him. He was pleased with the joke and soon after called his
brother officers around him, who took me into a room and treated me with
wine, segars, &c. They were very polite to me during my stay on board.

New London appeared from the deck of the ship to be four or five miles
distant. Fishing boats came every day from the town and fished within a
mile, without interruption. On their return they were often hailed from
the ship to come on board, and the officers and crew purchased what fish
they wanted, and paid a liberal price. I could see from the deck, with
the spy glass, colors flying, and troops marching and re-marching in the
city of New London. Above the city were the frigates United States and
Macedonia, and the sloop-of-war Wasp, at anchor. During my stay of four
or five days on board, the commodore would every afternoon send for me
to come into his cabin, for the purpose of having some humorous
conversation, which caused the time to pass very agreeably. The
remainder of my time was passed among the officers, some of whom had
relatives living in the city of New-York, with whom I had formerly
traded. We became familiar, and they insisted on taking my name and
number of my boarding house, saying, that when they took the city of
New-York they would come and take a bottle of wine with me. I told them
if ever they saw me in the city of New-York after they had captured it,
it would be without a head.

The day before my departure from the ship, finding the commodore in good
humor, I told him that I was a poor man and had a large family to
support with my old sloop, that flour was worth only seven dollars per
barrel in New-York, and was worth fourteen dollars in Boston, and that
it would do him no harm to give me a passport to carry a cargo to Boston
or neighboring ports. He paused for awhile, and then with a smile said,
"You look like a pretty clever fellow, and if you go to New-York and
take in a cargo, and come back here before I leave this station, which
will be in about three weeks, I will then give you a passport. But if
you attempt to run by me in the night, I shall make a prize of you."
The next day my old sloop returned to the Ramillies with a quantity of
beef on board. I made some complaint to the first lieutenant that the
sailors had eaten up all my provisions and lost my lead-line, and
hand-saw, &c. He remunerated me by giving me five times the value of
what I had lost. I paid the commodore the ransom money,