The instant the rowers were secured
Harry Furness embraced his faithful follower William
Long. He had learned from Jacob that the ship
had appeared in sight about two in the afternoon,
and that it was not thought likely by the sailors
of the port that she would reach it until the breeze
sprang up in the morning, although she might get within
a distance of five or six miles. The whole party
had, in concurrence with Harry’s orders, brought
with them their hoes, which were the only weapons
that were attainable. It was agreed that their
best course would be to row along the shore until
near the lights of the port, then to row out and lay
on their oars half a mile beyond the entrance, where,
as it was a starlight night, they would assuredly
see the ship if she had come to anchor. As soon
as the first dawn commenced they were to row out and
meet the ship. Wrappings of cloth were fastened
round the rowlocks to prevent noise, twelve men took
the oars, the boat was shoved down into the sea, and
they started on their voyage. The boat rowed but
slowly, and it was, Harry judged, past three o’clock
when they reached the point they had fixed on off
the mouth of the harbor. No ship was visible
outside the port, although there was sufficient light
to have seen its masts had it been there.
“We had better go another half-mile
further out,” he said. “Should they
take it into their heads on shore, when they see us,
to send a fast boat out to inquire what we are doing,
it might overtake us before we could reach the ship.”
An hour after they had ceased rowing
a faint streak of daylight appeared in the west, and
a ship could be seen about three miles seaward, while
the shore was nearly that distance behind them, for
they had been deceived by the darkness, and were much
further out than they had thought.
“It is all the better,”
Harry said. “It must be some time before
they think of sending a boat after us, and we shall
reach the ship before it can overtake us.”
As soon as it became broad daylight
Harry took one of the oars himself, and all save the
twelve rowers, and Jacob and William Long who sat in
the stern, lay down in the bottom of the boat, where
some pieces of matting, used for covering cargo, were
thrown over them. There was not as yet a breath
of wind, and the ship’s sails hung idly against
the masts. After three-quarters of an hour’s
hard rowing the barge approached her side. There
were only a few figures on the deck.
“Are you the captain of this
vessel?” Jacob asked one who seemed to him of
that condition.
“Ay, ay,” the sailor said. “What
is the news?”
“I have come off from the island,”
Jacob answered, “by orders of his worshipful
the governor, to warn you that there is an insurrection
among the slaves of the island, and to bid you not
to anchor outside, or to wait for your papers being
examined, but to enter at once.”
By this time the boat was alongside,
and Jacob climbed on board.
“You have brought some troops
with you?” he asked, “They will be wanted.”
“Yes, I have eighty men whom
I have brought as a reinforcement to the garrison
of the island, besides a hundred and fifty prisoners
from Waterford, stowed away below the hatches forward.
Hullo! why, what is this? Treason!”
As he spoke Harry, followed by the
rowers, swarmed on board armed with their hoes.
The captain and the men round him were at once knocked
down. The sentries over the fore hatchway discharged
their muskets, and, with some of the crew stationed
there, made aft. But Harry’s party had now
all joined him on deck. A rush was made, and the
decks entirely cleared. A few of the soldiers
who came running up through the after hatchway on
hearing the tumult and noise of the fight were beaten
down and hurled below on those following them, and
the hatches were slipped on and secured. Then
a triumphant shout of “God and the King!”
was raised.
The forehatches were now lifted, and
the prisoners invited to come up. They rushed
on deck, delighted and bewildered, for it was the first
time that they had seen the sun since they left England,
having been kept below, where many had died from confinement
and bad air, while all were sorely weakened and brought
low. Among them were many officers, of whom several
were known to Harry although they had some
difficulty in recognizing in the man, bronzed brown
by his exposure to the sun and clad in a tattered
shirt and breeches their former comrade,
Harry Furness. A search was at once made for
arms, and ranged in the passage to the captain’s
cabin were found twenty muskets for the use of the
crew, together with as many boarding pikes and sabers.
Ammunition was not wanting. The arms were divided
among Harry’s band of forty men, and the twenty
strongest of those they had rescued. The hoes
were given to the remainder.
The captain, who had by this time
recovered from the blow dealt him by Harry, was now
questioned. He was told that if he would consent
with his crew to navigate the vessel to Holland, he
should there be allowed to go free with the ship,
which it seemed was his own property; but the cargo
would be sold as a fair prize, to satisfy the needs
of his captors. If he refused, he would be sent
with his crew on shore in the barge, and his ship
and cargo would alike be lost to him. The captain
had no hesitation in accepting the first of these
alternatives, as he would be, although no gainer by
the voyage, yet no loser either. He told Harry
that for himself he had no sympathy with the rulers
in London, and that he sorely pitied the prisoners
he was bringing over.
