University of Virginia Library

32. CHAPTER XXXII.
Robin's plans of escape are interrupted, and he marches with the
British to the attack on Carney Island.

Having thus lost all hope of effecting the liberation
of my poor playmate through the humanity of
the lieutenant's successor, I now cast about for other
means of insuring my ends: and none better offering,
I laid a plan for escaping with him in a boat to
the shore, which I thought might be done, under
cover of the night, as the watch was not always kept
with great strictness; and, once upon terra-firma, I
thought it would be no great difficulty to find the
means of sending Tommy to his friends, notwithstanding
that my unlucky circumstances rendered it
inexpedient for me to attempt turning my face towards
the same quarter.

I digested and perfected the scheme at my leisure,
taking care to admit none to my counsels, not
even Tommy himself; who, I doubted not, would be
willing to fly with me from the tyranny of the
Jumping Jenny at a moment's warning, and upon
whose prudence and co-operation I saw it was necessary
to rely as little as possible. At the same time,
having procured a sheet of paper from a literary marine,
who kept a journal of his exploits, I drew up a
long letter to my patron, which I designed to send
by Tommy; in which I described, first, the happy

discovery I had made, with all matters thereto relating;
and, in the second place, my own unlucky
adventures, from the time of leaving his house up to
the present moment. I was particular in explaining
the incident of the robber, that he might see I was
innocent of the charge laid at my doors by the audacious
highwayman, as well as of the loss of the
horse, which that impudent fellow had ridden off
with; and I gave him the true account of my adventures
with the false and the true Mr. Bloodmoney,
begging that he would clear up my character, which
had, no doubt, suffered in the estimation of that worthy
gentleman. I informed him of my fortunate
escape (for so I considered it) from Mr. John Dabs
the constable; as well as of my unhappy encounter
with the British, begging him to observe that I had
volunteered to take arms with them, only for the
purpose of avoiding the horrors of a prison-ship,
and of effecting my escape to my own countrymen,
at the earliest opportunity. I concluded the missive
by detailing my plan of escape, and assuring him
that, as I intended to make Tommy the bearer of
my epistle, he might infer, upon the receipt of it,
that I had effected my purpose, and wa at liberty.
I ended by a postscript, in which I sent my love to
Nanna, with a hint that, as soon as I should escape
the British, and light upon my friend Dicky Dare,
she would, perhaps, hear farther of me in the papers,
fighting the battles of my country. My letter, when
finished, I concealed about my person, to have in
readiness for the moment of escape, which I now resolved
should soon take place;—and that before being
called upon again to bear arms in the service of his
Britannic Majesty.

My resolution, as far as it had reference to fighting
again in the ranks of the enemy, it would have

been as well had I omitted, since it required to make
it good, the consent of other persons whose consent
might not have been so easily obtained. At all
events, after having quite settled the matter in my
own mind to my own satisfaction, I was given to
understand one fine morning, after being first informed
I was discharged from the sick list, that I was,
that day, for the third time, to have the honour of
fighting his majesty's enemies, and ordered to prepare
myself for action accordingly. This information
was conveyed by my friend Tom Gunner, who,
noting my surprise, or perhaps a stronger feeling,
for I was, in his phrase, rather taken aback by it,
told me “there was no use in being scared, as the
d—d bullets never got out of one's way for being
afraid of them,” and added, “after all, d— his heart,
he believed we were going, for once, to knock our
heads against a stone wall, and that some of us
would see Davy Jones before the day was over.”
And in reply to my question, upon what expedition
we were bound, he told me we were to attack the
city of Norfolk, somewhere near to which the
whole fleet lay at anchor;—that if we succeeded,
we should have “hellish fine times among the women,
and grand picking among the crockery ware
and niggers; though, to his mind, we were more
like to come off with a salt eel than any thing better.”
And upon my asking what made the enterprise
more dangerous than usual, he replied, there
was “a cursed island, with a cursed fort upon it, to
take, before we could approach the city—that the
cursed island, besides its cursed fort, was also defended
by a cursed Yankee frigate, and twenty cursed
Yankee gunboats,” all which cursed things,
island and fortress, frigate and gunboats, were
“manned with fellows that knew the difference
between grog and gunpowder—with sailors, d—
his blood, that had seen service, and none of your
blasted milishy, that one could lick by merely looking
hard at them.”

