Sailing Ships And Privateers.

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Document ID 9708202
Date 10-04-1952
Document Type Newspapers (Shipping News)
Archive Public Record Office, Northern Ireland
Citation Sailing Ships And Privateers.; PRONI D 2015/3/1; CMSIED 9708202
21958
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Broadcast copy:

             "SAILING SHIPS AND PRIVATEERS" 2/3
                           No. 2.
                  a talk by Capt. R. H. Davis



TRANS:         THURSDAY 10TH APRIL 1952.       7.15 - 7.30 p.m.



ANNOUNCER:  This is the Northern Ireland Home Service.
            "Sailing Ships and Privateers". Here is Captain
            R. H. Davis to give the second of a series of three
            talks.    Captain Davis .........

CAPT.
DAVIS:    In 1776, shortly after our American Colonies had
     declared their independence, a bill was passed in the
     English Parliament granting Letters of Marque and
     Reprisal against all vessels belonging to the thirteen
     colonies, and from that time onwards it was a ding dong
     struggle - American naval ships and privateers
     capturing British ships and vice versa. Later on we
     had a combination of enemies when France, Spain and
Holland, all maritime countries, joined in the struggle
against us. The Americans had the advantage of being
able to send their prizes into any continental
belligerent port, while the only ports open to us were
our own. All parties were debarred from getting a
prize condemned while she was in a neutral port. In
later years there was an interesting law case; it was
really a test case, in which a Belfast ship owner
claimed that his ship, which was taken into a neutral port by a
privateer, was unlawfully condemned as a prize. In 1798 the
Belfast ship "Hannah" was seized on the coast of Norway by a
French privateer and carried into Christiansand, a neutral port,
where she was condemned and sold by an alleged French Consular
Court of Admiralty. She was purchased by a Mr. Issacson
of Christiansand who, some two years afterwards, loaded her
with a cargo of timber for Belfast, where she was seized at the
suit of Mr. Wood, her original owner. The case was of much
interest
in the Mercantile world and on its decision the fate of many
others of a similar nature depended. The hearing extended over
two years and was finally determined in His Majesty's Court of
King's Bench in Ireland, judgement being given in favour of the
plaintiff, Mr. Wood.
     But to return to the 1770's. With only, as a rule, a
skeleton crew on board, a prize ship was easy game when on its
passage to port it was intercepted by an enemy ship, and it was
nothing unusual for an owner to hear by one mail that his ship
had been taken by the enemy and a few mails later to hear that
she had been re-taken. The first Belfast ship to be taken by an
American privateer was a snow named the "Jenny". A snow was a
vessel with a rig slightly different from a brig. The "Jenny"
arrived in Belfast in December 1776 and reported that when bound

from the Barbadoes to Belfast she was captured by an American
privateer who took all the crew out of her except her master and

a lad, and with her prize crew on board she was sent to
Providence, Rhode Island. When off Long Island she fell in with
a
King's frigate which retook her and carried her into New York,
at
that time in our hands. About this same time another Belfast
vessel arriving in Dublin from Antigua, reported that she had
been chased and boarded by the "Surprisal", a privateer of
eighteen
guns, belonging to Philadelphia. The Captain of the Belfast ship
was
taken on board the privateer and after his ship's papers had
been
examined, the Captain of the "Surprisal", told the Belfast
Captain that he would not distress him, because he said he was
sure an Irishman would not distress him, and after being on
board
about an hour the Belfast Captain was given back his papers, his
ship and cargo was released and he was returned to his own
vessel
with best wishes for a safe passage. The privateer Captain may
well have been an Irishman himself who knew that nowhere in this
country was there so much sympathy with the Colonists as in the
North of Ireland. His decision may have been influenced by the
fact that many of the rebels were of Ulster birth or descent.
     An extraordinary case of a ship being retaken was that of
the brig "Loyalty". The vessel belonged to Belfast and was
taken by a French privateer in 1778. All the crew was taken
out with the exception of two boys, Robert McClelland and Robert
Horseman and a prize crew of thirteen Frenchmen were put on
board
to take her into Martinique. Thirteen in this case proved an
unlucky number for the Frenchmen. On the second day, the prize
crew made free with the contents of the Captain's spirit locker
and all hands became gloriously drunk. When they were all below
in the cabin having a good time, a sail appeared on the horizon.
The two boys quietly closed and secured the cabin scuttle and
then brought the ship to the wind to await the approaching
vessel. Fortunately she turned out to be a small British
privateer belonging to Antigua. The stranger in turn put a prize
crew on board and carried her into one of the Leeward Islands
where the Frenchmen were sent to a prison camp.


