During the quasi war with France, Conyngham commanded an armed brig named the Maria, and in the War of 1812 he again sought to go to sea, but his health prevented him taking an active part.
Conyngham died in Philadelphia, November 27, 1819, in the seventy-second year of his age, and was buried in St. Peter’s churchyard, and on his grave is an odd epitaph in the form of an acrostic built on the name “Gustavus.”
The “lost commission.”
But now appears the strangest part of the whole story—one of those remarkable instances that so well prove the old adage of “facts being stranger than fiction.” It is the tragic epilogue to the play—the bitter end of the thread that runs through the whole of the relation. It does not take long to tell, and surely it speaks for itself.
Only a short time ago there appeared in the catalogue of M. Charavay, an autograph and print-seller in Paris, among hundreds of other notices, the following:
143 Hancock (John), celebre homme d’Etat américain, gouverneur du Massachusetts, signataire de la Déclaration de l’Indépendence,—Pièce signe comme président du congrès; Baltimore, 1 mars 1777, 1 p. in-fol. obl. Rare.
The connection of names and dates of course would attract the attention of any collector. It would be seen that most possibly it had something to do with Franklin’s sojourn in France. It was only the price asked for John Hancock’s signature—in fact, much less than his signature usually brought in the autograph market—ten francs. But what was the joy and surprise of its present possessor, upon opening his new purchase, to find that it was nothing more nor less than the missing commission of the Surprise! Where it had been, what has been its history since it was delivered at Versailles, how it came at last into the possession of a little print-shop, no one can tell; but that it had much to do with the foregoing story any one can see. It lies before the author as he writes, and is reproduced in these pages for the first time, that the court of public print may decide the question. That bold Gustavus Conyngham was badly treated by his country and hardly handled by Fate the reader can perceive. He had helped the cause in the way it most needed help, but, notwithstanding, unrewarded, the man who flew the flag in the Channel went broken-hearted to his grave, and now out of the past, too late, comes the authentic proof of his cause and asseverations. The world is a small one and strange things happen in it, can be the only comment.