CHAPTER XIII
IN THE CHANNEL
The firm of Hortalez and Company received word from their Spanish agents and the representatives of Lazzonere and Company that four English vessels – two brigs, a large lugger, and a ship (the last a most valuable prize) – had arrived at Corunna, all sent in within a week after the sailing of the Revenge. So well had everything been arranged that there was a ready sale. Vessels and cargoes were disposed of without a hitch to Spanish and French merchants, in many cases auctions being held on the public wharves. Two weeks more and eight other prizes were added to the list.
England was now in a storm of indignant protest. The Admiralty was besieged with letters, and ship-owners and insurance people, frightened at the prospect of further losses, showed signs of panic. Vessels already loaded and ready for sailing were held in port until they could sail, under convoy of an armed guard-ship. Insurance rates rose twenty-five per cent. And all this time a little, fast-sailing craft drove up and down the Channel, occasionally flaunting the rattlesnake flag almost in sight of the fleets that lay at anchor in the roadways.
And so we find her on one bright day in August, still in sight of the white cliffs, but heading southwest in chase of a deep-laden vessel whose suspicions had been aroused, for she was staggering along under a press of snow-white canvas.
Conyngham had gone forward to the forecastle and was watching the chase through his spy-glass. The crew, much reduced in numbers by reason of manning the prizes, watched him carefully. There had been something about the set of the stranger’s canvas that had suggested the man-o’-war, and now – although, as we have said, she had all sail set – she seemed to display a slowness that was puzzling, for hand over hand the Revenge picked up on her. The six-pounders and the swivels had been cast loose and provided, and the men were only waiting the orders to take their stations. There was a ponderous sea running, and the armament of the Revenge was practically useless except at short range. Time and again had the captain longed for a bow gun, and he would have exchanged half of his broadside for a long twelve-pounder. They were within two miles of the vessel now, and for the last few minutes Conyngham had not taken his eye from the glass, crouching, or at least half kneeling, against the bow-sprit in order to steady himself. The lower sails were wet with the spray that dashed up from the bows, and he himself was soaked almost to the skin. Suddenly he arose and shouted some orders hurriedly. The Revenge came up into the wind as if abandoning the chase. The second mate, who stood beside the helmsman, saw the captain come running aft.
“She’s a man-o’-war brig!” cried Conyngham. “I thought as much. She has a drag out to hold her back.”
“There she comes about,” answered the second mate. “Now we can see her teeth. You’re right, sir. She hoped to bring us up to her. Hadn’t we better run for it?”
For an instant the captain did not reply. He seemed to measure carefully the rate of the other vessel’s speed against that of his own. The result apparently satisfied him, for he turned again with a smile.
“I’ve got half a mind to try a few passes with him,” he said, “and I would do it if it were not for the old adage about discretion. For an Irishman, sure I have a reputation for discreetness that must not be broken. And so,” he continued, “we’ll let well enough alone.”
It was evident to every one on board the Revenge that their vessel sailed faster and closer on the wind than did the brig. And though both were heading toward the white cliffs, it became apparent that if the wind held, the Revenge would not only cross the brig’s bows at a distance that was practically out of range of her broadside guns, but would also weather the point that was the southernmost cape on the English coast – Land’s End. By nightfall, if all went well, she should be past the entrance to the Irish Channel and in her new cruising grounds. But an unlooked-for occurrence put an end to all such hopes. Suddenly appearing around the point of land, carrying the wind from an entirely new direction, came a large three-masted vessel. At once the brig, that, although to leeward, was the nearer, began to set a little row of signal flags, and, as if noticing the shift of the wind, she came about, apparently abandoning the attempt to head off the Revenge. Instantly Conyngham divined her purpose, and came about also as quickly as he could. The breeze, which had been from the eastward, was rapidly dying down.
