A third quotation from Mr. Henry: 

“In those days a man was looked upon as being highly unfortunate if he had not a vessel which he could put to profitable use!”

He was part owner of the Snow with sixteen guns, full owner of the Mary and also of the Lively.  He had a bad time in connection with the latter.  He sent her out with Thomas Quigley for captain.  Quigley took the little schooner down the Jersey coast and stayed there.  He never put out to sea at all.  He rode comfortably at anchor near shore and when he ran out of rum put in and got more.  After a while the mates and crew sent in a round robin to Captain Randall telling him the story.  The Lively was swiftly called in and—­what Captain Tom did to Quigley history does not state!

The jolly piratical seaman did finely and flourished, green-bay like, in the sight of men.  He was not without honours either.  When Washington was rowed from Elizabethtown Point to the first inauguration, his barge was manned by a crew of thirteen ships’ captains, and he who had the signal distinction of being coxswain of that historic boat’s company, was Cap’n Tom!

Indeed there seems to be abundant proof that the Captain engineered the whole proceeding.  It is certain that it was he who presented the “Presidential barge” to Washington for his use during his stay in New York, and he who selected that unusual crew,—­practically every noted shipmaster then in port.  On the President’s final departure for Mount Vernon, he again used the barge, putting out from the foot of Whitehall and when he reached Elizabethtown, he very courteously returned it as a gift to Captain Randall, and wrote him a letter of warm thanks.

It is believed that Captain Thomas came from Scotland some time in the early part of the eighteenth century, but we know nothing of his antecedents and not much of his private life.  He married in America, but we do not know the name of his wife.  We do know that in 1775 his son, Robert Richard, was a youth of nineteen and a student at Columbia.  This was the same year that the old Captain was serving on important committees and playing a conspicuous part in public affairs.  Oh, yes! he was a most eminent citizen, and no one thought a whit the worse of him for what he called his “honest privateering.”  He was a member of the Legislature in 1784 and voted in favour of bringing in tea free—­when it was carried by American ships!

And I picture Cap’n Tom as a stout and hearty rogue, with an open hand and heart and a certain cheery fashion of plying his shady calling, rather endearing than otherwise (I have no notion of his real looks nor qualities, but one’s imagination must have its fling on occasion!).  After all, there is not such a vast difference between the manner of Sir.  Peter Warren’s gains and Cap’n Tom Randall’s.  You may call a thing by one name or by another, but, when it comes down to it, is the business of capturing enemy prize ships in order to grow rich on the proceeds so different from holding up merchantmen for the same reason?  But we are concerned for the moment with the Randalls, father and son, and most excellent fellows they appear to have both been.  I should like to believe that Cap’n Tom owned a cutlass, but I fear it was a bit late for that!