for work which was being reasonably well done at private expense.  As a result of this system, we find such famous naval names as Decatur, Porter, Hopkins, Preble, Barry, and Barney also figuring in the lists of privateersmen.  Talbot’s first notable exploit was clearing New York harbor of several British men-of-war by the use of fire-ships.  Washington, with his army, was then encamped at Harlem Heights, and the British ships were in the Hudson River menacing his flank.  Talbot, in a fire-ship, well loaded with combustibles, dropped down the river and made for the biggest of the enemy’s fleet, the “Asia.”  Though quickly discovered and made the target of the enemy’s battery, he held his vessel on her course until fairly alongside of and entangled with the “Asia,” when the fuses were lighted and the volcanic craft burst into roaring flames from stem to stern.  So rapid was the progress of the flames that Talbot and his companions could scarcely escape with their lives from the conflagration they had themselves started, and he lay for days, badly burned and unable to see, in a little log hut on the Jersey shore.  The British ships were not destroyed; but, convinced that the neighborhood was unsafe for them, they dropped down the bay; so the end sought for was attained.  In 1779 Talbot was given command of the sloop “Argo,” of 100 tons; “a mere shallop, like a clumsy Albany sloop,” says his biographer.  Sixty men from the army, most of whom had served afloat, were given him for crew, and he set out to clear Long Island Sound of Tory privateers; for the loyalists in New York were quite as avid for spoils as the New England Revolutionists.  On his second cruise he took seven prizes, including two of these privateers.  One of these was a 300-ton ship, vastly superior to the “Argo” in armament and numbers, and the battle was a fierce one.  Nearly every man on the quarter-deck of the “Argo” was killed or wounded; the speaking trumpet in Talbot’s hand was pierced by two bullets, and a cannon-ball carried away the tail of his coat.  The damages sustained in this battle were scarce repaired when another British privateer appeared, and Talbot again went into action and took her, though of scarce half her size.  In all this little “Argo”—­which, by the way, belonged to Nicholas Low, of New York, an ancestor of the eminent Seth Low—­took twelve prizes.  Her commander was finally captured and sent first to the infamous “Jersey” prison-ship, and afterward to the Old Mill Prison in England.

[Illustration:  NEARLY EVERY MAN ON THE QUARTERDECK OF THE “ARGO” WAS KILLED OR WOUNDED.]

The “Jersey” prison-ship was not an uncommon lot for the bold privateersman, who, when once consigned to it, found that the reward of a sea-rover was not always wealth and pleasure.  A Massachusetts privateersman left on record a contemporary account of the sufferings of himself and his comrades in this pestilential hulk, which may well be condensed here to show some of the perils that the adventurers dared when they took to the sea.