Chapter 8 - Page 2

respectable people, leaving them to believe we were to sail
in the morning. When we got back to the transport no one knew of our
absence, and nothing was ever said of our taking the boat. The Regulus did
not sail for twenty hours after this, but I had no more communication with
the shore. We got to sea, at last, two transports, under the convoy of
the Pictou.

During the whole passage, we eight prisoners kept a sharp look-out for a
chance to get possession of the ship. We were closely watched, there being
a lieutenant and his boat's crew on board, besides the Canadians, the
master, mate, &c. All the arms were secreted, and nothing was left at
hand, that we could use in a rising.

About mid passage, it blowing fresh, with the ship under double-reefed
topsails, I was at the weather, with one of the Canadians at the lee,
wheel. Mallet was at work in the larboard, or weather, mizen chains, ready
to lend me a hand. At this moment the Pictou came up under our lee, to
speak us in relation to carrying a light during the night. Her masts swung
so she could not carry one herself, and her commander wished us to carry
our top-light, he keeping near it, instead of our keeping near him. The
schooner came very close to us, it blowing heavily, and Mallet called out,
"Ned, now is your time. Up helm and into him. A couple of seas will send
him down." This was said loud enough to be heard, though all on deck were
attending to the schooner; and, as for the Canadian, he did not understand
English. I managed to get the helm hard up, and Mallet jumped inboard. The
ship fell off fast; but the lieutenant, who was on board as an agent, was
standing in the companion-way with his wife, and, the instant he saw what
I had done, he ran aft, struck me a sharp blow, and put the helm hard down
with his own hands. This saved the Pictou, though there was a great outcry
on board her. The lieutenant's wife screamed, and there was a pretty
uproar for a minute, in every direction. As the Regulus luffed-to, her
jib-boom-end just cleared the Pictou's forward rigging, and a man might
almost have jumped from the ship to the schooner, as we got alongside of
each other. Another minute, and we should have travelled over His
Majesty's schooner, like a rail-road car going over a squash.

The lieutenant now denounced us, and we prisoners were all put in irons. I
am merely relating facts. How far we were right, I leave others to decide;
but it must be remembered that Jack had, in that day, a mortal enmity to a
British man-of-war, which was a little too apt to lay hands on all that
she fell in with, on the high seas. Perhaps severe moralists might say
that we had entered into a bargain with the captain of the Regulus, not to
make war on him