Every one in the army soon came to hear of the exploit of Molly Pitcher,
and it was not long before she was called Captain Molly. The officers of
the French regiment on the American side were particularly pleased with
this act of heroism in a woman, and invited Molly to review their
troops; and as she walked down the long line of soldiers, nearly every
man put a piece of money in the cocked hat which she held in her hand.

This was the last battlefield on which Molly Pitcher appeared, but it
had not been her first. Not long before, she had been with her husband
in Fort Clinton when it was attacked by a very large force of the
British. After a vigorous defense, the Americans found that it was
impossible to defend the fort, and a retreat was ordered. As the
soldiers were rushing out of the rear of the fort, Molly's husband
turned away from his gun, threw down his match,--a piece of rope soaked
in combustible substances, and slowly burning at one end, which was used
in those days for discharging cannon,--and ran for his life. Molly
prepared to follow him; but as she saw the glowing match on the ground,
and knew that her husband's gun was loaded, she could not resist the
desire to take one more crack at the enemy. So she stopped for an
instant, picked up the match, touched off the gun, and dashed away after
her husband. The cannon which then blazed out in the face of the
advancing British was the last gun which the Americans fired in Fort
Clinton.

Molly did not meet with the reward which was accorded so many other
Jersey women who were of benefit to their State and country. She died
not long after the close of the war; and if she had known that she was
to be famous as one of the heroes of the Revolution, there is no doubt
that she would have hoped that people would be careful to remember that
it was a man's service that she did to the country, and not a woman's.

But Captain Molly was not the only Jersey woman who was willing to act a
man's part in the War for Independence. Among those of whom there is
historical mention was Mrs. Jinnie Waglum, who lived near Trenton. At
the time when Washington was arranging to march upon Princeton, she was
visiting her friend, whose husband was the landlord of The True American
Inn, just out of Trenton; and this tavern was Washington's headquarters
at the time. In this way Mrs. Jinnie heard of the intended advance; and
she also heard that there was no one in the American forces who knew the
country well enough to conduct the army from Trenton to Princeton by any
route except the highways, on which the advance would be observed by the
enemy.

She therefore sent word to Washington that she would guide the army if
he wished, and that there was no one who knew the country better than
she did. Washington was a man who had sense enough to avail himself of
good service whenever it was offered; and when he had made inquiries
about Mrs. Waglum, he was perfectly willing to put his army under her
guidance, and very glad indeed that she had offered her services.

When a woman acts the part of a man, it is not surprising that she
likes to look like a man; so Mrs. Jinnie put on a soldier's coat and a
soldier's hat, and, mounting a horse, she headed the Continental army,
commanded by Washington. This was a proud position, but she was equal to
it; and on she rode, with all the cavalry and the infantry and the
artillery and the general and staff following behind her. She took them
along by Sand Town and Quaker Bridge, by roads over which she had often
traveled; and the American army reached Princeton in good time for the
battle which took place next day.




THE MORRISTOWN GHOSTS.


In the early days of American history there was in New Jersey, as well
as in New England and other parts of the country, a firm belief in the
existence of witches and ghosts. Of course, there were people who knew
enough not to put faith in supernatural apparitions and magical power;
but there were so many who did believe in these things, that it was
often unsafe, or at least unpleasant, to be an ugly old woman, or a
young woman in not very good health, for it was believed that into such
bodies the evil spirits delighted to enter.

Nearly all the older towns had their ghost stories, their witch stories,
and their traditions of hidden treasure, guarded by spirits of persons
who had been murdered, and buried with the gold in order that their
spirits might act as a charm to frighten away anybody who should presume
to dig in those spots. In Burlington were two great trees which were
regarded with admiration and fear by many of the inhabitants. One was a
large willow tree, which was called the Witches' Tree, around which
these horrible spirits were supposed to dance on many a wild night.
Another was the Pirates' Tree, a great walnut, under the roots of which
many of the inhabitants firmly believed that the famous Blackbeard and
his band had buried many pots of gold, silver, and precious stones; and
these pots would have been dug up had it not been for the fear that the
spirit of the savage pirate, who had been buried with the treasure,
would have been the first thing to meet the eyes of the sacrilegious
disturber of the pirate treasure vault.

There are other ghost stories of other places in New Jersey; but
Morristown, some years after the close of the Revolution, took the lead
of all the other Jersey towns as a scene of ghostly performances.

For years back many of the people had been convinced that an occasional
witch had appeared among them, getting into the churns and preventing
the butter from coming, breaking the legs of sheep in jumping over the
fence, causing their horses to become suddenly mysteriously sick, and
making themselves obnoxious in various ways. But it was not until the
year 1788 that New Jersey ghosts determined to go regularly into
business at this place.

Supernatural occurrences of this period attracted a great deal of
attention, not only in the town itself, but in the surrounding country;
and an account of what happened in Morristown during the time that the
spirits were holding their visitations at that place is related in an
old pamphlet published in 1792, written by an anonymous person who had
no faith whatever in ghosts, but who had a firm belief in the efficacy
of long words and complicated phraseology. We will take the story from
this old pamphlet.

