A Sailor’s Welcome: James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pilot and Hospitality in the Coastal Zone

Abstract

Surely the battle scene in Chapter 18 of The Pilot is as gripping as any James Fenimore Cooper ever wrote. The schooner Ariel, commanded by American patriot Richard Barnstable, encounters the English Alacrity off the coast of Northumberland, and after some initial parrying, Barnstable wishes to provoke the matter. “[S]peak to him, Tom,” he says to his coxswain, “and let us see if he will answer.” ¹ With the roar of the cannon, the battle is on, and when it is finally won—when that same coxswain has risen from the brine “like Neptune with his trident” and harpooned the English commander “to the mast of his own vessel”—Barnstable takes possession of the enemy ship (P 200). Striding the deck of his English prize, he is contemplating his next move when unexpectedly two of his men drag forward Kit Dillon, a loyalist who has been quivering below decks. Although Barnstable finds Dillon loathsome, and not for his politics alone, the victorious American nonetheless assures him: “you shall have a sailor’s welcome to whatever we possess” (P 204).