AFTER balancing gains and losses, the result of the campaign
favored Great Britain by the amount of plunder which the navy obtained
in Alexandria, and by the posts which Governor Sherbrooke occupied
between the Penobscot and the Passamaquoddy in Maine. Considering
the effort made and the waste of money, the result was a total
disappointment to the British people; but even these advantages on land
could not be regarded as secure until the British navy and mercantile
marine had summed up their profits and losses on the ocean.
At the beginning of the year 1814 the American navy had almost
disappeared. Porter in the “Essex” still annoyed British interests in
the Pacific; but of the five large frigates only the “President” was at
sea. January 1 the “Constitution,” Captain Charles Stewart, left Boston
and cruised southward, making a few prizes and destroying a British
fourteen-gun schooner, but fighting no battle and effecting no object
equivalent to her cost. In returning to Boston, April 3, she narrowly
escaped capture by the two British frigates blockading the port, and
with difficulty got into Marblehead harbor. The “Constitution” did not
again go to sea until December 17. During her cruise of three months,
from January 1 to April 3, she made four prizes.
The “President” regained New York February 18, and was blockaded during
the rest of the year. The “United States” and “Macedonian” remained
blockaded at New London. The “Constellation” remained blockaded at
Norfolk. The corvette “Adams,” twenty-eight guns, ran the blockade of
Chesapeake Bay January 18, and cruised until August 17, making nine
prizes and several narrow escapes before striking on the Isle of Haut
and taking refuge in the Penobscot as the British forces occupied
Castine. The story of her destruction has been told. Her fate was
the same she would have met had she remained in Washington, where a
week earlier the new forty-four-gun frigate “Columbia” and the new
twenty-two-gun sloop-of-war “Argus” were burned to prevent them from
falling prize to the British army.
This short abstract accounted for all the frigates except the “Essex,”
whose fortune was no happier than that of the larger ships. October 27,
1812, the “Essex,” Captain David Porter, left the Delaware, intending
to meet Bainbridge and form part of a squadron under his command.
Failing to meet Bainbridge, though constantly near him, Porter at last
decided to sail southward; and when Bainbridge in the “Constitution”
reached Boston February 27, 1813, the “Essex” had already passed
Cape Horn, and was running up the western coast of South America to
Valparaiso.
At Valparaiso Porter arrived March 14, 1813, to the consternation of
commerce. Chili had recently asserted independence of Spain, and as
yet no English war-vessels were stationed in the Pacific. The chief
British interest was the whale fishery which centred in the Galapagos
Islands,--a group lying under the equator, about a thousand miles from
Panama. Although the influence of England was supreme, on account of
her naval power, her commerce, and her political alliance with the
Spanish people, and although Porter had neither a harbor of his own,
nor the support of a diplomatic officer on the Pacific, he had nothing
to fear. He was well received at Valparaiso, where since 1811 J. R.
Poinsett had held the post of United States Consul-General for Buenos
Ayres, Chili, and Peru; but the “Essex” tarried only for supplies, and
soon sailed for the Galapagos Islands. There she arrived in April,
1813, and in the course of the summer captured all the British whalers
known to be in those seas. These were twelve in number, and after
sending some of them away, Porter still had a fleet of five armed ships
besides his own, and nothing more to do.
The “Essex” had then been a year at sea, and needed repairs. Porter
determined to take his entire fleet of six vessels about three thousand
miles to the Marquesas Islands,--as though to make a voyage of
discovery, or to emulate the mutineers of the “Bounty.” The squadron
sailed three weeks over the southern seas, until, October 23, the
Marquesas Islands were sighted. There Porter remained seven weeks,
amusing himself and his crew by intervention in native Marquesan
politics, ending in his conquest of the principal tribes, and taking
possession of the chief island in the name of his Government. That he
should have brought away his whole crew after such relaxation, without
desertion, was surprising. The men were for a time in a state of mutiny
on being ordered to sea; but they did not desert, and the squadron
sailed, Dec. 12, 1813, for Valparaiso.
Porter would have done better to sail for the China seas or the Indian
Ocean. He knew that British war-vessels were searching for him, and
that Valparaiso was the spot where he would be directly in their way.
He arrived February 3, and five days afterward two British vessels
of war sailed into the harbor, making directly for the “Essex” with
the appearance of intending to attack and board her. The crew of the
“Essex” stood at quarters ready to fire as the larger ship ran close
alongside, until her yards crossed those of the “Essex,” and Porter
probably regretted to the end of his life that he did not seize the
opportunity his enemy gave him; but the British captain, from his
quarter-deck only a few feet away, protested that the closeness of his
approach was an accident, and that he intended no attack. The moment
quickly passed, and then Porter found himself overmatched.
The British frigate “Phœbe,” thirty-six guns, had sailed from England
in March, 1813, under secret orders to break up the United States
fur-establishment on the Columbia River.[288] At Rio Janeiro the
“Phœbe” was joined by the “Cherub,” a sloop-of-war rated at eighteen
guns, and both sailed in search of the “Essex.” The “Phœbe” was
one hundred and forty-three and three quarters feet in length, by
thirty-eight and a quarter in breadth; the “Essex” was one hundred and
thirty-eight and a half feet in length, and thirty-seven and a quarter
in breadth. The “Phœbe” carried a crew of three hundred men and boys;
the “Essex” carried two hundred and fifty-five. The “Essex” was the
better sailer, and the result of an action depended on her ability to
use this advantage. The broadside of the “Essex” consisted of seventeen
thirty-two-pound carronades and six long twelve-pounders; the “Phœbe”
showed only eight carronades, but had thirteen long eighteen-pounders,
one long twelve-pounder, and one long nine-pounder. At close range,
Porter’s battery would overpower the “Phœbe’s” long guns, but the
“Phœbe’s” thirteen long-range eighteen-pounders could destroy her enemy
without receiving a shot in return. Porter knew all this, and knew also
that he could not depend on Chilian protection. No British captain
in such a situation could afford to be delicate in regard to the
neutrality of Chili, which was not even a recognized nation. At most
Porter could hope for immunity only in the port of Valparaiso.
