Historia Obscura

The Case of the Spanish Prize Ship at Dauphin Island

December 8, 2014 in American History, general history, Louisiana History

The HMS Sophie gives chase to a privateer

Capt. Nicholas Lockyer of HMS Sophie was furious when he gave the order to weigh anchor just off Grande Terre island on Sept. 4, 1814. He and his fellow British officers had been released a couple of hours earlier from a sleepless night in a crude, dirty cell where they had been subjected to threats and jeers from mostly French Baratarians throughout the night. His demands to see Jean Laffite had been steadfastly ignored until the morning, when Laffite had shown back up, profusely apologizing for his men’s behavior towards them after he had left the British suddenly following their attempt to bribe him into service.

The day before, Lockyer had brought the Baratarian leader British letters seeking to entice him to join the British campaign to seize Louisiana, but now he could tell that visit had been a precious waste of time, and he had to report empty-handed to his commanding officer Sir William Percy of HMS Hermes.

First he had to return four pilots to the Balize at the mouth of the Mississippi, where he had picked them up a few days earlier to help him navigate the tricky tides of Barataria Pass at Grande Terre. Why he needed four pilots for this job is unknown.

New research has found Army Commanding Officer Charles Wollstonecraft at Fort St. Philip had gotten word from one of these pilots about the visit Sophie made to Laffite, as he wrote about it in a letter to Gen. Andrew Jackson on Sept. 13, 1814: “About a week past, a British Schooner, the Sophia (sic), took from the Balize four pilots, she sailed for Barataria bearing a white flag & in her passage drove two privateers on shore; the Capt. of the Sophia, landed under the flag, but was detained & his flag insulted: he was afterwards liberated, & last Thursday, returned the pilots to the Balize. Since Thursday (Sept. 8), no vessel has been in sight at the Balize, except our (Patterson and Ross) squadron [on their way to raid the Laffite stronghold at Grande Terre on Sept. 16.] The smugglers have been informed of the intended attack for some time past, & it is reported, are well prepared for it, & determined to stand out to the last; it is also said, that they are very strong, in men & vessels.”

Returning back to Lockyer and the Sophie’s voyage after dropping off the pilots, fortunes improved for the beleaguered captain when he spied one of those fast Baratarian pirate schooners in tandem with a captured Spanish prize ship not far from the mouth of the Mississippi. He ordered the men to tack toward the pirate, called everyone to battle stations, and smiled. Perhaps he could get at least one of those schooners for Percy.

According to American Major Howell Tatum’s daybook journal of General Andrew Jackson’s troops and activities, the Sophie did do battle with a Baratarian privateer which had earlier captured a Spanish ship. The privateer schooner seems to have eluded Lockyer’s grasp, probably by darting into the light draft shoal areas of the coastline where the heavy British warship dare not go. Shots may have been fired, but apparently none landed on the warship, as the Sophie bore no scars when she showed back up at Pensacola. The Baratarian prize master and crew of the heavy Spanish brig could not take advantage of the shoals without stranding, and the Sophie managed to get the prize to heave to, boarded her, and replaced Laffite’s Baratarian prize master and prize crewmen with British officer and sailors from the Sophie.

Lockyer was nettled that he hadn’t managed to get that privateer schooner for Percy, but the Spanish brig prize was at least something. The governor at Pensacola would likely be grateful to see it back with cargo intact. The trip to meet with Laffite wouldn’t have been a total loss. However, Lockyer didn’t count on the tricky waters near Dauphin Island. Absent a knowledgeable pilot, the prize master of the British ship didn’t know the lay of the shoals there, and the Spanish brig foundered__not far from the American garrison at Fort Bowyer. Lockyer could just look back in dismay as the Sophie sailed away to meet its deadline, hopeful that when the British attacked the fort in a few more days that the Sophie men could be retrieved safely. He decided it was best not to tell Percy about this misadventure until after they had captured the fort.

However, according to Tatum’s account, the Spanish prize ship was re-captured by an expeditionary party under the command of Major William Lawrence at Fort Bowyer. The prisoners taken on board were the British prize master, six British sailors, and three Spanish sailors (who had been among the original crew of the unnamed Spanish vessel).

No information is given for what transpired with the hapless prizemaster and crewmen from the Sophie, but they were likely sent to General Andrew Jackson at Mobile along with the three Spaniards. Jackson took one look at the Spaniards, and decided to use them as hostages against the irritatingly uncooperative governor of Pensacola, Don Mateo Gonzales Manrique, who had allowed the British to send armed war parties of British and Indians into the Mobile area.

