All hope of saving the Yankee schooner was gone, and the wounded were sent ashore with the effects of the entire crew. The British brig came in at daylight and began to fire broadsides. The crew of the Yankee schooner fired back for a time, but eventually scuttled and abandoned her. Seeing that she was abandoned the British came on board hastily and set her on fire. The Yankee crew having escaped on shore, Captain Lloyd addressed an official letter to the Governor stating that in the American crew were two men who had deserted from his squadron in America, and as they were guilty of high treason, he required them to be found and given up. Accordingly the Portuguese soldiers mustered the entire American crew and compelled them to submit to an examination by the British officers. No British deserters were found. It is to the credit of the British historian Allen that he did not mention this act of Lloyd.
It is worth noting here, that Captain Lloyd’s squadron were bound to the Mississippi River—they were a part of the force sent on the land-grabbing expedition which the British Government planned and tried to execute while the negotiations for peace were under consideration at Ghent.
Captain Reid returned home by the way of Savannah. He was everywhere enthusiastically received for his heroic defence of the flag. The State of New York gave him a vote of thanks and a sword. The merchants of New York gave him a set of silver plate.
Samuel Chester Reid was a native of Norwich, Connecticut. He had seen service as a midshipman under Truxton. He was after this fight a sailing-master in the American navy, where his record for honor was as high as that of any man. There was absolutely no reason for doubting his report of his fight; in fact, it was modest and well within the facts as became a sea hero. Besides, it was fully corroborated by Consul Dabney and, as shown here, by the unwilling testimony of the enemy. He was at one time a port warden at New York and afterward Collector of the Port. It was he who originated the present scheme of arranging the stars and the stripes in the American flag, whereby the stripes number thirteen and the stars are of the same number as the States. Resolutions of thanks to him were passed in both houses on April 4, 1818, “for having designed and formed the present flag of the United States.” He died in New York City on April 28, 1861, and was buried in Greenwood.
When Lieutenant (afterward the famous Captain) Isaac Hull during the French war cut the schooner Sandwich out of Puerta Plata, a neutral port, the American Government returned the vessel with apologies. An American reads this with the greater satisfaction when he recalls the fact that British historians defend their Government for refusing to undo the wrong done to the owners of the Armstrong.
Of a character like that of the Armstrong was the fight made by the crew of one other New York privateer, the Prince de Neufchâtel, Captain J. Ordronaux. It was made on October 11, 1814. A famous privateer was this swift cruiser, and lucky in the extreme. She was credited with bringing in eighteen prizes all told, and in the cruise during which she made the fight, she brought in no less than $300,000 worth of goods, besides a large quantity of coin. Moreover she had been chased by and had escaped from seventeen armed British vessels, when on October 11th, being off Nantucket at the time, the British frigate Endymion, of which something will be told further on, came in chase of her. She would have outsailed the Endymion had the wind held, but a dead flat calm came on and neither ship could move.
At this the Endymion hoisted out five boats, large and small, and manned them with one hundred and eleven men. This was a most serious menace to the Yankee, for she had sent in so many prizes that only forty of her crew, at most (accounts differ—Coggeshall says thirty-three), including every one, remained. Nevertheless the Yankees triced up their nettings and prepared to fight it out. It was at about 9 o’clock at night that the boats arrived beside the privateer. They had spread out so that one came on each bow, one on each beam, and one astern. But the Yankee crew were ready, and when the British climbed up they were beaten back, and at the end of twenty minutes the British begged for quarter. One of their large boats, with forty-three men in it, had sunk. Another that had contained thirty-six men, surrendered, while the others drifted off with very few, indeed, to man the oars. Of the thirty-six originally in the boat that surrendered, eight had been killed and twenty wounded—twenty-eight out of thirty-six—say three-fourths. It is not unlikely that more than three-fourths of the entire attacking party were killed and wounded. Allen admits that the loss was twenty-eight killed and thirty-seven wounded out of the crews of the boats that returned to the ship. He makes no statement regarding the number lost either by wounds or as prisoners in the launch captured, but admits the capture. The killed and wounded in the launch should be added to the numbers given by Allen, so that the total British loss was at least thirty-six killed and fifty-seven wounded.
The privateer lost seven killed and fifteen badly and nine slightly wounded—all but nine of those on board were hurt. It was a right desperate fight on both sides. And it shows what a few men can do when they fight with relentless determination. “The privateersmen gained the victory by sheer ability to stand punishment.”
Meantime, when the battle began there were almost as many prisoners on board the privateers as there were Americans; when it was over the unhurt Americans had six times their number of the enemy to care for, besides nursing their own wounded. Yet they brought all safely into port.
The Lottery, Captain Southcombe, of Baltimore, fought off for an hour nine British barges containing two hundred and forty well-armed men before she was taken, and the loss of the British in killed alone was many more than the whole crew of the Yankee.