Pirate Bill at Fort Pork-And-Biscuits?: Schooner Days CCCXLVII (347)

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ALTHOUGH known to his dying day — and long afterwards — as "Pirate Bill Johnston," William Johnston's right to that proud title has been disputed by the nice in such matters.

Pedants point out that a pirate is a water thief who makes war against society in general, whereas Sweet William's hostility was confined to Great Britain, against which he, born a British subject, maintained a one-man rebellion after being driven from his holdings at Bath on the Bay of Quinte.

There was a difference between the pirates who cut throats and plundered all they met on the seas, whether of their own nation or foreigners, and the buccaneers who, irrespective of their own nationality, made war on Spanish ships and Spanish towns in the New World, because of Spanish interference with their dried-beef trade and Spanish religious persecution.

Perhaps, therefore, Bill the Buccaneer is a cap that fits the late Mr. Johnston better than the pirate's and rebel's halter which never caught up with his neck. Freshwater pirates are so scarce it is with reluctance we part with any. In fact we refuse to do so. Pirate Bill Johnston our gallant desperado was in life, and Pirate Bill Johnston he shall remain in memory.

But it is hard to make a hero of him. There is the difficulty of his name. Old Bill is the only hero in history who has upborne the handicap of such moniker. "Bill" does very well for the villain of the piece, but can you imagine Sir William Wallace thriving as the hero of Scotland if someone had started him off in life as Bill? We trow not. We trow not. They trow not. In fact, it is unanimously agreed it can't be trowed or tried.

When William Johnston, farmer and merchant, shook the dust of Bath, Upper Canada, from his shoes, with a £1,500 grievance against the British government, he hied him to Sacket's Harbor, N.Y., which was the American naval base on Lake Ontario. It is said that William was a member of the Frontenac militia and was jailed for insubordination. This was probably the outcome of his dispute with authority in the matter of customs duties. Feeling himself unjustly treated by his country in peace, he may have refused militia service for her in war. He was either a deserter or a renegade or both. He was not enrolled in the United States army, but he is said to have shown the invaders the back-path up Queenston Heights. After that battle his activities against his native land were numerous in the War of 1812.

"A gentleman at Sacket's Harbor," the American naval base, wrote to a friend in Buffalo a hundred and twenty-five years ago next July the following letter, which has found its way into the Public Archives of Canada:

"On the 21st inst, arrived the privateer Neptune, carrying a 6-pounder, and the Fox, an 18-pounder, commanded by Major Dimock and Capt. Dixon, from a cruise to the St. Lawrence.

"On the 19th inst., at 4 o'clock a.m., they surprised and captured the British gunboat Spitfire, mounting one 12-pounder carronade, and fifteen bateaux laden with provisions, on their way up the St. Lawrence. The surprise was complete, and so well arranged that not a single shot was fired or life lost on either side." (In other words every man jack of the convoy war sound asleep. The sixteen vessels were probably at anchor in the current, waiting for daylight and a fair wind. The Spitfire was one of several gunboat luggers stationed at Prescott).

"The bateaux were laden with 27,000 weight of sea bread (hard tack) and 270 barrels of Irish pork, intended for the British army at Kingston. Our privateersmen retired into Cranberry Creek, where, having erected a breastwork of the captured barrels of pork and hard bread, on the 21st at sunrise they were attacked by four gunboats mounting two 32-pounders, one 9-pounder, and a 6-pounder, and carrying from 250 to 300 men." This expedition was commanded by Lieut. Scott, R.N., with reinforcements from the 41st Regiment).

"The attack continued about two hours, when the enemy retired with considerable loss, and were pursued some distance. Our loss was but three killed and one wounded." (The British lost four killed and seventeen wounded). Just before this, with a view if possible to succeed by menaces, and if not, to cover their own retreat, they sent in a flag, demanding the surrender of the pork-and-bread fort, and threatening in case of a refusal to bring up a reinforcement, let loose their Indians upon them, and that no quarter would be given.

"Major Dimock (he had been lent to the volunteers with fifty soldiers by Major Gen, Lewis on Commodore Chauncey's advice) replied that they should not surrender but at the point of the bayonet, and indignantly ordered off the officer requiring the surrender. The enemy's loss must have been considerable, as our men were well intrenched behind the 'substantials of life' and had a fair opportunity of dealing out the full 'measure of death' to their antagonists. This is evidenced by the precipitate retreat of the enemy. The number of men engaged on our part did not exceed sixty." (Creditable, if true, but there were surely more than ten privateersmen, and it is on record that there were fifty men from the army. It is also on record that the two privateers handed over to dragoons four officers and sixty-one men, prisoners taken in the flotilla they captured).

"Upon coming out of the St. Lawrence on their return to this place they had a new and more formidable enemy to encounter. The British brig Earl of Moira of 18 guns was purposely stationed to intercept their return. They, nevertheless, by a vigorous and daring effort, passed her without much injury. The Fox, Capt. Dixon, who brought up the rear, passed within half musket shot of the brig, three 9-pound shot struck the Fox, one of which passed through her magazine, but without essential injury."

(The armament of the Moira is overstated, but that is neither here nor there. What is both here and there is the curious fact that the Moira was the black sheep of the British fleet. She missed everything she went after while she wore this name, and it took fifty minutes to fire off her fourteen guns upon one inspection occasion. She did better after they renamed her the Charwell.)

The expedition sounds very much like Pirate Bill Johnson's doings. "A cannonade," the letter goes on to state, "was heard in the direction of Presqu'isle (situate about midway on the north shore of the lake) two days since, supposed to be an attempt of our fleet to destroy a large ship building there."

The "large ship" was a little coasting schooner, but Pirate Bill Johnson did destroy her on the stocks at this time, and so added his hallowed memory to the charms of the lovely summer resort which now adorns Presqu-isle Point, south of Brighton.

We shall tell about Pirate Bill Johnston and Presqu'isle next time.

PIRATE BILL JOHNSTON

—From a Watertown Times portrait reproduced in "Lives and Times of the Patriots."