But there was some excuse for France. Napoleon had depleted his seacoasts to fill his armies. There were not sufficient able seamen to answer the demand, and besides, so long had the French run away from the English at sea, that a thirty-eight-gun frigate of the Empire had been known to escape a meeting with a British twenty-gun sloop by turning tail and making off. The French flag was a rarity afloat. So every time the Yankee privateers entered or left a port it was necessary to run the blockade that the British had established at the entrance. As this was the state of the home ports also, they had become quite used to it. Seldom or never were they caught in the act.
But the day came, as the Yankee captains had agreed it would, when Napoleon succumbed entirely. Out came the white cockades; the tricolor disappeared. No longer was it "the Emperor," but "the King," and the first request that England made was that the Yankee shipping in French ports should be confiscated and the privateers detained. Great was the consternation of the skippers; some who had crews sufficient in number to man their vessels put to sea instanter and were taken in by the Channel squadron forthwith. Others remained waiting for the weather to thicken and trusting that King Louis would hesitate long enough to give them a chance for life. But the order came at last. The privateers were to be allowed to leave the harbor any time they found a chance to do so; but before they left, the French King, who was holding fast to his rickety throne, and was merely kept in place by the supporting arms of England, Russia, and Germany, issued a decree. It was to the effect that the vessels should sail unarmed; that their broadsides should be taken from them, their cutlasses and small-arms removed, and thus shorn of their teeth and claws, they should be allowed to depart. As every merchantman, almost without exception, in those days carried at least four or five guns handy on the spar deck, this decree was equivalent to presenting them to any English vessel that might get range of them. Before the order could be executed more of the vessels got to sea, and not a few were gobbled up at once by the English cruisers; some were forced to put back again, and only one or two ever reached the shores of America.
The day the news arrived early in May, Captain Edgar was one of the first to get his anchor in and make out past the headland as soon as dusk had settled. In a few minutes Symington, also, although his vessel was very short-handed, was getting up his mainsail, and he too would have sailed no doubt, had there not suddenly arisen a sound of firing from the offing. Of course there being now peace between France and England, it was possible for the English ships to anchor beside the Americans if they had chosen to do so, and in fact in some of the harbors so penned in were the privateers, that, as one captain expressed it, "they would have to sail across the deck of a seventy-four to escape to sea." England had respected the neutrality of the French ports thus far; but if an American vessel was seen preparing to get under way, she would be watched carefully, and if not accompanied by an English ship, her going out would be signalled to the blockaders off the shore. As the cannonading was kept up for so long a time, Captain Symington supposed, or at least hoped, that the Siren had escaped her enemies. Perhaps the confusion that followed would be a good moment for him to take advantage of, and he determined to sail out at once.
But it was not to be; for hardly had he got under way when he was boarded by a cutter filled with armed men, under the command of a Frenchman, dressed in a voluminous coat and a huge cocked hat, who described himself in a breathless sentence as "Monsieur le Capitaine Georges Binda, Inspector of the Port for His Majesty, King Louis." But a few months previously he had been at Napoleon's beck and call, having been one of the recruiting officers of the district.
Captain Symington's expostulations were of no avail, although owing to his peculiar manner of speech, they appealed to the whole harbor.
His long twelve-pounder was taken from him, and his neat little battery of carronades, six on a side, were confiscated also. Before noon of the next day the Rattler had been changed from a tiger cat to a harmless kitten.
The discomforting news also arrived that Captain Edgar had been blown out of the water, after he had almost succeeded in getting past the English line. This was most disheartening, and that very day many of the Americans, despairing of ever getting free, attempted to dispose of their ships by sale. But not so with Symington. He determined not to give up until compelled to; to hold out until the very last minute.
The Rattler was light in ballast, and in trim for fast sailing. There were enough men now on board of her to handle her at a pinch, and she could have shown a clean pair of heels to any one of the English cruisers then afloat. Although not altogether a beauty to look at, for she was a comparatively old vessel, she was marvellously quick in stays, and came about like a sharpie. In pointing, too, she was a marvel, and once given the windward gage she could choose her own distance. No man could sail the Rattler the way Symington could, and no skipper ever knew the capacities or character of his craft better than did the lank Yankee. She was his pet; why give her up to be sailed by a lubberly Frenchman? The very first chance he saw he was going to take. It arrived no later than the second evening after the despoiling.
The moon came up early in the morning; but about an hour or so before the time for her appearance a soft gray fog blew in from the sea. At first the great outline of a British troop-ship close alongside on the Rattler's port hand disappeared gradually. Then the numerous anchor lights and the lanterns of the town that had been twinkling brightly in the darkness became but hazy blurs of light through the thickening mist. But when the moon began to cast her silvery light, a marvellous thing happened that caused the second mate, who was on watch, to hurry down into the cabin and call Captain Symington to the deck. The rays of moonlight in the fog caused an opaque, impenetrable veil to surround the ship. So thick was it, that the sensation was as if a white cloth had been tied across the eyes. The masts disappeared a few feet above the deck. If one turned around, it was impossible to tell in which direction the vessel extended. The Rattler lay but a few hundred feet astern of a big French brig that was anchored with a stream anchor over her side to keep her from swinging in toward a point of rocks which was surmounted by a small battery. As soon as Captain Symington reached the deck he stepped across to the bulwarks, and lowering himself down as far as he could go by the chains he perceived what often happens in thick weather: the fog was lifted some feet from the surface of the water, and close to the water objects could be discerned at some distance. There was not wind enough to sail; to use the sweeps would have called down on him a fleet of armed small craft in an instant! Well he knew that rather than see him escape, the transport would go afoul of him and try to explain matters afterwards.
Now Captain Symington had a remarkably retentive memory. It was said that he never had to look at a chart more than twice; that he could take a vessel over shoals where he had been only once before, and that, years previously. Now this gift stood him in good stead. Just ahead of him lay the big French brig. Within a cable's length of her, a large French man-of-war, but half dismantled; beyond, an English sloop; then two more vessels. Once outside of them, and there was nothing to prevent him from gaining the mouth of the harbor! How was it to be done? The fog might last for two or three hours, and yet again it might disappear at any moment. But Symington was not discouraged; a brilliant idea came to him; the crew were called into the cabin, and there by the dim light of a lantern Captain Symington explained his plan.