Journal of Voyages

CHAPTER XXII.

Schooner Combine. – Third Voyage

We loaded the schooner's hold with an assorted cargo, and her deck with twenty-eight horses, about fifty hogs, a number of coops of poultry; and taking on board three passengers bound for the Island of Trinidad, sailed from Catskill the tenth of November, 1822, and arrived in New-York after a passage of two days, where I shipped a crew and prepared for the voyage. About the seventeenth of November we sailed from New-York, bound to the Island of Trinidad. After we got under weigh I found the greater part of my crew so badly intoxicated that they could not stand upon deck, but having fair wind and good weather I proceeded to sea; the mate, cooper, and cook, being sober, I thought we could manage the vessel until the crew could attend to their duty. We passed the night without getting any assistance from them. The next morning I ordered the mate to go into the fore-castle, where they slept, and search for liquor, and if necessary, break open all the seamen's chests, and if he found any he was to break the bottles or heave them overboard. He returned to the cabin with one bottle containing about a pint, being all he could find. We learned afterwards that they had some more secreted, which he was not able to discover. Towards evening the second day we were able to get them all at work but one. About eight o'clock in the evening that one came on deck and appeared somewhat bewildered with delirium tremens.

I was then called to my supper, being much fatigued, having stood at the helm over twenty-four hours, while the mate, cooper, and cook took care of the stock on deck. Within two minutes after I entered the cabin I heard the cry, "He is overboard," when I jumped on deck and threw over many articles of lumber, long lines, &c. but the night being dark, and a heavy sea running, we soon lost sight of him. This seaman's name was James Currie, who said he was born in Rhode Island, and I found by the papers he left, that he had lately been discharged from the Frigate Constellation. One of his shipmates informed me that he had just arrived from a three years' cruise, and had received three hundred dollars when he was paid off, but had spent the whole of it in three weeks, and was indebted to his landlord about seventeen dollars more. My seamen were all sober and at their duty in a couple of days, and we proceeded on the voyage without any other occurrence worth recording, and arrived, after a passage of thirty-five days, at Port Spain, in the Island of Trinidad, where we landed our horses, which had stood on their feet the whole passage. Many of them had the heaves badly when they were taken on board, but were perfectly cured when they landed. This being the third time of successful experiment with diseased horses as a veterinarian, I pronounced a sea voyage a perfect cure for the heaves, whether in horses or other animals.

The Island of Trinidad was ceded to the English by the Spanish government, and by the law of Nations the Spanish laws were to remain in force for twenty years after the transfer, which time had not expired. A Spanish governor is clothed with almost as much power as an emperor. Sir Ralph Woodford had been selected as governor, and was a tyrannical man, and very unpopular among the inhabitants. The city of Port Spain is one of the pleasantest places I have ever seen in the West Indies. The streets are kept very clean and in good order. No man can leave the Island without a permit from the governor. A merchant of Port Spain visited the Island of Tobago, a distance of about sixty miles, where he remained two or three days and then returned, when the governor had him arrested and committed to jail, where he remained six days: his only crime was leaving the Island without a passport signed by the governor.

A Mr. J. Robbins, an American, informed me that he owned a house in one of the principal streets in the city, which street the governor ordered to be paved, and a tax laid on the property in that street to defray the expenses of flagging. The tax on his house and lot amounting to over six hundred dollars, and not being able to pay it, the property was sold at a great loss.

The license to retail liquors in the city is sold annually at auction, to the highest bidder; one person purchasing the license for the whole town, gives security, and then divides it as he pleases. The soil of this Island is rich, producing sugar-cane and cocoa in abundance. Coffee, and all kinds of tropical provisions and fruits are raised here in large quantities. The Island abounds with snakes of an enormous size. I visited an American gentleman, residing in the country about twelve miles from Port Spain, who had a snake-skin stuffed which was twenty-three feet long; it was shot by one of his negroes, and on opening it they found a whole deer. A few hours before we left the port news was received from the interior of the Island that a snake had been shot containing the bodies of a black woman and child. The principal currency of the country is Spanish dollars punched through the centre, making a hole about the size of a five cent piece; the dollar still passing for the same value in the way of trade, and the plug which is taken out passes for one-eighth of a dollar. After passing through a few hands they find their way to some Jew, who reams the hole so large that you can pass a twenty-five cent piece through them, but they still pass for a dollar by way of trade. To prevent deception and loss, most bargains are stipulated to be paid in whole dollars.

