ration.

When I arrived at the owner's, I told him what I had done, and he
commended my arrangements. In the back room I found four gentlemen
dressed in seamen's clothing, and as there was no time to be lost,
they immediately shouldered the trunks and valises; desiring my own
men to remain with the owner to bring down any thing that he might
wish to send on board, I left them in the counting-house. The
gentlemen followed me with their loads down to the boat, and when I
got there the men told me that some people had come down and asked
whose boat it was, and why they were lying there, and that they had
told the people that the captain had taken four men with him to bring
down his things, and that they were waiting for him; so it was lucky
that I said to my men what I did.

We hastened to put the trunks into the boat, and to get in ourselves
after we had received this intelligence, and then I shoved off from
the wharf, and laid about a stone's throw distant for my other men. At
last we heard them coming down, and shortly afterwards we perceived
that they were stopped by other people, and in altercation with them.
I knew then that the officers were on the alert, and would discover
the stratagem, and therefore desired my men and the gentlemen, who had
each taken an oar in readiness, to give way and pull for the schooner.
As we did so, the king's officers on search who had stopped my four
men came down to the wharf and ordered us to come back, but we made no
reply. As soon as we were alongside, we hoisted the things out of the
boat, veered her astern by a tow-rope, slipped the cable, and made
sail. Fortunately it was very dark, and we were very alert in our
movements. We could perceive lights at the wharf as we sailed out of
the river, and it was clear that we had had a narrow escape; but I
felt no alarm on account of the owner, as I knew that although they
might suspect, they could prove nothing. When about three miles out we
hove to, hoisted in the boat, and shaped our course.

All I had now to fear was the falling in with the ship of war in the
offing, and I placed men to keep a sharp look-out in every direction,
and told the officers that it was necessary that we should avoid her.
When last seen, about an hour before dark, she was well to windward,
and as the wind was from the northward, she would probably sail faster
than we could, as a schooner does not sail so well free as on a wind.
We had run out about four hours