Tales, Traditions and Romance of Border and Revolutionary Times

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

Horsewhipping a Tyrant.—Page [37].

When Colonel Allen met Captain Smith on board the vessel, he greeted him with thanks for his kindness. The noble Captain disclaimed all merit, and said: "This is a mutable world, and one gentleman never knows but that it may be in his power to help another." This sentiment was strikingly verified in the course of the voyage.

One night, as they were sailing along the coast of Rhode Island, Captain Burke and a few other prisoners came to Allen with a plan for destroying the British officers, seizing the vessel, and carrying her into some friendly port. A large quantity of cash on board was held up as an inducement for the enterprise. But Captain Smith had generously distinguished the prisoners, and for this reason Allen strongly condemned the plan. He declared that if the attempt was made, he would assist in the defense of the Briton, with all his skill and strength. Finding the conspiracy so strenuously opposed by the most influential of the prisoners, it was abandoned, upon the assurance that they should not be betrayed.

Upon arriving in New York, Colonel Allen was released on parole, but restricted to the limits of New York. An attempt was made soon after to induce him to join the British ranks. He was offered a heavy sum of money, and large tracts of land, either in New Hampshire or Connecticut, when the country was conquered. The integrity of the man, however, was unassailable. His reply to the proposition was characteristic. He said that the offer reminded him of a certain incident in Scripture. The devil, he said, took Christ to a high hill, and showing him the kingdoms of earth, offered him their possession, if he would fall down and worship him, "when all the while the damned soul had not one foot of land upon earth!" It may be believed that those sent to negotiate with him did not fail to understand the illustration.

Colonel Allen, in a narrative of his captivity, written by himself, gives a fearful account of the condition of the American prisoners in New York. Before he was exchanged he was arrested on the absurd charge of breaking his parole, and thrown into the Provost jail. Here he remained from August to May, during which time he witnessed instances of suffering of the most agonizing kind, and was himself compelled again to feel the barbarous treatment of British officials. At the expiration of the above period he was exchanged, and once more tasted of the sweets of freedom.

It may not be out of place here, since we have given an account of Barton's brilliant exploit in the capture of General Prescott, to relate the story of General Wadsworth's abduction, who fell into the hands of the British in a manner somewhat similar, though the affair was characterized by no such daring on the part of the enemy as our own young officer showed, in venturing into the lines of the English, since General Wadsworth was known to be almost wholly unprotected at the time it was resolved to take him.

In the spring of 1780 he was appointed to the command of a party of State troops in Canada, in the district of Maine. At the expiration of the time for which the troops were engaged, General Wadsworth dismissed them, retaining six soldiers only as his guard, as he was making preparations to depart from the place. A neighbor communicated his situation to the British commander at Penobscot, and a party of twenty-five soldiers, commanded by Lieutenant Stockton, was sent to make him a prisoner. They embarked in a small schooner, and, landing within four miles of the General's quarters, they were concealed in the house of a Methodist preacher by the name of Snow—professedly a friend to us, but really a traitor—until eleven in the evening, when they made their arrangements for the attack.

The party rushed suddenly on the sentinel, who gave the alarm, and one of his comrades instantly opened the kitchen door, and the enemy were so near as to enter with the sentinel. The lady of the General, and her friend, Miss Fenno, of Boston, were in the house at the time. Mrs. Wadsworth escaped from her husband's room into that of Miss Fenno.

The assailants soon became masters of the whole house, except the room where the General was, and which was strongly barred, and they kept up a constant firing of musketry into the windows and doors, except into those of the ladies' room. General Wadsworth was provided with a pair of pistols, a blunderbuss and a fusee, which he employed with great dexterity, being determined to defend himself to the last moment. With his pistols, which he discharged several times, he defended the rooms of his window and a door which opened into a kitchen. His blunderbuss he snapped several times, but unfortunately it missed fire; he then secured his fusee, which he discharged on some who were breaking through the windows, and obliged them to flee. He next defended himself with his bayonet, till he received a ball through his left arm, when he surrendered, which terminated the contest. The firing, however, did not cease from the kitchen until the General unbarred the door, when the soldiers rushed into the room, and one of them, who had been badly wounded, pointing a musket at his breast, exclaimed, with an oath, "you have taken my life, and I will take yours." But Lieutenant Stockton turned the musket aside, and saved his life. The commanding officer now applauded the General for his admirable defense, and assisted in putting on his clothes, saying, "you see we are in a critical situation, and therefore you must excuse haste." Mrs. Wadsworth threw a blanket over him, and Miss Fenno affixed a handkerchief closely around his wounded arm.