The big stranger, carrying the new wind, grew larger and larger. Through the glass Conyngham could make out three rows of ports, and the billowing canvas rising above the dark hull looked like a cloud hanging low in the sky. It was almost dead calm, and the Revenge swung lazily up and down, with her steering sails dipping uselessly in the water, while the brig, that had now caught the wind, bore down nearer and nearer. The men looked back at the quarter-deck with frightened, white faces. All the good fortune that had so far followed them in the cruise had apparently deserted them. They saw visions of their prize-money disappearing, and many of the knowing ones could imagine the crowded harbor of Portsmouth, with the big seventy-four lying at anchor, while black, faintly struggling objects depended from her yard-arms. The first mate and Conyngham had not exchanged a word, when suddenly the former, lifting his hand, broke the silence.
“She’s coming, captain; by tar, she’s coming!” he cried.
The big foresail of the Revenge lifted and the sheets and outhauls of the steering-sails spattered a line of spray as they tautened up out of the water. But it seemed almost too late that the breeze had reached them. Broad off the starboard bow was the brig, but a mile and a half away, while little more than twice that distance, dead astern, came the seventy-four, a roll of seething white playing under her forefoot and sweeping out on either side. Down on the wind came the ominous rolling of a drum.
“They’re beating to quarters, sir,” observed the mate; and then in almost semitragic despair he muttered, “and they’ve got us in their locker!”
But the Revenge was now slipping along swiftly, although she had not yet felt the full force of the following wind. The brig had set a little answering pennant to a new string of signals that had risen to the masthead of the seventy-four, and in obedience, although at extreme range, she began firing with her bow guns, the balls plashing harmlessly in the water a few hundred yards away, but each one appearing to come nearer than the last, and threatened to reach the Revenge at any moment. It looked black indeed for the little cruiser. Her actions had placed her, beyond doubt, in the minds of her pursuers as the vessel for whose capture a large reward had been offered. Subterfuge was useless. She had proclaimed herself as much as if she had flown the cross-barred flag with the wriggling rattlesnake that, bent to the color halyards, lay on deck ready to have risen and to have been tossed to the wind.
The feeling of terror that was spreading through the crew seemed to unnerve them. A French sailor, as a shot from the brig came closer than before, fell on his knees and began to call upon the saints. Something must be done, although it seemed that all human exertion would be futile, for even now the line-of-battle ship had opened up with her two forward guns, but, like her smaller consort, the shots fell harmlessly some distance off. Now the Revenge had caught the full force of the wind, and every sheet was taut as a bar of iron. The spray began to fly over her bows as she dipped and rose against the crest of the seas. For an instant it appeared as if she was holding her own, and it was so, as far as the brig was concerned; but the seventy-four was faster than her bulk would lead one to suspect. A shot came skipping along the water, jumping from wave to wave until it sank almost broad off the beam of the Revenge.
“We must try the last resort, Mr. Minott,” said Conyngham quietly; “we must lighten her.”
And with that he began to shout orders to the crew, all of whom were gathered in the waist talking in subdued voices, with much shaking of heads and low curses. As if relieved at having something to do and at hearing their captain’s voice ring with a note of assurance, they sprang forward. The swivels were cast over the side, and one after another the broadside guns followed. The effect was immediately perceptible; the Revenge seemed to lift to the sea instead of dipping into it. And now the water casks, some of which were on deck just abaft the foremast, were broken in with swift blows of the axes, and the scuppers were running full with a mixture of salt water and fresh. The shot from the lockers followed, and both anchors, cut away, were let go and plashed overboard. And now, inch by inch, the Revenge drew ahead. The brig had fallen back until she was almost astern, and had ceased firing, but the seventy-four maintained her distance and continued, by an increased elevation of her bow-chasers, in an endeavor to reach her quarry.
It was approaching dusk; a fine red sunset, with bars of narrow blue clouds against the glare, glowed in the west; a still narrower and darker cloud was draped down from the sky above, and it looked for all the world like a picture on a grand scale of the Revenge’s cross-barred flag, the wriggling snake and all. Prompted by an impulse, Conyngham stepped to the color halyards, and with his own hands hoisted the Revenge’s colors to the masthead.
As if angered by the seeming insult, the big vessel swung off a point or two until, port after port, her broadside could be seen being brought to bear. It was the very thing for which Conyngham had been waiting. By doing so she lessened her speed and lost perceptible headway.
