In May, 1779, he was placed in the twenty-gun ship Protector, belonging to Massachusetts, and in June he fought the British privateer Admiral Duff, an equal ship, yardarm to yardarm, for an hour, when the enemy took fire and blew up. Only fifty-five of her crew were picked up. Returning from this cruise, he fell in with the thirty-two-gun frigate Thames, and after a running fire compelled her to haul off.
And then there was Capt. Alexander Murray. In the Revenge, of eighteen guns, in 1780, he beat off two ships of the British navy, of which one mounted eighteen and the other sixteen guns. This was at the capes of the Chesapeake. Afterwards he took a cargo of tobacco from Richmond, Virginia, in a ship that had only five six-pounders for armament. At sea he fell in with a privateer of fourteen guns and 100 men. Murray, having so few guns, shifted them across the deck as occasion required, and blazed away. His ship, owing to the superior number of guns of the enemy, was eventually so cut up aloft that only the mainmast and bowsprit remained standing; nevertheless, Captain Murray beat off the enemy in spite of four desperate attempts to carry him by boarding.
Alexander Murray.
From an engraving by Edwin of the painting by Wood.
Greater still was the renown of Capt. Daniel Waters. Captain Waters was sent to sea by General Washington in the Lee, as already mentioned in this chapter. In 1778, while in command of the privateer Thorn, of sixteen guns, he amply justified the confidence the general had manifested in him by his fight with two English sloops-of-war. One was the Governor Tryon, of sixteen guns, Captain Stebbins, and the other the Sir William Erskine, of eighteen guns, Captain Hamilton. After two hours of such desperate fighting as was shown but rarely, the Tryon struck and the Erskine hauled off. But Captain Waters would not let the Erskine escape. He set more sail, overhauled her, and compelled her to strike. As night came on the Tryon managed to escape, but Captain Waters manned the Erskine and sent her in. He had but sixty men left in the Thorn. Nevertheless, when he fell in with the Sparlin, of eighteen guns and ninety-seven men, next day, he gave battle and captured her also.
If any further proof be wanted of the fact that it is the heart of the commander and not the number of his men or the weight of his metal that wins in a sea-fight, it will be found in the tale of the American privateer Hyder Ali and the British ship General Monk. Capt. Joshua Barney commanded the Hyder Ali, and he had had a lot of good training before he became the hero of the story now to be told. He had had (through accident) command of a ship when but seventeen years old, and acquitted himself with honor. He had sailed in the Hornet in the first American naval squadron. He had seen exciting service in the Wasp under Captain Alexander. He had captured a British privateer while commanding the little sloop Sachem. He was in the Andrea Doria when she fought the Racehorse. He had been captured while bringing in a prize, and had survived the frightful ill-treatment the prisoners on the prison ship Jersey received. He escaped thence, and while in command of a cargo ship, had beaten off the Rosebud, Captain Duncan, a ship of sixteen guns, by firing a crowbar at her, and so cutting away all her headgear and disabling her foremast.
From an engraving by Gross after a miniature by Isabey.
And so the 8th of April, 1782, arrived. On that day he took command of the Hyder Ali, of the Pennsylvania State service, and started to convoy a fleet of merchantmen from Philadelphia out to sea. The Hyder Ali carried sixteen six-pounders and 110 men. At the capes the fleet found the British frigate Quebec, the brig Fair American, of sixteen guns, and the brig General Monk, Captain Rogers, carrying “only (sic) sixteen carronades, twelve-pounders, and two long six-pounders” (so says Allen). The Quebec could not get around the shoals, and had no part in the affray. The Fair American went hunting the convoy, and the General Monk came after the Hyder Ali.