And now the scene is altered,--the cannon ceased to roar;
We fought with swords and boarding-pikes one glass and something more;
The British pride and glory no longer dared to stay,
But cut the Yankee grappling, and quickly bore away.
Our case was not so desperate, as plainly might appear,
Yet sudden death did enter on board our privateer;
Mahany, Clew, and Clemmans, the valiant and the brave,
Fell glorious in the contest, and met a watery grave!
Ten other men were wounded, among our warlike crew,
With them our noble captain, to whom all praise is due.
To him and all our officers let's give a hearty cheer!
Success to fair America and our good privateer!
This ballad is as long as the cruise, and the rhythm of it seems to show
that the writer had not quite got his sea-legs on, in boarding the
poetic craft. Especially is he to be commiserated on that unhappy
necessity to which the length of the verse compels him, of keeping "the
Eastern shore on board for forty leagues," in the first stanza; but it
was due to its historic and associative value to give it entire.
Perhaps, after all, it was a shrewd insight that caused the Hathornes to
take to the sea. Salem's greatest glory was destined for a term to lie
in that direction. Many of these old New England seaports have
magnificent recollections of a commercial grandeur hardly to be guessed
from their aspect to-day. Castine, Portsmouth, Wiscasset, Newburyport,
and the rest,--they controlled the carrying of vast regions, and
fortune's wheel whirled amid their wharves and warehouses with a merry
and reassuring sound.
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