From the end of the summer of 1813, when this tendency to distant enterprise became predominant, to the corresponding season a year later, there were captured by American cruisers some six hundred and fifty British vessels, chiefly merchantmen; a number which had increased to between four and five hundred more, when the war ended in the following winter.[219] An intelligible account of such multitudinous activities can be framed only by selecting amid the mass some illustrative particulars, accompanied by a general estimate of the conditions they indicate and the results they exemplify. Thus it may be stated, with fair approach to precision, that from September 30, 1813, to September 30, 1814, there were taken six hundred and thirty-nine British vessels, of which four hundred and twenty-four were in seas that may be called remote from the United States. From that time to the end of the war, about six months, the total captures were four hundred and fourteen, of which those distant were two hundred and ninety-three. These figures, larger actually and in impression than they are relatively to the total of British shipping, represent the offensive maritime action of the United States during the period in question; but, in considering them, it must be remembered that such results were possible only because the sea was kept open to British commerce by the paramount power of the British navy. This could not prevent all mishaps; but it reduced them, by the annihilation of hostile navies, to such a small percentage of the whole shipping movement, that the British mercantile community found steady profit both in foreign and coasting trade, of which the United States at the same time was almost totally deprived.
The numerous but beggarly array of American bay-craft and oyster boats, which were paraded to swell British prize lists, till there seemed to be a numerical set-off to their own losses, show indeed that in point of size and value of vessels taken there was no real comparison; but this was due to the fact, not at once suggested by the figures themselves, that there were but few American merchant vessels to be taken, because they did not dare to go to sea, with the exception of the few to whom exceptional speed gave a chance of immunity, not always realized. In the period under consideration, September, 1813, to September, 1814, despite the great falling off of trade noted in the returns, over thirty American merchant ships and letters of marque were captured at sea;[220] at the head of the list being the "Ned," whose hair-breadth escapes in seeking to reach a United States port have been mentioned already.[221] She met her fate near the French coast, September 6, 1813, on the outward voyage from New York to Bordeaux. Privateering, risky though it was, offered a more profitable employment, with less chance of capture; because, besides being better armed and manned, the ship was not impeded in her sailing by the carriage of a heavy cargo. While the enemy was losing a certain small proportion of vessels, the United States suffered practically an entire deprivation of external commerce; and her coasting trade was almost wholly suppressed, at the time that her cruisers, national and private, were causing exaggerated anxiety concerning the intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland, which, though certainly molested, was not seriously interrupted.
Further evidence of the control exerted by the British Navy, and of the consequent difficulty under which offensive action was maintained by the United States, is to be found in the practice, from this time largely followed, of destroying prizes, after removing from them packages of little weight compared to their price. The prospect of a captured vessel reaching an American port was very doubtful, for the same reason that prevented the movement of American commerce; and while the risk was sometimes run, it usually was with cargoes which were at once costly and bulky, such as West India goods, sugars and coffees. Even then specie, and light costly articles, were first removed to the cruiser, where the chances for escape were decidedly better. Recourse to burning to prevent recapture was permissible only with enemy's vessels. If a neutral were found carrying enemy's goods, a frequent incident of maritime war, she must be sent in for adjudication; which, if adverse, affected the cargo only. Summary processes, therefore, could not be applied in such cases, and the close blockade of the United States coast seriously restricted the operations of her cruisers in this particular field.
THE BURNING OF A PRIVATEER PRIZE.
