Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/72

46 stripped of everything, and Captain Lincoln bade his luckless schooner a sorrowful farewell. While beating out of this passage, an armed brig was sighted five miles distant. She piped a boat away, which fired several musket-balls through the sloop's mainsail as soon as they drew near each other, and it was suspected that these might be the same old pirates of the Mexican. Declining to surrender, Jamieson and Captain Lincoln served out muskets, and they peppered the strange boat in a brisk little encounter until the brig sent two more boats away, and resistance was seen to be futile.

The armed vessel turned out to be a lawful Spanish privateer, whose captain showed no resentment at the fusillade. Indeed, he was handsomely cordial, a very gentlemanly sailor, and invited Captain Lincoln and his men into the cabin for dinner, where he informed them that he had commanded a Yankee privateer out of Boston during the War of 1812. Jamieson and his crew, for reasons best known to themselves, signed articles as privateers-men and stayed in the brig. This was preferable to risking the halter ashore.

Captain Lincoln was landed at Trinidad, Cuba, where he found American friends and was soon able to secure a passage to Boston. It was not until months later that he learned of the safe arrival on