Chapter 10 #2
Falmouth still bore its scars. Two years past, Captain Henry Mowat had stood offshore with a squadron under orders from Vice Admiral Samuel Graves to “lay waste, burn, and destroy such seaport towns as are accessible to His Majesty’s ships.
” Falmouth had been the first lesson. The town had burned from end to end, its people scattered, its wharves charred stumps against the tide.
It would take many years for the town to recover, but Jon could see a few new houses climbed the slope, clapboard still raw and pale.
The smell of fresh-sawn timber mingled with the salt air.
A town dealt a death blow by the British, yet it would rise from its ashes beneath the very eyes of the Crown.
He gazed at the town once more, as though to share the kinship of survivors, and then turned to the work of seeing his ship made sound.
A few townsfolk gathered, curious at the battered brig and her crew.
Shipwrights were sent for, their hammers ringing before the night was out.
Jon made his report to the Board of War in a brief letter, the quill biting deep.
I have lost the brig’s grip, and am obliged to put into Falmouth to refit.
The crew were granted shore leave in watches, but the lure of taverns proved too strong. Four men deserted within a night, their sea chests gone with them. Jon received the news grim-faced the next morning, standing on the frosty wharf.
“Four fewer hands when we sail,” Lieutenant Thorndike said quietly.
Jon’s eyes narrowed on the gray line of sea beyond the harbor mouth. “Then we’ll sail with fewer. Better short-handed than broken.”
As the men bent to their lines, Jon’s voice carried clear across the deck. “We sail leaner, but we sail truer. The hands who stood fast in Falmouth will find this captain does not forget it. Tonight you’ll have an extra ration of rum, for loyalty deserves its measure.”
A cheer went up, rough voices ringing in the winter air, and the canvas cracked aloft like a promise renewed.
Repairs pressed on quickly, new cordage spliced, rigging reset, sails patched against the winter gales. By week’s end, the Tyrannicide stood ready again, leaner but sound. Sampson’s Hazard hovered just offshore, her signal flags urging them on.
As the anchor was weighed, Jon cast one last look at Falmouth’s clustered houses. “You’ve patched our bones, but the sea waits,” he murmured. Then, louder, to his men: “Set canvas! We’ll show them the Tyrannicide’s just begun.”
The ship answered better now, her helm steady under the mate’s hands. Ahead lay the hunt once more.
In the North Atlantic off Nova Scotia, 13 December 1777
THE LOOKOUT’S CRY split the December gloom. “Sail ho! Brig to windward!”
On the quarterdeck, Jon raised his spyglass and turned to the rail, peering into the pewter sky. The Atlantic swelled under them, long gray rollers capped with spindrift. The Tyrannicide’s decks, slick with brine, heaved beneath their boots as she pitched into the seas.
Through the glass the brig showed herself plainly, two masts, square-rigged, laboring south from Halifax, her hull riding low with cargo. On her stern the name Alexander.
“She’s heavy-laden,” Jon said to his first lieutenant. “Doubtless bound for the Indies.” He lowered the glass. “Helm, bear away two points. Mr. Lovett, see the sails trimmed.”
The brigantine answered eagerly. Canvas bellied, rigging thrummed, and the ship leapt ahead. Off the starboard quarter, the Hazard bore down hard, Captain Sampson angling to take the weather gage, upwind of the enemy ship. Between the two brigantines, the Alexander had nowhere to run.
Spray stung the men at the braces as they hauled to Jon’s quick, firm orders. For an hour, the chase held, the distance narrowing with each tack and surge.
At last the brig came within range. Jon ordered Lieutenant Thorndike to give the signal. The Tyrannicide’s bow chaser boomed, the ball splashing close across the Alexander’s bow, close enough to carry its meaning.
The Hazard closed to windward, her broadside ready. Hemmed in, the stranger rounded up and struck her colors at once. Cheers broke from the Tyrannicide’s deck, men slapping one another’s backs. Jon only nodded once, sharp and spare.
Jon summoned his officers, weighing the balance of his crew before naming a prize master. Down four men, Jon needed Sampson to share in the prize crew. He raised the speaking trumpet to his mouth. “Hazard ahoy! Captain Sampson!”
The answering call came faintly across the wind. “Aye, Captain Haraden!”
