"We are going for the King's ship," answered Joseph Wheaton, one of the captors. "This craft can outsail her, and if we have men and guns enough we can take her."

"My boys, we can do it!” cried the bold Jerry, with an enthusiasm that sent the crowd off in a hurry in search of arms.

A sorry show of arms they found with which to attack a vessel well supplied with cannon, for the Margaretta boasted four six-pounders and twenty swivels, each firing a one-pound ball. All the haymakers could muster were twenty guns, with enough powder and shot to make three loads for each. One of these was a "wall piece," a musket too heavy to fire from the shoulder. The rest of their weapons consisted of thirteen pitchforks and twelve axes.

Men were plenty, but only thirty-five were chosen, the most athletic of the throng. Among them were the half-dozen O'Brien brothers, and Jerry, a village leader in all matters that called for decision, was elected captain. Setting sail on the Unity, the sloop they had taken, away they went for the first naval battle of the Revolutionary War. Captain Moore saw his foes coming and apparently did not like their looks any too well, or had

good reasons of his own for avoiding a fight, for he hastily got up anchor again and fairly ran away. His quick movement was no lucky one, for in going about, the main-boom swung across so sharply that it struck the backstays and broke short off.

This was an ugly accident for a runaway, but chance enabled the British captain to quickly replace the broken spar, for a merchant schooner lay near by at anchor. Laying the Margaretta beside this vessel, he made no ceremony in robbing it of its boom to replace his, and in a brief time was under sail again, heading for the open sea with a timidity that seemed strange under the circumstances, as his vessel was strong enough in cannon to make short work of the Unity, if he had chosen to fight.

Meanwhile time was passing and Captain O'Brien, with his amateur crew, was fast coming up. The sloop proved the better sailer of the two, and the last tack had brought it so close aboard that Captain Moore now cut adrift his boats in his eagerness to escape. For a British captain dealing with "rebels," he seemed strangely timid. Not until the Unity was within striking distance did he make up his mind to fight, showing the new spirit that animated him by firing a gun. This was followed

by a broadside, but the guns were apparently badly aimed, for though one man fell dead, no other harm was done to vessel or crew.

The eager patriots retorted with a volley of musketry, the wall piece being fired by a deadshot moose-hunter of the backwoods, who aimed so truly that he picked off the man at the helm and sent everybody scurrying from the schooner's quarter-deck.

Left to take care of herself, her helm swinging free, the schooner broached to, and in a moment more the sloop, then very close at hand, crashed into her. In an instant more the axmen and haymakers were tumbling over the rail and a hot affray was in progress, the schooner's crew, with Captain Moore at their head, rushing up to repel the eager boarders.

The killing of the helmsman and the boarding of the schooner had in an instant overcome all the superiority it possessed by virtue of its armament, and hand to hand the battle went on with such weapons as could be seized.

With muskets, pitchforks and axes the patriots shot, thrust and cut at the British crew, who fought valiantly with cutlasses, hand grenades, pistols, and boarding pikes, Captain Moore flinging grenades

fiercely at his foes. But when a musket-ball stretched him dead upon the deck, his men lost heart and drew back, the Yankees poured hotly upon them, and in a minute more the Margaretta was ours.

The fight had been fast and furious, for twenty men, more than a fourth of all those engaged, were killed and wounded.

Thus ended the haymakers' fight, the opening event in the ocean warfare of the Revolution. The Margaretta was greatly the stronger, in men, in guns, and the skill and training of captain and crew, yet she had been taken by a party of landsmen, with muskets against cannon and pitchforks against cutlasses. It was a victory of which they could well be proud.

This is not the end of the story of Jerry O'Brien, the hero of the haymakers' fight. He had now under him a fighting crew, plenty of cannon and ammunition, and before him the open ocean, offering prizes and glory to men of his mold. Taking in the Margaretta, landing his prisoners, and shifting the cannon and small arms of the captured vessel to his swifter sloop, which he renamed the Machias Liberty, he set sail on a privateering cruise, the first, so far as history tells us, in American annals.

On

The British naval authorities, eager to punish O'Brien and his men for their daring act, soon gave them an opportunity to show their mettle. hearing of what they doubtless considered his presumption, they sent down two armed schooners, the Diligence and the Tapanagouche, from Halifax to deal with the bold Yankee-Irishman. But Captain O'Brien knew something about handling a ship, as he had already proved. By skilful movements he succeeded in separating the cruisers and then dashed on them one at a time in the bold manner in which he had dashed on the Margaretta. As a result, he brought them both in as prizes to Watertown, Massachusetts, and handed them over to the colonial authorities.

TO THE PUPIL:

1. Ardent means warm; conspirators,plotters; anticipate, to foresee, to foretaste; anticipation here means the act of foretasting their coming triumph (note the prefix fore); ceremony means here observance of etiquette; timidity, fear; amateur, not professional; presumption, passing beyond the ordinary bounds of good-breeding, respect, or reverence.

2. In the paragraph beginning "Prominent among the, etc.," what synonymous expressions can you use for the following: Prominent among the conspirators;