For a long time there had been a tradition that a vast treasure was
buried on Schooley's Mountain, or, as it was then spelled, Schooler's
Mountain, which was at that time a wild and desolate region more than
twenty miles from Morristown. It is said that there were two gentlemen
of the place who were particularly strong in their belief in this
treasure, and they felt sure that all that was necessary in order to
obtain it was to find some man who had knowledge of the habits and
customs and requirements of the spirits in regard to treasures. Having
their minds on this subject, it was not long before they heard of such a
man. This was Mr. Ransford Rogers, a schoolmaster in Connecticut, who
knew many things, and who pretended to know many more. He really did
understand something about chemistry, was very ingenious and plausible,
and had been frequently heard to say that he was not afraid of spirits,
and was able to call them up, converse with them, and afterwards cause
them to disappear. This was exactly the man needed by the two gentlemen
of Morristown, and they went to Connecticut to see him.

When the business of the visitors was made known to Rogers, he was
delighted, for here was an opportunity to get into a good business,
which would probably be infinitely more pleasant than teaching. So he
gave up his school and came to Morristown, being under contract to the
two gentlemen to do what he could to induce the spirits to reveal the
place of the concealed treasure in Schooley's Mountain. But as it would
not do for a stranger to come into the town and hang out a sign,
stating that he was a spirit raiser, it was necessary for Rogers to
pretend that he had come on other business, and so he took charge of a
small school outside of the town, but gave the greater part of his time
to investigating the minds of the people of Morristown, in order that he
might find out what he could do in the way of duping them; and in the
words of the old writer, he found that this would be a good place for
the "marvelous exhibitions which he was able to facilitate with the
greatest alacrity."

Of course, he was not at all willing to begin business with the support
of only two persons, and the first thing he did was to gather together
as many men as possible who really wished to be rich, and who were
willing to be governed by him in regard to the way in which they should
go about obtaining the vast hoard buried far away in the mountain. After
a time he succeeded in getting together as many as forty men, who all
thoroughly believed in his honesty and in his ability to take them out
to Schooley's Mountain, to call up the spirits who guarded the treasure,
to induce them to turn it over to them, and then to vanish peaceably,
without offering to molest or harm any one.

But it was a long time before Rogers was ready to lead his company on
the great quest. There were many, many things that had to be done before
they could start, and he soon found that he was not able to work out his
great scheme alone; so he went back to Connecticut and got another
schoolmaster, to whom he divulged his secret, and brought him to
Morristown, and the two together went into the spirit business with
great energy and enterprise. Night after night the company of treasure
seekers met together, sometimes in a dark room, and sometimes out in the
wild, lonely fields, close to black forests, and out of sight and
hearing of human abodes.

Rogers was a chemist; and he frequently went out to one of these lonely
meeting places in the afternoon and prepared a mine, which he exploded
during the midnight meetings, and thus created a great wonder and terror
among his followers. When they were indoors, there would be knockings
and strange voices heard coming through the cracks; these voices
proceeding from the other schoolmaster, who covered his mouth with what
the writer of the pamphlet calls "a superficial machine," probably a bit
of tin with a hole in it, which so disguised his voice that it was not
recognized.

When they were out of doors in the black night, they would sometimes see
a ghost flit about under the trees at the edge of the woods; and the
second schoolmaster, well wrapped up in a sheet, seems to have made as
good a ghost as could have been found anywhere. There were many
supernatural performances, and among them was a great act, in which each
one of the members of the company lay flat on his face in the field with
his eyes shut, holding in one outstretched hand a sheet of paper. This
was done in the hope that the spirits would write their instructions on
the paper. Mr. Rogers knelt down with the others and held his paper; but
it was not a blank sheet like the others. When this performance was
over, all the papers were shaken together, and then they were drawn out
one by one; and judge of the surprise and awe of all present, when one
of them would contain some writing,--generally in a beautiful hand, such
as could only be expected from a supernatural being (or a
schoolmaster),--which would be found to be instructions as to what must
be done.

The most important of these directions ordered that before any march
could be made toward Schooley's Mountain, or any definite directions
given in regard to the whereabouts of the treasure, each member should
pay to the spirits, through Mr. Rogers, who would kindly act as agent,
the sum of twelve pounds. And, moreover, this must not be paid in the
paper money then current in New Jersey, which was called "loan money",
and which would not pass outside of the State, but in gold or silver.
When every member had paid in his twelve pounds, then the party would be
led to the place of the treasure.

When they found out what they had to do, each man went to work to try,
if possible, to raise the twelve pounds; but Rogers soon saw that it
would be impossible for some of them to do this, as specie money was so
hard to get, and he reduced the sum, in some cases, to six or four
pounds. He was a good business manager, and would not try to get out of
a man more than that man could pay.

Not one of the people engaged in this affair had the slightest idea that
Rogers was deceiving them. It is not likely that any of them were people
of much culture or means; and it is said that some of them went so far
as to sell their cattle, and mortgage their farms, in order to get gold
or silver to pay to the good schoolmaster who was generously acting as a
mutual friend to both parties. But what were these sacrifices compared
to the treasure they would obtain when at last they should be permitted
to dig up the buried hoard on Schooley's Mountain!