Captain Hillyar of the “Phœbe” made no mistakes. During an entire month
he blockaded the “Essex” with his two vessels, acting with extreme
caution. At last Porter determined to run out, trusting to a chase to
separate the blockading cruisers; and March 28, 1814, with a strong
southerly wind, he got under way. As he rounded the outermost point a
violent squall carried away his maintopmast. The loss threw on Porter
a sudden emergency and a difficult, instantaneous decision. He decided
to return to harbor. A young midshipman, David Farragut, who made his
first cruise in the “Essex,” gave his high authority in after years to
the opinion that Porter’s decision was wrong. “Being greatly superior
in sailing powers,” said Farragut, “we should have borne up, and run
before the wind.” The chance of outsailing the “Phœbe,” or separating
her from her consort, was better than that of regaining the anchorage.
The wind did not allow of a return to port, and the “Essex” was run
into a small bay three miles from Valparaiso, and anchored within
pistol-shot of the shore. There Hillyar had her wholly at his mercy. At
first he attacked somewhat timidly. Although Porter could bring only
three long twelve-pounders to bear, he damaged the “Phœbe’s” rigging
until Hillyar, in half an hour, hauled off to repair the injury,--or,
according to Hillyar’s account, the “Phœbe” was prevented by the
freshness of the wind from holding a position.[289] Finally the “Phœbe”
anchored, and began firing her broadsides of long eighteen-pounders
into the “Essex’s” quarter. The “Cherub” kept under way, using only
her bow guns. Reply was impossible. The crew of the “Essex” fired what
guns would bear, and got the ship under way; but the “Phœbe” kept her
distance, throwing thirteen eighteen-pound shot into the “Essex” every
five or ten minutes, until the “Essex” was cut to pieces and her decks
were shambles.
The last attack continued, according to Captain Hillyar, from 5.35 till
6.20 P. M., when the “Essex” struck. The entire battle lasted
from four o’clock until the surrender. The carnage was frightful and
useless. Porter declared that fifty-eight of his crew were killed.
Hillyar claimed one hundred and nineteen unwounded prisoners, while
Porter declared the number of unwounded prisoners to be seventy-five.
The British ships, with five hundred men, lost only fifteen killed and
wounded.
The loss of the “Essex,” like the loss of the “Chesapeake” and “Argus,”
was unnecessary. Porter need not have gone to Valparaiso, or might have
tried to run out at night, or might have fought, even after the loss
of his maintopmast, under less disadvantage. The disaster completed
the unfortunate record of the frigates for the year. They made some
sixteen prizes and busied many British cruisers, but won no victories
and suffered one bloody defeat.
The sloops told a different story. Early in 1814 three of the new
sloops-of-war were ready for sea,--the “Frolic,” the “Peacock,”
and the “Wasp.” They were heavy vessels of their class, about one
hundred and twenty feet long on the main-deck, and thirty-two feet
in extreme breadth; carrying crews of about one hundred and sixty
men, with an armament of twenty thirty-two-pound carronades and two
long eighteen-pounders. Although only one third the tonnage of the
forty-four-gun frigates, and carrying only one third the crew, the
new sloops-of-war threw nearly half the weight of metal,--for the
broadside of the “Constitution” commonly exceeded but little the
weight of seven hundred pounds, while the sloops threw three hundred
and thirty-eight. The difference was due not to the weight, but to
the range. The frigates carried thirty long twenty-four-pounders; the
sloops carried only two long eighteen-pounders. The sloops were rigged
as ships, and built with the usual solidity of war-vessels, costing
about seventy-five thousand dollars each.
The first to sail was the “Frolic,” from Boston, in February. She
captured only two prizes before she was herself taken, April 20,
off Matanzas, after a chase by the thirty-six-gun British frigate
“Orpheus,” assisted by a twelve-gun schooner.
The second sloop-of-war, the “Peacock,” commanded by Lewis Warrington,
sailed from New York in March. Warrington was a Virginian, thirty-two
years old and fourteen years in the service, with the rank of
master-commandant in 1813. Cruising down the coast, the “Peacock” first
ran in to St. Mary’s on the Florida frontier; and then continuing
southward, on the morning of April 29, off the Indian River Inlet, she
discovered a small convoy on its way from Havana to Bermuda, under
charge of the British eighteen-gun brig “Epervier.” The British brig
was no match for the American ship. She was smaller, and carried only
sixteen thirty-two and two eighteen-pound carronades, with a crew of
one hundred and three men and fifteen boys.[290] The inferiority was
something like four to three; but Captain Wales of the “Epervier”
gallantly brought his vessel into action at the usual close-range of
these murderous combats.
Captain Wales told the result in an official report, dated May 8, to
Vice-Admiral Cochrane.[291] The report was not published, the British
Admiralty having become sensitive to the popular outcry against their
naval management.
“At eight A. M.,” reported Captain Wales, “the wind
being about east-south-east, I saw a strange sail in the
southwest apparently in chase of us; at nine, perceiving her
to near very fast and to be a square-rigged vessel-of-war, I
shortened sail and hauled to the wind on the larboard tack
to be between her and the convoy, being rather ahead of them.
The wind at this time veering round to the southward enabled
the stranger to lay up for us.... At 9.50 A. M. we
weathered her and exchanged broadsides; having passed her beam,
we tacked, shortened sail, and continued in close action until
eleven A. M., when--five of our larboard guns being
disabled by the breeching-bolts giving way, and three others by
shot, and unable to manœuvre so as to get the starboard guns to
bear in consequence of the rigging and sails being cut to pieces
in the early part of the action by star-shot, the main boom shot
away, the foremast wounded in several places, and several shot
between wind and water, with four-and-a-half feet of water in
the hold, and the enemy seemingly in a state to continue the
action--I deemed it prudent to surrender.”
