Fanny Campbell, The Female Pirate Captain: A Tale of The Revolution

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  FANNY CAMPBELL, THE FEMALE PIRATE CAPTAIN

  A Tale Of The Revolution

  By Maturin Murray Ballou

  1844

  NEW YORK:

  E. D LONG & CO., BOOKSELLER

  PREFACE.

  All books should have a preface, for the writer is sure to havesomething to communicate to the reader concerning the plot of the storyor some subject relating to it which he cannot do in the tale. It is asort of confidential communication between the author and reader,whom he takes by the buttonhole for a single moment, and endeavors toprepossess favorably towards his story. We are one of those who placegreat confidence in first impressions, and therefore design that thereader should at least commence our tale unprejudiced. He will see ata glance that our publisher has passed his judgment in commendation, bythe superb manner in which he has issued the work, and the great expenseincurred.

  We have a few words to say concerning the subject matter of the tale. Itis a very romantic one, but no more so than many others, the incidentsof which occurred during the stirring times of the Revolution, andwhich have since received the sanction of history. We have been at someconsiderable expense in ferreting out the events of our tale, which havebeen cheerfully met by our liberal publisher.

  FANNY CAMPBELL.

  CHAPTER I.

  _LYNN IN OLDEN TIMES. HIGH ROCK. THE FISHING HAMLET. THE STIRRING EVENTSTHAT PRECEDED THE REVOLUTION. SOME OF OUR CHARACTERS. WILLIAM LOVELL.FANNY CAMPBELL. THE HEROINE. CAPTAIN RALPH BURNET OF THE ROYAL NAVY. ALOVER’S JEALOUSY._

  |The town of Lynn, Massachusetts, situated up the Atlantic sea board,at a distance of some ten miles from the metropolis of New England, hasbeen the locale of many an incident of a most romantic character. Indeedits history abounds with matter more akin to romance than fact. Thereare here the Pirate’s Cave, Lover’s Leap, the Robber’s Dungeon, allwithin a pistol shot of each other. The story of its early Indianhistory is also of a most interesting character, and altogether theplace is one destined to be immortal from these causes alone.

  In that part of the town known as ‘Wood End,’ there is an immense pileof stone rising perpendicularly on the side of a hill, fronting theocean, known far and near by the name of High Rock. This granite massis very peculiarly formed; the front rising abruptly nearly an hundredfeet, while the back is deeply imbedded in the rising ground and thesummit forms a plain level with the height of the hill and the adjoiningplain in the rear. This spot has long been celebrated for the extendedand beautiful prospect it affords. From its top which overlooksrock-bound Nahant in a Southerly direction, may be had a noble view ofthe Atlantic, and a breadth of coast nearly thirty miles in width. Thereis no spot upon our shores where the sea plays a wilder or more solemndirge than on the rocky peninsula of Nahant; the long connecting beachis here a scene of angry commotion from the constant and heavy swells ofthe broad ocean.

  At a distance of about ten miles in the South-West lies Boston. Theeye always rests upon the dense smoke that enshrouds it first, piercingwhich, loom up the spires of its numerous churches, and towering abovethem all, the noble State House is distinctly seen. Turn still more tothe West and you overlook the principal portion of the manufacturingtown of Lynn, with its picturesque collection of white cottages andfactories, appearing of miniature dimensions. Turn again towards theNorth West and a few miles beyond the town of Lynn, lies the thrivinglittle village of Saugus. A full Northern view is one of woody beauty,being a field of forest tops of almost boundless extent. In theNorth-East through the opening hills and trees, a glimpse is had of thewater in Salem harbor, while the city itself is hid from view, remindingone of the distant view of the Adriatic from the lofty Appenines, whichrise from the very gates of the lovely city of Florence.

  This is a slight glance at the extended prospect to be enjoyed by avisit to High Rock, at the present day, saying nothing of the prettyquiet little fishing village of Swampscot, and the panorama of sailingcraft that always ornament the sea view.

