A Ship-of-War’s Cutter.
From the “Kedge Anchor.”
Until 1821 nothing more of consequence appears to have been done to suppress the pirates. In this year the famous sloop-of-war Hornet, Captain Robert Henley; the famous brig Enterprise, Captain Lawrence Kearny; the brig Spark and the schooners Porpoise and Grampus, with three gun-boats, were sent down. It was as if eight policemen had been assigned to enforce the laws and preserve order in the whole of the Greater New York. However, the force went to work in earnest, and soon proved that the pirates were cowards in the face of naval authorities. On October 16, 1821, four pirate schooners and a sloop were found plundering three American merchantmen near Cape Antonio. Captain Kearny of the Enterprise sent five row-boats with his men after the pirates, who fired two of their schooners and tried to escape in the other three vessels. The three vessels were taken, however, with forty of the pirates, who were sent to Charleston. A month later a pirate resort on shore was destroyed near the same point, and in December another schooner was captured, although its crew escaped ashore. On March 6, 1822, the Enterprise captured four pirate barges and three launches with one hundred and sixty men. The Enterprise was still a lucky ship. Meantime the Hornet and the Porpoise had done almost as well.
In 1822 Commodore James Biddle came down in the Macedonian with a large addition to the fleet. The Shark, under Captain Matthew Calbraith Perry, captured five pirate vessels and helped in the capture of the Bandara de Sangare, a piratical vessel very well known in that day, while the Grampus took the Pandrita, a vessel of superior force to herself, and as well known as the Sangare.
On October 16th the Grampus captured a brigantine that was flying Spanish colors, which proved to be the Porto Rico privateer Palmira. But the Palmira had recently plundered the American schooner Coquette. She was one of the commissioned vessels that plundered indiscriminately. Nevertheless the Porto Rico authorities took revenge the next year, as will appear further on. The Palmira carried a long eighteen and eight short ones—she was a formidable craft of her kind.
Lashing up Hammocks.
Front the “Kedge Anchor.”
Lieutenant William Howard Allen, who had had command of the Argus, after her captain was killed in the fight with the Pelican, was at this time in command of the Alligator. On November 8, 1822, he went after a force of pirates three hundred strong that, with three schooners, had five merchantmen in their possession, only forty-five miles east of Matanzas, Cuba. He found them in shoal water and ordered away the boats, himself taking the lead. The pirates, far outnumbering Allen’s force, made something of a resistance. Allen was struck twice and mortally wounded, but his men kept on and routed the pirates, capturing one of their schooners and freeing the merchantmen. Fourteen of the pirates were killed and an unknown number wounded.