It was now winter, and of course they could not start on the expedition
in bad weather; but meeting after meeting was held, and it was at last
definitely promised that the expedition should go forth from Morristown
early in May. On the first of that month, they all gathered at midnight
in the lonely field, and there was a terrible scene. There were more
fireworks and explosions than usual, and one of the spirits appeared at
the edge of the wood greatly excited, stamping his feet, and rushing
about under the trees; and when Rogers went to see what was the
matter,--for of course none of the others would dare to speak to a
spirit,--he found that the supernatural beings with whom they had so
long been in communication, and who were now scattered about in all
parts of the woods, were very angry and incensed because they had become
aware that some of the party were unfaithful, and had divulged the
secrets which had been made known to them. They were so thoroughly
indignant, in fact, that they refused to go on with the affair for a
time, and announced that the expedition to Schooley's Mountain would be
postponed until they were positively certain that every man who was to
go there was the sort of man who would never let anybody into the awful,
soul-dazzling secret which would be divulged. So they must all go home,
and wait until this important matter could be satisfactorily arranged.

Strange to say, they all did go home, and waited, and not one of them
suspected Rogers.

The schoolmaster had obtained a good deal of money, but he had not
enough. So, in less than a month, he started another company, this time
a small one, and began to go through his performances with them. But he
soon found he could not make much money out of five men, and he began to
get a little braver, and thought he would try what he could do with the
better class of people in Morristown; and, having discovered that a very
good ghost could be called up by means of a white sheet and a
"superficial machine", he dressed himself up one night, and made a
supernatural call upon a gentleman in good standing in the church. When
he had appeared at the bedside of this good man, he told him all about
the treasure of Schooley's Mountain, and, if he wanted some of it, how
he might obtain it.

The gentleman, having never seen a ghost, supposed, of course, that this
was an authorized apparition, and became greatly interested in what was
told him. The next day, according to directions, he went around among
his friends in the church, and soon formed a considerable company, who
all believed, that, if they did what they were told to do, they could go
to Schooley's Mountain and become immensely wealthy.

They did a great many things that they were told to do: they met in dark
rooms, as the other party had met; they went out into a lonely field at
midnight; they held out papers to be written on; and, more than that,
they conducted their meetings with prayer and other solemnities. And
they all promised to pay twelve pounds in gold as an earnest of their
good faith in the spirits, and to deliver the money to that great
miracle worker, Mr. Rogers, who would remit it to the spirits.

The schoolmaster found it necessary to be more mystical and weird in his
dealings with this second party than with the first. He did a great many
strange things which savored of magic and alchemy. Among other things,
he got some fine bone dust, which he assured his followers was the dust
of the bodies of the spirits who were to lead them to the treasure; and
a little of this, wrapped up in a paper, he gave to each one of them,
which they were to keep secret, and preserve as a magical charm.

One of the company, an old gentleman who was sometimes a little
absent-minded, went to bed one night and left the magical packet in one
of his pockets; and his wife, probably looking for small change, found
it. She could not imagine what it was, but she was afraid it was
something connected with witchcraft, and was greatly troubled about it.
The next day she told her husband of the discovery, and was so very
persistent that he should explain to her what it meant, that at last he
thought it wise to tell her the whole proceeding, and so prevent her
from interfering with the great and important business with which he was
concerned. He made her promise secrecy, and soon she had heard all about
Rogers, the spirits, and the buried gold. She became convinced that it
was all the work of the devil, and she went off among her friends and
began to talk about it.

Now there was a great excitement, not only on the part of the believers,
but among the spirits themselves; and Rogers, who had enlisted two new
men in his scheme, made his ghosts work hard to keep up the delusion
among his followers. All four of them, dressed in sheets, went about
making communications whenever they had a chance, and assuring the
members of the band of treasure hunters that everything would soon be
all right, and that they must not allow their faith to be shaken by
gossipers and scandalmongers.

Rogers himself, in his ghostly costume, went one night to the house of
a gentleman who was his follower, and made some important communications
to him; but as the schoolmaster had been encouraging himself by some
strong drink before setting out on his round of apparitions, he talked
in such a queer way to his disciple, that the latter became suspicious.
The next morning he found horse tracks from his door to Rogers's house,
and so discovered that the ghost had come from that place on horseback.
Further investigations followed, and it was not long before it became
quite plain that Rogers had been playing a well-planned trick upon the
inhabitants of Morristown, and he was arrested.

Every one, however, had not lost faith in him, and there was an old
gentleman--whose name the ancient pamphlet very kindly conceals, calling
him by the name of "Compassion"--who went bail for him, and he was
released; whereupon he and his friends decamped. However, Rogers was
again arrested, and this time he confessed the whole of his share in
raising the ghosts of Morristown.

But, as has been said, he was a man of ability, and able to take care of
himself, and in some way he managed to escape from custody, and was seen
no more in New Jersey. His followers, who had sent their gold and silver
to the spirits by means of his kind offices, never saw their money
again; and the vast treasures buried at Schooley's Mountain still remain
hidden from all men.




