Born at Lyme, Conn., Jan. 21, 1749, Died at Lyme, Conn., Oct. 29, 1821. From original painting in possession of his descendant, Mrs. Daniel Whitney, 5117 Pulaski Avenue, Germantown, Pa. ] “Though I afterwards recovered the vessel,” Bushnell wrote to Jefferson, “I found it impossible at that time to prosecute the design any further. I had been in a bad state of health from the beginning of my undertaking, and was now very unwell; the situation of public affairs was such that I despaired of obtaining the public attention and the assistance necessary. I was unable to support myself and the persons I must have employed had I proceeded. Besides, I found it absolutely necessary that the operators should acquire more skill in the management of the vessel before I could expect success, which would have taken up some time, and no small additional expense. I therefore gave over the pursuit for that time and waited for a more favorable opportunity, which never arrived. “In the year 1777 I made an attempt from a whaleboat against the _Cerberus_ frigate, then lying at anchor between Connecticut River and New London, by drawing a machine against her side by means of a line. The machine was loaded with powder, to be exploded by a gun-lock, which was to be unpinioned by an apparatus to be turned by being brought alongside of the frigate. This machine fell in with a schooner at anchor astern of the frigate, and concealed from my sight. By some means or other it was fired, and demolished the schooner and three men, and blew the only one left alive overboard, who was taken up very much hurt.[8] “After this I fixed several kegs under water, charged with powder, to explode upon touching anything as they floated along with the tide. I set them afloat in the Delaware, above the English shipping at Philadelphia, in December, 1777. I was unacquainted with the river, and obliged to depend upon a gentleman very imperfectly acquainted with that part of it, as I afterwards found. We went as near the shipping as we durst venture; I believe the darkness of the night greatly deceived him, as it did me. We set them adrift to fall with the ebb upon the shipping. Had we been within sixty rods I believe they must have fallen in with them immediately, as I designed; but, as I afterwards found, they were set adrift much too far distant, and did not arrive until, after being detained some time by frost, they advanced in the day-time in a dispersed situation and under great disadvantages. One of them blew up a boat with several persons in it who imprudently handled it too freely, and thus gave the British the alarm which brought on the battle of the kegs.” The agitated redcoats lined the banks and blazed away at every bit of drifting wreckage in the river, as described by a sarcastic Revolutionary poet in “The Battle of the Kegs.” Gallants attend, and hear a friend Troll forth harmonious ditty, Strange things I’ll tell that once befell In Philadelphia city.