21—Bishop Beveridge employed my time.
23—We now begin to approach to land. May we have a good sight of it. At eight o’clock two Teriffa (Barbary) boats came out after us, they fired at us which we returned as merrily. They were glad to get away as well as they could. We stood after one, but it is almost impossible to come up with the piratical dogs.
28—Gibraltar—Went on shore. Saw the soldiers in the Garrison exercise. They had a cruel fellow for an officer for he whipt them barbarously.... After dinner we went out and saw the poor soldiers lickt again.
... Dec. 10—Benj. Moses, a Jew, was on board. I had some discourse with him about his religion.... Poor creature, he errs greatly. I endeavored to set him right, but he said for a conclusion that his Father and Grandfather were Jews and if they were gone to Hell he would go there, too, by choice, which I exposed as a great piece of Folly and Stupidity. In the morning we heard a firing and looked out in the Gut and there was a snow attacked by 3 of the piratical Teriffa boats. Two cutters in the Government service soon got under sail, 3 men-of-war that lay in the Roads manned their barges and sent them out as did a Privateer. We could now perceive her (the snow) to have struck, but they soon retook her. She had only four swivels and 6 or 8 men.... They got some prisoners (of the pirates) but how many I cannot learn, which it is to be hoped will meet with their just reward which I think would be nothing short of hanging.... Just at dusk came on board of us two Gentlemen, one of which is an Officer on board a man-of-war, the other belongs to the Granada in the King’s Service. The former (our people say) was in the skirmish in some of the barges. He could have given us a relation of it, but we, not knowing of it, prevented what would have been very agreeable to me.... It is now between 9 and 10 o’clock at night which is the latest I have set up since I left Salem.”
This Samuel Gardner was a typical Salem boy of his time, well brought up, sent to college, and eager to go to sea and experience adventures such as his elders had described. Of a kindred spirit in the very human quality of the documents he left for us was Francis Boardman, a seaman, who rose to a considerable position as a Salem merchant. His ancient log books contain between their battered and discolored canvas covers the records of his voyages between 1767 and 1774. Among the earliest are the logs of the ship Vaughan in which Francis Boardman sailed as mate. He kept the log and having a bent for scribbling on whatever blank paper his quill could find, he filled the fly-leaves of these sea journals with more interesting material than the routine entries of wind, weather and ship’s daily business. Scrawled on one ragged leaf in what appears to be the preliminary draft of a letter:
“Dear Polly—thes lines comes with My Love to you. Hoping thes will find you in as good Health as they Leave me at this Time, Blessed be God for so Great a Massey (mercy).”
Young Francis Boardman was equipped with epistolary ammunition for all weathers and conditions, it would seem, for in another log of a hundred and fifty years ago, he carefully wrote on a leaf opposite his personal expense account:
“Madam:
“Your Late Behavour towards me, you are sensible cannot have escaped my Ear. I must own you was once the person of whom I could Not have formed such an Opinion. For my part, at present I freely forgive you and only blame myself for putting so much confidence in a person so undeserving. I have now conquered my pashun so much (though I must confess at first it was with great difficulty), that I never think of you, nor I believe never shall without despising the Name of a person who dared to use me in so ungrateful a manner. I shall now conclude myself, though badley used, not your Enemy.”
It may be fairly suspected that Francis Boardman owned a copy of some early “Complete Letter Writer,” for on another page he begins but does not finish. “A Letter from One Sister to Another to Enquire of Health.” Also he takes pains several times to draft these dutiful but far from newsy lines: