It was now the middle of March, and we had taken nothing; neither had we fired our cannon, excepting at a miserable sort of a half boat and half raft, called a catamaran: made of five light logs, with a triangular sail. From the men on this miserable vessel we got information of a good watering place, where we soon anchored. The commandant of this little settlement was of the colour of our North American Indians, and so were his family, but the rest were nearly as black as negroes. He lived in a house covered and worked in with long grass; he offered us snuff out of a box tipped with silver, but every thing else looked very rude and simple. While we were getting our water, the females hovered round us. They had long, black, and shining hair, and wore a long white cotton garment, like a shirt or shift. They seemed to admire our complexions. One of these women, more forward than the rest, opened the bosom of one of our fairest young men, to see if his body was as white as his face. She appeared to be highly amused with the discovery, and called her companions to come and view the phenomenon. He shewed a similar curiosity as it concerned her, but she shrunk from it with the apparent delicacy of polished life, before so many men. The colour of these merry girls was that of the inside of a new leather shoe.
Just as we were about embarking, the commandant told our captain that he had just received a message from the commandant of Gomora, to seize him and all his crew and send them to Pernambuco, but that he should not obey him. We now set sail for the United States, and had not been at sea long before we were chased by a frigate, but out sailed her.
On the 20th of May we made Gay Head, which is the shining remains of an extinguished volcano, on the west end of Martha's Vineyard. The next morning we discovered a ship and a brig standing for us. We tacked and stood for the ship until we found that she was a man of war, and then we wore round for the brig, she being nearest of our own size. We now, for the first time, hoisted American colours, when the brig gave us a broadside, and kept up a constant fire upon us; but we soon left her by our superior sailing and management. The frigate, for such she proved to be, was not so easily got rid of. She was to the windward of us when we first saw her; and she came within gun shot about noon. She firing her bow-chasers, and we our stern-chasers. At length she came almost within musket shot of us, when she fired repeated broadsides into our little schooner, so as to cut away almost all our rigging, when our brave little captain went down below, after telling the men "to fight it out;" but they prudently struck their colours. A boat soon came on board of us with a lieutenant and twelve marines, swearing most bravely at the d—d Yankees. The name Yankee is used with pride by an American sailor or soldier; but with derision by the British. But as our men had, according to custom, when a vessel surrenders, seized whatever casks of liquor they could come at, soon filled out a few horns of gin, and passed it round among the marines, which inspired them with good nature, and for a moment they seemed "all hale fellows well met." The boarding officer did not appear to be so intent in securing the vessel, as in searching every hole and corner for small articles to pocket. The Americans disdain this dishonourable practice. The officers and crews of our men of war have never soiled their characters by taking from their enemies the contents of their chests and pockets, as the commanders of the British frigates, whom we have captured, can testify. We were soon ordered on board of his Britannic Majesty's ship the Tenedos, captain Parker.
I had always entertained a respectable opinion of the British, especially of their national marine. I had read British history, and listened to British songs, and had heard from my childhood of the superior bravery and generosity of the British sailor, and had entertained a real respect for their character; and being of a family denominated federalists, I may be said to have entered the frigate Tenedos, captain Parker, with feelings and expectations very different from what I should have felt, had we been at war with the French, and had it been a frigate of that nation that had captured us. The French are a people marked by nature, as well as by customs and habits, a different nation from us. Their language is different, their religion is different, and so are their manners. All those things have conspired in making a wall of separation between us and that lively people. But it is not so with the English. Our language, religion, customs, habits, manners, institutions: and above all, books have united to make us feel as if we were but children of the same great family, only divided by the Atlantic ocean. All these things have a natural and habitual tendency to unite us; and nothing but the unfeeling and contemptuous treatment of us by the British military generally, could have separated us. With all these feelings and partialities about me, I went from our schooner over the side of the British frigate with different feelings from what I should, had I been going on board an enemy's ship of the French, Spanish, or Portuguese nation. But what was my change of feelings, on being driven with the rest all up in a corner like hogs, and then marched about the deck, for the strutting captain of the frigate to view and review us; like cattle in a market, before the drover or butcher.
When our baggage was brought on board, the master of arms took every portable article from us, not leaving us a jack-knife, pen-knife, or razor. We Americans never conduct so towards British prisoners. We always respect the private articles of the officer and sailor.
On the same day we were put on board the brig Curlew, lieutenant Head, a polite and humane gentleman, and much beloved by his own crew. He is, I am informed, son of an English baronet. He is a plain, honest man, with easy, elegant manners, and very unlike the sputtering commander of the Tenedos: a man who allowed us to be stripped of all our little pocket articles: not much to the honour of his commission, or credit of his nation. We were kept very close while on board the Curlew, because her crew was very weak, principally decrepid old men and boys; but then we were kindly spoken to, and respectfully and humanely treated by lieutenant Head, and his worthy surgeon. We can discover real gentlemen at sea as well as on shore.
We were landed in Halifax, the principal British port of North America, and the capital of Nova Scotia, on the 29th of May, 1813. We were soon surrounded by soldiers, and being joined by a number of our countrymen, recently captured, we were attempted to be marshalled and paraded in military order, so as to make as grand a show as possible, while marching through the streets to prison. The first thing they did was to make us stand in platoons, and then the commanding officer stationed a soldier on the flanks of each platoon to keep us regular, and to march and wheel according to rule. The word was then given to march, when we all ran up together just as we were when the strutting captain Parker reviewed us on the deck of the Tenedos. We were then commanded to halt. As we have no such word of command on board of an American privateer, some crowded on, while a few stopped. The young officer tried again, and made us stand all in a row. Some of the crew told their comrades that when the captain sung out "halt," he meant "avast," and that then they should all stop. When we were all in order again, the scarlet-coated young gentleman, with a golden swab on his left shoulder, gave a second time the word of command, "march;" by which word we all understood he meant, "to heave a head," when we got into the like confusion again, when he cried out in a swearing passion, "halt," on which some stopped short, and some walked on, when the whole squad burst out a laughing. I know not what would have been the consequence of his ridiculous passion had not a navy officer, standing by, observed to him, that they were not soldiers but sailors, who knew nothing about military marching, or military words of command, when the young man told us to march on in our own way; upon which our sailors stuck their fists in their pockets, and scrabbled and reeled on as sailors always do; for a sailor does not know how to walk like a landsman. On which account I have been informed, since my return from captivity, that all our seamen, that were sent from Boston to Sackett's harbour, on Lake Ontario, were transported in coaches with four horses, chartered for the express purpose; and that it was common, for many weeks together, to see a dozen of the large stage coaches, setting out from Boston in a morning, full of sailors going up to the lakes, to man the fleets of commodores Perry, Chauncey and M'Donough. The former of these commanders told the writer, that he never allowed a sailor destined for his squadron to walk a single day. These merry fellows used to ride through the country with their colors, and streamers and music, and heaving the lead amidst the acclamations of the country people, who delight in a sailor and in a ship. While these things were thus conducted in New-England, the people of Old England were simple enough to believe that the war with England was unpopular. They judged of us by our party newspapers.
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