The giving way of the breeching-bolts did not wholly disable the guns,
for Captain Wales specially commended “Mr. Lawrence Kennedy the Purser,
who rendered much service in his exertions at the after-guns by getting
them in a fighting state again when unshipped by the fighting-bolts
coming out of their places.”
At the close of the battle the “Peacock’s” hull had not been touched;
aloft, her foreyard was disabled and a few upper stays were cut away;
of her crew, two men were slightly wounded,--but this was all the
injury sustained in running for three quarters of an hour under the
close fire of nine heavy guns.[292] The “Epervier” was reported by
Captain Warrington as showing forty-five shot-holes in her hull;
masts and rigging much cut up, and twenty-three men killed or wounded
in a crew of one hundred and twenty-eight. The difference between the
force of the two vessels amply accounted for the capture; but the
Admiralty might well show unwillingness to admit the bad condition of
the vessels-of-war to which it intrusted the duty of convoying British
mercantile shipping.[293] So complete was the “Epervier’s” disaster
that no excuse was offered for it, except the plea that she was in
almost every respect inferior to the standard that British vessels of
her class were supposed to maintain.
Captain Warrington saved the “Epervier” and brought her into Savannah
in spite of two British frigates encountered on the way. He sailed
again early in June, and passed the months of July and August in
British waters or in the track of British commerce from the Faroe
Islands to the Canaries. He burned or sunk twelve prizes, besides
making cartels of two more, and brought his ship through the blockade
into New York harbor, October 30, without injury, with only one man
lost and the crew in fine health.[294]
The third new sloop was named the “Wasp” after the famous victor over
the “Hornet.” The new “Wasp” sailed from Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
May 1, under command of Johnston Blakeley. Born in Ireland in 1781,
Blakeley was from infancy a North Carolinian. He became in 1800 an
officer in the navy. Blakeley and the “Wasp” of 1814, like Jones
and the “Wasp” of 1813, ran a career in which tragedy gave a deeper
tinge than usual to the bloody colors they won; but their success was
on the whole greater than that of any other national cruiser from
the beginning to the end of the war. Merely as a story of adventure
Blakeley’s career was exciting, but romance was its smallest interest.
For several reasons the sloop battles and cruises afforded one of the
best relative tests of American character and skill among all that were
furnished in the early period of the national history; and among the
sloops, Blakeley’s “Wasp” was the most distinguished.
Blakeley ran directly across the ocean into soundings at the mouth
of the British Channel. There he remained during the month of June,
searching every vessel that passed. The number of neutrals constantly
diverting his attention kept him actively employed, and led him farther
into the Channel than was intended; but although three British frigates
and fourteen sloops were at sea for the protection of British waters,
the “Wasp” continued to burn and sink such British merchantmen as
she met,--the first, June 2, and subsequently June 13, 18, 23, and
26,--until on the morning of June 28 a man-of-war brig appeared to
windward, and bore down on the American ship.
The day was warm and overcast. During the whole morning the two vessels
approached each other so slowly that each had more than time to study
his opponent. Once more the foresight of the American ship-builders
secured a decisive advantage. The British brig, the “Reindeer,” was
altogether unequal to the contest. In tonnage she resembled the
“Epervier,” and her armament was even lighter. Captain Manners, her
commander, had substituted twenty-four-pound carronades for the usual
thirty-two-pounders, and his broadside of ten guns threw only two
hundred and ten pounds of metal,[295] while the “Wasp’s” eleven guns
threw three hundred and thirty-eight pounds. The American crew numbered
one hundred and seventy-three men; the British numbered one hundred
and eighteen. Contest under such conditions was a forlorn hope, but
the “Reindeer’s” crew were the pride of Portsmouth, and Manners was
the idol of his men. They might cripple the “Wasp” if they could not
capture her; and probably the fate of the “Argus,” a year before,
encouraged the hope that the “Reindeer” could do at least as well as
the “Pelican.”
Each captain manœuvred for the weather-gauge, but the Englishman gained
it, and coming up on the “Wasp’s” weather-quarter, repeatedly fired
his light twelve-pound bow-carronade, filled with round and grape
shot, into the American ship. Blakeley, “finding the enemy did not get
sufficiently on the beam to enable us to bring our guns to bear, put
the helm a-lee,” and fired as his guns bore. The firing began at 3.26
P. M. and lasted until 3.40, fourteen minutes, at close range.
In that space of time each gun in the broadside could be fired at the
utmost three times. Apparently Manners felt that he had no chance with
his guns, for he brought his vessel’s bow against the “Wasp’s” quarter
and repeatedly attempted boarding. Early in the action the calves of
his legs were shot away; then a shot passed through both his thighs;
yet he still climbed into the rigging to lead his boarders, when two
balls at the same moment struck him in the head. His fall ended the
battle; and such had been the losses of his company that the highest
officer remaining unhurt on the British brig to surrender the vessel
was said to be the captain’s clerk. At 3.45 the “Reindeer’s” flag was
struck,--the whole action, from the “Wasp’s” first gun, having lasted
nineteen minutes.
Had every British vessel fought like the “Reindeer,” Englishmen would
have been less sensitive to defeat. In this desperate action the “Wasp”
suffered severely. Her foremast was shot through; her rigging and spars
were much injured; her hull was struck by six round shot and much
grape; eleven men were killed and fifteen wounded, or nearly one man in
six, “chiefly in repelling boarders,” reported Blakeley. The “Reindeer”
was a wreck, and was blown up as soon as the wounded could be removed.
Of her crew, numbering one hundred and eighteen, thirty-three lost
their lives; thirty-four were wounded,--in all, sixty-seven, or more
than half the brig’s complement.