  Near the base of the rock there resided until a few years since thecelebrated fortune-teller, known by the name of ‘Moll Pitcher,’ asoubriquet given her by the town’s people, her rightful name neverhaving been ascertained. She lived to a remarkable old age, and to theday of her death the visitor who ‘crossed her palm with broad pieces,’was sure to receive in return, some truthful or fictitious legend ofthe neighborhood. There are many among us to this day who remember withpleasure their visits to the strange old fortune-teller of Lynn, at thebase of High Rock.

  We have been thus particular in the description of this spot as it isthe birth-place of two persons who will bear an important part in thetale we are about to relate, and partly, because we love this spot wherewe have whiled away many an hour of our boyish days. The peculiaritiesof one’s birth-place have much influence upon formation of the characterand disposition. The associations that hang about us in childhood, havedouble weight upon our tender and susceptible minds at that time, tothose of after days, when the character is more formed and matured, andthe mind has become more stern and inflexible. It behoves us then tospeak thus particularly of the birth-place and the associations of thosewho are to enact the principal characters in the drama which we relate.

  There lived at the very base of High Rock about seventy years ago, afew families of the real puritanic stock, forming a little community ofthemselves. The occupation of the male portion of the hamlet was thatof fishermen, while the time of the females was occupied in drying andpreserving the fish and such other domestic labor as fell to their lot.The neighborhood, resembled in every particular, save that it was farless extensive, the present town of Swampscot, which is situated butabout three or four miles from the very spot we are now describing, andwhose inhabitants, a hardy and industrious people, are absolutely tothis day ‘fishermen all.’

  The date to which we refer was just at the commencement of the principalcauses of difference between the colonies and the mother country; thetime when shrewd and thoughtful men foretold the coming struggle betweenEngland and her North American dependances. Already had the oppositionof the colonies to the odious Stamp Act, and more particularly thepeople of Massachusetts Bay, as Boston and the neighboring province wasnamed, become so spirited and universal that the British Parliament hadonly the alternative to compel submission or repeal the act, whichwas at length reluctantly done. Yet the continued acts of arbitraryoppression enforced by parliament upon the people, such as the passingof laws that those of the colonists charged with capital crimes, shouldbe sent to England to be tried by a jury of strangers, and like odiousand unconstitutional enactments had driven the people to despair, andprepared them by degrees for the after startling events that caused allEurope to wonder and England herself to tremble!

  The State Street massacre, the celebrated tea scene, in which theindignant inhabitants of Boston discharged three hundred and fiftychests of tea into the water of the bay, the thousand petty acts oftyranny practised by the soldiers of the crown; the Boston Port Billblockading the harbor of Boston, all followed in quick succession, eachbeing but the stepping stone to the great events to follow. Thesewere the scenes at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, and the manywell-contested and bloody fields of the Revolution, until these UnitedStates of America were acknowledged to be _free and independent!_

  The bold and adventurous characters of the men were affected as well bythe times we have described, as by the hardy nature of their employment.The dangers that often times surrounded the homes of the female
s, gaverise to a stern and manly disposition even in those of the gentler sexwho formed a part of the community, and altogether it was made up ofstern and dauntless spirits. There was at the commencement of ourtale about the year 1773, two families who occupied one spacious andcomfortable cottage in the little neighborhood we have described.These were the families of Henry Campbell, and William Lovell, bothfishermen, who sailed a staunch fishing craft together. Their familiesconsisted of their wives and an only child each-William and Fanny, andit was the honest hope and promise of the parents that the children whenarrived at a proper age should be united to each other. Nor were thebetrothed on their part any way loth to such an agreement, for theyloved each other with an affection that had grown with their years fromearliest childhood. The course of true love seemed certain to run smoothwith them at least, the old adage to the contrary notwithstanding.