The hatch was now a little lifted,
and the prisoners below summoned to surrender.
This they refused to do. Harry and his men then,
with much labor, lowered a four-pounder carronade
down the forehatch, and wheeled it to within a few
feet of the bulkhead which divided that portion where
the prisoners had been confined from the after part.
The gun was loaded to the muzzle with grape, and discharged,
tearing a hole through the bulkhead and killing and
wounding many within. Then the officer in command
offered to surrender.
Harry ordered them at once to hand
up all their firelocks and other arms through the
hatchway, which was again lifted for the purpose.
When those on deck had armed themselves with those
weapons, the prisoners were ordered to come up, bringing
their wounded with them. As they reached the
deck they were passed down into the barge, from which
all the oars save four had been removed. Six
of the soldiers had been killed, and the remainder
having entered the barge, where they were stowed as
thickly as they could pack, the head rope was dropped,
and they were allowed to row away. Besides the
eighty muskets of the guard, a store of firelocks,
sufficient to arm all on board, was found; these having
been intended for the use of the garrison. A
gentle breeze had by this time sprung up from the
land, and the ship’s head was turned seaward.
The boat was but half a mile behind
them when it was joined by an eight-oared galley,
which had been seen rowing out from the harbor, whence,
doubtless, it had been dispatched to inquire into the
errand of the boat seen rowing off to the ship.
After lying alongside the barge for a minute or two
she turned her head, and made back again with all
speed.
“You would have done more wisely,”
the captain said to Harry, “if you had retained
the prisoners on board until the second boat came
alongside. You could have swamped that, and sent
those in it back with the others, who will not reach
shore until late this afternoon, for with only four
oars they will make no way until the land breeze falls.”
“It would have been better far
better” Harry agreed “but
one does not always think of things at the right time.
What ships are there in port, Jacob?”
“There is the vessel I came
by and two others,” Jacob replied, “all
about the same size as this, and mounting each as many
guns. You have eight, I see, captain; the one
I came out in had ten.”
“They will pursue us,”
the captain said, “you may be sure. It is
known that we are not a fast sailer, and I think,
sir, you will have to fight for it.”
“So be it,” Harry said.
“There are two hundred of us, and though they
might sink the ship, they will assuredly never carry
it by boarding. There is not a man here who would
not rather die fighting than spend his life in slavery
on that island.”
The vessel had gone about six miles
on her course, when from the topmast the captain announced
that the galley had gained the port, now twelve miles
distant. “There is a gun,” he said,
five minutes later. “They have taken the
alarm now.” He then descended to the deck,
leaving a sailor in the tops. Two hours later
the latter announced that the topsails of three ships
coming out from the harbor were visible.
“We have nigh thirty miles’
start,” the captain said. “They will
not be up to us till to-morrow at midday.”
“Do you think it would be any
use to try to lose them by altering our course in
the night?” Harry asked.
“No,” the captain answered.
“It is but ten o’clock in the day now.
They will be within ten or twelve miles by nightfall,
for the wind is stronger near the land than it is
here, and with their night glasses they could hardly
miss us on a bright starlight night. I am ready
to try if you like, for I do not wish to see the ship
knocked into matchwood.”
After some deliberation it was determined
to hold their course, and as night came on it was
found that escape would have been out of the question,
for the vessels behind had overhauled the Lass of Devon
faster than had been anticipated, and were little
more than five miles astern. They could be plainly
seen after darkness set in, with the night glasses.
“What you must do, captain,
is to lay her aboard the first which comes up,”
Harry said; “even if they have brought all the
garrison we shall be far stronger than any one of
them taken singly.”
During the night the pursuing vessels
lessened sail and maintained a position about a mile
astern of the chase, evidently intending to attack
in the morning. The day spent in the open air,
with plenty of the best eating and drinking which
could be found in the ship, had greatly reinvigorated
the released prisoners, and when at daybreak the vessels
behind were seen to be closing up, all were ready for
the fight. The enemy, sure that their prey could
not escape them, did not fire a shot as they came
up in her wake. The two immediately behind were
but a cable’s length asunder, and evidently
meant to engage on either side. Harry ordered
the greater portion of men below, leaving only sufficient
on deck to fight the guns, to whose use many were well
accustomed. The wind was very light, and the
ships were scarcely stealing through the water.
“We had better fight them broadside
to broadside,” Harry said; “but keep on
edging down toward the ship to leeward.”
