It was to me as if the visit of the supposed ghost had never occurred, the new danger being so imminent as to drive all else from my mind.
This peril lay, so I believed, in the number of prisoners we had on board.
There were, or should be, fifty-two in the hold, and three aft. Our crew, which numbered, when we left port, one hundred and sixty-three all told, had been weakened considerably by the prize-crews thrown aboard the captured craft.
Twelve men in all were sent to the Ralph Nickerson, eight took charge of the Benjamin, and seven were sent into the James and Charlotte, making twenty-seven in all.
This reduced our number to one hundred and thirty-six, and although such a force should overwhelm fifty-five Britishers if they took it into their heads to rise, the enemy was sufficiently strong, more particularly if our people were taken by surprise, to cause serious trouble.
While thus casting about to find food for anxiety, I took well into account the fact that, should the prisoners succeed in releasing themselves, they would fight desperately, and not be blamed for so doing, since they could only look forward to imprisonment when we made the home port.
And they had good cause for venturing their lives in the effort to escape, if they knew how their countrymen treated such of the Americans as were captured, because they might reasonably conclude that we of the United States would be equally brutal with those who fell into our hands.
It must not be supposed that I remained idle in order to cast up all these accounts which might work to our disadvantage.
I have simply set down here that which came into my mind like flashes of light, as Simon Ropes and I walked forward to obey his father’s command.