Every nerve was tense in the captain’s body as he stood there close to the taffrail waiting for the coming discharge, and trusting that the British commander had underestimated the distance or the rate of the Revenge’s sailing. The brig also was repeating the maneuver and endeavoring to bring her broadside also into play, for she and the seventy-four were now sailing almost side by side.
All at once it came! A cloud of white smoke broke from the tall sides of the larger vessel, and immediately the thunderous roar of her main-deck battery followed. How the Revenge escaped was more than any one on board of her could tell, for some of the heavy shot passed over her and crashed into the crests of the waves some distance in her path. But one shot reached her, and that, striking the top of her port bulwarks, sent a shower of white splinters whirring across the deck and then glanced harmlessly into the sea.
The brig, that had yawed wide, immediately followed suit, and just here the strangest thing occurred. Whether one of the guns that she had been firing earlier in the day had not been re-aimed or whether some accident in the firing took place has never been ascertained; perhaps some impressed seaman gunner who had been taken by the press-gang in a British port now found the moment to wreak his vengeance. At all events, a shot from one of the brig’s broadside guns went so wide of the mark that it caught the foretopmast of the big one full and square just above the hounds and brought it, with a tangle of sails and rigging, lurching and swinging down to deck, where the wreckage poised for a minute and then, swayed by the wind, tangled in the head-sails and brought the vessel almost to a stop.
The chase was over! The Revenge slipped on her way, and as Conyngham looked back he could see his two pursuers shortening sail.
“Somebody’ll swing for that, Mr. Minott,” observed the captain.
“And somebody would have swung if it hadn’t happened, sir,” returned the mate, giving up the wheel, which he had been handling himself, to the now grinning helmsman.
“What course, sir?” asked the latter.
“Hold as you are,” Conyngham answered. “We’ll make some port in Spain.”
Two days later the Revenge entered the harbor of Corunna.
CHAPTER XIV
ON THE IRISH COAST
A very peaceable craft indeed the Revenge appeared to be as she lay at anchor in the Spanish harbor, as all evidence of her real character had disappeared. But of course Captain Conyngham did not intend long to live up to this peaceable appearance; his chief concern was to procure another armament, gather his crew together, and, nothing daunted, put back to the rich cruising grounds. It was his settled purpose to enter the Irish Channel and pick up some of the fat prizes that he knew were there ripe for the picking.
He had been forced to moor the Revenge to one of the naval mooring-buoys when he first entered, but upon explaining that he had lost both anchors during a stress of bad weather, the captain of the port had allowed him to remain until he could procure others.
To his delight, Conyngham had noticed five or six of his prizes lying farther up the harbor, and the Revenge herself had been recognized by some of the prize-crews that were still on board the latest captures.
As soon as possible Conyngham had pulled to shore and sought out the agents of the mysterious mercantile house of Hortalez and Company. At the offices of Signor Lazzonere, whom should he meet but the elder Ross!
Eager and warm were the greetings. Ross had so much to ask and so much to tell that he found it difficult to begin.
“Upon my word, captain,” he said at last, “could I have had a prayer answered, you could not have appeared at a more opportune moment. There is the old Harry to pay in France – upon no account must you return there, for – ”
“I have no such intention,” was Conyngham’s answer, interrupting. “Sure our friend de Vergennes gave me hint enough for that. I shall, if I can, pick up some scrap iron here and something to throw it with, go back and pay the old country a fleeting visit, and then across the wide sea to America. But how goes it with all our friends?” he added.
“That is what I am about to tell you,” replied Ross. “Poor Hodge is in the Bastile, and my brother and Allan are confined in the prison at Dunkirk.”
“All on my account?” asked Conyngham.
“On our joint account. Charge it to the Revenge,” was the reply. “Hodge and Allan went on your bond, and at the first news that you were cruising de Vergennes remarked that ‘it was a bad matter to lie to a king,’ which he claimed they both had done, and clapped them into prison.”
Conyngham frowned and looked puzzled.
“But, upon my soul, the sheep attacked me first,” he said. “So my Lord Stormont has yet some influence.”
“But never fear,” Ross went on. “Hodge is being treated well; and as for my brother, he dines with the commandant every evening. Good news has come from America, and all things point to an early alliance between our country and France. And now,” he added, “tell me of yourself, and what do you mean by ‘scrap iron’?”