However grieved I may have felt at this unexpected
order, I had gained too much experience to
think of disputing it; and, accordingly, I made my
preparations, and, in a very brief time, found myself
in a barge, strongly manned and officered by the
new commander, which, with a great number of
others, now set off for the southern shore of James
River, near the mouth of which—that is to say, in
Hampton Roads—the British fleet lay anchored.

The reader, who is better conversant with geographical
science, than I happened to be in those
days, knows that the position of Norfolk is upon a
smaller river that empties into James River, from
which the town is seven or eight miles removed.
Upon this smaller river, three miles above the James
River, lies Craney Island—“the cursed island”
of Tom Gunner—separated from the western bank
by a narrow channel, which is, I believe, fordable;
at least it was so reported among my friends the
British, who thereupon founded their plan of attack.
It was designed that a part of the invading
force should advance upon the island in the boats,
while the remainder, landing at the mouth of the
river, should march up behind the island, while its
defenders were engaged with the boats, wade the
narrow channel, and carry the works on the island
by storm.

The crew of the Jumping Jenny, it appeared, were
to take part with the latter division, composed of land
troops, (brought over by Admiral Warren,) marines,
and sailors—a destination which, I believe, gave
great pleasure to every soul in the division; for, as it

was pretty generally understood that the fort on the
island was a fort in earnest, with abundance of artillery
and men, not to speak of the frigate and twenty
gunboats, lying so convenient for its assistance, so it
was as commonly believed that the attack upon it in
front with barges would prove any thing but safe or
agreeable to those assigned to the duty. As for myself,
I was doubly pleased—pleased to escape the
dangers of the boat service, and pleased to put my
foot again upon dry land, where (so hot was now
my desire to escape,) I determined, if possible,
to desert the king's service, leaving little Tommy
Howard, not, indeed, to shift for himself, but to be
liberated in a way and by means to be afterwards
devised.

Our division landed without difficulty or molestation,
and immediately took up the line of march towards
the object of attack, marching through scrubby
woods and thickets, so as to strike the river in
the rear of the island—or, as Tom Gunner called it,
“to take it astarn;” and this part of our design we
effected without any accident—that is, we came in
sight of the river and its island, the theatre on which
we were all shortly to play parts so important and
heroical. We came in sight of it at a moment of
great excitement and interest; for, just then, the barges
were seen close to the island, upon which they
were rushing with furious spirit and speed, while a
host of blue-jackets—sailors from the American
squadron drawn up in the river above—stood behind
a breast-work on the shore, with artillery, to
dispute their landing. We could see the gunners
whirling their matches in the air, as if upon the
very point of firing; the expectation of which, with
the interest of the scene, brought our land army to
an involuntary halt, to behold the beginning of

the battle. It is true, our commanders d—d our eyes,
and ordered us, some to “march,” and some to “give
way,” according as they belonged to the bull dog or
sea-dog families; but even they could not resist the
feeling of the moment, which chained all feet to the
ground, while all eyes were directed to the scene of
strife about to open. “My eyes!” said Tom Gunner,
opening them upon his friends in the barges—
“they gits it!” which was a very prophetic speech
of Tom Gunner's.

At this moment, the forces in the boats, who, I
fancy had just caught sight of us, their coadjutors,
so opportunely arriving, set up a lusty cheer, and
dashed with renewed spirit against the island; and
a few more strokes of the oars would have carried
them to the strand; which, however, but few of them
were destined to reach. The blue-jackets returned
the cheer with another, not so loud, but quite as bold
and confident; and immediately we beheld some
ten or a dozen matchsticks descend upon the vents
of as many cannon, followed by a din of explosion
that shook the earth under our feet. The effect of
this discharge was, to my fancies, at least, prodigious.
The river was tossed into foam, its whole surface
around and among the boats converted into froth by
the showers of ball and grape-shot poured from the
cannon; while the fragments of at least one barge
shattered by a ball, were seen knocked into the air,
with, perhaps, the mangled limbs of several of her
crew, whose bodies were, an instant after, seen scattered
over the tide. The assailants, undeterred by
the discharge, gave breath to another hurrah, which
was, however, cut short by a second broadside, that
rapidly succeeded the former, and, I believe, wrought
horrible havoc among them; but of this we could
now know nothing, as the smoke of the artillery

drove over the water as well as around the battery,
and concealed friend and foe alike from our
view. But from that nitrous cloud long came to
our ears the sounds of battle—the roar of the American
cannon, as well as those in the boats, (for they
had ordnance on board, and now put them to use,)
the rattle of musketry, and the shouts of the combatants.

