 | A Daring Exploit. Wild scenes on the frontiers, or, Heroes of the West |  |
18. A Daring Exploit.
That the names of brave and noble heroes are sometimes
allowed to sink into oblivion—while others, far less
meritorious, but far more vain-glorious, are permitted
“To fill the speaking trump of future fame—”
memory should have been more honorably preserved, is a
striking case in point. What we here present is but a
narration of simple, though thrilling, facts, which we have
obtained from a strictly authentic source, and to which a
few still living can bear testimony.
On the twenty-third day of October, 1812, Daniel Stellwagen,
as Master of the brig Concord, received his instructions
from Francis Jacoby, the owner of the vessel, and
sailed from the port of Philadelphia, bound for Lisbon,
Portugal War between the United States and Great
Britain had even then been declared; but the blockading
squadron of the latter power had not yet taken possession
of American ports; and Captain Stellwagen made a safe and
return, sometime in March of the following year, heavily
freighted with a valuable cargo.
Little intelligence of what was actually taking place had
reached him on the ocean; but enough to make him anxious
concerning his safe arrival at the port of Philadelphia,
and doubly cautious and watchful as he neared the mouth
of the Delaware, where he had reason to believe the enemy
would have a small fleet stationed for the purpose of intercepting
and overhauling all vessels either outward or homeward
bound, and making prizes of such as should lay claim
to the protection of the American government.
Drawing near the dangerous point under cover of darkness,
the captain took soundings, hugged the Jersey
shore, and signalled landward for a pilot to run him
through the Cape May Channel Toward morning the
signal appeared to be answered; and at the first gray
touch of dawn, a little skiff was seen bounding over the
waves, bringing the long-looked-for pilot, who received a
cordial greeting from the master of the brig.
In reply to a dozen eager questions concerning the most
important news, the pilot informed the captain that affairs
looked dreary enough. A British blockading squadron—
composed of the Poictiers, seventy-four, Admiral Beresford,
and several smaller vessels—even then had possession
of the bay, almost within gun-shot, and stopped every
would soon attempt to burn Philadelphia.
“This is serions news, Pilot—very serious news!”
rejoined Captain Stellwagen: “I was afraid of this, and
took good care to keep my signal lights from the observation
of the enemy. But what chance have we of escaping
the blockade?” he anxiously inquired, peering eagerly
about him in the dull, gray, foggy light, but catching no
glimpse of the fleet.
“A mighty slim chance, I'm afeard, Captain—but I'll do
my best. If we was only an hour earlier, I reckon I could
take her safe through, and I may do it yet—though I'm
afeard daylight will expose us before I can show the
thieves a clean pair of heels. But fill away, lads!” he continued,
turning to the anxious crew, and assuming the full
command: “make sail and brace in the yards! It's a little
past high water, and we've got to run her through the
Cape May Channel, and hug still closer the Jersey
coast, to keep out of notice of the ships as long as we
can.”
His orders were promptly obeyed; and in a few minutes,
guided by that seemingly intuitive skill which a good pilot
seldom fails to possess, the heavily-laden brig began to
thread the narrow and winding passages before her; while
he, as one master of her fate, took a commanding position,
and eagerly watched every oil-spot and tide-rip, and now
familiar landmarks.
Meantime a fair breeze sprang up, and the Concord
began to make good headway; and calling the anxious
captain's attention to the fact, the sympathetic pilot
added:
“Don't be down-hearted! we may pass the heavy ships
without being discovered after all; and if it wasn't for a
smart little craft called the Paz, of some five or six guns,
which it's like is above us—though she may be in at Lewistown
Roads, as I hope she is—I'd be willing to insure her
for a small per centage.”
“May Heaven favor us!” said Captain Stellwagen,
solemnly; “for setting aside the loss of my vessel, I have
a dear wife and children in Philadelphia; and the thought
of being taken prisoner, and parted from them for years,
almost unnerves me.”
“Well, keep a stout heart, and we'll get through all
right yet!” returned the pilot, encouragingly.
For a few minutes after this, a deep and anxious silence
was maintained by all—the Concord gliding slowly but
steadily onward, still hugging the Jersey shore, and passing
unharmed over the deeper portions of Crow Shoal.
But every minute it was growing lighter and more light;
and presently the tapering masts and spars, and the dark,
sullen-looking hulls of the British squadron, could be
near what was termed the Brown Buoy.
“There they are, and my curses on 'em, for a mean, kidnapping,
robbing set of Johnny Bulls!” muttered the pilot,
in the same breath that he issued some rapid orders concerning
the management of the brig. “But they don't see
us yet, the sleepy heads!” he added, in a more hopeful tone;
“and if they'll only fool away their time a half hour
longer, I'll show 'em a Yankee trick that'll give 'em something
to swear about for a month.”
Great was the anxiety of the gallant Captain Stellwagen
and his men for the next fifteen minutes—every breath they
drew, while unperceived, seeming to add to their security
and hope; but suddenly, to their dismay, a wreath of white
smoke was seen to issue from the gun-deck port of the
seventy-four, followed by the heavy boom of a gun, and
then by another and another, together with the flutter of
several flags from her fore-royalmast, and a repetition of
the signals from the rest of the fleet—all proclaiming that
the escaping Concord had all at once become an objeet of
interest to those who hoped for gain by her capture.
“There they go! they have discovered us, and are signalling
their Tender to give chase!” said Captain Stellwagen,
with a deep sigh, but firmly compressed lips.
“Let 'em blaze away, gall-blast 'em!” cried the now
excited pilot; “we don't mind no such barking as that;
it's little she can do now to hurt us eyther.”
“Send a man with a sharp pair of eyes to each masthead,
to look about for the man-of-war schooner, Mr.
Rawlins!” cried the Captain, turning to his mate. “Be
awake now, and move lively!”
Several minutes of intense anxiety were now passed by
those on board the Concord, in keeping a sharp look-out
for the dangerous schooner—and a faint hope was
beginning to spring up in every breast, that she was at
anchor at some place below them—when suddenly the
pilot, who was carefully surveying the scene with a glass,
exclaimed, with an oath:
“There she is, with her two bare poles run up so innocent
like, (the _____ thief!) just above the Brandywine,
where she's playing 'possum, pretending to be dead or
asleep, like a spider watching a fly, and calculating to
take us as soon as we git up to her! Yes, I'm afeard
they've catched us finely, after all, Captain!” he added,
looking down the stream; “for the fleet is pouring out
its armed boats to cut us off from the sea, and this sneak
is waiting to nab us as we go up.”
“What we cannot cure we must endure!” said Captain
Stellwagen, in a seemingly calm tone of resignation, as he
took the glass, and for a few minutes quietly surveyed the
scene around him. “She does not move yet,” he added,
his glass to bear upon the schooner, “and we are almost
on a line with her. Perhaps—Ha! there she goes!”
As he spoke, the fore and topsail yards of the schooner
were suddenly swayed aloft and crossed; her sails, one
after another, were run up and set; and almost immediately
she began to fill away and run before the breeze, in
a direction to cut off the more heavily-laden Concord.
“Well, Pilot, there is but one course for us now!” said
the Captain, in a firm, even tone of voice, as he glanced
around upon the gloomy faces of his disappointed men,
with an expression of mingled determination and desperation;
“we must face this she-devil and stand her fire—for,
while a chance remains, I will never surrender”
This determination met with a hearty approval from all;
and the pilot hopefully suggested that, by keeping among
the shoals and flats, where the schooner could not safely
venture without a native of the coast to guide her, the
brig might even yet go clear.
The chase, which was now fairly begun, was excitingly
maintained for some considerable time—the Paz gliding
steadily up the more smooth and open channel, into which
the fugitive Concord must eventually turn—and the latter
essaying every art to escape, by crossing ridges and banks,
or boldly ploughing the deeper water of narrow channels
between dangerous shoals.
As the space occupied by the dividing shoals and
sand-spits gradually narrowed, it brought the two vessels
nearer together, till at length the schooner opened her fire,
and sent her shot whistling around the brig and through
her rigging and sails, though without inflicting any material
damage.
Crow and Deadman's Shoals were safely passed by the
Concord, and good fair sailing might have given her the
victory; but the time had now come for her to find her
way into the main channel, or run aground; and in
attempting to do this, her heel suddenly caught and
ploughed the sand beneath her; she stopped—started—
caught again; and then, with every timber groaning, she
thumped hard aground, and fell partly over on her side.
All was over now, and so groaned the disappointed
Captain, as he gloomily surveyed the faces of his disappointed
men. The Paz, perceiving the discomfiture
of the Concord, at once ceased firing, and dispatched
some twenty men in cutters to take possession of what
was now her prize.
“Steward,” said the Captain, addressing a bright-eyed
mulatto, as the foremost cutter, containing an admiralty's
mate, came alongside the brig, “hand the officer the man-ropes!”
and he himself walked quietly to the gangway, to
receive his captor with the same polite dignity he would
have welcomed him as an honored guest.
“Who commands this brig?” demanded the officer, as
he sprung on deck from the rail.
“I did, sir, before you came,” returned the Captain, with
a polite bow.
“Your papers, if you please,” said the other.
“They are American, sir,” replied the Master, as he
quietly handed them to his captor.
“Then,” returned the midshipman, merely glancing at
the manifest, clearance, and crew-list, “I take possession
of this vessel, and lay claim to her as lawful prize, in the
name of His Britannic Majesty.”
He then proceeded to give the necessary orders for
securing the crew of the Concord, furling her sails, hoisting
English colors to her main peak, and preparing her to
float off with the next tide; and as soon as these commands
were executed, he dispatched the cutters back to
the schooner Paz, bearing the pilot and crew of the Concord
prisoners, and a hasty report to the lieutenant-commanding—he
himself remaining as master of the prize,
and retaining Captain Stellwagen as his guest, the mulatto
steward as a general waiter and cook, and seven of his
own men to make every thing secure.
The day passed off with no remarkable occurrence—the
Concord being got afloat at the next high tide and anchored
in the main channel—where she remained till the
second morning after; when, there springing up a fresh
the commencement of a “smoky south-easter,” she was got
under way, and beat down the bay to within some quarter
of a mile of the fleet, where she was again brought to
anchor, directly under the guns of the seventy-four.
Here, feeling himself perfectly secure, and the storm
which had sprung up rather increasing than abating, the
young officer gave himself up to the enjoyment of good
eating and good drinking, and the happy illusion that he
was supreme commander of all he surveyed, and might
perhaps be sent home with the prize, to receive a lieutenant's
commission and be made a lion of for his distinguished
services.
The crew, too, became rather elated at their good
fortune; and the rigid discipline of the service being somewhat
relaxed, and good wine, direct from Lisbon, being
easily procured from the stores around them, they gradually
became careless to a degree that at length awoke a
strange, wild hope in the breast of Captain Stellwagen,
that perhaps, with the assistance of his steward, he might
yet, by a bold, desperate step, retake his vessel and escape
from the very clutches of his foe.
Till this thought and this hope entered the mind of the
captain, he had been very much cast down and depressed;
as indeed he well might be; for he had by this capture
not only lost his all of worldly goods, his position as commander
the ardently-cherished hope of soon meeting with the dear
beings of his fondest affection and solicitude; and though
he had seemingly appeared cheerful and resigned when
conversing with his polite and gentlemanly captor, it had
been the cheerfulness which one sometimes assumes to
cover grief, and the resignation which as often springs
from the very depths of despair. But now, with the bare
hope of escape—the bare hope of regaining all he had
lost, and again greeting, with the fond kiss of a husband
and father, all he loved on earth—a new life seemed
infused into his veins—a new spirit seemed animating his
body—and he felt as if, in some bold attempt for freedom,
he would have the physical strength of a dozen men.
He now, though apparently indifferent and at his ease,
began to watch closely everything taking place around
him; and it was with a secret joy he could scarcely
conceal, that he observed the remissness of the officer in
command, who spent most of his time below in eating,
drinking, and smoking—and the careless negligence of the
men, who, with their arms rolled up in a tarpaulin and
placed under the long-boat, passed a large portion of the
day under a temporary awning, which they had stretched
along the deck to secure themselves from the fine, driving
Scotch mist, and where, with plenty of wine and small
chat, they appeared to be both happy and oblivious.
Under pretence of giving his faithful steward, Richard
Douce, some directions about his supper, Captain Stellwagen
easily found an opportunity to touch him upon the
matter nearest his heart. Briefly mentioning what he had
seen, and what, if Heaven favored them, they might hope,
he added, in a low, earnest tone:
“Richard, how much are you willing to risk for your
freedom and mine?”
“My life, Captain Stellwagen, for my freedom—and my
life, twenty times over, for yours, sir—God bless you!”
“Thank you, Richard; you are a brave, noble lad, and
I trust will have your reward. I have a plan in view,
which, should it succeed, will perhaps give us both our
liberty, and restore us to our friends.”
“Ah! Heaven bless your honor!” said Richard, his
eyes sparkling with hope.
“But if it fails, Richard—” and the captain paused
and fixed his dark eye steadily upon the other.
“What then, sir?” asked the steward, holding his
breath and turning somewhat pale.
“We shall either be cut to pieces by yonder men, or be
swung from the yard-arm of a man-of-war!” rejoined the
other, with impressive solemnity. “So, Richard, my
brave lad,” he gravely added, “think well and seriously
before you decide upon what must result in liberty or
death!”
“Captain,” said the brave mulatto, after a momentary
pause, “I'm with you for life or death! What you dare,
I'll dare—and what you suffer, I'll suffer—and God bless
you for the kindest master I ever sailed under.”
“Your hand, Richard!”
The captain then briefly made known his plans, which
would not require action before the flood tide of the
following morning, and established signals between himself
and faithful servitor, by which the latter would know
exactly when and how to act, even should there be no
further communication between them.
