A privateer was a vessel that was fitted out by private persons, just as if Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob had made up their minds that the Industry should be a privateer, if the United States was at war. And they would fit her out with guns and swords and cutlasses, and they would get a crew for her, and they would ask the government if she could be a privateer. And the government would probably have said that she could, and they would have sent Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob some papers, called "letters of marque and reprisal," which said that the Industry was a United States privateer and that she could take ships as prizes and sell them. Governments do not do that, now, and a privateer is no better than a pirate; but they all did it a hundred years ago.
Captain Sol had thought about it a great deal, for privateers weren't very particular what ships they captured; and he wondered whether he ought to carry a whole lot of guns. He always had some guns on the ship, but not enough to make a fight with, if the other vessel had a whole lot, as privateers always did. But, finally, he decided that he had better not, or he might be taken for a pirate. For his country wasn't at war and, of course, he hadn't any papers. Pirates that are captured are usually short lived. So he had sailed away without any guns worth mentioning.
The Industry sailed along over the ocean for about two weeks and nothing much happened, and she wasn't so very far from the coast of Spain; perhaps she was three or four hundred miles away.
For, on that voyage, she was bound to Leghorn, first, and then she was going to Java and Manila. And, in the middle of the forenoon of that day, the lookout in the crosstrees of the Industry reported a sail heading directly for them.
Captain Sol was worried about it and asked the sailor about the rig of the vessel. And the sailor said that he couldn't tell what her rig was because he couldn't see any more than her upper sails, and not much of them; but she seemed to be a brig, and he thought she was fast, by the way she was rising. He thought he should be able to see her hull in less than half an hour.
Captain Sol said a bad word and took his glass and went up to the crosstrees himself. But he couldn't see enough, there, so he went on, up the mast. And he rested the glass against the rigging and looked. It took him a long time to see anything, the rigging jumped around so; but at last he managed to see. And he came down quickly and spoke to the man at the wheel, who looked at him as if he expected some orders.
"Keep her as she goes," he said. "It won't do any good to try to run away from that vessel. She can sail three feet to our two. And, whoever she is, she has no business with us, anyway."
But Captain Sol knew that it would make very little difference whether she had any right to stop them or not. If her captain wanted to he would. And the mates knew that, and the sailors knew it. So Captain Sol ordered one of the sailors to hoist the United States flag, and he kept on.
"THAT WAS A SIGNAL FOR THE Industry TO STOP"