                        - 4 -


     Another vessel that was handed back to her master, almost
at our own door, was a vessel named the "Industry". On her
arrival at Belfast in September 1779 her master made a
deposition to the effect that North of the entrance to
Strangford
Lough he was boarded by a boat from the American privateer
"Black
Prince" which carried a crew of a hundred and thirty men.
Before bringing him on board the privateer, the officer in
charge
of the boat relieved the deponent of ten guineas in gold, some
silver, his watch and buckles and a quantity of wearing apparel.
He was detained on board for nearly three hours and was then
allowed to return to his ship, and he arrived in Belfast at
five o'clock the same day. While on board the Black
Prince, off the Copelands, she took a sloop bound from Liverpool
to Larne which was ransomed for two hundred guineas, she then
continued north and was observed passing Larne at 3.00 p.m.
In her next voyage, on her arrival at Cork, the "Industry"
reported that the Belfast privateer "Amazon" had arrived off
Madeira for a supply of provisions was was (sic) forced to sea
again by the violence of the weather and had not returned
before the "Industry" had sailed.
     The "Black Prince", which I have mentioned, for a while
played havoc in the channel with our shipping. She was
commanded by a man named Patrick Dowling and it was said that
both he and the majority if his crew belonged to Rush in County
Dublin. Early in March 1780 both he and his ship were much in
the news. A letter was received in Dublin from Holyhead
reporting that two of the mail packets, the "Hillsborough" and
the "Bessborough", were taken by the "Black Prince" and a
consort
named the "Princess" which accompanied her. The letter stated


                       - 5 -


that it was believed that the privateer intended landing at
Rush with her plunder. The authorities on receipt of the letter
at once called out the volunteers from four different Corps.
The Merchant Corps were joined by detachments from the Dublin
Goldsmiths, the Liberty, and the County Volunteers, three
hundred
men in all marched for Rush at midnight, and on arrival there
surrounded the town when it was found that owing to a heavy
South West Gale blowing, the privateer had been unable to make
the harbour.
     Apparently there was many renegades serving in enemy
privateers a number of which carried Letters of Marque from both
France and America and fought under whichever flag suited. In
October 1781, a letter was received by the owners of a Belfast
ship - a cartel ship named the "Statesman" - which had carried
French prisoners of war to a channel port. The letter said -
"This place is full of privateers, the greater part of whose
crews are English or Irish". Further on the letter went on to
say that a sailor from one of the privateers had told the writer
that his vessel was being prepared for service in the Irish
channel where they hoped to make their fortune by capturing some
of the Belfast linen ships. A linen ship would certainly have
been a valuable prize as mention is made that on occasions these
little ships had a cargo valued at a hundred thousand pounds.
In addition to linens they sometimes had bullion on board. The
statement of the captain of the cartel ship as to English and
Irish crews being on board was verified when less than three
moths afterwards, the Stag frigate brought into Dublin a large
cutter privateer named the Anti-Briton that had been fitted out
at Dunkirk. She was commanded by John Kelly, a native of Rush,
and there were twelve ransomers on board to the amount of sixty
thousand pounds. In all, ninety-eight persons were taken out
of her and all but seven were lodged in Newgate on the charge of
being traitors.
     But to return to Belfast ships. On the 21st April, 1781,
the Belfast ship, "Eleanor", sailed from the Cove of Cork for
the
Barbadoes and within twenty-four hours was taken off Cape Clear
by the American privateer "Junius Brutus" belonging to Salem.
She was fitted with twenty guns and had a crew of a hundred and
fifty men. In the next few days the "Junius Brutus" captured
three other vessels, two of them belonged to Newry and were also
bound to the Barbadoes. Not wanting to be troubled with too
many prisoners, the captain of the "Eleanor" and a number of
others were given a boat to carry them ashore and they all
landed safely at Crookhaven.
     In September of this same year, 1781, our friend of the
"Black Prince", Patrick Dowling turned up again. This time he
was in command of a privateer flying French colours, the
"Fantasie", and although only eight days out from Dunkirk had
already taken seven prizes, among them the Belfast brig "Bell"
appears to be one of the last Belfast ships taken before the
declaration of an uneasy peace which lasted for ten years.
Owing to the approach of this peace, in January 1783, orders
were received at Belfast to suspend all recruiting, and a few
weeks afterwards a hundred and fifty men who had joined the
navy at Belfast were paid off, and already Belfast ships were
being advertised for New York and Philadelphia. On the 21st
February our local press published the King's Proclamation,
dated the 14th of the cessation of arms with the States General
of the United Provinces and the United States of America.





ANNOUNCER:          Captain R. H. Davis will give the third and
               last account of "Sailing Ships and Privateers" on
               Wednesday next, 16th April, at five minutes past
               seven.