Category Archives: Privateers

The Schooner Mammoth sets sail on a privateer cruise to Havana

Baltimore at Sea, Privateers, , , , ,

On March 22, 1814, the Mammoth set sail for Havana on a maiden voyage with commander Samuel Franklin and a large crew of 100 seamen. Built by Thomas Kemp in 1813 for $40,000, the Mammoth was the largest privateer schooner built in Baltimore at the time, weighing 376 tons and measuring 112′ by 28’3″ by 13’4″. When ship was commissioned on March 7, the ship’s owners included John Gooding, Samuel Smith, James Williams, and James A. Buchanan.

With special thanks to volunteer Dennis Lilly and the Maryland Historical Society, we are excited to follow the first two voyages of the Mammoth from March through late October. The ship’s log acquired by the Maryland Historical Society in 2009 is likely a period copy of the original as the pages are clearly written and there are no water stains or other evidence of hard use from a long sea voyage.

Over the next few months, you can stay tuned for more daily updates on the lives of the Baltimore seamen on board the Mammoth but if you don’t mind the spoilers we have a quick preview of the events that lie ahead for this schooner.

Armed with 10 cannons, the Mammoth sailed to Havana where she unloaded her cargo then cruised the Caribbean, teaming up with two other privateers, to burn and harass the substantial English trade. In late spring, the Mammoth sailed north and put into Portsmouth on May 27 and stayed until June 23, 1814. The Mammoth’s second cruise began with a foray of burning English fishing vessels off the Grand Banks, where her attack on an armed English brig (probably the Sinclair) was repulsed. On October 10, 1814 she engaged in a long cannonade against an English transport, the Champion, which resulted in her capture. Mammoth transferred her cargo, and then returned the shot-up vessel to her commander. Franklin then sailed the Mammoth to Ireland, where she cruised, burning a number of captured vessels. She arrived back in Portland on November 15, 1814.

This post is adapted from the Maryland Historical Society Finding aid to The Schooner Mammoth Logs, 1814 and The Schooner Independencia del Sud, November, 1817 – January, 1822 MS 3082.

Havana Harbour and City From A Dictionary, Practical, Theoretical, and Historical of Commerce and Commercial Navigation, by J. R. (John Ramsay) McCulloch, 1882.
Havana Harbour and City, 1882. LEARN NC, 9277.

 

On March 19, 1814, Captain Thomas Boyle and the Comet arrived at Beaufort, North Carolina where he ended his third and final cruise as the ship’s commander.

Excerpts from Boyle’s log were published in the Baltimore Patriot where he gave an account detailing their voyage from their escape from the Chesapeake Bay in October to the ship’s battle with the Hibernia in January to the “large man of war brig” that gave chase on March 5 before his ship “out sailed her with ease.” Boyle concluded the with satisfaction, writing:

On the 19th, arrived at this place after a cruize of 5 months, and being chased during that time thirty four times, by frigates and men-of war brigs, but always out sailed them.

Advertisement: For Sale… the Privateer Schooner Chasseur, now ready to sail

For Sale
American and Commercial Daily Advertiser, January 13, 1814

On January 13, 1814, Thomas Kemp advertised the “Privateer Schooner Chasseur” for sale and Captain William Wade prepared to take the ship out on its first cruise. Built by Thomas Kemp for local merchant William Hollins, the Chassuer launched on December 12, 1812 but failed miserably in two attempts to evade the British blockade of the Chesapeake on commercial ventures with the second trip ending in mutiny.

Captain William Wade took command in February 1813 after the ship received a privateer commission and brought recent experience privateering as a second officer on the Comet under Captain Thomas Boyle. The Chasseur weighed almost twice as much as the Comet (resting in Puetro Rico after a damaging fight with the Hibernia just days earlier) and already had a reputation as one of the fastest top sail schooners built to date. Even with Wade’s experience and the ship’s speed, getting past the British might be a difficult task.

12 at Midnight; The Hibernia Attempting to Run the Comet Down

Thomas Whitcombe (British, ca. 1752/63-ca. 1824). 12 at Midnight; The Hibernia Attempting to Run the Comet Down, 1814. Oil on canvas. 31 1/2 x 21 1/2 in. (80 x 54.6 cm). Mr. and Mrs. Drew Peslar
12 at Midnight; The Hibernia Attempting to Run the Comet Down, 1814, Thomas Whitcombe. Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

On January 11, 1814 at half-past midnight, the British ship Hibernia fought desperately against an attack by The Comet.  Over a year before, in December 1813, the 187-ton Baltimore-built Comet slipped past a British blockade of the Chesapeake Bay and sailed south towards the Caribbean. The ship’s captain, Thomas Boyle, carried a letter of marque from President James Madison—one of five hundred letters Madison issued authorizing private ships to bring the fight to British shipping across the Atlantic.

In a little over a year at sea, Boyle and his crew recorded an astonishing twenty-seven prizes. They were on their way back to Baltimore when the ship spotted and engaged the 800-ton Hibernia in the early afternoon of January 10. After hours of maneuvers and exchanges of cannon fire that continued into the morning hours of January 11, both ships were badly damaged.

Contradictory accounts of the conflict do leave some room for interpretation. British sources, including excerpts from the British ship’s log, suggest the Hibernia was disabled, with only six cannons and a skeleton crew but still managed to kill twenty of Boyle’s crew in a desperate defense. Popular American sources describe the Hibernia differently—a formidable opponent with twenty-two guns and a full crew that left the Comet badly despite Boyle’s brave assault.

The battle ended inconclusively before dawn. The Comet retreated to Puerto Rico for repairs before finally returning home in Baltimore on March 17.

'Hibernia' Beating off the Privateer 'Comet', 10 January 1814: Returning to Port
‘Hibernia’ Beating off the Privateer ‘Comet’, 10 January 1814: Returning to Port, Thomas Whitcombe. National Maritime Museum.