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His dark auburn hair, in short ringlets parted in the middle, gave his sunburnt countenance a likeness to some of the old gentle families with which he was allied, his father having been a son of younger sons, in a date when primogeniture prevailed in all this bay region; and therefore, possessing nothing, he went into the war against England as a sailor, and his family influence obtained for him command of the new privateer launched on the Manokin, the Ida, which set sail with a good crew and superior armament, amid the acclaims of all Somerset, and, sailing past the Capes into the ocean with all her bunting flying, slid down the farther world to everlasting silence and the vapors of mystery.
And this for more than a year, until the privateer, much battered, but safe, despite her vicissitudes made Halifax for refitting. Here, at the first suitable port she had touched, Adrian claimed and obtained his release from obligations which made his life almost unendurable.
The boat of the privateer was sent on board; a dozen men, with their cutlasses flourishing over their heads, leapt on the deck of the Estelle, and found nobody to exercise their valour upon, except the body of their departed comrade; upon which they shouted for the "Sacre's God dams" to "monter."
Armstrong," though badly injured, and with her decks covered with dead and dying men, escaped, leaving her more powerful adversary to repair damages and make the best of her way home. Capt. Champlin, on his arrival at New York, was the hero of the hour. For a privateer to have held out for an hour against a man-of-war, was thought a feat worthy of praise from all classes of men.
Such were the companions-in-arms of Lafayette, himself still in his teens. Lafayette's voyage was not without adventure. He had a heavy ship with but two inferior cannon and a few guns he could not have escaped from the smallest privateer. But should they be attacked, he resolved to blow up the ship rather than surrender. When they had gone some forty leagues, they met a small ship.
The Jack o' Lantern, or the Privateer, was put forth with an expression of the author's conviction that his faculty in this class of fictions was inexhaustible; to which, however, the critics demurred.
We soon after this brought our interview with the famous privateer captain to an end, and O'Carroll assured me that all his unpleasant monomaniacal feelings with regard to him had been, as he hoped, completely dissipated. As we were about to leave the ship Captain Young politely invited us to remain and dine with him.
"Be under no apprehension of any loss," said Captain Thurot; "I promise to pay liberally for all the stores I may receive. Though a privateer, I am not a robber; indeed, being your countryman, and loving Ireland as the home of my ancestors, I should be sorry to treat any of you with want of courtesy." "A countryman of ours!" exclaimed Mr Ferris, looking up. "Yes, sir," answered the captain.
At last once more we saw the Mignonne put to sea; and immediately on this, with O'Carroll and Sam Kelson in company, after watching for some time without seeing anything of the English sailors, we therefore conjectured that either they had quarrelled with the French and been put in prison, or had gone on board the privateer too probably the latter.
My father's ship was captured, plundered, and then sunk by a French privateer, within sight of Malacca. Both he and my mother are dead, and I was forced to marry that man there," and she pointed scornfully through her tears to Le Mescam.
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