I have not bestowed so much thought as this on the man and his letter, from the day I received it, till now; but it was necessary to speak of it at the close of the story. I lose sight of the painful incidents in thinking of Patrick himself. I only wish I had once seen his face, that I might know how near the truth is the image that I have formed of him.

There may have been, there no doubt have been, other such young Irishmen, whose lives have been misdirected for want of the knowledge which Patrick gained in good time by the accident of his coming to England. I fear that many such have lived a life of turbulence, or impotent discontent, under the delusion that their country was politically oppressed. The mistake may now be considered at an end. It is sufficiently understood in Ireland that her woes have been from social and not political causes, from the day of Catholic emancipation. But it is a painful thought what Patrick's short life might have been, if he had remained under the O'Connell influence; and what the lives of hundreds more have been,--rendered wild by delusion, and wretched by strife and lawlessness, for want of a gleam of that clear daylight which made a sound citizen of a passionate Young Repealer.

BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER.

This is the new version of the _Panem et Circenses_ of the Roman populace. It is our _ultimatum_, as that was theirs. They must have something to eat, and the circus-shows to look at. We must have something to eat, and the papers to read.

Everything else we can give up. If we are rich, we can lay down our carriages, stay away from Newport or Saratoga, and adjourn the trip to Europe _sine die_. If we live in a small way, there are at least new dresses and bonnets and every-day luxuries which we can dispense with. If the young Zouave of the family looks smart in his new uniform, its respectable head is content, though he himself grow seedy as a caraway-umbel late in the season. He will cheerfully calm the perturbed nap of his old beaver by patient brushing in place of buying a new one, if only the Lieutenant's jaunty cap is what it should be. We all take a pride in sharing the epidemic economy of the time. Only _bread and the newspaper_ we must have, whatever else we do without.

How this war is simplifying our mode of being! We live on our emotions, as the sick man is said in the common speech to be nourished by his fever. Our common mental food has become distasteful, and what would have been intellectual luxuries at other times are now absolutely repulsive.

All this change in our manner of existence implies that we have experienced some very profound impression, which will sooner or later betray itself in permanent effects on the minds and bodies of many among us. We cannot forget Corvisart's observation of the frequency with which diseases of the heart were noticed as the consequence of the terrible emotions produced by the scenes of the great French Revolution. Laennec tells the story of a convent, of which he was the medical director, where all the nuns were subjected to the severest penances and schooled in the most painful doctrines. They all became consumptive soon after their entrance, so that, in the course of his ten years' attendance, all the inmates died out two or three times, and were replaced by new ones. He does not hesitate to attribute the disease from which they suffered to those depressing moral influences to which they were subjected.

So far we have noticed little more than disturbances of the nervous system as a consequence of the war excitement in non-combatants. Take the first trifling example which comes to our recollection. A sad disaster to the Federal army was told the other day in the presence of two gentlemen and a lady. Both the gentlemen complained of a sudden feeling at the _epigastrium_, or, less learnedly, the pit of the stomach, changed color, and confessed to a slight tremor about the knees. The lady had a _"grande revolution_," as French patients say,--went home, and kept her bed for the rest of the day. Perhaps the reader may smile at the mention of such trivial indispositions, but in more sensitive natures death itself follows in some cases from no more serious cause. An old gentleman fell senseless in fatal apoplexy, on hearing of Napoleon's return from Elba. One of our early friends, who recently died of the same complaint, was thought to have had his attack mainly in consequence of the excitements of the time.

We all know what the _war fever_ is in our young men,--what a devouring passion it becomes in those whom it assails. Patriotism is the fire of it, no doubt, but this is fed with fuel of all sorts. The love of adventure, the contagion of example, the fear of losing the chance of participating in the great events of the time, the desire of personal distinction, all help to produce those singular transformations which we often witness, turning the most peaceful of our youth into the most ardent of our soldiers. But something of the same fever in a different form reaches a good many non-combatants, who have no thought of losing a drop of precious blood belonging to themselves or their families. Some of the symptoms we shall mention are almost universal; they are as plain in the people we meet everywhere as the marks of an influenza, when that is prevailing.

The first is a nervous restlessness of a very peculiar character. Men cannot think, or write, or attend to their ordinary business. They stroll up and down the streets, they saunter out upon the public places. We confessed to an illustrious author that we laid down the volume of his work which we were reading when the war broke out. It was as interesting as a romance, but the romance of the past grew pale before the red light of the terrible present. Meeting the same author not long afterwards, he confessed that he had laid down his pen at the same time that we had closed his book. He could not write about the sixteenth century any more than we could read about it, while the nineteenth was in the very agony and bloody sweat of its great sacrifice.

Another most eminent scholar told us in all simplicity that he had fallen into such a state that he would read the same telegraphic despatches over and over again in different papers, as if they were new, until he felt as if he were an idiot. Who did not do just the same thing, and does not often do it still, now that the first flush of the fever is over? Another person always goes through the side streets on his way for the noon _extra_,--he is so afraid somebody will meet him and _tell_ the news he wishes to _read_, first on the bulletin-board, and then in the great capitals and leaded type of the newspaper.