Ten days afterward Blakeley ran into Lorient, where his ship was well
received by the French, whose British antipathies were increased rather
than lessened by their enforced submission. After refitting, the “Wasp”
sailed again August 27, and four days later cut out a valuable ship
from a convoy under the eyes of a seventy-four. The same evening,
September 1, at half-past six, Blakeley sighted four vessels, two on
either bow, and hauled up for the one most to windward. At 9.26 at
night the chase, a brig, was directly under the “Wasp’s” lee-bow, and
Blakeley began firing a twelve-pound bow-carronade, which he must have
taken from the “Reindeer,” for no such gun made part of his regular
armament.
The battle in the dark which followed has been always deeply
interesting to students of naval history, the more because the
British Admiralty suppressed the official reports, and left an air of
mystery over the defeat which rather magnified than diminished its
proportions. The British brig was the sloop-of-war “Avon,” commanded
by Captain James Arbuthnot, and carrying the usual armament of sixteen
thirty-two-pound carronades with two long six-pounders. Her crew was
reported as numbering one hundred and four men and thirteen boys.
Captain Arbuthnot’s official report[296] said that the “Avon” had
been cruising in company with the sloop-of-war “Castilian,” when at
daylight, September 1, he “discovered an enemy’s schooner in the
rear of the Kangaroo convoy,” and gave chase. The “Castilian” also
gave chase, and at seven o’clock the twenty-gun ship “Tartarus” was
signalled, also in chase.[297] All day the three British sloops-of-war
chased the privateer schooner, until at half-past six o’clock in the
evening the “Castilian’s” superiority in sailing free left the “Avon”
out of sight, nine miles astern. The position of the “Tartarus” was
not mentioned in the reports, but she could hardly have been ahead of
the “Castilian.” The three British sloops were then within ten miles
of each other, under full sail, with a ten-knot wind. The weather was
hazy, and neither the “Castilian” nor the “Tartarus” could see that the
“Avon” was signalling the “Castilian” a recall. The “Avon” saw at four
o’clock a large sail on her weather-beam standing directly for her, and
knowing that the “Wasp” was cruising in these waters, Captain Arbuthnot
felt natural anxiety to rejoin his consort.
Captain Arbuthnot’s report continued:--
“The stranger closing with us fast, I kept away and set the
weather studding-sails in hopes of nearing the ‘Castilian’
or ‘Tartarus,’ the latter of which I had only lost sight of
at 3 P. M. At 7.30 P. M. the stranger had
approached within hail, and being unable to get a satisfactory
answer I had not a doubt of her being an enemy’s corvette.
At 8.30 he fired a shot over us which was instantly returned
with a broadside. He then bore up and endeavored to rake us,
but was prevented. The action then became general within half
pistol-shot, and continued without intermission until 10.30
P. M., when--having seven feet of water in the hold,
the magazine drowned; tiller, foreyard, main-boom, and every
shroud shot away, and the other standing and the running rigging
cut to pieces; the brig quite unmanageable, and the leak gaining
fast on the pumps; with forty killed and wounded, and five of
the starboard guns dismounted; and conceiving further resistance
only would cause a useless sacrifice of lives--I was under the
painful necessity of ordering the colors to be struck to the
American corvette ‘Wasp,’ the mainmast, almost immediately
after, going over the side.”
Lieutenant George Lloyd, commanding the “Castilian,” reported September
2 the circumstances attending the loss of the “Avon,” as far as they
concerned his share in the matter.[298] At nine o’clock the “Castilian”
heard a very heavy firing in the north-northeast, and immediately
wore and made all possible sail in that direction, burning blue
lights. At quarter past ten the firing ceased, “and on coming up I
had the mortification to observe the ‘Avon’ a totally dismantled and
ungovernable wreck, with her mainmast gone,--the enemy, apparently a
large ship corvette, lying to, to leeward of her, who on my closing
made all sail, and evinced every wish to avoid a contest with us.”
“I immediately used means to enable me to bring her to close
action; and from our superior sailing I had in a few minutes
the gratification to be within half a cable’s length on her
weather quarter. But I lament to state at this anxious crisis
the ‘Avon’s’ situation became most alarming; she had commenced
firing minute guns, and making every other signal of distress
and of being in want of immediate assistance. I must here
(as my pen can but inadequately describe) leave you, sir, to
judge the feelings of myself, officers, and crew, as, from the
confusion which evidently prevailed on board the enemy, the
damage she had sustained, and her bad steerage, together with
the cool and steady conduct of the officers and men I have the
honor to command, I had no doubt of her falling an easy prey
could we have persisted in attacking her, but which was not to
be done without sacrificing the lives of the surviving gallant
crew of our consort. Thus situated ... I was obliged ... to
leave the flying enemy to escape; but I feel somewhat gratified
the situation of the ‘Castilian’ enabled me to give him a
raking, and I doubt not from the closeness of the vessels a
most destructive broadside, which he did not return even with a
single gun,--a circumstance that, I trust, cannot fail to prove
how destructive the ‘Avon’s’ fire must have been.”
Lieutenant Lloyd did not explain how his enemy was to bring guns to
bear under the circumstances, the “Castilian” tacking under the
“Wasp’s” stern at half a cable’s length distance, and immediately
standing in the opposite direction, nor did he say what had become of
the “Tartarus.” Doubtless the “Wasp” steered badly, her rigging being
much damaged; and Blakeley was chiefly intent on keeping off till he
could reeve new braces. The “Castilian’s” broadside cut the “Wasp’s”
rigging and sails, and shot away a lower main cross-tree, but did no
other serious damage.
