ip had also been
sent to look-out for the enemy. She had taken a prize, and from her had
gained the information that a large fleet of merchantmen was in the
neighbourhood, bound from Saint Domingo to Philadelphia under the convoy
of the Dean and Confederacy State frigates.

I ought to have said that we had hove-to, and that Captain Ord of the
Chatham had come on board us, Captain Symonds being the senior officer.
Captain Ord now proposed that we should in company cruise off the heads
of the Delaware in the hopes of intercepting this valuable convoy. Once
more there appeared a certain prospect of my picking up an ample supply
of prize-money, but greatly to our disappointment; Captain Symonds
declined to accede to the proposal, though he allowed Captain Ord to
remain if he thought fit. This Captain Ord said he should do, and
returned on board the Chatham, while we made sail to the northward.
That evening I heard Nol Grampus holding forth on the subject.

"I knew it would be so," he exclaimed, clapping his right hand down on
his hat, which he held in his left; "our ship's got ill-lack in her
sails, depend on that. I don't say nothing against our skipper; what he
does is all right and above board, and a better man nor officer never
stepped a deck, but, mark my words, that 'ere `Chatham's' people now
will be filling their pockets with gold dollars, while we shan't have a
penny piece to chink in ours; as for our ship, I knows what I knows, and
I thinks what I thinks."

The effect of old Nol's remarks were, however, counteracted before long,
for on the 13th we sighted a large brig, which immediately stood away
from us. We, therefore, made sail in chase. She sailed so fast we had
to do our best to come up with her. It seemed, however, doubtful
whether we should do so. Nol shook his head, and remarked that night
would come down, and that she would slip away before we could overhaul
her. Hour after hour passed. It was evident that we were gaining on
her, and at length, at the end of a chase of seven hours we came up with
the stranger, when she struck her flag and proved to be the Peggy, rebel
privateer, of fourteen guns and seventy men, loaded with rum and indigo,
from Carolina to Philadelphia.

On our arrival at New York with our prize, we had the mortification to
find that the admiral approved of Captain Ord's proposition, and still
greater was our annoyance to hear a few days afterwards that he, with
the Roebuck