main ship
channel, on her maiden cruise, under the command of Captain John
Seymour Seymour, late first lieutenant of the Ranger. This was the
second departure she had taken from that port. Forced by severe
damages, incurred in an encounter with a heavy gale shortly after
leaving Philadelphia, to put into that harbor for needed repairs to the
new and unsettled vessel, she had put to sea again after a short
interval, and in one week had taken six valuable prizes, one of them,
an armed vessel of twenty guns, after a short action. After this brief
and brilliant excursion she had put back to Charleston to dispose of
her prizes, re-collect her prize crews, and land her prisoners.

There was another motive, however, for the sudden return. From one of
the prizes it had been learned that the English thirty-two-gun frigate
Carrysford, the twenty-gun sloop Perseus, the sixteen-gun sloop
Hinchinbrook, with several privateers, had been cruising off the coast
together, and the commander of the Randolph was most anxious to get the
help of some of the South Carolina State cruisers to go in search of
the British ships. The indefatigable Governor Rutledge, when the news
had been communicated to him, had worked assiduously to provide the
State ships, and the young captain of the Randolph speedily found
himself at the head of a little fleet of war vessels outward bound.

The departure of the squadron, the Randolph in the lead, the rest
following, and all under full sail, made a pretty picture to the
enthusiastic Carolinians, who watched them from the islands and
fortifications in the harbor, and from a number of small boats which
accompanied the war ships a short distance on their voyage. Besides
Seymour's own vessel, there were the eighteen-gun ship General
Moultrie, the two sixteen-gun ships Notre Dame and Polly, and the
fourteen-gun brig Fair American; the last commanded by a certain
master, Philip Wilton. They made officers of very young men in those
days, and mere boys often occupied positions of trust and
responsibility apparently far beyond their years,--even Seymour
himself, though now a commodore or flag officer by courtesy, was very
young for the position; and Governor Rutledge, moved by a warm
friendship of long standing for old Colonel Wilton, and upon Seymour's
own urgent recommendation, had intrusted the smallest vessel to young
Captain Philip. We shall see how he showed himself worthy of the trust
reposed in him in