Pirate Broadsides of 100 Years: Schooner Days CCCXLIX (349)

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PIRATE Bill Johnston loved to proclaim, although, unlike most horn-blowers, he was also a man of deeds. He dramatized himself as a wronged hero seeking revenge for injuries which were to him very real, whether merited or not.

Two weeks after his clean-up of the steamer Sir Robert Peel and her passengers, which we recalled in Schooner Days two weeks ago, he issued this proclamation, dated June 10th, 1838:

"To all whom it may concern:

"I, William Johnston, a natural-born citizen of Upper Canada, certify that I hold a commission in the Patriot Service of Upper Canada as Commander-in-Chief of the naval forces and flotilla. I commanded the expedition that captured and destroyed the steamer Sir Robert Peel. My headquarters was on an island in the St. Lawrence. I yet hold possession of that station. I act under orders. The object of my movements is the independence of the Canadas."

Bill's "naval forces and flotilla" were somewhat sketchy, but not altogether a paper navy. If not much of a sailor, he was an A1 boatman. He did not like either steamers or sailing vessels, but he was a connoisseur in rowboats.

He was fed up with the clumsy schooners of his time, and their limitations. They were always getting into trouble with their deep keels, the centre-board not having yet been generally adopted on Lake Ontario, and they were always the victim of headwinds. Steamers were limited by their horsepower and fuel consumption. They were always being refueled. That was how he captured the Sir Robert Peel.

William used both steamers and schooners in his navy, but his preference was the light, open, fast-rowing boat known at the time as a gig. His favorite flagship was a clinker-built craft, keen and narrow, almost forty feet long, painted in red and yellow stripes, with a black bottom, probably polished with stove-lead to make her slippery.

She had a double set of oars, 12 long sweeps and 12 short paddles, for pulling through the narrow passages and short-cut channels, and for making time in open water. She was light enough to be portaged on men's shoulders.

This was probably his "Flagship Revenge, off the Ducks," mentioned in another proclamation. She was captured once, when a combined British and American force made a raid on Fort Wallace and the two men left to guard the gig were caught asleep. The steamer Telegraph took her to Sacket's Harbor. Bill got her back after he, too, had been "captured" and taken to jail, and escaped.

Pirate Bill Johnston used schooners, but he was not a schooner man. In the Battle of the Windmill, at Prescott, he was in command of the schooner Charlotte of Oswego, and promptly got her on "the mud at the mouth of the Oswegatchie, on the American side, and let her stay there.

There was another schooner Charlotte in this battle, the Charlotte of Toronto, and in her that mis-guided Polander, Colonel Nils Szoltevcky Von Schoultz crossed to the Canadian side with one hundred and seventy men and landed at the windmill below Fort Wellington and the town of Prescott. They crossed to their doom, for after holding the stone mill for four days they were forced to surrender. Those who were left alive were marched to Kingston, two by two, tied to a long rope, with Von Schoultz at the head of the dismal line. He and ten others were hanged. Sixty were sent to Van Diemen's Land. Such of the others as had not been killed in the battle or escaped from it were pardoned after a time and sent back to the United States, for many of these "Patriots" were Americans who had been gulled into invading Canada with the promise of free land and cash bounties.

Pirate Bill, however, does not appear to have got any nearer the fatal windmill than the Oswegatchie mudflat. Some of his men in the Charlotte of Oswego went over, and were a long time coming back, having had to visit Kingdom Come or Van Diemen's Land; and some of the guns in the schooner were sent over and never came back. The steamer United States, which had towed the two Charlottes to within a few miles of Prescott, tried twice to pull the pirate's schooner from her miry bed, but failed. The steamer Paul Pry also made an effort, and was fired on by the small British steamer Experiment. A ball from the Experiment went through the pilot house of the United States and took off the head of Solomon Foster, who was at the wheel. This roused Pirate Bill to proclaim that while he would have nothing more to do with the expedition he would volunteer to run down "that damned little boat," by which he meant Her Britannic Majesty's ship (for the time being) Experiment, commanded by Lieut. Fowell, R.N. Normally she was a passenger steamer, commanded by Capt. Dick. With the Queen Victoria, Capt. Sutherland; Coburg, Capt. Colclough, and Transit, Captain Richardson, she formed the loyalist fleet in the Battle of the Windmill.

