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Captain John Crane, 1800 - 1815

<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2> THE GHOSTS AND HOW THEY WERE LAID.—ADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOST.—THE WARWICK AGAIN.—ENCOUNTERING AN ALGERIAN PIRATE. "Well, sir," replied the sailor, "I was standing near the mainmast about a quarter of an hour or so after eight bells (midnight), in the larboard watch. I was looking for'ard at the time, and saw something white, in the shape of a man, come in over the weather-side of the ship, just abaft of the foremast, and then there was another, and another. I was that frightened I can't say how many of them there was, but there was more'n two or three of 'em, sir. They was in the shape of men, and they just went along without stopping to look at anybody. Seemed to me it must be the Warwick had gone to the bottom and they'd come to tell us about it." "If they'd come to tell us about it," said the captain, "why didn't they stop and do so?" "Oh, ghosts never stop to talk with nobody," said the sailor; "leastways, I never knew a ghost what did." "You seem to be familiar with them by the way you talk," said Captain Dawson. [93] "Well, yes, sir; I hain't seen many ghosts myself, sir, but a good many of my friends has seen lots of 'em, and has told me all about 'em." "You haven't seen any ghosts on this ship before, have you?" the captain asked. "No, sir, I hain't seen no ghost before last night, and I'm not altogether sure that they was the ghosts of Mr. Johnson and the sailors; but that's what I thought." "Well," said the captain after a pause, "we'll let you and your ghosts go this time; if you saw anything at all it was nothing but scuds of mist or fog blowing across the ship. If any ghost comes here again the man that sees him will get twenty lashes of a rope's end, and I want all you men to bear this in mind. I don't have any ghosts about the ship I command; they're no friends of mine, and I want 'em to stay away. Now, remember, men—twenty lashes to anybody who sees a ghost on the Washington." With that the crew were dismissed, those who had the watch on deck went to their duty, and the rest below, or anywhere else they pleased. You may be sure that there wasn't another ghost seen on the Washington during the rest of the voyage, or, if any man saw one, he kept the knowledge of the sight to himself. Twenty lashes of a rope's end is not an agreeable offset to a vision of something unearthly. [94] But I want to say right here that most sailors believe in ghosts and can tell of good things that they've done as well as bad ones. There was a ghost seen by Captain Rogers, of the Royal Navy, in 1664. He commanded the ship Society that was on a voyage from England to Virginia; he was headed in for the Capes, and reckoned that he was about three hundred miles from them. A ghost came to him in the night and told him to turn out and look about. He turned out, looked around, found everything quiet, and all the watch alert, and so he turned in again. He hadn't been long in his bed when the ghost came again and told him to heave the lead. He got up at once and cast the lead, and found he was in only seven fathoms of water. He tacked ship in a hurry, and when daylight came found he was right under the Capes instead of being far out at sea as he supposed. When I had a chance to speak to Haines alone I asked him what he knew about ghosts. He rather evaded the question, by saying he had never seen one himself, but he'd been on ships where they were, and had known lots of sailors who had seen them. "I was on a ship once," said he, "where they not only saw a ghost but smelled him. For two or three nights he was seen several times, always in a certain spot in the ship, and he left a smell which was there all the time, whether the ghost was or not." [95] "Do you think it was really a ghost?" I asked. "Our captain didn't believe it; anyway, he ordered a search made in the place where the ghost was, and after overhauling a lot of stuff they found a dead rat there. 'Twas the rat that caused the ghostly smell, and probably the imagination of the sailors did the rest. The man who first smelled the ghost got ten lashes for not reporting it right away. "The biggest lot of ghosts I ever heard of in one crowd was down in the West Indies. The story was that Admiral Hosier had asked permission to attack Porto Bello and the request was denied. A few years later, Admiral Hosier was removed from command, went home, and died. Afterwards Porto Bello was assaulted and captured, and after the capture, the commander of the fleet which had taken the place saw the ghost of the admiral, and with it the ghosts of all his crews, and the phantoms of all his ships. 