"If I can sight the ship I'll carry him to New York, dead or alive," he said.
"Have you ever seen him?"
"Well, I've heard of him; they say he is a tough customer."
While talking, he had been manœuvering to gain a raking position. Just as he did so, a sailor in the British tops cried,—
"Look out below! That is Tucker himself."
The Englishman was in a trap. The Boston had him at a great disadvantage. There was nothing to do but to strike his flag, and this he did without firing a gun.
When Charleston was taken by the British, the Boston was one of the vessels cooped up there and lost. Captain Tucker was taken prisoner. After his exchange, as he had no ship, he took the sloop-of-war Thorn, one of his former prizes, and went out cruising as a privateer.
After a three weeks' cruise, the Thorn met an English ship of twenty-three guns.
"She means to fight us," said the captain to his men, after watching her movements. "If we go alongside her like men she will be ours in thirty minutes; if we can't go as men we have no business there at all. Every man who is willing to fight go down the starboard gangway; all others can go down the larboard." Every soul of them took the starboard.
He manœuvered so that in a few minutes the vessels lay side by side. The Englishman opened with a broadside that did little damage. The Thorn replied with a destructive fire, and kept it up so hotly that within thirty minutes a loud cry came from the English ship: