OLD KENNEDY, THE QUARTER-MASTER.(Chesapeake and Shannon—Boat Fight on Lake Ontario.)No. IV.
(Chesapeake and Shannon—Boat Fight on Lake Ontario.)
“Well, Mr. Kennedy,” says Lee, “you have told us of your victories,—have you always been victorious—have you always had the luck on your side,—where did you lose your arm?” The old man took a long and deliberate survey of the horizon ahead of us, apparently not well pleased with a dark cloud just beginning to lift itself above its edge; but whatever inferences he drew from it he kept to himself, and having relieved his mouth from the quid, and replenished the vacuum by a fresh bite of the pig-tail, he leisurely turned to us again, and replied with some emphasis—‘Them as fights the English, fights men—and though it’s been my luck to be taken twice by them, once’t in the unlucky Chesapeake, and once’t on the lakes, and though I owes the loss of my flipper to a musket marked G.R., I hopes I bears them no more grudge than becomes a true yankee sailor. Now, speaking of that, I’ve always obsarved, since the war, when our ships is inthe same port, that however much we always fights, when we falls in with each other, that the moment the English or Americans gets into a muss with the French, or the Dutch, or the Spaniards, that we makes common cause, and tumbles in and helps one another—but I’m blest! but that Chesapeake business was a bad affair. They took the ship;—let them have the credit of it, say I;—but no great credit neither; for half the men was foreigners in a state of mutiny, and none of the men know’d their officers. I hearn Captain Lawrence say himself, after he was carried below, that when he ordered the bugle-man to sound, to repel boarders, the cursed Portuguese was so frightened, or treacherous, that no sound came from the bugle, though his cheeks swelled as if in the act; and I hearn a British officer say to one of our’n, that Captain Lawrence owed his death to his wearing a white cravat into action, and that a sharp-shooter in their tops picked him off, knowing as how, that no common man would be so dressed. I don’t complain of their getting the best of it, for that’s the fortune of war; but they behaved badly after the colours was hauled down. They fired down the hatches, and“—lifting his hat, and exhibiting a seam that measured his head from the crown to the ear—”I received this here slash from the cutlash of a drunken sailor, for my share, as I came up the main-hatch, after she surrendered—My eyes! all the stars in heaven was dancing before me as I tumbledback senseless on the gun-deck below; and when they brought the ship into Halifax, she smelt more like a slaughter-house nor a Christian man-of-war. Howsomever, they whipt us, and there’s an end of the matter—only I wish’t our gallant Lawrence might have died before the colours came down, and been spared the pain of seeing his ship in the hands of the enemy. It was what we old sailors expected, though. She was an unlucky ship, and that disgraceful affair between her and the Leopard, was enough to take the luck out of any ship. Now if it had been “Old Ironsides,”[1]or the “Old Wagon,”[2]I’m blessed! but the guns would have gone off themselves, had the whole crew mutinied and refused to come to quarters, when they heard the roar of the British cannon—aye, aye, Old Ironsides’ bull-dogs have barked at John Bull often enough, aye, and always held him by the nose, too, when they growled—but the Chesapeake’s colours was hauled down, while the Shannon’s was flying.—That’s enough—we had to knock under—let them have the credit of it, say I.—They’d little cause, except in that ere fight, to crow over the Yankee blue jackets. They whipt us, and there’s an end of the matter, and be damned to ’em.—But that ain’t answering your question, as how I lost my larboard flipper. It wasn’t in that ere unfortunate ship, altho’ if it wouldhave saved the honour of the flag, Bill Kennedy would willingly have given his head and his arms too—but it was under Old Chauncey on Lake Ontario. It was in a boat expedition on that ’ere lake, that I first got a loose sleeve to my jacket, besides being made a pris’ner into the bargain. You see, Sir James was shut up in Kingston, and beyond the harbour there was a long bay or inlet setting up some three or four miles. Now, the Commodore thought it mought be, there was more of his ships in that same bay; so he orders Lieutenant ——, him as the English called the ‘Dare-devil Yankee,’—the same as went in with a barge the year before and burned a heavy armed schooner on the stocks, with all their stores, and came away