74 
FOREST 
AND 
STREAM 
February, 1920 
A SHARK STORY 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
T HE following fish story is probably 
the most extraordinary ever told, and 
moreover, unlike most fishing yarns, it 
is absolutely authenticated and vouched 
for by the official records and documents 
of the time. 
The facts are, that on the 28th day of 
August, in the year of grace, 1799, His 
Britannic Majesty’s ship of war, the 
cutter Sparrow, commanded by Captain 
Hugh Wylie, being stationed in West 
Indian waters, was cruising in the Car- 
ibbean Sea off the south coast of the 
Island of Hayti, and England being at 
that time at war with most of the pow- 
ers in the New World, the British tars 
were naturally keeping their eyes 
skinned, on the look-out for whatever 
booty Dame Fortune might think fit to 
put in their way, and when a strange 
craft was sighted in the offing, all sail 
was pressed on and the vessel was soon 
overhauled and boarded. 
The skipper of the captured vessel, 
whose name was Thomas Briggs, pro- 
duced papers purporting to show that 
she was the brig Nancy, of British na- 
tionality, but the English officers, stub- 
born after the manner of their kind, and 
convinced from the brig’s build that she 
was an American ship, decided to take 
her as a prize into Port Royal in the 
neighboring Island of Jamaica. This 
was done notwithstanding the master’s 
protests, and in due course suit was in- 
stituted in the Court of Vice-Admiralty 
at Kingston, Jamaica, seeking a decision 
that the Nancy was a lawful prize seized 
cn the high seas, as the property of per- 
sons being enemies of the realm. 
The suit was contested, and it is not 
likely that the claim for condemnation 
of the vessel would have succeeded had 
it not been that at the critical moment 
of the action, certain papers of an in- 
criminating nature were produced by an- 
other British Naval Officer, Lieutenant 
Fitton, who made oath and swore that 
he had found them inside the stomach 
of a shark which he had caught while 
cruising off San Domingo in the tender 
of His Majesty’s ship Abergavenny. 
These papers proved that the Nancy 
had sailed from Baltimore some time 
previously, and that she was owned by 
Germans who had become naturalized 
citizens of the United States. Three 
years before that she had been captured 
by a French privateer and carried into 
the port of Guadeloupe, where she was 
condemned as American property. The 
production of these papers in the Jama- 
ica Court of course at once proved the 
case for the British Officers, and the 
Nancy was accordingly condemned as a 
lawful prize. The following is an exact 
copy of the affidavit: — 
Jamaica, SS. 
IN THE COURT OF VICE AD- 
MIRALTY. 
The Adv. Gen. ex ret. Wylie, et all., 
vs. 
The Brig Nancy. 
“Michael FittOn, Esquire, being duly 
sworn, maketh oath and saith that 
the tender of His Majesty’s ship of 
war Abergavenny, then under the 
command of this deponent, being on 
a cruise off Jacmel in the island of 
San Domingo, on the thirteenth day 
of August last, discovered a dead 
bullock surrounded by sharks, which 
he had towed alongside the said ten- 
der for the purpose of catching the 
said sharks, and this deponent saith 
that having caught one of the said 
sharks and hoisted it on board the 
said tender, he ordered some of the 
seamen to separate its jaws and 
clean them, as the said shark was 
larger than common, which the said 
seamen did, whilst others opened its 
maw, and therein discovered in the 
presence of this deponent a parcel 
of papers tied up with a string. And 
this deponent saith that on perusing 
the said paper he discovered a letter 
of a recent date from Curricoa, and 
as it occurred to this deponent they 
might relate to some vessel detained 
by some of His Majesty’s cruisers, 
he had them dried on deck; and this 
deponent saith that having been in- 
formed that His Majesty’s cutter 
Sparrow has sent down to this island 
as prize a certain brig, a vessel 
called the Nancy, and supposing the 
papers so found as aforesaid might 
be useful at the trial of the said 
vessel called the Nancy, hath caused 
the same to be sealed up, and deliv- 
ered them to one of the surrogates 
of this honorable court without any 
fraud, alteration, addition, subduc- 
tion, or embezzlement whatsoever.” 
Michael Fitton. 
Taken and the truth thereof sworn 
to before me this 24th day of Sep- 
tember, 1799. 
J. Fraser, Surrogate. 
These papers were delivered to me by 
Lieutenant Fitton at the time of his 
swearing to his affidavit in the cause, 
Adv. Genl. Wylie, et all., vs. the brig 
Nancy. 
(Signed) J. Fraser, Surrogate. 
24th September, 1799. 
It is surely impossible to surpass so 
extraordinary a coincidence as the fore- 
going. The original packet of papers to- 
gether with Lieutenant Fitton’s affidavit 
are kept in a glass case in the Institute 
of Jamaica, where they may be seen by 
visitors to Kingston. The head of the 
shark is in the United Service Museum 
in London. 
F. L. Pearce, Montreal, Canada. 
GLAD THEY WAITED 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
I HAVE often noticed a tendency in 
young deer to return after a time to 
investigate the cause of a sudden fright. 
If the hunter jumps an old buck he 
knows that the said buck immediately 
digs out for more agreeable territory, 
but if a young buck has been jumped 
up, and he has not seen the hunter, or 
smelled him, he is often liable to come 
nosing back, seemingly interested to 
find out what startled him. This foolish 
habit they have once nearly got two 
friends and myself into serious trouble. 
We had been out nearly all day to- 
gether and hadn’t seen any game, so we 
returned to camp for a lunch and then 
decided to take a short turn up through 
the swamp near the foot of the lake 
hoping to get a shot before dark if luck 
favored us. 
Near the edge of the swamp is a long 
ridge which runs out from the nearest 
foothill toward the lake, and we were 
planning to cross this, then come back 
through the other side of the sWamp to 
the camp. 
The sides of this ridge are very thick- 
ly covered with short spruces, while the 
top of the ridge is quite clear of every- 
thing but tall trees. We approached the 
ridge from the North side and were 
nearly up through the thick spruces 
when I saw a small spikehom come out 
of the spruces on the South side of the 
ridge almost directly toward me. 
My companion was at that moment 
having difficulty with an old rotten log 
which obstructed his progress, and Mr. 
Spikehorn, hearing the resultant crash 
and voluble flow of vitrolized cuss 
words, stopped abruptly, turned, and 
leaped back into the spruces from whence 
he came. 
After explaining in a quiet and gen- 
tlemanly manner the undesirability of 
hunting companions who considered that 
they must mow a wide path through the 
forests when they were hunting, and 
he replying in kind, I told him about the 
deer I had seen the moment before. We 
hoped' he would wish to investigate the 
