the Americans, whether respecting the tonnage of the ships or the courage of the crews, are not worth the paper they are written on; on all points connected purely with the British navy, or which can be checked off by official documents or ships' logs, or where there would be no particular object in falsifying, James is an invaluable assistant, from the diligence and painstaking care he shows, and the thoroughness and minuteness with which he goes into details.
A fair-minded and interesting English critic, 297 whose remarks are generally very just, seems to me to have erred somewhat in commenting on this last sloop action. He says that the Avon was first crippled by dismantling shot from long guns. Now, the Wasp had but one long gun on the side engaged, and, moreover, began the action with the shortest and lightest of her carronades. Then he continues that the Avon, like the Peacock, "was hulled so low that the shot-holes could not be got at, and yielded to this fatal circumstance only." It certainly cannot be said when a brig has been dismasted, has had a third of her crew placed hors de combat, and has been rendered an unmanageable hulk, that she yields only because she has received a few shot below the water-line. These shot-holes undoubtedly hastened the result, but both the Peacock and the Avon would have surrendered even if they had remained absolutely water-tight.
The Adams, 28, had been cut down to a sloop of war at Washington, and then lengthened into a flush-decked, heavy corvette, mounting on each side 13 medium 18's, or columbiads, and 1 long 12, with a crew of 220 men, under the command of Capt. Charles Morris, late first lieut. of the Constitution. 298 She slipped out of the Potomac and past the blockaders on Jan. 18th, and cruised eastward to the African coast and along it from Cape Mount to Cape Palmas, thence to the Canaries and Cape de Verd. She returned very nearly along the Equator, thence going toward the West Indies. The cruise was unlucky, but a few small prizes, laden with palm-oil and ivory, being made. In hazy weather, on March 25th, a large Indiaman (the Woodbridge) was captured; but while taking possession the weather cleared up, and Capt. Morris found himself to leeward of 25 sail, two of which, a two-decker and a frigate, were making for him, and it took him till the next day to shake them off. He entered Savannah on May 1st and sailed again on the 8th, standing in to the Gulf Stream, between Makanillan and Florida, to look out for the Jamaica fleet. He found this fleet on the 24th, but the discovery failed to do him much good, as the ships were under the convoy of a 74, two frigates, and three brigs. The Adams hovered on their skirts for a couple of days, but nothing could be done with them, for the merchant-men sailed in the closest possible order and the six war vessels exercised the greatest vigilance. So the corvette passed northward to the Newfoundland Banks, where she met with nothing but fogs and floating ice, and then turned her prow toward Ireland. On July 4th she made out and chased two sail, who escaped into the mouth of the Shannon. After this the Adams, heartily tired of fogs and cold, stood to the southward and made a few prizes; then, in lat. 44° N., long. 10° W., on July 15th, she stumbled across the 18-pounder 36-gun frigate Tigris, Capt. Henderson. The frigate was to leeward, and a hard chase ensued. It was only by dint of cutting away her anchors and throwing overboard some of her guns that the Adams held her own till sunset, when it fell calm. Capt. Morris and his first lieutenant, Mr. Wadsworth, had been the first and second lieutenants of Old Ironsides in Hull's famous cruise, and they proved that they had not forgotten their early experience, for they got out the boats to tow, and employed their time so well that by sunrise the frigate was two leagues astern. After 18 hours' more chase the Adams dropped her. But in a day or two she ran across a couple more, one of which, an old bluff-bows, was soon thrown out; but the other was very fast, and kept close on the corvette's heels. As before, the frigate was to leeward. The Adams had been built by contract; one side was let to a sub-contractor of economical instincts, and accordingly turned out rather shorter than the other; the result was, the ship sailed a good deal faster on one tack than on the other. In this chase she finally got on her good tack in the night, and so escaped. 