On the Margaretta the captors found two wall-pieces, forty cutlasses, forty boarding axes, two boxes of hand-grenades, forty muskets, and twenty pistols, with an ample supply of powder and shot.
When one with a full knowledge of the naval tar’s contempt for “a haymaker’s mate” recalls the story of this Machias fight, he cannot help thinking that some of the crew of the Margaretta must have suffered as much in mind as they did from their wounds after being impaled on the two-pronged pikes—the pitchforks of these Yankee haymakers.
Not only was the fight between the Margaretta’s crew and the haymakers interesting in itself; it was followed by consequences of the most important nature in connection with the establishment of the American navy.
The commander of the haymakers, elected in good American fashion after they were afloat, was Jeremiah O’Brien. Having secured the Margaretta and his prisoners, Captain O’Brien shifted the cannon and swivels, with the ammunition and small arms, from the captured schooner over to his fleeter sloop, and set forth in search of more prizes and glory. Straightway the efforts of the British naval authorities to punish him for his assault on the Margaretta gave him the opportunity to acquire both. Two schooners, the Diligence and the Tapanagouche, were sent from Halifax to bring the obstreperous Irish-Yankee in for trial. But Captain O’Brien was a sailorman as well as a haymaker. By skilfully handling his sloop he separated the cruisers, and then captured them one at a time by the bold dash that had succeeded in the assault on the Margaretta. This done, Captain O’Brien, with his prizes, sailed into Watertown, Massachusetts, where the provincial legislature was sitting, and delivered up everything to the colonial authorities.
Such brave deeds as these did not go unrewarded in those days. Captain O’Brien received a commission from the colony, and, with the three vessels well refitted, he was sent once more to sea to cruise for vessels bringing supplies to the British troops.
As said, not only was this an interesting fight, but it was one with far-reaching consequences. The deeds of Captain O’Brien, followed by others of a like nature performed by men who were stirred by his example, so exasperated Admiral Graves, the British commander-in-chief on the coast, that he sent a squadron of four vessels under Captain Mowat to take revenge in such a manner as would fill, as he supposed, the hearts of the people of the whole coast with terror. Portland (then called Falmouth), Maine, was the port selected for destruction.
The British account of what was done after Captain Mowat’s fleet arrived before the town, shall be given for a reason that will appear further on in this history. The “Annual Register” for 1776 (Dodsley’s, London), in its “Retrospective view of American affairs in the year 1775,” says (page 34):
“About 9 o’clock in the morning, a canonade was begun, and continued with little intermission through the day. About 3,000 shots besides bombs and carcases, were thrown into the town, and the sailors landed to compleat the destruction, but were repulsed with the loss of a few men. The principal part of the town, (which lay next the water) consisting of about 130 dwelling houses, 278 stores and warehouses, with a large new church, a new handsome courthouse, with the public library, were reduced to ashes; about 100 of the worst houses being favored by the situation and distance, escaped destruction, though not without damage.”
In Allen’s “Battles of the British Navy,” the “new edition revised and enlarged” and published by George Bell & Sons, London, in 1893 (note that it was published in 1893), we get a modern British view of this important assault. On page 227 it says:
“Lieutenant Mowat’s instructions were tempered with moderation. He was directed to confine his operations to certain enumerated towns which had rendered themselves conspicuous by open acts of hostility.”