This resulted in British troops marching up to Washington and
burning the Capitol, or Congress House, about the ears of the members
who had stirred up the strife. Meanwhile, all the islands of France in
the east and west had been taken possession of; the British flag waved
on the Spanish island of Cuba, and in the no less valuable possessions
of Holland, in Java. Everywhere on the ocean England held undisputed
sway. This state of things gave rise to one great evil--the sea
swarmed with cruisers and privateers, English, French, and American;
so that no vessel, unless sailing under convoy, heavily armed, or a
very swift sailer, but ran risk of capture.
The _Mary_--for so Fritz now called the pinnace--had been ten days at
sea, the wind had died away, and for some time scarcely a zephyr had
ruffled the surface of the water, the sails were lazily flapping
against the mast, and but for the currents, the voyagers would have
been almost stationary. It may readily be supposed that, under such
circumstances, their progress was somewhat slow, and, as Jack
observed, to judge from their actual rate of sailing, they ought to
have started when very young, in order to arrive at the termination of
the voyage before they became bald-headed old men.
They prayed for a breeze, a gale, or even a storm; their fresh water
was beginning to get sour, and they reflected that, if the calm
continued any length of time, their provisions would eventually run
short, and the ordinary resource of eating one another would stare
them in the face.
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