This he
did with great ease by going alongside of each of them, one after the
other."

One more story of this master sea-rover of the Revolution, sailor and
gentleman, who served his country so much more brilliantly than many
a landsman lauded in the written histories of the war. While in the
Pickering he attacked a heavily armed royal mail packet bound to England
from the West Indies, one of the largest merchant vessels of her day and
equipped to defend herself against privateers. A tough antagonist and a
hard nut to crack! They battered each other like two pugilists for four
hours and even then the decision was still in the balance. Then Haraden
sheered off to mend his damaged gear and splintered hull before closing
in again.

He then discovered that all his powder had been shot away excepting one
last charge. Instead of calling it a drawn battle, he rammed home this
last shot in the locker, and ran down to windward of the packet, so
close that he could shout across to the other quarter-deck: "I will give
you five minutes to haul down your colors. If they are not down at the
end of that time, I will fire into you and sink you, so help me God."

It was the bluff magnificent--courage cold-blooded and calculating.
The adversary was still unbeaten. Haraden stood with watch in hand and
sonorously counted off the minutes. It was the stronger will and not the
heavier metal that won the day. To be shattered by fresh broadsides at
pistol-range was too much for the nerves of the gallant English skipper
whose decks were already like a slaughterhouse. One by one, Haraden
shouted the minutes and his gunners blew their matches. At "four" the
red ensign came fluttering down and the mail packet was a prize of war.

Another merchant seaman of this muster-roll of patriots was Silas
Talbot, who took to salt water as a cabin boy at the age of twelve and
was a prosperous shipmaster at twenty-one with savings invested in a
house of his own in Providence. Enlisting under Washington, he was made
a captain of infantry and was soon promoted, but he was restless ashore
and glad to obtain an odd assignment. As Colonel Talbot he selected
sixty infantry volunteers, most of them seamen by trade, and led them
aboard the small sloop Argo in May, 1779, to punish the New York Tories
who were equipping privateers against their own countrymen and working
great mischief in Long Island Sound. So serious was the situation that
General Gates found it alm