Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

148 RAMBLES ABOUT PORTSMOUTH.
George Bennett. She was said to be a lady of excellent
education, and highly accomplished for her times. She
died nearly eighty years since, at the age of 93 years.
William Bennett, referred to in the following narrative,
was their son,
The residence of Mr. George Bennett was on the spot
where John P. Lyman's iron store now stands, opposite
and a little south of the house of Capt. Samuel Cutts. We
may imagine, a few years before the Revolution, a ship of
perhaps 250 tons-a large vessel for those times-fitted
out by Capt. Cutts at a wharf near by, with a freight for
the West Indies, to proceed thence to Spain or the Mediterranean for a return cargo. She is under command of a
well-informed master, Capt. Thomas Leigh. Young William
Bennett, who had been brought up under the eye of the
owner, ambitious to be himself a master, performs the
duties of the first officer with a diligent and scrupulous
attention. We may see the opulent owner on the wharf as
the vessel departs, wishing them a prosperous voyage.
On and on they sail, day by day. After touching at various
ports, at length, in a Spanish port, the vigilant officer of
customs discovers an infringement of their revenue laws,
and the vessel is seized and condemned as a forfeit to Government. [Another tradition says that the vessel was
captured by tlhe Algerines; we cannot decide which is
correct.] In this emergency the clemency of the captors
was extended in the offer to Capt. Leigh to release the
vessel on the payment of several thousand dollars, considerably less than the real value of the vessel. But how
could the money be paid? There was no way of sending
for it direct, and to keep the vessel on expense for months
was not the policy of calculating men. Leave two of your
men as hostages, and depart, was the offer. "Leave me,'
said Bennett; and his friend Mills was also left, as his companion. The stipulation was that they should be boarded