'Twas the biggest turnout of ghosts I ever heard of." "Yes, indeed it was," I answered; "I wonder if those ghosts took any part in the fighting at the capture of Porto Bello." "I don't know that they did," said Haines; "but I've heard of ghosts what went into battle and helped their friends very much, not by handling the weapons, but by scaring the people on the other side. [96] "Well, here's a story of a ghost I know all about," said Haines; "a ship I sailed in once had a ghost that first appeared to the mate. That is to say, the mate heard somebody groaning in an empty cabin, and went up on deck in a hurry. One night some of the men in the forecastle in their watch below saw a ghost, and they all agreed as to the description of it. Two or three times a ghost was seen in the rigging, and one night the captain happened to be on deck and saw him out at the end of a yard-arm. The captain slipped quietly up the rigging and caught the ghost." "Caught him, did he?" said I. "Why, I thought it was impossible to lay hands on a ghost!" "Well," said Haines, "that ghost turned out to be a sailor who had been playing these tricks on his comrades in revenge for something the captain had done to him in the early part of the voyage." Our conversation on ghosts was interrupted by the welcome cry of, "Sail, ho!" in the voice of Mr. Stevens, who had once more gone aloft to look for the Warwick. "What do you make her out?" the captain asked. "She's too far off, sir, for me to tell what she is," the mate replied. "Where away?" was the captain's next question. "About four points on the weather bow," was the reply. [97] Immediately Captain Dawson gave orders for the Washington to be steered in the direction of the strange sail. It did not take long for us to ascertain that the stranger was headed pretty nearly as we had been; this circumstance strengthened the belief that she was the Warwick, and was heading for the appointed place of meeting. The mate descended to the deck to assist in the maneuvers necessary for our change of course, and when this had been accomplished he returned to his post aloft. By this time he was able to see that the strange vessel looked like the Warwick; he remained there on watch until satisfied that such was the case. When he came down to the deck again we all waited anxiously for his report to the captain. As he was making it he could not help seeing the anxiety among the crew, and so he turned to us and said,— "Boys, I'm pretty sure she's the Warwick! I can't be certain yet for half an hour or so, but you needn't feel uneasy about your shipmates!" We gave a ringing cheer at this announcement, and everybody felt far happier than he was feeling an hour before. Sure enough she turned out to be the Warwick, and in due time we were up within hailing distance of her. Mr. Johnson answered in a cheery tone the hail of Captain Dawson, and said,— [98] "Everybody's well, and Warwick's people getting on finely! Saw the gale coming and got everything snug before it struck us!" He described the experience of the ship and crew in almost the identical words that I have told about the effects of the gale on the Washington, and so it isn't necessary to repeat. We gave him our latitude and longitude, which he had little need of just at that time, as he had been obliged to work them out for himself. From this time on we had no incidents of consequence until we got within a hundred miles of the coast as we headed for the Straits of Gibraltar. Then we had an incident with some excitement in it. We were sailing along nicely one morning, about eight bells, when a sail was discovered dead ahead. The Warwick was off on our weather beam about two miles, and a little astern. The strange sail was heading directly for us, and in a little while we made her out to be a Moorish or Algerine galiot. She was laying her course so straight for us that our captain felt sure she meant business and would capture us if she could. At that time the Algerine corsairs were scouring the Mediterranean and the portion of the Atlantic just outside the Straits of Gibraltar, and were ready to capture anything. For hundreds of years they had[99] been carrying on their piracy, capturing the vessels of every nation of Europe, confiscating the ships and their cargo, and selling the ship's crew into slavery. Sometimes the crew were ransomed, if they happened to have wealthy friends at home, and occasionally their ransoms were bought by wholesale by the nations to whom they belonged. Now and then nations made treaties with the pirates, paying them a stipulated sum each year to let their commerce alone; and payments were partially in cash and partially in guns, ammunition, naval stores, etc., the kind of goods that were required to keep up the piratical operations. When the United States came into existence as a nation and its commerce was carried to the Mediterranean Sea, the Deys of Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and the other states of the Barbary Coast rejoiced to think they had a new country against which they could press their depredations. American ships fell into their hands very early in our national history, and President Washington called the attention of the national government to these piracies as early as 1790. In an able report, Secretary Jefferson laid before Congress important details touching the position of American interests in that part of the globe. Little could be done, however, as the Americans had no[100] navy, and the commerce of the United States in the Mediterranean was for a long time dependent upon the Portuguese fleet for protection. Portugal was at war with Algiers for several years, and ships of other nations sought the protection of her flag, and were thereby saved from capture. Captain