When any startling piece of war-news comes, it keeps repeating itself in our minds in spite of all we can do. The same trains of thought go tramping round in circle through the brain like the supernumeraries that make up the grand army of a stage-show. Now, if a thought goes round through the brain a thousand times in a day, it will have worn as deep a track as one which has passed through it once a week for twenty years. This accounts for the ages we seem to have lived since the twelfth of April last, and, to state it more generally, for that _ex post facto_ operation of a great calamity, or any very powerful impression, which we once illustrated by the image of a stain spreading backwards from the leaf of life open before us through all those which we have already turned.

Blessed are those who can sleep quietly in times like these! Yet, not wholly blessed, either; for what is more painful than the awaking from peaceful unconsciousness to a sense that there is something wrong, we cannot at first think what,--and then groping our way about through the twilight of our thoughts until we come full upon the misery, which, like some evil bird, seemed to have flown away, but which sits waiting for us on its perch by our pillow in the gray of the morning?

The converse of this is perhaps still more painful. Many have the feeling in their waking hours that the trouble they are aching with is, after all, only a dream,--if they will rub their eyes briskly enough and shake themselves, they will awake out of it, and find all their supposed grief is unreal. This attempt to cajole ourselves out of an ugly fact always reminds us of those unhappy flies who have been indulging in the dangerous sweets of the paper prepared for their especial use.

Watch one of them. He does not feel quite well,--at least, he suspects himself of indisposition. Nothing serious,--let us just rub our fore-feet together, as the enormous creature who provides for us rubs his hands, and all will be right. He rubs them with that peculiar twisting movement of his, and pauses for the effect. No! all is not quite right yet.--Ah! it is our head that is not set on just as it ought to be. Let us settle _that_ where it should be, and _then_ we shall certainly be in good trim again. So he pulls his head about as an old lady adjusts her cap, and passes his fore-paw over it like a kitten washing herself.--Poor fellow! It is not a fancy, but a fact, that he has to deal with. If he could read the letters at the head of the sheet, he would see they were _Fly-Paper_.--So with us, when, in our waking misery, we try to think we dream! Perhaps very young persons may not understand this; as we grow older, our waking and dreaming life run more and more into each other.

Another symptom of our excited condition is seen in the breaking up of old habits. The newspaper is as imperious as a Russian Ukase; it will be had, and it will be read. To this all else must give place. If we must go out at unusual hours to get it, we shall go, in spite of after-dinner nap or evening somnolence. If it finds us in company, it will not stand on ceremony, but cuts short the compliment and the story by the divine right of its telegraphic despatches.

War is a very old story, but it is a new one to this generation of Americans. Our own nearest relation in the ascending line remembers the Revolution well. How should she forget it? Did she not lose her doll, which was left behind, when she was carried out of Boston, then growing uncomfortable by reason of cannon-balls dropping in from the neighboring heights at all hours,--in token of which see the tower of Brattle-Street Church at this very day? War in her memory means '76. As for the brush of 1812, "we did not think much about that"; and everybody knows that the Mexican business did not concern us much, except in its political relations. No! War is a new thing to all of us who are not in the last quarter of their century. We are learning many strange matters from our fresh experience. And besides, there are new conditions of existence which make war as it is with us very different from war as it has been.

The first and obvious difference consists in the fact that the whole nation is now penetrated by the ramifications of a network of iron nerves which flash sensation and volition backward and forward to and from towns and provinces as if they were organs and limbs of a single living body. The second is the vast system of iron muscles which, as it were, move the limbs of the mighty organism one upon another. What was the railroad-force which put the Sixth Regiment in Baltimore on the 19th of April but a contraction and extension of the arm of Massachusetts with a clenched fist full of bayonets at the end of it?

This perpetual intercommunication, joined to the power of instantaneous action, keeps us always alive with excitement. It is not a breathless courier who comes back with the report from an army we have lost sight of for a month, nor a single bulletin which tells us all we are to know for a week of some great engagement, but almost hourly paragraphs, laden with truth or falsehood as the case may be, making us restless always for the last fact or rumor they are telling. And so of the movements of our armies. To-night the stout lumbermen of Maine are encamped under their own fragrant pines. In a score or two of hours they are among the tobacco-fields and the slave-pens of Virginia. The war passion burned like scattered coals of fire in the households of Revolutionary times; now it rushes all through the land like a flame over the prairie. And this instant diffusion of every fact and feeling produces another singular effect in the equalizing and steadying of public opinion. We may not be able to see a month ahead of us; but as to what has passed, a week afterwards it is as thoroughly talked out and judged as it would have been in a whole season before our national nervous system was organized.

"As the wild tempest wakes the slumbering sea,
Thou only teachest all that man can be!"

