“Yes,” was the response, “but I mean are you British or American?” and I thought I detected an eagerness, almost a suspense in the speaker’s voice as he waited for an answer.
“American,” I replied.
“Thank God for that!” was the immediate ejaculation. Then I heard a sound as though one was rising from a bed, and the next instant the man came over where I was with rapid strides.
“I am Samuel Tucker, a sea captain from Marblehead, in the colony of Massachusetts,” he announced much to my astonishment. “Now tell me who are you?”
“Captain Tucker!” I cried, ignoring his question in my surprise and joy. “Captain Samuel Tucker of Marblehead, and I came across the ocean to find you! Who would have thought we should meet here—in a cell of the Liverpool jail!”
“‘Came across the ocean to find me,’” he repeated, and I could not help noticing the wonderment in his tones. “Pray tell me then who are you?”
“I am Arthur Dunn, the son of Captain Dunn, with whom you once sailed,” I replied, and then rapidly, yet in fullest detail, I told my story, beginning with my mother’s dying request, and ending with my arrest an hour or two before.
“So you are in jail for the very same reason I am,” he remarked with a slight laugh when I was done. Then he spun his own yarn.
He had made a quick voyage to Lisbon, discharged his cargo, taken another, and returned to the colony. Then he had sailed for Marseilles, France. There an agent of the English government had come to him, desiring to charter his brig to go over to Gibraltar and convey a company of soldiers to Liverpool.
“The rascal never told me why the regiment was hurrying home,” the Captain explained, “or I would not have let him have my craft at any price. But the pay was good, and I fell into the same trap that a half dozen other Yankee skippers did. We went to Gibraltar and brought in here a regiment which sailed the very next day after its arrival for the colonies to fight our countrymen. When I learned the truth my blood boiled within me, and I cursed the King and his government to the agent’s face when he came to pay me the charter money. I might have known what would follow; the confiscation of my vessel and my incarceration here. But the fellow knew just what I thought of him and the government,” he concluded with a chuckle.