The English government has made a strong effort to introduce the cultivation of tea into this Island, by importing a number of Chinese laborers; it has proved to be a thorough failure. After their arrival in the country they became so indolent that it was found impossible to make them cultivate the land. They intermarried with the negroes, and became useless to society, laboring only to supply their daily wants.

Having sold all my cargo, and taken on board over a hundred hogsheads of molasses, I sailed for New-York, where we arrived about the first of April, 1823. On the passage home we experienced a heavy gale of wind, which caused the loss of one thousand gallons of molasses.

On selling the cargo we found the West India trade unprofitable, in consequence of the low prices of the produce of the Islands, which caused heavy losses on return cargoes. I held a consultation with my partners in the vessel, when it was agreed to sell the Combine at auction and abandon the trade.

CHAPTER XXIII

The following, copied from the Northern Whig of December 3d, 1822, is a correct account of the capture of the piratical vessels by Lieutenant Commandant Allen, who lost his life during the engagement:

"It becomes our painful duty to record the death of Lieutenant William Howard Allen, of the United States Navy. He commanded the United States Schooner Alligator, and on the 11th of November last, while leading his brave tars in the Alligator's boats to attack a nest of pirates near Matanzas, was shot by them in the head and breast, and survived but four hours. Undaunted, even in death, he cheered his men, and had the consolation of witnessing the surrender of one of the piratical vessels, and the re-capture of five merchantmen before he expired. He was buried on the succeeding day at Matanzas, with military honors.

"Lieutenant Allen was a native of this city, (Hudson,) was born on the 8th of July, 1790, entered the navy in the 20th year of his age. He was Second Lieutenant on board the Argus, in the summer of 1813, and during the bloody conflict between the Argus and the Pelican, the command of the former devolved for a time upon him. W. H. Watson, the First Lieutenant of the Argus, a brave and worthy officer, speaks of his conduct in high and merited terms. He was also in the Congress Frigate during her cruise in the Chinese Seas.

"He was attached to his profession, courted glory, and feared no danger. In the last war he saw much service; and whether in war or peace, never failed to do his duty.

"We shall conclude our brief observations with the following remarks, which have been kindly furnished us at the particular request of a number of the friends of Lieutenant Allen, and which were the conclusion of a discourse delivered from the pulpit, by the Reverend B. F. Stanton, on the Sunday succeeding the day on which the afflictive news of the death alluded to arrived here.

"After a reference had been made to the frequent instances in which, for a few years past, the inhabitants of Hudson have been suddenly and unexpectedly deprived of some of their most respected and valued fellow citizens, it was observed, that, in addition to all the previous calamities of the nature which we had experienced, we have recently been called upon by the righteous Providence of Him whose 'path is in the great deep, and whose footsteps are not known,' to contemplate another, which, in some of its features, perhaps, is the heaviest of all. I shall undoubtedly be readily understood, by most of my hearers, to refer to the tidings which have lately reached us of the lamented death of Lieutenant William H. Allen, a native of this town, and an officer in the United States Navy.

"It is not any design on this occasion to attempt to do justice to his memory by pronouncing his eulogy. This will probably be done by abler pens and more eloquent tongues. My aim at present is merely to advert to a few of the leading traits in his character, and to call on those who hear me to listen to the monitory voice of Heaven which addresses us in this afflictive dispensation. As a son he was filial, as a brother he was kind and affectionate, as a gentleman he was amiable and accomplished in his manners, as a friend he was trusty and sincere, as a man he was humane and generous: he had a soul that was indignant at meanness and vice! In his morals, I believe, he was free from those defilements which are too often known to tarnish the reputation of those in his profession, and to which they are so peculiarly liable: In his religious sentiments, if I am not mistaken, he was a candid believer in divine revelation: As a lover of his country, he was ardent and ever eager, when summoned by her call, to be foremost in her defence; and as an officer he was active, faithful, skilful, and courageous. In the engagement that terminated his naval career, he occupied a post most pregnant with danger, and though mortally wounded in the early part of it, he still animated his valiant tars, while the life-blood was fast ebbing from its seat, to persevere till the victory was gained. By these encomiums, however, it is not intended that he was exempted from a participation in that polution of our nature which is common to every individual of the human family. Though he was possessed of excellencies which we may be allowed to admire and applaud; in the sight of infinite purity, like every other human being, he was a ruined sinner,