299 Capt. Morris now turned homeward. During his two cruises he had made but 10 prizes (manned by 161 men), none of very great value. His luck grew worse and worse. The continual cold and damp produced scurvy, and soon half of his crew were prostrated by the disease; and the weather kept on foggy as ever. Off the Maine coast a brig-sloop (the Rifleman, Capt. Pearce) was discovered and chased, but it escaped in the thick weather. The fog grew heavier, and early on the morning of Aug. 17th the Adams struck land—literally struck it, too, for she grounded on the Isle of Haute, and had to throw over provisions, spare spars, etc., before she could be got off. Then she entered the Penobscot, and sailed 27 miles up it to Hampden. The Rifleman meanwhile conveyed intelligence of her whereabouts to a British fleet, consisting of two line-of-battle ships, three frigates, three sloops, and ten troop transports, under the joint command of Rear-Admiral Griffeth and Lieutenant-General Sherbrooke. 300
This expedition accordingly went into the Penobscot and anchored off Castine. Captain Morris made every preparation he could to defend his ship, but his means were very limited; seventy of his men were dead or disabled by the scurvy; the remainder, many of them also diseased, were mustered out, to the number of 130 officers and seamen (without muskets) and 20 marines. He was joined, however, by 30 regulars, and later by over 300 militia armed with squirrel guns, ducking- and fowling-pieces, etc.,—in all between 500 and 550 men, 301 only 180 of whom, with 50 muskets among them, could be depended upon. On Sept. 3d the British advanced by land and water, the land-force being under the direction of Lieutenant-Colonel John, and consisting of 600 troops, 80 marines, and 80 seamen. 302 The flotilla was composed of barges, launches, and rocket-boats, under the command of Captain Barry of the Dragon, 74. In all there were over 1,500 men. The seamen of the Adams, from the wharf, opened fire on the flotilla, which returned it with rockets and carronades; but the advance was checked. Meanwhile the British land-forces attacked the militia, who acted up to the traditional militia standard, and retreated with the utmost promptitude and celerity, omitting the empty formality of firing. This left Captain Morris surrounded by eight times his number, and there was nothing to do but set fire to the corvette and retreat. The seamen, marines, and regulars behaved well, and no attempt was made to molest them. None of Captain Morris' men were hit; his loss was confined to one sailor and one marine who were too much weakened by scurvy to retreat with the others, who marched to Portland, 200 miles off. The British lost ten men killed or wounded.
On Sept. 9th Gunboats No. 160 and 151, commanded by Mr. Thomas M. Pendleton, captured off Sapoleo Bar, Ga., the British privateer Fortune of War, armed with two heavy pivot guns, and 35 men. She made a brief resistance, losing two of her men. 303
On Sept. 15th the British 20-gun ship-sloops Hermes and Carron, and 18-gun brig-sloops Sophie and Childers, and a force of 200 men on shore, 304 attacked Fort Bowyer, on Mobile Point, but were repulsed without being able to do any damage whatever to the Americans. The Hermes was sunk and the assailants lost about 80 men.
On the 26th of September, while the privateer-schooner General Armstrong, of New York, Captain Samuel C. Reid, of one long 24, eight long 9's, and 90 men, was lying at anchor in the road of Fayal, a British squadron, composed of the Plantagenet, 74, Captain Robert Floyd, Rota, 38, Captain Philip Somerville, and Carnation, 18, Captain George Bentham, hove in sight. 305 One or more boats were sent in by the British, to reconnoitre the schooner, as they asserted, or, according to the American accounts, to carry her by a coup de main. At any rate, after repeatedly warning them off, the privateer fired into them, and they withdrew. Captain Reid then anchored, with springs on his cables, nearer shore, to await the expected attack, which was not long deferred. At 8 P.M. four boats from the Plantagenet and three from the Rota, containing in all 180 men, 306 under the command of Lieutenant William Matterface, first of the Rota, pulled in toward the road, while the Carnation accompanied them to attack the schooner if she got under way. The boats pulled in under cover of a small reef of rocks, where they lay for some time, and about midnight made the attack. The Americans opened with the pivot gun, and immediately afterward with their long 9's, while the boats replied with their carronades, and, pulling spiritedly on amidst a terrific fire of musketry from both sides, laid the schooner aboard on her bow and starboard quarter. The struggle was savage enough, the British hacking at the