“We’re short four hands. Can you spare two for the prize crew?”
“Aye, Cooper and Flint. They’ll see her safe to Boston.”
Jon lowered the trumpet. “My thanks. I’ll note the share accordingly.”
“Lower away a boat,” Jon ordered. “Lieutenant Moses, take three hands. Mr. Carpenter, you’ll go with him. Make haste.”
By mid-afternoon the report was in hand: the brig Alexander, 130 tons, laden with fish, oil, lumber, and staves, cleared for the Indies. A handsome capture.
Charts and arms were transferred, sea bags slung across, while the Alexander’s master stood glum by the rail, watching Americans command his deck.
As the sun dipped toward the sea, the prize parted ways. The Alexander turned toward Boston flying her captors’ colors, while the Tyrannicide and the Hazard resumed their patrol together.
The men cheered again, already calculating shares in their heads. Jon let them have their moment. For him, the sea still promised more.
In the North Atlantic, 22 December 1777
NIGHT HAD FALLEN early, as it always did in December. In his great cabin, the lanterns swung with the ship’s slow roll, their yellow glow mingling with the pale wash of moonlight through the stern windows. Jon bent over his desk, quill in hand, the salt-stained logbook open before him.
Mrs. Mason had complimented his handwriting, but in truth, he wrote not for flourish, but for order.
There had been too many prizes to hold in memory alone.
The pages of his logbook bore neat lines, the brief facts of each victory: the ship’s name, her tonnage, her master, her cargo, her destination.
All reduced to a few sentences, though each prize meant a moment of triumph at sea, another cheer from his men, another blow against the British.
Afternoon, 22 December 1777
At four o’clock we took the schooner Good Intent, Captain William Dashpar, from Newfoundland bound for Dominica, her hold filled with fish and hoops. Prize crew sent aboard and ordered her for Boston.
Morning, 23 December 1777
At nine o’clock we captured the brig Polly, Captain Walter Stevens, from St. John’s, Newfoundland, bound for Barbados, with a cargo of fish, oil, wood, and flour. Prize crew ordered for Boston.
Afternoon, 23 December 1777
At three o’clock, after a short chase, we took the snow Swift of Bristol, bound for New York with a cargo of flour. A valuable prize. The prize crew ordered for Boston.
The record was plain, as was his satisfaction.
In scarcely more than a week, the Tyrannicide and her consort Hazard had taken one ship after another.
The value of these captures would spread well beyond the quarterdeck: shares to his men, profits for Salem’s merchants, revenue for Massachusetts and stores for General Washington.
For his own household, it meant a measure of security, something he had promised Mrs. Mason and Martha when he first went to sea.
Pausing a moment, listening to the creak of timbers and the rush of the sea against the hull, he thought about the captures recorded. Tonight, he inked only three, but they spoke volumes: evidence of a young country’s naval strength, and of the Tyrannicide’s growing legend.
He set aside his quill, flexing his cramped fingers.
Their orders had spoken grandly of Portugal and Spain, of showing the flag in Europe before pressing onward to the Indies.
On paper, it sounded bold, a voyage across the Atlantic to foreign ports, there to harry British trade at Europe’s very doorstep.
But the sea had its own logic, and he was not a man to argue with it.
Conferring with Sampson, his fellow captain agreed.
Every vessel they had taken since November had been Indies-bound: brigs heavy with fish, schooners with oil and lumber, snows deep in flour.
Why chase Iberian shores when the lifeblood of Britain’s empire flowed southward, straight into their path?
The best way to hurt England and make her feel the war was through the pocketbooks of her merchants and the seizure of her merchant ships.
It was here, in the western ocean, that fortunes were made or lost. It was here they could strike at the heart of British trade.
The fish and flour of Newfoundland fed the sugar islands, and the sugar islands fed the coffers of London.
To strike those arteries was to wound the empire more surely than any gesture at Lisbon.
There would be time enough to venture to Europe’s shores.
For now, Providence had led him here, and here was where he could do the most good.
Jon dipped his quill again. If his commissioners in Boston wished to see Iberia on the horizon, so be it. For his part, he was content enough with the Indies’ trade swelling his logbook, and with the wealth it promised for his men, for the cause, and the family waiting for him in Salem.