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He stood, at Morristown, in the choir that chanted when George Washington was buried; talked with young men whose grandfathers he had held on his knee; watched the progress of John Adams' administration; denounced, at the time, Aaron Burr's infamy; heard the guns that celebrated the New Orleans victory; voted against Jackson, but lived long enough to wish we had one just like him; remembered when the first steamer struck the North River with it's wheel buckets; flushed with excitement in the time of national banks and sub-treasury; was startled at the birth of telegraphy; saw the United States grow from a speck on the world's map till all nations dip their flag at our passing merchantmen, and our 'national airs' have been heard on the steeps of the Himalayas; was born while the Revolutionary cannon were coming home from Yorktown, and lived to hear the tramp of troops returning from the war of the great Rebellion; lived to speak the names of eighty children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
They look like peaceful merchantmen, with four carronades and a long gun aboard!" Then he called out across the water, "I'll come aboard with my schooner as soon as I can push her off here." "If you undertake to come aboard of me," called the pirate, "I'll shoot into you. You've got no authority to board me, and I won't have you do it.
The Roman Catholic allied powers had no sufficient navy, and Philip's credit was at its lowest ebb after Drake's devastating raid. The ignorant and thoughtless, both then and since, mistook this fight, and another like it in 1590, to mean that English merchantmen could beat off Spanish men-of-war.
The French squadron was too weak to risk a fight with an English fleet; it comprised only four ships of war, two transports, and a few smaller vessels, carrying about 1,800 troops. The ships were under the command of Admiral Linois, who was destined to be the terror of our merchantmen in eastern seas.
So the pirates went on capturing merchantmen whenever they had a chance, and the Carolinians continued to look forward with interest to the bargain days which always followed the arrival of a pirate ship. But this state of things did not last, and the time came when the people of Charles Town experienced a change of mind.
In transmitting the orders to his captains, Rodgers added, "Every man, woman, and child, in our country, will be active in consigning our names to disgrace, and even the very vessels composing our little navy to the ravages of the worms, or the detestable transmigration to merchantmen, should we not fulfil their expectations.
However, none of us could laugh now; we parted, jumped into our boat, and proceeded straight to the anchorage, where three British merchantmen were by this time riding all ready for sea. We got on board. "Mr Yerk," said the Captain, "fire a gun, and hoist blue Peter at the fore. Loose the foretopsail."
Not only had the merchantmen to be watched, but a bright look-out had to be kept for strange sails, especially for any daring privateers, who, tempted with the prospect of obtaining a rich booty, might pounce down on some unfortunate trader during a dark night and carry her off.
Each little bay, whose existence was unknown to honest mariners, has a high wooded point near its entrance, where the sea robbers kept perpetual watch for passing merchantmen and treasure-laden galleons, their own swift- sailing vessels safe out of sight within the cove; and then, at a given signal out they would dart upon the unsuspecting prey like a spider from his web.
I quote from The Associated Press report from Paris on May 14th to show the relative importance of aëroplanes in submarine attacks: "During the last three months French patrol boats have had twelve engagements with submarines, French hydroaëroplanes have fought them thirteen times, and there have been sixteen engagements between armed merchantmen and submarines."
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