CHAPTER XXI

THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG"

One of the most formidable American privateers during this war was the _General Armstrong_, a large brig, armed with a heavy long gun amidships, and eight long 9-pounders.

The last action in which she was engaged was of a most desperate nature, against the boats of a British squadron. The privateer was lying, on September 26th, 1814, at Fayal, in the Azores, and her commander, Samuel Chester Reid, having been on shore to see his Consul and arrange about a supply of water, returned on board about 5 p.m., accompanied by the Consul and some friends.

They were chatting on deck, and the captain was informed that no British cruisers had been seen in the vicinity for several weeks, when their conversation was most unexpectedly broken in upon by the appearance of a large British brig-of-war rounding the northern point of the anchorage, within gunshot of the privateer.

Reid at first contemplated cutting his cable and making a bolt for it, confident in the sailing powers of his fine craft. The wind, however, was light and uncertain, and the British brig had most of what there was at the moment, so he abandoned the idea, being informed by the Consul that he would not be molested as long as he remained at anchor--which was, of course, a very correct and proper assumption, Fayal being a Portuguese possession, and therefore a neutral port. So Captain Reid and his friends watched the brig, which was the _Carnation_--of 18 guns, commander, George Bentham--standing in through the gathering dusk. After the pilot had boarded her, she came on and anchored within pistol-shot of the _General Armstrong_.

The American did not feel at all easy as to the efficacy of neutral protection; and, while he discussed it, an English 74-gun ship and a 38-gun frigate appeared round the point--to wit, the _Plantagenet_, Captain Robert Lloyd; and the _Rota_, Captain Philip Somerville--and the brig immediately commenced signalling furiously to them.

This was getting a little too hot; and, seeing the brig presently send her boats to the line-of-battle ship. Captain Reid resolved, escape seaward being impossible, to be prepared for the worst. So, the wind having dropped, he got out his sweeps and slowly pulled his vessel further inshore.

The _Carnation_ immediately got under way and followed; but the wind was too light, and she was unable to close the privateer.

About 8 p.m. the Americans--to give their version first--perceived four boats, armed and full of men, approaching. Captain Reid thereupon dropped his anchor with a spring on the cable, and swung his broadside upon the boats. When they came within hail he warned them not to approach nearer, on pain of being fired upon; they came on, however, and the privateer opened on them with cannon and small arms. "The boats promptly returned the fire, but so unexpectedly warm was the reception they got from the privateer that they cried for quarter and hauled off in a badly crippled condition."

Captain Reid says he had one man killed and his first officer wounded. Being convinced that he had not seen the last of the British boats, he hauled so close in that the vessel was almost touching the rocks, right under the castle, and anchored head and stern.

The _Carnation_ was observed, about nine o'clock, towing in a number of boats; she could not, however, get close enough in to co-operate with them, as the wind was baffling and the tide was adverse; so the boats cast off and remained for some time under cover of a low reef of rocks.

There were eleven of them, according to the British official report--twelve, the Americans say--and they must have contained at least two hundred men; probably more, as some would be very large boats, pulling fourteen or sixteen oars. Such a force would have been considered far more than adequate for the cutting out of a French vessel; indeed, much larger vessels than the _General Armstrong_ have often been captured by British boats with considerably less force than was despatched upon this occasion. We rather "fancied" ourselves in this matter of cutting out vessels from a harbour, and some splendid feats have undoubtedly been performed in this way. It was a sort of adventure which was considered essentially British in character; and justly so, as our enemies certainly never ventured much in the way of attempting to cut out our vessels.

Captain Lloyd and his merry men were now to learn the difference between French or Spanish seamen and Americans.

Meanwhile, the Governor had sent a letter to the British captain begging him to respect the neutrality of the port and abstain from further attack upon the privateer. Captain Lloyd replied by pointing out that the Americans had broken the neutrality of the port by firing into his boat without the least provocation. That he had intended to respect it, but was now determined to seize the privateer, and hoped the Governor would direct the fort to assist him.

About midnight the flotilla of boats advanced to the attack. They were allowed to approach within what used to be termed "point blank" range--a vague term, but equivalent, probably, to longish pistol-shot, and then came the round and grape from the privateer, doing considerable execution. The British responded with the guns mounted in their boats; then, with loud cheers, they raced for the _General Armstrong_, boarding her in several different places.

A most bloodthirsty and terrible conflict now took place. The British seamen, with characteristic dash and courage, climbed up the vessel's side on all hands, nothing daunted by the fierce resistance of her crew. The Americans, armed with every kind of weapon which would serve at close quarters, met them at arm's length with such ferocity that the boats were soon cumbered up with wounded and dying men, hurled back with pistol, pike, or cutlass. Wherever an English head cropped up above the bulwarks it was a target. And still they continued the attack, and with so much success in the bow that a number gained a footing on the forecastle, and the two American officers in charge forward were killed or disabled. Learning the state of affairs forward, Captain Reid, who, with the after-hands, had pretty well disposed of the attack at the stern, rallied his men, and, leading them forward on the run, drove the British over the bows into their boats--and that was the end of it. The fight lasted forty minutes--a tremendous time for such a desperate affair, proving the stubborn courage on both sides.

