350 HISTORY OF COHASSET. 



in September of that year, 1814, but she was captured by 

 the British. Captain Ezekiel Wallace said to the British 

 officer who boarded her, 'You don't want us, we 're nothing 

 but poor fishermen,' but the officer said, ' I 've seen you 

 in Liverpool captain of a vessel ; I want you.' Wallace and 

 his companions, including Isaiah Lincoln, had to go as 

 prisoners of war to Halifax, after two of the crew. Brown and 

 Litchfield, had been set ashore at Plymouth, Mass. Wallace 

 returned the next April after the war was ended, bringing 

 poor Lincoln's pocketbook and telling how the unfortu- 

 nate fisherman had perished last November in the lousy 

 dungeon at Halifax."* 



Another capture of a Cohasset vessel was the little 

 packet sailing between here and Boston. She had on 

 board a cargo of fish in barrels packed for the Boston 

 market. The skipper, John Wilson, had no defense 

 against the British man-of-war and was compelled to sur- 

 render; but the British had little use for such a cargo, 

 and they allowed the owner of it, Levi Tower, to redeem 

 the vessel by paying a sum of money. When she was 

 being unloaded at the wharf in Boston a marine's cut- 

 lass was found upon the deck between some of the barrels, 

 where the British owner had lost it when rummaging 

 through the cargo. The cutlass is now kept as a memento 

 by the grandson of Captain John Wilson. 



But the end of that unseemly war was reached at last. 

 At Christmas of the year 18 14, in Ghent, Belgium, the 

 terms of peace were made ; but the news did not reach 

 us until the middle of January, 181 5. Thomas Stoddard 

 describes the event as follows: — 



In Cohasset the first news of Peace was the roar of cannon. 

 Commencing at Boston and as fast as the fleetest horse could 

 run, the roar of guns spread East, West, North and South. The 

 day was still and clear ; the ground covered with snow, in some 

 places ten feet deep. 



*See Lincoln's certificate, p. 340. 



