secretly part owners of the Young Spartan. Not only was the collector facilitating the entry and disposition of pirated vessels and their cargoes, his brother had given written instructions to the ship’s current captain, John Smith, laying out specific procedures to be followed if he chose to take non-Spanish-flagged prizes. This was, of course, accessory to piracy. Captain Smith followed these instructions closely in the case of the Norberg. He assigned his second lieutenant, John Ferguson, the same lieutenant who had planted the false Spanish papers aboard, and six men to impersonate the Norberg’s original crew. As the Norberg approached the entrance to the Savannah River on 23 April, Ferguson sent a letter to the collector of customs ashore via the pilot who had come out to meet them. That night several schooners came alongside and offloaded most of the Norberg’s main cargo: 500 boxes of Cuban sugar worth around $50,000. In the morning, Lieutenant Ferguson, now posing as “Captain Altmann,” was allowed to enter port and sell the remaining cargo—all in blatant contravention of US customs laws. Captain Smith and Lt. Ferguson then took the ship’s share of the profits—some $17,000—and skipped town. The money should have been distributed among the ship’s crew at the rate of a few thousand dollars per officer and a few hundred dollars per crewman—the equivalent of a typical merchant mariner’s full year’s wages— earned in roughly two months since the Young Spartan departed Amelia Island back in February. With nothing to show for their efforts, Clintock—now Captain Clintock—and his crew returned to sea in search of new prizes. It was a good thing for them that they did not linger in Savannah. Less than two weeks later on 14 May, an astonishing article appeared in the local newspaper, the Savannah Republican. It spun a sordid tale of piracy and impersonation. That same day, US Attorney William Davies filed a “libel”—a type of lien—against the Norberg, still anchored in the Savannah River, which directed the seizure of the vessel and identified the Young Spartan and its captain as pirates. As it turned out, the marooned Mr. Cosler had returned from the dead and made good on his promise. 22
Cosler was apparently also aware of the sweetheart deal between the Bullochs and the Young Spartan’s captain and promptly filed suit against the Bullochs for the value of his ship and cargo. Anxious to settle the issue and keep their names out of public notice, the Bullochs quickly negotiated and paid an out-of-court settlement of $45,000 to placate Cosler and company. The issue, however, was far from settled. Young Spartan was already back at sea on the prowl and her piratical activities were now public knowledge. Less than three weeks later, on the morning of 4 June, Clintock and his men captured the Spanish brig Pastora in the Florida Straits, near Holein-the-Wall in the Bahamas. The Pastora had left Havana and was sailing northwards with the Gulf Stream with a valuable cargo for Corunna, Spain. As a Spanish-flagged vessel, one could reasonably argue that she was a legitimate prize, unlike the Norberg. The Young Spartan’s flirtation with playing by the rules, however, did not last long. At 2pm that same day, Captain Francis Gatechair of the schooner Colonel George Armistead out of Baltimore sighted the two vessels ahead in close proximity to each other. He was southbound for Havana and his course would bring him to within what his ship’s log termed a “pistol shot”—about fifteen to twenty yards—of the vessels. His description was prescient. As Gatechair’s schooner came abeam of the vessels, a sudden volley of cannon and musket fire from the Young Spartan shredded Armistead’s sails and damaged her rig, making any escape out of the question. Gatechair heaved to and hoped for the best. He quickly obeyed an order to send his ship’s papers over for examination. Clintock reviewed the papers, which clearly showed the Armistead to be a USflag vessel and therefore outside the scope of Young Spartan’s letter of marque. Accordingly, Clintock decided to release the Armistead, but still sent over a boarding party to relieve the vessel of easily pilfered valuables. What should have been a quick and minor interaction quickly spiraled out of control. Muskets and pistols were discharged freely in an orgy of intimidation and threats intended to cow the Armistead’s company into compliance. His men proceeded to systematically strip the vessel,
crew, and passengers of cash, jewelry, and even fine clothing and other items, including a set of silverware the Spanish Consul in Baltimore was shipping home. Clintock had hoped to avoid bloodshed and take advantage of the opportunity to offload the prisoners from the Pastora at the same time, but that hope was lost when several of his men decided it would be great sport to fire a ragged volley in the direction of the small boat ferrying the Pastora’s crew to the Armistead. One shot struck and killed the Cuban captain. Now that someone had been murdered, Clintock changed the plan. Although he was unaware that they had been outed as pirates, he made the fortuitous decision to avoid Savannah and instead chose to take his prize over twenty miles farther north to Port Royal, South Carolina. There he could sell the cargo directly to local smugglers, keeping all of the profits for himself and his crew. The vessels reached Port Royal Sound on the 14th of June. Within two days they were doing a brisk business selling goods to local smugglers. Word of this activity soon made its way to Captain John Jackson of the US Revenue Cutter Dallas, stationed in Savannah. The cutter Dallas should have been an even match for the pirate vessel. Like the Young Spartan, the 56-foot schooner also carried a single cannon and was manned by an equal complement of fifteen to eighteen officers and crew, but instead Jackson sent one of his officers, Lieutenant Hubbard, and just nine of his men in two of the cutter’s boats to investigate. Jackson had taken command of the revenue cutter only a month earlier, but having previously served as a lieutenant onboard, he was familiar with both his vessel and the operating area. He probably judged that the smaller vessels would attract less attention than the cutter and be better able to pursue smugglers or pirates who might attempt to escape into shallower waters. It was a tactic he would repeat later in his career during joint antipiracy operations with the Navy. On the 18th, Lieutenant Hubbard and his men spied the Young Spartan, the Pastora, and a local smuggler, the sloop FireFly of Beaufort, moored together near Port Royal. The cuttermen came alongside SEA HISTORY 173, WINTER 2020–21