Here 's to America, and damn the British, too," continued this sea lawyer, drinking his toast amid shouts of approval from the men.
Left to himself, Seymour, after the men had received their grog, and other necessary duties had been attended to, turned the deck over to Lieutenant Wallingford, whose watch it was with Philip Wilton, and, descending the poop-deck ladder, disappeared through the same door which had received the two officers into the cabin.
Three weeks had elapsed since the raid upon the Wilton place, and the scene had shifted from Virginia to the sea, or rather to the great bay which gives entrance to it, from the Delaware River.

It was a clear cold day in the early part of December, and the American Continental ship Ranger had just left her moorings off Philadelphia, with orders to proceed to English waters; stopping at Brest to receive the orders of the commissioners in Paris, and then, in case no better ship could be found, to ravage the English Channel and coast, as a warning that like processes, on the part of England on our own shores, should not go unpunished.
John Paul Jones, who had already given evidence, not only of that desperate courage and unyielding tenacity which had marked him as among the most notable of sea officers the world has seen,--lacking nothing but opportunity to have equalled, if not surpassed a Nelson--but of consummate seamanship and great executive ability as well, had been appointed to command the ship.

Before proceeding on the mission, however, an important undertaking had been allotted to him.

The commissioners had sent word from France, by a fast-sailing armed packet, of the near departure of a transport from England, called the Mellish, laden with two thousand muskets, twenty field-pieces, powder, and other munitions of war, and ten thousand suits of winter clothes, destined for the army that was assembling at Halifax and Quebec for the invasion of the colonies, by way of the St.Lawrence River and Lake Champlain.
Congress had transmitted the letter from France to Captain Jones, with directions that he endeavor to intercept and capture this transport.
The destitution of the American army at this period of the war was frightful: devoid of clothes, arms, provisions, powder,--everything, in fact, which is apparently vital to the existence of an army; continually beaten, menaced by a confident, well-equipped, and disciplined enemy in overwhelming force, and before whom they had been habitually retreating, they were only held together by the indomitable will and heroic resolution of one man, George Washington.

The fortunes of the colonies were never at a lower ebb than at that moment, and there was apparently nothing further to look forward to but a continuation of the disintegration until the end came.