“Edward Thornbrough,
“Commander of H. M. late Ship Blonde.”
A very human side of warfare is shown in this correspondence, coupled with the brutal inconsistency of war, for after their rescue the officers and men of the Blonde, who felt such sincere friendship and gratitude toward the crews of two Yankee privateers, had helped to spread death and destruction aboard the luckless Jack.
The log books of the Revolutionary privateersmen out of Salem are so many fragments of history, as it was written day by day, and flavored with the strong and vivid personalities of the men who sailed and fought and sweated and swore without thought of romance in their adventurous calling. There is the log of the privateer schooner Scorpion, for example, during a cruise made in 1778. Her master has so far sailed a bootless voyage when he penned this quaint entry:
“This Book was Maid in the Lattd. of 24:30 North and in the Longtd. of 54:00 West at the Saim time having Contryary Winds for Several Days which Makes me fret a’most Wicked. Daly I praye there Maye be Change such as I Want. This Book I Maid to Keep the Accounts of my Voyage but God Knoes beste When that Will be, for I am at this Time very Empasente[10] but I hope there soon be a Change to Ease my trobled Mind. Which is my Earneste Desire and of my people. ******** (illegible) is this day taken with the palsy, but I hope will soon gete beter. On this Day I was Chaced by two Ships of War which I tuck to be Enemies, but comeing in thick Weather I have Lost Site of them and so conclude myself Escapt which is a small Good Fortune in the Midste of my Discouragementes.”
A note of Homeric mirth echoes from the past of a hundred and forty years ago in the “Journal of a Cruising Voyage in the Letter of Marque Schooner Success, commanded by Captain Philip Thrash, Commencing 4th Oct. 1778.” Captain Thrash, a lusty and formidable name by the way, filled one page after another of his log with rather humdrum routine entries; how he took in and made sail and gave chase and drilled his crew at the guns, etc. At length the reader comes to the following remarks. They stand without other comment or explanation, and leave one with a desire to know more:
“At 1-2 past 8 discovered a Sail ahead, tacked ship. At 9 tacked ship and past just to Leeward of the sail which appeared to be a damn’d Comical Boat, by G—d.”
Schooner Baltic (1765), type of the smaller vessels in which the Revolutionary privateersmen put to sea. Paintings of American ships as old as this are exceedingly rare
What was it about this strange sail overhauled in midocean by Captain Philip Thrash that should have so stirred his rude sense of humor? Why did she strike him as so “damn’d Comical”? They met and went their way and the “Comical” craft dropped hull down and vanished in a waste of blue water and so passed forever from our ken. But I for one would give much to know why she aroused a burst of gusty laughter along the low rail of the letter-of-marque schooner Success.