RIDDELLS OF SOMERSET COUNTY, NEW JERSEY. 301
had no rifle, and Riddle and Harris defended him and themselves as best
they could; they fought from behind trees, and killed more than one of
the Indians, but being outnumbered, and Riddle slightly wounded, all
three took to flight. Van Cleve being very fleet of foot, was, when more
than three hundred yards ahead of his companions, intercepted at a fallen
tree-top by a savage in ambush, and stabbed. The Indian, seeing the white
men approaching with guns, escaped to his party in the rear. They found
Van Cleve lifeless, and leaving him, Riddle and Harris reached the village
in safety, although closely pursued.
For many years during the early history of Cincinnati, the settlers were
compelled to organize for self-defense and protection,-to work together
or near each other, and, indeed, to worship God standing under arms; "for
the Indians were constantly skulking around them, murdering the settlers
and robbing their fields and stables."
In all these defensive operations, John Riddle took an active part, and
for this he was well fitted by his experience as a soldier and sailor during
the Revolutionary war. He entered the army in the month of April,
1778, at Elizabethtown, N. J., under Colonel (afterwards General) Freling-
huysen, in Capt. William Logan's company, with whom he served in the
American States army nearly four years, participating in nearly all the bat-
tles fought during that period.
In the year 1782 it seems he left the army to go into the privateering
service, a very powerful and useful adjunct of the army, inasmuch as our
young government had no navy; and of Mr. Riddle's services and adven-
tures as a privateersman we will let him speak for himself from an old
memoir found among his papers :·
:-
"After I left the army, in 1782, I entered the privateering service un-
der Captain Hiller, a good seaman and a brave, patriotic man, and sailed
for New Brunswick on a cruise, hovering along the coast of New York
and New Jersey as far as Cape May. The first vessel we captured was a
British war-sloop carrying two guns. We boarded her in the night, with-
out loss of life, destroyed her guns and ammunition, and then ransomed
her for four hundred dollars. Elated with our success, later on the same
night we boarded and captured a sixteen-gun frigate, ten eighteen-
pounders and six sixteen-pounders, in the midst of the British fleet,
and after passing their guard-ships, ran her aground on a sand-bar.
-
"At early dawn next morning we took from this vessel fifty American
prisoners-of-war, and after liberating them, made the crew prisoners. We
removed from her all the stores and valuables we could find, including a
large amount of ammunition, then set fire to her magazine, and blew her
up. This vessel was a double-decker, fitted out for a long cruise to harass
our trading-vessels. We learned from the prisoners that one hundred men
were to have been added to her crew the day after her capture.
"About one month afterwards, the captain and fourteen men who had
volunteered our services, took a whale-boat, sailed up the narrows into
New York harbor, then occupied by the British fleet, boarded a British
trading-schooner, and having ransomed her for four hundred dollars, re-
turned to our gun-boats in Sosbury River, without injury or the loss of a
single man. In turn we were frequently attacked by the enemy, and had
some desperate hand-to-hand conflicts; and while on such occasions we
sometimes lost men, none of our crew were ever taken prisoners.
"We had two skirmishes on shore, on Long Island. In one of these
engagements a beloved comrade of mine fell back into my arms, mortally
