Alongside you, you rascals; out guns, boys! haul down your colours, or I will sink you instantly, says our captain; round too, and come under my stern.

She surrendered to us, without firing a gun. The Vengeance, in the mean time, put about and run away from us. But in an hour, we were along side of her, and took her also, without a gun being fired. We returned with both our prizes to Charleston, an hour before the sun was down, and came to an anchor at Fort Sullivan.

As soon as information of our successful return was received, we were saluted from Fort Sullivan and Fort Johnson, and colours were hoisted from every gentleman's house, who was not a tory. A committee was chosen by the citizens of Charleston to sell our prizes. They were sold for so much, that each share of the hands amounted to two hundred and fifty dollars. But some pretext was always offered for withholding my share from me; so that I have never received one cent of it.

The governor filled out a cartel, and sent the prisoners we had taken to New-York, and had them exchanged for an equal number of equal rank; and after we had effected the exchange, we returned to Boston.

On our passage from South Carolina to Boston, we came across a large topsail schooner, with a crew of gentlemen and ladies, (tories,) making their escape to St.

Augustine. We permitted them to pass, on giving up all their money, which was found to be a very considerable sum.

On our return to Boston, we found our two letters of marque, which we had taken and ordered for that place, safely arrived. Soon after, there was a hot press for men to go and recapture Penobscot, which had been taken by the British. I volunteered to go with a Mr. Saltonstall, who was to be the commander of the expedition, which for some cause, however, failed; and I then got a furlough to go home to my family, which still resided at Wrentham. Soon after, I went to Boston, and requested of Captain Smedly my discharge from the ship. But he seemed to think he could not with propriety give it. I then requested him to pay me my wages. He told me he was about fitting out an expedition to the West Indies, and could not, without great inconvenience, spare the money then; but said he would call on his way to Providence, where he was going in a short time, and would then pay me; but I never saw him afterwards. Neither have I, at any time since, received a farthing, either of my share of prize money or wages.

The shop, also, which I had built in Boston I lost. After the British troops were stationed in that town, they appropriated it for the purpose of a wash and lumber house, and eventually pulled it down and burnt it up.

After I had concluded my services as a sailor, I was called upon to serve with the militia from time to time, until the close of the war. The general destination of the troops with which I served, was to guard the coasts and prevent the incursions of the enemy, in the most exposed parts between Boston and New-York, extending also our points of defence as far up the Hudson as West Point.

In one expedition, which was undertaken some considerable time after the capture of Burgoyne, at Stillwater, I was out four months and a half, under the command of Captain Thomas George, to guard the coast in Rhode-Island, during which we had an engagement with the British troops at a place called Cobblehill, in which we beat them with a considerable slaughter of their men. But soon after, on their receiving a reinforcement, we were obliged to retreat from the Island. While on that expedition, we had orders to go at a certain time on a secret expedition to destroy a British fort.

After we got into the boat which was to carry our men, our orders were not to speak a word loud, until we arrived at the place of our destination. But some of our men becoming impatient, from the fatigue of rowing, occasionally inquired of some one how far they had still to row; they were overheard by some of the British, aboard of one of their frigates, which lay in

It

the river; and when the moon rose over the hill, they espied us, fired upon us, and killed one of our men. then became indispensable for us to retreat back to our station.

At another time when I was stationed with a detachment of the militia at West Point, to guard that post, under the command of General McDougal, a number of us were ordered to go out one night under the command of Captain Barney, to surprise and capture a number of cow-boys, who were supposed to be collected together at a certain place in the woods not far distant. We succeeded in the enterprise, took twenty-five of them, and brought them in the same night.

The various incidents related by Hewes, respecting his services as a soldier during the revolutionary war, are not intended by him to claim for himself any peculiar distinction, but what he should in common with others of his rank; but have been related, only in confirmation of his assertion respecting the general devotedness of his service to the case of his country. When he was not engaged in his cruising expeditions as a sailor, he asserts that he was called upon almost incessantly to do military duty, and that he never was disposed to withhold his actual personal services, until he found that the extreme exigencies of his family required some other provision than he could obtain for his services as a soldier. But he was never relieved

from the burden of expense in support of the war. For no sooner was he induced by the pressure of his circumstances to make an effort to withdraw his services from the army, than a regulation was made, requiring all those who were able to do military duty, to either serve when called upon, or to form themselves into classes of nine men, and each class to hire an able bodied man, on such terms as they could, and pay him for his services, while they were to receive their pay of the state. In compliance with this regulation, he gained a class which hired a man, who demanded of us specie, while we received nothing of the government but paper money, of very little value, and continually depreciating. By this means I was excused from any other service during the war, which, however, did not continue long after.

Since the close of the revolutionary war, Hewes has been buried, as it were, in utter obscurity, engaged in laborious pursuits, either in some agricultural or mechanical employment, by which he thought he could best provide for his family.

From the time he was seven years old, he has hardly had leisure allowed him from his manual occupation to procure even the first rudiments of a common school education. In every thing, therefore, which relates to intellectual capacity and improvement, he is a simple child of nature; and if he has ever indulged a secret