THE CAPTURE
Of all the surprised people in Philadelphia, James Nesbit was the most
astonished when into his office walked the young seaman who almost
four years before had left in command of the Charming Peggy. The fame
of his doings of course had reached America, and Mr. Nesbit’s brother
had written at some length of Conyngham’s career in the Surprise, his
subsequent arrest, and mysterious release; but it was not until he had
spent a long afternoon in the coffee-room of the little inn around the
corner, and had listened to the captain’s modest and half-humorous
account of his doings, that he understood what had happened in France;
and he followed with breathless interest the career of the two little
vessels that had flown the flag in the Channel.
When Conyngham had finished at last, Mr. Nesbit, who had not allowed
himself to interrupt the recital by even so much as a question,
propounded his first interrogation.
“And what do you intend to do now, Brother Conyngham?” he said. “Of
course you do not mean to rest idle upon either your oars or your
laurels.”
“I suppose I shall have to wait orders from the Naval Committee,” was
the reply. “As an officer in the regular service, I have already
reported my arrival and asked for an audience on the morrow. I hope,”
he added, “they will see fit to make use of my services.”
“There is little hope of finding them in a mood to adopt any
proposition of an aggressive nature,” returned Mr. Nesbit ponderously,
“and there are few commands lying idle. It is as much as Congress can
do to keep our army supplied with clothing, food, and ammunition. The
fleet under Admiral Hopkins did not meet with any signal success.
England is too strong for us on the sea.”
Conyngham shrugged his shoulders. There probably came to his mind the
months during which in one little vessel he had dared the strength
of the English fleets in their home waters. But he said nothing, and
waited for Mr. Nesbit to continue.
“You are perfectly satisfied with the vessel which you have commanded,
Captain Conyngham?” the latter asked.
“Perfectly, so far as she goes,” was the reply. “But I have it in my
mind that I should like to command a larger. Sure, if you know of any
loose seventy-fours wanting a skipper, you might put in a word for me.
In case there is nothing better, I mean to apply for the command of the
Revenge again.”
“What do you suppose that they will do with her?” asked Mr. Nesbit;
and then, as if answering his own question, he went on, “Sell her, I
suppose. They are in more need of money than of ships.”
As he finished speaking he leaned forward and placed his hand on
Conyngham’s arm.
“If they do,” he said, “I may have a proposition to make to you. Why
not let us buy her in? You could sail her under a letter of marque in
joint ownership, and you must have a good sum of money to your credit.
See what the privateersmen of this port and that of Baltimore have
accomplished. They have practically already swept British commerce from
the seas.”
“I would much sooner,” replied Conyngham, “accept a regular command;
but rather than remain idle,” he concluded, “I would accept your
proposition. It depends entirely upon Congress.”
“Your commission would, of course, stand you in good stead,” remarked
Mr. Nesbit, “and a letter of marque could easily be obtained in
addition.”
As Conyngham had not as yet joined his family, that had moved out to
Germantown, he was evidently anxious to be away, and in a few minutes
he parted company with Mr. Nesbit, promising to meet him again on the
morrow.
It was much to his surprise that he found himself quite a hero among
his friends and acquaintances, but, strange to say, Mr. Hewes, of the
Naval Committee, to whom he reported, had heard nothing official in
regard to him from either Dr. Franklin or Silas Deane, and his name had
not as yet been placed on the naval list.
All this, of course, caused him more chagrin than uneasiness. He
claimed that the Revenge was subject to the orders of the Naval
Committee, and gained a point at last in that they accepted her as
public property, and as such she was almost immediately offered for
sale at auction. “Conyngham, Nesbit and Company” bought her in, one
third being credited to Gustavus, to whom Mr. Nesbit and his cousin
advanced the money.
So the further fortunes of the young captain were still bound up in
the Revenge. Unfortunately, however, there were some enemies of his at
work. Whether it was the tory lawyer whose designs he had thwarted in
regard to his first command (by the way, he was now a most pronounced
believer in the cause of liberty), or whether it was a discharged
surgeon’s mate who had lodged complaints against him, Conyngham never
found out. But suffice it, some one was working against him, and the
letter of marque--the authority to “cruise, capture, and destroy”--was
withheld by the Naval Committee and Congress. Perhaps they were waiting
until they could secure some substantiation of his claim in regard to
his commission--it may have been that; but, at all events, the delay
grew more and more irksome to him and to his partner in the enterprise.
Good seamen were difficult to find idle in American ports; the few
ships of the navy had hard work in recruiting their complement;
almost every one who followed the sea for a living was already off
privateering, and the Revenge was forced to complete her crew out of
the riffraff of the docks, supplemented by numerous landsmen who,
attracted by the rich rewards offered, dodged service in the army
and flocked to the seaports. Out of the crew of one hundred men that
Conyngham had hastily gathered together, only twenty-two had seen
service on deep water, and more than half of these were men who had
served with him in the Channel cruise. Owing to the delay in sailing,
the Revenge’s people were almost in a state of mutiny, and for three
weeks nothing but the young captain’s presence on board his vessel
prevented wholesale desertions. One day there came a notice from Mr.
