It is not well that I give too much space to this brawl when there are so many other adventures, in which a fellow might well take pride, to be recorded, therefore I will only say that we had no very easy task to down these admirers of King George and the Prince Regent; but finally succeeded, thanks to the assistance of Jim Freeman. It is doubtful which side got the worst drubbing, although we claimed a victory because the others ran; but positive it is that the four of us had all the punishment needed, and were forced to wash our faces more than once before we could look at each other without a certain feeling of shame. "What made you tackle the whole of 'em?" Jerry asked the old man. "If the rest of us hadn't been near at hand, they'd wiped you out." "I'd tackle twenty if they dared say anything against Joshua Barney!" Darius cried as he shook his fist in the direction where our adversaries had last been seen. "I'd rather get the toughest pummellin' such as them could give, than keep my mouth shut while they was slurrin' their betters!" We were actually obliged to use force with him, otherwise the old man would have gone in pursuit of the British-lovers, and it was only by tumbling him into the canoe head-foremost, holding him down by sitting on him once he was there, that we could make Darius listen to anything like reason. "Let up on me, an' I'll keep quiet," he said after we had threatened to continue the drubbing begun by the Tories; "but this much I promise, that after the commodore has made shoestrings of that conceited admiral, I'll come back here an' have it out with Elias Macomber." "We'll let it go at that," Jerry said as he released his hold of Darius and went back for the meal, while Jim wrung the water out of his clothing as best he could, for the fellow had not stopped to throw off coat or shoes when he jumped overboard to take a hand in the scrimmage. It was near to half an hour before we were ready to go on board the Avenger, and by that time it was too late to make any protests against following the commodore. My comrades took it for granted that I was equally eager with them to be where I could do my share of fighting the Britishers, and so stirred up was I by the game of fisticuffs ashore that I actually forgot to be frightened by the prospect of taking part in a battle. We got our anchor and made sail on the Avenger without delay, and thus, in less than an hour from the time of making port, we were off again on what proved to be a series of wild adventures. CHAPTER III. ELIAS MACOMBER. Of a verity Elias Macomber did me a good turn when he started the quarrel with Darius Thorpe, for up to this time I had been sadly lacking in patriotism, as may have been learned from that which is already set down in these pages.