n her course, while the white sails of the
attacker grew fainter and fainter upon the horizon.

"I saw her name as she ranged in close to us," said Joshua Barney,
slapping Captain Robinson on the back. "And it was the _Rosebud_."

"I reckon that _Rosebud_ has no thorns left," chuckled Captain
Robinson, and he was still chuckling when the little _Pomona_ safely
sailed into the harbor of Bordeaux in France. The voyage had been a
success.

Here a store of guns, powder and shot was purchased, and, having
shipped a cargo of brandy, and raised the crew to seventy men, the
staunch, little vessel set sail for America.

Not three days from the coast of France the cry of "Sail ho!" startled
all on board, and, upon the starboard quarter--loomed a British
privateer. Upon nearer view she was seen to have sixteen guns and
seventy men.

"All hands for a fight!" cried Robinson. "Don't let th' fellow
escape."

Now was a hard battle. It lasted for full two hours, and--in the
end--the Britisher struck, with twelve killed and a number wounded,
while the American loss was but one killed and two wounded. The
_Pomona_ kept upon her course, jubilantly.

But the saucy ship was not to have all smooth sailing. She was soon
captured--by whom it is not known--and stout "Josh" Barney became a
prisoner of war. In December, 1780, with about seventy American
officers, he was placed on board the _Yarmouth_--a sixty-four-gun
brig--and was shipped to England.

Now listen to the treatment given him according to a contemporaneous
historian. Did you ever hear of anything more atrocious?
Peace--indeed--had more horrors than war in the year 1780.

"From the time these Americans stepped aboard the _Yarmouth_ their
captors gave it to be understood, by hints and innuendos, that they
were being taken to England 'to be hanged as rebels;' and, indeed the
treatment they received aboard the _Yarmouth_ on the passage over, led
them to believe that the British officers intended to cheat the
gallows of their prey, by causing the prisoners to die before they
reached port.

"On coming aboard the ship-of-the-line, these officers were stowed
away in the lower hold, next to the keel, under five decks, and many
feet below the water-line. Here, in a twelve-by-twenty-foot room, with
upcurving floor, and only three feet high, the seventy-one men were
kept for fifty-three days, like so much merchandise--without light or
good air--unable to stand upright, with no mean