A JERSEYMAN AND HIS ROYAL CROWN.


We have told the story of the lord who lived at Basking Ridge; now we
will tell the story of a much more exalted personage, one who had sat
upon a throne, and worn a crown and royal robes rich with diamonds and
precious stones, and who lived on a breezy hill on the banks of the
Delaware. What he was doing in New Jersey, and how he had come to wear a
crown and royal robes, we will now proceed to tell.

This exalted personage was not a king when he was living in New Jersey,
but he had been a king. In fact, if we may not say that he had been two
kings, we can say that he had been a king twice. He was Joseph
Bonaparte, the eldest brother of the great emperor, Napoleon, who, after
having conquered a great many nations of Europe, and having deposed
their kings, supplied them with new sovereigns out of his own family.
Joseph was sent to Italy to be King of Naples. He did not particularly
want to be king, and he knew that the people did not want him, and after
he had been in Naples some time, reigning under his brother's orders
with no great success, the emperor determined to transfer him to Spain,
whose throne had just been made vacant. Having been informed that he
was to go to Madrid, Joseph obeyed, but he did not like it.

Moreover, the people of Spain did not like it, and after a time they
rose up in rebellion, and were assisted by the English and Portuguese,
and forced the king to fly from Spain.

The ex-king of Naples and Spain had various adventures in France and
Switzerland; and when the power of the great Napoleon came to an end, he
was obliged to fly, or he also might have been sent to Elba or some
other place equally undesirable, so he determined to come to America. In
a little brig of two hundred tons, a very small vessel to sail on the
ocean, he crossed the Atlantic in disguise, not even the captain of the
vessel knowing who he was. He was accompanied by his secretary; and when
the two reached America and made themselves known, they were treated
with great respect and attention. In fact, America owed so much to
France, that she was very willing to show her gratitude.

Now that he was well out of Europe, Joseph Bonaparte gave up all idea of
returning, and in deciding to settle here it was not surprising that he
chose to make his home in New Jersey. He bought a place near Bordentown,
on a high wooded hill called Point Breeze, and built a house, which was
truly splendid for those days. It had grand halls and staircases and
banquet halls, and it must have been larger and more imposing than Lord
Stirling's. His estate, which covered more than a thousand acres, was
beautifully laid out in drives and gardens and lawns, and everything on
the place was arranged in a style of beauty and grandeur.

It was three years before this great house, with its surroundings, was
finished, and ready for the ex-king's residence; and when at last he
went there, he lived in ex-regal style. His wife was not with him,
having remained in Italy on account of ill health, and her physicians
would never allow her to come to America. But he had two daughters who
were with him during part of his residence in New Jersey, and there were
persons who asserted that he had also brought with him the crown of
Spain and the royal robes of Italy.

It generally happens, when a sovereign is obliged to abdicate and to fly
from his kingdom, that he arranges matters so that he shall not become a
pauper when he arrives at the place of refuge. If he is not able to
carry away anything more than a valise, he is much more likely to put
his royal jewels into it than to fill it up with night clothes and
hairbrushes; so when Bonaparte came to New Jersey, he came as a very
rich man.

When his kingly mansion was ready to be supplied with art treasures,
such as ornamented the palaces of Europe, the ex-king sent across the
ocean for costly paintings and beautiful sculpture with which to fill
his new house; and if any crowned heads had happened to visit him, he
would not have been ashamed to welcome them beneath his roof. People of
royal blood--that is, the same kind of royal blood that he had--did come
over to visit him. Louis Napoleon, afterward Emperor of France, came,
when a young man, and spent some weeks with his uncle. While there, it
is said, this young man went out shooting on the estate, and, finding
the birds near the house easier to hit than those at a distance, he
blazed away at any feathered creatures he saw in the garden, so that the
gardener made a complaint.

But even then this young Louis Napoleon had begun to have dreams in
regard to his succession to the imperial throne of France, and he did
not like to be snubbed and scolded by an uncle who had had all the regal
honors he was ever likely to get, and who therefore had no right to put
on airs in his dealings with the prospective wearer of a crown. So there
was a quarrel between the two, and there are reports to the effect that
Louis Napoleon took revenge upon his uncle by cutting his fruit trees
with a hatchet, without, however, imitating Washington in regard to
subsequent truthfulness.

Besides visitors from abroad, many distinguished Americans visited the
ex-king. Among these were Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Quincy
Adams. General Lafayette, also, when he came to this country, was
received with great state by the Count de Survilliers, the title under
which Joseph Bonaparte lived at Bordentown.

This ex-king never became an American citizen by taking out
naturalization papers; but the Legislature of New Jersey treated him
very well, and passed a resolution which enabled him to hold property in
this State, and to thus become, in fact, a Jerseyman.

But although our ex-king was now established on the free soil of
America, he did not feel altogether safe. His family had come to grief;
and there was reason to fear, that, as a member of that family, England,
or France, or Spain, might demand him as a prisoner, to be taken across
the ocean to answer the charge of unlawful occupation of a throne.