There was another reason why we should no longer
take much note of the proceedings of our comrades;
which was a sudden occasion we found for
giving all our attention to our own interests. The
second volley of the blue jackets awoke the wrath
of our leaders, who gave the order again to march,
and carry the island at a blow. We had scarcely
turned our faces to obey, when we were petrified at
the sight of a multitude of men, spread through the
woods, some of them very tatterdemalion-looking
personages, but all armed and formed somewhat in
military order, who had marched upon us unaware,
and were still advancing full in our front. And to
make this apparition the more disagreeable, we immediately
heard a strong voice among them, doubtless
that of their leader, cry aloud—“Now, boys,
there they are, the villains!—let them have it!”
And, indeed they did let us have it immediately—
that is to say, a volley of small arms, chiefly rifles,
I believe, by which at least a dozen of our men were
shot down, one of them, a sailor at my side, who
rolled his eyes, and—having Tom Gunner's late observation
on his memory—gasped out, “Now we
gits it too, d—n my blood,”—and immediately expired.

“Cut the villains to pieces! they are only militia,
—charge them out of the wood,” cried our own
commander-in-chief; and my fellow soldiers, whose

blood was now up, obeying the order, rushed upon
the offending freemen with a fury not to be withstood;
and they immediately retreated, though in
very good order, rather backing away than flying,
and keeping up an incessant firing all the time. We
drove them thus through the woods a few hundred
paces; when, all of a sudden, a volley was fired at
us from the bushes on the river bank, which was on
our left; and turning to charge upon this new foe,
we received a third fire upon our backs from a detachment,
which, it appeared, had out-flanked us on
the right. At the same time, our adversaries in
front came to a stand, and having given us one more
salute with their rifles, suddenly unmasked a battery
of field-pieces, by the first discharge of which a score
of my comrades were made to bite the dust, and the
whole force thrown into confusion.

Of the remaining occurrences of the battle I do
not profess to be able to give any clear and satisfactory
account, having been, in fact, thrown into
such disorder by the fire of the artillery, only a few
rods in front, and the havoc wrought by the great
balls among the trees, which came tumbling down
about our ears, and among our men, whose mangled
bodies, torn by these tremendous missiles, filled me
with horror and astonishment, that I was no longer
able to note the proceedings around. All that I
know is, that the militia were too strong, and their
fire too hot, for us; that we beat a retreat in our turn,
and were pursued by the enemy, whose numbers
seemed to increase as they followed us, and that our
forces, or at least that portion of them with which
I acted, were thrown into disorder by a furious
charge of the pursuers, who became, in a manner, for
a few moments, mingled with us, fighting in melée.
I remember very well that a company of the most

beggarly-looking militia of them all came rushing
up, like so many devils, to where I stood, (without yet
an opportunity to fly,) led on by a very young officer
in uniform, who flourished a long cut-and-thrust
sword, seemingly devoured by his own valour, and
furiously cheering his men to deeds of fame and
glory.

Up to this moment, the crew of the Jumping
Jenny had not suffered any very great loss, and
were able to retreat in a body, presenting a firm face
to the enemy. But the fury of the present attack,
levelled particularly against us, was more than we
could stand, especially as our captain (whom, however,
nobody regretted, he was such a tyrant,) was
shot down by a chance ball, as they came on. Nevertheless
we (that is my comrades) made some show
of resistance, even when broken by the fury of the
shock, and engaged hand to hand with the assailants.
Tom Gunner, in particular, swearing “he be d—d if
he was going to be whipped by any riffraff milishymen,”
and calling upon the men to remember `they
were beef-eating Britons, and not fever and aguy
Virginee Yankees,' rushed against the captain of the
enemy, with his cutlass, and immediately engaged
him hand to hand. Fierce, but brief, was the conflict;
thwack went the cutlass, clash went the cut
and thrust; “Surrender, you bloody baby!” roared
Tom Gunner, the epithet expressing his contempt
of the officer's youthful looks,—“Die, you British
thief!” cried the latter; then thwack and clash, and
clash and thwack again; until, suddenly, the bold
Tom, vanquished by the superior fortune, or skill,
of his antagonist, fell to the ground, exclaiming,
“I'm done for, d—me,” and ended his marauding
campaigns for ever;—at least, I suppose so, that
being the last I ever saw or heard of him.