Pirate Bill Johnston's anti-British activities dribbled down to writing letters to the newspapers eventually. He was aped if not aided by such scamps as Benjamin Lett. The following proclamation of the year 1840 is in Johnston's style, if Lett was the actual author:

"WM. JOHNSTON, COMMODORE, ETC., LAKE ONTARIO.

"Whereas, as public notice has appeared in a Rochester daily paper, that the British steamer Gore, Capt. Dick, of Toronto, U.C., offers to make two pleasure trips from the landing at Carthage on the 4th inst., the anniversary of American Independence, and whereas it is well known that Dick and the owners of this boat are violent British Tories and bitter enemies of American Democratic institutions, but in order to fleece American citizens and fill their coffers with half dollars at their expense, they pretend to aid in the celebration of a day they abhor and detest.

"The inhabitants of Rochester are therefore warned if they value life, not to patronize these excursions, and so avoid, not only the danger to be apprehended, but the disgrace and dishonor of countenancing and patronizing a party who hate Democracy and who have exulted and triumphed in the burning of the Caroline and murder of American citizens.

"By command of his Excellency, BENJAMIN LETT, P.C.

"On board the flagship REVENGE, off the Ducks."

The Ducks are those islands off the southeast corner of Prince Edward County, which form an outer guard for Amherst Island, the old Isle of Tonty. The Duckling, Timber and Sweatman Islands are the False Ducks and the Main Duck and Yorkshire lie further east.

Benjamin Lett was an inefficient aide to Pirate Bill Johnston. About the time he published this bold challenge where it was safe to publish it he was arrested on a charge of attempting the destruction of the steamer Great Britain.

Early in June, 1840, about the 5th, says Robertson's Landmarks, just as the steamer Great Britain was preparing to leave Oswego on her journey to the Canadian shore, a man brought on board a small box, containing three jars of gunpowder packed in wool, beneath which was concealed a lighted slow match. This box was placed with other baggage in front of the door of the ladies' cabin. A few minutes after the boat left the wharf the explosion took place. It was not so destructive as had been intended, the injury being confined to the breaking of a few windows in the ladies' cabin and the blowing up of the skylight above. The boat put back immediately, and the man who brought the box on board was arrested, together with another man whom the former announced as the chief instigator to the diabolical attempt. This was Pirate Bill Johnston's friend, Benjamin Lett, and he was at once transmitted to Auburn, N.Y., county jail, "but owing either to extraordinary vigilance on his part, or want of it on the part of his custodians, he made his escape when about four miles from his destination."

When the Revenge was "off the Ducks" in 1838 she made one or more raids on Amherst Island, opposite Bath, the pirate's old Canadian home. Sir Richard Bonnycastle reported that "three farmhouses were plundered, and many valuables and some money obtained; whilst one farmer, in defense of his property, was inhumanly shot at, and lost three fingers and a part of his hand. The pirates were dressed as sailors and well armed, and it is said had one sixteen-oared boat, mounting two three-pounders. On this, or perhaps on another occasion of an Amherst Island raid, Mr. Guillet notes that a family named Preston had their possessions completely plundered, a son died of wounds, and Mr. Preston himself had part of his hand shot off—which seems to somewhat stain Pirate Bill's snow-white reputation for bloodless guilt.

STEAMER "UNITED STATES," which towed the two schooners named Charlotte to the Battle of the Windmill.

—From Robertson's Landmarks of Toronto,

STEAMER GREAT BRITAIN, which Pirate Bill Johnston's pal tried to blow up. The St. George's cross on her jackstaff on the bowsprit is noteworthy. It appears to be an Admiralty flag, in place of the commercial pilot-jack.

—From Robertson's Landmarks of Toronto.