Drawn by Henry Reuterdahl.[ToList]
Examination of the records goes to show that, although individual American vessels sometimes made numerous seizures in rapid succession, they seldom, if ever, effected the capture or destruction of a large convoy at a single blow. This was the object with which Rodgers started on his first cruise, but failed to accomplish. A stroke of this kind is always possible, and he had combined conditions unusually favorable to his hopes; but, while history certainly presents a few instances of such achievement on the large scale, they are comparatively rare, and opportunity, when it offers, can be utilized only by a more numerous force than at any subsequent time gathered under the American flag. In 1813 two privateers, the "Scourge" of New York and "Rattlesnake" of Philadelphia, passed the summer in the North Sea, and there made a number of prizes,—twenty-two,—which being reported together gave the impression of a single lucky encounter; were supposed in fact to be the convoy for which Rodgers in the "President" had looked unsuccessfully the same season.[222] The logs, however, showed that these captures were spread over a period of two months, and almost all made severally. Norway being then politically attached to Denmark, and hostile to Great Britain, such prizes as were not burned were sent into her ports. The "Scourge" appears to have been singularly fortunate, for on her homeward trip she took, sent in, or destroyed, ten more enemy's vessels; and in an absence extending a little over a year had taken four hundred and twenty prisoners,—more than the crew of a 38-gun frigate.[223]
At the same time the privateer schooner "Leo," of Baltimore, was similarly successful on the coast of Spain and Portugal. By an odd coincidence, another of the same class, bearing the nearly identical name, "Lion," was operating at the same time in the same waters, and with like results; which may possibly account for a contemporary report in a London paper, that an American off the Tagus had taken thirty-two British vessels. The "Leo" destroyed thirteen, and took four others; while the "Lion" destroyed fifteen, having first removed from them cargo to the amount of $400,000, which she carried safely into France. A curious circumstance, incidental to the presence of the privateers off Cape Finisterre, is that Wellington's troops, which had now passed the Pyrenees and were operating in southern France, had for a long time to wait for their great-coats, which had been stored in Lisbon for the summer, and now could not be returned by sea to Bayonne and Bordeaux before convoy was furnished to protect the transports against capture. Money to pay the troops, and for the commissariat, was similarly detained. Niles' Register, which followed carefully the news of maritime capture, announced in November, 1813, that eighty British vessels had been taken within a few months in European seas by the "President," "Argus," and five privateers. Compared with the continuous harassment and loss to which the enemy had become hardened during twenty years of war with France, allied often with other maritime states, this result, viewed singly, was not remarkable; but coming in addition to the other sufferings of British trade, and associated with similar injuries in the West Indies, and disquiet about the British seas themselves, the cumulative effect was undeniable, and found voice in public meetings, resolutions, and addresses to the Government.
Although the United States was not in formal alliance with France, the common hostility made the ports of either nation a base of operations to the other, and much facilitated the activities of American cruisers in British seas. One of the most successful of the privateers, the "True Blooded Yankee," was originally equipped at Brest, under American ownership, though it does not appear whether she was American built. On her first cruise her prizes are reported at twenty-seven. She remained out thirty-seven days, chiefly off the coast of Ireland, where she is said to have held an island for six days. Afterwards she burned several vessels in a Scotch harbor. Her procedure illustrates the methods of privateering in more respects than one. Thus, two large ships, one from Smyrna and one from Buenos Ayres, were thought sufficiently valuable to attempt sending into a French port, although the enemy watched the French coast as rigorously as the American. The recapture of a third, ordered to Morlaix, received specific mention, because one of the prize crew, being found to be an Englishman, was sentenced to death by an English court.[224] Eight others were destroyed; and, when the privateer returned to port, she carried in her own hold a miscellaneous cargo of light goods, too costly to risk in a less nimble bottom. Among these are named eighteen bales of Turkey carpets, forty-three bales of raw silk, seventy packs of skins, etc.[225] The "True Blooded Yankee" apparently continued to prefer European waters; for towards the end of 1814 she was taken there and sent into Gibraltar.
While there were certain well-known districts, such as these just mentioned, and others before specified, in which from causes constant in operation there was always to be found abundant material for the hazardous occupation of the commerce-destroyer, it was not to them alone that American cruisers went. There were other smaller but lucrative fields, into which an occasional irruption proved profitable. Such were the gold-coast on the west shore of Africa, and the island groups of Madeira, the Canaries, and Cape Verde, which geographically appertain to that continent. Thither Captain Morris directed the frigate "Adams," in January, 1814, after first escaping from his long blockade in the Potomac. This voyage, whence he returned to Savannah in April, was not remunerative; his most valuable prize, an East India ship, being snatched out of his hands, when in the act of taking possession, by an enemy's division in charge of a convoy of twenty-five sail, to which probably she had belonged, and had been separated by the thick weather that permitted her capture.[226] A year before this the privateer "Yankee," of Bristol, Rhode Island, had had better success. When she returned to Narragansett Bay in the spring of 1813, after a five months' absence, she reported having scoured the whole west coast of Africa, taking eight vessels, which carried in the aggregate sixty-two guns, one hundred and ninety-six men, and property to the amount of $296,000. In accordance with the practice already noticed, of distributing the spoil in order better to insure its arrival, she brought back in her own hold the light but costly items of six tons of ivory, thirty-two bales of fine goods, and $40,000 in gold-dust.[227] This vessel was out again several times; and when the war closed was said to have been the most successful of all American cruisers. Her prizes numbered forty, of which thirty-four were ships or brigs; that is, of the larger classes of merchantmen then used. The estimated value of themselves and cargoes, $3,000,000, is to be received with reserve.[228]