The “Avon” lost ten men killed and thirty-two wounded, besides being
reduced to a sinking condition in an hour of night action in a ten-knot
wind, with two more ships-of-war in sight and hearing. The “Wasp” lost
two men killed and one wounded, four round shot in the hull, and the
“rigging and sails suffered a great deal.”[299]
Blakeley had done enough, and could hardly do more. Besides two
eighteen-gun brigs, he made in his cruise fourteen prizes, which he
destroyed, several of great value. In that year all the frigates in
the United States service had not done as much. With a single-decked
ship of five hundred tons, armed with carronades, Blakeley blockaded
the British Channel for two months, capturing vessels in sight
of ships-of-the-line, and destroying two sloops-of-war in rapid
succession, without serious injury to himself, and to the consternation
of the British marine.
After sinking the “Avon,” September 1, Blakeley held on his course
toward Madeira, and there, September 21, captured the brig “Atlanta,”
which he sent to Savannah. Still later, October 9, near the Cape de
Verde Islands, he spoke a Swedish brig, which reported him. After that
day no word of tidings was ever received from the “Wasp.” Somewhere
under the waters of the Atlantic, ship and crew found an unknown grave.
Besides the large sloops-of-war, three smaller vessels--the
“Syren,” “Enterprise,” and “Rattlesnake”--went to sea in 1814.
The “Syren” was captured after a chase of eleven hours, nearly
on a wind, by the “Medway,” seventy-four; her sixteen guns, and
everything else that could be spared, were thrown overboard during
the chase. The “Rattlesnake” and “Enterprise” cruised in company
toward the West Indies, and made some prizes. The “Rattlesnake”
was fast, the “Enterprise” a very dull sailer; but after repeated
hairbreadth escapes, the “Rattlesnake” was caught, July 11, by the
frigate “Leander,” with Cape Sable to windward, and was obliged to
surrender.[300] The “Enterprise,” with her usual good fortune, was
never taken, but became a guardship.
After November 1 the United States government had not a ship at sea.
In port, three seventy-fours were building, and five forty-fours were
building or blockaded. Three thirty-six-gun frigates were laid up or
blockaded. Four sloops-of-war were also in port, the “Peacock” having
just returned from her long cruise. Such a result could not be called
satisfactory. The few war-vessels that existed proved rather what the
government might have done than what the British had to fear from any
actual or probable American navy. The result of private enterprise
showed also how much more might easily have been done by government.
The year 1814 was marked by only one great and perhaps decisive success
on either side, except Macdonough’s victory. This single success was
privateering. Owners, captains, and crews had then learned to build
and sail their vessels, and to hunt their prey with extraordinary
skill. A few rich prizes stimulated the building of new vessels as
the old were captured, and the ship-yards turned them out as rapidly
as they were wanted. In the neighborhood of Boston, in the summer of
1814, three companion ships were built,--the “Reindeer,” “Avon,” and
“Blakeley;” and of these the “Reindeer” was said to have been finished
in thirty-five working days, and all three vessels were at sea in the
following winter. No blockade short of actual siege could prevent such
craft from running out and in. Scores of them were constantly on the
ocean.
On the Atlantic privateers swarmed. British merchantmen were captured,
recaptured, and captured again, until they despaired of ever reaching
port. One British master who was three times taken and as often
retaken, reported that he had seen ten American privateers crossing
his course. A letter from Halifax printed in the London “Times” of
December 19 said: “There are privateers off this harbor which plunder
every vessel coming in or going out, notwithstanding we have three
line-of-battle ships, six frigates, and four sloops here.” The West
Indies and the Canaries were haunted by privateers. The “Rambler,”
“Hyder Ali,” and “Jacob Jones” of Boston penetrated even the Chinese
seas, and carried prize-goods into Macao and Canton. Had these pests
confined their ravages to the colonies or the ocean, the London clubs
and the lobbies of Parliament would have thought little about them;
but the privateer had discovered the weakness of Great Britain, and
frequented by preference the narrow seas which England regarded as her
own. The quasi-blockade of the British coasts which American cruisers
maintained in 1813 became a real and serious blockade in 1814. Few days
passed without bringing news of some inroad into British waters, until
the Thames itself seemed hardly safe.
The list of privateers that hung about Great Britain and Ireland
might be made long if the number were necessary to the story, but the
character of the blockade was proved by other evidence than that of
numbers. A few details were enough to satisfy even the English. The
“Siren,” a schooner of less than two hundred tons, with seven guns and
seventy-five men,[301] had an engagement with her Majesty’s cutter
“Landrail” of four guns, as the cutter was crossing the British Channel
with despatches. The “Landrail” was captured after a somewhat sharp
action, and sent to America, but was recaptured on the way. The victory
was not remarkable, but the place of capture was very significant;
and it happened July 12, only a fortnight after Blakeley captured the
“Reindeer” farther westward. The “Siren” was but one of many privateers
in those waters. The “Governor Tompkins” burned fourteen vessels
successively in the British Channel. The “Young Wasp” of Philadelphia
cruised nearly six months about the coasts of England and Spain and in
the course of West India commerce. The “Harpy” of Baltimore, another
large vessel of some three hundred and fifty tons and fourteen guns,
cruised nearly three months off the coast of Ireland, in the British
Channel and in the Bay of Biscay, and returned safely to Boston filled
with plunder, including, as was said, upward of £100,000 in British
Treasury notes and bills of exchange. The “Leo,” a Boston schooner of
about two hundred tons, was famous for its exploits in these waters,
but was captured at last by the frigate “Tiber” after a chase of eleven
hours. The “Mammoth,” a Baltimore schooner of nearly four hundred tons,
was seventeen days off Cape Clear, the southernmost point of Ireland.
The most mischievous of all was the “Prince of Neufchatel” of New York,
which chose the Irish Channel as its favorite haunt, where during the
summer it made ordinary coasting traffic impossible. The most impudent
was probably the “Chasseur,” commanded by Captain Boyle, who cruised
three months, and amused himself, when off the British coast, by
sending to be posted at Lloyd’s a “Proclamation of Blockade” of “all
the ports, harbors, bays, creeks, rivers, inlets, outlets, islands,
and sea-coast of the United Kingdom.” The jest at that moment was too
sardonic to amuse the British public.
