as immediately circulated, and
presuming the privateer would enter the harbor of Pictou, the
inhabitants collected with every old musket and fowling piece to resist
the enemy.--The next incident was the capture of Captain Lowden's vessel
in the harbor in 1777, variously reported to have been the work of
Americans from Machias, Maine, and also by Americans from Pictou and
Truro. In all probability the latter were in the plot. The vessel had
been loading with timber for the British market. The captain was invited
to the house of Wellwood Waugh, and went without suspicion, leaving the
vessel in charge of the mate. During the visit he was surrounded and
informed that he was a prisoner, and commanded to deliver up his arms.
In the meantime an armed party proceeded to the vessel, which was easily
secured. As the crew came on deck they were made prisoners and confined
in the forecastle. Some of the captors took a boat belonging to the ship
and went to the shop of Roderick McKay some distance up East River, and
plundered it of tools, iron, &c. In the meantime Roderick and his
brother Donald had boarded the vessel and were also made prisoners. When
night came the captors celebrated the event by a carousal. When well
under the influence of liquor, Roderick proposed to his brother to take
the ship, the plan being to make a sudden rush up the cabin stairs to
the deck; that he would seize the sentry and pitch him overboard, while
Donald should stand with an axe over the companionway and not allow any
of them to come up. Donald was a quiet, peaceable man, and opposed to
the effusion of blood and refused to take part in the scheme. The McKays
were released and the vessel sailed for Bay Verte, not knowing that the
Americans had retired from the place. The vessel fell into the hands of
a man-of-war, and the captors took to the woods, where, it is supposed,
many of them perished. All of Waugh's goods were seized, by the officers
of the war-vessel, and sold, and he was forced to leave. This affair
caused the American sympathizers to leave the settlement moving
eastward, and without selling their farms.

American privateers were frequently off the coast, but had little effect
on Pictou. One of the passengers of the Hector who had removed to
Halifax and there married, came to Pictou by land, but sent his baggage
on a vessel. She was captured and he lost all. A privateer came into the
harbor, the alarm was given, and the people assembled to r