Two of the frigate _Rota's_ boats, the American account states, were taken possession of, loaded with dead and dying men. "Of the forty or fifty men in these boats only seventeen escaped death, and they by swimming ashore. Another boat was found under the privateer's stern, commanded by one of the _Plantagenet's_ lieutenants. All the men in it were killed but four, the lieutenant himself jumping overboard to save his life."

These details appear to corroborate the description of an eye-witness, given by Mr. Maclay; he says: "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."

The estimate of killed and wounded, as given by Mr. Maclay, respectively 120 and 130, is greatly exaggerated; the official account, with names of officers, seamen, and marines, gives it as 36 killed and 84 wounded--and quite enough, too!

The affair was disastrous for the British; but Captain Reid had, of course, to lose his ship. He received a communication at 3 a.m. from his Consul that Captain Lloyd was determined to have him, and at daybreak the _Carnation_ stood in and engaged him. But, being unable at the moment to pick up the best berth for operations, the British vessel hauled off again, with some small damage from the American long gun. A second time she was more successful, and, bringing her heavy short guns to bear at close range, sealed the fate of the _General Armstrong_. Reid and his men, prepared for this ending, scuttled their ship and went on shore, upon which the English set her on fire, completing her destruction.

Captain Lloyd, in his report, declares that the _General Armstrong_ was so close inshore that the attacking boats had not room to board on the inside; and that "every American in Fayal, exclusive of part of the crew, being armed and concealed in these rocks, which were immediately over the privateer, it unfortunately happened when these brave men gained the deck they were under the painful necessity of returning to their boats, from the very destructive fire kept up by those above them from the shore, who were in complete security."

This is rather a wild story, to which the thoughtful reader will not be disposed to yield full credence. With regard to the breach of neutrality, there is an affidavit, sworn before the British Consul, by Lieutenant Robert Faussett, of the _Plantagenet_, to the effect that he approached, unarmed, in the pinnace, for the purpose of ascertaining what vessel it was; and that the Americans warned them off when they were so close that the boat was shoved off with a boathook, and then opened fire; that Faussett called for quarter, shouting, "Don't murder us!" and they continued their attack; that he had no means of returning a shot, and could only retire, with two killed and seven wounded. He says nothing about the proximity of other boats, armed or otherwise; and so the Americans would appear to have been technically guilty of the initial breach of neutrality. Captain Lloyd, by way of showing that American privateers were addicted to this kind of thing, encloses a copy of the affidavit of William Wilson, late master of the transport brig _Doris_, which was captured, in defiance of the law of neutrality, on June 25th preceding, in the anchorage of Flores, another island of the Azores.

Captain Lloyd, however, got no credit out of this affair. The Lords of the Admiralty expressed very strong disapproval of the whole business; told him he ought to have known that the sending of a boat after dark was sure to lead to some such incident; that, if the Americans broke the neutrality of the port, his first business was to make representation to the Governor, and not take the law into his own hands; that the honour of the flag and the prestige of the British Navy, represented by a 74-gun ship, a frigate, and several sloops, was not likely to be endangered by the presence of one privateer--with other home truths and doses of common sense. And really, one cannot help agreeing cordially with their lordships, and heartily deploring the loss of so many brave men in a fiasco due to thorough bad management.

A fortnight later the boats of the British frigate _Endymion_, Captain Henry Hope, made an attempt to carry the _Prince de Neufchatel_--a very successful privateer, but why such a clumsy name?--off Nantucket, with very similar results. The fight was even more desperate than in the case of the _General Armstrong_, the privateer having only nine of her crew untouched, while the British casualties amounted to fully half of the men engaged. The privateer escaped.

* * * * *

Such are some of the incidents of the two American wars; of this type were the men--or many of them--who commanded the privateers. The British records of the period, during the war of 1812, bear full testimony to their success, and the officers of the Royal Navy come in for some rough handling by the Press--as in _The Times_ of February 11th, 1815: "The American cruisers daily enter in among our convoys, seize prizes in sight of those that should afford protection, and, if pursued, 'put on their sea-wings' and laugh at the clumsy English pursuers. To what is this owing? Cannot we build ships? It must indeed be encouraging to Mr. Madison to read the logs of his cruisers. If they fight, they are sure to conquer; if they fly, they are sure to escape."

That the Americans have the knack of building faster sailing-vessels than ours is a fact which we have been compelled to accept. Not that our smartest clippers would be beaten, as a matter of course, by any of theirs; but, taking it all round, an American who wants to turn out a specially swift sailing vessel will almost always eclipse our efforts in the same direction. Are we not still trying in vain to win back the "America" Cup? The long, rakish craft, of comparatively small beam and tapering lines, was no doubt originally an American production.

These swift vessels, sailed by such men as Boyle, Haraden, Barney, Coggleshall, and others, were both hard to catch and bad to beat. The sentence quoted above from _The Times_ sums up the situation pretty accurately; and, this being the case, it is all the more to be regretted that the accounts of their exploits should so constantly be tainted with obvious exaggerations, or embellished with incredible little anecdotes.

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