I
Stories of the Cape Cod captains would in themselves make a volume. One is tempted here and tempted there in choosing which should be typical of the “brave old times,” and fears to overlook the most significant. Among the more interesting of those who have not been already mentioned was Elijah Cobb, born in 1768 at Brewster—the home of deep-water sailors. From the memoir which he began to write in old age, we know that his first voyage, presumably as cabin boy, netted him the profit of a new suit of clothes and in money twenty dollars which he brought home intact to his mother, “the largest sum she had received since she became a widow.” By the time he was twenty-five he had made several voyages as captain, had married him a wife, and a year or two later was to run afoul of the French Revolution. As both French and English men-of-war were making no bones of holding up neutrals, he had cleared for Corunna: to no end, for he was taken by a French frigate and run into the harbor of Brest. “My vessel was there,” he writes, “but her cargo was taken out and was daily made into soup, bread, etc., for the half-starved populace, and without papers”—his captors had sent his papers to the Government at Paris—“I could not substantiate my claim to the ship.” He appealed to Paris, and had the cold comfort of hearing that “the Government will do what is right in time.” In the meantime he was treated courteously, and he and some of his men lodged at a hotel at the Government’s expense. After six weeks the word came that his case had been passed upon: “without my even learning or knowing I was on trial. The decision, however, was so favorable that it gave new feelings to my life.” A fair price was offered for the cargo of flour and rice which Brest had already devoured; payment in bills of exchange on Hamburg, fifty days after date. Cobb sent his ship away in ballast, and set out for Paris to get his papers and his bills of exchange.
THE CAP’N’S
“In about two days I was under weigh for Paris,” writes Cobb, “with the national courier for government. We drove Jehu-like without stopping, except to change horses and mail, taking occasionally a mouthful of bread and washing it down with low-priced Burgundy wine. As to sleep I did not get one wink during the whole six hundred and eighty-four miles. We had from ten to twelve mounted horsemen for guard during the night, and to prove that the precaution was necessary, the second morning after leaving Brest, just before the guard left us, we witnessed a scene that filled us with horror: the remains of a courier lying in the road, the master, postillion, and five horses lying dead and mangled by it, and the mail mutilated and scattered in all directions. However, the next stage was only five miles and not considered dangerous, and we proceeded on. We reached Paris on a beautiful June morning.” But here was the beginning of fresh trouble: matters there were moving too fast for much attention to be given a young American shipmaster in quest of papers. Cobb writes that it was in “the bloody reign of Robespierre. I minuted down a thousand persons that I saw beheaded by the infernal guillotine, and probably saw as many more that I did not minute down.” He was surfeited with horrors and despairing of his mission as time passed swiftly on toward the termination of his fifty days of grace, when a friendly Frenchman at his hotel advised him to appeal direct to Robespierre, “saying that he was partial to Americans.” On the instant a note was despatched: “An American citizen, captured by a French frigate on the high seas, requests a personal interview and to lay his grievances before the citizen Robespierre.” And within an hour came the answer: “I will grant citizen Cobb an interview to-morrow at 10 A.M. Robespierre.” The event proved Robespierre to be sympathetic, and, moreover, that he spoke very good English. Cobb told him of his unavailing visits to the “Office of the Twenty-third Department.” “Go again to the office,” said Robespierre, “and tell citizen F. T. that you come from Robespierre, and if he does not produce your papers and finish your business immediately, he will hear from me again in a way not so pleasing to him.” Such a message, with the guillotine working overtime in the Place de la Concorde, was likely to produce results, and the affair was concluded with despatch. But Robespierre was near his eclipse; and hardly had Cobb received his papers than, to his horror, he was to see Robespierre’s head falling into the basket. He waited not upon the order of his going, but fled from Paris, and arrived at Hamburg the very day before his bills became due. “The fortunate result of this voyage increased my fame as a shipmaster,” is his sole comment upon the adventure, “but allowed me only a few days at home.”
