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disapproved of that too. It was not that the British merchantmen had been captured, that was plainly a good thing, nor that the flags proclaimed the victories because that too was desirable, but rather that the captured ships were now presumed to be private property. Not the property of the United States, but of the privateers like the low-slung, raked-masted, rattlesnake-decorated sloop.
    “They are pirates, Mister Coningsby,” Saltonstall growled.
    “Aye aye, sir,” Midshipman Fanning replied. Midshipman Coningsby had died of the fever a week previously, but all Fanning’s nervous attempts to correct his captain had failed and he had abandoned any hope of being called by his real name.
    Saltonstall was still frowning at the privateers. “How can we find decent crew when piracy beckons?” Saltonstall complained, “tell me that, Mister Coningsby!”
    “I don’t know, sir.”
    “We cannot, Mister Coningsby, we cannot,” Saltonstall said, shuddering at the injustice of the law. It was true that the privateers were patriotic pirates who were fierce as wolves in battle, but they fought for private gain, and that made it impossible for a Continental warship like the Warren to find good crew. What young man of Boston would serve his country for pennies when he could join a privateer and earn a share of the plunder? No wonder the Warren was short-handed! She carried thirty-two guns and was as fine a frigate as any on the American seaboard, but Saltonstall had only men enough to fight half his weapons, while the privateers were all fully manned. “It is an abomination, Mister Coningsby!”
    “Aye aye, sir,” Midshipman Fanning said.
    “Look at that!” Saltonstall checked his pacing to point a finger at the Ariadne , a fat British merchantman that had been captured by a privateer. “You know what she was carrying, Mister Coningsby?”
    “Black walnut from New York to London, sir?”
    “And she carried six cannon, Mister Coningsby! Nine-pounder guns! Six of them. Good long nine-pounders! Newly made! And where are those guns now?”
    “I don’t know, sir.”
    “For sale in Boston!” Saltonstall spat the words. “For sale, Mister Coningsby, in Boston, when our country has desperate need of cannon! It makes me angry, Mister Coningsby, it makes me angry indeed.”
    “Aye aye, sir.”
    “Those cannon will be melted down for gew-gaws. For gew-gaws! It makes me angry, upon my soul, it does.” Captain Saltonstall carried his anger to the starboard rail where he paused to watch a small cutter approach from the north. Its dark sails first appeared as a patch in the fog, then the patch took shape and hardened into a single-masted vessel about forty feet long. She was not a fishing boat, she was too narrow for such work, but her gunwales were pierced with tholes showing that she could ship a dozen oars and so be rowed on calm days and Saltonstall recognized her as one of the fast messenger boats used by the government of Massachusetts. A man was standing amidships with cupped hands, evidently shouting his news to the moored vessels through which the cutter slid. Saltonstall would dearly have liked to know what the man shouted, but he considered it beneath his dignity as a Continental Navy captain to make vulgar inquiries, and so he turned away just as a schooner, her gunwales punctuated by gunports, gathered way to pass the Warren . The schooner was a black-hulled privateer with the name King-Killer prominent in white paint at her waist. Her dirt-streaked sails were sheeted in hard to beat her way out of the harbor. She carried a dozen deck guns, enough to batter most British merchantmen into quick surrender, and she was built for speed so that she could escape any warship of the British navy. Her deck was crowded with men while at her mizzen gaff was a blue flag with the word “Liberty” embroidered in white letters. Saltonstall waited for that flag to be lowered in salute to his own ensign, but as the black schooner