  William had been brought up almost entirely on board his father’svessel, and he was as good a sailor as experience in this way couldmake. He was now nineteen, with a firm, vigorous, manly form, and aneasy and gentlemanly bearing; his face when one came to be familiarwith it, was decidedly handsome; showing forth a spirit that spurned alldanger He was young, ardent and imaginative, and could but poorly brookthe confinement of his father’s occupation, which engaged much of histime; his generous and ambitious mind aspiring to some higher callingthan that of an humble fisherman He was but little on shore, save in thesevere winters that come early and stay late in these northern latitudes;but then this season was looked forward to with pleasure by all. Thelong winter evenings were spent happily with Fanny, as she industriouslypursued some female occupation, while he perhaps read aloud someinstructive book or interesting tale, or they listened to some storyof the old French and Indian war from their parents, who had beenparticipators in their dangers and hardships. Then the subject of thepresent state of the prospects and interests of the colonies, and theoppression of the home government, were also fully discussed. Thus thetime had passed away until William had reached his nineteenth year,when he resolved to make a bold push for fortune, as he said, and afterobtaining permission which was reluctantly granted by his parents, hemade arrangements to ship from Boston to some foreign clime as asailor. A distant voyage in those days was an adventure indeed, andcomparatively seldom undertaken.

  William Lovell had been to Boston and shipped on board a merchant vesselfor the West Indies and from thence to some more distant port, and hadnow returned to the cottage to put up his little bundle of clothes andbid farewell to his old companions and friends, and to say good-byeto his parents and her whom he loved with an affection that found noparallel among those with whom he had associated. It was this very lovewhich had given birth to the ambition that actuated him, and the desireto acquire experience and pecuniary competency.

  It was the evening before he was to sail, a mild summers night, whenwith Fanny he sought the summit of High rock. They seated themselvesupon the rough stone seat, hewn from the solid rock by the hand of thered man, or perhaps by some race anterior even to them, and long andsilently did both gaze off upon the distant sea. It was very calm, andthe gentle waves but just kissed the rocky borders of Valiant and threwup little jets of silver spray about the black mass of Egg Bock. Themoon seemed to be embroidering fancy patterns of silver lace upon theblue ocean, which scarcely moved, so gentle were the swells of its broadbosom under the fairy operation. This was some seventy years gone by,years of toil and labor, of joy and sorrow, years of smiling peace andangry war, three score and ten years ago, and yet within a twelve monthI have sat upon that rock, aye, upon that very stone, and looked uponthe same silvery sea, and viewed the same still, silvery scene; gazingon the same iron-bound shores, and the black and frowning mass ofEgg Rock still there, as if placed a sentinel upon the shore, and yetsufficiently within the domain of Neptune to lead to the belief that itserves the hoary old god rather than the spirits of the land.

  Fanny Campbell was a noble looking girl. She was none of your modernbelles, delicate and ready to faint at the first sight of a reptile; no,Fanny could row a boat, shoot a panther, ride the wildest horse in theprovince, or do almost any brave and useful act. And Fanny could writepoetry too, nay, start not gentle reader, her education was of no meancharacter. Such slight advantages as chance had thrown in her way hadbeen improved to the utmost, and her parents finding her taste thusinclined, had humoured it to the extent of their limited means. ThusFanny had received nearly every advantage attainable in those days.Once or twice in the course of the year, she was accustomed to pass someweeks at the house of a Reverend divine at Boston, with whom her fatherclaimed some relationship. While here, the good man discovered her tasteand inclination for study, and gave her such instructions as he wasable, with the loan of books to amuse and strengthen her mind. By thesemeans Fanny had actually obtained an excellent education at the timewhen we have introduced her to the reader; being but seventeen years ofage. In her turn she had communicated her information to William Lovelland thus the two had possessed themselves of a degree of education andjudgment that placed them above their friends in point of intelligence,and caused them to be looked up to in all matters of information, andscholarship.

  ‘Fanny,’ said William, ‘I shall be far away from you before another dayhas passed.’

  ‘Yes, many miles at sea, William’

  ‘But my heart will remain at home.’

  ‘And mine will leave it.’

  ‘In safe keeping, Fanny.’

