trumpet in Talbot's hand was pierced by two bullets, and a
cannon-ball carried away the tail of his coat. The damages sustained in
this battle were scarce repaired when another British privateer appeared,
and Talbot again went into action and took her, though of scarce half her
size. In all this little "Argo"--which, by the way, belonged to Nicholas
Low, of New York, an ancestor of the eminent Seth Low--took twelve prizes.
Her commander was finally captured and sent first to the infamous "Jersey"
prison-ship, and afterward to the Old Mill Prison in England.

[Illustration: NEARLY EVERY MAN ON THE QUARTERDECK OF THE "ARGO" WAS
KILLED OR WOUNDED.]

The "Jersey" prison-ship was not an uncommon lot for the bold
privateersman, who, when once consigned to it, found that the reward of a
sea-rover was not always wealth and pleasure. A Massachusetts
privateersman left on record a contemporary account of the sufferings of
himself and his comrades in this pestilential hulk, which may well be
condensed here to show some of the perils that the adventurers dared when
they took to the sea.

[Illustration: THE PRISON SHIP "JERSEY".]

After about one-third of the captives made with this writer had been
seized and carried away to serve against their country on British
war-ships, the rest were conveyed to the "Jersey," which had been
originally a 74-gun ship, then cut down to a hulk and moored at the
Wallabout, at that time a lonely and deserted place on the Long Island
shore, now about the center of the Brooklyn river front. "I found myself,"
writes the captive, "in a loathsome prison among a collection of the most
wretched and disgusting objects I ever beheld in human form. Here was a
motley crew covered with rags and filth, visages pallid with disease,
emaciated with hunger and anxiety, and retaining hardly a trace of their
original appearance.... The first day we could obtain no food, and seldom
on the second could prisoners secure it in season for cooking it. Each
prisoner received one-third as much as was allotted to a tar in the
British navy. Our bill of fare was as follows: On Sunday, one pound of
biscuit, one pound of pork, and half a pint of peas; Monday, one pound of
biscuit, one pint of oatmeal, and two ounces of butter; Tuesday, one pound
of biscuit and two pounds of salt beef, etc., etc. If this food had been
of good quality and properly cooked, as we had no labor to perform, it
would have kept us comfortable; but all ou