8 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SEALER 



prisoner of war at Dartmoor in England, where he was shot 

 leading a revolt against the jailers. Captives were not well 

 treated in those days, and by all accounts those at Dartmoor 

 fared hardly. The stories I heard in my youth of this man indi- 

 cate that he was a person of ability but with little worth noting 

 except a certain reckless valor. 



The third of his generation, my father's father, like his 

 brother William took to the sea when he was a lad and soon 

 rose to the command of his own ship and just before the War 

 of 1812 was a prosperous merchant dwelling in New York City. 

 As the embargo and the war ruined him, he turned privateer, 

 and in a succession of vessels was fortunate in his plundering 

 work, so that he in a measure recouped his losses. The last of 

 these vessels that he commanded was built for fast sailing and 

 was for a time very successful in overhauling East Indiamen. 

 From the many printed accounts of his adventures and from his 

 letters, he appears to have been a man of courage, who kept 

 his head in peril, and was withal of a simple generous nature. 

 One of his letters tells of the bravery of certain black men 

 among his crew who had been his slaves before they shipped. 

 At the end of three years of this legalized buccaneering, Captain 

 Shaler's ship vanished from the sea. To explain the disap- 

 pearance there is the story of some East Indiamen sailing 

 together for protection who were set upon by an American 

 ship: at the outset of the attack came a squall, and when it 

 cleared away the privateer was not to be seen. It is supposed 

 that she "sailed under," which is made probable by the form of 

 canvas she carried and the shape of her bows. 



I have seen but one man who remembered my great-grand- 

 father. He recalled him as a stately person who had very good 

 horses in his carriage. Another remembered my grandfather as 

 a very gentle man, with a delicate, womanish face, one side of 

 which was blackened with gunpowder, as my informant said, 

 from an adversary's pistol in a "boarding" fight. Of my great- 

 uncle William Shaler I have had accounts from several persons, 