He was off again in the Monsoon, a new ship then, that was to prove a famous money-getter for more than one Cape Cod captain. His owners gave him a valuable cargo with directions “to find a market for it in Europe”; for certain hogsheads of rum, however, they advised Ireland. Permission to land it there was not forthcoming. “Matters were arranged, however,” writes Cobb, “so that between the cove of Cork and the Scilly Islands eight hogsheads of New England rum were thrown overboard, and a small pilot boat hove on board a bag containing sixty-four English guineas.” Again a good sale was made at Hamburg, but a later venture there proved more difficult of achievement than the rum transaction on the Irish coast: for by that time the English blockade extended to Hamburg, and he was turned back to England where, at Yarmouth, he received permission to proceed to any port not included in the blockade. But Cobb meant to sell his cargo in Hamburg. He cleared for Copenhagen, landed his goods at Lübeck, and transported them overland to Hamburg where another profitable exchange of commodities was effected. Hardly was he at home again for a visit at his Cape Cod farm than a messenger arrived with orders for him to proceed to Malaga. And at Malaga he was informed that the British Orders in Council went into force that day forbidding vessels taking a return cargo. “Of course this would make such a cargo very desirable,” Cobb remarks. He needed no further incentive to “manage the affair.” “The American consul thought there would be but little risk if I hurried, and in eight days I was ready to sail.” He made for Gibraltar, and was promptly overhauled by a frigate. “Whereupon,” says Cobb, “I told them the truth: that I was from Malaga bound for Boston; that I had come there to avail myself of a clearance from a British port and a convoy through the gut. And after I had seen the principal, placing on the counter before his eyes a two-ounce piece of gold, I was permitted to go with my clearance to the American consul. A signal gun was fired that morning and I was the first to move, being apprehensive that some incident might yet subject me to that fatal investigation. How it was managed to clear out a cargo of Spanish goods from Gibraltar, under the British Orders in Council, was a subject of most intense speculation in Boston, but I had made a good voyage for all concerned.” It is not remarkable that he was allowed no long interval for farming before he was off again for “a voyage to Europe.” His owners had learned to their great gain that it was best to give Cobb the freedom of the seas and the markets ashore. He proceeded to Alexandria, Virginia, loaded with flour that sold well at Cadiz, and returned in ballast to Norfolk where he found orders to load again at Alexandria. But America was now ready to clamp down her Embargo Law which every Yankee captain worthy of the name was prepared to evade. Mr. Randolph from Congress had sent news of it to a ship merchant at Alexandria who passed on the word to Cobb. “What you do must be done quickly, for the embargo will be upon you at 10 A.M. on Sunday.” Cobb tells the story of his achievement. “It was now Friday P.M. We had about a hundred tons of ballast on board which must be removed, and upwards of three thousand barrels of flour to take in and stow away, provisions, wood, and water to take on board, a crew to ship, and get to sea before the embargo took possession. I found that we could get one supply of flour from a block of stores directly alongside the ship, and by paying three-eighths of a dollar extra, we had liberty if stopped by the embargo to return it.” But Cobb meant to regain for his employers that three-eighths of a dollar, and the tidy additional profit that was to be made on a cargo of American flour at Cadiz. “Saturday morning was fine weather. About sunrise I went to the ‘lazy corner’ so called, and pressed into service every negro that came upon the stand and sent them on board the ship, until I thought there were as many as could work. I then visited the sailors’ boarding-houses, where I shipped my crew, paid the advance to their landlords, and received their obligations to see each sailor on board at sunrise next morning. It had now got to be about twelve o’clock, and the ship must be cleared at the custom house before one. ‘Why Cobb,’ said the collector there, ‘what’s the use of clearing the ship? You can’t get away. The embargo will be here at ten o’clock to-morrow morning. And even if you get your ship below, I shall have boats out that will stop you before you get three leagues to sea.’ Said I, ‘Mr. Taylor, will you be so kind as to clear my ship?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said he. And accordingly the ship was cleared and I returned on board and found everything going on well. Finally, to shorten the story, at nine that evening we had about three thousand and fifty barrels of flour, one longboat on board in the chocks, water, wood and provisions on board and stowed, a pilot engaged, and all in readiness for the sea.” The tide served at eight in the morning, the sailors were aboard, the pilot had come, and down the narrow, winding river they started with a fair wind that helped them on the first leg of their journey. But at Hampton Roads, in a dead calm, the government boat hove in sight. “Well,” said Cobb to his mate, “I fear we are gone.” But it was never his way to give up hope while a move in the game remained to him: when the boat was so near that with his glass he could descry the features of its crew, a breeze came puffing along, and he made for sea. In about ten minutes the boat gave up the chase, Mr. Taylor, of Alexandria, satisfied, no doubt, that he had discharged his duty.
