MERCHANTMEN IN BATTLE ARRAY
Some of the most stirring tales in the history of the American merchant
marine are those of the battles of men who, like Captain Jonathan Haraden,
of Salem, commanded armed merchantmen during the War of the Revolution.
These stories are of special interest here because they portray one side
of the character of the American sailors as developed by the peculiar
conditions where forest life and sea life met at the surf-line. But before
giving any of these tales, it seems necessary to describe briefly the
peculiarities of the ships in use in the colonies during the eighteenth
century.
While the dictionaries define, fairly well, all sorts of sea terms, it
seems worth noting here that a ship, in the earliest days of the colonies,
had three masts, two of which were fitted with yards to spread four-sided
sails across the hull, while the third carried a long, slender yard that
spread a lateen sail fore and aft. Moreover, a square sail was spread by
a yard that hung beneath the end of the bowsprit. Because the lateen sail
was difficult to handle, and the one on the spritsail-yard dipped into the
water, both were soon abolished on the American ships. American sailors
were high-priced, economy was necessary, and rigs that reduced the number
of men needed were adopted perforce.
The ketch was another rig that did not last long. A ketch had one mast
amidships, with yards crossed upon it, and another smaller mast well aft,
upon which yards were also crossed, though sometimes a fore-and-aft sail
was found there. It was, doubtless, the worst rig ever seen in American
waters.
The snow was a modified brig. She had two masts with yards crossed as
in a ship, and in addition had a slender mast close abaft the main--a
sort of spencer-mast upon which a fore-and-aft sail was set. This style
of rig lasted much longer than its name, though that persisted until the
nineteenth century.
The most popular rig, during the first hundred years of the colonies,
was the sloop, and it can still be seen on oyster boats, brick carriers,
and yachts. No other rig will give a hull as great speed, in proportion
to the canvas, as this one, and yet the rig can be managed by few men,
provided they know their work, and are vigilant. Long coasting voyages
were made with sloops carrying forty tons of cargo, and no more than four
men. Voyages to the West Indies were made in larger sloops with six men,
while oversea voyages were accomplished with one or two more.
In 1713 a contemplation of the advantages of the sloop rig led Captain
Andrew Robinson, of Gloucester, Mass., to build a hull, somewhat larger
than the ordinary sloop of the day, and place in it two masts, each of
which carried the sloop rig. If rigged as a sloop, the one sail would
need to be so large that it would be difficult to handle. By dividing the
canvas between two sails _of the same form_, a great enough spread for
speed would be obtained, and yet neither sail would be larger than the
single one on a smaller hull. The sails were probably stretched before
this vessel was launched, and one may believe that the novelty of the rig
drew a large crowd to the launching. Beyond doubt, too, everybody cheered
as the hull took the water, and one enthusiast shouted,--
"Oh, how she scoons!"
"Scoon" referred to the light and swift motion of the hull as it seemed to
glide over, rather than plough through, the water, but Captain Robinson,
who had been wondering what he would name the curious rig, seized upon
the word "scoon" and said, "A scooner let her be!"
Perhaps the most important event in the shipyards of America, previous to
the launching of Fulton's steamer, was the invention of the schooner. For
under this rig a hull of twice the capacity of an ordinary sloop could be
handled with no, or but a small, increase in the number of men. Moreover,
the cost of the rig was less than that of any other for a hull of similar
size. In short, a schooner gave her owner more ton-miles of work than any
other kind of vessel for each dollar of expense. Schooners were soon used
almost exclusively in the cod-fishery on the banks. They rapidly made
their way into the coasting trade, where they gathered cargoes for the
ships used in the export trade, and served to strengthen the slender cords
binding one part of the country to the other. They even went on foreign
voyages with great success--as they might do now, if only American owners
would take what lies before them.
With the growth of American shipping it was inevitable that American
sailors should go privateering. The love of adventure was born into the
people who lived where salt spray gave a tang to the odors of a pine
forest. Armed ships from Boston hunted Dutch merchantmen as long as the
Hudson region was called New Amsterdam. American sailors ate broiled
rawhide with Morgan on the banks of the Chagres River. Kidd came from
London to New York seeking sailors born in the Highlands of the Hudson,
because they were, of all men in the world, best fitted by experience
and natural inclination for the work he had in hand. Franklin at one time
expressed the hope that the American coast would never shelter such hosts
as were found in Algiers and Tripoli, and the thought was founded on his
knowledge of the eager determination to get on in life, at all hazards,
which the conditions of life in America had generated.
The most important era in the apprenticeship of the colonial merchantmen
was that passed in fighting the French and Spanish during England's long
struggle for commercial supremacy in the eighteenth century, a period
during which New York alone commissioned 48 vessels, carrying 675 guns
and 5530 men. As affording interesting views of the work done by the
American seamen at that time, consider some of the incidents of the siege
of Louisburg, for while the siege was a land contest, it was carried on by
men the majority of whom, perhaps, were sailors, and the incidents to be
recalled were, at any rate, peculiarly characteristic of the New England
foremast hand.
The armed ships numbered thirteen, and ninety merchantmen were chartered
to carry the men. The number of ships then owned in the colonies at that
time is nowhere stated, but it was not difficult to gather this fleet in
New England.
Although the heavy masonry forts at Louisburg mounted 42-pounders, the
heaviest guns the fleet carried were 22-pounders; but 42-pounder shot were
cast for the expedition, and taken along, because every man in the fleet
was entirely confident that 42-pounders would soon be captured from the
enemy.
Having landed about two miles from the main fortification (April 30,
1745), one William Vaughan, "a youth of restless and impetuous activity,"
led 400 men "to the hills near the town and saluted it with three cheers."
On May 2 this same impetuous youth, while wandering around with a squad of
twelve men and boys, reached a number of unguarded storehouses belonging
to the enemy. They were so far from the main scene of activity of the
colonists that the French, apparently, had not thought it worth while to
guard them. Vaughan set them on fire, and the conflagration frightened
the soldiers in a large detached fort so much that they fled. A little
later Vaughan and his gang took possession of the abandoned fort, and
while a boy of eighteen years climbed the flagstaff and spread a red coat
to the breeze in place of a flag, another one ran to the colonial general
(Pepperrell) with this message from Vaughan:--
"May it please your Honour to be informed that by the grace of God and the
courage of thirteen men, I entered the Royal Battery about 9 o'clock, and
am waiting for a reinforcement and a flag."
The 42-pounders for which shot had been cast in Boston were
secured--twenty-eight of them, besides two 18-pounders.
When the siege guns were landed from the transports, and an effort was
made to take them forward across a wide swamp, in order to mount them
where they would reach the town, they sank out of sight in the mud.
Thereupon the men made a broad-runner sled for each gun, harnessed
themselves to the sleds, and waded across the swamp, dragging the guns
after them. That feat has excited the admiration of all historians who
have written about it. But these men had built ships a mile from the
water--back in the woods--and, when each was ready for the sea had dragged
it to the beach with many yoke of oxen; dragging cannon across the swamp
was a small matter in their estimation.
A trained engineer wanted them to advance upon the big fort of the enemy
in the usual scientific manner--by digging parallels, one after another,
and covering every step of the advance with earthworks. The proposal
made them laugh. Taking advantage of a foggy night, they went forward,
rolling sugar hogsheads, brought for the purpose, before them, until they
arrived at the most advanced point desirable, and there they up-ended
the hogsheads, filled them with dirt, mounted their siege guns (including
42-pounders taken from the royal fort), and opened fire.
Meanwhile they were without tents; their clothing and shoes wore out under
the excessive abrading of their work; they were soaked by cold rains, but
shelters of evergreen boughs were erected, and "while the cannon bellowed
in front ... the men raced, wrestled, pitched quoits, fired at marks,"
and "ran after the French cannon balls that sometimes fell in the camp"
where "frolic and confusion reigned" perpetually.
The capture of Louisburg had small effect upon the country, but the work
of the besiegers, rightly seen, was of the most important ever done in the
colonies. Throughout the siege they were inspired by the idea that "the
All of Things is an infinite conjugation of the verb _To Do_"; they took
hold of each task with hearty good-will, and were irrepressible; their
rude disregard for convention gave opportunity to their resourcefulness,
and contributed to the evolution of military science. And lessons learned
before Louisburg were applied at Bunker Hill, and elsewhere, during the
Revolution.
Among the heroes of the privateer ships of the Revolution we may well
recall Captain Jonathan Haraden, as a type. In 1780 he sailed from Salem
in the 180-ton ship _Pickering_, armed with fourteen 6-pounders, manned by
about fifty men, all told, bound to Bilboa with a cargo of sugar. At this
period of the war the British, taught by experience, had sent out fleets
of frigates and sloops of war, besides many brigs, cutters, and privateers
of large size in order to suppress the armed ships of the "rebels." On the
way across, Haraden met a heavy cutter and beat her off. While reaching
across the Bay of Biscay, one night, he overhauled a ship the lookouts
of which appeared to be asleep; for there was no stir upon her deck
until Haraden hailed and ordered her to surrender, saying that his ship
was an American frigate and he intended firing a broadside immediately.