  ‘I doubt it not, William.’

  ‘I find it even harder than I had supposed to leave you Fanny, now thatthe time has actually arrived.’

  ‘I do not think that we should regret it William, after all, for it willbe the source of much improvement to you no doubt, and that you know isvery desirable to us all. While I regret to think you are about to leaveus I also envy you the experience you necessarily gain of the world,something that books cannot teach.’

  ‘You are a strange girl, Fanny.’

  ‘Do you love me any the less because I speak as I feel? William, I haveno secrets from you.’

  ‘No, no, my dear girl, I only love thee the more, while I am still moresurprised at thy brave and noble spirit, at the judgment and thoughtthat characterises one of thy sex and tender years. By my soul thoushouldst have been a man, Fanny.’

  ‘Had I been, why, I would have done just that which thou art about todo--go abroad and see the world.’

  ‘And if you had a Fanny too at home whom you loved, would you go andleave her behind?’

  ‘Yes, because like you I should not know how dearly she lovedme--perhaps.’

  William pressed her hand and paused thoughtfully for a moment, thenturning to her by his side resumed:

  ‘Fanny!’

  ‘Well--William.’

  ‘Would you have me give up this proposed enterprise? Say so, dearest,and I will relinquish it at once.’

  ‘Generous heart,’ said she placing her braided hands upon his shoulderfirst, and then laying her cheek upon them, ‘not for worlds. Though thyFanny is over miserly in all that relates to thee, yet she would ratherhave thee follow thy inclination. No, no, I would have thee go.’

  ‘Nay, Fanny, I knew not until now how much I loved thee,’ said WilliamLovell, putting his arm about her waist and imprinting a kiss upon hersmooth white forehead.

  Fanny was not easily moved to tears, yet even she now brushed carelesslyaside a single pearly drop that stole away from her deep blue eye. (Didyou ever notice what depth there is to a blue eye, reader?)

  ‘You will often remember us here at home I know, William,’ said Fanny,and think how fervently we shall pray for your safe return’ And now thetear’s, apparently gathering fresh courage from the trembling voice ofthe noble girl, ventured to show themselves more boldly.

  ‘When I forget thee, dear Fanny, or any of the kind friends I leavebehind, may Heaven forsake me.’

  It was midnight when they separated, William was an honest and strictlyconscien
tious youth; brought up after the strict code of puritanicfaith, and as he was about to retire to rest, he bent his knee to Heavenand prayed long and fervently for blessings upon Fanny, his parents andall, and for guidance in his new undertaking. Then throwing himself uponhis cot he was soon fast asleep.

  Fanny too sought her chamber for the night but not to sleep, ah! no. Sheknelt to the throne of grace, and prayed for Heaven’s choicest blessingson him she loved, for his safe conduct upon the wide and tracklessocean. And oh! so fervent a prayer, and from one so devoted, so pure andinnocent, must ever find audience in Heaven. As she cast off her neatand becoming homespun dress, she paused to brush away the gatheringtears.

  Have we described Fanny’s person, kind reader? No! What more fittingtime than when clothed only in such a simple and modest covering asshall veil her charms.

  Fanny Campbell was in height what would be called tall at the presentday for a female, and yet she was not particularly so, for a healthygirl, who had never known a day of sickness, born and brought up inthe free and invigorating air of the sea coast. Her limbs and personpossessed that bewitching roundness, which, while it seems to indicatea tendency to _enbon-point_, yet is the farthest removed from anoverfleshiness of habit her full heaving breast, her perfectly formedlimbs, her round and dimpled arms, all spoke of a voluptuousness ofperson, and yet within the most delicate rule of beauty. A paintershould have seen her there, her person modestly veiled yet displayingher form in most ravishing distinctness; her breast heaving withemotions, and her hands clasped and raised towards Heaven. Herfeatures were after the Grecian school, with a coral lip that meltedan anchorite. Where Fanny got those eyes from, Heaven only knows, theyrivalled a Circassian’s. Nature seemed to have delighted in ornamentingher with every gift it might bestow. Her teeth were regular and white aspearls, and her hair was a very dark auburn, worn parted smoothly acrossher brow, and gathered in a modest snood behind the head, while it waseasy to see by its very texture that if left to itself, it would havecurled naturally.

