15 What We Saw in New York Bay

There was no occasion for me to linger in Boston, since immediately upon my arrival there I had received sufficient proof of the temper of its leading men. The old, invincible spirit of New England seemed to be dead, and though it was New England who clamoured the loudest against our wrongs she would refuse absolutely to try the only cure—war. Among the sailors and the countrymen who came in were many who believed with us of the West, but their voices were not heard in the outcry of the more powerful and wealthy classes against the appeal to the sword. So I began the return journey, and Courtenay and Mercer went with me. Wishing to vary our experience we took ship for New York, securing passage on the stout schooner John Hancock, commanded by Captain Benjamin Crowell, a Maine man after our own hearts.

We had stormy weather rounding Cape Cod, and Courtenay, Mercer, and I suffered much from seasickness, but in the bright weather following we recovered, and our discouraged spirits rose. The voyage then became a pleasure, but I do not think that I would like to be a sailor. The land does not slip from under one’s feet. We fell into a calm lasting two days, but at the end of that time a good wind sprang up, and, passing around Long Island, we approached Sandy Hook one fine morning early in May. We could see already the wooded coasts of New Jersey, fresh with the tender green of young foliage, and the fine haze beyond it which was the effect either of a cloud or the smoke rising from the many tall chimneys of distant New York. Before us were other ships, their white sails hovering on the blue water. Above us glittered the great globe of the sun. Afar the fisher boats swam in a sea of purple and azure and gold. I was full of joyful anticipations, partly the growth of youth and a splendid day. Moreover, I liked New York, and I was sure that Marian would be there.

But anxiety and suspense were putting wrinkles and crow’s feet into the face of Captain Crowell, and I was astonished at the evident trouble in his manner, for he was not a man who took readily to grief. After some hesitation, since one does not rashly address the captain of a ship on his own deck, I asked him the cause.

He pointed a finger toward the group of distant ships ahead of us.

“We are about to run the blockade,” he replied. “An American must do it, going from port to port of his own country. See the largest of those ships, the one near the centre.”

I looked, knew, and remembered; the ship was the Guerriere. I could recognise her gleaming white and gold prow, the French fashion of her sides and rigging; and even if these were not sufficient, there flew the hated flag of England.

“Why, yours is but a coasting schooner from Boston to New York,” I said to Captain Crowell in reply to his look.

“That won’t keep her from being searched,” he replied, “and maybe I will lose two or three of my best sailors. We will have to anchor alongside that confounded British ship, under her guns, just as if we were a prize, and stay there as long as she chooses to keep us. To the devil with a government that will stand this, I say!”

Mercer and Courtenay had joined us.

“Why, it’s illegal, contrary to all the laws of nations,” said Mercer, the lawyer.

“Which has never kept it from being done, and nothing will keep it from being done except the twenty-four-pounders of a forty-four, and that’s the best law I know of,” replied the captain. “Let them give our boys a chance. Do you know what they did in the West Indies when we fought there with France, and how we battered up the Barbary corsairs, though they always had more guns and men than we? Give ’em a chance, and they’ll teach that frigate yonder and others like her what it is to fight with the best men that sail the sea.”

But I belonged to the school of Mr. Jefferson, who believed that in case of war our little navy should be sealed up in port, or otherwise we would lose it. In my mind the majesty of England, backed by a thousand war ships and the memories of the Nile and Trafalgar, was supreme upon the sea.

The Guerriere lay almost at the mouth of the bay. What had become of her consort, the large frigate, I did not know, though I supposed that she was in mischief wherever she might be. Around her lay a little fleet of American merchantmen, two or three from European ports. All had been searched by the Briton, or would be, and, as we supposed she would, she signalled for us to stop, and stop we did, since there was no recourse. I was familiar already with the sight of the Guerriere, and this was only another insult and injury added to the list we owed to her and the country whose flag she carried— England.

A boat containing an officer and half dozen men left the Guerriere and pulled for us.

“Don’t you know him?” asked Courtenay, who stood beside me.

“Know whom?”

“The English officer, the man commanding the boat.”

The officer turned his face at that moment and I recognised Allyn, the lieutenant whose efforts to recapture the sailor, Patterson, we had defeated. He was coming now to search the ship on which we were passengers, and I felt some apprehension, since the arrogance and presumption of the British naval officers at that time passes the belief of the present day, and I knew that he did not like me, nor without cause either.

