The Soldier Boy of the Revolution Who Whipped the Future
King of England
It was the summer of 1774. The Royal
George, the flagship of the line, had weighed anchor in the
sunlit harbor and, with all sails set, was speeding gaily toward
England with her freight of Revolutionary war prisoners in
irons. This was the same Royal George, the man-of-war of one
hundred and eight guns that, on August 28, 1782, went down while
refitting at Spithead. Under strain of shifting her guns, she
keeled over and sank with her commander, Admiral Kampenfeldt and
nearly one thousand soldiers, marines, visitors, and the usual
crew.
The prisoners, whom we see at the time
our story opens, taking their airing on deck, were captured on
board a privateer which had been doing much dam-age to the
King's ships. They were the most note-worthy men on board,
unless we except the young heir apparent to the English throne,
the Duke of Clarence, son of George HI., or, as he was more
familiarly called by both English and Americans, ''The Young
Midshipman.''
According to the usual custom in royal
families, he was serving his apprenticeship in the King's Navy
under the tutelage of the best of admirals, in order to become
familiar with danger and acquire the courage requisite for the
duties that might come to him later in his career as King of
England. He afterwards did become king, on the death of his
father, under the title of William IV. His short reign
immediately preceded the long and glorious reign of Queen
Victoria, his niece and next of kin, in the line of British
sovereigns.
We left the prisoners in irons, on the
deck under the scornful eyes of the whole ship's crew. Behind
them, growing more and more indistinct in the distance, were the
primeval forests of the New World. They could still discern in
the strong sunlight the King's arrow glistening on the trunk of
-many a sturdy tree. The King's arrow! How many things of value
it used to claim and set apart for the reigning majesty! Now it
is seen nowhere except on the course, green, prison garb.
Presently the strong young voice of the
Duke of Clarence could be heard speaking insolently of the
''rebels" and the land of the rebels, they were leaving behind.
Young Nathan Lord, a rebel and a leader
of rebels, like the brave hero that he was, turned as quickly as
his shackles would permit, and said, ''If it were not for your
rank. Sir, I would make you take that back."
''No matter about my rank," said the
royal middy, ''I am ready to fight. If you can whip me, you are
welcome to."
So ''standing over a tea-chest," as the tradition has it, ''They
had a famous fight, with nobody to interfere," for the English,
whatever may be their faults, do love fair play and Nathan Lord,
a youth from Berwick, won.
The royal middy shook hands, admitted
that he was fairly beaten, asked Lord's name and home and
promised not to forget him. The sequel proves that the word of
the next King of England was as good as gold and would be
honored always at its face value.
When they reached England and anchored
in the harbor which was their destination, all the prisoners of
war were marched to prison to join other earlier captives in the
war. There was one exception, Nathan Lord. He was summoned by
the Admiral, who told him that his Grace, the Duke of Clarence,
son of his Majesty, the King of England, begged his pardon and
had left a five pound note at his disposal, which he was free to
use to take him home to the Colonies, for his Grace could never
think of holding, as a prisoner of war, a man who could whip
him.
The brave, sturdy Berwick boy lost no
time in getting home and joining his blessed rebels, with whom
he did good service. The following year he joined Benedict
Arnold's famous expedition to Quebec. He died there in 1775 in
young manhood, not as he would have chosen, in battle line, his
face to the foe, but from wasting disease, contracted in a
noisome, polluted prison.
Fanny E. Lord
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