But neither the personal excellencies which so strongly endeared him to those who knew him, the affections of his numerous friends, nor the wants of his country, could render him impervious to the shaft of death. No, his generous spirit is fled. Though brave, he has fallen a victim to the king of terrors, who conquers all. A band of piratical marauders, whose iniquitous occupation is the plunder of the seas, and whose perfidies and cruelties, which are audaciously committed on the broad highway of nations, are continually augmenting, and in our opinion, loudly call for the interfering arm of national government, to extirpate, if possible, these freebooters, from the face of the earth; a horde of these unprincipled miscreants, who are the stigma of the human kind, have deprived his country of his valuable services. He has lain down and will rise not. 'Till the heavens be no more he shall not awake, nor be raised out of sleep. His mangled remains are deposited in a land of strangers, and far from his family and his home. He will no more return to alleviate, by his presence, the severe and long continued afflictions of 'the mother that bare him,' to meet the embraces of the fond sisters that loved him, and to receive the gratulations of the inhabitants of this place, who were proud to claim him as their fellow-citizen. Yes, his generous spirit has gone! The war song has died away upon his ear. By the thrilling notes of the clarion, which once prompted him to deeds of valor, he is now unmoved! His body is silent and still in 'the narrow house of all living.' He reposes, with others of his valiant compeers, to await 'the sound of the archangel and the trump of God.' But it is the consolation of surviving friends to reflect, that, though he sleeps, and they shall behold him no more, he has fallen in the arms of victory, and in the common cause of his country and of mankind. His memory will be for ever embalmed in the tenderest recollections of his acquaintances. His loss will be deplored as a national calamity; and we would reverently trust, that, before his spirit took its returnless flight, as he had been educated in the principles of the Christian faith, and knew to whom a sinner has to go, if his soul is ever saved, from his bloody bed of glory he raised his dying eyes and his supplicating voice to that God who is no respecter of persons, but who is rich in mercy unto all that call upon him, in whose presence the rich and the poor alike meet together; with whom the high and the low, the noble and the ignoble, stand upon the same level, in the effulgence of whose holiness the lustre of the hero is dimmed, who permits none to glory before Him, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with whom alone can avail the sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart."

From the New-York Evening Post.

"With emotions of indignation and unavailing grief, we find from the following article, that one of our bravest American officers and most valuable citizens, Lieutenant Commandant Allen, has fallen by the merciless hands of the sea-robbers who for several years have roamed the seas unchecked, fearlessly plundered our vessels, and remorselessly assassinated their crews with every species of barbarity that hellish ingenuity could invent."

From Relf's Philadelphia Gazette.

"Melancholy Tidings. – We have to-day to record an event which must excite in the breast of every American, and we may venture to add, in that of every civilized man, emotions of profound regret and indignation – Lieutenant Commandant Allen, one of the rising stars in our national galaxy, has fallen by the hands of unprincipled pirates. In the earnest and honorable execution of his duty to his country and to mankind, this gallant and accomplished young officer has become the victim of a gang of desperate buccaneers; but in this, as in most of the occurrences of our naval warfare, he died in the lap of victory. This melancholy intelligence was received this morning from an intelligent gentleman, passenger in the Mary Ann, Captain Cory, from Havanna, (now below,) and is furnished to us in these words:

"About the 9th, two masters of American vessels came to Havanna for the express purpose of raising money for the ransom of their vessels, bound to Havanna, which with two other Americans (bound to New Orleans) had been recently captured by two piratical schooners near Key Romain, and left at anchor in that neighborhood waiting their return. Captain Allen, of the Alligator, on coming into port next day, being informed thereof, started, without coming to anchor, in search of the pirates, whom on that or the next day he discovered in the channel of Matanzas. The Alligator drawing too much water, two boats were manned and stood for them; an action ensued, in the early part of which Captain Allen received two musket balls, one in the head, the other in his breast, and soon died, encouraging his men to do their duty; which they nobly performed, for after a short contest the pirates abandoned their vessel and swam to the shore. The vessels were taken possession of by the victors and carried into Matanzas.

