Beadle's New Dime Novels: Captain of Captains

"Captain of Captains: The Broom of the Seas" By Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, this adventure tale depicts an encounter between an American merchant vessel and Moorish corsairs in the early nineteenth century. The *Adventurer*, captained by Rupert Meredith—a Revolutionary War officer sailing with his wife, twin sons, passengers, and crew—is pursued by an Algerine galley near the Spanish coast. Following a violent storm, the corsair presses attack. After intense hand-to-hand combat, the corsair chief—a giant wielding a cutlass—mortally wounds Captain Meredith in a duel. The chief then seizes one of Meredith's twin sons as a hostage shield, escaping to his own vessel with the boy as his captive, leaving the widowed mother grieving over her dead husband and kidnapped child.