"The ship thou hast taken seemeth a fine one," said Rachel. "How did thee manage to escape the war vessels of thy good king?"
"Oh! 'Bout that?" he replied. "We had the best kind of luck. There wasn't a cruiser off Nantucket. We came along as safe as a mackerel smack. It was a kind of wonder, though, that we didn't sight a solitary's king's flag hereaway."
"That's explained," he was told by a white-headed fisherman. "The British are goin' after the Continentals down Philadelfy way, and all their cruisers are called off to Delaware Bay and the Chesapeake. Some of 'em's ferryin' troops, ye know. We can't say, yit, as to whether or not Washington has licked 'em. Anyhow, things ain't as bad as they was."
Endless news telling was to come, evidently, concerning events on shore as well as on the sea, and there could be no long lingering at the wharf. Every sailor that could be spared from the ship had somebody eagerly waiting for him, and there were many gladdened households that day.
"This is getting to be a thieves' harbor," remarked Rachel Tarns to a group of which she was the centre. "The wicked rebels against our good king are stealing much. This is the nineteenth British vessel that hath been brought in hither. I trust that all ships designing to enter this port under the American flag will arrive safely. It would be a pity if any of them should be wrecked or otherwise prevented."
She had other things as kindly to say and sincere wishes to express concerning whatever shipping might here and there be under the flag of England. Neither did she forget to extend her benevolence to the tents in all the camps of George the Third.
Those who listened to her were plainly in sympathy with all her friendly or Quakerish aspirations, and it appeared as if she were even a favorite.
After that, indeed, as week after week went by, her hopes and wishes were remarkably fulfilled, for there were other Yankee privateers as capable and as busy as the Noank. Some of them were also much larger craft with heavier armaments. Prize after prize came in, and there were New London merchants whose trade promised to rival that of the ancient house of Opdyke Brothers, of the port of Brest.
Throughout all New England, throughout the greater part of New York, there was undisturbed security. The war was touching the northerly edge of Pennsylvania, and there were savage raids into some districts of that colony. Large areas of New Jersey were desolated, and so were parts of South Carolina and Georgia where the Tory element was strong. The western frontier of New York was severely harried by the Iroquois. The counties of that state nearest the city of New York were entirely ruined.
The farmers of the Mohawk Valley gathered their summer crops safely, but toward them and toward the rebel stronghold at Albany, where the legislature was sitting, there was an avalanche of danger coming down from the north. It was well understood that even the forces under the British generals in the Middle States were not considered so effective, so well furnished, so sure of winning speedy victories, as were the chosen regiments to be led by General Burgoyne for a crushing blow at the heart of the rebellion. He was to be reënforced by the entire power of the Six Nations and the Hurons. If he should succeed, as he and his admirers believed he would, his army would obtain complete possession of New York and New England. All the other colonies would then give up in despair, and the Continental army would disband or surrender.