The sleepy captain obeyed the order. It was then learned that she was a
privateer much superior to the _Pickering_ in the number of guns and of
men. On arriving off Bilboa a big armed ship was seen coming out, and the
captured captain told Haraden she was the privateer _Achilles_, mounting
forty-two guns and manned by 140 men.
"I shan't run from her," said Haraden, quietly.
The _Achilles_ took possession of the privateer captured in the Bay of
Biscay, but because it was a calm night, and the _Pickering_ would be
unable to escape, the captain of the _Achilles_ determined to wait until
morning before attacking. On seeing this, Haraden arranged a proper
lookout and then went to sleep.
At dawn, when the _Achilles_ came down ready for battle, the _Pickering_
was lying so far inshore that a throng of people, supposed to number
100,000, gathered on the hills to watch the contest, and they found the
spectacle worth the trouble taken. Calling his men to the mast, Haraden
assured them that they would win in spite of the greater force of the
enemy, and then ordered them to "Take particular aim at the white boot
top."
Inspired by the air of confidence with which the captain had addressed
them, the men returned to quarters. Their ship was loaded down so far
in the water that she "appeared little larger than a long boat" when the
_Achilles_ ranged alongside, but, as _Captain Haraden had foreseen_, the
difference in height gave him a decisive advantage.
The _Achilles_, with her great battery and numerous crew, opened a fire
that seemed overwhelming. But at that time (and for years afterward)
English sailors relied upon speed of fire only to win their battles;
the guns of the _Achilles_ were discharged without aiming, and because
the gun deck was far above the water, nearly every shot passed over the
_Pickering_. But the American gunners were half sailor, half backwoodsmen;
they took particular aim at the white boot top of the _Achilles_, and
drove so many shot through her side near the water-line that, after about
three hours of fighting, the British captain found that he would have to
haul off or sink. He decided to fly. Then, on seeing the British sailors
running to the braces to swing the yards, Haraden ordered his gunners to
load with crowbars, hoping to cut the rigging of the _Achilles_ with these
curious projectiles, and thus keep her from running away; but "she had a
mainsail as large as a ship of the line," and when that sail began to draw
she escaped.
As the _Pickering_ and her recaptured prize came to anchor in the bay, the
enthusiastic spectators of the battle flocked off in such numbers that at
one time it would have been possible to build with the boats around her
a pontoon bridge reaching from ship to shore.
When Captain William Gray was a lieutenant on the privateer _Jack_, she
was attacked by one of the enemy of such superior force that she was
soon disabled. Thereupon the enemy came alongside and tried to board. In
heading his men in repelling the attack, Gray was struck by a bayoneted
musket which had been pitchpoled at him. The bayonet pinned him fast to a
gun carriage so that he was unable to get away, but after one of his men
had withdrawn the bayonet, he again attacked the boarders and they were
repelled.
When Captain John Manly commanded the privateer _Jason_, of Boston, he was
chased by a British frigate into a roadstead near the Isle of Shoals. He
would have been captured there but for a friendly squall which, while it
dismasted him, drove away the frigate. At this, however, Manly's troubles
began. He had previously lost the privateer _Cumberland_, and his crew
decided that the dismasting was clear proof that he was unlucky. A mutiny
followed, but Manly, snatching a cutlass from one of the crew, attacked
the mutineers single-handed, and after cutting down two of them, set the
remainder at work rerigging the ship; and he kept them at it until she
was ready for sea thirty-six hours later. Finally, he went to Sandy Hook
and captured two big privateers fresh from that port and very valuable.
As noted in the _Story of the New England Whalers_, there is abundant
reason for saying that "out of the 1700 men who had manned Nantucket
whalers before the war, some hundreds shipped on the privateers. They took
kindly to a calling in which there was such a strong element of chance.
The hope of good luck was strong within them." When an American privateer
was captured by the enemy, they separated the Nantucket men from the
remainder of the crew, and then by bribery on the one hand, and starvation
and other kinds of ill treatment, on the other, they forced as many as
possible into the English whaleships.
