USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Wiscasset > Wiscasset in Pownalborough; a history of the shire town and the salient historical features of the territory between the Sheepscot and Kennebec rivers > Part 30
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I have Rec'd the things sent by Capt. Brown on Your Spry Schooner. the Rice is some- what damagd being wet. I shall want sum more Money. My Acct for the Cargo and Ex- pences Amount to more than Eight hundred & forty Pound Allready. I have surplied Capt. Proctor with More than an hundred Pounds. I should be glad You could send me by Coln Jones the Bearer of this One hundred and fifty Pounds. Your Ship will be Loaded this week. Sir Georg carried off 4 Mast that sum of the Enimical Party turnd adrift to them from My wharfe. My Letter is something Confusd, being wrote in a hurry, Col" Jones being waiting. I close with Mendchening that had all the Enimical Persons we are troubl with been on Board Your Gard Ship in Boston the 40 men that Boarded Your Ship Must Unavoidably fell into Ower hand.
I am, with Respect Your Most Humble Servant TIMOTHY PARSONS.
The visits of the Rainbow and the Milford were the two most important inci- dents which occurred in Wiscasset during the War of the Revolution. A letter
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from Timothy Parsons to Samuel P. Savage shows the desperate condition of the people at that time.
Pownalboro, April 12th, 1779
Dear Sir, - I have Got the Boards for You that I think will answer Your purpos Shall Send them the next trip by Capt. Cunningham the bearer of this Shall procuere the smokd Salmon as Soon as they Can be got which will be in May.
The distress of the people in this place is Very Great Above One half the famalies in this place have lived intierly without bread for Upwards of A Month pasd. their whole Sustenance has been from the Clambancks and Small fish that they Can gett in the River, not having pork or any Kind of fatt to Season Said fish or any Kind of Eatables whatever a general Relaxation Attends them; well harty Men are brought to Meare Skeletons be- ing hardly Able to Crawl Abouts; Sum have dyed, A number of others Lay helpless for want of proper Sustenance; and a general indolent Stupor Seems to Attend them. they having no Seads of Any Kinds to put in the Ground this Spring; Numbers are removing from this to the westward and Elsewhere in hope to Geet where they Can Geet bread Sum have Sold there places that would fetch them £150 L My3 Six Years Agoe places that they Could Keepe ten head of horne Cattle besides Sheep, for less than the price of thirty bushels of Corne Sir if there Can be no way found out whereby the people Can Get Sead to put in the Ground the place Must brake up. I am in hopes of Sum Releife from what incoragement You Gave Me that You would Send Me All the Corne and potaters You Could possible Spare. A few bushels will be Sum releefe Potaters are as much wanted for Sead as Corne is for bread Sir if you can send me a bushel or two of Sead Barly it would be a great favour. Any Pay You Shall Command Either Silver or Paper Money or any Kind of Lumber You May want I will Send You for the Above Article.
Sir I am with Respect. Your Very Humble Sert.
TIMOTHY PARSONS
Sir if You Could Send any Corne or potaters by Capt. Cunningham this time it would increase the favour as they are wanted for Sead.
T. P.
In 1780 the town voted to reject the form of Constitution adopted by Mas- sachusetts (and continued unaltered until after the separation of Maine from that state) for the following reasons:
"That the present form of government the Country is used to and answers the purpose both of internal government and carrying on the War, and that the invasions of the enemy and the divisions among ourselves make it improper if not dangerous, at this time, to introduce a new form of government. Be- sides a number of our brethren, men of property and understanding, are now from home in the War, who have a right to be consulted and to give their opinion in a matter wherein they and their children are so much interested."
3. Lawful money.
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"178 1. Voted: To raise 700 silver dollars to enable the town to get its quota for the Continental Army."*
Nearly two years elapsed before the final treaty of peace with Great Britain was signed in Paris, September 3, 1783, which guaranteed full and complete recognition of the independence of the thirteen colonies, the United States of America.
Before this however, the Union Jack had been supplanted in our merchant marine by a new flag, a flag destined to fly above one of the world's greatest na- tions, and to be borne by her ships, even by those from this little port, over distant seas to far-off lands. The ships of the Sheepscot hoisted the Stars and Stripes to the mizzen halyard and bore it away from Cabbage Island to Botany Bay, to Pondicherry and Saghalien; to Flinders Island and Windy Tickle; to the Barbary Coast and the Ivory Coast; through Skagerrak and Cattegat; to Tierra del Fuego and Table Bay; to Easter Island and the far-away island of Juan Fernandez, in short they carried the colors for which they fought to the thirty-two points of the mariner's compass, and under its folds lives and fortunes were made and lost.
