The British frigate Endymion was coasting through the waters between Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard on the afternoon of 11 October 1814 when her lookouts spied what appeared to be a schooner and a ship. The schooner particularly concerned the frigate captain, Henry Hope, because swift-sailing American schooner privateers had visited serious losses to British merchant shipping over the previous two years of the War of 1812. As Hope’s frigate closed with the strange vessels, it fell calm. Undeterred, the captain dispatched his boats to investigate, using the cloak of darkness to mask their approach. The craft, however, were spotted. Moments later, rounds started to fall around the boats, but the men pushed on “in the most determined manner, repeatedly cheering.”1
The Endymion had encountered the American privateer Prince de Neufchatel under her veteran skipper, Jean Ordronaux. The Napoleonic Wars had driven Ordronaux, a Frenchman by birth, to privateering. He commanded the French privateer Marengo on several cruises before eventually anchoring in New York Harbor, with one American newspaper reporting, “The crew boast of having made their fortunes, and say they are coming on shore.”2
Ordronaux did not remain unemployed for long. The War of 1812 led to new employment opportunities for someone with his experience. Late in 1813, he put the finishing touches on his new command, the 310-ton Prince de Neufchatel. Though lookouts on board the Endymion had identified her as a schooner, this was not quite correct, though a logical mistake. Her mainmast was in fact rigged as a schooner, but her foremast was rigged like that of a brig, with square sails. This odd combination, known as a hermaphrodite, made her a formidable raider when she sailed from New York on 2 November 1813.3
Prizes Captured, Prizes Lost
It took 43 days before Ordronaux took his first prize, the Pomona, a merchant vessel from Newfoundland. A capture had no value unless successfully taken to a port where vessel and cargo could be sold. This involved placing some of the privateer’s crew aboard the prize and trying to slip her past the various patrols of Britain’s Royal Navy. It was one thing to be on board a privateer such as the Prince de Neufchatel. Designed for speed with large crews and capable commanders, privateers proved difficult marks, but a lumbering merchantman with a minimum prize crew was quite vulnerable. The Pomona lasted a mere 24 hours before the Royal Navy frigate Ethalion recaptured her.4
Ordronaux took eight additional prizes before anchoring at the French port of Cherbourg on 27 January 1814. He largely had preserved his crew numbers by having prizes of less value plundered of their most valuable cargo and then scuttled. Of the more valuable vessels that he sent into a French port to be sold, only one definitely made it. Three prizes, however, remain unaccounted for, demonstrating a recurring historical problem with privateer cruises in the War of 1812: The records are incomplete.5
In Cherbourg, Ordronaux refitted his vessel and recruited new men to replace captured prize crews. Not until early April did the Prince de Neufchatel return to sea for a cruise in the English Channel. Several factors made this an ideal hunting ground. The easiest way to move goods around the British Isles was by water. Moreover, these waters sat at the termination of many trade routes.6 Such factors concentrated merchant shipping, creating vulnerabilities that Ordronaux exploited by capturing six prizes between 4 and 10 April. He sent each safely into the French port of Le Havre.
One British merchant traveled there to protest the capture of his vessel and cargo, but he concluded, “All my interferences at this place has been in vain as the American consul here has the very extraordinary power of condemning vessels sent in by American privateers, without interference of the French government.” The law allowed the owner of the prize the legal recourse to contest the legitimacy of a capture, but the slow speed of communications meant that standardization proved impossible, with local circumstances leading to variations in procedure.7 In this case, an American prize in a French port created legal ambiguity; both France and the United States were, however, at war with Britain at the time the captures occurred, and the Americans had the support of French authorities in Le Havre.
Canvas A’Plenty and Dangerously Fast
At sea, Ordronaux continued to ply the English Channel, taking two more prizes on 15 April. The first was recaptured, but the second made it to the French port of Barfleur.8 The Prince de Neufchatel was by now poorly manned, with eight prize crews absent, when her lookouts spied two ships. They were too large to be merchantmen and in fact turned out to be the 74-gun British ship-of-the-line Achilles and the frigate Sybille. Though these warships had come up empty searching for French frigates, an American privateer was a tempting morsel. The Prince de Neufchatel, however, held several advantages.
