when the other vessel passed under our stern, tacked, and lay with her head-yards aback, a little on our weather-quarter. As she drew to windward, we saw her stern, which had certain national emblems, but no name on it. This settled the matter. She was a man-of-war, and she carried the American flag! Such a thing did not exist a few months before, when we left home, and Captain Digges was burning with impatience to know more. He was soon gratified.
“Is not that the Tigris?” demanded a voice, through a trumpet, from the stranger.
“Ay, ay! What ship is that?”
“The United States’ Ship Ganges, Captain Dale; from the capes of the Delaware, bound on a cruise. You’re welcome home, Captain Digges; we may want some of your assistance under a cockade.”
Digges gave a long whistle, and then the mystery was out. This proved to be the Ganges, as stated, an Indiaman bought into a new navy, and the first ship-of-war ever sent to sea under the government of the country, as it had existed since the adoption of the constitution, nine years before. The privateers of France had driven the republic into an armament, and ships were fitting out in considerable numbers; some being purchased, like the Ganges, and others built expressly for the new marine. Captain Digges went on board the Ganges, and, pulling an oar in his boat, I had a chance of seeing that vessel also. Captain Dale, a compact, strongly-built, seaman-like looking man, in a blue and white uniform, received our skipper with a cordial shake of the hand, for they had once sailed together, and he laughed heartily when he heard the story of the boarding-party and the hot water. This respectable officer had no braggadocia about him, but he intimated that it would not be long, as he thought, before the rovers among the islands would have their hands full. Congress was in earnest, and the whole country was fairly aroused. Whenever that happens in America, it is usually to take a new and better direction than to follow the ordinary blind impulses of popular feelings. In countries where the masses count for nothing, in the every-day working of their systems, excitement has a tendency to democracy; but, among ourselves, I think the effect of such a condition of things is to bring into action men and qualities that are commonly of little account, and to elevate, instead of depressing, public sentiment.
I was extremely pleased with the manly, benevolent countenance of Captain Dale, and had half a desire to ask leave to join his ship on the spot. If that impulse had been followed, it is probable my future life would have been very different from what it subsequently proved. I should have been rated a midshipman, of course; and, serving so early, with a good deal of experience already in ships, a year or two would have made me a lieutenant, and, could I have survived the pruning of 1801, I should now have been one of the oldest officers in the service. Providence directed otherwise; and how much was lost, or how much gained, by my continuance in the Tigris, the reader will learn as we proceed.
As soon as Captain Digges had taken a glass or two of wine with his old acquaintance, we returned to our own ship, and the two vessels made sail; the Ganges standing off to the northward and eastward, while we ran in for the capes of the Delaware. We got in under Cape May, or within five miles of it, the same evening, when it fell nearly calm. A pilot came off from the cape in a row-boat, and he reached us just at dark. Captain Robbins now became all impatience to land, as it was of importance to him to be the bearer of his own bad news. Accordingly, an arrangement having been made with the two men who belonged to the shore-boat, our old commander, Rupert and myself, prepared to leave the ship, late as it was. We two lads were taken for the purpose of manning two additional oars, but were to rejoin the ship in the bay, if possible; if not, up at town. One of the inducements of Captain Robbins to be off, was the signs of northerly weather. It had begun to blow a little in puffs from the north-west; and everybody knew, if it came on to blow seriously from that quarter, the ship might be a week in getting up the river, her news being certain to precede her. We hurried off accordingly, taking nothing with us but a change of linen, and a few necessary papers.
We got the first real blast from the north-west in less than five minutes after we had quitted the Tigris’s side, and while the ship was still visible, or, rather, while we could yet see the lights in her cabin-windows, as she fell off before the wind. Presently the lights disappeared, owing, no doubt, to the ship’s luffing again. The symptoms now looked so threatening, that the pilot’s men proposed making an effort, before it was too late, to find the ship; but this was far easier said than done. The vessel might be spinning away towards Cape Henlopen, at the rate of six or seven knots; and, without the means of making any signal in the dark, it was impossible to overtake her. I do believe that Captain Robbins would have acceded to the request of the men, had he seen any probability of succeeding; as it was, there remained no alternative but to pull in, and endeavour to reach the land. We had the light on the cape as our beacon, and the boat’s head was kept directly for it, as the wisest course for us to pursue.
Changes of wind from south-east to north-west are very common on the American coast. They are almost always sudden; sometimes so much so, as to take ships aback; and the force of the breeze usually comes so early, as to have produced the saying that a “nor’-wester comes butt-end foremost.” Such proved to be the fact in our case. In less than half an hour after it began to blow, the wind would have brought the most gallant ship that floated to double-reefed topsails, steering by, and to reasonably short-canvass, running large. We may have pulled a mile in this half hour, though it was by means of a quick stroke and great labour. The Cape May men were vigorous and experienced, and they did wonders; nor were Rupert and I idle; but, as soon as the sea got up, it was as much as all four of us could do to keep steerage-way on the boat. There were ten minutes, during which I really think the boat was kept head to sea by means of the wash of the waves that drove past, as we barely held her stationary.
Of course, it was out of the question to continue exertions that were as useless as they were exhausting. We tried the expedient, however, of edging to the northward, with the hope of getting more under the lee of the land, and, consequently, into smoother water; but it did no good. The nearest we ever got to the light must have considerably exceeded a league. At length Rupert, totally exhausted, dropped his oar, and fell panting on the thwart. He was directed to steer, Captain Robbins taking his place. I can only liken our situation at that fearful moment to the danger of a man who is clinging to a cliff its summit and safety almost in reach of his hand, with the consciousness that his powers are fast failing him, and that he must shortly go down. It is true, death was not so certain by our abandoning the effort to reach the land, but the hope of being saved was faint indeed. Behind us lay the vast and angry Atlantic, without an inch of visible land between us and the Rock of Lisbon. We were totally without food of any sort, though, luckily, there was a small breaker of fresh water in the boat. The Cape May men had brought off their suppers with them, but they had made the meal; whereas the rest of us had left the Tigris fasting, intending to make comfortable suppers at the light.
At length Captain Robbins consulted the boatmen, and asked them what they thought of our situation. I sat between these men, who had been remarkably silent the whole time, pulling like giants. Both were young, though, as I afterwards learned, both were married; each having a wife, at that anxious moment, waiting on the beach of the cape for the return of the boat. As Captain Robbins put the question, I turned my head, and saw that the man behind me, the oldest of the two, was in tears. I cannot describe the shock I experienced at this sight. Here was a man accustomed to hardships and dangers, who was making the stoutest and most manly efforts to save himself and all with him, at the very moment, so strongly impressed with the danger of our situation, that his feelings broke forth in a way it is always startling to witness, when the grief of man is thus exhibited in tears. The imagination of this husband was doubtless picturing to his mind the anguish of his wife at that moment, and perhaps the long days of sorrow that were to succeed. I have no idea he thought of himself, apart from his wife: for a finer, more manly resolute fellow, never existed, as he subsequently proved, to the fullest extent.
It seemed to me that the two Cape May men had a sort of desperate reluctance to give up the hope of reaching the land. We were a strong boat’s crew, and we had a capital, though a light boat; yet all would not do. About midnight, after pulling desperately for three hours, my strength was quite gone, and I had to give up the oar. Captain Robbins confessed himself in a very little better state, and, it being impossible for the boatmen to do more than keep the boat stationary, and that only for a little time