Captain Crowell stood on the deck to receive the lieutenant, his hands in his pocket, face and manner surly. I knew that he would rather have met the Englishman cutlass in hand, and that here was another in whom dwelled the spirit of the Bon Homme Richard.

Allyn and four of his men climbed upon the deck. Looking across at the Guerriere I saw that we lay directly under her guns, and if she chose she could blow us into chips with a single broadside.

Allyn demanded the name of the ship and her captain.

“The schooner John Hancock, with a mixed cargo from Boston to New York,” replied Crowell, “and I am her captain, Benjamin Crowell, of Portland, Maine, damn you!”

Allyn’s face flushed and he made a gesture of anger.

“Oaths are out of place, Captain Crowell,” he said, “and they may do you harm.”

“I happen to be standing upon my own deck, in one of our own ports,” replied the captain. “My country and yours are not at war. Why shouldn’t I pitch you into the sea for threatening me? What right have you here?”

“There is my right,” said Allyn, turning and pointing to the guns of the Guerriere.

“You speak truly,” I said, stepping forward. “That is your right, and your only right.”

He had not seen me until then, but he did not betray any surprise, although his eye lighted up with a gleam that seemed to me marvellously like exultation.

“It is you, is it, Ten Broeck, my fine fellow?” he said, and there was much in his manner that puzzled me.

“Yes, it is I, Mr. Ten Broeck,” I said, putting emphasis upon the ‘Mr.’, “and I want to tell you, Lieutenant Allyn, that you are engaged in a monstrous business. You will push the patience of the American Government too far.”

“Impossible,” he replied sneeringly.

“Overconfidence is as bad as the lack of it,” I replied.

“That’s enough, Ten Broeck,” he said in a sharp, insolent tone, as if he were a superior speaking to an inferior. “Captain Crowell, I suspected that you had English sailors on board, and it has proved to be the truth. I must take this fine, strapping fellow, Ten Broeck, who deserted from the Leander two years ago. Pipe up your crew, and let’s see what others you have. Fall in there, Ten Broeck, behind my men.”

His look was full of malignant triumph, but I believed I could defeat his attempt, which was of unexampled audacity. So believing, I held myself in reserve and the captain spoke first for me.

“Mr. Ten Broeck is a passenger aboard my ship,” he said, amazed, as he had a right to be, at the lieutenant’s words, “and has been in the service of the Government at Washington, if he is not now.”

“That’s a specious tale that he has told you, Captain Crowell,” replied Allyn smoothly, “and, of course, you are not to blame, but I know him to be a deserting English sailor from the Leander, and he will have to fill out his unexpired time aboard the Guerriere.”

“I think not,” said Mercer, stepping forward, a smile showing upon his smooth, thin face. “There is a law against such things. Your attempt comes in conflict with one of the greatest principles of international law.”

“Law! international law! What law?” sneered Allyn.

“This,” replied Mercer, drawing a large pistol from his pocket. “Lead and gunpowder, which, as I truly said, constitute the greatest principle in all international law, recognised by all civilized nations.”

“And this,” said Courtenay, as he also produced a pistol, “is another principle which Lord Coke and all the famous lawyers accept as a necessary corollary of the first.”

“And here,” said the captain, as he blew a whistle and his men rushed upon the deck, cutlass in hand, “are a whole group of citations and illustrations. Now, damn you again, Mr. Lieutenant Allyn, of the Guerriere; if you try to take anybody from my vessel you’ll be the first man killed. Your frigate there can blow us to pieces, but you and your men here will be dead before we sink.”

It was the old Maine seadog who spoke, the man who afterward became one of the most daring and dangerous privateers, the captain who swept the English Channel for months at a time, and his manner left no doubt of his intentions. Around him swarmed the same crew that was with him when he harried the narrow seas between Britain and France. I saw that Allyn had a task that I did not envy him, and no words were needed from me. Still I could not refrain from saying:

“I think it would be better to postpone the question of my nationality.”

He looked at us and he looked at his ship, and then he departed without any threat in words, though his eyes were full of them. Whether he expected to keep me, in good truth, a sailor on board the Guerriere, I do not know, but he was wild with hate of me, and must have been willing to do any mad thing, knowing, moreover, that John Pechell, then captain on board the Guerriere, was ready for any act of audacity or barbarity.

