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When they flew signals and formed in line, the ship alone appeared to outmatch the Pickering, but Haraden, in that lordly manner of his, assured his men that "he had no doubt whatever that if they would do their duty he would quickly capture the three vessels."
Such a one was Captain Jonathan Haraden, Salem privateersman, who captured one thousand British cannon afloat and is worthy to be ranked as one of the ablest sea-fighters of his generation. He was a merchant mariner, a master at the outbreak of the Revolution, who had followed the sea since boyhood.
It was the bluff magnificent courage cold-blooded and calculating. The adversary was still unbeaten. Haraden stood with watch in hand and sonorously counted off the minutes. It was the stronger will and not the heavier metal that won the day.
But it was more to his taste to command the Salem ship General Pickering of 180 tons which was fitted out under a letter of marque in the spring of 1780. She carried fourteen six-pounders and forty-five men and boys, nothing very formidable, when Captain Haraden sailed for Bilbao with a cargo of sugar.
The stake for which Haraden fought was to retake the Golden Eagle prize and to gain his port. His seamanship was flawless. Vastly outnumbered if it should come to boarding, he handled his vessel so as to avoid the Achilles while he poured the broadsides into her.
Haraden hoisted canvas and drove in chase, but the Achilles had the heels of him "with a mainsail as large as a ship of the line," and reluctantly he wore ship and, with the Golden Eagle again in his possession, he sailed to an anchorage in Bilbao harbor. The Spanish populace welcomed him with tremendous enthusiasm.
An American frigate, sir. Strike, or I'll sink you with a broadside." Dazed by this unexpected summons in the gloom, the master of the Golden Eagle promptly surrendered, and a prize crew was thrown aboard with orders to follow the Pickering into Bilbao. While just outside that Spanish harbor, a strange sail was descried and again Jonathan Haraden cleared for action.
Not married, and in Saba! But she will be, soon, I suppose." "Perhaps," said I. "Ah! Ah! She is engaged, I see. Who is the happy man?" "Indeed, I don't know," I exclaimed, wishing the inquisitive fellow at the bottom of the Red Sea, with a twenty-four pound shot fastened to his feet. "What has become of your cousin, Mark Haraden? Is he as lively and good-humored as ever?"
And therefore I replied to the question about Mark Haraden by saying, "O! Mark was capsized by a squall while going in a boat from St. Martin to St. Bartholomew with a load of sugar, and all hands were lost." "Poor fellow! Poor fellow! I am sorry to hear this; but life's uncertain. Where is Nicholas Ven Vert now?" "Nicholas Van Vert? He happened to be at St.
It was in this same General Pickering, no longer sugar-laden but in cruising trim, that Jonathan Haraden accomplished a feat which Paul Jones might have been proud to claim. There lifted above the sky-line three armed merchantmen sailing in company from Halifax to New York, a brig of fourteen guns, a ship of sixteen guns, a sloop of twelve guns.
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