It was in August of the year 1812 when the America was overhauled and made ready for a privateering cruise. Previous to that time she had been in the merchant service, and earned for herself much credit, it being stated by those who sailed her that there was nothing afloat to which she could not show her heels.
When the people of the United States had finally discovered that patience ceased to be a virtue, that the time was arrived when we as a nation should protect our own seamen against Great Britain’s press-gangs, my uncle and cousins decided that the good ship America should take part in the struggle, by teaching the Britishers a much needed lesson at the same time that she brought in many dollars to her owners.
Captain Joseph Ropes, Simon’s father, was allowed to be the most skilful navigator and the ablest sailing-master in the United States.
In view of what has been done since then by privateersmen from Portland and Baltimore, it would seem as if that which has just been set down is a rash statement, and yet must I hold to it, for when the war broke out Captain Joseph could have commanded any vessel, outside the navy, which struck his fancy.
We of Salem believed, and this belief was afterward proven to be correct, that the America was by long odds the finest craft of her kind afloat, and therefore the people along the Massachusetts coast took it for granted that she would be commanded by Captain Ropes.
The ship was well worthy such a master, and certain it was she would never come to grief through any carelessness or misjudgment of his.
Therefore, when it was announced that Captain Ropes would sail the America, no one in or around Salem expressed surprise, or even intimated that a better choice could have been made.
While the ship was being fitted for sea, Simon and I, as may be supposed, were constantly on board of her, watching the men as they put in place the twenty formidable-looking guns, and listening to the yarns told by old Joshua Seabury, who had, during the war with Tripoli, proven himself as good a gunner as he was seaman, than which no greater praise could be bestowed.
“Master Josh,” we lads designated him, and very careful were we to tack on the “Master” since the day he flogged Daniel Kelley with a rope’s end, for daring to call him “Josh.”
A good friend to Simon and me was the gunner, and, before he had been given the charge of superintending the arming of the America, he spent much time with us two lads, spinning yarns of his adventures with the Tripolitan pirates.