lhe 1812 privateer Lynx, like her modern-day namesake seen here, was a topsail schooner built for speed and seaworthiness, a Baltimore Clipper. lhe modern-day Lynx is owned and operated by the Lynx Education Foundation and travels throughout US waters conducting educational programs. She is currently on a tour ofthe Great Lakes. (www.privateerlynx.com)
was untrai ned, unwilling, and unconvinced that their captain was that good, and on the first of]une, set sail. He was fo llowed to sea by a coterie of small craft, excited to see a naval battle first-hand, a slug-fest between frigates right off Cape Ann . Those who were shore-bound climbed to rooftops and rook telescopes and picnic suppers to the hills surrounding Boston. As all the previous US victories had been won well offshore and our of sight of the citizenry, here was an opportunity to see first-hand the brilliance of the United States Navy. Ir would be a spectacle with which they could regale their grandchildren! And it was. As he expected, Lawrence fo un d Captain Broke and Shannon waiting; in fact, Broke had ordered some of his sails furled to allow Chesapeake to catch up. The battle was joined, and in fifteen minutes it was over. Lawrence was defeated by a combination of overconfidence, bad luck, and inability. Both he and Broke were badly wounded and, while the Englishman would recover, Lawrence died underway, as his command was being sailed to Halifax by the victors. With his dying words, he left a legacy which, to this day, still resonates in the US Navy: "Don't give up the ship!" Ir was these words that Captain O liver Perry had sewn on the flag that flew from the masthead of his Lake Erie flagship, USS Lawrence, on 10 September
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1813. Perry's flag can be seen today at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. Overall, there was relatively little naval action during 1813 because of the British blockade, which effectively bottled up much of the American navy in port. The ships already at sea remained there, revictualing as possible in friendly or neutral ports. The action at sea was instead carried our by innovative and daring privareersmen who sailed small, fast, and weatherly schooners against British merchantmen. These forays resulted in outrageous increases in insurance rates for British shipowners who were sending goods to Halifax and elsewhere and the need to provide naval escorts for convoys to ensure the safety of their merchant ships and cargoes. The blockade also had a deleterious effect on the movement of American coastal shipping. With ports closed off by the Royal Navy, merchants and shippers transported their goods overland to markets along the eastern seaboard. Delays were rife and created both gluts and severe shortages. Issues beyond simple matters of trade arose when the British, intent on bringing the war to America, determined the Chesapeake Bay would make a plum prize, both from a shipping standpoint as well as the population centers along the shores, and they spent much of the spring rampaging through the Bay.
The initial intent of Admiral Sir George Cockburn commanding the British squadron was to cut out and rake USS Constellation, holed up in Norfolk, Virginia. Hoping to lull the Virginians into the belief that they were not the target, Cockburn sailed north where, as he suspected, the pickings were plentiful. The admiral waited until June to arrack Norfolk. Basking in his initial successes, Cockburn grew complacent and fai led to accurately chart the areas of shifting sandbars off Norfolk, nor did he suspect that the Americans might actually stand up to his forays along the coast. Denied access to the shore by dangerous shoals, Cockburn could only mount an attack from small boats, and even they ran afo ul of the bottom. Ar tillery fire, mounted by the Americans both from the sh ore and from their own boats, sealed the deal. He called off the attack. Captain Charles Stewart, commanding Constellation, received word of the British attack and moved his ship farther up the river, ensuring her safety. Constellation would remain away from the action throughout the rest of the war. During Cockburn's spring in the Chesapeake Bay, he managed to get all the way north to the Elk River, stopping along rheway for provisions and rampages through the countryside. Should the landowners and farmers cooperate with his troops and provide provisions of livestock and vegetables, they were compensated and left alone. Those who resisted, however, found their crops and animals taken and their fields and buildings put to the torch . In some cases, he burnt entire towns . Havre de Grace, at the northern end of the Bay where the Elk and Susquehanna Rivers meet, barely fired a shot at his ships, bur met with pillage and destruction nonetheless. Following his thwarted attempt to cut our Constellation, Cockburn and his boss, Admiral Sir John Warren, commander of the British forces in the North Atlantic, attacked Hampton, Virginia, swatting aside the ineffectual militia like so many pesky flies. The British troops then went on a rampage, raping, pillaging, burning, and stealing anything they wished. And not a man was punished for his crimes! The American populace became enraged at the actions of the marauding Englishmen and finally managed to put some steel in their spines. This change of mind set would serve them well in the fo llowing year.
SEA HISTORY 136, AUTUMN 20 11