As the announcement of these annoyances, recurring day after day,
became a practice of the press, the public began to grumble in louder
and louder tones. “That the whole coast of Ireland, from Wexford round
by Cape Clear to Carrickfergus,” said the “Morning Chronicle” of
August 31, “should have been for above a month under the unresisted
dominion of a few petty ‘fly-by-nights’ from the blockaded ports of the
United States, is a grievance equally intolerable and disgraceful.”
The Administration mouthpiece, the “Courier,” admitted, August 22,
that five brigs had been taken in two days between the Smalls and
the Tuskar, and that insurance on vessels trading between Ireland
and England had practically ceased. The “Annual Register” for 1814
recorded as “a most mortifying reflection,” that with a navy of nearly
a thousand ships of various sizes, and while at peace with all Europe,
“it was not safe for a vessel to sail without convoy from one part of
the English or Irish Channel to another.” Such insecurity had not been
known in the recent wars.
As early as August 12, the London Assurance Corporations urged the
government to provide a naval force competent to cope with the
privateers. In September the merchants of Glasgow, Liverpool, and
Bristol held meetings, and addressed warm remonstrances to government
on the want of protection given to British commerce. The situation was
serious, and the British merchants did not yet know all. Till that time
the East India and China trade had suffered little, but at last the
American privateers had penetrated even the Chinese seas; and while
they were driving the British flag into port there, they attacked the
East India Company’s ships, which were really men-of-war, on their
regular voyages. In August the “Countess of Harcourt” of more than five
hundred tons, carrying six heavy guns and ninety men, was captured in
the British Channel by the privateer “Sabine” of Baltimore, and sent
safely to America. The number and value of the prizes stimulated new
energy in seeking them, and British commerce must soon yield to that of
neutral nations if the war continued.
The merchants showed that a great change had come over their minds
since they incited or permitted the Tories to issue the Impressment
Proclamation and the Orders in Council seven years before. More than
any other class of persons, the ship-owners and West India merchants
were responsible for the temper which caused the war, and they were
first to admit their punishment. At the Liverpool meeting, where Mr.
Gladstone, who took the chair, began by declaring that some ports,
particularly Milford, were under actual blockade,[302] a strong
address was voted; and at a very numerous meeting of merchants,
manufacturers, ship-owners, and underwriters at Glasgow, September 7,
the Lord Provost presiding, resolutions were unanimously passed--
“That the number of American privateers with which our channels
have been infested, the audacity with which they have approached
our coasts, and the success with which their enterprise has been
attended, have proved injurious to our commerce, humbling to our
pride, and discreditable to the directors of the naval power of
the British nation, whose flag till of late waved over every sea
and triumphed over every rival.
“That there is reason to believe, in the short space of
twenty-four months, above eight hundred vessels have been
captured by the Power whose maritime strength we have hitherto
impolitically held in contempt.”
The war was nearly at an end, and had effected every possible purpose
for the United States, when such language was adopted by the chief
commercial interests of Great Britain. Yet the Glasgow meeting
expressed only a part of the common feeling. The rates of insurance
told the whole story. The press averred that in August and September
underwriters at Lloyd’s could scarcely be induced to insure at any rate
of premium, and that for the first time in history a rate of thirteen
per cent had been paid on risks to cross the Irish Channel. Lloyd’s
list then showed eight hundred and twenty-five prizes lost to the
Americans, and their value seemed to increase rather than diminish.
Weary as the merchants and ship-owners were of the war, their disgust
was not so intense as that of the navy. John Wilson Croker, Secretary
of the Admiralty Board, whose feelings toward America were at best
unkind, showed a temper that passed the limits of his duties. When
the London underwriters made their remonstrance of August 12, Croker
assured them, in a letter dated August 19,[303] that at the time
referred to “there was a force adequate to the purpose of protecting
the trade both in St. George’s Channel and the Northern Sea.” The
news that arrived during the next two weeks threw ridicule on this
assertion; and Croker was obliged to reply to a memorial from Bristol,
September 16, in a different tone.[304] He admitted that the navy had
not protected trade, and could not protect it; but he charged that the
merchants were to blame for losing their own ships. His letter was a
valuable evidence of the change in British sentiment:--
“Their Lordships take this opportunity of stating to you, for
the information of the memorialists, that from the accounts
which their Lordships have received of the description of
vessels which had formed the largest proportion of the captures
in the Irish and Bristol channels, it appears that if their
masters had availed themselves of the convoys appointed for
their protection from foreign ports, or had not in other
instances deserted from the convoys under whose protection they
had sailed, before the final conclusion of the voyage, many of
the captures would not have been made. It is their Lordships’
determination, as far as they may be enabled, to bring the
parties to punishment who may have been guilty of such illegal
acts, and which are attended with such injurious consequences to
the trade of the country.”
Little by little the Americans had repaid every item of the debt of
insult they owed, and after Croker’s letter the account could be
considered settled. Even the “Times” was not likely to repeat its
sneer of 1807, that the Americans could hardly cross to Staten Island
without British permission. Croker’s official avowal that no vessel
could safely enter or leave one port in the British Islands for another
except under guard of a man-of-war, was published on the same page with
the memorialists’ assertion that the rate of insurance had gradually
risen till it exceeded twofold the usual rates prevailing during the
wars on the Continent.
The spirit of exasperation shown by Croker extended through the navy.
