There lived, not many years ago, on the eastern shore of Mt. Desert--a
large island off the coast of Maine--an old fisherman, by the name of
Jedediah Spinnet, who owned a schooner of some hundred tons burden, in
which he, together with some four stout sons, was wont to go, about once
a year, to the Grand Banks, for the purpose of catching codfish. The old
man had five things, upon the peculiar merits of which he loved to
boast--his schooner, "Betsy Jenkins," and his four sons. The four sons
were all their father represented them to be, and no one ever doubted
his word, when he said that their like was not to be found for fifty
miles around. The oldest was thirty-two, while the youngest had just
completed his twenty-sixth year, and they answered to the names of Seth,
Andrew, John, and Samuel.
One morning a stranger called upon Jedediah to engage him to take to
Havana some iron machinery belonging to steam engines for sugar
plantations. The terms were soon agreed upon, and the old man and his
sons immediately set about putting the machinery on board; that
accomplished, they set sail for Havana, with a fair wind, and for
several days proceeded on their course without any adventure of any
kind. One morning, however, a vessel was descried off their starboard
quarter, which, after some hesitation, the old man pronounced a pirate.
There was not much time allowed them for doubting, for the vessel soon
saluted them with a very agreeable whizzing of an eighteen pound shot
under the stern.
"That means for us to heave to," remarked the old man.
"Then I guess we'd better do it hadn't we?" said Seth.
"Of course."
Accordingly, the Betsy Jenkins was brought up into the wind, and her
main-boom hauled over to windward.
"Now boys," said the old man, as soon as the schooner came to a stand,
"all we can do is to be as cool as possible, and to trust to fortune.
There is no way to escape that I can see now; but, perhaps, if we are
civil, they will take such stuff as they want, then let us go. At any
rate there is no use crying about it, for it can't be helped. Now get
your pistols, and see that they are surely loaded, and have your knives
ready, but be sure and hide them, so that the pirates shall see no show
of resistance. In a few moments all the arms which the schooner
afforded, with the exception of one or two old muskets, were secured
about the persons of our Down Easters, and they quietly awaited the
coming of the schooner.
"One word more, boys," said the old man, just as the pirate came round
under the stern.
"Now watch every movement I make, and be ready to jump the moment I
speak."
As Captain Spinnet ceased speaking, the pirate luffed under the
fisherman's lee-quarter, and, in a moment more, the latter's deck was
graced with the presence of a dozen as savage-looking mortals as eyes
ever rested upon.
"Are you the captain of this vessel," demanded the leader of the
boarders, as he approached the old man.
"Yes sir."
"What is your cargo?"
"Machinery for ingines."
"Nothing else?" asked the pirate with a searching look.
At this moment, Captain Spinnet's eye caught what looked like a sail off
to the southward and eastward, but no sign betrayed the discovery, and,
while a brilliant idea shot through his mind, he hesitatingly replied:
"Well, there is a leetle something else."
"Ha! and what is it?"
"Why, sir, perhaps I hadn't ought to tell," said Captain Spinnet,
counterfeiting the most extreme perturbation. "You see, 'twas given to
me as a sort of trust, an' 't wouldn't be right for me to give up. You
can take any thing else you please, for I s'pose I can't help myself."
"You are an honest codger, at any rate," said the pirate; "but, if you
would live ten minutes longer, just tell me what you've got on board,
and exactly where it lays."
The sight of the cocked pistol brought the old man to his senses, and,
in a deprecating tone, he muttered:
"Don't kill me, sir, don't, I'll tell you all. We have got forty
thousand silver dollars nailed up in boxes and stowed away under some of
the boxes just forward of the cabin bulkhead, but Mr. Defoe didn't
suspect that any body would have thought of looking for it there."
"Perhaps so," chuckled the pirate, while his eyes sparkled with delight.
And then, turning to his own vessel, he ordered all but three of his men
to jump on board the Yankee.
In a few moments the pirates had taken off the hatches, and, in their
haste to get at the "silver dollars," they forgot all else; but not so
with Spinnet; he had his wits at work, and no sooner had the last of the
villains disappeared below the hatchway, than he turned to his boys.
"Now, boys, for our lives. Seth, you clap your knife across the fore
throat and peak halyards; and you, John, cut the main. Be quick now, an'
the moment you've done it, jump aboard the pirate. Andrew and Sam, you
cast off the pirate's graplings; an' then you jump--then we'll walk into
them three chaps aboard the clipper. _Now for it_."
No sooner were the last words out of the old man's mouth, than his sons
did exactly as they had been directed. The fore and main halyards were
cut, and the two graplings cast off at the same instant, and, as the
heavy gaffs came rattling down, our five heroes leaped on board the
pirate. The moment the clipper felt at liberty, her head swung off, and,
before the astonished buccaneers could gain the decks of the fisherman,
their own vessel was a cable's length to leeward, sweeping gracefully
away before the wind, while the three men left in charge were
easily secured.
"Halloa, there!" shouted Captain Spinnet, as the luckless pirates
crowded around the lee gangway of their prize, "when you find them
silver dollars, just let us know, will you?"
Half a dozen pistol shots was all the answer the old man got, but they
did him no harm; and, crowding up all sail, he made for the vessel he
had discovered, which lay dead to leeward of him, and which he made out
to be a large ship. The clipper cut through the water like a dolphin,
and, in a remarkably short space of time, Spinnet luffed up under the
ship's stern, and explained all that had happened. The ship proved to be
an East Indiaman, bound for Charleston, having, all told, thirty men on
board, twenty of whom at once jumped into the clipper and offered their
services in helping to take the pirate.
Before dark, Captain Spinnet was once more within hailing distance of
his own vessel, and raising a trumpet to his mouth, he shouted:
"Schooner ahoy! Will you quietly surrender yourselves prisoners, if we
come on board!"
"Come and try it!" returned the pirate captain, as he brandished his
cutlass above his head in a threatening manner, which seemed to indicate
that he would fight to the last.
But that was his last moment, for Seth was crouched below the bulwarks,
taking deliberate aim along the barrel of a heavy rifle, and, as the
bloody villain was in the act of turning to his men, the sharp crack of
Seth Spinnet's weapon rang its fatal death-peal, and the next moment the
captain fell back into the arms of his men, with a brace of bullets in
his heart.
"Now," shouted the old man, as he leveled the long pivot gun, and seized
a lighted match, "I'll give you just five minutes to make your minds up
in, and, if you don't surrender, I'll blow every one of you into the
other world."
The death of their captain, and, withal the sight of the pivot gun--its
peculiar properties they knew full well--brought the pirates to their
senses, and they threw down their weapons, and agreed to give
themselves up.
In two days from that time, Captain Spinnet delivered his cargo safely
in Havana, gave the pirates into the hands of the civil authorities, and
delivered the clipper up to the government, in return for which, he
received a sum of money sufficient for an independence during the
remainder of his life, as well as a very handsome medal from the
government.