Dawson signaled to the Warwick to come within hail, and without changing their courses materially to do so, the ships were speedily not more than a hundred yards apart. Before leaving America we had news that the war between Algiers and Portugal had been brought to an end through the assistance of Great Britain, with the avowed purpose of injuring France, with which the last-named country was then at war. It was not exactly a treaty of peace, but simply a truce for one year; and in the treaty was introduced the remarkable stipulation that the Portuguese government should not afford protection to any nation against Algerine cruisers. The treaty went into effect immediately, and the result of the agreement was very disastrous to American commerce. Having heard of the truce just before we sailed, we were on the lookout for the sea robbers. The state of the case was that the ships of every nation except those of Great Britain and Portugal were liable to be captured, and their only safety was in running away, or being sufficiently strong to resist. [101] I ought to have mentioned before that the Washington carried five guns,—two six-pounders on each side of the ship, and one twelve-pounder on a pivot amidships. The Warwick had the same armament, but she had the disadvantage, as the reader knows, of being very short-handed, and the Washington had lost some of the members of her gun crews by the absence of the men on the other ship. We had been drilled daily in good weather, so that we felt we could handle our guns very well. If we could only hold the pirate craft away from boarding us we had no occasion for worry. They carry a large number of men on these corsairs, and their plan is to run a ship directly aboard and overwhelm her by superior force. Captain Dawson had hoisted the American flag, and the Warwick followed his example by hoisting the English one, her national color. As soon as the ships were within hailing distance our captain gave orders to Mr. Johnson to stand by and help us in case of necessity. "You can't do much fighting with your crew," said Captain Dawson, "but perhaps you can put a shot in now and then, if necessary." "All right, sir" replied Johnson; then he added, "Mate of Warwick says we have some new-fangled rockets on board for fighting. Hadn't we best try 'em?" [102] "Aye, aye, sir, try 'em, of course," said the captain. Mr. Johnson answered back with a hearty, "Aye, aye, sir," and there the conversation ended. Meanwhile the strange craft was approaching us rapidly. Before a great while she was within hailing distance, and a voice called out in very bad English, "Heave to!" "Can't do it; we're in a hurry!" replied the captain; and the Washington followed the example of the moon when the dog barked at it—it kept right on as though nothing had happened. Then a shot was fired across her bows by the stranger, whom we now made out to be an Algerine corsair. We paid no attention to this, and another shot followed very speedily. It was aimed at our hull, but evidently a poor marksman handled the gun, as the shot went two or three hundred yards astern of us. Captain Dawson now thought it was time to make a response. The gun crews had been standing by their pieces, and everybody was anxious to open fire. The captain ordered Mr. Stevens, who had charge of the big pivot-gun, to "Let go!" and the order was obeyed immediately. The shot was a lucky one, as it pierced the hull of the galiot and cut away her foremast below deck. The mast (she had but one) fell with a crash, and the Algerine boat was completely disabled. We[103] could see that she was full of men, and if she had once got alongside so as to carry us by boarding, our chance of escape would have been small. The Warwick was to the starboard of the Washington and a little astern at the time this happened. She was edging up to get into a position where she could deliver a shot at the Algerine craft when opportunity offered. Captain Dawson hailed Mr. Johnson on the Warwick and said,— "Come up and try one of your new-fangled things on these pirates!" "Aye, aye, sir," was the reply; and then as the Washington forged ahead a little, the Warwick came up until she was not more than two hundred yards from the galiot and just astern of her. Her mate understood the handling of the rockets, which were then a new invention, and under the care he had received he was able to be about deck and render himself of much practical use. Since they obtained a supply of provisions the crew of the Warwick had improved rapidly, and the men had gone on duty at the suggestion of Mr. Johnson, with the understanding that they could be let off at any time when they felt too weak to stay on deck. The most of them were standing their watches regularly, but there were some who did not go on duty at all during the entire time we were with them. [104] Two or three of the rockets were brought on deck, and the Warwick's mate, Mr. Townley, directed how the firing-tube should be placed. I should explain that these rockets were fired from tubes to which they were specially fitted, and by which they were directed on their course. <hr class="chap" /> [105] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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