From an engraving by Gimbrede.
As she sank, four of the men on deck scampered up the fore-rigging. The big launch lying on the booms amidships was lifted clear by the rising water, and into this scrambled the rest of the men on deck. The ship was sinking so easily that there was no vortex to draw them down. She found bottom in thirty-three feet of water, and the men in the fore-rigging were saved. But three Americans and nine Englishmen who were below were lost.
After taking the men from the rigging the launch was paddled over to the Hornet, and it was learned then, that three of the Peacock’s crew were impressed Americans, one of them being a relative of the wife of Captain Lawrence.
The Hornet Sinking the Peacock.
From an old wood-cut.
One of these men was Richard Thompson, of New Paltz, Ulster County, New York. He testified under oath that he was taken from an American merchant-ship in 1810 by the Peacock’s press-gang. Thereafter he was not allowed to write to his friends. When he and his two American shipmates heard of the War of 1812, they asked Captain Peake to treat them as prisoners of war. For this they were put in irons for twenty-four hours, then taken on deck, stripped naked, “tied and whipped, each one dozen and a half lashes, and put to duty.” As the action with the Hornet came on they again asked to be excused from fighting against their flag, but Captain Peake drove them back to the guns, and ordered the marines to keep an especial watch on them, and shoot them at the first sign of flinching. And so one was killed by the fire of his countrymen.
Hitherto nothing has been said of the treatment which British prisoners, taken in this war, received at the hands of the Americans. It was, and is not necessary, for an American to speak of the humanity of his countrymen when dealing with prisoners of war. But because of the infamous treatment which the three Americans had received on the Peacock, it must be told that the crew of the Hornet, out of their own money, provided every sailor from the Peacock with two shirts, a blue jacket and a pair of trousers. They did this because the Peacock had gone down so suddenly the men could not save their clothes. Further than this, the five surviving officers on reaching New York wrote a letter dated March 27, 1813, to Lawrence, and had it published in the papers in which they said:
“We, the surviving officers of his Britannic Majesty’s brig Peacock, beg leave to return you our grateful acknowledgments for the kind attention and hospitality we experienced during the time we remained on board the United States sloop Hornet. So much was done to alleviate the distressing and uncomfortable situation in which we were placed when received on board the sloop you command, that we cannot better express our feelings, than by saying, we ceased to consider ourselves prisoners, and everything that friendship could dictate was adopted by you and the officers of the Hornet, to remedy the inconveniences we should otherwise have experienced from the unavoidable loss of the whole of our property and clothes.”
And while this subject is in hand it may be worth while to make one more quotation from England’s naval historian, James. In volume vi. page 136, he says: “The manner in which the Java’s men were treated by the American officers reflects upon the latter the highest disgrace; the moment the prisoners were brought on board they were handcuffed. Admitting that to have been justifiable as a measure of precaution, what right had the poor fellows to be pillaged of almost everything they possessed.” And this was written although James had seen and read the letters of General Hyslop testifying to the extreme pains taken by Commodore Bainbridge to see that no private property was taken by any of the victors from the vanquished—indeed, that silver plate that was lawful prize was left to its original owners.