The Bell-in-Hand Tavern in Boston was never a cheerful place. It was
on a dark, narrow alley and the sunlight never peeped into its dingy
tap-room. But when the lamps were lighted at night, its customers, used
to its twilight atmosphere, blinked in the unusual glare, and called
for some liquids to brighten themselves up so that they might be in
more harmony with the new state of things. There were very few of these
melancholy loungers seated about the dingy bar on the evening of May
27, 1813; for the town was agog with the preparations for the fitting
out of the frigate _Chesapeake_ to fight H. M. S. _Shannon_.
The British ship had been standing on and off outside the harbor mouth
for some days, and it was known that Captain James Lawrence of the
_Chesapeake_ meant to give him battle. The usual customers of the
Bell-in-Hand were down at the wharves, grave with the responsibility
so willingly adopted by self-constituted sidewalk committees of
inspection; and only one applied for a mug of ale when the landlord had
finished the illumination of his dingy hostelry.
“In a moment, Mr. Marks,” said the landlord. “The usual, I suppose?”
“No, I shall have some Medford to-night; I wish to drink good luck to
the _Chesapeake_ in right Yankee liquor.”
“Surely, Mr. Marks, and I will join you in that. In fact, I don’t mind
standing the drinks myself, considering the subject of the toast.”
“Don’t ruin yourself, Tenney,” said Marks, with a smile; for the
landlord was celebrated for his close-fistedness.
“Help yourself, Captain Marks,” was the reply; “drink hearty. Here’s to
brave Lawrence and his crew.”
“And a precious mixed lot they are, Isaac; forty British sailors
and a gang of Portuguese, though, to be sure, there are some of
the _Constitution’s_ old crew, and some of the men who were on the
_Chesapeake_ on her last voyage. Four of the officers are sick ashore,
and young Ludlow is first lieutenant.”
“But they’ll give a good account of themselves, don’t you fear,”
answered Isaac, draining his glass of rum.
“Lawrence is as brave a man as ever trod a deck,” said Marks. “My
bargain’s off with Vickery and I settled up accounts with him to-day.
I’ve a mind to ship on the _Chesapeake_ and have a crack against John
Bull on a man-of-war.”
“Settled up with Vickery, have you?” inquired the landlord. “You must
have made a good thing out of your year’s work.”
“’Tisn’t as good a trade as selling rum, Isaac, I’ll bet a dollar! The
ocean is not as easy to navigate as Pie Alley, and your customers come
in and beg to be robbed, and at times mine make a hard fight before
they give up their cash. I cleaned up a good sum for the year and sold
out my interest in the privateer, and the whole sum is deposited to
my name in the Suffolk Bank. Now, you keep the bank-book for me, will
you?” He produced the pass-book from his inner pocket, and at the same
time took out a sealed envelope.
“There’s the book and there’s an envelope in which I sealed up my own
will. I went to a lawyer Mason to-day and had it drawn. It’s short, but
I guess it’s good, like your rum, Isaac.”
The publican took the book and envelope.
“Why, this says Thomas Cheever?” he said, as he examined them.
“I’m Tom Marks on the privateer, and Tom Cheever on shore. It suits me.
When you go to your home up at the North End, you read prayers and go
to church o’ Sundays, though you are destroying human beings with rum
all the week. Take good care of these papers, Isaac, and if anything
happens to me, you must write to my sole heir, Mr. James Woodbury,
Hollis Hall, Harvard College, Cambridge, and tell him that if he comes
to the Bell-in-Hand he will hear of something to his advantage. I’ve
made you executor, and if anything happens to me on shore, where folks
leave their bodies to be an expense to all hands, don’t you forget that
I have a lot and a ready-carved gravestone in the burying-ground at
Oldbury. Don’t stare, old fellow, I was killed in Venezuela years ago.
That is, Tom Cheever was, and Tom Marks arose from his ashes like the
fabled Phœnix. But when it comes to making wills or putting money in
the bank, it saves a lot of trouble to do it in your right name. D’ye
see?”
Marks, after this long address, settled in a chair and looked vacantly
in the corner. The landlord put the book and envelope in his strong box
and came back to the bar.
“What on earth, Mr. Cheever, do you want to go to risk your life
fighting with that madcap Lawrence, when you are so well off?”
“The world is divided, my dear Isaac, into two classes; the first, a
very large part of the human race, those who would rather eat than
fight; the saving minority, of which I am one, would rather fight
than eat. You see how sparely built I am? I never have had an ounce
of superfluous flesh. Then, too, it’s like the days of chivalry. The
_Shannon_ hovers outside the port. Broke is spoiling for a fight.
