The Yankee was immediately and immensely successful. In this respect she was unlike the other privateers of the “War of 1812.” It is a mistake to suppose that the business of privateering was, as a rule, a successful one. Most of the vessels engaged in it barely paid their expenses. To very many the cruise resulted only in a loss. Much depended on the sailing qualities of the ship, and the way in which she was handled; but much more depended upon sheer luck. The privateers, as a rule, did an enormous amount of damage to the shipping of the enemy without reaping any corresponding advantage themselves. The Yankee, however, not only inflicted enormous damage upon the enemy but was also enormously profitable to her owners.
Her officers on her first cruise were Oliver Wilson,[43] captain, and Manly Sweet, James Usher, 2d, and Thomas H. Russell, lieutenants. She carried a crew of 115 men (they must have been packed like sardines), and made for the coast of Nova Scotia. One of her first prizes was the Royal Bounty, a full rigged ship of 659 tons (about four times the size of the Yankee, but manned by a crew of only 25 men). The Bounty was taken after a running fight in which three Americans were wounded, while two of the English were killed and seven wounded. The boldness of Captain Wilson in attacking a vessel so much larger than his own was remarkable, but the end justified his conduct. As a rule the privateers avoided engagements with ships of superior size, remembering that, primarily, their object was not to fight battles for the glory of the flag, but to capture ships for their own pecuniary advantage. They could and did fight bravely and successfully upon occasion, but, ordinarily, deemed it wiser to show their heels to a superior foe. Nine other prizes were taken on the first cruise of less than three months, the most valuable of which was the ship Francis whose cargo netted more than $200,000 to her captors. That first cruise paid for the brigantine several times over, and resulted in a dividend of more than $700 a share.
Small wonder then that the Bristol sailors almost fought for a place on her decks for her second cruise, when she sailed again from the harbor on the fifteenth of October. The journal of that second cruise is hereinafter published in full. Captain Wilson’s instructions this time were to scour the west coast of Africa and to come home in the track of vessels sailing to Europe from Brazil and the West Indies. One hundred and fifteen days after the Yankee had sailed out from the harbor two boys were “shinning up” the masts of two vessels tied up at a wharf, in the good old Bristol way already described ([p. 30]). As the victor in the contest placed his cap upon the cap of the topmast he saw something which caused him, leaving his cap where it was, to slide down mast and shroud regardless of damage to trousers and hands, and to go running up the street crying out at the top of his voice, “The Yankee is coming up the Bay with a prize on each side of her.” It was even so. The prizes were the Shannon, a fine brig of 200 tons, and the letter of marque schooner Alder. The dividend for each share in the second cruise was $338.40.
On May 10, 1813, the brigantine was commissioned for her third cruise. Elisha Snow was her Captain. The Lieutenants were Thomas Jones, Samuel Barton and George A. Bruce. British war vessels were swarming along the coast. Captain Snow learned that a frigate and a fourteen-gun brig were waiting for him near Block Island. Choosing his time with care he sailed from Newport on May 20 and steered joyfully for British waters. His instructions were to “take enough prizes to make up a handsome cruise, calculating one-half the prizes to be retaken.” Three months later he was again lying at anchor in Bristol harbor. Seven prizes were taken on this cruise but most of them were recaptured. The most important of them was the “snow” Thames, of 312 tons burden, with 287 bales of cotton on board. Vessel and cargo were valued at $110,000. The prize money for each share was $173.54.
The fourth cruise was almost a failure. A new set of officers was on board. They were Thomas Jones, captain, and Thomas Milton, George Eddy and Sampson Gullifer, lieutenants. All told there were 109 persons on the ship. Among the crew we still see the names of Jack Jibsheet and Cuffee Cockroach enumerated as cabin boys. They seem to have been steadily attached to the vessel. Almost all the names of the ship’s crew were British. It is very likely, however, that the two cabin boys, notwithstanding their pure Anglo-Saxon names, may have been of African lineage. The instructions this time were to cruise “on the track of homeward bound vessels near the Grand Banks.” Prizes were to make for Nantucket Shoals and to get into the first port on the Vineyard Sound, avoiding Boston. But two prizes reached port, and the dividend for each share was only $17.29.
