Fanny Campbell, The Female Pirate Captain: A Tale of The RevolutionBallou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
History
Fanny Campbell, The Female Pirate Captain: A Tale of The Revolution
Ballou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
Sea stories; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction; War stories; Women pirates -- Fiction
She was conducted to the private cabin of Captain Burnet, and a prize
crew of four only, placed in the Constance, while the prisoners were all
released, and most of them taken on board the Dolphin. These prisoners,
from the necessary severity of their confinement, were unable to work,
and indeed scarcely able to walk. Thus the four men placed on board the
Constance, with two of the prisoners who were found to be able to work,
under the charge of the mate of the Dolphin, formed all the crew that
could be spared. Burnet could not afford a larger number, for his late
encounter had cost him more than two thirds of his whole complement of
men. He had but ten seamen left to work his own vessel, and as they were
so near to port he doubted not that the brig would be easily worked into
harbor. He therefore made sail and left her to follow him to Boston.
Scarcely had the Dolphin dropped her prize so far astern as to fairly
lose sight of her, before the bark and ship, having changed their course
and returned to see how the Constance had rode out the storm, hove in
sight. They were not long in ascertaining the state of affairs, and in
making themselves masters of the brig again! Lovell learned the details
of the whole affair from the Englishman whom Fanny had pardoned. The
evidence of the dreadful slaughter upon the Constance’s forecastle
was still visible, and was viewed with feelings of no slight degree of
interest by Lovell and Herbert.--The former feared much for Fanny, and
indeed was half crazed with regret; but there was no other course for
them to take but to steer their course for Lynn harbor, which all three
of the vessels did, Lovell and Herbert having heavy hearts within them
for victors to carry; and the former would gladly have relinguished all
to have clasped Fanny again safely in his arms.
Thus was the thread of our eventful tale spun on the wide waters at sea,
while on land and in the little hamlet of High Bock, Lynn, the friends
and relations of Fanny Campbell, except her parents, had never ceased
to speculate and wonder as to the true cause of her absence. Her parents
maintaining a profound secrecy upon the subject, threw a stronger
degree of mystery about the matter, that kept the good old women and
the gossips generally of the village in fidgets. Indeed, Mr. and Mrs.
Campbell themselves did not hesitate to express a feeling of fear and
dread lest some ill had befallen her, yet pretending that they really
did not know where she had gone, for this was the express wish of Fanny
and the promise gained from her parents that they would not reveal her
secret was religiously kept when she left her home. One or two knowing
the fact of William Lovell’s imprisonment, had shrewdly surmised that
her absence related in some way to the affair; but in what particular
way, no one knew.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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