We indulged in the above apostrophe to War in a Phi Beta Kappa poem of long ago, which we liked better before we read Mr. Cutler's beautiful prolonged lyric delivered at the recent anniversary of that Society.

Oftentimes, in paroxysms of peace and good-will towards all mankind, we have felt twinges of conscience about the passage,--especially when one of our orators showed us that a ship of war costs as much to build and keep as a college, and that every port-hole we could stop would give us a new professor. Now we begin to think that there was some meaning in our poor couplet. War _has_ taught us, as nothing else could, what we can be and are. It has exalted our manhood and our womanhood, and driven us all back upon our substantial human qualities, for a long time more or less kept out of sight by the spirit of commerce, the love of art, science, or literature, or other qualities not belonging to all of us as men and women.

It is at this very moment doing more to melt away the petty social distinctions which keep generous souls apart from each other, than the preaching of the Beloved Disciple himself would do. We are finding out that not only "patriotism is eloquence," but that heroism is gentility. All ranks are wonderfully equalized under the fire of a masked battery. The plain artisan or the rough fireman, who faces the lead and iron like a man, is the truest representative we can show of the heroes of Crecy and Agincourt. And if one of our fine gentlemen puts off his straw-colored kids and stands by the other, shoulder to shoulder, or leads him on to the attack, he is as honorable in our eyes and in theirs as if he were ill-dressed and his hands were soiled with labor.

Even our poor "Brahmins,"--whom a critic in ground-glass spectacles (the same who grasps his statistics by the blade and strikes at his supposed antagonist with the handle) oddly confounds with the "bloated aristocracy," whereas they are very commonly pallid, undervitalized, shy, sensitive creatures, whose only birthright is an aptitude for learning,--even these poor New England Brahmins of ours, _subvirates_ of an organizable base as they often are, count as full men, if their courage is big enough for the uniform which hangs so loosely about their slender figures.

A young man was drowned not very long ago in the river running under our windows. A few days afterwards a field-piece was dragged to the water's edge and fired many times over the river. We asked a bystander, who looked like a fisherman, what that was for. It was to "break the gall," he said, and so bring the drowned person to the surface. A strange physiological fancy and a very odd _non sequitur_; but that is not our present point. A good many extraordinary objects do really come to the surface when the great guns of war shake the waters, as when they roared over Charleston harbor.

Treason came up, hideous, fit only to be huddled into its dishonorable grave. But the wrecks of precious virtues, which had been covered with the waves of prosperity, came up also. And all sorts of unexpected and unheard-of things, which had lain unseen during our national life of fourscore years, came up and are coming up daily, shaken from their bed by the concussions of the artillery bellowing around us.

It is a shame to own it, but there were persons otherwise respectable not unwilling to say that they believed the old valor of Revolutionary times had died out from among us. They talked about our own Northern people as the English in the last centuries used to talk about the French,--Goldsmith's old soldier, it may be remembered, called one Englishman good for five of them. As Napoleon spoke of the English, again, as a nation of shopkeepers, so these persons affected to consider the multitude of their countrymen as unwarlike artisans,--forgetting that Paul Revere taught himself the value of liberty in working upon gold, and Nathaniel Greene fitted himself to shape armies in the labor of forging iron.

These persons have learned better now. The bravery of our free working-people was overlaid, but not smothered, sunken, but not drowned. The hands which had been busy conquering the elements had only to change their weapons and their adversaries, and they were as ready to conquer the masses of living force opposed to them as they had been to build towns, to dam rivers, to hunt whales, to harvest ice, to hammer brute matter into every shape civilization can ask for.

Another great fact came to the surface, and is coming up every day in new shapes,--that we are one people. It is easy to say that a man is a man in Maine or Minnesota, but not so easy to feel it, all through our bones and marrow. The camp is deprovincializing us very fast. Poor Winthrop, marching with the city _élégants_, seems almost to have been astonished to find how wonderfully human were the hard-handed men of the Eighth Massachusetts. It takes all the nonsense out of everybody, or ought to do it, to see how fairly the real manhood of a country is distributed over its surface. And then, just as we are beginning to think our own soil has a monopoly of heroes as well as of cotton, up turns a regiment of gallant Irishmen, like the Sixty-Ninth, to show us that continental provincialism is as bad as that of Coos County, New Hampshire, or of Broadway, New York.

Here, too, side by side in the same great camp, are half a dozen chaplains, representing half a dozen modes of religious belief. When the masked battery opens, does the "Baptist" Lieutenant believe in his heart that God takes better care of him than of his "Congregationalist" Colonel? Does any man really suppose, that, of a score of noble young fellows who have just laid down their lives for their country, the _Homoousians_ are received to the mansions of bliss, and the _Homoiousians_ translated from the battle-field to the abodes of everlasting woe? War not only teaches what man can be, but it teaches also what he must not be. He must not be a bigot and a fool in the presence of that day of judgment proclaimed by the trumpet which calls to battle, and where a man should have but two thoughts: to do his duty, and trust his Maker. Let our brave dead come back from the fields where they have fallen for law and liberty, and if you will follow them to their graves, you will find out what the Broad Church means; the narrow church is sparing of its exclusive formulae over the coffins wrapped in the flag which the fallen heroes had defended! Very little comparatively do we hear at such times of the dogmas on which men differ; very much of the faith and trust in which all sincere Christians can agree. It is a noble lesson, and nothing less noisy than the voice of cannon can teach it so that it shall be heard over all the angry voices of theological disputants.