Privateers generally had oversized masts and spars. These allowed them to spread more canvas (though often at the expense of safety). Moreover, the Prince de Neufchatel was more lightly built than the British warships, reducing weight and allowing for increased speed. Finally, her schooner-rigged mainmast allowed her to sail closer to the wind than the square rigs used on most warships, including all of Britain’s ships-of-the-line and frigates.9 These circumstances made the Prince de Neufchatel nimble, but sailing her entailed a high degree of risk that only an experienced commander and crew could mitigate. The Prince de Neufchatel had such a commander and crew, leading to an easy escape from the Achilles and Sybille.
When Ordronaux returned to Cherbourg, he found the situation much different than when he left. Napoleon’s defeat and abdication had led to changes in loyalty. One American newspaper wrote about the Prince de Neufchatel, “We understand, our new friends there immediately employed themselves in preventing her from breaking the peace of the [English] channel in future; they took out her guns, dismantled her, and released a prize which she sent into that port.” Being disarmed in what had become a neutral port was not what Ordronaux desired. He could do little, however, but ride out the wave of dislocation resulting from the fall of Napoleon and await an opportunity to sail. This finally occurred on 4 July 1814.10
Ordronaux pressed across the Bay of Biscay before steering south along the Portuguese coast toward Cape St. Vincent at the southwestern corner of the Iberian Peninsula. During July, the Prince de Neufchatel gobbled up five prizes, but all were small and several were in ballast or had cargo with little value, such as the lumber-laden Jane. In other cases, Ordronaux had more valuable cargo transferred to his privateer, including bale goods from the Steady and coffee and wine from the Triton. He ordered each of his prizes destroyed. Burning proved more effective, though a plume of smoke or glare of fire had the potential to betray the privateer’s position. The case of the Triton highlighted the danger of scuttling. The British naval sloop Tuscan found her half submerged, towed her to Gibraltar, and salvaged her remaining 65 pipes of wine.11
False-Flag Operations
Ordronaux often had the Prince de Neufchatel hoist English colors. This was an acceptable deception as long as nothing overtly hostile such as firing at or capturing a vessel occurred under false colors. Moreover, it proved quite effective in the case of an encounter with an English merchant brig on 26 July. She was a poor prize, being in ballast with a heavy armament of eight guns, and had a sizable crew of 30. As such, Ordronaux pretended to be a fellow English merchant vessel and gained intelligence that she had encountered several British warships searching for American privateers. He thus obtained information on British deployments with no one on board the English brig knowing the Prince de Neufchatel’s true identity.12
With the Royal Navy closing in, Ordronaux shifted his cruising ground into the waters between Britain and Ireland. In 11 days during mid-August, the privateer took seven prizes, destroying four. Two of the prizes, including a packet boat with 50 passengers, were allowed to proceed, but only after Ordronaux used them to rid his privateer of numerous prisoners. The seventh capture was the 295-ton Harmony. Ordronaux kept this valuable prize in company while he pondered her fate. Four days later, off the southwestern corner of England, he decided to scuttle her after transferring part of her cargo to his privateer. In the midst of this task, lookouts spied the Royal Navy sloop Brisk. The Prince de Neufchatel had the manpower and quickness to escape, but the Harmony was easy prey.13
Ordronaux now had a depleted crew, no prize, and a privateer full of plundered cargo. Returning to a French port was too risky given political conditions, so he sailed for the United States. On the way, the Prince de Neufchatel captured three merchantmen. Ordronaux destroyed two, but he manned the Douglass, for she was a rich prize of 420 tons, laden with coffee, rum, molasses, sugar, ginger, and mahogany logs from the West Indies.14
On 9 October, the Prince de Neufchatel and her prize arrived off Nantucket. Several days later, her lookouts sighted a strange sail. Though her size and movements led Ordonaux to conclude that she was a warship, calms prevented the escape of either the Prince de Neufchatel or her prize. The strange sail was in fact the British frigate Endymion, and as the day ended, Ordronaux expected that his opponent would use the approaching darkness to disguise a boat attack. The odds of repelling such an assault, however, seemed long because only 38 officers and men remained on board the Prince de Neufchatel.15
