When war was declared, there were a number of these in each of the American ports. There were pilot-boats, also, built to race with each other, blow high or blow low. The merchants had seen that war would come. They had placed orders for more guns with the foundry, and for more ammunition with the makers. They had laid in muskets and cutlasses and provisions and spare sails. There was little if any need for altering the sides of the ships—for piercing the bulwarks with ports—for that was the day of West India pirates, and all ships carried some guns; but amidships in most of them additional stanchions were placed to brace the deck, and there the Long Tom of song and story was mounted—the long, thick-breeched gun that would stand a heavy charge of powder and throw a round ball, weighing sometimes as high as thirty-two pounds, a mile and more, with but moderate elevation of the muzzle.
The small pilot-boats carried anything they could stand under, or get—a long-nine, with a few swivels and a crew of fifty or sixty men who carried muskets and knew how to use them would do. If the men were all seamen as well as good shots, so much the better, but if not, no matter. The landsman who could see through the sights of a musket was by no means refused. He was welcomed and called a marine. The haymaker accustomed to a pitchfork was just the man to handle a boarding-pike. And so the crews were quickly filled, and then it was up anchor and away to sea for revenge, lawful plunder, and glory. Let the reader make no mistake about the objects in view when they went to sea. The old sailors were going to repay the scars of the British cat and press-gang manacles that many of them wore; they were going for lawful prizes, and they were inspired by the thought that they were to fight for the honor of “the gridiron flag.” The very bravest fights of the whole war—fights in which the Americans unquestionably won through superior pluck—were the fights made by the crews like that of the General Armstrong and other American privateers.
That the owners of these privateers had something in mind besides the gaining of wealth will appear at a glance over the list of names of these privateers, of which 250 were commissioned during the war. There were three named Revenge, one Retaliation, one Orders in Council, one Right of Search, one Rattlesnake, one Poor Sailor, one Patriot, one Teaser, one Thrasher, one United We Stand, one Divided We Fall, one Scourge, one Liberty, one True-Blooded Yankee, one Castigator, and so on. And there were others with names significant in still other directions—the Black Joke, the Frolic, and the Flirt, for instance; or the Saratoga, the Yorktown, the John Paul Jones, the Macedonian, and the Guerrière.
The Congress declared, on June 18, 1812, that war existed between the United States and England. How soon thereafter the first privateer got away to sea is not recorded, but they were not far behind the squadron of Commodore Rodgers, which sailed the day the news of the declaration of war reached New York. The very first vessel captured in the war was a ship bound from Jamaica to London, that was taken south of the capes of the Chesapeake by a revenue cutter, but the first privateer to bring in a prize was the schooner Fame, of Salem, Captain Webb, that arrived home on July 9th, bringing with her a ship of nearly 300 tons, laden with square timber, and a brig of 200 tons, laden with tar. The ship was armed with two four-pounders, but the Fame swept up alongside and carried her by boarding without the loss of a man.
On the next day after the arrival of the Fame, the schooner Dash, of Baltimore, Captain Carroway, captured the first British vessel of war taken—the schooner Whiting, Lieutenant Macey—which was lying in Hampton Roads, Chesapeake Bay. Macey had not heard of the war, and the Dash took him unawares, and so without resistance.
From that time on the work of the privateers was driven with astonishing vigor. By July 16th there were sixty-five of these volunteers on the high sea, and almost every day one or another was returning with a prize. The report of a fight with a British man-of-war was not, naturally, long in reaching port. The Dolphin, Captain Endicott, and the Polly, Captain Handy, both of Salem, Massachusetts, were cruising to the eastward in the region to which Washington had sent his first cruisers in 1775. On July 14, 1812, these two fell in with a ship and a brig, which they supposed to be merchantmen, and made sail for the ship, because she was the larger. On arriving almost within gunshot, however, they saw she was a sloop-of-war, the Indian, of twenty-two guns. Thereat they fled, with the Indian, blossoming studding-sails, in pursuit of the Polly, and firing long bow-chasers in the vain hope of reaching her. Eventually the breeze failed so far that the Indian manned her launch and a number of smaller boats, with a four-pounder in the launch. These quickly came within musket shot, and with three cheers made a brave dash at the Yankee. To this the Polly replied with muskets and with several of her broadside guns loaded with langrage—langrage being a polite name for scrap-iron. The launch was compelled to strike her colors, while the other boats made haste back to the Indian. However, the launch was not captured, for the Indian had been drifting slowly within range, and the Polly had to take to her sweeps to escape. The attacking party numbered forty.
Battle between the Schooner Atlas and two British Ships, August 5, 1812.
From a lithograph in Coggeshall’s “Privateers.”
Meantime the stanch privateer Madison, Captain Elwell, of Gloucester, had happened along where the brig was lying-to, waiting for the return of the Indian, and the brig was captured. She proved to be the transport Number 50, a vessel of 290 tons, loaded with army supplies, including 100 barrels of powder, 880 uniforms for the 104th British Regiment, bales of fine cloth for officers’ wear, camp equipage, etc., in all valued at $50,000.