Enjoy....again, this is with Frank's permisson, finis....malinda Frank Pierce Young wrote: > AMERICAN PRIVATEERS IN THE WAR OF 1812 (2 of 2) > > At first, the privateers worked up and down the North American coast and > around the West Indies. But as the RN brought in more and more warships and > fewer and fewer British merchantmen remained to be taken, they moved east -- > to Britain's own home waters. In the spring of 1813, YANKEE ran down the > Irish coast and took 7 vessels; SCOURGE and RATTLESNAKE ruined Baltic > commerce for the entire spring and summer season, the latter taking 18 prizes > worth $1 million plus, while the former stayed on for the year and took ten > Canadian merchantmen while en route home, for a total of 27 captures. > ANACONDA worked the Capa Verde islands and took HM packet EXPRESS and $80,000 > in specie; AMERICA took six merchants off Land's End; LION worked the Bay of > Biscay and went home with $400,000 in auction money. And so forth, and by now > the latest commission number was well over 318. PRINCE DE NEUFCHATEL, which > on one cruise alone brought in nearly $1 million in value, was chased 17 > times by British warships and never caught, and those few privateers that > were, fell to mishap -- grounding, wreck, accident, storm. The GOVERNOR > TOMPKINS sailed right into a protected convoy, and took three. KEMP sighted > an escorted convoy of seven East Indiamen, snookered the protecting frigate > into a fruitless chase into dark squalls, circled back, and took five > Indiamen before departing with her prizes. Admiral Warren got still more > ships for blockade, now upward of 200 overall. > > It did no good. In 1814, privateers took mail packets in the Irish Sea on a > dismally regular basis. They sailed impudently into the Thames Estuary. They > scooted by anchored warships almost as an amusement. Dozens were lost, but > scores replaced them. One small Massachusetts inlet put out three privateers, > fully armed and manned, in 30 days. One British skipper reported sighting ten > in his short trip between Britain and Spain. COMET worked the South Atlantic, > took some treasure ships, and went home with $1.5 million in cash. MAMMOTH > took 18 prizes in 17 days. HARPY was out three months, and took a prize > daily. CHASSEUR, a two-masted topsail schooner -- a fairly typical rig -- > under "Wild Tom" Boyle, blockaded St. Vincent so tightly that its merchants > appealed to Admiralty to relieve them lest they be ruined; when a frigate > finally appeared, Boyle vanished, only to reappear in the English Channel and > take 20 merchantmen. One he sent back into London with a message to Lloyd's, > proclaming "all the ports, harbours, bays, creeks, rivers, inlets, outlets, > islands and seacoast of the United Kindom of Great Britain and Ireland in a > state of strict and rigorous blockade." Insurance, already skyrocketed in > cost, in many cases went altogether unavailable. Insurors of London, Bristol, > Liverpool and Glasgow met four times. Liverpool petitioned the Prince Regent > to stop the war. Collectively the insurors announced they would accept no > more risks. Glasgow declared that ".. the number of American privateers with > which our channels are infested, the audacity with which they have approached > our coasts, have proved ruinous to our commerce, humbling to our pride and > discreditable to the British navy; that 800 vessels have been taken by that > Power, whose maritime strength we have impolitically held in contempt, and > that there is reason to anticipate still more serious suffering." > > Well... yes. RAMBLER had gone to the Far East and was auctioning prizes in > Canton and Portugese Macao; JACOB JONES took an Indiaman with 20,000 pounds > worth of gold dust and opium aboard; LEO took a transport and uniforms for > the Duke of Wellington's army; a privateer took five merchantmen off the > Nore; English markets ran short of fish, a food staple, because so few > trawlers were left; and finally the Secretary of Admiralty issued a notice to > mariners that nobody should even attempt such a short and simple coastal > voyage as from Bristol to Portsmouth without an armed escort. The West Indies > merchants, who had aggravated the whole war by insisting on enforcement of > the Rule of 1756, a trade-protective mercantile act, decided that competition > from Americans was lots cheaper than the protection of no trade at all. > Formal communications began to go back and forth between the U.S. and Britain > about the war nobody really wanted. > > Parliament went into session on 8 November of 1814, its main discussion the > Prince Regent's address about pending negotiations at Ghent, in which he > noted war had led to unavoidly large arrears, and that the war still > subsisting with the United States rendered the continuance of great exertions > indispensable. Parliament was deep in second thoughts about the American war. > This led to December's Treaty of Ghent, in which everything went basically > back to the status quo ante albeit with more careful details, and impressment > -- the oft-cited causus belli for the U.S. -- was never mentioned at all. > > Alfred Thayer Mahan said that American commerce, about $7 million in its last > normal year of 1811, was destroyed without replacement. Not so. The commerce > was lost, but not its replacement. Few records attesting to their takings and > auctions have survived, but those which did show cited privateers bringing in > a net balance of $9,507,000 -- one historian estimating this as "perhaps" a > third of the whole. Some thumbnail figuring: on peacetime business, we are > now looking at a crudely estimated $3.5 million for the rest of 1812, another > $7 million each for 1813 and 1814; total, $17.5 million in "lost commerce." > If the estimated third of $9,507,000 is nearly correct for privateering input > meanwhile, it becomes $28,521,000. Thanks to privateering, the War of 1812 > turned a sizeable American profit. > > Whether, as has been averred, the purported notion that American privateers > won the war is a "myth" may be argueable. Careful reflection suggests nobody > really won. But how they forced the issue is not. The war came down to not > how much damage Britain could do to the United States, but the other way > 'round, and Britain simply could not afford it. And privateers were the money > drainpipe. > > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > Readers: Apart from style there is little original with me in any of the > above; I have cribbed liberally from those who know lots more than I do. > References have included THE NAVY, A HISTORY, by Fletcher Pratt, 1941 > edition; THE NAVAL WAR OF 1812, A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY, edited by Wm. S. > Dudley, 1985; CANADA, THE STORY OF THE DOMINION, by J. Castell Hopkins, > F.S.S., 1901; and THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE III (third of three > volumes), by Robert Bissett, LL.D., 1828. << N.B. - this latter volume is the > last of a History of England in a set of nine; prior trios were written by > Hume and Smollett. >> > > -- FRANK PIERCE YOUNG > Annapolis, MD FPY1229@aol.com