There was no competition for berths on the fifth cruise. Indeed, some of the sailors swam ashore before the privateer left the harbor of Bristol.[44] All the probabilities seemed to point rather to a prison in England than a profit in America. Elisha Snow was again in command. His Lieutenants were Samuel Barton, John Smith and Francis Elliott. Thomas Jones, the captain of the voyage before, was second captain. The cruise was not finished as planned because the Yankee was driven into New Bedford by an English man-of-war and the crew deserted almost to a man. Four prizes only were taken, three of which were of no value whatever. But the fourth reached Portland, Maine, in safety. She was a full rigged ship, the San Jose Indiano,[45] and, with her cargo, sold for more than half a million dollars. The voyage that had been undertaken with the greatest hesitation was the most profitable of all. The two gentlemen of color, Jibsheet and Cockroach, received respectively $738.19 and $1,121.88 as their dividends. Captain Snow’s “lay” was $15,789.69, and the owners realized $223,313.10. It was the luckiest cruise made by any privateer during the war. Naturally resulted a season of great hilarity in the home port. Imagine the effect upon a little town of less than 3,000 inhabitants today if a million dollars were suddenly and unexpectedly poured into the pockets of its people! Notwithstanding the immense risks there were volunteers enough for the sixth cruise—which was to be the last one. The sailing orders for this cruise were issued October 1, 1814.
Captain Snow had apparently decided to let well enough alone, for William C. Jenckes was the new captain. The second captain was Benjamin K. Churchill, “a fellow of infinite humor” as we shall presently see. A. B. Hetherington, Henry Wardwell and Samuel Grafton were the lieutenants. The times had become most strenuous as may be judged from this section of the sailing directions: “You must depend principally upon the goods you take on board to make your cruise, as the prizes you man will be very uncertain.” In the private instructions issued to Captain Jenckes special attention was paid to the definition of “neutral” property. The American privateers had inflicted so much damage upon English shipping that the merchants of England had been forced to conceal their property under neutral flags. The captain of the Yankee was instructed to send in a neutral if he had destroyed any papers, or if he had fired upon him. “If any one of a House shipping property resides in England, or in an English colony, that share of the shipment is a good prize of war. Notwithstanding he may have been born a neutral, and lived in a neutral country all his life; if he is now domiciled in the enemy’s country, it is sufficient to condemn his property.” The cruise lasted 105 days. Five prizes were taken and reported to the owners in a letter written by Second Captain Churchill. Only one of these brought money to their captors. This was the brig Courtney, which with its cargo sold for $70,000. One was the General Wellesley, an East Indian teak built ship of 600 tons, in which its captors at first thought they saw a second San Jose Indiano. Her value was estimated at upward of $200,000. She was ordered to make for the port of Charleston, S. C., but, with two of her prize crew and 52 of her original crew of Lascars, was lost on Charleston Bar. Captain Churchill ended his letter as follows:—“P. S. I have lost one of my legs on this cruise.”
Less than three years was the Yankee upon the seas as a private armed vessel of war. In those years she captured British property of the value of more than five million dollars. She sent into the town of Bristol a million dollars as the profit from her six cruises. No other privateer sailing from an American port ever established such a record.
In the year 1812 when to most men the shipping business seemed likely to continue to be the most prominent in the country Mr. De Wolf foresaw the immense development of manufacturing industries. In that year he built in the town of Coventry, R. I., a site chosen because of its water power, a cotton factory, the Arkwright Mills. These he continued to own and direct until his death. As has been already stated he placed some of his vessels in the whale fishery, continuing in that business only as long as his ships made profitable voyages. He seemed to judge unerringly concerning business possibilities. All this time he was cultivating the arable portion of the nearly one thousand acres of land which he owned in and near Bristol. He built for himself a stately mansion, on a little hill always spoken of by Bristol people as “The Mount,” in which his descendants continued to reside until its destruction by fire a few years ago.
Inevitably he came to take a leading part in political matters. For almost thirty years he represented his native town in the Rhode Island Legislature, laying aside the gavel of the Speaker of that body in 1821 to become a member of the United States Senate. As a Senator his immense business experience made him the recognized authority in commercial matters. He was a strong “protectionist” and was the first in the Senate to propose the “drawback” system which has since been so largely adopted in the United States and elsewhere. He was one of the few Senators, perhaps the only one from New England, who were accustomed to ride to Washington in their own coaches. Happily this relic of the luxury of a hundred years ago still remains in the possession of a descendant of Mark Anthony De Wolf, Colonel Samuel Pomeroy Colt of Bristol. Mr. De Wolf’s life at Washington was not pleasing to him. The progress of Congressional legislation was too slow for his active mind, and his constantly increasing business demanded all of his attention. He therefore resigned from the United States Senate long before his term expired and joyfully resumed his old position as a representative of Bristol in the Legislature of Rhode Island.