Now, too, we have a chance to test the sagacity of our friends, and to get at their principles of judgment. Perhaps most of us will agree that our faith in domestic prophets has been diminished by the experience of the last six months. We had the notable predictions attributed to the Secretary of State, which so unpleasantly refused to fulfil themselves. We were infested at one time with a set of ominous-looking seers, who shook their heads and muttered obscurely about some mighty preparations that were making to substitute the rule of the minority for that of the majority. Organizations were darkly hinted at; some thought our armories would be seized; and there are not wanting ancient women in the neighboring University town who consider that the country was saved by the intrepid band of students who stood guard, night after night, over the G.R. cannon and the pile of balls in the Cambridge Arsenal.

As a general rule, it is safe to say that the best prophecies are those which the sages _remember_ after the event prophesied of has come to pass, and remind us that they have made long ago. Those who are rash enough to predict publicly beforehand commonly give us what they hope, or what they fear, or some conclusion from an abstraction of their own, or some guess founded on private information not half so good as what everybody gets who reads the papers,--_never_ by any possibility a word that we can depend on, simply because there are cob-webs of contingency between every to-day and to-morrow that no field-glass can penetrate when fifty of them lie woven one over another. Prophesy as much as you like, but always _hedge_. Say that you think the rebels are weaker than is commonly supposed, but, on the other hand, that they may prove to be even stronger than is anticipated. Say what you like,--only don't be too peremptory and dogmatic; we _know_ that wiser men than you have been notoriously deceived in their predictions in this very matter.

_Ibis et redibis nunquam in bello peribis._

Let that be your model; and remember, on peril of your reputation as a prophet, not to put a stop before or after the _nunquam_.

There are two or three facts connected with _time_, besides that already referred to, which strike us very forcibly in their relation to the great events passing around us. We spoke of the long period seeming to have elapsed since this war began. The buds were then swelling which held the leaves that are still green. It seems as old as Time himself. We cannot fail to observe how the mind brings together the scenes of to-day and those of the old Revolution. We shut up eighty years into each other like the joints of a pocket-telescope. When the young men from Middlesex dropped in Baltimore the other day, it seemed to bring Lexington and the other Nineteenth of April close to us. War has always been the mint in which the world's history has been coined, and now every day or week or month has a new medal for us. It was Warren that the first impression bore in the last great coinage; if it is Ellsworth now, the new face hardly seems fresher than the old. All battle-fields are alike in their main features. The young fellows who fell in our earlier struggle seemed like old men to us until within these few months; now we remember they were like these fiery youth we are cheering as they go to the fight; it seems as if the grass of our bloody hill-side was crimsoned but yesterday, and the cannon-ball imbedded in the church-tower would feel warm, if we laid our hand upon it.

Nay, in this our quickened life we feel that all the battles from earliest time to our own day, where Right and Wrong have grappled, are but one great battle, varied with brief pauses or hasty bivouacs upon the field of conflict. The issues seem to vary, but it is always a right against a claim, and, however the struggle of the hour may go, a movement onward of the campaign, which uses defeat as well as victory to serve its mighty ends. The very weapons of our warfare change less than we think. Our bullets and cannon-balls have lengthened into bolts like those which whistled out of old arbalests. Our soldiers fight with Bowie-knives, such as are pictured on the walls of Theban tombs, wearing a newly-invented head-gear as old as the days of the Pyramids.

Whatever miseries this war brings upon us, it is making us wiser, and, we trust, better. Wiser, for we are learning our weakness, our narrowness, our selfishness, our ignorance, in lessons of sorrow and shame. Better, because all that is noble in men and women is demanded by the time, and our people are rising to the standard the time calls for. For this is the question the hour is putting to each of us: Are you ready, if need be, to sacrifice all that you have and hope for in this world, that the generations to follow you may inherit a whole country whose natural condition shall be peace, and not a broken province which must live under the perpetual threat, if not in the constant presence, of war and all that war brings with it? If we are all ready for this sacrifice, battles may be lost, but the campaign and its grand object must be won.

Heaven is very kind in its way of putting questions to mortals. We are not abruptly asked to give up all that we most care for, in view of the momentous issues before us. Perhaps we shall never be asked to give up all, but we have already been called upon to part with much that is dear to us, and should be ready to yield the rest as it is called for. The time may come when even the cheap public print shall be a burden our means cannot support, and we can only listen in the square that was once the market-place to the voices of those who proclaim defeat or victory. Then there will be only our daily food left. When we have nothing to read and nothing to eat, it will be a favorable moment to offer a compromise. At present we have all that Nature absolutely demands,--we can live on bread and the newspaper.

