Commodore Barney's Young Spies

n, as everybody knows, he was taken by the Britishers again, an' held for nearly a year before bein' exchanged for the lieutenant of the Mermaid. Then he went out in a letter of marque--meanin' a privateer--with Captain Robinson; they had but twelve guns, a mighty small stock of powder, an' only thirty-five men, but bless you those fellows thought nothin' of tacklin' the British privateer Rosebud, full of men an' guns. Forty-seven of the enemy were killed or wounded, an' aboard the Yankee only one was wounded. They sailed to Bordeaux, took on a cargo of brandy, shipped seventy men, mounted eighteen guns, an' on the voyage home had a runnin' fight lastin' well on to two days, when they captured their game.

"Then it was that Barney got married, an' about a month afterward, when drivin' in a gig from Philadelphia to Baltimore, he was robbed of every cent he had in the world. He never told anybody of his loss; but turned back to Philadelphia, took service aboard the Saratoga, sixteen guns, an' made a big v