The following was a trying night to the two prisoners—
a night of alternate hopes and fears—but the next morning,
to their unspeakable delight, they found everything
favorable to their purpose. The wind was blowing
almost a gale in their favor; the rain was fine and misty;
the tide was running up; the men were under their
awning, with their arms, as on the previous day, rolled up
in the tarpaulin and placed under the bow of the long-boat;
and the Prize Master was below, thinking about
anything rather than the capture of himself and the escape
of his prisoners.
Soon after this, the Midshipman came on deck, and
exchanged a few words with his prisoner, on the state of
the weather, and the prospect of their being left unmolested
by the Admiral for at least another day; and then
with some hot coffee, as was previously agreed upon.
The Midshipman's pistols and cutlass were in his berth;
and these Richard Douce now hurriedly secured, handing
the former to his master and hiding the latter. This done,
he again went on deck, and took his station by the cook's
galley, to await the final signal of life or death; while the
captain, hastily swallowing a cup of coffee, called to the
officer to come down and take his ere it should cool.
As the latter complied, the captain made an errand on
deck; and on reaching it, he remarked that he would
draw over the hatch, to keep out the rain; and having
done so, he quietly fastened it with the hasp, and thus
secured the officer a prisoner without his being aware
of it.
Glancing quickly around, and perceiving that everything
was favorable to his desperate purpose, the captain
now gave the signal agreed upon, a twist of his neck-cloth;
and the mulatto, bounding upon the tarpaulin,
caught it up in his arms, and darted back to the quarterdeck,
where he succeeded in arming himself with another
brace of pistols before the astonished crew had time to
take any action whatever.
Both the captain and steward, pistols in hand, now
rushed forward together, the former exclaiming, in a voice
of thunder:
“Down into the forecastle, every man of you, before I
blow your brains out!”
Three of the surprised and astonished men fled precipitately
down the fore-castle hatch—two seemed irresolute—
and two, the boatswain's mate and quarter-master, made a
show of resistance. Instantly each was covered by a pistol
in the determined hands of Stellwagen and Douce, and the
captain again thundered forth:
“Back, I tell you, and down with you below, or, by the
living God above us, I will scatter your brains where you
stand! I am a desperate man, and will have possession of
this vessel or die!—so down with you—down—ere I send
your souls to your Maker!”
As he uttered this threat, his fine commanding form
seemed to tower aloft; and the bright, stern gleam of his
dark, eagle eye, proclaimed that his was an oath that
would not be broken. The petty officers, awed by his
look, began gradually to quail before him; and then,
exchanging glances, they sullenly turned on their heels,
and slowly followed those who had preceded them. The
moment their heads were below the deck, the hatch was
closed and secured by some heavy coils of rope, which the
gallant captain and his steward now drew upon it.
“Quick, now, Richard!” exclaimed the captain; “cut
the hempen cable, and let her drift beyond the guns of the
fleet! The wind is in our favor—the tide is running up—
shall soon be beyond their reach. God send we may! for
our lives depend upon it.”
He had scarcely finished his order, when the mulatto
severed the cable, and the laden brig was once more in
motion. A few minutes of the most intense anxiety
followed; and then there boomed a signal-gun from the
seventy-four, to warn the Prize Master of the Concord
that something was wrong. It was of course unheeded,
and was presently followed by another.
“Now then for our lives!” cried the captain, as he
sprung forward and seized a rope. “Cut loose the jib,
Richard! Now hoist away! There—there—up she goes!
Now, my brave lad, spring up and cut the gaskets of foresail
and foretopsail, while I take the helm and keep her off
before the wind!'
The two men both worked hard and fast; and in a few
minutes the sails were spread and sheeted home, and the
noble vessel was speeding away from her foes, favored by
wind and tide. Gun after gun now thundered from the
Poictiers, and shot after shot came whistling past the brig
and through her rigging; but in fifteen minutes more she
was beyond the reach of her enemies, and bearing safely
homeward the brave master and steward, who had recaptured
her by one of the boldest and most daring exploits
on record.
We need only add, that in due time she safely arrived in
Philadelphia, where Captain Stellwagen had the honor of
transferring to the legal authorities the first prisoners
brought thither during the war of 1812—a commissioned
officer and seven men—captured by himself and colored
steward, and taken, together with the vessel which contained
them, right from under the guns of an Admiral's
fleet.
History does not furnish a bolder or a braver deed than
this.
Captain Daniel Stellwagen subsequently entered the
United States Navy, and commanded the Third Division
of Galley's at Commodore McDonough's celebrated victory
on Lake Champlain. He was afterward honored by Congress
with the presentation of a sword and a vote of
thanks, and died at Philadelphia in 1828, respected by all
who knew him, and beloved by those who knew him most.
| A Daring Exploit. Wild scenes on the frontiers, or, Heroes of the West | |