of the main army; so that our review being finished, I saw with pleasure General Washington set off in a gallop to regain his quarters. We reached them as soon as the badness of the roads would permit us. At our return we found a good dinner ready, and about twenty guests, among whom were Generals Howe and Sinclair. The repast was in the English fashion, consisting of eight or ten large dishes of butcher's meat, and poultry, with vegetables of several sorts, followed by a second course of pastry, comprized under the two denominations of pies and puddings. After this the cloth was taken off, and apples and a great quantity of nuts were served, which General Washington usually continues eating for two hours, toasting and conversing all the time. These nuts are small and dry, and have so hard a shell, (hickory nuts) that they can only be broken by the hammer; they are served half open, and the company are never done picking and eating them. The conversation was calm and agreeable; his Excellency was pleased to enter with me into the particulars of some of the principal operations of the war, but always with a modesty and conciseness, which proved that it was from pure complaisance he mentioned it. . . . Marquis [François Jean] de Chastellux, Travels in North-America, in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782 (London, 1787), I, 112–125 passim. 177. Life on a Privateer (1780) BY DOCTOR SOLOMON DROWNE Drowne, a surgeon in the Revolutionary army, made this one cruise as surgeon on the privateer Hope. These extracts give us a picture of the most attractive and most profitable mode of warfare. The American cruisers and privateers made about seven hundred captures of British vessels during the war. - Bibliography of naval warfare: Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VI, 591-592; Maclay, United States Navy, I, pt. i; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 140. TU UESDAY, OCT. 3 [1780]. Sailed from Providence on board the Sloop HOPE, mounting seven guns. Wind at N. E. drizzly, dirty weather. Outsailed Mr. John Brown in his famous boat. Put about for Capt. Munro, and take Mr. Brown and Capt. S Smith on board, who dine with us. Some time after noon Capt. Munro comes on board, and a few glasses of good wishes founded on Hope having circled, Col. Nightingale, &c. depart, and we proceed on our course. . . . 11th. Whilst at Dinner, a Sail cried. Immediately give chase, and discover another. One, a sloop which bears down upon us; the other a brig. Make every preparation for an engagement; but, on approaching and hailing the Sloop, she proved to be the Randolph, Capt. Fosdick from New London, mounting 18 four pounders, [140 tons.] The Brig, with only two guns, her prize from England, taken at 8 o'clock this morning. Capt. Fosdick says her Cargo amounted to £20,000 Sterling. What good and ill fortune were consequent on that capture ! Hard for those poor fellows, their tedious Voyage being just accomplished, thus to have their brightening prospect clouded in a moment. If Virtue is the doing good to others, privateering cannot be justified upon the principles of Virtue ;— though I know it is not repugnant to THE LAWS OF NATIONS, but rather deemed policy amongst warring powers thus to distress each other, regardless of the suffering individual. But however agreeable to, and supportable by the rights of war; yet, when individuals come thus to despoil individuals of their property, 'tis hard : - the cruelty then appears, however, political. 12th. Early this morning two sail in sight, a Ship and Brig. Chase them chief of the day to no purpose. We conclude they sail well, and may be bound to Philadelphia. - Lat. 39. 6'. Soundings 19 fathoms. Lost sight of the Randolph by the chase. 13th. A foggy morning and Scotch mist. Clears away pleasant. Lat. 39 31'. This Afternoon a Sloop discovered under the lee bow standing before the wind: All hands upon deck preparing for the chase: - but little wind so the oars are to be plied. I must go and see how Night obliges us to give over the pursuit. we come on. 14th. A sail seen from Mast-head; proves a Ship. We chase. Catch a Herring-Hog, which makes us a fine Breakfast, and dinner for the whole crew. Another sail heaves in sight. Upon a nearer approach the Ship appears to be of the line. Several in sight. Towards evening signal guns heard. We take them to be men of War, standing in, N. W. by W. Longitude by reckoning 73. 30. Lat. 39. 34. 26 fathoms. A pleasant moon-light Evening. Spend it in walking the Quarter Deck. 15th. A pleasant day. See a Sail to windward; as she rather approaches us we lie a hull for her. I think it is more agreeable waiting for them, than rowing after them. Get a fishing line under way: catch a Hake and a few Dog-fish. It being Sunday, try the efficacy of a clean shirt, in order to be something like folks ashore. Give chase, as the vessel comes down rather slow. On approaching discover her to be a Snow. She hauls her wind and stands from us; - sails very heavy, and Capt. Munro is sanguine in the belief we shall make a prize of her. Get everything in readiness to board her. There seems something awful in the preparation for an attack, and the immediate prospect of an action. She hauls up her courses and hoists English Colours. I take my station in the Cabin; where, remain not long before I hear the Huzza on deck in consequence of her striking. Send our boat for the Captain & his papers. She sailed from Kingston, Jamaica, upwards of 40 days since, in a fleet, and was bound to New York: Capt. William Small, Commander. She has ten men on board and four excellent four pounders. Her Cargo consists of 149 Puncheons, 23 Hogsheads, 3 Quarter Casks and 9 Barrels of Rum, and 20 Hogsheads Muscovado Sugar. Send two prize Masters and ten men on board, get the prisoners on board our Vessel, and taking the prize in tow, stand towards Egg Harbour. We hardly know what to do with the prize : the wind shifting a little we stand to the eastward. Cast 16th Keep an eastern course, to try to get her into our harbour if possible. Now we are terribly apprehensive of seeing a sail. - About sunset a sail seen from mast-head, which excites no small anxiety. off the Snow's hawser, &c. however night coming on and seeing no more of said sail, pursue our course. Sound, 42 fathoms of water. 