Many more tales might be related, but the facts here given show well
enough that the men who were at once woodsmen, ship-builders, fishermen,
and sailors could also fight. It is especially notable that they could
usually think calmly and decide swiftly, as Haraden did. The conditions
under which the American seamen of the period had been reared had
made them, as so frequently pointed out herein, at once resourceful,
enterprising, persistent, and unafraid.
The records of the privateers are so few in number that only imperfect
estimates can be made of the number and force of the fleet. The
Continental Congress bonded 1699 privateers during the war, but since many
ships were bonded more than once, some under different names, it is not
possible to say how many individual ships were thus represented. Further
than that the colonies commissioned many vessels that had no commission
from the Congress. Hale, in Winsor's _History of America_, says that
Massachusetts owned 600 privateers. Salem alone owned 158. More than 200
were owned in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. The fleets
of the Delaware, the Chesapeake, and of Charleston were considerable.
Certainly more than 1000 armed ships were sent to sea by American owners
to seize the merchantmen of the enemy. The fishing smack _Wasp_, carrying
9 men and no cannon, was, perhaps, the weakest;[3] the _Deane_, carrying
30 cannon and 210 men, was the most powerful. There were 40 American
privateers of the force of 20 guns and 100 men or larger.
American histories have, almost without exception, glorified these
privateers. They note that Dodsley's _Register_ for 1778 recorded the
capture of 733 British ships by American cruisers, of which 559 were
brought into port. What these prizes sold for is not recorded, but it
appears that the British loss was estimated at £2,600,000. Gomer Williams,
in his history of the Liverpool privateers, says that the War of the
Revolution put an entire stop to the commercial progress of that port. It
was the venturesome American privateer who haunted the Irish channel until
the Dublin linen fleet sailed under convoy to Chester, that thus injured
Liverpool. According to Troughton, another Liverpool historian, "the
manners of the common people" of the town "made a retrogression towards
barbarism." Mr. Hale estimates that 3000 British ships were captured, and
that the losses crippled the commercial prosperity of England severely.
On the other hand, however, while the American cruisers were capturing the
773 British ships, the British cruisers captured and sent into port 904
American ships, which brought the captors £2000 each on the average. The
losses of the American owners were, of course, much larger. Worse yet,
the American ships were all eventually driven from the seas, save only
as a few of the largest and most powerful were able to dodge and outsail
the frigates and sloops-of-war which the British sent in pursuit of them.
Haraden himself, though he captured more than a thousand guns from the
enemy, was at last caught at St. Eustatia by Admiral Rodney's fleet.
If the accounts of gains and losses could be posted ledger fashion,
the struck balance would show that while the captured goods[4] were at
times almost the only resource of the colonists needing goods of foreign
manufacture, and while, too, a few individuals were enriched, the losses
of the ship merchants as a class, and of the country, far outweighed the
gains. American independence was not won, as so often claimed, by the
privateers; it was not even forwarded.
There was a further loss, which, though it cannot be measured, was real.
There is abundant evidence to show that the successes of the few made
gamblers, and even thieves, of many merchants. While two frigates were
on the stocks in Rhode Island, the timber belonging to the government
was stolen for use in privateers. Still another evil influence is found
in the fact that the magnified stories of privateer work made the people
believe that the greed of the merchants would serve to defend the new-born
nation from foreign aggression better than a navy could do it. And not
until after the War of 1812 was brought upon us was the miserable delusion
dispelled.
In two respects only did the privateers serve the American merchant marine
well: they gave some thousands of individual seamen increased ability to
handle ships under difficult conditions, and they improved the speed of
the whole fleet.
Captain Elias Hasket Derby, of Salem, was perhaps the first American to
make a systematic study of ship models with a view of increasing speed.
He established a shipyard near his wharf at Salem; with untrammelled mind
he made experiments, and eventually he built 4 ships of from 300 to 360
tons' burden, each of which became noted for strength and speed. One of
them (the _Astræ_, a vessel less than 100 feet long), while on her way
to the Baltic, made the run from Salem to the Irish coast in eleven days.
In 1783 this vessel crossed from Salem to France in 18 days, and she made
the passage home in 19.
Only a few ships remained in commission to float the flag of the "new
constellation" at the end of the War of the Revolution, but it was a
matter of no small significance that these ships were, on the average, far
superior to those that had formed the American merchant marine in colonial
days. Indeed, they were literally the best merchantmen in the world. And
the conditions under which they were to sail, though harrowing to the
owners and to all patriotic Americans, were to maintain the standard of
the fleet for many years to come.