by the light of it—at—at—I misremember the place—he orders him to proceed up the bay to reconniter—to see whether there was any of the enemy’s ships at anchor there—to get all the information he could of his movements, and to bring off a prisoner if he could catch one—that the Commodore mought overhaul him at his leisure. So the lieutenant takes a yawl as we had captured some days before, having Sir James’s own flag painted upon her bows, with midshipman Hart, and eight of us men, and pulls leisurely along shore, till we made the entrance of the bay. It was a bright summer afternoon, and the water was as calm as the Captain’s hand-basin—not a ripple to be seen. Well, the entrance was narrow, and somewhat obstructed by small islands;but we soon got through them, never seeing two heavy English men-of-war barges, as was snugly stowed in the bushes; but about three miles up, we spies a raft of timber, with two men on it. We gave way, and before long got up abreast of it. When we got close aboard the raft, the lieutenant hailing one of the men, calls him to the side nearest the boat, and says—‘My man, what are you lying here for, doing nothing—the wind and tide are both in your favour—don’t you know we are waiting down at Kingston for this here timber for his Majesty’s sarvice—what are you idling away your time for here?’ The feller first looks at Sir James’s flag painted upon the bows of the yawl; and then at the lieutenant, and then again at the flag—and then at the lieutenant—and then opens his eyes, and looks mighty scarey, without saying anything, with his mouth wide open,—‘I say,’ says the Lieutenant agin, ‘I say, you feller with the ragged breeches, do you mean to swallow my boat—why don’t you answer—what the devil are you doing here?’ The feller scratches his head, and then stammers, ‘I—I—Iknowyou—you are him as burnt Mr. Peter’s schooner last year.’ ‘Well,’ says the Lieutenant, ‘what are you going to do with this here timber.’ ‘I’m carrying it down for a raising,’ says he. ‘What!’ says the Lieutenant, ‘do you use ship’s knees and transom beams for house raising in this part of the country? It won’t do, my man. Bear a hand, my lads, and pileall the boards and light stuff in the centre, and we’ll make a bonfire in honour of his most sacred Majesty.’ So we set fire to it, and took the spokesman on board the yawl,—towing the other man in their skiff astarn, intending to release them both when we had got all the information that we wanted out of them. We returned slowly down the bay again, the blazing raft making a great smoke; but as we neared the outlet, what does we see, but them two heavy barges pulling down to cut us off. We had to run some distance nearly parallel with them, an island intervening—so we every moment came nearer to them, and soon within speaking distance. The men gave way hearty—in fear of an English prison, but as we came nearer each other, some of the officers in the English boats recognises Lieutenant ——, cause why—they had been prisoners with us—and hails him—“G——,” says they, ‘you must submit, it’s no use for you to resist, we are four to your one. Come, old feller, don’t make any unnecessary trouble, but give up—you’ve got to knock under.’ The Lieutenant said nothing,—but he was a particular man, and had his own notions upon the subject, for, bidding the men give way, he coolly draws sight upon the spokesman with his rifle, and most sartin, as he was a dead shot, there would have been a vacant commission in His Majesty’s Navy, hadn’t the raftsman, who was frightened out of his wits, caught hold of him by the tails of his coat and dragged him down into the bottomof the boat. The Lieutenant drops his rifle, and catches the feller by his legs and shoulders and heaves him clear of the boat towards the skiff—while we men, dropping our oars, gave them a volley with our muskets, and then laid down to it again. We had taken them by surprise, but as we dashed along ahead, they returned our fire with interest, peppering some of our lads and killing Midshipman Hart outright, who merely uttered an exclamation as his oar flew up above his head, and he fell dead in the bottom of the boat. Well, we see’d the headmost barge all ready, lying on her oars and waiting for us, and as there was no running the gauntlet past her fire, we made for another opening from the bay as didn’t appear to be obstructed, but as we nears it, and just begins to breathe free, three boats full of lobsters, of red-coats, shoots right across, and closes the entrance effectually on that side. We was in a regular rat-trap. We had been seen and watched from the moment we had got inside of the bay, burning the raft and all. ‘Well, my lads,’ says the Lieutenant, ‘this will never do—we must go about—hug the shore close, and try to push by the barges.’ So about we went, but as we neared the shore, there was a party of them ’ere riflemen in their leggins and hunting-shirts, all ready for us, waiting just as cool and unconsarned as if we was a parcel of Christmas turkies, put up for them to shoot at. ‘Umph,’ says the Lieutenant again, ‘’twon’t do for them fellers to be crackingtheir coach-whips at us neither—we’ve nothing to do for it, my boys, but to try our luck, such as it is, with the barges.’ So as we pulled dead for the entrance of the bay, they lay on their oars, all ready for us, and as we came up, they poured such a deadly fire into that ere yawl as I never seed before or since. There was nineteen wounds among eight of us. The Lieutenant was the only one unhurt, though his hat was riddled through and through, and his clothes hung about him in tatters. How he was presarved, is a miracle, for he was standing all the while in the starn-sheets, the most exposed of any on board. They kept firing away, as if they intended to finish the business, and gin no quarter, the men doing what little they could to pull at the oars; but a boat of wounded and dying men couldn’t make much headway. Our men was true Yankee lads, tho’—and no flinching.
“There was one man named Patterson, as pulled on the same thwart with me, and of all the men I’ve ever sailed with, he showed most of what I calls real grit. At their first volley, he gets a shot through his thigh, shattering the bone so that it hung twisted over on one side, but he pulls away at his oar as if nothing had happened. Presently another passes through his lungs, and comes out at his back—still he pulls away, and didn’t give in;—at last, a third takes him through the throat, and passes out back of his neck;—then, and not till then, did he call out to the lieutenant—‘Mr.G—, I’m killed, sir;—I’m dead;—I can’t do no more.’ So the lieutenant says—‘Throw your oar overboard, Patterson, and slide down into the bottom of the boat, and make yourself as comfortable as you can.’ Well—what does Patterson do, as he lays in the bottom of the boat bleeding to death, what does he do but lifts his arm over the gunwale, and shaking his fist, cry, ‘Come on, damn ye, one at a time, and I’m enough for ye as I am.’ Aye, aye, Patterson was what I calls real grit. He was a good, quiet, steady man, too, on board ship; always clean and actyve, and cheerful in obeying orders. Howsomever, his time had come, and in course there was an end of his boat duty in this world.
“Well—they continued to fire into us as fast as they could load, cause why, they was aggravated that so small a force should have fired into them; but the lieutenant takes off his hat and makes a low bow, to let them know as how he had surrendered, and then directs me to hold up an oar’s blade; but they takes no notice of neither, and still peppered away; but just as we concludes that they didn’t intend to give no quarter, but meant to extarminate us outright, they slacks firing, and, taking a long circuit, as if we’d have been a torpedo, or some other dangerous combustible, pulled up aboard. There wasn’t much for them to be afeard on though, for with the exception of the lieutenant, who was untouched, there was nothing in the boatbut dead and wounded men. They took us in tow, and carried us down to Kingston, and mighty savage was Sir James;—he said that it was unpardonable that so small a force should have attempted resistance, and he and the lieutenant getting high, and becoming aggravated by something as was said between them, Sir James claps him in a state-room under arrest, and keeps him there under a sentry, with a drawn baggonet, for nigh on two months. After that he sends the lieutenant to Quebec, and then to England, where he remained till the close of the war; but them of us men as didn’t die of our wounds was kept down in Montreal, until——” Here the old man broke off abruptly, and taking another long look at the horizon, said, “If I a’nt much mistaken, Master Tom, there’s something a-brewing ahead there, as will make this here craft wake up, as if she was at the little end of a funnel, with a harricane pouring through the other—and if I knows the smell of a Potomac thundergust, we’ll have it full blast here before we’re many minutes older.”
[1]Frigate Constitution.[2]Frigate United States.
[1]Frigate Constitution.
[1]Frigate Constitution.
[2]Frigate United States.
[2]Frigate United States.