Shootout with John Bull
At about 2030 a lookout spied approaching British boats, and the Americans immediately opened fire. A lucky shot took out the portside rowers on board one of the British barges. Simultaneously, a strong, unexpected current caused the crippled barge to veer into the other boats, leaving all five of the Endymion’s boats in a tangled mess under murderous American fire. Though falling fast, the British reorganized, steeled themselves by cheering, and pressed home their attack with utter desperation. The privateersmen responded with their own cries.16
The British were now disorganized and their effort uncoordinated, but several of the boats still reached the Prince de Neufchatel. The attackers attempted to board but found that they lacked the proper scaling equipment, for the American privateer was larger than expected. Even so, the British made repeated boarding attempts, and a few finally made it onto the privateer’s deck. The Americans rallied, wounded several of the boarders, and drove the remainder back into their boats.17
The men on board the smallest of the Endymion’s boats, a gig, tried to cut the privateer’s cable, but the discharge of a cannon stunned the gig’s crewmen, forcing them to give up the attack. As they withdrew, they chanced upon three of the other boats. They were in much worse condition, being riddled with shot and full of casualties, so the gig towed them back to the frigate. The last of the Endymion’s boats, the launch, surrendered, but the British had little choice, having lost 8 dead and 20 wounded out of 36 on board.18
The battle took scarcely 20 minutes, but it proved bloody, with the British admitting 17 dead including the Endymion’s first lieutenant, 45 wounded, and others captured. The Prince de Neufchatel survived with minor damage, but her crew did not escape lightly. Of the 38 men who defended the privateer, only 8 avoided injury or death.19
On board the Douglass, the prize master had watched the attack. He held little hope for an American victory given the poorly manned state of the privateer. To keep his prize out of British hands, he ran her onto the Nantucket shore. With the help of locals, the prize crew emptied the Douglass of cargo.20
Meanwhile, Ordronaux, slightly wounded himself, got the Prince de Neufchatel under way and slipped into Boston. Since departing Cherbourg on 4 July, she had taken 15 prizes, but only one made it to the United States, and she was on shore. Ordronaux had destroyed most of his prizes but not before transferring cargo to his privateer with a total value of $200,000 to $300,000. Ordronaux was now a wealthy man, especially when adding the value of his earlier prizes. Moreover, repulsing the boat attack gave him something few privateer commanders attained—the honor of victory at high odds against the Royal Navy. Rather than prepare his ship for another voyage, he relinquished command to his first officer.21
Fate Met at Last
Boston harbor buzzed with activity during mid-December 1814 as the crews of the Prince de Neufchatel and the U.S. frigate Constitution prepared for sea. All that awaited their departure was a storm to mask their escape, for the British had a powerful blockade squadron off the port that included the 50-gun Newcastle, the 44-gun Acasta, and the 18-gun Arab. As the long-awaited gale developed, the British warships sought shelter in a protected bay, leaving the route to sea open when the Constitution sailed on 17 December. The Prince de Neufchatel followed four days later. Only the next day did the Arab emerge from her sheltered anchorage and make a reconnaissance of Boston Harbor. Meanwhile, the Americans pressed across the Atlantic.22
As the British gathered intelligence, the 50-gun Leander under Captain Sir George Collier joined the squadron. Collier, now the senior officer, received reports indicating that the Constitution was not the only American warship to have sailed. Though incorrect, this led Collier to take his large frigate along with the Newcastle and Acasta in quest of the Americans. Just after sunrise on 28 December, British lookouts sighted the Prince de Neufchatel. This was an unexpected surprise, for American warships, not privateers, had factored into British decisions. The Leander pursued, while Collier had the Newcastle and Acasta cut off the Prince de Neufchatel’s escape. Collier’s warships were powerful Royal Navy frigates, for they had to be prepared to fight the large and capable American frigates such as the Constitution.
