Maturin M. Ballou

“ We have endeavored in Fanny Campbell to portray a heroine who should not be like every other the fancy has created; we have strove to make her such an one as should elicit the reader’s interest, and have yet endeavored in the picture not to overstep the modest bounds of nature. We have designed to show that among the lower classes of society, there is more of the germ of true intellect and courage, nobleness of purpose, and strength of will than may be found among the pampered and wealthy children of fortune. We have given you but modest and true men in William Lovell and Jack Herbert. ”

“ In Captain Burnet we have given form to a spirit, the genuineness of which We all can bear testimony to. A warm, ardent, thoughtless man becomes entirely changed in heart and purpose by the strange power of love. We have seen in him the contradictions of which those who are exercised by it will be at one time rash and headstrong, at another, calm and repentant. Such men will make great naval heroes, but bad fathers of families.
And now again, farewell, dear reader, dear reader, and thus ends our tale of Fanny Campbell, the Female Pirate Captain. ”

“ Turn again towards the North West and a few miles beyond the town of Lynn, lies the thriving little village of Saugus. A full Northern view is one of woody beauty, being a field of forest tops of almost boundless extent. In the North-East through the opening hills and trees, a glimpse is had of the water in Salem harbor, while the city itself is hid from view, reminding one of the distant view of the Adriatic from the lofty Appenines, which rise from the very gates of the lovely city of Florence. ”

“ You have tides and currents to watch, winds to trim your sails to, and not unfrequently some daring rover to repel. All these are vicissitudes of the ocean, and how deeply attached will the mariner become to the fickle element, even as Fanny and her husband.
The mild, tropical seas of the West Indies were visited, the Moro Castle once more looked upon, the old anchorage without the harbor once more assumed, and the very prison within whose walls Lovell had been confined was visited, each drawing forth fresh interest and an increased desire for exploration. ”

“ It was morning, and the wind being fresh and fair, all had hoped to anchor that night in the quiet little harbor of Lynn, where the crew had ascertained that the captain would drop his land tackle. It was a clear, cold day, and the chill winds of northern winter were doubly felt by those on board the Constance, and the prizes who had so lately left the milder latitudes of the South.
The strange sail proved to be a brig of about the same tonnage as the Constance, and evidently a vessel in the commission of the king, wearing the British ensign at the gaff. ”

“ Fanny and her husband were settled in domestic enjoyment, and thrice happy were they in the love of each other, a love which had been proved in storms and in calms, in peace and in strife. Habit, how strong a hold does it take upon our very natures; how unseen yet sure is the progress it gradually makes in binding us to its ways, and how certain is it of its final success in bringing us, either for good or for evil, to its supreme and indisputable will. ”

“ There is no spot upon our shores where the sea plays a wilder or more solemn dirge than on the rocky peninsula of Nahant; the long connecting beach is here a scene of angry commotion from the constant and heavy swells of the broad ocean.
At a distance of about ten miles in the South-West lies Boston. The eye always rests upon the dense smoke that enshrouds it first, piercing which, loom up the spires of its numerous churches, and towering above them all, the noble State House is distinctly seen. ”

“ Early one morning, Channing went down into the captain’s cabin, whom he found just rising from his bed. Stepping to the table he possessed himself of the brace of pistols that lay upon it, and also the cutlass that hung from the wall; then turning to the captain who was hardly yet awake, he said: ‘Captain Brownless, you are my prisoner!’
‘Sir?’ said the astonished commander. ‘You are my prisoner!’ repeated Channing. ‘Mutiny?’ enquiringly put the captain, a dark scowl gathering like a cloud over his bloated, bacchanalian countenance. ”

“ A stubborn spirit was conquered by kindness and reason, the only weapons that one responsible being should use with another. The Englishman’s spirit had undergone a complete change; he would have lain down his life for the captain of the Constance; and from the hour of his liberation, was an ardent supporter of the cause of the American people, though he was never actively engaged in the war. He did not betray the confidence that had been so placed in him, but served faithfully as a common sailor to the end of the voyage. ”

“ Shall we send your old messmate into eternity? Speak, my men!”
‘“No, no!” said the crew, with one voice; “if the captain forgives him, that’s enough. Let him be spared.”
‘“Blow me,” thought I, “if I don’t think a man who would betray such a commander and such a ship, must find punishment enough in overhauling the log of his own conscience, without our sending him to soundings after this fashion.”
‘The man was forgiven, and, damme, messmates, if he didn’t feel it, too,’ said Skyscraper, with no little degree of feeling. ”

“ This was in a time of war and contention, and dangers of every kind lurked about the islands and harbors of the West Indies, and in the crowd of other matters the poor prisoners and their case was entirely forgotten. Thus they were likely to remain perhaps for years, in a confinement scarcely more desirable than death itself, save that there still remained a single gleam of hope within their breasts that they might some day be freed. Ah! bright and heaven born Hope, thou art the solace of many an aching heart, and the supporter of many a weary and almost-disconsolate spirit. ”

“ Already had the brig changed the chill northern blasts for the sunny breezes of the South, and she was, according to the reckoning of Channing, about a day’s sail from Cuba, when he determined that the good brig Constance should change hands, and from a British, become an American craft. It was a bold undertaking; the two greatest sins that a sailor is taught to dread, Mutiny and piracy, were staring him full in the face. He did not design to implicate a single member of the crew in the transaction, but resolved to make the attempt to gain possession of the vessel, alone and unassisted. ”