4. Town records.
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XIII Privateering
T HE defenseless condition of the United States, which was for more than a decade after the Revolutionary War without a navy, rendered mer- chant vessels engaged in trade with the West Indies an easy prey to the rapacity of French privateers. Hundreds of our vessels were captured on the high seas, and French prize crews placed in charge to take them into port, the port of Guadeloupe, where French prize courts were held and decisions rendered to the satisfaction of the piratical captors.
During his second term of office, President Washington had urged Congress to make an appropriation large enough to build a navy strong enough to combat Algerian corsairs and French privateers and protect American ship- ping. By the narrow margin of two votes (yeas, forty-three; nays, forty-one), Congress reluctantly apportioned the money for a navy, and three frigates were laid down in 1794; but when, three years later, John Adams succeeded Washington, they were still unfinished. In less than a year after his inaugura- tion President Adams succeeded in getting together a sufficient number of ships and men to create a navy of a sort. The frigates Constellation, United States and Constitution were hastily completed and a number of armed merchant vessels purchased and converted into men-of-war. This was the beginning of the United States Navy under the Constitution.
In the spring of 1814 there was an American navy in name only. Of the five large frigates which the nation possessed, only one, the President, was at sea. The others were blockaded in New York, New London or Boston harbors by the British cruisers off shore. The enemy had an immense fleet upon the At- lantic coast and there was scarcely a seaport which was not blockaded. If any American warship attempted to put to sea she would have to run the gauntlet of a watchful, alert and superior fleet.
At the time of our second conflict with England when the United States de- clared war against Great Britain, our entire navy consisted of but seventeen vessels, less than half of this number being prepared for active duty, five thousand men and four hundred and forty-two guns. There was then no American privateer in existence, but the celerity with which all American float- age was transformed into privateers or letters of marque and reprisal was such that in four months the United States had turned out no less than twenty-six
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privateers with three hundred guns and over two thousand men ready to burn, sink and destroy enemy vessels.
As early as November 1, 1775, an act was passed by the Massachusetts legis- lature empowering the council to commission with letters of marque and re- prisal any person or persons within the colony to fit out and equip any vessel, at no expense to the state, for the defense of the colonies, with general authority to take all enemy craft. Thus legalized privateering soon became general and remained so popular throughout the war that it was frequently difficult to recruit crews for continental and state ships. Service in privateers entailed less severe discipline and held out a greater hope of gain to the hardy young Americans who filled the forecastles at that time.1
Later when it was found that deserters from the Continental Army fre- quently enlisted on private armed vessels, the masters were put under bond not to take on board any soldier from the Continental Army or any man who was not a citizen of Massachusetts.
Although all kinds of craft from ships to sloops took part in privateering and almost every merchant vessel and fishing smack mounted guns and shipped a crew for this service, the brigantine was the favorite rig. These privateers carried a large spanker with a square topsail on the mainmast instead of the usual gaff-topsail. They were armed with light cannon, old-fashioned swivel guns, blunderbusses, and a few muskets and boarding-pikes. The cannon were long guns, as distinguished from carronades, and, so far as can be ascertained, with one exception no carronades were used on American private armed vessels during the war.2
Privateering, as far as this country has participated in it, has been limited chiefly to our two wars with Great Britain. Although during our troubles with the French Directory, 1798-1801, our government issued letters of marque, they were used mostly by our merchantmen as a license to defend themselves from hostile craft. The few actions that took place in which ships that had been armed at private expense were engaged are notable as being exceptions.3
The distinction made between privateers and letters of marque was that the first armed vessels commissioned in the country under the authority of the state were designated privateers and were in most respects, except as to owner- ship, similar to our state and national vessels and their officers received the
1. Dudley W. Knox, A History of the United States Navy, pp. 4, 5.
2. Ralph M. Eastman, Some Famous Privateers of New England, p. 5.
3. Maclay, History of American Privateers, p. 503.
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same titles as in the regular service. A letter of marque was a merchant vessel cleared from some port with cargo, although she might sail in ballast, yet armed to resist aggression and authorized to take any of the enemy's vessels that came her way. The officers received the same titles as were in usage in the merchant service.