  Such was Fanny Campbell.

  There was one matter which weighed heavily upon young Lovell’s mindrelative to leaving Fanny and his home. About two months previous tothe opening of our tale, a young British officer, Captain of one ofthe Royal Cutters that lay in Boston harbor, had met with Fanny ather relations in the town, and was at once struck by her extraordinarybeauty of person, while he also admired the peculiar tone of her mind,so bold and independant, and yet perfectly tempered by a spirit ofmodesty. He did not hesitate to show his admiration and while she wasin town, he was assiduous in paying her those delicate and gentlemanlyattentions, which cannot but prove acceptable to every female, whileregulated by a proper sense of delicacy and honorable motives. To saythat Fanny was not pleased with the attention of Captain Burnet would beincorrect. He was an intelligent and well educated man, whose taste andmanners had been improved by seeing much of the world, and being of anobservant character, he had stored much pleasing and useful knowledge,This he knew full well how to employ to advantage. Fanny was at onceattracted by his pleasant manner and the fund of information he seemedto possess, and besides all else, she was extremely fond of the seaand all that related to it, while upon this theme Burnet was peculiarlyeloquent.

  Thus passed several weeks and Fanny became quite familiar with theCaptain of the King’s Cutter. There was only one point upon which theymaterially disagreed, and that was relative to the conduct of the homegovernment and their right to tax and make laws for the colonies. Fannywas eloquent on this point and argued warmly and eloquently for hercountrymen, while Burnet who was an American by birth and whose heartwas indeed with his native land, was yet obliged to support the sidewith which he fought. He nevertheless frankly acknowledged to Fanny onmore than one occasion that her eloquence had nearly made a ‘rebel’ ofhim. Fanny at length returned to her home where the Captain had visitedher several times: previous to the proposed departure of William Lovellon his voyage to sea, and of which we have so lately spoken.

  It was evident to Lovell, that Fanny was _pleased_ with the officer ofthe king although he knew that her _love_ was his own. He did not revertto this subject at the interview on the rock, though it was near hisheart the whole time. Indeed it was a delicate point with him, and oneof which he had never spoken seriously to Fanny. He did not doubt hertruth, yet he feared, and yet hardly so, that possibly in his absence,the officer might seek to obtain the favor of Fanny, and he feared forno good or honorable purpose. ‘For,’ said he to himself, ‘what can thecaptain of a king’s ship desire of a poor fisherman’s daughter butto sacrifice her to his own base purposes.’ Yet Lovell had so muchconfidence in her he loved, that he determined not even to allude to thematter, lest it might imply a suspicion which he would not acknowledgeto himself. But he thought of these things nevertheless with someanxiety.

  Young Lovell had never happened to meet with Captain Burnet, beingabsent at sea with his father at such times as he had chosen for hiscalls at the cottage, and all that he had learned from Fanny herself,who was far too honest and unaffected to conceal anything of sucha character from him, but told him of all their intercourse, littlesuspecting the pain that it caused him. Captain Burnet had never offeredher any attention, other than one friend might offer to another, norhad the thought ever entered her mind that he was striving to gain heraffections. It appeared to be Burnet’s object to keep up this idea,for he had never made her a call as yet without expressly stating thatbusiness had drawn him to the immediate neighborhood of her father’scottage, and thus the matter stood at the time William Lovell waspreparing to leave his home. Burnet’s attention to Fanny Campbell hadnot caused any remark in the family, and Lovell comforted himself withthe query, as he considered this state of the matter. ‘They have seennothing to remark, why should I worry then?’ But for all his resolves tothe contrary, his determination not to let the matter annoy him, asis always the case, he grew more fidgety in point of fact, as hisdetermination of purpose seemed to himself to increase.