stants appear to have deserted him
before the close of the voyage. It was his duty to make any needful
repairs after a storm, or in an engagement and to perform any such
service necessary even at the time of greatest danger. In a terrific
storm it was decided to cut away the mast. His hat fell from his head,
but he scarcely felt it worth while to pick it up, as all were liable so
soon to go to the bottom. In action, his place was below deck, to be in
readiness with his tools and material to stop instantly, if possible,
any leak caused by the enemies' shot. At one time the rigging above him
was torn and fell upon him, some were killed; blood spattered over him,
and it was shouted "Boardman is killed." He, however, and another man on
board, a Mr. Post, father of the late Alpha Post of Rutland, were
spared to make their homes for half a century among the peaceful hills
of Vermont.

In the following year 1779, he seems to have sailed down the Atlantic
coast on an American merchant vessel. He was captured off Charleston, S.
Carolina, by the British, but after a few days' detention, on board his
Majesty's vessel, it was thought cheaper to send the prisoners on shore
than to feed them, and he and his companions were given a boat and set
at liberty. They reached Charleston in safety. The city was under
martial law, and the new-comers were for about six weeks put upon
garrison duty. About this time Lord Cornwallis was gaining signal
advantages in that vicinity, while Gen. Gates, who had received the
surrender of Burgoyne, three years before, was badly defeated. After
completing this service the author of the Log-Book, started to walk home
to Connecticut. He proceeded on foot to North Carolina, where Andrew
Jackson was, then a poor boy of twelve years. Jackson's father, a young
Irish emigrant died within two years after entering those forests, and
his widow soon to become the mother of a President, was "hauled" through
their clearing, from their deserted shanty, to his grave, among the
stumps, in the same lumber wagon with the corpse of her husband. He had
been dead twelve years when the pilgrim from Connecticut passed that
way. Overcome, probably by fatigue and by malaria, his progress was
arrested in North Carolina by fever, and he lay sick all winter among
strangers.

In the spring of 1780, unable probably, to proceed on foot, he embarked
from some port, on a merchant ship bound for St. Eustatia, a Dutch
island, in the West