Meantime, it should be said that while the American shores were sparsely settled, the Canadian side of the waters was very well settled, Kingston being the chief naval and military post. And while the Americans were building one slow brig to prepare for the inevitable war, the British had built and armed a squadron of six vessels that included the Royal George, of twenty-two guns, Prince Regent, of sixteen guns, Earl of Moira, of fourteen guns, and three smaller ones carrying fourteen, twelve, and four guns—in all eighty-four guns. These were commanded by a Commodore Earle. It is worth noting here that the British historians all speak of these vessels and their crews as Canadians as distinguished from the British, and that the Canadian seamen are everywhere denounced as cowards, just as the Yankee seamen were. However, the distinction between “colonists” and the “British” is made by English writers to this day.
SCENE OF Naval Operations on LAKE ONTARIO, 1812-’13.
Commodore Earle decided in July to capture the Oneida, that was lying in Sackett’s Harbor, and destroy the little fort there. Rumors of his coming having reached the station, Woolsey, who still commanded the Oneida, prepared to fight in spite of the overwhelming odds against him. A long thirty-two had been sent up from the coast for the Oneida some time before, but it had proved too heavy for her, and it had therefore been allowed to lie half-buried in the mud on the shore of the bay, where, because it lay comfortably in the mud, it was known as “The Old Sow.” This was placed in the fort on the bluff overlooking the channel into the harbor, with a couple of sixes and a couple of nines beside it. Next, the Oneida was moored outside of Navy Point where she could rake the channel, and then nothing more could be done but fight it out as best they might.
On the morning of July 19, 1812, the British squadron appeared. It was “a lovely Sabbath morning,” with a head-wind for the British, who came beating up past Horse Island. By 8 o’clock they were within range and a lake mariner, Captain William Vaughan, let drive with “The Old Sow” at the Royal George. He didn’t have the range that time and the British laughed and jeered loudly. On their getting nearer, however, the firing from the shore began to tell. The Royal George caught one shot below the water-line and one higher up in the hull. The Prince Regent and the Earl of Moira were struck. The shot from the ships all fell on the beach, save one that landed in the yard of the old Sacket mansion, where Sergeant Spies picked it up, and carrying it to Captain Vaughan, he said:
“I have been playing ball with the red coats and have caught ’em out. See if the British can catch back again.”
Captain Vaughan loaded the ball into the old gun. At that moment the Royal George was wearing around to fire a broadside and was stern on to the fort. Taking careful aim Captain Vaughan fired, and the shot “struck her stern, raked her completely, sent splinters as high as her mizzen topsail-yard, killed fourteen men and wounded eighteen.” So said a deserter. The British never published an account of their losses that day, and the story is probably true, because Commodore Earle hauled off while a Yankee band played “Yankee Doodle,” and the first battle of Sackett’s Harbor was ended. “Nothing animate or inanimate on shore had been injured in the least.”
The next attack was on the six schooners at Ogdensburg, that had escaped the valiant Jones, of Canada. The British sent two vessels, one of fourteen and one of ten guns, to Prescott, opposite Ogdensburg. The Americans sent an Oswego-built schooner called the Julia, armed with a long thirty-two and two long sixes, and manned with thirty men, to convoy these schooners to Sackett’s Harbor. A big, open boat with some sharpshooters went along. This squadron of two, mounting three guns, “encountered and actually beat off, without losing a man,” the two British ships that mounted twenty-four guns between them. The words quoted are from James, the British historian, and his figures are given as to the armament. It is therefore altogether probable that the two beaten Britishers carried at least ten more guns than the figures given.
Captain Woolsey.