12 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



for Elizabethtown in New Jersey. As we were on the 

 point of pushing off, our Jersey skipper was threatened 

 with the necessity of taking with him a lading of blows 

 consigned by a man of the King's party who fancied 

 the skipper had injured him in Elizabethtown. The 

 skipper defended himself by keeping to his cabin, with 

 his musket cocked. The matter was for the time ad- 

 justed and we got loose, but not without fear, and the 

 risk, at least of experiencing on the other shore some- 

 thing of the law of reprisals. We were however hardly 

 under sail before the skipper began to assure us of 

 everything agreeable on the part of his countrymen, 

 and in particular promised us great respect in our ca- 

 pacity of British officers, which he no doubt took us to 

 be. I mention this little circumstance because our 

 friends in New York were uneasy for fear we should 

 meet with a sorry reception among the still irritated 

 American populace and on that account sought to dis- 

 courage us from the journey. The sort of evil entreat- 

 ment with which they alarmed us in New York was 

 attributed in prospect solely to such Tories as had ven- 

 tured again among their former countrymen and were 

 by them recognized. Pride often overcomes a desire 

 of vengeance ; at least that was my explanation of the 

 skipper's over-busy courtesies, shown us after his own 

 rude experience in a British garrison at the hands of 

 British subjects. 



or taken up at the side of the vessel. This board is let down 

 against the wind (on the lee side) ; the so-called Lee-board, 

 then, hangs in the water several feet below the bottom of the 

 vessel, and the greater resistance so gained balances the effect 

 of the side wind which would otherwise tend to bring the 

 vessel too much out of its course. 