It is quite possible that the people of the neighborhood imagined that
the ex-king was in greater fear of molestation from his former royal
brethren than was really the case. Their reasons for supposing that he
was anxious to defend himself against surprise and capture had some
ground, for there were some strange things about that ex-royal
estate,--things that were not known in any other part of New Jersey.
There was a tall building called a belvedere, from which the country and
the river might be surveyed for a long distance in every direction; but,
stranger far than that, there were subterranean passages which led from
the house to unfrequented parts of the grounds. These passages were well
built, arched with brick, and high enough for people to walk upright in
them; and although persons of quiet and unimaginative minds thought
that they were constructed for the purpose of allowing the occupants to
go down to the lake or to the other portions of the grounds without
getting wet if it should happen to be raining, there were many people
who believed that for sudden showers a good stock of umbrellas would be
cheaper and quite as useful, and that these costly passages could be
meant for nothing else than to give opportunity for escape, in case
foreign emissaries or officers of the law should come in search of an
ex-king who was wanted on the other side of the Atlantic.

For whatever reason these passages were built, the spectacle of an
ex-king, carrying a crown and his royal robes in a hand bag, slipping
out from among some bushes to tramp along the dusty road to Trenton or
Burlington, was never seen. Nobody ever thought it worth while to come
to New Jersey to demand him or his property.

During his residence at Bordentown, which continued for about fourteen
years, Joseph Bonaparte was very popular with the people of the
neighborhood. They looked upon him as a friend and neighbor; but at the
same time they did not lose sight of the fact, that although he was now
a country gentleman of New Jersey, with his lawn and his flower garden
to look after, he had sat upon two thrones, and had been a sovereign of
Naples and Spain. They called him "king," and his house was known as the
"palace;" and for this reason the people of other States made some mild
fun of New Jersey, calling it a foreign country.

But if this ex-king had been a rich country gentleman of the
neighborhood, he could not have made himself more popular. He was
hospitable, and frequently gave entertainments, and he sent flowers and
fruits from his gardens to his friends and neighbors. He made roads, and
contributed in many ways to the improvement of the country round about
his home. In winter time the boys of Bordentown came to skate upon his
ponds; and at such times he nearly always offered them refreshments,
which consisted of quantities of chestnuts, which he scattered on the
ice so that the youngsters might scramble for them.

In many ways his kind and sociable disposition made him so much liked,
that it is very probable that if the officers of the law had come to
take him back to Europe, he would have received such timely notice of
their approach that it would not have been necessary for him to hurry
away through his underground passages. New Jersey is a reasonable and
hospitable State, and when an ex-king comes to reside within her
borders, he will be as well treated, so long as he behaves himself, as
if he were a poor immigrant from Europe, coming with his wife and family
to clear away the forest, and make himself a home.

Just before Joseph started for America, the affairs of his family were
at their lowest ebb. His great brother, the emperor, had fallen from his
high state, and could look forward to nothing but imprisonment by the
European countries, whose thrones he had for so long been in the habit
of upsetting or threatening. In his last interview with Napoleon, when
on his way to the ship which was to take him to America, Joseph
generously offered to change places with his brother, and to let the
ex-emperor fly to America instead of the ex-king. It was very difficult
for any one of the Napoleon family to get away from France at that time;
but Joseph had made a very excellent plan by which passports were
provided for two persons coming to America on business, and his brother
could have used one of those as well as himself.

But the great Napoleon declined to run away in this manner. He remained,
and was sent to St. Helena. What would have occurred in the neighborhood
of Bordentown, N.J., had Napoleon Bonaparte, conqueror of Europe, ruler
of nations, and disposer of crowns, the hero of Austerlitz, Marengo,
and Wagram, taken up his residence at Point Breeze, and established
himself as a citizen of the State, cannot easily be imagined. The
geniality, sociability, and hospitality of the ex-king could hardly have
been expected from the ex-emperor; and, surrounded as he would have been
in time by devoted followers who would have exiled themselves from their
country for his sake, there might have been a little empire in New
Jersey which would have been exceedingly interesting to tourists.

Moreover, if the allied powers of Europe had sent over a fleet to bring
back their great enemy, who knows but that they might have found, when
they reached Bordentown, not a tall lookout tower and underground
passages for escape, but a fort with ramparts, redoubts, a moat, a
drawbridge, and mounted cannon ready to sweep the Delaware and the
surrounding country? However this might have been, it is certain that
Napoleon's refusal to take his brother's place must ever be a source of
satisfaction to the people of Bordentown and the rest of the country.

As a proof that Joseph Bonaparte had had enough of royalty, and not
enough of New Jersey, it is stated that a delegation of prominent men
from Mexico, which country was then in a very disturbed condition, came
to him during his residence at Bordentown, and offered him the throne of
Mexico. In making answer to this proposition, our ex-king did not
hesitate a moment. He told the delegation, that, having already worn two
crowns, he desired never again to wear another. The old fable of the fox
which had lost its tail did not probably come into his mind; but if it
had, he might well have spoken of it to his Mexican visitors.

