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6 Telescope the blockade squadron on February 20, 1863. The following day a gale sprang up, damaging her hull and destroying her cargo of salt. The final figure arrived at by a prize court held at Wilmington on February 26, 1863, showed a profit of $^71» to be split into sixty-two shares. The profit came from the sals of equipment, hull, and rigging. Gordon later applied for a letter of marque for the schooner PAUL JONES. The RETRIBUTION took her third and final prize, the brig EMILY FISHER, on February 19, 1863. After this, the hull of the tug- schooner-privateer began to show signs of strain, and she put into Nassau, British West Indies, where she was condemned as being unseaworthy. She was sold at public auction, June 22, 1863, for $760, to Bryon Bode and Gustave Renouard (G. Renouard & Co.), of Nassau. The former owner was listed as Thomas Stead, a British subject, who sounds suspiciously like either Parker or Thomas Powers of Texas. After the required repairs were made, the cost of the vessel to her new owners amounted to about I4.I6 pounds sterling ($2,000). But what about Captain Parker? It appears that his real name was Vernon G, Locke, a subject of Great Britain, who had assumed the name Parker to get around neutrality laws. He no longer was protected by Confederate law, and had no right to carry on war. Nonetheless, he left for St. John,New Brunswick, where he organized a plot to take over an American steamer operating in Canadian waters. On December 5, 1863, his party boarded the steamer CHESAPEAKE in New York bound for Portland, Maine. When about twenty miles northeast of Cape Cod, the Confederates took over the vessel, killing one crewman and wounding another. The vessel put Into the Bay of Fundy the next day, where Locke (alias Parker), who had remained behind to arrange for refueling, came aboard and assumed command. The next morning, December 9, 1863, the U.S.S. ELLA and ANNIE steamed straight toward the rebel-held vessel, and in so doing, invaded neutral waters. The Confederates immediately abandoned the CHESAPEAKE and escaped ashore. Locke surrendered himself to the sympathetic Provincial Government of Nova Scotia, and it is assumed that he was afterwards released. It is interesting to note that his correct name appears in the Admiralty Court records for the settling of shares of the prize HANOVER. But back to the RETRIBUTION. She was loaded with a cargo of pine-apples (sic.) and put into Newark, New Jersey, where she was seized by Federal authorities because of her past record. The Libel of Information was filed there on September 5, 1863. By this time, the vessel had been renamed ETTA. The final decree was entered on October 7, 1861|, to whom it is unknown, for $900. Here the author ran into a stone wall in his research* However, a schooner ETTA was captured by a boarding party from the U.S.S* SAGAMORE off Cedar Keys,Florida, on March 23,1861^., while attempting to run the blockade. She was burned and two crewmen, both claiming to be British subjects, were sent to Key West. Whether this was the same vessel, noting the difference in dates of the last bill of sale and toe loss of the above-mentioned vessel, is unknown. And so the tale of the "turncoat tugboat," UNCLE BEN-RETRIBUTION-ETTA, comes to an uncertain end. Who would have believed that a lowly, common Lake Erie tugboat could have led such an adventurous livelihood, encompassing so many varied avenues of excitement and history? But, it is all a matter of record.