"The first nautical enterprise that succeeded the battle of Lexington was one purely of private adventure. The intelligence of this conflict was brought to Machias, in Maine, on Saturday, the 9th of May, 1775. An armed schooner, in the service of the Crown, called the Margaretta, was lying in port, with two sloops under her convoy, that were loading with lumber on behalf of the King's Government. "The bearers of the news were enjoined to be silent,--a plan to capture the Margaretta having been immediately projected among some of the more spirited of the inhabitants. The next day being Sunday, it was hoped that the officers of the schooner might be seized while in church; but the scheme failed, in consequence of the precipitation of some engaged. Captain Moore, who commanded the Margaretta, saw the assailants, and, with his officers, escaped through the windows of the church to the shore, where they were protected by the guns of their vessel. The alarm was now taken; springs were got on the Margaretta's cables, and a few harmless shot were fired over the town by way of intimidation. After a little delay, however, the schooner dropped down below the town to a distance exceeding a league. Here she was followed, summoned to surrender, and fired on from a high bank, which her own shot could not reach. The Margaretta again weighed, and running into the bay, at the confluence of the two rivers, anchored. The following morning, which was Monday, the 11th of May, four young men took possession of one of the lumber sloops, and, bringing her alongside of a wharf, they gave three cheers as a signal for volunteers. On explaining that their intentions were to make an attack on the Margaretta, a party of about thirty-five athletic men was soon collected. Arming themselves with firearms, pitchforks, and axes, and throwing a small stock of provisions into the sloop, these spirited freemen made sail on their craft, with a light breeze at northwest. When the Margaretta observed the approach of the sloop, she weighed and crowded sail to avoid a conflict that was every way undesirable,--her commander not yet being apprised of all the facts that had occurred near Boston. In jibing, the schooner carried away her main-boom, but, continuing to stand on, she ran into Holmes' Bay, and took a spar out of a vessel that was lying there. While these repairs were making, the sloop hove in sight again, and the Margaretta stood out to sea, in the hope of avoiding her. The breeze freshened, and, with the wind on the quarter, the sloop proved to be the better sailer. So anxious was the Margaretta to avoid a collision, that Captain Moore now cut away his boats; but, finding this ineffectual, and that his assailants were fast closing with him, he opened a fire--the schooner having an armament of four