The fight began with a heavy fire
of musketry from the tops, where, in all three ships,
the best marksmen had been posted. Then, when
they were abreast of each other, the guns opened fire.
The vessels were little more than fifty yards apart.
For half an hour the engagement continued without
intermission. Both ships of the enemy had brought
all their guns over to the sides opposed to the Royalist
vessel, and fought eighteen guns to his eight.
Fearing to injure each other, both aimed entirely at
the hull of their opponent, while Harry’s guns
were pointed at the masts and rigging. The sides
of the Lass of Devon were splintered and broken in
all directions, while those of his assailants showed
scarcely a shot mark. The fire of his men in
the tops all old soldiers had
been so heavy and deadly that they had killed most
of the marksmen in the enemy’s tops, and had
driven the rest below. All this time the Lass
of Devon was raked by the fire of the third vessel
which had come up behind her, and raked her fore and
aft. At the end of the half-hour the mainmast
of the vessel to windward, which had been several times
struck, fell with a crash.
“Now, captain, lay her aboard the ship to leeward.”
They had already edged down within
twenty yards of this ship, and slowly as they were
moving through the water, in another three or four
minutes the vessels grated together. At Harry’s
first order the whole of his men had swarmed on deck,
pouring in such a fire of musketry that none could
stand alive at the enemy’s tiller to keep her
head away as the Lass of Devon approached. As
the vessels touched Harry leaped from the bulwark
on to the deck of the enemy, followed by Jacob and
his men. The Parliamentary troops had also rushed
on deck, and, although inferior in numbers, for they
counted but eighty men, they made a sturdy stand.
Gradually, however, they were driven back, when an
exclamation from Mike, who, as usual, was close to
Harry, caused him to look round.
The ship behind had, the moment she
perceived the Lass of Devon bearing down upon her
consort, crowded on more sail, and was now ranging
up on the other side of her. Bidding Jacob press
the enemy hard with half his force, Harry, with the
remainder, leaped back on to the deck of his own ship,
just as the enemy boarded from the other side.
The fight was now a desperate one. The vessel
which had last arrived bore a hundred of the troops
of the garrison, and the numbers were thus nearly equal.
The Royalists, however, fought with a greater desperation,
for they knew the fate that awaited them if conquered.
Gradually they cleared the deck of the Lass of Devon
of the enemy, and in turn boarded their opponent.
William Long led thirty men into the tops of the Lass
of Devon, and poured their fire into the crowded enemy.
Every step of the deck was fiercely contested, but
at last the Roundheads gave way. Some threw down
their arms and called for quarter, others ran below.
The Royalists, with shouts of “Remember Drogheda!”
fell upon them, and many of those who had surrendered
were cut down before Harry could arrest the slaughter.
A loud cheer announced the victory,
and the men in the other ship, who had hitherto, although
with difficulty, made front against the attacks of
Jacob and his men, now lost heart and ran below.
The wind had by this time entirely dropped, but battening
the prisoners below, Harry set his men to thrust the
ships past one another, until they were sufficiently
in line for their guns to be brought to bear upon the
third enemy. Crippled as she was by the loss
of her mast, she immediately hauled down her colors,
and the victory was complete.
The prisoners were brought on deck
and disarmed. Harry found that the boats of the
four ships would carry two hundred men closely packed,
and but a hundred and eighty of the two hundred and
fifty troops who had sailed in pursuit remained alive.
These, with sufficient provisions and water to last
for three days, were made to take their places in the
boats, and told to row back to the island, which they
should be able to regain in two days at the utmost.
The crews of the captured ships were willing enough
to obey the orders of their captors, for the sailors
had in general but little sympathy with the doings
of Parliament. Harry had lost in killed and wounded
forty-two men, and the rest he divided between the
four ships, giving about thirty-five men to each.
He himself, with Jacob, William Long, and Mike, remained
on board the Lass of Devon, officers being placed
in command of the troops on board the other ships,
which were ordered to sail in company with her.
Twenty-four hours were spent in getting a jury-mast
set in place of that which had been shot away.
When this was completed the four ships hoisted their
canvas and sailed together for Holland.
They met with no adventure until near
the mouth of the English Channel, when one morning
a fleet of eight ships was perceived. The captain
of the Lass of Devon at once pronounced them to be
ships of war, and their rate of sailing speedily convinced
Harry that there was no chance of escape. Against
such odds resistance was useless, and the other ships
were signaled to lower their topsails in answer to
the gun which the leading ship of the squadron fired.
Anticipating a return to captivity, if not instant
death, all on board watched the approaching men-of-war.