The conduct of Cochrane and Cockburn has been already told. That of
Captain Hillyar at Valparaiso was equally significant. Under the
annoyance of their mortifications the British commanders broke through
ordinary rules. Captain Lloyd of the “Plantagenet,” seventy-four, on
arriving in the harbor of Fayal, September 26, saw a large brig in
the roads, which he must have known to be an American privateer. He
was so informed by his pilot. It was the “General Armstrong,” Captain
Samuel C. Reid, a brig which for two years had fretted and escaped the
British navy. The “Plantagenet,” with two other ships-of-war, appeared
at sunset. Reid dared not run out to sea, and the want of wind would in
any case have prevented success. A little after dusk, Reid, seeing the
suspicious movements of the enemy, began to warp his vessel close under
the guns of the castle. While doing so, at about eight o’clock four
boats filled with men left the ships and approached him. As they came
near he repeatedly hailed and warned them off, and at last fired. His
fire was returned, but the boats withdrew with the loss of a number of
men.[305]
Captain Lloyd, in a somewhat elaborate report to explain the propriety
of his conduct, enclosed affidavits to prove that the Americans had
violated the neutrality of the port. The affidavits proved that,
knowing the character of the vessel, he sent two boats from his own
ship to assist the boats of the “Carnation” to “watch” the privateer.
His report told the story as he wished it to be understood:[306]
“On the evening of the 26th instant I put into this port for
refreshments, previous to my return to Jamaica. In shore was
discovered a suspicious vessel at anchor. I ordered Captain
Bentham of the ‘Carnation’ to watch her movements, and sent the
pinnace and cutter of this ship to assist him on that service;
but on his perceiving her under way, he sent Lieut. Robert
Faussett in the pinnace, about eight o’clock, to observe her
proceedings. On his approaching the schooner, he was ordered to
keep off or they would fire into him, upon which the boat was
immediately backed off; but to his astonishment he received a
broadside of round, grape, and musketry, which did considerable
damage. He then repeatedly requested them to leave off firing,
as he was not come to molest them; but the enemy still continued
his destructive fire until they had killed two men and wounded
seven, without a musket being returned by the boat.”
Lieutenant Faussett’s affidavit threw more light on this curious story
of British naval management. He deposed--
“That on Monday, the 26th instant, about eight o’clock in the
evening, he was ordered to go in the pinnace as guard-boat
unarmed on board her Majesty’s brig ‘Carnation,’ to know what
armed vessel was at anchor in the bay, when Captain Bentham of
said brig ordered him to go and inquire of said vessel (which
by information was said to be a privateer). When said boat
came near the privateer, they hailed (to say, the Americans),
and desired the English boat to keep off or they would fire
into her; upon which said Mr. Faussett ordered his men to
back astern, and with a boat-hook was in the act of so doing,
when the Americans in the most wanton manner fired into said
English boat, killed two men and wounded seven, some of them
mortally,--and this notwithstanding said Faussett frequently
called out not to murder them, that they struck and called for
quarter. Said Faussett solemnly declares that no resistance of
any kind was made, nor could they do it, not having any arms,
nor of course sent to attack said vessel.”
Lieutenant Faussett’s affidavit proved that the “General Armstrong”
had good reason for firing into the British boats. The “Carnation”
had anchored within pistol-shot of the privateer; four boats of the
“Plantagenet” and “Carnation,” filled with men, were on the water
watching her in the moonlight; every act of the British squadron
pointed to an attack, when Captain Bentham ordered the pinnace “to go
and inquire” of the vessel, known to be an American privateer, what
armed vessel it was. If Captain Bentham did not intend to provoke
a shot from the privateer, his order was wanting in intelligence.
Lieutenant Faussett accordingly approached in the pinnace, the other
boats being not far behind. That his men were unarmed was highly
improbable to the privateer, which affirmed that their fire killed
one of the American crew and wounded the first lieutenant;[307] but
their armament had little to do with the matter. They approached as
enemies, in the night, with a large armed force immediately behind
them. The privateer repeatedly warned them off. Instead of obeying the
order, Lieutenant Faussett came alongside. When he was fired on, he
was so near that by his own account he shoved off with the boat-hook.
Considering who and where he was, he had reason to be thankful that any
of his boat’s-crew escaped.
Captain Lloyd’s report continued:--
“This conduct, in violating the neutrality of this port, I
conceive left me no alternative but that of destroying her. I
therefore repeatedly ordered Captain Bentham to tow in the brig
and take that step immediately. All the boats of this ship and
the ‘Rota’ were sent under his orders to tow him alongside or
assist him in the attack, as circumstances might require; but
from continued light baffling winds and a lee tide he was not
able, as he informed me, with his utmost exertions to put my
orders in execution.”
Meanwhile Captain Reid of the “General Armstrong” warped his vessel
close to the beach, under the fort, and made all his preparations for
the attack which he knew must come. The people of the town, with the
governor among them, lined the shore, and witnessed the affair. Captain
Lloyd’s report told the result:--
“Finding the privateer was warping under the fort very fast,
Captain Bentham judged it prudent to lose no time, and about
twelve o’clock ordered the boats to make the attack. A more
gallant, determined one never was made, led on by Lieutenants
Matterface of the ‘Rota’ and Bowerbank of this ship; and every
officer and man displayed the greatest courage in the face of a
heavy discharge of great guns and musketry. But from her side
being on the rocks (which was not known at the time), and every
American in Fayal, exclusive of part of the crew, being armed
and concealed in these rocks, which were immediately over the
privateer, it unfortunately happened when these brave men gained
the deck they were under the painful necessity of returning to
their boats, from the very destructive fire kept up by those
above them from the shore, who were in complete security,--and I
am grieved to add, not before many lives were lost exclusive of
the wounded.”
As far as the accounts[308] agree, the boats were twelve in number,
with about two hundred men. The privateersmen numbered ninety. As the
boats approached, the guns opened on them; and when they came alongside
the privateer they found the boarding-nettings up, with a desperate
crew behind. So vigorously did the British seamen attack, that they
gained the forecastle for a time. All three American lieutenants were
killed or disabled, and Captain Reid fought his brig alone; but the
deck was at last cleared, and the surviving assailants dropped into
their boats or into the water.
