I mind me of her now, Natty,--her eye was sich a piercer that
you could see to steer by it in a Newfoundland fog; her nose stood out
like the 'Grampus's' jibboom, and her woice, Lord love you, her woice
sings in my ears even now:--it set the Captain a-quarrelin with the
Mate, who was hanged in Boston harbor for harpoonin of his officer in
Baffin's Bay;--it set me and Bob Bunting a-pouring broadsides into each
other's old timbers, whereas me and Bob was worth all the women that
ever shipped a hawser. It cost me three years' pay as I'd stowed away
for the old mother, and might have cost me ever so much more, only bad
luck to me, she went and married a little tailor out of Nantucket; and
I've hated women and tailors ever since!" As he spoke, the hardy tar
dashed a drop of brine from his tawny cheek, and once more betook
himself to splice the taffrail.
Though the brave frigate lay off Havre de Grace, she was not idle. The
gallant Bowie and his intrepid crew made repeated descents upon the
enemy's seaboard. The coasts of Rutland and merry Leicestershire have
still many a legend of fear to tell; and the children of the British
fishermen tremble even now when they speak of the terrible "Repudiator."
She was the first of the mighty American war-ships that have taught the
domineering Briton to respect the valor of the Republic.
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