The Story of the American Merchant Marine

by John Randolph Spears

The total number of merchant ships that were used for privateers during this war was 515, and the total number of prizes was 1345. The British admiralty reported the capture of 1328 American merchantmen, of which 228 were privateers. The unrecorded disasters to privateers through storms certainly brought the number of total losses of these vessels up to a half of all that were commissioned. It is notable, too, that the number of American merchantmen captured by the enemy was only thirteen less than the number taken from the enemy, and it follows that the American losses were greater, in this respect, than those of the British; for the American ships were, on the average, worth much more than the British. On the whole it appears that, if the predatory part of the War of 1812 had any influence upon the result, the Americans were the greater losers.

Then, too, the losses of property were only one part of the injury inflicted upon the country by this kind of war. A consideration of the effect of the prevailing greed for a "subject of safe and uncontested capture" is of special interest here because some of the owners of our privateers, influenced solely by this greed, became pirates after the war ended. The Spanish colonists in America had revolted, beginning in 1810. The insurgent armies were scattered in small bands, here and there, in the vast territory between Texas and the Rio de la Plata, and the leader of every band was a law unto himself. But in every revolted province some aggregation of patriots—some junta—was recognized by foreign powers as enough of a government to be entitled to belligerent rights. When the War of 1812 came to an end, the privateers that were loath to give up their predatory career looked away to the Spanish main. The insurgent leaders were competent to commission armed cruisers for war upon Spanish commerce, and rich Spanish ships were afloat.

Some of the work done by American ships sailing under Spanish-American commissions is memorable. Two that were owned in Baltimore brought to Norfolk, in March, 1817, coin and cochineal valued at $290,000, and there is reason to suppose that Captain James Chaytor, who was senior officer of the two, and one of the best known of the men so engaged, brought to port property worth half a million of dollars in the course of that year. One of Chaytor's prizes was a galleon from the Philippines, and it was taken within sight of Cadiz.

Captain Joseph Almeda, of Baltimore, was another noted commander of this class of cruisers. In a vessel named the Congress he blockaded the port of Havana for weeks at a stretch, and took prizes almost within range of the Morro.

For a time the American people applauded the success of these cruisers, because it was supposed that they were aiding struggling patriots to gain liberty. The story of one of the cruisers, as told in court, however, in time changed public opinion. Captain James Barnes, commanding a Baltimore cruiser named the Puerrydon, with a commission from Buenos Ayres, captured on March 21, 1818, the Spanish brig Corrunes, while she was carrying general merchandise from Tarragona, Spain, to Vera Cruz, Mexico. A prize crew of seven men was placed upon the prize, and five of her Spanish crew were left on board to help work ship. On May 8 a storm separated the two vessels, whereupon the foremast hands upon the prize mutinied, put their officers upon a passing merchantman, and then went cruising along the coast of the United States. They were not bound for any particular port; they were just enjoying life while they might. Eventually they ran ashore on Block Island, and when the inhabitants came to the beach to look at the stranded brig, the mutineers began trading the cargo of the vessel for fresh provisions, and later for coin. The islanders made such good bargains that they sent for friends in Newport to come over and share in the good fortune, but that was an error of judgment, because the revenue officers thereby learned about the trading, and brig, crew, and some of the traders were haled before the United States court.

The trials that followed were among the most remarkable ever reported in the annals of the Supreme Court. Although held in jail on the charge of piracy, the crew libelled the vessel on the ground that they had rescued her from Barnes, whom they denounced as a pirate. Captain Barnes and the other owners sued for the property on the ground that Barnes had captured it while he was a citizen of Buenos Ayres, and in command of a lawful Buenos Ayres cruiser. A Spanish consul sued for it in behalf of the original owners. In the court of last resort it was held, in spite of much perjury, that the naturalization of Barnes in Buenos Ayres was "altogether in fraud of the laws of his own country," and that the owners of the cruiser were asking for the possession of a vessel that they had captured "in violation of the most solemn stipulation of a treaty, and provision of a law of their own country, and of which they had been dispossessed by their own associates in guilt."

"It is a melancholy truth," continued the court, "too well known to this court, that the instruments used in these predatory voyages, carried on under the colors of the South American states, are among the most abandoned and profligate of men."

Under the treaty mentioned, these American-owned cruisers were pirates. How many cruisers of the kind were fitted out from American ports (there were some European ships in the business also) cannot be learned now, but a list of twenty-eight is printed in the Annals of the Fifteenth Congress. The list is incomplete. Most of them were owned in Baltimore, and in 1823 the Columbia, South Carolina, Telescope denounced that city as "the home port of a fleet of Spanish-American pirates." In reply to this, Niles's Register, dated May 24, 1823, said:—

"Perhaps it may afford the editor of the Telescope some satisfaction to learn that every person who was fully regarded as being engaged in whatever could have given rise to his censure for piracy has become a bankrupt as well in character as in property."

It is to be noted, further, that these cruisers were not pirates merely by the existence of a treaty with Spain. They captured the ships of all nations when it could be done safely, and sometimes they did this openly. When Almeda was blockading Havana, he seized a British vessel at the mouth of the harbor because she happened to have some Spanish property on board. But the most deplorable cases were those in which the ships were seized by cruisers that had been unlucky. For in such cases the prizes were robbed and then sunk with all hands.