* * * * *

"UNDER THE CLOUD AND THROUGH THE SEA."

So moved they, when false Pharaoh's legion pressed,
Chariots and horsemen following furiously,--
Sons of old Israel, at their God's behest,
Under the cloud and through the swelling sea.

So passed they, fearless, where the parted wave,
With cloven crest uprearing from the sand,--
A solemn aisle before,--behind, a grave,--
Rolled to the beckoning of Jehovah's hand.

So led He them, in desert marches grand,
By toils sublime, with test of long delay,
On, to the borders of that Promised Land
Wherein their heritage of glory lay.

And Jordan raged along his rocky bed,
And Amorite spears flashed keen and fearfully:
Still the same pathway must their footsteps tread,--
Under the cloud and through the threatening sea.

God works no otherwise. No mighty birth
But comes by throes of mortal agony;
No man-child among nations of the earth
But findeth baptism in a stormy sea.

Sons of the Saints who faced their Jordan-flood
In fierce Atlantic's unretreating wave,--
Who by the Red Sea of their glorious blood
Reached to the Freedom that your blood shall save!

O Countrymen! God's day is not yet done!
He leaveth not His people utterly!
Count it a covenant, that He leads us on
Beneath the Cloud and through the crimson Sea!

JOURNAL OF A PRIVATEERSMAN.

The following journal was written by the Captain's Quartermaster on board the Sloop Revenge, of Newport, Rhode Island, on a cruise against the Spaniards in the year 1741. Rhode Island was famous at that time for the number and the success of her privateers. There was but little objection felt to the profession of privateering. Franklin had not yet roused by his effective protest the moral sentiment of the civilized world against it. The privateers that were fitted out in those days were intended for service against foreign enemies; they were not manned by rebels, with design to ruin their loyal fellow-citizens. England and Spain were at war, and the West Indian seas were white with the sails of national fleets and private armed vessels. Privateering afforded a vent for the active and restless spirits of the colonies; it was not without some creditable associations; and the life of a privateersman was full of the charms of novelty, adventure, and risk. This journal shows something of its character.

A journal _of all the transactions on board the sloop_ REVENGE, _Benj'n Norton Com'r by God's grace and under his protection, bound on a cruising voyage against the Spaniards. Begun June the 5th, 1741_.

_Friday, 5th._ This day, at 4 A.M., the Cap't went from Taylor's wharf on board his sloop, which lay off of Connanicut, & at 6 o'clock Cap't John Freebody [the chief owner] came off in the pinnace with several hands. We directly weighed anchor with 40 hands, officers included, bound to New York to get more hands, a Doctor, and some more provisions and other stores we stood in need of. The wind coming contrary, was obliged to put back. Came to an anchor again under Connanicut at 8 P.M.

_Saturday, 6th._ Weighed from under Connanicut at 4 A.M. with a small breeze of wind. Met several vessells bound to Newport and Boston. At 7 P.M. anchored under Block Island, over against the £10,000 Pear [pier?]. Bought 10s. worth of Codfish for the people.

_Sunday, 7th._ About 4 A.M. weighed from Block Island, and Monday, the 8th instant, at 9 A.M., anchored in Huntington Bay.

_Tuesday, 9th._ Weighed from Huntington Bay at 3 P.M. At 11 came to the white stone. Fired a gun & beat the drum to let them know what we were. The Ferryboat came off & told us we could not get hands at York, for the sloops fitted by the country had got them all. At 12 came to anchor at the 2 Brothers. At 4 took an acc't of all the provisions on board, with the cost; together with a list of all the people on board. Price, a hand that came with us from Rhode Island, askt leave to go to York to see his wife. Set a shilling crazy fellow ashore, not thinking him fit to proceed the Voyage, his name unknown to me.

_Wednesday, 10th._ This morning, about 5 A.M., Cap't Freebody went up to York in the pinnace to get provisions and leave to beat about for more hands. At 1 P.M. the Pinnace returned and brought word to Cap't Norton from Mr. Freebody that he had waited on his Honour the Gov'r, and that he would not give him leave to beat up for Volunteers. The chief reason he gave was that the City was thinned of hands by the 2 country sloops that were fitted out by the Council to cruise after the Spanish privateers on the coast, and that his Grace the Duke of Newcastle had wrote him word, that, if Admiral Vernon or Gen. Wentworth[A] should write for more recruits, to use his endeavors to get them, so that he could not give encouragement to any privateers to take their men away. Three of the hands that went up to York left us. At 4 P.M. Edward Sampford, our pilot, went ashore in a canoe with four more hands, without leave from the Cap'n. When he came on board again the Cap'n talked to him, & found that he was a mutinous, quarrelsome fellow, and so ordered him to bundle up his clothes & go ashore for good. He carried with him 5 more hands. After they were gone, I read the articles to those on board, who readily signed; so hope we shall lead a peaceable life. Remain, out of the 41 hands that came with us from Rhode Island, 29 hands.

