The Pomona kept upon her course, while the white sails of the attacker grew fainter and fainter upon the horizon.
“I saw her name as she ranged in close to us,” said Joshua Barney, slapping Captain Robinson on the back. “And it was the Rosebud.”
“I reckon that Rosebud has no thorns left,” chuckled Captain Robinson, and he was still chuckling when the little Pomona safely sailed into the harbor of Bordeaux in France. The voyage had been a success.
Here a store of guns, powder and shot was purchased, and, having shipped a cargo of brandy, and raised the crew to seventy men, the staunch, little vessel set sail for America.
Not three days from the coast of France the cry of “Sail ho!” startled all on board, and, upon the starboard quarter—loomed a British privateer. Upon nearer view she was seen to have sixteen guns and seventy men.
“All hands for a fight!” cried Robinson. “Don’t let th’ fellow escape.”
Now was a hard battle. It lasted for full two hours, and—in the end—the Britisher struck, with twelve killed and a number wounded, while the American loss was but one killed and two wounded. The Pomona kept upon her course, jubilantly.
But the saucy ship was not to have all smooth sailing. She was soon captured—by whom it is not known—and stout “Josh” Barney became a prisoner of war. In December, 1780, with about seventy American officers, he was placed on board the Yarmouth—a sixty-four-gun brig—and was shipped to England.
Now listen to the treatment given him according to a contemporaneous historian. Did you ever hear of anything more atrocious? Peace—indeed—had more horrors than war in the year 1780.
“From the time these Americans stepped aboard the Yarmouth their captors gave it to be understood, by hints and innuendos, that they were being taken to England ‘to be hanged as rebels;’ and, indeed the treatment they received aboard the Yarmouth on the passage over, led them to believe that the British officers intended to cheat the gallows of their prey, by causing the prisoners to die before they reached port.