The United States Magazine is a notable landmark in American literary history. Its methods, as we view them to-day, seem singularly modern, and its materials and arrangement are indeed remarkable when we view them against the background of their times. It was a spirited, intensely patriotic, and highly literary periodical; the single fact that "The House of Night" first appeared in its columns is enough to stamp it as no ordinary work. It died with its twelfth issue, owing to the troubled state of the country and the unsettled nature of the currency. Then, too, the audience to which it appealed was found to be a small one. In his valedictory the editor complains bitterly of the unliterary atmosphere in America. A large class, he declares, "inhabit the region of stupidity, and cannot bear to have the tranquility of their repose disturbed by the villanous shock of a book. Reading is to them the worst of all torments, and I remember very well that at the commencement of the work it was their language, 'Art thou come to torment us before the time?' We will now say to them, 'Sleep on and take your rest.'"
Late in September, 1779, Freneau shipped as super-cargo on the brig Rebecca, Captain Chatham, bound for the Azores. After an exciting voyage, during which they were several times chased by British ships, they arrived at Santa Cruz, in the island of Teneriffe, where they remained two months. A part of Freneau's notebook during this voyage has been preserved. It shows him to have been a careful and conscientious student of navigation, making each day an observation of his own and minutely tabulating his results. His cash account with the crew during the stay in the islands is interesting and suggestive.
The early spring of 1780 was spent by the poet at the old home, but his mind was evidently tossing upon the ocean. He longed to visit again his beloved West Indies, and accordingly on the 25th of May he took passage at Philadelphia, in the ship Aurora, for St. Eustatia. Freneau's account of this voyage and its after results is still extant.7 A few quotations will tell the story.
"On the 25th of May, in beating down the Delaware Bay, we unfortunately retook a small sloop from the refugees loaded with corn, which hindered us from standing out to sea that night, whereby in all probability we should have avoided the enemy which afterwards captured us.
"Friday morning, May 26. The air very smoky and the wind somewhat faintish, though it afterward freshened up. The wind was so that we stood off E.S.E., after putting the pilot on board the small sloop, handcuffing the prisoners, and sending the prize to Cape May. About three o'clock in the afternoon we discovered three sail bearing from us about E.N.E.; they were not more than five leagues from us when we discovered them from the foretop; at the same time we could see them from the quarter-deck. One appeared to be a pretty large ship, the other two brigs. We soon found they were in chase of us; we therefore tacked immediately, set all sail we could crowd, and stood back from the bay. My advice to the officers was to stand for Egg Harbor or any part of the Jersey shore, and run the ship on the flats, rather than be taken; but this was disregarded. We continued to stand in till we saw Cape Henlopen; the frigate, in the meantime, gaining on us apace; sun about half an hour high. We were abreast of the Cape, close in, when the wind took us aback, and immediately after we were becalmed; the ebb of the tide at the same time setting very strong out of the bay, so that we rather drifted out. Our design was, if possible, to get within the road around the point, and then run the ship on shore; but want of wind and the tide being against us, hindered from putting this into execution. We were now within three hundred yards of the shore. The frigate in the meantime ran in the bay to leeward of us about one-quarter of a mile (her distance from the Cape hindering it from becalming her as it did us) and began to bring her cannon to bear on us. Her two prizes hove to; one we knew to be the brig Active, Captain Mesnard; the other, as we afterward learned, was a Salem brig from the West Indies. The frigate was the Iris, returning from Charleston to New York, with the express of the former's being taken. We now began to fire upon each other at the distance of about three hundred yards. The frigate hulled us several times. One shot went betwixt wind and water, which made the ship leak amazingly, making twenty-four inches in thirty minutes. We found our four-pounders were but trifles against the frigate, so we got our nine-pounder, the only one we had, pointed from the cabin windows, with which we played upon the frigate for about half an hour. At last a twelve-pound shot came from the frigate, and, striking a parcel of oars lashed upon the starboard quarter, broke them all in two, and continuing its destructive course, struck Captain Laboyteaut in the right thigh, which it smashed to atoms, tearing part of his belly open at the same time with the splinters from the oars; he fell from the quarter-deck close by me, and for some time seemed very busily engaged in setting his legs to rights. He died about eleven the same night, and next day was sewed up in his hammock and sunk. Every shot seemed now to bring ruin with it. A lad named Steel had his arm broken and some others complained of slight wounds; whereupon, finding the frigate ready and in a position to give us a broadside, we struck, after having held a very unequal contest with her for about an hour… As soon as we struck, one Squires with some midshipmen came on board and took possession of the vessel."
Freneau at first supposed that, being a passenger, he would be taken with the prize to New York and there released; but despite his protests, he was driven into the barge with the other prisoners and taken to the Iris. All his baggage was left behind, and he was destined never to see it again. Arriving on board, the prisoners were driven between decks, where the air was hot and stifling.
"There were about one hundred prisoners forward, the stench of whom was almost intolerable. So many melancholy sights and dismal countenances made it a pretty just representation of the infernal region. I marched through a torrent of cursing and blasphemy to my station, viz., at the blacksmith's vice, where the miserable prisoners were handcuffed two and two. At last it came my turn. 'Pray,' said I, 'is it your custom to handcuff passengers? The Americans, I am confident, never used the English so.'
"'Are you a passenger?' said the blacksmith. At the same time happening to look up, I saw Hugh Ray looking steadily at me, who immediately seized my hand, and asked me how I did. 'Do you know him?' said Holmes, the master-at-arms. 'Then you are free from irons; come over among the gentlemen.'
"This was an unexpected deliverance from a cursed disgrace which I hardly knew how I should get clear of. After this I was used well by everybody."
On the 29th the Iris reached New York and the common prisoners were sent to the prison ships in the harbor. Freneau, however, was retained with the officers. He had been promised his liberty at the first possible moment, but on Thursday, June 1st, at the Commissioner's office, the charge was brought by the second mate that Freneau had been among those stationed at the guns during the fight. He was refused parole, though he promised security in any amount up to ten thousand pounds, and the same day was placed on board the Scorpion prison ship, "lying off the college in the North River."
Freneau's experiences during his stay upon the Scorpion have been described by him in graphic style in his poem, "The Prison Ship."
"On the night of June 4th, thirty-five of the prisoners formed a design of making their escape, in which they were favored by a large schooner accidentally alongside of us. She was one