[Footnote A: Admiral Vernon (whose name is familiar to every American,--Mount Vernon was named in his honor) was in command of the British fleet in the Spanish Main. General Wentworth, an officer "without experience, authority, or resolution," had command of the land forces in the West Indies. All the North American, colonies, except Georgia, which was too recently settled, and whose own borders were too much exposed, had been called upon to give aid to the expedition against the Spaniards, and a regiment thirty-six hundreds strong was actually supplied by them. The war was one in which the colonists took an active interest.]

_Friday, 12th._ Went to York with a letter from the Cap'n to Mr. Freebody, who ordered the vessel up to York. Three of our hands left me to see some negroes burnt,[B] took a pilot in to bring the vessel up, and so returned on board at 3 P.M.

[Footnote B: This little, indifferent phrase refers to one of the most shocking and cruel incidents of the colonial history of New York, the result of a delusion "less notorious," says Mr. Hildreth, (_Hist, of the United States, ii. 391_,) "but not less lamentable, than the Salem witchcraft. The city of New York now contained some seven or eight thousand inhabitants, of whom twelve or fifteen hundred were slaves. Nine fires in rapid succession, most of them, however, merely the burning of chimneys, produced a perfect insanity of terror. An indented servant-woman purchased her liberty and secured a reward of one hundred pounds by pretending to give information of a plot formed by a low tavern-keeper, her master, and three negroes, to burn the city and murder the whites. This story was confirmed and amplified by an Irish prostitute convicted of a robbery, who, to recommend herself to mercy, reluctantly turned informer. Numerous arrests had been already made among the slaves and free blacks. Many others followed. The eight lawyers who then composed the bar of New York all assisted by turns in behalf of the prosecution. The prisoners, who had no counsel, were tried and convicted upon most insufficient evidence. Many confessed to save their lives, and then accused others. Thirteen unhappy convicts were burned at the stake, eighteen were hanged, and seventy-one transported." Such are the panics of a slaveholding community!]

_Saturday, 13th._ At 5 A.M. weighed from the 2 Brothers and went to York. At 7 anchored off the town. Saluted it with 7 guns. Ship't 7 hands to proceed the voyage.

_Sunday, 14th._ Between 6 & 7 A.M. came in a brig from Aberdeen with 40 servants,[C] but brings no news.

[Footnote C: At this time much of the agricultural and domestic labor in the colonies, especially south of New England, was performed by indented servants brought from Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany. They were generally an ill-used class. Their services were purchased of the captains who brought them over; the purchaser had a legal property in them during the time they were bound for, could sell or bequeath them, and, like other chattels, they were liable to be seized for debts.]

_Thursday, 18th._ At 11 A.M. our pilot came on board with 4 of our men that had left us when the Cap'n turned Edward Sampford ashore. At 2 P.M. the Cap'n ordered our gunner to deliver arms to them that had none. 25 hands fitted themselves. Great firing at our buoy, supposing him a Spaniard. I hope to God their courage may be as good, if ever they meet with any.

_Saturday, 20th._ At 10 A.M. there came in the Squirrel man of war, Cap'n Warren[D] Com'r, from Jamaica, who informed us that Admiral Vernon had taken all the forts at Carthagena except one, and the town.[E] We saluted him with 3 guns, having no more loaded. He returned us one, and we gave three cheers, which were returned by the ship. He further told the Captain, that, if he would come up to York, he would put him on a route which would be of service to his voyage.

[Footnote D: Captain, afterward Sir Peter Warren, was a distinguished naval officer in his day. In 1745 he was made Rear-Admiral for his services at the siege of Louisbourg. He married in New York.]

[Footnote E: The report of the taking of Cartagena was false, and the colonists were greatly disappointed at the failure of Vernon's great enterprise.]

_Tuesday, 23d._ Wrote a letter, by the Captain's order, to get Davison to go as mate with us. Our Captain went to York to carry it to Capt. Potter. At 3 P.M. came in a sloop from Jamaica, in a 20 days passage, from which we learn that Admiral Vernon's fleet was fitting out for Cuba.[F] I wish them more success than what they got against Carthagena; for by all report they got more blows than honour. At 4 P.M. the Captain returned and brought a hand with him, John Watson, Clerk of a Dutch church.

[Footnote F: Five hundred additional men were sent from Massachusetts to take part in this new expedition. It was a total failure, like the preceding one, and Few of the colonial troops lived to return home.]

_Wednesday, 24th._ About 10 A.M. the pilot came on board with a message from Capt Freebody, who was returned from Long Island, to agree with a Doctor who had offered to go with us. At 1 P.M. came in a sloop from Jamaica, a prize of Capt Warren, which had formerly been taken by the Spaniards. She belonged to Providence, and had been retaken by the Squirrel. At 6 P.M. Mr. Stone & the Doctor came on board to see the Captain, but, he being at York, they went there to see him.