19th. The Snow in sight this morning; run along side and take her in tow again. . . . Lat. 40. 30. At this rate the West Indies will bring us up sooner than Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket. 49 fathoms. Have our Pistols hung up in the Cabin, to be in readiness for the prisoners, should they take it into their heads to rise upon the watch in the night. . . 22nd. Sunday. Very foggy. What wind there is, ahead. Weigh Anchor, and out oars. A fair gentle breeze springs from the South. Pass through Bristol Ferry way with hard tugging about the middle of the afternoon: come to Anchor in the Bay, but where rendered uncertain by the fog having come up again.. 23rd. Early, after breakfast, we set off again in the boat, with the Compass, being still surrounded with an excessive fog. Run ashore to the Eastward of Nayat Point, and mistake it for Connimicut: however, arrive at Providence about 11 o'clock, it having cleared off very pleasant. Thus ends our short, but tedious cruise. At sunset the Sloop and Snow arrive, firing 13 cannon each. Solomon Drowne, Journal of a Cruise in the Fall of 1780 in the PrivateSloop of War, Hope (Analectic press, New York, 1872), 3-18 passim. CHAPTER XXIX-THE BRITISH FORCES 178. Appeal to the Hessians sold by their BY HONORÉ GABRIEL RIQUETTI, COUNT DE MIRABEAU (TRANSLATED BY GEORGE N. HENNING, 1897) This spirited protest, by the French pamphleteer and later statesman of the French Revolution, reflects the opinion of thinking men in Europe on the English purchase of mercenary troops. — Bibliography of the Hessian question: Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VII, 75-76; Lowell, Hessians in the Revolution; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 138. BROW RAVE Germans, what a brand of shame you allow to be marked on your noble brows! What! can it be at the end of the eighteenth century that the nations of central Europe are the mercenary satellites of an odious despotism! What! those valorous Germans, who so fiercely defended their liberty against the conquerors of the world and braved the Roman armies, now, like the base Africans, are sold and hasten to shed their blood in the cause of tyrants! They suffer the SLAVE-TRADE to be carried on amongst them, their cities to be depopulated, their fields to be ravaged, so as to help overbearing rulers to lay waste another hemisphere. Will you share much longer in the stupid blindness of your masters?—You, honorable soldiers, faithful and formidable maintainers of their power, of that power which was trusted to them only to protect their subjects, - you are bartered away!-Ah! for what an employment, just gods!-Huddled together like flocks of sheep in the ships of foreigners, you cross the seas; you hasten through reefs and storms, to attack a people who have done you no harm, who are defending the most just of causes, who are setting you the noblest of examples. Ah! why do you not imitate that brave people, instead of striving to destroy them! They are breaking their fetters; they are fighting to maintain their natural rights and to guarantee their liberty; they are stretching out their arms to you; they are your brothers; they are doubly so nature made them such, and social ties have strengthened these sacred claims; more than half of this people is composed of your fellow countrymen, of your friends, of your relatives. They have fled from tyranny to the uttermost parts of the world, and tyranny has pursued them even there; oppressors, equally avaricious and ungrateful, have forged fetters for them, and the worthy Americans have welded these fetters into swords to drive back their oppressors. - The New World then is going to count you in the number of the monsters hungering for gold and blood, who have ravaged it!— Germans, you whose most marked characteristic has always been fairness, do you not shudder at such a reproach? To these motives, of a nature to touch men, must one join the motives of an interest affecting equally slaves and free citizens? Do you know what nation you are going to attack? Do you realize the power of the fanaticism of liberty? It is the only fanaticism which is not odious, it is the only one which is worthy; but it is also the most powerful of all. You do not know it, O blind peoples, you who think yourselves free, while grovelling under the most hateful of all despotisms, the despotism which forces men to commit crimes ! You do not know it, you whom the whim or the cupidity of a despot may arm against men who deserve well of all mankind, since they are defending its cause, and preparing a refuge for it!-O mercenary warriors, O satellites of tyrants, O enervate Europeans, you are going to fight men stronger, more industrious, more courageous, more active than you can be: they are inspired by a strong interest, you are led on by vile lucre; they are defending their property, and are fighting for their hearths; you are leaving yours, and are not fighting for yourselves. It is in the bosom of their country, in their native clime, aided by all the resources of home, that they are making war against hordes which the Ocean spewed forth, after having prepared their defeat: the most powerful and the most sacred motives urge on their valor, and summon victory in their train. Chiefs who scorn you while making use of you, will oppose in vain their harangues to the irresistible eloquence of liberty, of need, of necessity. In short, and to say all in one word, the cause of the Americans is just: heaven and earth condemn the one which you do not blush to uphold. – O Germans, who can have infused in you this thirst of combat, this barbarous frenzy, this odious devotion to tyranny?—No, I will not compare you to those fanatical Spaniards, who destroyed for the sake of |