Cobb gave the first notice of the embargo at Cadiz. “The day before I sailed,” he writes, “I dined with a large party at the American consul’s and, it being mentioned that I was to sail next day, I was congratulated by a British officer on the safety of our flag. Well, I thought the same, when at the time war between England and America was raging. I sailed from Cadiz on the twenty-fifth of July, 1812, bound for Boston, and I never felt safer on account of enemies on the high seas.” But for once his confidence was not justified. Hardly had he entered the Grand Banks than he was overhauled by an English cruiser, with whose captain he proceeded to bargain on the point of ransom for his ship. “What will you give for her,” asked the Britisher, “in exchange for a clear passport into Boston?” “Four thousand dollars,” replied Cobb at a venture. “Well,” said the other, “give us the money.” “Oh, thank you,” said Cobb, “if it were on board, you’d take it without the asking. I’ll give you a draft on London.” “No, cash, or we burn the ship.” “Well,” said Cobb coolly, “you’ll not burn me in her, I hope.” The upshot was that a prize crew was put aboard, and Cobb had the pleasure of being convoyed by the frigate into Saint John’s, where he joined a company of about twenty Yankee masters of ships and their officers, at the so-called “Prisoners’ Hall.” Twenty-seven American prize ships were in port; and in a few days the Yankee prize Alert came in, with a British crew and American officers, under the protection of a cartel flag, to treat for an exchange of prisoners. The old admiral of the port was in a rage because of the irregularity of making the cartel on the high seas. “I’m likely to join you here,” said the Yankee captain to his countrymen at Prisoners’ Hall. However, in a few moments along came a note from the admiral saying that “he found that the honor of the British officers was pledged for the fulfilling of the contract, and as he knew his government always redeemed the pledges of its officers, he would receive the [British] officers and crew on the Alert, and would give in exchange every American prisoner in port (there were two to one) and we must be off in twenty-four hours. Now commenced a scene of confusion and bustle. The crew of the cartel were soon landed, and the Americans as speedily took possession.”
At twelve midnight, in due course of time thereafter, Captain Cobb arrived at his home, and tapped on the window of a downstairs bedroom where he knew his wife to be sleeping. At first she thought it a twig of the sweetbriar bush. Then, “‘Who is there?’ cried she. ‘It is I,’ said I. ‘Well, what do you want?’ ‘To come in.’ ‘For what?’ said she. Before I could answer I heard my daughter, who was in bed with her, say, ‘Why, ma, it’s pa.’ It was enough. The doors flew open, and the greetings of affection and consanguinity multiplied upon me rapidly. Thus in a moment was I transported to the greatest earthly bliss a man can enjoy, viz: to the enjoyment of the happy family circle.”
With these cheerful words Mr. Cobb ends his record. For a year or two thereafter he remained at home, and then was off again to sea. In 1819 and 1820 he made trips to Africa, and on the second voyage returned with so much fever aboard that the ship, as a means to disinfecting it, was sunk at the wharf. Then he retired from sea—he had built a fine Georgian house in 1800—and filled many offices ashore. His youth was crammed with adventure; he followed the sea longer than some of his mates; yet at the age of fifty-two, when he left it with a modest fortune, he showed as much zest in the management of more humdrum affairs: in due sequence he was town clerk, treasurer, inspector-general, representative to the General Court, senator, justice of the peace, and brigadier-general in the militia; no town committee seems to have been complete without him; he was a steadfast member of the liberal church which had taken possession of the old North Parish. And on one of those foreign voyages he had had painted a portrait of himself: a gallant, high-bred youth, with “banged” hair and curls, in Directoire dress, rolling collar, muslin stock and frills. The lovely colors of the old pastel hold their own, the soft blue of the surtout, the keen eyes, the handsome, alert face. A young man who knew something of his worth, Captain Cobb, and a young man who made exceptional opportunity to put that worth to the test.
A contemporary of Cobb’s was Freeman Foster, born in 1782 at Brewster before its historic division from Harwich. At the age of ten he was off on fishing-voyages with his father, who had been a whaler; at fourteen he had begun to work his way up to the quarter-deck of the merchant service; his schooling was acquired in the intervals ashore. Curiously, in all his seafaring, he never crossed the “Line,” but cruised between Boston, New Orleans, and the West Indies, the Russian ports of Archangel and Kronstadt, and to Elsinore. At fifty-five he retired to his farm, and in the Embargo War served as an officer in the militia under his neighbor General Cobb. He had been a robust boy and grew to be a mighty man, well over six feet in height and broad in proportion. He had a family of ten children; and his record tallies with that of many another old sea-captain: he “left behind him a reputation for strict integrity and sturdy manhood.”