During the blockade of Buenos Ayres a clipper bark laden with flour was fitted out at Boston with the express purpose of running in. The late Augustus Hemenway was her supercargo. After a tedious voyage she arrived off Buenos Ayres, and found the blockade too close to run in, and was compelled to cruise off and on, waiting for a change in her favor. While thus lazily reconnoitring, she spoke a vessel from Valparaiso, which reported a famine there. Mr. Hemenway at once decided to try Valparaiso. The Captain hesitated; he said his vessel was not adapted to double Cape Horn in the dead of winter; but young Hemenway assumed the entire responsibility, and the Captain yielded. She had a favorable slant round the Horn, and reached Valparaiso in safety, where her cargo was sold at high prices. The Chilians were so grateful for the timely relief that they loaded the bark as deep as she could safely swim with copper ore, and all concerned in the venture made a fortune. Later, Mr. Hemenway opened a trade with Valparaiso in copper, wool, nitrate, etc., by which he became one of the richest men in Boston.
DAYBREAK.
When the sunlight peeps in through the curtains at dawn,
His Highness awakes with a smile and a yawn,
And his little fat hands fly up in the air,
Out of whole-souled delight that a new day is there.
He laughs to himself and he churns his pink heels,
He gurgles and chirps at the pleasure he feels,
And he looks with dismay at the big folk near by
Who sleep while the daylight is kissing the sky.
The sight of a sunbeam is thrilling and new;
The big folk are missing it—that will not do!
Awake, oh, good people, awake to the sight!
Come out of your pillows, 'tis no longer night!
See what a wonderful broad streak of gold
Has come through the window! Arise and behold
A slice of the dawn dancing over the floor!
Was ever so glorious a vision before?
But the elders, to whom the awakening of day
Is old as their memories, turn blindly away,
And his Highness is left, with the birds of the trees,
To carol his joy at the new life he sees.
Albert Lee.
CAPTAIN HEARD'S EXPLOIT WITH A PRIVATEER.
The speed of the Baltimore clippers in days gone by made history redound with their exploits. Every boy and girl has read at some time or place of the piratical long, low, rakish-looking schooners that cruised the ocean ostensibly as privateers, but chiefly as pirates, in those days, and have marvelled more or less at their astounding adventures. A good story is told of the late Captain Augustine Heard, that while in command of a fine ship richly laden, bound from China to New York, he was overhauled by one of this kind, which came up under his lee, fired a shot into his ship, and demanded in "good English" that she should be hove to. Captain Heard watched a favorable opportunity, squared his yards, ran the privateer down, passed over her between the masts, and when well to leeward brought his ship to the wind and resumed his course. She had lost some of her head-gear, but sustained no damage in her hull. Captain Heard left the "long, low, black privateer," or pirate, to her fate, and had no doubt that all her crew perished.
It was a dangerous thing to do, but Heard relied upon the good timber in his ship's bows to withstand the shock, although his heart grew sad at the loss of life. Still, as he put it, "My honor and life were at stake, so he had to go under."