"They mounted one gun each, amid-ship, with forty men each, well armed, and considerable plunder on board. Our informant does not know what became of their prizes.

"The Mary Ann has despatches on board from the American Agent at Havanna, furnishing official information in relation to this disastrous occurrence.

"Since the above was in type, (says The Evening Post,) the following letter was handed us, confirmatory of the melancholy truth of the account, with further particulars. We cannot but express our unqualified admiration of the gallantry of spirit that impelled the undaunted Allen, undismayed by the bloody signal of no quarter, which waved aloft, to attack an armed vessel, with a desperate crew in an open boat, and with only a few men. His virtuous indignation bore away all prudent reflections, and he rushed into the jaws of death itself to rescue or avenge his fellow citizens. Captain Allen is a native of Hudson, in this State, where his mother and sisters now reside. May we not hope that the vessels in our harbor will unite in giving at least one outward testimony of their mourning for his loss, by raising their flags half-mast high to-morrow.

"To Messrs. G. G. & S. Howland,

"My dear Sirs: – The gallant Allen is no more! You witnessed the promptitude with which he hastened to relieve the vessel which I informed him had been captured off this port. He arrived just in time to save five sail of vessels, which he found in possession of a gang of pirates, three hundred strong, established in the Bay of Lejuapo, about fifteen leagues east of this. He fell, pierced by two musket balls, in the van of a division of boats, attacking their principal vessel, a fine schooner of about eighty tons, with a long eighteen-pounder on a pivot, and four guns, with the bloody flag nailed to the mast. Himself, Captain Freeman, of marines, and twelve men, were in the boat much in advance of his other boats, and even took possession of the schooner after a desperate resistance which nothing but a bravery almost too daring could have overcome. The pirates, all but one, escaped by taking to their boats and jumping overboard, before the Alligator's boats reached them. Two other schooners escaped by the use of their oars, the wind being light.

"Captain Allen survived about four hours, during which his conversation evinced a composure and firmness of mind, and correctness of feeling, as honorable to his character and more consoling to his friends than even the dauntless bravery he before evinced.

"The Alligator arrived here to-day, in company with the prize, and five re-captured vessels. Arrangements are making with the governor, with the concurrence of the commander of the Spanish Brig of war Marte, [of whose conduct the officers of the Alligator speak in the highest terms,] to inter him with the honors of war to-morrow morning. It is certain that the pirates are but little weakened by this contest, and there is reason to fear that our commerce with this Island and New Orleans will be almost annihilated, unless an effectual force is stationed here to prevent it. But the best comment I can make is to add a list of vessels re-taken, and to state that many of the men are missing, and probably have been murdered. Should any of our vessels of war arrive, please state these facts, and leave no efforts untried to procure some additional force to come immediately here.

"Loss in Alligator's two boats – Captain Allen and two oarsmen killed; two men mortally wounded; three severely.

"[By an arrival at Philadelphia we learn that the United States Schooner Alligator had arrived at Matanzas with the pirate schooner and the vessels re-taken from the pirates, (the Ship William & Henry, of New-York, Brig Iris, of Boston, and Brig Sarah Marael, of New-York, bound to New Orleans; Schooner Sarah, of Boston, for Mobile, Schooner Mary Ann, of Salem, for Matanzas,) are all ordered for Charleston. The pirate schooner has arrived, it is said, at Norfolk.]"

After the arrival of the piratical schooner at Norfolk she was condemned and sold to a citizen of that place, who gave her the name of Allen, in remembrance of the brave but unfortunate commander who lost his life in capturing her. Some time after she was purchased by Messrs. H. & D. Cotheal and A. D. Hallett, the former owners of the Price, and I was employed to take the command of her, and proceed to the Island of St. Andreas, and from thence to Chagres.