In a few words Conyngham related the story of his narrow escape and the loss of his guns, and the necessary jettisoning of his anchors and armament.
“We will arrange for all that,” was Ross’s comforting comment when he had finished. “There is money in the treasury, and the commissioners are well satisfied. There must be some now to your credit. If you should care for an accounting – ”
“Let it stand,” replied Conyngham. “I desire no more than is customary for an officer in the regular service – two twentieths – and will wait for my accounting until the business is finished. By the Powers, I only ask to be at sea again.”
“The very person to help us out is Signor Lazzonere,” exclaimed Ross. “Although a Frenchman, he has strong connections here in Spain, and there is neither a Stormont nor a de Vergennes to be dealt with. Money can do a great deal when backed with a little influence.”
The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the merchant himself, and all then adjourned to Signor Lazzonere’s inner office.
In a few minutes Conyngham came out, a smile on his lips and a light of satisfaction dancing in his eyes.
That very night the Revenge was warped in with a small kedge and moored alongside a large bark that lay close inshore. Under cover of darkness there was transferred to the cruiser the very thing that her captain most wished for – a long twelve-pounder. It was hidden beneath a canvas covering in such a way that its shape took on the innocent appearance of a pile of wine casks, and the following evening work was again resumed and eight six-pounders and ten short swivels – what the French called demi-cannon – were put on board. By the fourth day the Revenge’s armament was practically complete. In fact, she was, if anything, in better fighting trim than ever before, and her crew was again recruited to its full strength. The Spanish authorities had paid not the least attention to the goings on, and no attempt was made to prevent her sailing, although by this time her character must have been known to every longshoreman in the port. Many Englishmen in Corunna were in high dudgeon, and as usual would have prevented her sailing if they could. But on the tenth day after her arrival, at noon of a Sunday, she made sail and put out into the rolling waters of the Bay of Biscay. The crew, all of whom had been paid part of their prize-money, looked to their young captain to bring them safely through any adventure that might be in store. Before the cruiser was out of the bay she had taken two prizes, and almost at the very spot where she had made her sensational escape she took a third. But it was in the Irish Channel that her run of luck began. No less than twelve richly laden craft were despatched to Spanish ports, and of them but two were recaptured. Nearly all of the merchantmen surrendered without making any resistance, either completely taken by surprise or, not being prepared for fighting, concluding that it would be wiser to give in at the very first summons.
But this rather inglorious method of warfare did not altogether suit Captain Conyngham’s adventurous spirit, and time and again he wished for a brush with one of the king’s cutters before his crew and his stores were depleted by the manning of so many prizes. As yet he had found no occasion to use the long twelve-pounder. But the opportunity was soon to come, and the way it happened was this:
The Revenge was running short of water, and owing to the necessity of dividing her stores with some of the coasters that were provisioned for voyages of only one or two days’ duration, the crew was at last forced to accept half rations, and sailors will grumble quicker at this than at any form of dangerous hardship.
Once, forced by a hard blow, Conyngham had boldly made into the mouth of the English harbor of Ravenglass, in Lancashire, where of course he dared not go ashore, and owing to the presence of a British thirty-four-gun frigate he could not cut out any of the numerous fleet of merchant vessels by which he was surrounded. When the storm was over he sailed out of the harbor as boldly as he had entered it, and none of the English fleet imagined that the natty little craft that dropped anchor among them was the dreaded Yankee “pirate.”
But now to the adventure: The supply of water was growing less and less. It became an absolute necessity to fill the casks in some fashion, and also to procure some fresh provisions, for scurvy, the dreaded enemy of sailors of that day, had begun to appear – at least there were signs of it, and the crew were grumbling louder than ever. So Conyngham bethought him of his promise to pay a visit to the land of his birth; and after skirting the Isle of Man in a fruitless search for a safe landing-place or a well-provisioned prize, he crossed the Channel and entered the harbor of a little Irish fishing port (the name of which he fails to record in his log) about twenty miles or so to the north of the town and harbor of Wicklow.
