Fanny Campbell, The Female Pirate Captain: A Tale of The Revolution

by Maturin M. Ballou

‘No—no, Mr. Herbert, keep well away on your present course, we have not got any men to lose by a close action.

If we were well manned, we might afford to run down there and make a gallant show of it yard-arm to yardarm.’

‘Ay, ay,’ said the disappointed Herbert sheering off.

The long tom which the Constance carried amidships, proved now as on former occasions to be her salvation; for while the enemy was well equipped with arms, ammunition and also well manned, yet she had no metal of sufficient weight to cope with the brig while at a distance at which the fight began.

This distance the Constance by good management kept through the engagement. The shots from the brig were doing fearful execution on board the stranger; splinters were flying from the hull at almost every discharge of the long tom, while her own ineffectual shot fell far short of the intended mark. The unequal battle continued thus but a short time before the ship—which had suffered severely both in hull and rigging as well as by the death of four of her crew and the wounding of of others—like the barque the Constance had taken in the West Indies, found it absolutely necessary to haul down her (colours) in submission.

The brig then veered up within hailing distance of the prize, and ordered her to send a boat with the captain on board. This order being promptly complied with, Lovell with half a dozen men armed to the teeth were sent on board to take formal possession of the ship. Lovell, in the execution of this order, found one man on board the prize, whom it gave him much trouble to secure, and who wounded two of the Constance’s crew slightly before he was subdued. This man proved to be the mate of the prize, and he told Lovell although the captain had struck, he had not, and that they should have sunk the ship before he would have done so. But the man was soon bound securely by the seamen, and placed in safe keeping.

The prize proved to be a valuable one bound from Liverpool to Boston with stores and ammunition for the royal army. The home government were not yet informed that the colonists had fitted out privateers, and that they should have them so soon to contend against on the sea as well as the land; therefore they had trusted the transportation of the stores in question to a merchant craft of the large class and only protected by the armament of vessels of her tonnage and trade. They necessarily carried a few guns to protect them from the daring Hovers whom prizes tempted to range abroad upon the ocean, and who were continually lying in wait for vessels of this class.

Though the prize had a crew of fifteen men, besides her officers, yet we have seen that this number could avail them nothing against an enemy who could fight them ‘out of harm’s reach,’ and thus had the ship fallen into the hands of Channing, rendering his command quite a little fleet.

From the small number of hands and the large number of the prisoners, he anticipated some trouble, and therefore endeavored by every precaution to avert it. In pursuance of this purpose, the prisoners were confined in chains, a resort which went much against Channing’s feelings, but he felt obliged to yield to the necessities of the case. All hands were soon employed in repairing the new prize so as to enable them, to bring her into port. This having been accomplished in a few hours, Lovell took command of the ship just added to the little fleet. He was exceedingly loth to leave Channing alone as it were in the brig, but orders were given that each of the prizes should be kept as nearly within hailing distance of the Constance as possible, and as it was fortunately moderate weather although somewhat cold, this was easily accomplished.

The former crew of the Constance was now divided so as to be but eight men in each vessel, while the prisoners actually doubled that number! This was short handed indeed, more, especially when we consider the peculiar rig and mode of managing a vessel in those days. In these more modern times the numerous conveniences that inventive genius had applied in the building and finding of ships, have rendered the management of them comparatively an easy task, and by far less number of hands than was found necessary seventy years ago. What a wonderful change has half a century even, made in the art of navigation. Already do the floating castles of every nation defy both wind and tide, and vessels that formerly required twenty-five hands to sail them are now well served with fourteen or fifteen.