United States or Russia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Admiral Cochrane was so incensed by the rough treatment his men had received that he determined to throw neutrality to the winds and destroy the defiant privateer. Nothing more was attempted that evening, but in the morning the Carnation advanced to the attack of the General Armstrong.
He took everything of their property only. Also all the Indian Pledges he has bro't and delivered me, expecting some payment. I cannot say how far this was legal for a Privateer, but I am extremely glad it is done." The situation at the mouth of the St. John had now become intolerable; the inhabitants were well nigh beggared and the end of their trials apparently had not yet been reached.
With scarcely an exception, however, they took the privateer for a merchantman, and watched her course with interest, till all at once a sailor shouted with some energy of language: "By Saint-James, it is all up with us! Yonder is the Parisian captain!" At that terrible name dismay, and a panic impossible to describe, spread through the brig.
Another privateer took a Spanish ship worth 400,000 pounds; and another, one of 50,000 pounds; but a fourth, the Surprise, commanded by Captain Redmond, was less fortunate, for having taken a French East India ship, after an action of six hours, with a cargo valued at 150,000 pounds, the prize, from the number of shot in her hull, sank the next day with all her wealth on board.
Some thought she was a Spanish galleon, though how she should have come thus far north was a question not easily answered. Others believed she was a large French merchantman, and some pronounced her to be a privateer. She was a fast craft, at all events, for as soon as she felt the breeze she slipped through the water at a rate which made it doubtful whether the "Venus" would come up with her.
Duguay-Trouin's privateer was lying off the point a few miles northward, and if, in answer to a signal, she were to join in the chase, I saw that our chances of getting away were small enough. Even as the thought struck me, two musket shots were fired from the harbor.
No trace of the swashbuckler in this Captain Samuel Reid, who had been a thrifty, respected merchant skipper until offered the command of a privateer. 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.
Then he would look upon his ship, and, apostrophising her as a parent would a fondling child, continue, "Ah! your figure-head will be all the same when he has the command, and your flag will never change. You may double the Cape then without dread of a privateer; crowd sail beneath the great ship Argo, or be rocked by any land-breeze in Britain without dread of molestation.
But give me another glass, Mr Simple: I am certain that this vessel is a privateer. What think you, Mr O'Brien?" "I am every bit of your opinion, Captain Kearney," replied O'Brien; "and I think it would be a very pretty bit of practice to the ship's company to take her out from under that footy battery."
A starn chase is a long chase, anyhow. The brig sails well, and there ain't more than two hours daylight; so Monsieur must be quick, or we'll give him the slip yet." The privateer was now within a mile of them; both vessels had "got their way;" and their respective powers of sailing were to be ascertained. In half an hour the privateer had neared to three quarters of a mile.
Word Of The Day