With the letter of marque the capture of prizes was incidental, but with the privateer it was the object of the cruise. The letter of marque was usually more lightly armed and carried a much smaller crew than the privateer provided the burden was the same.
"Privateers were generally fitted out by a ship-owner or a group of ship- owners jointly and usually sailed on what is known even to this day in the fisheries as the half-lay or square-halves. That is, the owners provided the ship with her equipment and placed a competent captain in charge. The captain hired his own crew and paid the running expenses of the voyage; the enemy vessels and their cargoes which were captured on the voyage, were brought into an American or allied port and after a hearing before a civil or maritime court, if the vessel and cargoes were judged lawful prizes, they were sold at auction for the account of their captors and the proceeds of the sale divided, half to the owners of the vessel and half to the captain and his crew.
"Although frowned upon now as a form of piracy, in those days privateer- ing was looked upon as an effective means of harrying the enemy, and at the same time a legitimate though perilous means of lining one's own pocket."4
Notwithstanding the fact that the United States did not sign the treaty when privateering was abolished by the European nations by the Treaty of Paris, 1856, this country eventually refused to sanction that method of warfare as is shown at the time of our war with Spain in 1898, when it was officially an- nounced that privateering would not then be tolerated. But during the three periods of hostility with European powers, beginning with the War of the Revolution and ending with the War of 1812, it was actively carried on and there are many persons who believe that had it not been for the privateers, Old Glory, the flag which supplanted the Union Jack, would have been swept from the seas in our first war with England.
Privateers cruising along our coasts during the War of the Revolution entered harbors, rivers and even coves, committing all kinds of depredations on the land, burning vessels found in port, and out at sea capturing coasters as prizes. In these expeditions they were aided by Tories on shore. The most
4. Robert E. Peabody, The Log of the Grand Turks, pp. 3, 4.
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annoying of these privateers were the Nova Scotia craft, termed "Shaving Mills," having open decks, with sails and sweeps and manned by six or eight armed men. With their light draught they could easily dodge in and out of a creek or river and capture coasters and fishing craft. They were difficult to provide against or to capture.5
At the time of the separation of the colonies from the mother country, Congress was quick to establish a Maritime Court for the Eastern District of Massachusetts for the trial of maritime cases, and prizes brought to Wiscasset wharves were here adjudicated upon by Timothy Langdon, a lawyer of some distinction, who came to Wiscasset before the Revolution. He acted as Crown lawyer and the notices of libels to be tried before him are contained in the newspapers of the day. Until the court house was built here trials held in the east precinct of Pownalborough were conducted in the meeting-house.
As is shown by records of Judge Langdon, the first notice of a prize being brought into these waters is dated August 1, 1776, when a letter of marque from Salem took a sloop and a ship, names unknown, from Jamaica and carried them into the Sheepscot. The sloop was laden with dry goods and salt for Halifax and the ship was bound for Europe with 370 hogsheads of sugar, 140 puncheons of rum; 55 pipes of Madeira and a large quantity of wrought plate.
The records show that the condemnation of the Margaretta6 soon followed. In an item relative to the adjournment of the Maritime Court in Pownal- borough, it appears that on the petition of Ichabod Jones it was "resolved that the prayer of this petitioner be so far granted that the Maritime Court for the Eastern District to be holden at Pownalborough on September 9th in order to try the justice of the capture of two vessels taken from the petitioner, be adjourned for the first day of October next in order that the petitioner by attorney may show cause, if he have any, why the said vessels should not be condemned."7
The Margaretta was an armed British schooner which had convoyed Captain
5. Parker McCobb Reed, History of Bath (1607-1894), p. 66.
6. Notice of Libels filed before me against schooner Margaretta, 50 tons burden, James Moore, late commander; sloop Unity, 50 tons, Ichabod Jones, late master; sloop Polly, 90 tons, Nath. Horton, late master; armed schooner Diligent, 100 tons, John Knight, late master, and her armed cutter the Talmagush. Schooner Savannah, 25 tons, Phillips, late master. All these vessels and their cargoes were taken for carrying supplies to the enemies of the U. S. and infesting the seacoast; and brought into the Eastern District Maritime Court which will be held at the Meeting house in the East Precinct of Pownalborough, September 9, 1776, 10 A.M., etc. Tim. Langdon, Judge of the Court. Cont. Journal. State of Mass. Bay, Eastern District. August 29, 1776.