Proverbially, an unsuccessful boat-attack was the most fatal of all
services. The British loss was excessive. According to their report at
the time, “Lieutenants Bowerbank, Coswell, and Rogers of the ‘Rota’
were killed, as well as thirty-eight seamen, and eighty-three wounded;
the first, fourth, and fifth lieutenants of the ‘Plantagenet’ were
wounded, and twenty-two seamen killed, and twenty-four wounded.[309]”
According to the official report, thirty-four were killed and
eighty-six were wounded. The “Guerriere” in her battle with the
“Constitution” lost only seventy-eight men altogether. The “Macedonian”
lost only one hundred and four. The attack on the “General Armstrong”
was one of the bloodiest defeats suffered by the British navy in the
war. Not only was the privateer untaken, but she lost few of her
crew,--nine in all, killed and wounded.
Captain Lloyd then declared that he would destroy the privateer if he
had to destroy Fayal in doing it, and ordered Captain Bentham of the
“Carnation” to attack her with his guns. Reid abandoned and scuttled
the “General Armstrong,” taking his men on shore. The “Carnation’s”
shot inflicted some injury on the town, before the privateer was set on
fire by the “Carnation’s” boats.[310]
If the British navy cared to pay such a price for the shell of an old
privateer brig, which had already cost British commerce, as Captain
Lloyd believed, a million dollars,[311] the privateers were willing to
gratify the wish, as was shown a few days afterward when the “Endymion”
tried to carry the “Prince of Neufchatel” by boarding. This privateer
had made itself peculiarly obnoxious to the British navy by the
boldness of its ravages in British waters. It was coming to America
filled with plunder, and with a prize in company, when off Gay Head the
“Endymion” was sighted, October 11, and gave chase.
Captain Hope of the “Endymion” made an official report, explaining with
much detail that he chased the privateer till evening, when the wind
failed, and he then sent out his boats:[312]--
“I sent all the boats under command of Lieutenants Hawkins,
Ormond, and Fanshaw. In approaching the ship an alarm was
fired. The boats had been previously rowing up under a shoal,
and had not felt the effects of a rapid tide which they almost
instantaneously became exposed to. The second barge in taking
the station assigned by Lieutenant Hawkins on the schooner’s
starboard bow, having her larboard oars shot away, unfortunately
was swept by the stream athwart the first barge; thereby all
the boats became entangled; and it is with extreme concern I
acquaint you that the attack was in consequence at this moment
only partially made. Notwithstanding this disadvantage at the
first onset, every exertion that human skill could devise was
resorted to to renew the contest; and they succeeded in again
getting alongside, but not in the position intended. Their
failure, therefore, is to be ascribed in the first instance
to the velocity of the tide, the height of the vessel’s side,
not having channel plates to assist the men in getting on her
deck, and her very superior force (a schooner of the largest
dimensions, the ‘Prince of Neufchatel,’ three hundred and
twenty tons, eighteen guns, long-nine and twelve-pounders, with
a complement of one hundred and forty men of all nations,
commanded by Mons. Jean Ordronaux). The boats’ painters being
now shot away, they again fell astern without ever being able to
repeat the attack, and with great difficulty regained the ship,
with the exception of the second barge.”
Captain Ordronaux of the privateer had a crew of less than forty men
then at quarters, and they suffered severely, only nine men escaping
injury. The boarders gained the deck, but were killed as fast as they
mounted; and at last more than half the British party were killed or
captured. According to the British account, twenty-eight men, including
the first lieutenant of the “Endymion,” were killed; and thirty-seven
men, including the second lieutenant, were wounded.[313] This report
did not quite agree with that of the privateer, which claimed also
twenty-eight prisoners, including the second lieutenant, who was
unhurt. In any case, more than seventy men of the “Endymion’s” crew,
besides her first and second lieutenant, were killed, wounded, or
captured; and the “Prince of Neufchatel” arrived in safety in Boston.
In the want of adjacent rocks lined with armed Americans, such as
Captain Lloyd alleged at Fayal, Captain Hope was reduced to plead the
tides as the cause of his defeat. These reports, better than any other
evidence, showed the feelings of the British naval service in admitting
discomfiture in the last resort of its pride. Successively obliged
to plead inferiority at the guns, inferiority in sailing qualities,
inferiority in equipment, the British service saw itself compelled
by these repeated and bloody repulses to admit that its supposed
pre-eminence in hand-to-hand fighting was a delusion. Within a single
fortnight two petty privateers, with crews whose united force did not
amount to one hundred and fifty men, succeeded in repulsing attacks
made by twice their number of the best British seamen, inflicting a
loss, in killed and wounded, officially reported at one hundred and
eighty-five.
Such mortifying and bloody experiences made even the British navy weary
of the war. Valuable prizes were few, and the service, especially in
winter, was severe. Undoubtedly the British cruisers caught privateers
by dozens, and were as successful in the performance of their duties
as ever they had been in any war in Europe. Their blockade of American
ports was real and ruinous, and nothing pretended to resist them. Yet
after catching scores of swift cruisers, they saw scores of faster
and better vessels issue from the blockaded ports and harry British
commerce in every sea. Scolded by the press, worried by the Admiralty,
and mortified by their own want of success, the British navy was
obliged to hear language altogether strange to its experience.
“The American cruisers daily enter in among our convoys,” said
the “Times” of February 11, 1815, “seize prizes in sight of
those that should afford protection, and if pursued ‘put on
their sea-wings’ and laugh at the clumsy English pursuers. To
what is this owing? Cannot we build ships?... It must indeed he
encouraging to Mr. Madison to read the logs of his cruisers. If
they fight, they are sure to conquer; if they fly, they are sure
to escape.”