Presently these, when close at hand, brought up into
the wind, and a boat was lowered. It rowed rapidly
to the Lass of Devon, which lay somewhat the nearest
to them. Harry stood on the quarter-deck ready
to surrender his sword. The boat came alongside,
an officer leaped on deck and advanced toward him.
Harry could scarce believe his eyes;
this gallant, in the gay dress of a cavalier officer,
could be no follower of Cromwell. The officer
paused and gazed in astonishment at Harry. The
recognition was mutual, and the words “Furness”
and “Elphinstone” broke from their lips.
“Why, Elphinstone, what squadron is that?”
“Prince Rupert’s, to be sure,” the
officer said.
“What! did you take us for the Roundhead fleet?”
Harry made no reply, but taking off
his hat, shouted to his men, “It is the Royalist
fleet. Three cheers for Prince Rupert.”
A cheer of joy burst from the men,
caught up and re-echoed by the crews of the other
ships. Harry led the officer into his cabin, and
rapidly explained to him the circumstances which had
taken place; ten minutes later, entering a boat, he
rowed off to the flagship.
“Why! Harry Furness!”
exclaimed Prince Rupert, “whither do you spring
from? I heard of you last as being sent to slave
in the Bermudas, and methought, old friend, that
you would stand the heat better than most, since you
had served such a sharp apprenticeship with me in that
oven you wot of. And now tell me how is it that
you have got free, and that I find you sailing here
with four ships?”
Harry related his adventure.
When he had finished Prince Rupert said:
“I envy you, Furness, in that
you have three faithful friends. One is as much
as most men could even hope for, whereas you have three,
who each seem willing to go through fire and water
for you. They do remind me of the wonderful servants
of whom my old nurse used to tell me as a child.
They were given by a fairy to some fortunate prince,
and whenever he got into sore straits were ready to
do the most impossible things to free him from them.
Now you must take up your quarters here until we reach
Holland, whither I am on the point of sailing.
We have picked up several fat prizes, which I have
sent to Italy to sell, to pay the wages of my men,
for his gracious majesty’s exchequer is of the
emptiest. But I hear that Blake is about to put
to sea with the ships of the Parliament, and I care
not to risk my fleet, for they will be needed to escort
his majesty to Scotland are long.”
“Are the Scots then again inclined
to his majesty’s cause? Were I King Charles,
I would not trust myself to them,” Harry said.
“They sold his father, and would sell him at
least Argyll and the knaves with him would do so.”
“I like not these cold, calculating
men of the north, myself,” Prince Rupert said,
“and trust them as little. Nor would my
cousin venture himself again among them, if he took
my advice. His majesty, however, is no more given
to the taking of advice than was his father before
him, unless it be of Buckingham and Wilmot, and other
dissolute young lords, whose counsel and company are
alike evil for him.”
The same afternoon the fleet sailed
for Holland, the four merchantmen accompanying it.
Upon their arrival there Harry sold the three ships
which he had taken, together with such cargo as was
found in their holds. He sold also the cargo
of the Lass of Devon, leaving the ship itself, as
he had promised, to the captain, its owner, and making
him and the sailors a handsome present for the way
they stood by him and worked the ship during the action.
The rest of the proceeds he divided between the officers
and men who had sailed with him, and finding that
these were ready still to share his fortunes, he formed
them into a regiment for the service of the king,
enlisting another hundred Royalists, whom he found
there well-nigh starving, in his ranks.
It was at the end of April, 1650,
that Harry reached Hamburg, and a month later came
the news of the defeat and death of the Earl of Montrose.
He had two months before sailed from Hamburg to the
Orkneys, where he had landed with a thousand men.
Crossing to the mainland he had marched down into
Sunderland. There he had met a body of cavalry
under Colonel Strachan, in a pass in the parish of
Kincardine, now called Craigchonichan, or the Rock
of Lamentation. The recruits he had raised in
Orkney and the north fled at once. The Scotch
and Germans he had brought with him fought bravely,
but without effect, and were utterly defeated, scattering
in all directions. Montrose wandered for many
days in disguise, but was at last captured, and was
brought to Edinburgh with every indignity. He
was condemned to death by the Covenanters, and executed.
So nobly did he bear himself at his death that the
very indignities with which Argyll and his minions
loaded him, in order to make him an object of derision
to the people, failed in their object, and even those
who hated him most were yet struck with pity and admiration
at his noble aspect and bearing. Argyll stood
at a balcony to see him pass, and Montrose foretold
a similar fate for this double-dyed traitor, a prediction
which was afterward fulfilled. Harry deeply regretted
the loss of this gallant and chivalrous gentleman.