Lawrence is not half ready, worse luck, but he is not the man to baulk
a gentleman of an affair of honor because he is not prepared to the
last cartridge. It’s grand, my good Isaac; it stirs one’s blood, and
it would be better to fall on the bloody deck than to keep out of such
a noble contest when you have a chance. What does it matter whether
I have the opportunity of coming in to drink rum in your dirty old
tap-room for twenty years more, or whether I pass in my prize checks
to-morrow or the day after? Take the chances of war, Isaac, that’s my
motto.”
Isaac gave no enthusiastic assent to this view of life. The Falstaffian
theory of honor is one much approved by most citizens who have never
ventured from their shops. The greasy publican was quite willing to
await his appointed time, in a daily round of drawing ale and measuring
out spirits, as was the court jester, who, when allowed to choose his
form of execution, chose a natural death.
“Well, Captain,” drawled Isaac, “I’ll give up all my share of the
fighting to you. I have no fancy for a cutlass-slash on the head, or
the gripe of a boarding-pike in my insides. This quarrelsome world
doesn’t seem to get tired of fighting. Boney keeps them all at it
in Europe, and even we Yankees can’t keep out of the squabble, and
precious little good it will do us, that I can see. Of course, if a
man isn’t happy unless he leaves a comfortable house ashore to go out
to plunge about in a sea-fight, there’s no holding him.”
“You are right, Isaac,” said Cheever. “There’s as much difference
between you and me as there is between the moon and green cheese, and
each of us must go his own way. Maybe there’s a cutlass in some English
boatswain’s scabbard which will cleave my cocoanut before the week’s
out. But, on the other hand, it may be fated that my cutlass shall do
the cleaving. In either event, friend Isaac, I drink your health and
prosperity to you; may your pew in church not lack your bodily presence
for many a year, and may the trade in rum be good. By the way, have you
done anything in the black ivory business of late?”
Isaac’s solemn face grew graver still. “I have long since given up that
business,” he replied.
“You made a good thing out of the triangular trade while it lasted, old
weasel,” said Cheever. “Niggers from Africa, bought with molasses and
rum, sold for sugar in Cuba, the return cargo distilled into raw liquid
salvation for the Africans. ’Twas a good trade while it lasted--Lord,
the money we made! but the ‘middle passage’ was hard for any man to run
who had any milk of human kindness in his blood.”
“But the Africans are brought out of savagery to civilization and
religion,” said Isaac.
“You are right, Isaac,” replied Cheever. “We all went into the business
for its civilizing effects upon the niggers! But it’s a heavy load on
my soul, Friend Isaac, and not all your long prayers will wipe out your
black score up above, I reckon.”
With this Parthian shot at the publican, Cheever sallied out of the
dingy tap-room into Pie Alley, a narrow, ill-smelling way leading into
Washington Street; and down that street to the Exchange Coffee House in
State Street, where Captain James Lawrence of the United States Navy
had his headquarters.
He had been ordered in from New York, where he had expected to be put
into command of the frigate _Constitution_, and had much against his
will been given the command of the _Chesapeake_.
That frigate, ever since the insult which she had received from the
British frigate _Leopard_, had been regarded by sailors as an unlucky
ship--a cruise which she had just completed had been barren of prizes
and thus added to her unpopularity, so that it was very hard to recruit
a crew for her.
Lawrence was a gallant officer, who had felt that he had been somewhat
badly treated by the Navy department; for he had claimed the command
of the _Constitution_ almost as a right and had been refused. When he
reached Boston to take his new command, he found everything at sixes
and sevens.
It was very hard to get sailors; most of the seafaring men preferring
to ship in some of the numerous privateers, where the discipline
was less strict and the chance of prize-money much greater. It was
necessary to ship many foreigners in the _Chesapeake_, and forty
British sailors were on the ship’s books, engaged to fight their own
flag; besides these, a number of Portuguese seamen had been shipped.
These last were very troublesome. But a few of the _Constitution’s_
old crew came aboard, and these, together with some of the men who had
been on the _Chesapeake_ during her former voyage, made an excellent
nucleus.
Captain Lawrence and his first officer, Mr. Ludlow, were in
consultation in the Captain’s quarters at the Exchange Coffee House.
The Captain was thirty-two years old, a remarkably tall and handsome
man, distinguished for his charming manners and great gallantry. He was
by no means serene in mind as he talked with his subordinate, and he
brought his hand down rather sharply on the table as he said:
“Commodore Bainbridge doesn’t wish me to engage the _Shannon_. He says
that is a rash and unnecessary risk. But hang it, man, I can’t avoid
a fight, after having challenged the _Bonne Citoyenne_ last year and
having waited for her as Broke is waiting for me now in the _Shannon_
off Boston harbor. How can I decline the fight? It would be to show
that I was a vain braggart before.”
“If we only had had time to train our crew,” replied Ludlow, “I should
not fear but that we should give a good account of ourselves. But the
new hands are green at their work, and it is hard to make a crew work
together, when most of them have just put their hammocks aboard.”