_Thursday, 25th._ Nothing remarkable the fore part of the day, but quarreling not worth mentioning. At 1 P.M. a sloop came in from Jamaica, and brought for news that they had spoken an English man of war at Port Marant, by which they had been informed that a fresh war was daily expected; also that the Bay was entirely cut off by the Spaniards. No Doctor as yet, for he that the Captain went to agree with was a drunkard and an extortioner, so we are better without him than with him.

_Friday, 26th._ The most remarkablest day this great while. All has been peace & quietness. Three ships came down the Narrows, one bound to London, another bound to Newfoundland, & the third to Ireland.

_Saturday, 27th._ This morning, about 10, the Cap't went to York to take his leave of Cap't Freebody, who was going to Rhode Island. At 2 P.M. he came on board & brought with him 2 bb's of pork. At 3 came in a privateer from Bermudas, Capt Love Com'r, who came here for provisions for himself & his consort, who waited for him there. This day we heard that the two country sloops were expected in by Wednesday next. Lord send it, for we only wait for them in hopes of getting a Doctor & some more hands to make up our complement.

_Friday, July 3d._ At 5 A.M. we saw three hands who had left us the day before on board the Humming Bird privateer, who had been enticed by some of the owners to leave us by making of them drunk. About 10 we saw their canoe going ashore with our hands in her, also Joseph Ferrow, whom we had brought from Rhode Island, and since given him clothes, but who had entered on board that sloop as boatswain. As soon as they had done watering, and were returning to the ship, we manned our pinnace, and, having boarded their canoe, took our three hands out of her, and brought them and Joseph Ferrow aboard. Some time after, the Humming Bird's canoe coming alongside, Ferrow jumpt into it, and they put off. Our pinnace being hauled up in the tackles, we immediately let her down, but unfortunately the plug was out, and the hands which had jumped into her being raw, she almost filled with water, which caused such confusion that the canoe got on board before we got off. Our hands then went to demand Ferrow, but the privateersmen got out their arms and would not suffer us to board them. At 4 P.M. the Cap' of the little Privateer came on board of us to know the reason of the disturbance between his people and ours. Our Captain told him the reason, and forbid him to carry that fellow away, for, if he did, he might chance to hear of him in the West Indies, &, if he did, he would go 100 leagues to meet him, and take ten for one, and break up his voyage, & send him home to his owners, and give his people a good dressing. (I don't doubt but he'll be as good as his word.) Opened a bbl of bread. Thunder and lightning with a great deal of rain.

_Saturday, 4th._ This morning, about 5 A.M., came in a ship from Marblehead bound to S'o Carolina. She had lost her main mast, mizzen mast, & fore topmast. In Latitude 35 she met with a hard gale of wind which caused the disaster, and obliged her to put in to New York to refit. About 11 o'clock the Humming Bird weighed anchor for Philadelphia to get hands. At 4 P.M. the Lieu't and 2 sergeants belonging to Capt Rigg's Company came on board to look for some soldiers who were supposed to be on board the Humming Bird, which was lying off Coney Island, but, the wind and tide proving contrary, they were obliged to return. At 6 came in a ship from Lisbon, having made the passage in 6 weeks; also a sloop from Turks Island: both loaded with salt. The ship appearing to be a lofty vessel, our people were panic struck with fear, taking her for a 70 gun ship, and, as we had several deserters from the men at war, they desired the Cap't to hoist the Jack and lower our pennant as a signal for our pinnace, which was then ashore, so that, if she proved to be a man of war, they might get ashore, and clear of the press. But it proved quite the contrary; for the ship & sloop's crew, taking us, by the signal we had made for our pinnace, for a tender of a man of war, laying there to press hands, quitted their vessels and ran ashore, as soon as they saw our pinnace manned, and made for the bushes. At night the Cap' gave the people a pail of punch to recover them of their fright. Thunder & lightning all this day.

_Sunday, 5th._ At 5 A.M. shipped a hand. Our mate went ashore to get water. About 8 he returned, and informed us that the two country sloops lay at the Hook, and only waited for a pilot to bring them up, which I hope will prove true. We are all tired of staying here. At 2 P.M. weighed anchor and got nearer in shore, out of the current. Rainy, squally, windy weather. Here lie a brig bound to Newfoundland, a ship to Jamaica, and a sloop which at 6 P.M. weighed anchor, bound to Barbadoes, loaded with lumber and horses. This day being a month since we left our commission port, I have set down what quantity of provisions has been expended, viz., 9-1/2 bb's of beef, 1 bb of pork, 14 bb of Bread. Remaining, 49-1/2 bb's of beef, 29 bb's of pork, 40 cwt of bread.

_Monday, 6th._ About 6 A.M. came in the two Country sloops so long waited for. They were fitted out to take a Spanish privateer that has been cruising on the coast, and has taken several of our English vessels. A ship from Newfoundland also came up, and also the Humming bird privateer, which had been to meet them to get hands. Cap't Langden, Com'r of one of the above sloops, as he came alongside, gave us three cheers, which we returned. The Cap't went up to York to get a Doctor and some hands. One promised to give him an answer the next day. At 10 a hand came on board to list, but went away without signing.

