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Robert Fulton's plan for a revolving "scuttle" or conning tower and periscope (right oftower) on his second submarine.
commonly known by the name of' Fultons' drifting out with the ebb tide ... no doubt destined for [HBMSJ Victorious or some other of our Ships here," Rear Admiral George Cockb urn, commander of the blockade, reponed to Vice Admiral John B. Warren, commander of the American Station. The device, he noted caustically, was intended by the American government "to dispose of us by wholesale Six Hundred at a rime, witho ut further trouble or risk." The adm iral fully expected that the Americans were likely to try again.8 His prognostication proved quire accurate. For the next month the Chesapeake blockade remained unchallenged . One sh ip, however, HBMS Plantagenet (74), commanded by Captain Robert Lloyd , remained at anchor abreast of the Cape Henry lighthouse and was rarely accompanied by other vessels of the squadron. After carefully watching the ship for some time, Mix determined her to be "rhe most favorable object for trying his experiment on." 9 On the night of 18 July, Mix set our in a large open boat dubbed Chesapeake's Revenge. 10 Ir would prove to be the first of five successive night attacks agai nst Plantagenet, each of which was thwarted either by near discovery or by movement of the ship. 11 The night of 24-25 July would be different. This time the Americans were able to move undetected to within 100 yards of the warship's larboard bow. Ar 12:20AM, just as the watch was calling out "all's well," the raiders set adrift the torpedo in the
SEA HISTORY 141 , WINTER 2012- 13
water. An acco unt of the explosion and purported havoc that ensued was reported soon after in a quire colorful acco unt in the American press. 12 Mix reportedly discovered the forechannel of the ship blown off, with a boat lying beside having been thrown into the air. Moreover, the whole ship's company was believed to have taken to their boats in a panic. 13 Ir is of note char, although the attack was dramatically described by the
American press as damaging to the warship, the assault was taken in stride by the British. The only notice in the log of Plantagenetwas : "Torpedo exploded by the Enemy near the Ship but no Mischief." 14 Angry charges of uncivilized warfare and barbarity nevertheless erupted from the British bur were countered in the American press with a vengeance, reminding rhe enem y rhar Fulton h ad once been invited by the British Admiralty to demonstrate and build both torpedoes and submarine, the former of which they soon deployed unsuccessfully against the French at Boulogne. Moreover, rhe British themselves employed a terror weapon called the Congreve rocker and, the press noted, undeterred by fear of torpedoes, continued to molest hapless civilians and destroy towns, crops and croft without remorse. The rape of Hampton, Virginia, was cited as a case in poinr. 15 "The enemy," a Baltimore journalNiles' Weekly Register-would print, "fights in rhe air with his rockets-he fights under the earth with his mines, and yet he is hugely 'religious. ' May it not then become 'a moral and religious people,' like we are, to fight under the water, with torpedoes and diving-boats?"' 6
(below) A British political cartoon, "The Yankey Torpedo, " deriding the American use oftorpedoes after the attack on HMS Plantagenet.
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