Touching at the Azores for water and provisions in September, 1814, he was trapped in port by the great seventy-four-gun ship of the line Plantagenet, the thirty-eight-gun frigate Rota, and the warbrig Carnation.Though he was in neutral water, they paid no heed to this but determined to destroy a Yankee schooner which had played havoc with their shipping.Four hundred men in twelve boats, with a howitzer in the bow of each boat, were sent against the General Armstrong in one flotilla.But not a man of the four hundred gained her deck.Said an eyewitness: "The Americans fought with great firmness but more like bloodthirsty savages than anything else.They rushed into the boats sword in hand and put every soul to death as far as came within their power.Some of the boats were left without a single man to row them, others with three or four.The most that any one returned with was about ten.Several boats floated ashore full of dead bodies....For three days after the battle we were employed in burying the dead that washed on shore in the surf."This tragedy cost the British squadron one hundred and twenty men in killed and one hundred and thirty in wounded, while Captain Reid lost only two dead and had seven wounded.He was compelled to retreat ashore next day when the ships stood in to sink his schooner with their big guns, but the honors of war belonged to him and well-earned were the popular tributes when he saw home again, nor was there a word too much in the florid toast:
"Captain Reid--his valor has shed a blaze of renown upon the character of our seamen, and won for himself a laurel of eternal bloom."It is not to glorify war nor to rekindle an ancient feud that such episodes as these are recalled to mind.These men, and others like them, did their duty as it came to them, and they were sailors of whom the whole Anglo-Saxon race might be proud.
In the crisis they were Americans, not privateersmen in quest of plunder, and they would gladly die sooner than haul down the Stars and Stripes.The England against which they fought was not the England of today.Their honest grievances, inflicted by a Government too intent upon crushing Napoleon to be fair to neutrals, have long ago been obliterated.This War of 1812cleared the vision of the Mother Country and forever taught her Government that the people of the Republic were, in truth, free and independent.
This lesson was driven home not only by the guns of the Constitution and the United States, but also by the hundreds of privateers and the forty thousand able seamen who were eager to sail in them.They found no great place in naval history, but England knew their prowess and respected it.Every schoolboy is familiar with the duels of the Wasp and the Frolic, of the Enterprise and the Boxer; but how many people know what happened when the privateer Decatur met and whipped the Dominica of the British Navy to the southward of Bermuda?
Captain Diron was the man who did it as he was cruising out of Charleston, South Carolina, in the summer of 1813.Sighting an armed schooner slightly heavier than his own vessel, he made for her and was unperturbed when the royal ensign streamed from her gaff.Clearing for action, he closed the hatches so that none of his men could hide below.The two schooners fought in the veiling smoke until the American could ram her bowsprit over the other's stern and pour her whole crew aboard.In the confined space of the deck, almost two hundred men and lads were slashing and stabbing and shooting amid yells and huzzas.Lieutenant Barrette, the English commander, only twenty-five years old, was mortally hurt and every other officer, excepting the surgeon and one midshipman, was killed or wounded.Two-thirds of the crew were down but still they refused to surrender, and Captain Diron had to pull down the colors with his own hands.Better discipline and marksmanship had won the day for him and his losses were comparatively small.
Men of his description were apt to think first of glory and let the profits go hang, for there was no cargo to be looted in a King's ship.Other privateersmen, however, were not so valiant or quarrelsome, and there was many a one tied up in London River or the Mersey which had been captured without very savage resistance.Yet on the whole it is fair to say that the private armed ships outfought and outsailed the enemy as impressively as did the few frigates of the American Navy.
There was a class of them which exemplified the rapid development of the merchant marine in a conspicuous manner--large commerce destroyers too swift to be caught, too powerful to fear the smaller cruisers.They were extremely profitable business ventures, entrusted to the command of the most audacious and skillful masters that could be engaged.Of this type was the ship America of Salem, owned by the Crowninshields, which made twenty-six prizes and brought safely into port property which realized more than a million dollars.Of this the owners and shareholders received six hundred thousand dollars as dividends.
She was a stately vessel, built for the East India trade, and was generally conceded to be the fastest privateer afloat.For this service the upper deck was removed and the sides were filled in with stout oak timber as an armored protection, and longer yards and royal masts gave her a huge area of sail.Her crew of one hundred and fifty men had the exacting organization of a man-of-war, including, it is interesting to note, three lieutenants, three mates, a sailingmaster, surgeon, purser, captain of marines, gunners, seven prize masters, armorer, drummer, and a fifer.Discipline was severe, and flogging was the penalty for breaking the regulations.
