The America hauled around under the stranger’s stern, where she could rake her fore and aft with a broadside, and then the boats were lowered away,—four of them, under command of Mr. Fernald.
It was the quietest capture one can imagine.
The Britisher did not make even a protest as our people swarmed over the rail, and when Mr. Fernald returned, leaving on board twenty men to hold possession, we knew that we had as a prize the British twelve-gun ship Hope, from St. Thomas for Glasgow, with a cargo of sugar, rum, and cotton.
[What a cheer went up from our men] when Captain Ropes, after a brief conversation with the first officer, stepped forward to the break of the quarter-deck and announced the fact in much the same words I have just set down!
[“WHAT A CHEER WENT UP FROM OUR MEN.”]
The men yelled themselves hoarse, for this ship would prove by all odds the most valuable prize we had taken, and if the America turned about on the home run now, without adding further to her captures, we had indeed made a most successful cruise of what at one time threatened to end in disaster.
But good fortune was not to desert us with the capture of the Hope, for Mr. Fernald had brought with him such news as caused the blood of every member of the crew, including Simon and me, to tingle, and thus did the captain impart it to his men:
“You lads who have been arguin’ an’ speechifyin’ ever since we left port, tryin’ to prove that the America was doomed because a rotten spar chanced to carry away on a Friday, have thus far been disappointed in all your doleful predictions. Not even the appearance of your so-called ghost, and that sepulchral voice which you claimed to have heard, could spoil our luck. We have already made a paying cruise of it, such a one as will tassel well our neckerchiefs with dollars, and yet there is more to come. Mr. Fernald brings the information, gathered from the master of the prize, that yonder ship left St. Thomas three days ago, one of a fleet of forty-five merchantmen under convoy of the sloops-of-war Ringdove and Scorpion. We are in the vicinity of that rich fleet, my lads, and if we fail to pick up two or three good prizes out of it, it will be only through our own neglect.”