7. Massachusetts Resolves. Resolve p. 751 relative to adjournment of Maritime Court at Pownal- borough, passed September 6, 1776.
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Jones and his sloops the Unity and the Polly from Boston to Machias in June, 1775. From the British Admiral, Thomas Graves, Captain Jones had received permission to load his vessels at Boston with provisions and carry them to Machias on condition of his returning with a cargo of wood and lumber for the British troops.
Benjamin Foster, suspecting that the load of lumber was intended for bar- racks for the British soldiers at Boston, with a party from East River held a secret meeting at which it was resolved to make the cutter Margaretta their prize and the officers their prisoners. Assisted by Jeremiah O'Brien and his sons, they succeeded in capturing the schooner with the loss of two Machias men, while the commander of the Margaretta, Capt. James Moore, fell in this encounter with some of his men. This was the first naval battle of the Revolu- tion and was known as "The Lexington of the Seas."
In 1801 Silas Lee of Wiscasset was appointed by President Jefferson to take the place of Daniel Davis as United States District Attorney for Maine. It was he, therefore, who libeled the British brig Boxer, captured in a bloody battle fought off Pemaquid, September 5, 1813, as a prize of the United States. On this suit a hearing was had at Wiscasset, on the twenty-seventh day of Septem- ber before Hon. David Sewall, Esq., Judge of the District Court of the Maine District, at which time she was condemned to be sold by Marshal T. G. Thorn- ton. 8
In the March, 1776, term of court came the libel of the schooner Polly, 70 tons; the Ranger, 40 tons, Amasa Lewis, master; the sloop Baltimore, 40 tons, Zenas Gardner, master; and the schooner Charming Anne, 20 tons, Richard Jones, master.
On October 17, 1776, a libel was filed against the ship Christian, Christopher Williamson, master, from Whitehaven, England, taken and seized in the Sheepscot River, county of Lincoln, "on an arm of the sea, between high and low water mark, by Andrew Lepear, and said to be the property of subjects of
8. The Boxer was sold at a marshal's sale, November 12, 1813, and was bought by Thomas Mer- rill, Jr., for $5,600. In 1815, she was refitted for the merchant service, went to New York and sailed under letters of marque for Marseilles. She was afterwards sold to a Portuguese firm and was em- ployed as a mail packet between the Cape Verde Islands and Lisbon. Her end is not known with cer- tainty but she is thought to have been lost off the coast of Brazil. Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Series II, I, 175. The Enterprise was built in 1799 and was a schooner of 135 tons. In the war with Tripoli she engaged and captured a Tripolitan cruiser of twice her size and later formed a part of Commodore Preble's fleet at the blockade and bombardment of Tripoli. Before the War of 1812, she had been rebuilt and rigged as a brig. After her encounter with the Boxer she was used as a guard ship at Charleston, South Carolina. She was lost in 1823 at Little Curaçao, West Indies. Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Series II, I, p. 173.
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the King of Great Britain and in care of Abiel Wood; and for the trial of the justice of said seizure, a maritime court for this District will be held in the East Precinct of Pownalborough, November 7, 1776, when all persons con- cerned may appear and show cause, if any they have, why the ship should not be condemned."9
On January 10, 1777, there was a libel case in behalf of Thomas Stinson, Esq., against the sloop Sally, 70 tons, for carrying supplies to the brigantine Betsey, 90 tons.
On August 4, 1777, a libel was filed in the Eastern District in behalf of John S. Kimmer, commander of the schooner Lee of the United States.
Although no corroborative evidence in this country is available, and the port records of Whitehaven, England for 1770-1775 have disappeared, corre- spondence with the directors of the Anchor-Brocklebank Line in Liverpool has brought the information that the founder of the firm, Daniel Brocklebank, built five vessels in America between 1770 and 1776. "The fifth vessel was the brig Castor built in New England 1775-220 tons net register -single deck with beams -carried 20 guns and her load draft of water was 13 feet." It is further stated that on May 8, 1775, Daniel Brocklebank sailed in command of this vessel from Sheepscot for Whitehaven after closing his shipyard in America.1º
As privateering was general at that time it is not altogether surprising to find that letters of marque were granted by King George III to Capt. Daniel Brocklebank, of the Castor, on August 9, 1779, authorizing him to seize and destroy the ships and goods belonging to the king's enemies. The Castor carried a crew of forty-five men and was armed with eighteen carriage (six- and four- pounders) and eight swivel guns.
