History of the United States of America, Volume 8 (of 9)

by Henry Adams

CHAPTER VII.

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.”