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Updated: August 28, 2024
He knew how the southern end of Manhattan looked when Hendrick Hudson moored the Half Moon in the lower harbor; and where the shore line lay when the old Dutch keels with their high poops and proud pennons rode at anchor in the river; and again later on when the English flag had replaced the Dutch, and the towering masts of frigates and brigs and schooners made with their threaded rigging a constant etching of the water front.
Neither place, however, was under such fetters as Black Rock, and the two divisions might very possibly be assembled despite the hostile fleet. On the upper lake their navy was at Amherstburg, where also was building a ship, inferior in force, despite her rig, to either of the brigs ordered by Chauncey at Erie.
Two streets, formed by two roads, ended in a third street along the sandy, flattish river shore, and there stood four or five larger dwellings, like their humbler neighbors, built of wood, but with bolder, greater chimneys, rising into the air as if in rivalry of four large ships and brigs that lay at anchor or beside the two wharves, and threw their masts and spars into the sailing clouds, making the low forest that closed river and village in, stoop to its humility.
Some of the shells got broken, some remained whole, and when all were ready Lasse had twelve boats. But they should not be boats, they should be large warships. He had three liners, three frigates, three brigs and three schooners. The largest liner was called Hercules, and the smallest schooner The Flea.
We calculated upon having the whole wealth of the French town, and the little French fleet converted into lawful prize-money. The deeply-laden, poop-encumbered brigs and schooners, so ungracefully down by the stern, we imagined to be full of treasure. Visions of gold glittered before our mind's eye.
The number of houses had increased, the town was gradually acquiring a European appearance, the harbour was frequented by numerous English and American vessels, and a national navy numbering five brigs and eight schooners had sprung into being.
Escape now became the policy of Lawrence, who luckily managed to get from the harbor in safety, and turned his course to the northward, along the coast. While cruising in this direction, after capturing a small English brig, he fell in with, on February 24, 1813, off the mouth of the Demerara, two brigs of war, with one of which, the Peacock, Captain Peake, he speedily became engaged.
The brig had been out of Port Royal about a week, when six sail were discovered to leeward, and proved to be a ship, with four brigs and a schooner. They continued their course till the Rover got near enough to allow her commander to see that the schooner and one of the brigs each carried sixteen guns, and that another carried six.
It might be whalers from the Arctic which lay there in the morning, their oils making noisome the breeze; it might be a fleet of beaten, battered tramp wind-jammers, panting after their fight about the Horn; it might be brigs from the South Seas; it might be Pacific steamers, Benicia scow-schooners, Italian fishing smacks, Chinese junks it might be any and all of these together.
About two hundred boats, counting gunboats and mortars, barges and sloops, formed the line of defense, the shore and the forts bristling with batteries. Some frigates advanced from the hostile line, and, preceded by two or three brigs, ranged themselves in line of battle before us and in reach of the cannon of our flotilla; and the combat began. Balls flew in every direction.
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