After years had elapsed without any attempt on the part of European
powers to arrest him, our ex-king, Joseph, began to feel safe, and he
made a visit to England. He returned to America, but went back again,
and died in Italy in 1844, having given to New Jersey the peculiar and
unique position of being the only State in the Union which ever numbered
among her citizens the owner of a royal crown and regal robes.

To be sure, there is nothing in this for the people of a republican
State to be proud of; but New Jersey may be allowed to say that there
never was a royal person who was of less injury to the people among whom
he dwelt than her ex-king at Bordentown, and she may add that there have
been very few of his class who have been of as much advantage to his
neighbors.




THE DEY, THE BEY, AND SOME JERSEY SAILORS.


New Jersey is very intimate with the ocean. For nearly the whole of her
length, from Cape May to Sandy Hook, the waves of the Atlantic roll and
roar. Wherever one may be in this State, it is not necessary to travel
very far in order to smell the fresh sea air.

It is true that but few of the great commercial vessels leave and arrive
at the ports of New Jersey, and that the presence of naval vessels in
her waters is due to the fact that she is part owner of the Bay of New
York; but it is also true, that, although she has not sent forth ships
to fight the battles of her country upon the ocean wave, she has sent
out to command those ships some of the best-known men who have ever worn
the American naval uniform.

One of the first occasions in which our naval vessels played a part in
foreign waters was of a rather romantic nature, though not particularly
calculated to raise our country's flag in our own estimation or that of
other nations.

It was at the end of the eighteenth century, when we had begun to trade
in various parts of the world, that our merchant vessels sailing on the
Mediterranean were greatly molested by the pirates of what was called
the Barbary Coast. The half-civilized and warlike people of Tripoli,
Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco, had long been in the habit of sending out
their armed vessels to prey upon the ships of all civilized countries;
and when American ships entered the Mediterranean, they soon found out
the state of affairs. Several vessels were captured, and the crews were
sent on shore and imprisoned or enslaved.

Nearly all the European maritime powers had defended their commerce
against these savage pirates, not by great guns and vessels of war, but
by humbly paying tribute. Every year these great nations sent money and
gifts to the Dey of Algiers, the Bey of Tunis, and the other rascals;
and in consideration of this tribute, their vessels were graciously
allowed to sail on the Mediterranean without molestation.

It was not long before the government of the United States saw very
plainly that it must pay tribute, conquer the Barbary States, or
quietly submit to the capture of all American merchantmen which might
sail into the Mediterranean. The easiest thing to do was to pay the
tribute; and as the other civilized nations did this, the United States
followed their example.

In the year 1800 a United States vessel bearing the name of "George
Washington," and commanded by William Bainbridge, a Jerseyman who had
been at sea ever since he was fourteen years old, sailed to Algiers,
carrying on board the ship which bore the name of the great man who had
made his country free and independent of the most powerful nation of the
earth, the tribute which was annually due from the United States to an
African sovereign, the Dey of Algiers.

This commission of the United States vessel seemed more humiliating from
the fact that our country had just come out of a war with France, in
which our frigate "Constellation" had defeated and captured one of the
vessels of that great naval power. But we had agreed to pay for the
privilege of trading in the Mediterranean, and, although the countries
of the Barbary Coast had no more right in that sea than Spain, France,
or Italy, they chose to assert their right, and we had acknowledged it.

When Bainbridge had arrived at Algiers, and had handed over the tribute
which he had brought, he supposed that his business was over, and
prepared to sail away; but the Dey, who was a potentate accustomed to
ask for what he wanted and to get it, informed the United States
commander that he wished to send him upon an errand.

These Barbary powers were all subject to the great head of the
Mohammedan nations, the Sultan of Turkey; and the Dey desired to send an
ambassador to his imperial master, and as the "George Washington" was
about to sail, he determined to make use of her.

When Captain Bainbridge was informed that the Dey commanded him to take
the ambassador to Constantinople, he very naturally declined, and
thereupon a great hubbub arose. The Dey informed Bainbridge, that, as
the United States paid him tribute, its people were his slaves; they
were bound, as were his other subjects, to obey his commands, and to do
what he told them without hesitation or question. If they were not his
slaves, why did they come here, meekly bearing money and other gifts to
their master?

All this had no effect in convincing Captain Bainbridge that he was a
slave of the Dey of Algiers, and bound to go upon his errands; but there
was an American consul there, and he saw that the matter was very
serious indeed. The harbor was commanded by forts mounted with heavy
guns, and if these were brought to bear upon the "George Washington,"
she would certainly be blown to pieces without much chance of defending
herself; and, moreover, such a conflict would surely bring about a war
with Algiers, and it was not at all desirable that an American officer,
bound upon friendly business, should provoke war between his country and
another.

This reason was a very bitter dose for Captain Bainbridge; but after
consideration he found himself obliged to take it. If he refused, there
would be a United States ship the less; and he knew not how many
American ships, now sailing without fear upon the Mediterranean, might
be seized and burned, and their crews thrown into horrible slavery. He
had no right to precipitate anything of this sort, and consequently,
under protest, he agreed to take the Algerine ambassador to
Constantinople. But this was not all the high-minded Dey demanded. He
insisted that when the "George Washington" sailed out of the harbor, she
should sail, not as a United States vessel, but as a ship of Algiers,
and that she should carry on the mainmast, where generally floated the
stars and stripes, the Algerine flag, while he kindly consented that the
flag of her own country might float from the foremast. It was as
difficult to refuse this second demand as it was the first, and so the
"George Washington" went out of Algiers with the pirate's flag proudly
floating from its mainmast.

As soon as he got out of sight of land, Bainbridge hauled down the
Algerine flag and put up his own; but this was a very small satisfaction
and not particularly honorable.

When the "George Washington" reached Constantinople, she created a
sensation. Never before in the waters of the Golden Horn had the stars
and stripes been seen, and the people of the city could not imagine
where this strange ship came from. Some of these people had heard of
America and the United States, but they knew of it only in a vague and
misty way, very much as we understand some parts of the interior of
China. If Captain Bainbridge had told them he was from New Jersey, he
might as well have told them he came from the moon.

But the Americans were very well received in Constantinople, and the
officers of the government were glad to welcome them and do them honor.
Captain Bainbridge and the Turkish admiral became very good friends; and
when the latter heard how the former had been treated at Algiers, he
condemned the insolent Dey, and laid the matter before the Turkish
Government. In consequence of this, Bainbridge was given a paper, signed
by the Sultan, which would protect him thereafter from any such
disrespectful treatment from any of the minor Mohammedan powers. When
Captain Bainbridge had enjoyed all the Turkish hospitality his duties
permitted him to receive, he sailed from Constantinople and again
entered the port of Algiers. The Dey was glad to see him come back, for
he had some more business for him; and our Jersey captain was soon
informed that he must sail away again on another errand for his Barbary
master. But this time the Barbary master was very much astonished, for
Bainbridge peremptorily refused to do anything of the kind.

Now the blood of the Dey boiled hot, and he vowed that if the "George
Washington" did not immediately sail forth upon his service, he would
declare war upon this miserable little country which owned it, and he
would put the commander and crew of the ship in chains, and clap them
into dungeons. But Bainbridge did not turn pale, nor did he tremble. He
simply pulled from his pocket the paper which he had received from the
Sultan, and allowed the furious Dey to glance over it. When the raving
pirate read the words of his imperial master, all the fury and the
courage went out of him, and he became as meek and humble as if he had
been somebody come to pay a tribute to himself. He received Bainbridge
as a friend and an equal, and, from commanding and threatening him,
became so gracious, and made so many offers of service and friendship,
that Bainbridge decided to take advantage of this auspicious change of
temper.

Not long before, the French consul at Algiers had been seized and
imprisoned, together with all the Frenchmen who were doing business in
that place; for, so long as people belonged to a country which was a
great way off, the Dey considered himself an all-powerful ruler, who
could do what he pleased with them without fear of their far-away
government. Bainbridge determined to try to do something for these poor
men; and when he again met the smiling and pleasant Dey, he urged their
release. The paper which Bainbridge received from the Sultan must have
been written in very strong terms; for, although the demand of the
American captain was a heavy one, the Dey agreed to it, and when the
"George Washington" sailed from Algiers, she carried away all the
Frenchmen who had been living there.

Bainbridge was not at all satisfied with this Algerine business; and
when he reported the affair to the authorities at home, he requested
that he might never again be sent to carry tribute to Algiers unless he
could deliver it from the mouths of his cannon.

The next year the Bashaw of Tripoli, who had had no tribute from the
United States, began to be very uneasy in his mind because he did not
fare so well as the other Barbary potentates, to whom money and
merchandise were delivered every year. He accordingly spoke up in
defense of his rights. It is not likely that he knew where the United
States was, what sort of a country it was, or how large or how small its
army and navy might be. He knew that the Americans were miserable,
humble people, who paid tribute to the Bey and the Dey, and he could see
no particular reason why they should not pay it to the Bashaw.
Consequently he wrote a letter to the President of the United States, in
which he expressed his views very pointedly, and informed him, that, if
proper arrangements were not made in six months, he would destroy all
the American ships on the Mediterranean, and declare war against the
United States.

Strange to say, a thrill of terror did not run through the government of
the United States; and six months passed without any notice having been
taken of this impertinent communication. Thereupon the Bashaw cut down
the flag pole in front of the American consul's office at Tripoli, and
commenced the great work of annihilating the United States of America.
He began on the small American trading vessels which he found along the
Barbary Coast, intending probably, when his convenience would permit, to
sail out upon the Atlantic, find the United States, and help himself to
the treasures which its government had so disrespectfully declined to
hand over to him. The example of the Bashaw had a great effect upon the
Dey and the Bey and the sub-Sultan; and Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco also
informed the President of the United States that they were going to war
with him if he did not immediately promise to pay tribute more regularly
and in articles of better quality.

But the United States was getting tired of this sort of thing, and
determined, no matter what the other civilized powers chose to do, that
no more tribute should be paid by it to these insolent pirates.
Consequently our government informed the mighty monarchs of the Barbary
Coast that it was quite ready for war, and sent four ships to the
Mediterranean, one of which, the "Essex," was commanded by Bainbridge.

