nated, he would
have been granted a commission and a ship by the United States.

While the chief naval events of the war for independence have now been
recounted, there still remain certain incidents connected more or less
closely with the war on the water, which deserve a passing mention.
One of these is the curious desultory warfare carried on in and about
New York Harbor by fishermen and longshoremen in whale-boats, dories,
sharpies, and similar small craft.

From 1776 until the close of the war, New York City and the region
bordering upon the harbor were occupied by the British. Provisions
were needed for their support, and were brought from Connecticut and
New Jersey in small sailing craft, chiefly whale-boats. These boats
the patriots often intercepted, and desperate encounters upon the
water were frequent. Nor did the Yankee boatmen confine their attacks
to the provision boats alone. In the summer of 1775 the British
transport "Blue Mountain Valley" was captured by a band of hardy
Jerseymen, who concealed themselves in the holds of four small
sail-boats until fairly alongside the enemy's vessel, when they
swarmed out and drove the British from the deck of their vessel.

Two New Jersey fishermen, Adam Hyler and William Marriner, were
particularly active in this class of warfare. Twice the British sent
armed forces to capture them, and, failing in that, burned their
boats. But the sturdy patriots were undaunted, and building new boats,
waged a relentless war against the followers of King George. Every
Tory that fished in the bay was forced to pay them tribute; and many
of these gentry, so obnoxious to the Yankees, were visited in their
homes at dead of night, and solemnly warned to show more moderation in
their disapproval of the American cause. When the occasion offered,
the two Jerseymen gathered armed bands, and more than one small
British vessel fell a prey to their midnight activity. Two British
corvettes were captured by them in Coney Island Bay, and burned to the
water's edge. With one of the blazing vessels forty thousand dollars
in specie was destroyed,--a fact that Hyler bitterly lamented when he
learned of it.

No narrative of the events of the Revolution would be complete,
without some description of the floating prison-houses in which the
British immured the hapless soldiers and sailors who fell into their
hands. Of these the chief one was a dismasted hulk known as the "Old
Jersey" prison-ship, an