Nesbit--the Revenge was anchored out in the river--informing him that
the letter of marque was likely to be refused, and intimating that
probably the Naval Committee would require his presence on shore, to
be placed on waiting orders.
This was too much for Conyngham’s gallant spirit. The prospect of
months of inaction galled him, and he replied that if he left his
vessel the greater part of the crew would desert and the whole
adventure be a failure.
It was while he was writing this in a note to be taken ashore to his
partners that he remembered that the second commission, given him by
Mr. Hodge in Dunkirk, was still in his possession. It had never been
rescinded, and the vessel he commanded was the same! It was surely
authority enough. Without hesitation he added a postscript--“Am sailing
with the flood-tide in half an hour”--and sent the note off to Mr.
Nesbit. So the deciding die was cast, and at the top of the flood the
Revenge made out into the midstream and floated into the lower bay. The
green crew, glad to be off, burst into a ragged cheer. Had they known
what was before them they would not have felt so much like rejoicing.
It did not take the captain long to find out that his crew of farmhands
and dock-rats was vastly different from the able lot of seamen that had
contributed so much to the previous success of the Revenge. Before they
were half-way to the capes a few had broken into the storeroom and a
dozen were too drunk to pull a rope. The captain and the mate had their
hands full, and the obstreperous ones were double-ironed and placed in
the hold, to get sober at their leisure.
There was time found for one or two drills at the guns before the
cruiser was out in the Atlantic, and here, as might have been expected,
half of the crew were seasick and almost incapacitated from duty. Off
the New Jersey coast, as the Revenge proceeded northward, she ran into
thick and stormy weather. On the third day, the 26th of April, while
the wind went down the fog increased, and when it cleared away at last
the captain found himself some ten miles south of Sandy Hook. Dead
ahead were two small square-rigged vessels that had the look of English
transports or supply ships, and Conyngham made all sail in chase.
This was the year 1779--a dreary one for the struggling colonies. New
York city was in possession of the English troops under Lord Howe, and
the Revenge was in dangerous waters; but the captain was in a reckless
mood, and boldness having served his purpose so well at various times,
he disdained his old adage about “discretion,” and pressed ahead. Once
more the fog closed down, the wind died completely away, and as night
came on the Revenge drifted slowly along on the round, oily seas, her
prow turning first this way and then that. All night she swung about,
when, early in the morning, a slight wind sprang up that Conyngham took
advantage of to work off shore. But it held only for an hour or so,
and fell calm again. The fog was thicker than ever at daybreak--one of
those opaque white mists that the sun finds it impossible to penetrate,
and seems to give up trying in despair.
The captain had been on deck all night, and, tired out, was lying on
the cabin transom half asleep when suddenly he was awakened by the
shrilling of a boatswain’s pipe, so close that it seemed to come from
his own forecastle. Then, as if it were the signal for the lifting of
the misty shroud, the fog broke and there lay the Revenge under the
stern of a huge seventy-four. Under her gallery there could be read
plainly the word “Galatea.”
It was all up! Even with the stiffest and most favorable wind, the
little cruiser could not have escaped; she would have been blown out of
the water before she had gone a cable’s length.
There was nothing to do. In two minutes two boatloads of armed sailors
and marines had put off from the big vessel, and soon they clambered
unmolested over the Revenge’s bulwarks.
“Who commands this vessel?” asked a red-faced lieutenant.
“I have the honor,” replied Conyngham, giving his name.
The lieutenant whistled.
“Conyngham!” he exclaimed. “Are you the pirate who sailed out of
Dunkirk?”
“I am an officer in the navy of the United Colonies,” was Conyngham’s
reply, “and will answer further questions to your superior officer.”
“That you will do at once,” sneered the lieutenant, and he gave orders
for Conyngham to enter one of the boats. Much elated, he rowed off with
his prisoner to the seventy-four.
On his way Conyngham learned that his captor was Captain Jordan,
whose commodore was Sir George Collier, and his heart sank, for he
knew that the latter had a reputation for being a man of a cruel and
vindictive temper. The Galatea was the very vessel from which the
Revenge had escaped off Land’s End on that memorable afternoon when
the cross-barred flag had appeared in the sky. He felt that he could
expect small favors under the circumstances, but his chief concern was
for his crew. Poor fellows! Some had not even recovered from their
sea-sickness. Now more than ever he longed for his missing regular
commission. But one thing rejoiced him--war was now on between France
and England. Stormont had packed up his belongings for the last time.