The party spent several days ashore, catching and cleaning fish, cutting spars, gathering firewood and enjoying their freedom after the long and trying voyage. At length the foretopsail was cast loose as a signal for sailing, the ensign hoisted with a wisp to recall the boats and the Lady’s Adventure got under way for the southward. William Russell’s journal relates under date of August 12th:
“Spoke a fishing schooner three days out from Plymouth which enquired for John Washburn. We told the captain he was on board whereupon the old man gave three cheers with his Cap and then threw it overboard. No tongue can express the Heart-feeling Satisfaction it is unto us to have the happiness of a few moments’ conversation with an American so short from Home. Cheer up, my Heart, and don’t despair for thy Deliverance draweth near.
“August 13th. At one half past six o’clock discovered land, Cape Cod over our lee quarter. Stood in for Boston Light House Island. The men are very uneasy, and clamour, some for Marblehead, some for Boston, and can’t agree. Captain Humble is very willing the ship should go to Boston this evening, if any man will take charge of her. None will venture, so Captain Humble ordered the Ship to stretch off and on till morning.”
Thus ends the sea journal of William Russell, but the Salem Gazette of August 15, 1782, contains the following item under the head of Shipping Intelligence:
“By an arrival of two Cartel Ships at Marblehead from England, 583 of our Countrymen have been restored to their Families and Friends. One of the Ships which arrived on Sunday last had an eight weeks’ passage from Portsmouth and brought in 183 prisoners. The other which arrived in fifty-two days from Plymouth sailed with 400 and one died on the passage.”
It makes the story of this humble sailor of the Revolution much more worth while to know that after three years of the most irksome captivity, he was no sooner at home with his “dear wife and family” than he was eager and ready to ship again under the Stars and Stripes. Ill-fated as was his superb devotion to his Country, he had suffered his misfortunes in Old Mill Prison with a steadfast courage. It was so ordered, however, that he should be free no more than thirty days after his glad homecoming in the Lady’s Adventure. He must have re-entered the American naval service a few days after reaching Boston, for we know that he was captured in a privateer on September 16th, by a British Man of War and taken into Halifax. On November 28th he was committed to the Jersey Prison ship in New York harbor. Here he found himself in a far worse plight than in Mill Prison with its genial routine of escape and its friendly relations with the Agent, the Guard, and the French and Spanish prisoners. All that is known of this final chapter in the case of William Russell, patriot, must be gleaned from a few letters to his wife and friends. The first of these is addressed to “Mrs. Mary Russell, at Cambridge,” and says in part:
“On Board the Jersey Prison ship, New York, November 21st, 1782.
“I write with an aching heart to inform you of my miserable condition. I’m now in the worst of places and must suffer if confined here during the Winter, for I am short of cloathing and the provisions is so scant that it is not enough to keep body and soul together. I was two months on board the Man of War and have been almost to Quebec. This is the awfullest place I ever saw, and I hope God will deliver me from it soon. I conclude, praying for your support in my absence, and the prosperity of an Honoured Mother and family.”
To his mother, “Mistress Mary Richardson, Light House Tavern, Cambridge,” he wrote on November 25th:
“Honoured Mama: