He was told they were at the Red Lion, at the end of the village, which he discovered, much to his annoyance, that he was obliged to pass. He had almost succeeded in doing so unobserved, when one of the men shouted after him, and, approaching, gave him to understand that some of the privateer's crew had an idea of shipping in the Navy, and wanted some particulars from him; showing that his disguise had deceived them. Barney invited the man to accompany him to Plymouth, walking away rapidly while he spoke; but, as Mr. Maclay puts it, the tar "seemed to think better of his plan of entering a navy noted for its cruelty to seamen," and accordingly turned back. Barney now began to be very anxious about his safety. He was on the high road to Plymouth, where he might at any moment encounter a guard sent out to recapture him; so he jumped over a hedge into Lord Mount-Edgecumbe's grounds, where the gardener, pacified by a "tip," let him out by a private gate to the waterside--and none too soon, for, as he passed out, the guard sent to seek him tramped along on the other side of the hedge he had jumped over. A butcher, conveying some stock by water, took him across the river, and that night he found himself back at the old clergyman's house from which he had started. His two friends of the fishing-smack adventure here joined him once more, and while they were at supper the town-crier bawled under the window that five guineas reward would be paid for the capture of Joshua Barney, a rebel deserter from Mill Prison. Three days later, dressed in fashionable attire, Barney stepped into a post-chaise at midnight and drove off for Exeter. He was stopped at the Plymouth gate, and a lantern thrust in to see if he corresponded with the description of himself which had been circulated. Apparently he did not, for he was permitted to proceed, and eventually passed on to Bristol and London, France, and Holland; whence he shipped on board the armed ship _South Carolina_, which he saved, by prompt measures and good seamanship, from being wrecked on the Dutch coast--her officers being, apparently, timid and incompetent. Eventually, having transhipped on board the _Cicero_, another American privateer, Barney reached Beverley, Massachusetts--the writer does not give the date, but it must have been in the autumn of 1781. At Boston, we are told, he met several of his fellow-prisoners who had also escaped from Mill Prison. [Footnote 15: There still remains the question of Byron's flagship. She was certainly the _Princess Royal_ when he arrived at New York; but as the _Ardent_, 64, was one of the vessels of his squadron, it is, of course, possible that he may subsequently have hoisted his flag on her temporarily.] CHAPTER XIX CAPTAINS BARNEY AND HARADEN