persons, the General equipped three armed vessels to intercept all
traitorous cruisers. Among them was the brigantine Washington, of ten
guns, commanded by Captain Martiedale. Seamen were hard to be had. The
soldiers were called upon to volunteer for these vessels. Israel was one
who so did; thinking that as an experienced sailor he should not be
backward in a juncture like this, little as he fancied the new service
assigned.

Three days out of Boston harbor, the brigantine was captured by the
enemy's ship Foy, of twenty guns. Taken prisoner with the rest of the
crew, Israel was afterwards put on board the frigate Tartar, with
immediate sailing orders for England. Seventy-two were captives in this
vessel. Headed by Israel, these men--half way across the sea--formed a
scheme to take the ship, but were betrayed by a renegade Englishman. As
ringleader, Israel was put in irons, and so remained till the frigate
anchored at Portsmouth. There he was brought on deck; and would have met
perhaps some terrible fate, had it not come out, during the examination,
that the Englishman had been a deserter from the army of his native
country ere proving a traitor to his adopted one. Relieved of his irons,
Israel was placed in the marine hospital on shore, where half of the
prisoners took the small-pox, which swept off a third of their number.
Why talk of Jaffa?

From the hospital the survivors were conveyed to Spithead, and thrust on
board a hulk. And here in the black bowels of the ship, sunk low in the
sunless sea, our poor Israel lay for a month, like Jonah in the belly
of the whale.

But one bright morning, Israel is hailed from the deck. A bargeman of
the commander's boat is sick. Known for a sailor, Israel for the nonce