“Oh, well, Ludlow,” said Lawrence, “we might have a better crew, but
we’ve a lot of good men aboard. The officers are mostly new to the
ship, a gallant lot of youngsters; I’m as new to the ship as any of
them, and I have no doubt that every green hand means to do his best,
just as I do. I have been here a fortnight trying to get the old
sailors to re-enlist. It’s a shame there should be all this row about
the prize-money.”
“It’s most unfortunate that their two years’ term was up before we
reached Boston last April,” said Ludlow. “Then Uncle Sam made such a
mess of our past allowance of prize-money that we couldn’t induce the
men to ship in the unlucky old frigate.”
“Unlucky frigate! Never say that, Mr. Ludlow. It’s ill to give a dog a
bad name; the animal never has a pleasant ending. We shall do Broke up
as easily as the _Constitution_ did the _Guerrière_, I have no doubt.
The _Chesapeake_ is a good ship and a good name.”
“Yes, as good as any. But we had such bad luck with prizes on our last
cruise, and sailors are the most superstitious of men.” Lawrence rose
from his chair and walked up and down the room; his thoughts were with
his young wife in New York, whom he was never to see again. There was a
knock at the door and a servant announced that a man waited outside to
see Captain Lawrence.
“Show him in,” said Ludlow, noticing that his chief was lost in his
reverie. In a few minutes Cheever entered the room, bowing to the
gentleman rather obsequiously.
“What is your business, sir?” asked Ludlow.
“I have come to volunteer as one of the crew of the _Chesapeake_,”
replied Cheever. “I have lately served as mate and part owner of the
privateer _Lion_ of Marblehead.”
“You are welcome, sir,” said Mr. Ludlow. “Have you served on a
man-of-war before?”
“Once, on board of His Majesty’s Ship _Tenedos_. I was taken off a
Yankee ship as a British subject. So I have a few private scores to pay
off.”
“We should have little trouble in filling our ship’s company if every
man with such a grudge should come with us.”
“So you wish to ship on the _Chesapeake_,” said Captain Lawrence,
coming out of his reverie.
“As an A. B., if you please, sir,” replied Cheever. “I’m qualified for
that. Where shall I report for duty?”
“At Battery Wharf,” replied Mr. Ludlow. “What’s your name?”
“Thomas Marks.”
“Report to-morrow morning, and if you can get any of your old
ship-mates on the _Lion_ to join with you, why, so much the better.
Good night, Marks.”
Cheever left the two officers, and went below to the large coffee room,
which he found full of loungers, and all, whatever their condition in
life, were eagerly discussing the approaching sea-fight.
The eager crowds in a New York hotel on the eve of a yacht race for the
“America’s” cup would be more excited still if the morrow’s contest
were to be a duel between a British and a Yankee ship.
The dogs of war had not troubled the good old town of Boston since
Washington’s guns on Dorchester Heights had forced the evacuation of
the town. The sons of Massachusetts had fought on many a field, but no
enemy had menaced the Bay State. It may be in that group of steady old
merchants there were some of the famous tea-party; or others who had
held their fire at Bunker Hill until they saw the whites of the enemy’s
eye. Certainly there were seafaring men enough, and some of these
clinked about their money and stood treat, like the genuine article of
buccaneer. One of a group of these gentry hailed Marks.
“Come over here, ‘Stuttering Tom,’” he cried; “I was telling these
fellows that Captain Broke’s men on the _Shannon_ have been taking a
leaf out of our Yankee men-of-war’s books; and that they have been
practising gunnery during all this year. It will be a pretty fight
between the two frigates. I should like to see it.”
“Why don’t you come along in the _Chesapeake_? Her deck will be the
best point of view. You are not afraid of British guns, are you? Unless
you are up aloft, their shot would never reach you.”
“I like British gold better than British iron and lead, Tom. There are
more kicks than half-pence in the government service.”
“But, man, think of the sport of a square stand-up fight!”
“And the surgeon waiting for you below the cock-pit, with his
knife. No, Friend Marks, have a drink with us to the success of the
_Chesapeake_, but you and I get in our best work under a ‘letter of
marque.’”
“It’s a service that pays,” replied Cheever, “but has something of the
smack of robbing sleek merchants in an alleyway. Now, under the ‘Jolly
Roger’ there are agreeable diversions between man and man, when they
make the division of the spoils that kept one’s muscle firm and one’s
nerves in condition.”
“You are speaking out of a larger experience than most of us have had,
Marks,” said another of the privateersmen.
“Yes, and it will be larger before the week is out, my friend.”
“What are you going to do, Marks, turn parson?”
“I came very near being a sky-pilot once, but I was not built that way.
Now I have run down hill until I find myself consorting with roystering
sailors in a tavern.”