In 1672, according to the town records of Concord, instruction was given to the selectmen, "That encouragement he given for the destroying of blackbirds and jaies." Shattuck, p. 45.
I remember Helen s telling me that John Marston, of Taunton, told her that he was aboard a vessel, during the Revolution, which met another vessel, and, as I think, one hailed the other. A French name being given could not be understood; whereupon a sailor, probably aboard his vessel, ran out on the bowsprit and shouted, "La Terrible" (the vessel in which John Adams was being brought back or carried out to France), and that sailor's name was Thoreau.
My father has an idea that he stood on the wharf and cried this to the bystanders. He tells me that when the war came on, my grandfather, being thrown out of business and being a young man, went a-privateering. I find from his Diary that John Adams set sail from Port Louis at L'Orient in the French frigate Terrible, Captain Chavagnes, June 17, 1779, the Bonhomme Richard, Captain Jones, and four other vessels, being in company at first, and the Terrible arrived at Boston the 2d of August. On the 13th of November following he set out for France again in the same frigate from Boston, and he says that a few days before the 24th, being at the last date on the Grand Bank of Newfound-
