With The Flag In The Channel

Soon a vessel was found that was sailing for Amsterdam, and on board of her Conyngham embarked in the guise of an English merchant, but before this, six of his companions had made their way to the seacoast, where they had helped themselves to a small fishing boat and arrived safely on the French coast. As soon as he reached Amsterdam he wrote the letter to Benjamin Franklin which we quoted at the beginning of this chapter.

John Paul Jones was then in the Texel, where he was having any amount of trouble with the Dutch authorities owing to the objections of the English representatives to his remaining there with his prizes. Conyngham joined him, when at last he was forced to leave, and sailed with him in the Alliance; but the captain’s misfortunes were not yet over.

CHAPTER XVIII

CONCLUSION

The Alliance put into Corunna, where Conyngham saw again representatives of the house of Roderigo, Hortalez and Company, and learned that the money received for the prizes had been forwarded to the commissioner’s agent at Paris.

Although he had been treated as an officer of the regular service by John Paul Jones, and had been summoned to attend a court-martial as such, Conyngham decided to return as soon as possible to his own country and sailed in the Experiment for Philadelphia. But most unfortunately his hard luck followed him. When but a few days on the voyage the vessel was captured by the British Admiral Edwards, and within three weeks Conyngham was back once more at Mill prison. But his treatment this time was very different from that which had been accorded him before; and though his spirit chafed at the delay and the confinement, still he was not forced to endure such bodily suffering. In prison, however, he stayed for the rest of the war, and upon his release returned to the United States.

Almost immediately he sought to have an inquiry made and an accounting rendered for his prize-money and reimbursement for his services, but owing to the condition of affairs that existed at that time it was difficult to get Congress to take any action. There was indeed but little money in the Treasury, and so he was forced to go upon a voyage in a merchant vessel, from which he returned to begin institution of his long suit against Congress for remuneration and redress. And now the tragedy of his life began. For year after year he prayed and petitioned Congress to listen to his plea. Before the matter came actually to trial, good Dr. Franklin was dead. Many witnesses could not be procured, and some of his earlier acquaintances and friends who had not behaved in good faith toward him now deserted him completely.

The missing commission would have proved his position, and the search for it became almost the business of his life. A voyage to Europe and a personal investigation of all clues failed to show any trace. It had disappeared as completely as if it had never existed – a fact which some of his enemies asserted to be the case.

In this chapter we print a facsimile of his petition to Congress, signed by himself and dated ten years after his first services were rendered. It shows how much hope he had, and yet there is a note almost of despair that rings throughout it. The claim was first submitted to Benjamin Walker by Alexander Hamilton, then at the head of the Treasury, and Mr. Walker failed to perceive any proof of Captain Conyngham’s having been a regularly appointed officer in the service, and for this reason recommended that the claim be not acknowledged. But yet we find him again in 1793 petitioning Alexander Hamilton for redress. In fact, to the day of his death he attempted in every way to have his claim, that he had left to the justice of his country, adjusted and closed up.

During the quasi war with France, Conyngham commanded an armed brig named the Maria, and in the War of 1812 he again sought to go to sea, but his health prevented him taking an active part.

Conyngham died in Philadelphia, November 27, 1819, in the seventy-second year of his age, and was buried in St. Peter’s churchyard, and on his grave is an odd epitaph in the form of an acrostic built on the name “Gustavus.”

But now appears the strangest part of the whole story – one of those remarkable instances that so well prove the old adage of “facts being stranger than fiction.” It is the tragic epilogue to the play – the bitter end of the thread that runs through the whole of the relation. It does not take long to tell, and surely it speaks for itself.

Only a short time ago there appeared in the catalogue of M. Charavay, an autograph and print-seller in Paris, among hundreds of other notices, the following:

143 Hancock (John), celebre homme d’Etat américain, gouverneur du Massachusetts, signataire de la Déclaration de l’Indépendence, – Pièce signe comme président du congrès; Baltimore, 1 mars 1777, 1 p. in-fol. obl. Rare.

The connection of names and dates of course would attract the attention of any collector. It would be seen that most possibly it had something to do with Franklin’s sojourn in France. It was only the price asked for John Hancock’s signature – in fact, much less than his signature usually brought in the autograph market – ten francs. But what was the joy and surprise of its present possessor, upon opening his new purchase, to find that it was nothing more nor less than the missing commission of the Surprise! Where it had been, what has been its history since it was delivered at Versailles, how it came at last into the possession of a little print-shop, no one can tell; but that it had much to do with the foregoing story any one can see. It lies before the author as he writes, and is reproduced in these pages for the first time, that the court of public print may decide the question. That bold Gustavus Conyngham was badly treated by his country and hardly handled by Fate the reader can perceive. He had helped the cause in the way it most needed help, but, notwithstanding, unrewarded, the man who flew the flag in the Channel went broken-hearted to his grave, and now out of the past, too late, comes the authentic proof of his cause and asseverations. The world is a small one and strange things happen in it, can be the only comment.

THE END