Maturin Ballou - Fanny Campbell, The Female Pirate Captain

All books should have a preface, for the writer is sure to have something to communicate to the reader concerning the plot of the story or some subject relating to it which he cannot do in the tale. It is a sort of confidential communication between the author and reader, whom he takes by the buttonhole for a single moment, and endeavors to prepossess favorably towards his story. We are one of those who place great confidence in first impressions, and therefore design that the reader should at least commence our tale unprejudiced. He will see at a glance that our publisher has passed his judgment in commendation, by the superb manner in which he has issued the work, and the great expense incurred.

We have a few words to say concerning the subject matter of the tale. It is a very romantic one, but no more so than many others, the incidents of which occurred during the stirring times of the Revolution, and which have since received the sanction of history. We have been at some considerable expense in ferreting out the events of our tale, which have been cheerfully met by our liberal publisher.

The town of Lynn, Massachusetts, situated up the Atlantic sea board, at a distance of some ten miles from the metropolis of New England, has been the locale of many an incident of a most romantic character. Indeed its history abounds with matter more akin to romance than fact. There are here the Pirate’s Cave, Lover’s Leap, the Robber’s Dungeon, all within a pistol shot of each other. The story of its early Indian history is also of a most interesting character, and altogether the place is one destined to be immortal from these causes alone.

In that part of the town known as ‘Wood End,’ there is an immense pile of stone rising perpendicularly on the side of a hill, fronting the ocean, known far and near by the name of High Rock. This granite mass is very peculiarly formed; the front rising abruptly nearly an hundred feet, while the back is deeply imbedded in the rising ground and the summit forms a plain level with the height of the hill and the adjoining plain in the rear. This spot has long been celebrated for the extended and beautiful prospect it affords. From its top which overlooks rock-bound Nahant in a Southerly direction, may be had a noble view of the Atlantic, and a breadth of coast nearly thirty miles in width. There is no spot upon our shores where the sea plays a wilder or more solemn dirge than on the rocky peninsula of Nahant; the long connecting beach is here a scene of angry commotion from the constant and heavy swells of the broad ocean.

At a distance of about ten miles in the South-West lies Boston. The eye always rests upon the dense smoke that enshrouds it first, piercing which, loom up the spires of its numerous churches, and towering above them all, the noble State House is distinctly seen. Turn still more to the West and you overlook the principal portion of the manufacturing town of Lynn, with its picturesque collection of white cottages and factories, appearing of miniature dimensions. Turn again towards the North West and a few miles beyond the town of Lynn, lies the thriving little village of Saugus. A full Northern view is one of woody beauty, being a field of forest tops of almost boundless extent. In the North-East through the opening hills and trees, a glimpse is had of the water in Salem harbor, while the city itself is hid from view, reminding one of the distant view of the Adriatic from the lofty Appenines, which rise from the very gates of the lovely city of Florence.

This is a slight glance at the extended prospect to be enjoyed by a visit to High Rock, at the present day, saying nothing of the pretty quiet little fishing village of Swampscot, and the panorama of sailing craft that always ornament the sea view.

Near the base of the rock there resided until a few years since the celebrated fortune-teller, known by the name of ‘Moll Pitcher,’ a soubriquet given her by the town’s people, her rightful name never having been ascertained. She lived to a remarkable old age, and to the day of her death the visitor who ‘crossed her palm with broad pieces,’ was sure to receive in return, some truthful or fictitious legend of the neighborhood. There are many among us to this day who remember with pleasure their visits to the strange old fortune-teller of Lynn, at the base of High Rock.

We have been thus particular in the description of this spot as it is the birth-place of two persons who will bear an important part in the tale we are about to relate, and partly, because we love this spot where we have whiled away many an hour of our boyish days. The peculiarities of one’s birth-place have much influence upon formation of the character and disposition. The associations that hang about us in childhood, have double weight upon our tender and susceptible minds at that time, to those of after days, when the character is more formed and matured, and the mind has become more stern and inflexible. It behoves us then to speak thus particularly of the birth-place and the associations of those who are to enact the principal characters in the drama which we relate.

There lived at the very base of High Rock about seventy years ago, a few families of the real puritanic stock, forming a little community of themselves. The occupation of the male portion of the hamlet was that of fishermen, while the time of the females was occupied in drying and preserving the fish and such other domestic labor as fell to their lot. The neighborhood, resembled in every particular, save that it was far less extensive, the present town of Swampscot, which is situated but about three or four miles from the very spot we are now describing, and whose inhabitants, a hardy and industrious people, are absolutely to this day ‘fishermen all.’

The date to which we refer was just at the commencement of the principal causes of difference between the colonies and the mother country; the time when shrewd and thoughtful men foretold the coming struggle between England and her North American dependances. Already had the opposition of the colonies to the odious Stamp Act, and more particularly the people of Massachusetts Bay, as Boston and the neighboring province was named, become so spirited and universal that the British Parliament had only the alternative to compel submission or repeal the act, which was at length reluctantly done. Yet the continued acts of arbitrary oppression enforced by parliament upon the people, such as the passing of laws that those of the colonists charged with capital crimes, should be sent to England to be tried by a jury of strangers, and like odious and unconstitutional enactments had driven the people to despair, and prepared them by degrees for the after startling events that caused all Europe to wonder and England herself to tremble!

The State Street massacre, the celebrated tea scene, in which the indignant inhabitants of Boston discharged three hundred and fifty chests of tea into the water of the bay, the thousand petty acts of tyranny practised by the soldiers of the crown; the Boston Port Bill blockading the harbor of Boston, all followed in quick succession, each being but the stepping stone to the great events to follow. These were the scenes at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, and the many well-contested and bloody fields of the Revolution, until these United States of America were acknowledged to be free and independent!