Within a few days the Madison, although armed with but one long gun, captured a ship armed with twelve guns, and sent her into port, and later still, the brig Eliza, of six guns. The Teaser, of New York, Captain Dobson, had the luck to fall in with the American ship Margaret, that had been captured by the British, She was sent to Portland, where she and her cargo of “salt, earthenware, and ironmongery” were valued at $50,000. In short, the privateers were making light work of the coasters that flocked between the ports of the British possessions at the north.
But the most interesting cruise of all that were made in the early days of the war was that of Commodore Joshua Barney in the Baltimore clipper-schooner Rossie, of fourteen guns and 120 men. The reader will remember Barney. He was made a lieutenant in the American navy on July 2, 1776, although then but seventeen years old. He was in the Andrea Doria when she whipped the Racehorse, and he commanded the Pennsylvania cruiser Hyder Ali when she met the General Monk, of vastly superior force, and whipped her so badly that the British historians never recover sufficiently from the shock the story gives them to explain their conflicting statements about the battle.
When war was declared in June, 1812, Barney began fitting out the schooner Rossie at Baltimore; on July 12th he sailed away, and from the time he cleared the capes of the Chesapeake he had such lively times as must have reminded him forcibly of revolutionary days. On July 22d he captured the American brig Nymph, that was violating the non-importation act. The next day he successfully dodged a British frigate that fired twenty-five shots at him. On July 30th he escaped another British frigate by superior sailing. On July 31st he captured the British ship Princess Royal, and burned her. Next day the ship Kitty became his prize, and was found worth sending in. The day after this, August 2d, he captured four different vessels—the schooner Squid, the brigs Fame, Devonshire, and Two Brothers. On the last of these he placed sixty of his prisoners, and sent her as a cartel to St. John, New Brunswick, but while still sailing along in company with the Two Brothers, on August 3d, he fell in with and captured the brigs Henry and William and the schooners Racehorse and Halifax, and so added forty more prisoners to those on the Two Brothers. The brig Henry and the two schooners were sunk as not worth sending to port, while the William was sent to port. He had taken eight vessels in two days.
With the cartel Two Brothers, that he sent to St. John, he despatched a letter to Admiral Sawyer, commanding the Halifax Station, in which he asked the admiral “to treat the prisoners well, and assured him very coolly that he should soon send him another ship-load of captives for exchange.”
Six days later (August 9th) he had a brush with the British ship Jenny, of twelve guns, but she soon surrendered to his superior force. Then he captured two more American ships that were violating the non-importation law, and after forty-five days from the day he left Baltimore he anchored at Newport, Rhode Island. He had captured fourteen vessels, aggregating 2,914 tons in measurement, and one hundred and sixty-six prisoners, the whole value of prizes and cargoes being $1,289,000. Five only of the prizes were sent to port.
After resting in port until September 7th the Commodore sailed again. On the 9th a British squadron of three ships vainly tried to overhaul him, and on the 12th a British frigate chased him for six hours, and then gave it up. On the 16th the Rossie fell in with the British ship Princess Amelia, an armed trader, and for an hour there was a steady combat. The Rossie was badly cut up in sails and rigging, but her hull and spars escaped. She had seven men hurt—one severely. The Princess was badly cut alow and aloft, and had her captain, her sailing-master, and a seaman killed, and seven wounded before she surrendered.
On this same day the Rossie fell in with three ships, and a man-of-war brig that was too strong for her—at least the Commodore hauled off after getting an eighteen-pound shot through the Rossie’s quarter. But he hung about the fleet for three days trying to separate them, though without success. Later, while cruising with the privateer Globe, Captain Murphy, of Baltimore, the British schooner Jubilee was taken, and the American ship Merrimack was taken by Barney alone for violating the non-importation law. He returned to Baltimore on November 10th, having taken and destroyed shipping and cargoes to the value of $1,500,000, with two hundred and seventeen prisoners.
The Rossie and the Princess Amelia.
From a lithograph in Coggeshall’s “Privateers.”