“Why, Captain Haraden. You can’t tell me you never heard of him? He takes everything he goes alongside of, and he will soon have you.”
This unseemly jubilation on an enemy’s deck was reported to the captain of the brig. He summoned the boy aft, and was told the same story with even more emphasis. Presently the Pickering ran close down, and approached the brig to leeward. There was a strong wind and the listed deck of the brig lay exposed to the fire of the privateer. Captain Haraden shouted through his trumpet:
“Haul down your colors, or I will fire into you.”
The captain of the brig-of-war had wasted precious moments, and his vessel was so situated at that moment that her guns could not be worked to leeward because of the seas that swept along her ports. After a futile fire from deck swivels and small arms, she surrendered and next day was anchored off Philadelphia.
One or two more stories and we must needs have done with the exploits of Jonathan Haraden. One of them admirably illustrates the sublime assurance of the man and in an extreme degree that dramatic quality which adorned his deeds. During one of his last voyages in the Pickering he attacked a heavily armed “king’s mail packet,” bound to England from the West Indies. These packets were of the largest type of merchant vessels of that day, usually carrying from fifteen to twenty guns, and complements of from sixty to eighty men. Such a ship was expected to fight hard and was more than a match for most privateers.
The king’s packet was a foe to test Captain Haraden’s mettle and he found her a tough antagonist. They fought four full hours, “or four glasses,” as the log records it, after which Captain Haraden found that he must haul out of the action and repair damages to rigging and hull. He discovered also, that he had used all the powder on board except one charge. It would have been a creditable conclusion of the matter if he had called the action a drawn battle and gone on his way.
It was in his mind, however, to try an immensely audacious plan which could succeed only by means of the most cold-blooded courage on his part. Ramming home his last charge of powder and double shotting the gun, he again ranged alongside his plucky enemy, who was terribly cut up, but still unconquered, and hailed her:
“I will give you five minutes to haul down your colors. If they are not down at the end of that time, I will fire into and sink you, so help me God.”
It was a test of mind, not of armament. The British commander was a brave man who had fought his ship like a hero. But the sight of this infernally indomitable figure on the quarterdeck of the shot-rent Pickering, the thought of being exposed to another broadside at pistol range, the aspect of the blood-stained, half-naked privateersmen grouped at their guns with matches lighted, was too much for him. Captain Haraden stood, watch in hand, calling off the minutes so that his voice could be heard aboard the packet:
“One—”