_Tuesday, 6th._ This morning the Captain went up to York, and at last agreed with a Doctor who had been in the employ of Capt Cunningham, Com'r of one of the Privateer Sloops that came in the day before. His name is William Blake. He is a young gentleman, and well recommended by the Gen'l of York. At 6 P.M. the Captain returned on board, and brought with him a chest of medicines, a Doctor's box which cost 90£ York currency; also 10 pistols and cutlasses.

_Tuesday, 14th._ Weighed about 2 P.M., from the Hook with the wind at W.S.W, with a fresh gale, & by God's leave and under his protection, bound on our cruise against the proud Dons, the Spaniards. The Captain ordered the people a pail of punch to drink to a good voyage. Opened a bb of beef & a tierce of bread. The people were put on allowance for the time, one pound of beef per man & 7 pounds of bread, per week.

_Wednesday, 15th._ At 3 P.M. set our shrouds up. There was a great, swelling sea. About 5 A.M. saw a sail under our bow, about a league distant. All hands were called upon deck, and got ready to receive her, should she prove an enemy. We fired one of our bow chasers & brought her to, and found that she was a sloop from Nantucket, Russell Master. He said he had met nothing since he had been out, which was 4 days. Our people returned to their _statu quo_, being all peaceable since they have got a Quartermaster to control them.

_Tuesday, 28th._ About 5 A.M. spied a sail under our lee bow, bore down on her, and when in gunshot fired one of our bow chasers. She immediately lowered all her sails, & went astern of us. We then ordered the master to send his boat aboard, which he did, and came himself with one hand. Upon examination, we found that she was a sloop belonging to some of the subjects of his Brittanick majesty, & was taken by a Spanish privateer. The sloop had been taken off of Obricock,[G] near N. Carolina, and when taken by us was in Latitude 31° 59' N., Longitude 73° 6' W. The master, when he came aboard, brought three Spanish papers, which he declared to be, the first, a copy of his commission; the second, Instructions what signal to make when arrived at S't Augustine, where she was to be condemned; and the third paper was to let him know what route he was to steer. We sent our Lieu't aboard, who reported that she was loaded with Pork, Beans, Live Hogs, &c., and a horse, & had on board 2 Englishmen; the Master, who is a Frenchman born, but turned Spaniard; 3 Spaniard slaves, & one negro. Upon examination, John Evergin, one of the owners, declared that he had been taken some time in April last by Don Pedro Estrado, Cap't of the privateer that had taken this sloop, & that he forced him to list with them, and to pilot their vessel on the coast of N. Carolina, and that then they took this sloop at Obricock, on July 5'th; also 2 more sloops and a ship loaded with lumber & bound to S'o Carolina; that the Cap't of the privateer put him on board with the French master, and another Englishman, Saml Elderidge, to navigate the vessel to Augustine, and that they were making the best of their way to that place. We sent our Master on board to fetch all the papers & bring the prisoners as above mentioned. At 11 A.M. sent Jeremiah Harman & John Webb with four hands to take care of the prize, the first to be master & the other mate. The Captain gave the master & mate the following orders, viz.,--

[Footnote G: Perhaps a misspelling of Occacoke, an island on the coast of North Carolina.]

On Board the Revenge,

_July 28th, 1741._

You, Jeremiah Harman, being appointed Master, & you, John Webb, mate, of a sloop taken by a Spanish privateer some time ago, belonging to some of the subjects of his Brittanick Majesty, and retaken by me by virtue of a commission granted to me by the Hon'ble Ritchard Ward, Esq., Gov'r in chief over Rhode Island & Providence plantations, &c., in New England, I order, that you keep company with my sloop, the Revenge, as long as weather will permit, & if by the Providence of God, by stormy weather, or some unforeseen accident, we should part, I then order you to proceed directly to the island of Providence, one of the Bahamia islands, and there to wait my arrival, and not to embezzle, diminish, waste, sell, or unload any part of her cargo till I am there present, under the penalty of the articles already signed by you. Upon your arrival at Providence, make a just report to his Hon'r the Gov'r of that place of the sloop & cargo, & what is on board, & how we came by her. I am y'rs,

B. NORTON. To Jeremiah Harman, Mas'r & John Webb, mate.

For signal, hoist your Dutch jack at mast head; if we hoist first, you answer us, & do not keep it up long.

_Wednesday, 29th._ About 4 P.M. saw a sloop. Gave chase, but, the weather being calm, was forced to get out our oars. Fired our bow chase to bring her to; but as the people were in confusion, the ship tacking about, and the night coming on very foggy, we were unable to speak to her. By her course she was bound to the North'd. Lost sight of our prize. The two Englishmen, who were taken prisoners by the Spanish privateer, signed our articles to-day.