The St. Lawrence, with a cargo valued at over $300,000, was captured and sent into Portsmouth, N. H., where she was proved to be an English vessel, and condemned, though she had professed to be American.
Perhaps the most valuable single prize taken in the war was the Queen, captured by the General Armstrong, of New York. She carried sixteen guns, and was not taken without a stubborn fight, in which her captain, first lieutenant, and nine men were killed. She was valued at nearly $500,000, but on her way into port was wrecked off Nantucket.
One prize contained wine and raisins valued at $75,000; another, $70,000 worth of cotton; another, $20,000 worth of indigo; another, seven hundred tons of mahogany; another $70,000 worth of rum and sugar; another, $150,000 worth of gums, almonds, and beeswax; another, $23,000 in specie, and still another, $80,000 in specie.
All this looks very much like robbery, and in truth it was robbery, unless the war, on the part of the Americans, was justifiable. But it is certainly more humane to conquer the enemy by robbing his merchants than by killing his men; and there can be no question that the exploits of these privateers did more to bring the war between England and the United States to an end, and prevent another one, than drawn battles, however gallantly fought, and futile expeditions against Canada. But the exploits of the privateers did not consist solely in plundering unarmed merchantmen. They were often pursued and attacked by British men-of-war, and some of the English packet-ships carried heavy guns, and would not surrender without a desperate fight.
The privateer schooner Governor Tompkins, a few days after the capture of the Nereid in December, 1812, gave chase to what appeared to be a large merchantman. But she proved to be a frigate in disguise, and a sudden squall sent the schooner under her guns before she could change her course. The frigate opened fire at once, and her first broadside killed two men and wounded six. It also blew up a box of cartridges and set fire to some pistols and tube-boxes in the companion-way, all of which exploded and went flying in every direction. The schooner's little battery returned the fire, but her principal exertions were to get out of the way of her powerful antagonist. A chase of two hours ensued, during most of which time the vessels were within gunshot and the firing was kept up. The Tompkins threw overboard all the lumber from the deck, and two thousand pounds of shot, and got out her sweeps, and so escaped. Her captain, Nathaniel Shaler, said in a letter describing the action: "The name of one of my poor fellows who was killed ought to be registered on the book of fame, and remembered with reverence as long as bravery is considered a virtue. He was a black man, by the name of John Johnson. A twenty-four-pound shot struck him in the hip, and took away all the lower part of his body. In this state the poor, brave fellow lay on the deck and several times exclaimed to his shipmates, 'Fire away, boys! neber haul de color down!' The other was also a black man, by the name of John Davis, and was struck in much the same way. He fell near me, and several times requested to be thrown overboard, saying he was only in the way of the others."
Captain Boyle, in the privateer Comet, of Baltimore, made a remarkable cruise, early in 1813, on the coast of Brazil and in the West Indies. On the 14th of January he overhauled a Portuguese brig-of-war which was convoying three English merchantmen—a ship and two brigs—from Pernambuco. Boyle informed the captain that he had no right to do anything of the sort, and that he should proceed to make prizes of them. As the man-of-war insisted on protecting them, there was a fight—one vessel against four, for the merchantmen were heavily armed. It began at half past eight o'clock in the evening, and was carried on by moonlight. Every vessel had on a crowd of canvas. The Comet ran alongside the ship and one of the brigs, and opened her broadside upon both of them. The man-of-war then fired grape and round shot into the Comet, which returned the compliment, but stuck close to the merchantmen. They frequently separated, to give the man-of-war a chance at the privateer, when the privateer would pour a whole broadside into them, and then turn his attention to the larger antagonist. An hour after midnight, the ship, which had been badly cut to pieces and len-dered unmanageable, struck her flag; and soon afterward the two brigs, which had been almost as badly damaged, surrendered. All this while the man-of-war was hovering near and exchanging occasional broadsides with the Comet, till the moon set, and it became dark and squally. One of the brigs had been taken possession of by Boyle; the other and the ship, assisted by the man-of-war, escaped him and made their way back to Pernambuco. On the man-of-war the first lieutenant and five men were killed, and several wounded, the captain mortally.
On the 25th of the same month, the privateer Dolphin, Captain W. S. Stafford, cruising off the coasts of Spain and Portugal, fell in with a large ship and a brig, and fought them both. The privateer carried ten guns, the ship sixteen, and the brig ten. After a spirited action, in which the Dolphin lost four men, she captured both of them, and sent them home to Baltimore. The same privateer, in November, was attacked just outside of Charleston harbor by five boats from an English man-of-war. Captain Stafford tore one of the boats to pieces by a discharge of grape-shot, and as the other boats had employment enough in saving their unfortunate comrades, the attack failed. The man-of-war then fired a broadside at the Dolphin and sailed away.
The privateer Lottery, Captain Southcomb, while at anchor in Chesapeake Bay, February 15th, was captured by nine British barges, in which were two hundred and forty men; but not till after a fight of an hour and a half, in which the six guns of the Lottery had made sickening havoc with the men in the crowded barges. Captain Southcomb was badly wounded.
On the 11th of March the privateer General Armstrong, Captain Guy R. Champlin, of New York, encountered, off Surinam, what she supposed to be an English privateer. The Armstrong bore down upon her, fired the starboard broadside, wore ship and gave her the larboard broadside, and was then about to attempt boarding, but found out that the enemy was a frigate, carrying twenty-four guns. The battle lasted three quarters of an hour, when the Armstrong succeeded in getting away. Captain Champ-lin, badly wounded, lay on the cabin floor, directly over the magazine, with a pistol in his hand, when he overheard some talk about striking the colors. He immediately ordered the surgeon to go on deck and tell the men that if any one of them dared to strike the colors, he would discharge his pistol into the magazine and blow them all up together. In his log-book he wrote: "In this action we had six men killed and sixteen wounded, and all the halyards of the headsails shot away; the fore-mast and bowsprit one quarter cut through, and all the fore and main shrouds but one shot away; both mainstays and running rigging cut to pieces; a great number of shot through our sails, and several between wind and water, which caused our vessel to leak. There were also a number of shot in our hull."
The privateer Young Teazer met a singular fate. In June she was chased by a British man-of-war. Her lieutenant had been once captured, and released on parole, and had gone into the service again without waiting to be exchanged. When he saw a probability of another capture, he seized a firebrand and ran into the cabin, and in another moment the vessel was blown to fragments, and every man on board perished, except seven sailors who were standing on the forecastle.