While the boat was returning to the Guerriere Captain Crowell sailed on, being anxious to escape from under the guns of the Guerriere, as he feared that the frigate might give him a broadside when Allyn went on board and told his tale.

“I thank you, friends,” I said to Mercer and Courtenay, “for the splendid briefs you filed in my case, and you, too, captain, for the illustrations and citations which you presented in most timely fashion.”

When I looked at Mercer I remembered his saying once that I was a fortunate man. Truly I was fortunate in my friends, and he was not the least among them, when perhaps I had no right to expect it.

We were still standing on the deck, and the captain was looking back at the Guerriere.

“I hope the case is concluded,” he replied, “but I’m afraid it isn’t. No, by heavens, it’s not! The Guerriere is following us!”

The white and gold prow of the frigate was turned toward us, and she was following in our wake into the bay, as if she would catch us before we could reach the peaceful town which lay beyond. There was much shipping about, and directly ahead of us sailed a sightly Yankee brig, on which I read the name Spitfire.

“A Portland craft,” said Crowell; “I know her, her captain and every man aboard her; I’ve raced with her many a time.”

But he gave the Spitfire only a single glance, keeping his eyes afterward on the Guerriere, the trouble in his face growing.

“Surely she can not mean to bring us to with a broadside in the bay itself,” he said. “I don’t see how we could escape a war after that. But the war would be cheap at the price. The John Hancock could stand more than one broadside even from a thirty-eight.”

His fierce old face lighted up with joy. Like many another, he wished so much for war that he was ready to pay a heavy penalty himself if we could only have it.

We were inside the bay now, bearing toward the Narrows, and the Guerriere entering also was in closed waters, wholly American. She seemed bound to have us, be the consequences what they might, but suddenly she shifted her course and bore up to the Portland brig, the Spitfire.

“We’re not her game; it’s the Spitfire,” said Crowell, noting the change. “What new mischief is the Guerriere after? We’ll shift our course too and see.”

The Guerriere had ordered the Spitfire to lay to, and the brig had no choice but to obey. A boat’s crew were sent aboard her as in our case, and the crew were mustered on deck, while the officer, not Allyn this time, questioned them. We could see it all plainly, we lay so close, and we watched with eager interest, for the harbour had been safe, at least for a long time. Other ships and boats drew near, attracted as we were, and they hung in a circle around the frigate and her prey. Captain Crowell stood at the rail looking through a pair of strong glasses. It was evident that the captain of the Spitfire was of a different stock from the captain of the John Hancock, since we could see no signs of resistance or even of energetic protest on board the brig.

“They are all in line like so many sheep,” said Crowell in a voice permeated with disgust.

“What are the British doing?” I asked, though I could see.

“Calling the roll, I suppose, and asking them questions which they have no right to ask, and no American any right to answer.”

“Are they taking any of the sailors?”

“No, but they are taking that man who stands to one side, a passenger, too, by God! and I know him—John Deguyo, of my own town of Portland, who is not and never was a sailor. They’ve begun to impress landsmen now; they’ll take the President himself if they get a chance.”

I was witnessing a historic scene of violence and outrage, a piece of unpardonable effrontery, but save for the deck of the Spitfire the day was as peaceful and benevolent as a brilliant May day should be. Before us were the wooded hills of Staten Island, the smoke rising in lazy coils from the chimneys of the farm houses. Sometimes their windows caught the sunlight, and they shone as if made of beaten gold. The waters of the bay rippled before a gentle breeze, and off toward the low Jersey shore it was a shimmering sea of blue and silver and green.

The man, Deguyo, struggled a little, but two of the men-o’-warsmen seized him, and he ceased to resist, going quietly with his captors to the boat, and thence to the Guerriere. Then the frigate changed her course again, and passed out of the harbour with her victim.

“If the American Government stands this,” said Courtenay, “I shall become a citizen of Turkey, or some other barbaric country where they are not too good to fight.”

“I hope it will not be necessary for us to lose you,” I said.

Mercer was silent.

We landed, and, with Captain Crowell, spread the news, which was known already in a vague way, but we gave the facts, and it was a joy to me to see the flame rise among the sailors and the longshoremen and the day workers, who, having no property at stake and no blind belief in the virtue of manners, had a truer sense of the honour and dignity of their country than those who lived in the fine houses on Canal Street.

Leaving the fire to feed itself and to spread, which it was sure to do, I hastened to Fraunce’s Tavern, where I hoped that Marian and her father were still staying.

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