“ The moon did seem to shine out twice as strong as ever, as if just to bother us; because, do ye see, if it hadn’t been so very light, the night mist that always hangs about the sea and shores here, would have hid us from the enemy. But hardly had the lugger got under weigh, before the cruiser was again discovered, lying nearly mid-way between the English and Irish coast, in the very course that the Dolphin must steer. The captain of our lugger was calm and collected as a parson, and the men, seeing this, were all quite courageous, too, and didn’t care a fig for the King’s ship. ”

“ The mild and beautiful climate of Cuba seems more like the Elysian fields of poetic birth, than the air that forms the islands of the ocean. Beautiful indeed is the genial influence of the mild zephyrs that breathe over these pacific seas. As evening knelt and cast her broad mantle over land and sea, the two vessels lay side by side, close under the lee of the island, while the young commander awaited with apparent impatience the arrival of the hour for the commencement of the proposed enterprise. ”

“ A fierce broadside from the cruiser was the reply to the shot, and sad havoc did it make among the light and beautiful spars and rigging of the Dolphin. Our armament was made up of only four small pieces and a heavy gun amidship, revolving on a pivot, and this was of heavier metal than any gun on board of the York. Our captain managed this gun and aimed it himself, and he soon brought down the foremast of the York by his shot, confounding the crew of the enemy, and bothering them about their guns. The York carried sixteen guns with a complement of about an hundred men. ”

“ The crew were all at their stations, all save six seamen chosen by lot, who stood apart from their companions; these were to be the executioners of their messmate. The ship was as still as death; the wounded below had hushed their groans, and the tick of the captain’s watch might be heard at any part of the quarter deck. The miserable man who was now to suffer, stood upon a gun, his arms confined behind him, and a rope around his neck. ”

“ He had seldom appeared upon deck and when he did so, it was in such a manner as to preclude all attempt at gaining his ear in conversation even for a moment.
‘The captain’s very handsome, don’t you think so?’ said Herbert one day to Lovell, when during a clear calm he had left the barque and come on board the brig. ‘He’s evidently commissioned by your girl down there at Lynn, at the High Rock Hamlet. I should not like to have such a young hero for a rival, Lovell, that’s all!’ said Herbert playfully. ”

“ The Dolphin was worth two of her for our purpose. So as soon as we got on the lugger’s deck, while the enemy were still confounded at our boarding, our captain backed his topsails, while the York’s remained full, and the breeze freshening just then, the two crafts separated. As we fell astern of the enemy, we gave him one raking shot with our big gun loaded with grape and small shot, which sent more than one poor fellow to his last home, and scattered the splinters like snow flakes. ”

“ Already do the floating castles of every nation defy both wind and tide, and vessels that formerly required twenty-five hands to sail them are now well served with fourteen or fifteen.
The captain and crew of the new prize were equally chagrined with those in the barque when they found to what a weak force in numbers they had surrounded. Their rage was unbounded and openly expressed, and though they were closely confined, yet Channing was constantly prepared and on guard, lest they should attempt to rise and take the brig. ”

“ Seventy years of swift running tides have greatly reduced them in point of size, but not in beauty, for they still give a picturesque loveliness to the Bay that a painter’s taste could not improve. St. George’s flag floated from the topmasts of a dozen men of war, which lay at anchor in the harbor, and floated from a number of lofty points in the town. Scarcely had this scene disappeared from the eyes of the crew, when they were summoned aft by the captain, where he made them the following brief and very pertinent speech, it was characteristic of the man. ”

“ No American can or rather, should be, unacquainted with the principal events that induced the Parliament of great Britain in 1774, to lay those restrictions upon the port of Boston, which so destroyed her trade, and awoke the inhabitants of the Colonies to a true sense of their oppression. It is well known that the towns of Lynn, Salem, and Portsmouth, with a noble determination, refused to profit by the situation of their neighbors, the port of Boston being under actual blockade. ”

“ What’s that?’ said Terrence, ‘do you want me to kill you intirely, Mr. Bolt, or why the divil are ye calling the captain names?’
‘I don’t mean to cast any reflections upon Captain Channing. No, he’s a captain to live and die under; that all will agree To. But, supposing, mess-mates, a British man-of-war should come down from Boston harbor, here-a-way, and run us aboard and take the pretty little Constance, as she would do? ”

“ Near the base of the rock there resided until a few years since the celebrated fortune-teller, known by the name of ‘Moll Pitcher,’ a soubriquet given her by the town’s people, her rightful name never having been ascertained. She lived to a remarkable old age, and to the day of her death the visitor who ‘crossed her palm with broad pieces,’ was sure to receive in return, some truthful or fictitious legend of the neighborhood. There are many among us to this day who remember with pleasure their visits to the strange old fortune-teller of Lynn, at the base of High Rock. ”

“ Lovell, whose life had been passed much upon the water, though not far from home, fell easily into the duty required of him, and proved himself to be an efficient and able seaman. Day after day the ship stood on her southern course until she was within the mild and salubrious climate of the West Indies, the great American Archipelago.—In those days and even for many years subsequent to that date, those seas were infested by bands of reckless freebooters or pirates, who committed depredations upon the marine of every nation with which they met; they were literally no respecters of persons. ”