May 26th, 1776
This morning, allowed above for some minutes’ exercise, I saw the great fleet in motion, which is a sight to leaven all the spirits: our floating town spread leagues before us and leagues behind, a vast collection of pleasure barques and bilanders, ketches and hoys.
The fleet passes vast plantations laid upon the banks in unspeakable gentility. We see master and slave alike, confounded at the celerity and ineluctability of our approach, calling warnings — messengers sent on horseback, riding no faster than our progress, posting along ridges, bent close upon their steeds. Boys running from the dairy, the smokehouse, hollering.
“Where we going?” asked Pomp.
Slant pointed at the sun, at the shadows. “North,” he said.
Pro Bono came to our side, having inquired of a sailor, and told us, “Up the Chesapeake. Past Mobjack Bay.”
I know not why, but at this intelligence, we all smiled; I suppose, because there is so much of motion in it.
Thus, this morning’s view.
Just an hour ago, the Crepuscule was fired upon from the woods; a bell was sounded, and we were rallied to stand to our arms upon the deck. Below, we could not even hear the crack of the enemy’s rifles.
We went above; we formed; we fired a single volley with our muskets. Our ball could not reach the minute figures who annoyed us; nor could their rifles reach us; and so both their aggression and our defiance were but shows of force.
Empty show it might have been, and yet not without anxiety for others in our van, for our fleet is possessed of no firm discipline — ships falling well behind, detained in eddies — and the eye of the passenger, deluded by the convolutions of the coast, can never be sure of distance — and still the crack! crack! of rifle fire echoed without cease — the air was alive with it — and pilots could be certain of nothing.
The Crepuscule quickly outpaced the guns of impotent rage and continued reaching north.
So we have traveled on, the cries of the sailors above us, Vishnoo trundling between our knees.
Come nightfall, we have found ourselves anchored near an island at the mouth of the Piankatank River; and there we come at last to rest.