When the British warships had sighted the Prince de Neufchatel, one of her crew explained, “The brig looked more like a wreck, than the staunch proud ship of the week previous.” This was due to a gale that had nearly caused the privateer to founder the night before. If this was not a great enough disadvantage, her lookout had deserted his post, making the privateer blind at the very moment that Collier’s warships appeared on the horizon. Moreover, the Prince de Neufchatel had been sighted at exactly the wrong time, for the British had all the hours of daylight to come up with their prey. As it turned out, they needed every minute. Only at sunset did the British force the elusive vessel to surrender.23
Among the more successful American privateers in the War of 1812, the Prince de Neufchatel amassed more than 30 prizes, but this number proved deceptive. Some had little value, while the Royal Navy recaptured others. Only about a third reached a friendly port. Still, there was a reputation surrounding the Prince of Neufchatel, cemented by her action against the Endymion’s boats. Collier concluded: “I had the good fortune . . . to capture the celebrated privateer Prince de Neufchatel. . . . She had been chased during former cruises by upwards of sixty different British men of war & frequently under their guns nor did she bring to in the present instance till the shot from this ship and the Newcastle were flying over her.”24
Though 60 warships is probably an exaggeration, the Prince de Neufchatel certainly had several narrow escapes. This belies larger issues for American privateers. Their British opponent maintained extensive deployments in all weather conditions, and undertook commerce protection in such a manner as to make privateering a high-risk proposition for even the most effective of America’s privateers.
1. Hope to Hotham, 11 October 1814, Hull History Centre (Hull University Archives), Hull, UK, HUL U DDHO/x1/7/2. Essex (Salem, MA) Register, 19 October 1814.
2. Leroy Wilson Kingman, The Kingman and Ordronaux Families (Oswego, NY: Gazette Printing Office, 1911), 28. Alexandria Gazette, 7 September 1811. National Intelligencer, 20 August 1811. Boston Commercial Gazette, 17 October 1811.
3. New Jersey Journal, 31 May 1814. Essex Register, 19 October 1814.
4. Heywood to Croker, 19 December 1813, Admiralty Papers (hereafter ADM) 1/1948/495, the National Archives (hereafter TNA), Kew, UK.
5. New Jersey Journal, 31 May 1814. “Shipping News,” Essex Register, 21 May 1814. New York Herald, 11 May 1814. Faye Kert, “The Fortunes of War: Commercial Warfare and Maritime Risk in the War of 1812,” The Northern Mariner (October 1998), 2.
6. Kevin D. McCranie, “The War of 1812 in the Ongoing Napoleonic Wars: The Response of Britain’s Royal Navy,” The Journal of Military History, October 2012, 1,071–75.
7. Baltimore Patriot, 25 July 1814. New-England Palladium, Boston, 24 June 1814. Richard Hill, The Prizes of War: The Naval Prize System in the Napoleonic Wars, 1793–1815 (Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1998), 95–104.
8. Baltimore Price Current, 9 July 1814.
9. The (Boston) Repertory, 23 June 1814. Navy Board to Admiralty, 4 May 1815, TNA, ADM 106/266. Henry Adams, “The War of 1812,” History of the United States during the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison, H. A. DeWeerd, ed. (New York: Cooper Square, 1999), 153–54. Brian Lavery, Nelson’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1793–1815 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 73.
10. National Advocate, New York, 24 June 1814. Baltimore Patriot, 21 October 1814.
11. Baltimore Patriot, 21 October, 23 November 1814.
12. Baltimore Patriot, 21 October 1814.
13. Baltimore Patriot, 23 November 1814. New England Palladium, 18 October 1814.
14. Baltimore Patriot, 21 October 1814.
15. Essex Register, 19 October 1814.
16. Hope to Hotham, 11 October 1814, HUL U DDHO/x1/7/2. Essex Register, 19 October 1814.
17. Ibid.
18. Daily National Intelligencer, 23 October 1814. Essex Register, 19 October 1814.
19. Casualty Report in Hope to Hotham, 11 October 1814, HUL U DDHO/x1/7/2 (American sources often include different numbers). Essex Register, 19 October 1814.
20. Daily National Intelligencer, 23 October 1814.
21. Essex Register, 19 October 1814. Rhode Island Republican, 5 April 1815.
22. Stuart to Griffith, 23 December, Stuart to Collier, 24 December, Collier to Griffith, 29 December 1814, TNA, ADM 1/1668/21.
23. Collier to Griffin, 24, 29 December 1814, TNA, ADM 1/1668/21. Josiah Cobb, A Green Hand’s First Cruise, Roughed out from the Log Book of Memory, of Twenty-Five Years Standing, 2 vols. (Boston: Otis, Broaders, 1841), vol. 1, 93–4.
24. Collier to Griffin, 29 December 1814, TNA, ADM 1/1668/21.