Probably the fisher folk were simple and unsuspicious; mayhap they did not care to inquire closely into the mission of a polite fellow countryman who claimed to be a peaceable merchantman, for here Conyngham allowed his original nationality to be unmistakably plain if he did conceal his calling; or maybe it was the sight of the Spanish gold with which he paid for everything that blinded them; but they were eager and willing to help him to the things he wanted; and as many hands make light work, twelve hours sufficed to fill his casks with fresh water and his forehold with potatoes – the best cure for scurvy. Stores of various kinds to replace those he had sent to Spain were also taken on board.
It was a misty, foggy day, with very little wind. The red evening sun could not pierce the thick clouds, and the falling barometer proved that heavy weather might be expected. Conyngham was anxious to be off. He did not relish being kept longer in port than was necessary; for, although he had seen that no vessel, even of small size, had sailed out the harbor, he could not tell but that some suspicious person had traveled overland to Wicklow bearing the news that the dreaded Revenge was lying in the harbor. So, just before darkness set in, he bade good-by to his friendly countrymen, and getting up his anchor drifted out with the tide toward the Channel.
There was a steep headland to the south, and just as the Revenge was rounding it a vessel came into full view that, from her appearance, could be none other than a British cutter. There was hardly enough wind to fill her sails, and like the Revenge she was drifting slowly with the tide.
It would be hard to conjecture what it was that caused her captain to be suspicious, but immediately upon sighting Conyngham’s vessel two boats were lowered from the cutter’s side and filled with armed men. They pulled out as if to intercept him. There were altogether in the Revenge’s crew at this time but some thirty men left, but at once the long twelve was cast loose and the short broadside guns were double-shotted. Before the boats had traversed half the distance they were stopped by a challenging shot from the twelve-pounder, and with all haste they made back to their vessel. Although she was evidently of heavier metal, had Conyngham had his full complement of men he would not have shrunk from engaging her, but under the circumstances, as he had once remarked before, “discretion was the better part of valor,” and at long range a drifting fight began.
If the people of the little fishing port had been at all in doubt as to who their visitor was, all such uncertainty was put at rest by the appearance the next morning of the cutter with her jib-boom and topsail-yard shot away and three shot holes in her hull, one at the water-line that necessitated immediate attending to.
The Revenge had escaped all injury except to her larder, a chance shot having entered at her cabin window and completely spoiled the captain’s dinner; thence glancing into the galley, it broached a barrel of fine salt pork, and ended by lodging in one of the deck beams.
The cruise had ended in an adventure at last, although a rather tame one, and, satisfied with results, Captain Conyngham determined to set sail for America.
Another prize was added to his list before he was quite free of the Channel, and this was ordered to meet him at a port in the Spanish West Indies, toward which he now laid his course, as he deemed it much wiser to ascertain how matters stood in America before making for any home port, which, for all he knew, might be in possession of the enemy.
He was satisfied with the work that he had accomplished, and well he might be. Perhaps the result of his cruises had been exaggerated, but he had prevented the sailing of two loaded transports, and from the very fear of his name over forty sail of vessels of all kinds, to quote from a contemporaneous account, “lay at anchor cooped up in the Thames.”
As Silas Deane wrote to Robert Morris and to the home Government, “His name has become more dreaded than that of the great Thurot, and merchants are constrained to ship their cargoes in French or Dutch vessels.”
Not a guard-ship on the coast but had received specific orders to be on the lookout for him, and yet he had cruised in the English and Irish Channels for month after month. Another fact that he regarded with satisfaction was that he had accomplished all this not merely as a privateersman, but as a regularly commissioned officer in the navy of his country. The prize-money due him as such, now amounting to a large sum, he regarded as safe in the hands of the commissioners.
After reaching the West Indies, where he spent some time, he learned from the American consul of the condition of affairs at home, and after waiting for the arrival of the latest prize he set sail for Philadelphia. The one thing that he regretted was the fact that he did not have in his possession the commission signed by John Hancock, then president of Congress, and given to him by Franklin in Paris, but he did not doubt that the good doctor had it in his possession and would produce it at the proper time. Without mishap, the Revenge sailed up the coast, slipped by the British guard-ships off the capes of Delaware, and early in February, 1779, Conyngham was home at last!