But the fleet did not do very much on this expedition, and the war with
North Africa dragged considerably. Bainbridge came back to America, and
after a time returned in command of the "Philadelphia." There was a
small squadron with him, but he sailed faster than the other vessels,
and reached the Mediterranean alone. Here he overhauled a Moorish vessel
which had captured an American brig under a commission from Morocco.
Having rescued the American vessel, the crew of which were prisoners in
the pirates' hold, the "Philadelphia" took the Moorish vessel as a prize
to Gibraltar, and then started out again to see what could be done to
humble the port of Tripoli.

In this undertaking our Jerseyman did not meet with good fortune. In
chasing a Tripolitan vessel which was discovered near the harbor, the
"Philadelphia" ran upon a reef, and there stuck fast. Everything was
done that could be done to get her off; even the cannon were thrown
overboard to lighten her, but it was of no use. She was hard and fast;
and when the people of Tripoli found out what had happened, their
gunboats came out of the harbor, and the "Philadelphia" was captured,
and all on board, including Bainbridge, were made prisoners. They were
taken to Tripoli, and there remained in captivity nineteen months. Now
the soul of the Bey swelled high in his bosom as he smiled at this
attempt of the little country across the ocean to resist his power.

The Tripolitans found that they had gained a great prize in the
"Philadelphia," that fine war ship, which seemed to have been left on
the reef as a present to them. After a good deal of work, they towed her
into the harbor close to the town, where they repaired her leaks, and
put her in order to use against their enemies the Americans, who did not
know how to keep a good thing when they had it. When Commodore Preble
came, six months afterwards, to blockade the port of Tripoli, he
discovered that the "Philadelphia" was nearly ready for sea; and, to
prevent the disaster of having a United States ship with United States
cannon bear down upon them, he determined to destroy the "Philadelphia,"
if possible, and an excellent plan for the purpose was devised. A small
vessel called the "Intrepid," which had been captured some time
previously, was manned with a crew of over eighty men, commanded by
Lieutenant Decatur, who, years after, finished the Algerine war.

This brave little vessel sailed into the harbor as if she had been an
ordinary merchantman, and managed to drift down close to the fine
frigate which the Tripolitans had snatched from their blundering enemy.
The crew on board the "Philadelphia" did not suspect the character of
the little vessel which came so close to them, until she was made fast,
and more than eighty men sprang up from the places where they had been
lying concealed on deck, and swarmed over the side of the frigate.

Among these was a young sailor, Lawrence, from Burlington, N.J., who had
begun life early, having been a midshipman when he was only sixteen
years old. When Commodore Preble asked for volunteers to go on this
expedition to snatch from the hands of the pirates the prize which they
thought they had won, Lawrence was one of the first volunteers, and
acted as second in command of this expedition.

The fight was not long. Many of the turbaned crew jumped overboard, and
the others were quickly subdued. It would have been a grand thing if
Decatur and his gallant sailors could have carried off the
"Philadelphia," and have taken her out to the squadron. But this was
absolutely impossible. Her foremast had been cut down in order to
lighten her so that she could be floated off the reef, and many of her
sails were wanting. Knowing that the vessel would not be found in
sailing trim, Preble had issued positive orders that no attempt should
be made to capture her, but that she should be burned.

The cannon from the town and from the war vessels in the port now began
to fire; but the men with Decatur and Lawrence knew exactly what they
had to do, everything having been carefully arranged beforehand. They
went to work without losing a minute, and set fire to the frigate in
many places. The flames and the smoke spread so rapidly that some of
them had hardly time to get out of the hold. Lieutenant Lawrence found
he could not get on deck the way he came down, and was obliged to run
along the hold and climb up forward. As quickly as possible every one
jumped on board the "Intrepid," and, without relying entirely on their
sails to enable them to get away, they put out sixteen great oars, which
were pulled with a will by three or four men to each oar.

Now the whole harbor of Tripoli was in wild commotion. The Americans
stopped rowing for a moment to give three great cheers, and soon cannon
shot were flying fast and furious after the retreating little vessel.
But only one of them touched her, and that passed through a sail without
doing much damage; and she rowed until her sails caught the wind, and
then went out of the harbor, and returned in triumph to the squadron.

Soon after they had left the "Philadelphia," that great vessel, with her
hull blazing and the flames crackling and climbing up her masts, took it
upon herself, in these last minutes of her existence, to strike a blow
for the flag of her country. Possibly suspecting that some attempt might
be made to rescue the ship they had captured, the Tripolitans had loaded
all her cannon so as to be ready to fire upon any vessel that might
approach her. As the fire spread over her hull, the time came when the
"Philadelphia" could do something for herself; and when the guns were
hot enough, she let fly a broadside into the town, and then another one
among the shipping. How much damage she did, we do not know; but the
soul of the Bashaw ceased to swell as he heard the roar of her last
broadsides, and beheld her burning fragments scattered over the waters
of the harbor.