The Boys of Old Monmouth: A Story of Washington's Campaign in New Jersey in 1778

by Everett T. Tomlinson

The one who had addressed him he remembered as a young man not much older than himself, who had all the summer been away from his home, busied with his friends and neighbors in protecting the salt works along the shore, and striving to hold back the outlaws from their raids in the county.

The salt works were of especial value at this time, as some of them were owned by the government and aided in increasing the scanty revenues of the poverty-stricken country. Several of them already had been burned by tories or bands of sailors, who had landed from some of the gunboats which had come to anchor off the shore for the purpose of inflicting such damage as lay within their power upon the adjacent region.

"What are you doing here, Peter?" repeated the lad who had first spoken.

As Little Peter now recognized the men before him as friends, he quickly related to them the story of the sad misfortunes which had come upon his home; and the many expressions of anger and sympathy which his words called forth were not unwelcome, we may be assured, to the troubled boy.

When his brief story was told, the young man who had hailed him said, "We're on an errand that may fit into your feelings a bit. We're short one man, too. Don't you want to join us?"

"What are you trying to do?"

"We've just had word that a boat is aground off here on the bar, and we're going to see if we can't get her. We've got a whaleboat down here on the shore, and we're going to put out in her and see if we can't pull the other boat off and bring her in with us."

"But there are a couple of gunboats not more than three quarters of a mile out," protested Peter. "You can't do anything while they are there."

"We can try," said the man who was acting as the leader. "We're one man short, as Lyman here has just said, and if you feel inclined to join us we shall be glad to have you."

Little Peter hesitated. It was not alone the danger of the enterprise which troubled him. He was thinking of his father and his own purpose to discover whether he had been sent to New York or not.