On June 5, 1780, there were libels by Michael Harding and others against the schooner Freemason.
On June 15, 1780, there were libels on behalf of Simon Eliot and others against the British sloop Annapolis of 20 tons.
9. New York Packet, August 1, 1776.
10. It is possible that Daniel Brocklebank's reputation as a shipbuilder and the knowledge of his intention to commence shipbuilding operations at Whitehaven, England, then the fourth port in the Kingdom, may have influenced Paul Jones to attack Whitehaven. The Ranger in which this attack was made had been fitted out by French friends of Paul Jones (himself a native of Kirkbean, Kirk- cudbrightshire, Scotland), at Nantes, with eighteen six-pounders and six swivel guns.
It is recorded in the Cumberland Pacquet, published at Whitehaven on March 9, 1779, that the Castor, under command of Captain Brocklebank, on her homeward passage from New York, took an enemy vessel and sank her and that she in company with the Lively, of Bristol, retook a privateer be- longing to London taken a few days earlier by the General Sullivan, privateer, which was in sight at the time.
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On November 20, 1780, there was a libel in behalf of Timothy Weston and all concerned in private armed schooner Gen. Wadsworth against an armed schooner of 1 5 tons, name and master unknown.
On July 31, 178 1, the privateer Reprisal, commanded by Benjamin Frizel of Pownalborough, a galley with four guns and twenty-five men, had a bond (to the Treasurer of the United States obligating the captain not to transgress the rules for privateers) signed by Benjamin Frizel, Samuel Gardner and Benjamin Hichborn, the last two being merchants of Boston.11
The brigantine Neptune, 1 19 tons, Alexander Askins, master, built at Pow- nalborough in 1788, owned by the brothers Joseph and Abiel Wood, had a claim the year she was built, but the nature of it is unknown.
In 1792 the ship Union, built at Bristol and enrolled at Wiscasset, was de- tained at Bordeaux. The owners were Thomas McClure and James Noble, the latter being her commander.
When the first decade of peace had elapsed following the Treaty of Paris, war began between France and England. Each nation in the European struggle tried to prevent food supplies of wheat flour and meat from reaching the other. The commerce in these products was lucrative to all concerned and American merchants in defiance of the blockade in Europe carried their goods to both countries. But when these nations committed depredations on American shipping and the merchants and ship-owners alarmed began to withdraw their carriers from the ocean, the effect was such upon the treasury that Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State, in a circular issued in 1793, as- sured the merchants that due attention would be paid and restitution made for any injuries which they had undergone on the high seas or in foreign countries contrary to the existing laws of nations.
Relying upon these assurances, many ships put to sea and a long line of captures followed. England fulfilled her obligations and paid for those she took, but France, while acknowledging her liability advanced a counter-claim for the non-fulfillment of treaties of 1778 and 1788, guaranteeing forever her possessions in the West Indies, acquired or to be acquired as an equivalent for the supplies furnished by her in our Revolution.
The two successive missions sent to Paris, whose commissioners were to require indemnity for spoliations and to secure a release from the obligations imposed by the Treaty of Alliance with France, have been already mentioned in the French spoliation claims.
II. Papers of the Continental Congress, 196, Vol. 12, p. 107.
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In 1793 the Industry, a snow12 of 28 tons built at Bristol, Maine, in 1789, and enrolled at Wiscasset, was bound from Bristol to Boston under command of Captain Trask. She arrived in Boston on Friday, June twenty-sixth and the captain reported that on the sixth day out, after a chase of eight hours, he was brought to by the French privateer, L'Esperance, carrying twelve guns and sailing under English colors.
Captain Trask was ordered to lower his boat and go aboard the privateer with his papers, but having a heavy boat to launch, was unable to obey prompt- ly, and during the delay which ensued the foreign vessel hoisted the flag of the French Republic and fired a gun across her bow. Captain Trask, with his boat's crew, was detained on board L'Ésperance, while the French seamen manned their boat and boarded the Industry, where they lost no time in searching the trunks of the passengers, seizing their papers, and returning with them for inspection; but on finding only American property everything was restored to them.
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