On the night of September 3, 1814, a considerable firing of musketry was heard from the east side of Mobile Bay in the direction of the houses and mill of Jean D’Olive of the Town of Mobile. According to Tatum, early the next day, Jackson learned an attack had been made on d’Olive’s house, where an overseer and three black slaves had been taken and carried off for Pensacola by Indians and British of that place, part of Woodbine’s hostile corps. Another slave who had escaped related the information, and although a party was immediately sent in pursuit, due to the tedious delay in crossing the bay for want of a proper boat, the raiding party completed their mission in safety across the Perdido and escaped to Pensacola with their prisoners.

As the Indians previously had been allowed by the British to commit such acts of violence as scalp-taking and the like, Jackson determined to hold the luckless Spanish seamen from Penscola as hostages to insure the safe return of the men taken from d’Olive. In a scorching hot letter to Manrique, Jackson wrote that if anything happened to d’Olive’s men, the Spanish governor was assured that the hostages Jackson had would be made to answer, “Eye for Eye, Tooth for Tooth and Scalp for Scalp” for injuries suffered by the d’Olive group. Jackson was particularly incensed because a few days earlier, Manrique had sent him a letter in which he claimed he had armed those Indians who later had committed the attack, with his excuse being that he had armed them as a measure of precaution to meet any attempt of the American government to invade Pensacola as they had formerly done to Mobile. Jackson quite naturally considered this breakdown in trust as overwhelming evidence that the Spanish were placing themselves in a “belligerent” state against the US, and validated his response in holding the Spanish crewmen as hostages.

Thus the first strike that warned Jackson of the true intentions of the British and Spanish was the raiding party on the d’Olive plantation.

As Tatum, Jackson’s topical engineer, states: “Serious apprehensions were now entertained, by many, for the safety of Fort Bowyer. The (British) vessels lying at Pensacola were believed to be merely the van of a much larger naval force destined to act in these seas, and accompanied (perhaps) by land forces intended for the reduction of Mobile and occupation of West Florida.”

The Sophie joined with Percy as he led the Hermes along with two other British ships from Pensacola to Fort Bowyer on Sept. 11. The first battle of Fort Bowyer a few days later was lost by the British when Percy’s Hermes grounded twice right in front of raking fire from the Americans, and he was forced to abandon ship and set fire to her.

No mention is made in any records of exactly what happened with the Spanish prize ship that grounded near Dauphin Island. There are some indications in the New Orleans Notarial Archives that maybe boats under Comm. Daniel T. Patterson’s direction offloaded the ship, as mention is made of a Spanish ship in distress on Dauphin Island at that time. The ship seems to not have been there when the British ships made their attack a few days after it foundered, and there are no records of Lockyer ever telling Percy about capturing the ship from the Baratarian privateer.

Jackson never did get a satisfactory reply from Manrique, and by late November 1814, the Spanish prisoners still lingered in irons in his camp. They had first been captured by Laffite’s men, then rescued by the Sophie, then captured by the Americans, then held in strict privations in what must have been miserable conditions. Their fate, like the fate of the British prize master and Sophie crewmen from the Spanish ship, remains shrouded in mystery.

Additional Historia Obscura articles for more information:

The British Visit To Laffite: A Study of Events 200 Years Later

Capt. Percy’s Folly at Fort Bowyer

Commemoration of a Hero: Jean Laffite and the Battle of New Orleans

Daniel Todd Patterson’s Secret Visits to Dauphin Island in 1814

Tags: 1814, Andrew Jackson, Barataria, Capt. Nicholas Lockyer, Charles Wollstonecraft, Fort Bowyer, Gulf Coast history, Hermes, Jean Laffite, Major Howell Tatum, Major William Lawrence, New Orleans, Percy, privateer, Sophie, Spanish prize. Pensacola, War of 1812 Comments Off on The Case of the Spanish Prize Ship at Dauphin Island

by Aya Katz

Andrew Jackson’s Fine and the Place of Martial Law in American Politics

November 21, 2014 in American History, general history, History, Legal History, Louisiana History

Andrew Jackson by Thomas Sully From Wikimedia Commons

Andrew Jackson resented mightily the fine imposed on him by Judge Dominick Hall in New Orleans in 1815 for contempt of court. At the very end of his life, with death approaching, Jackson campaigned for the return of the thousand dollar fine through an act of Congress, and his efforts were rewarded. “He viewed the return of his fine as a larger statement about the legitimacy of violating the constitution and civil liberties in times of national emergency.” (Warshauer, p.6) That is the crux of the problem presented in Matthew Warshauer’s Andrew Jackson and the Politics of Martial Law: Is it ever all right to violate the constitution? Did Andrew Jackson set a precedent that it was, a precedent later followed by Abraham Lincoln and every wartime president since?

The fine was levied by the Federal District Court in 1815. It was refunded to Jackson by Congress in 1844. But did this refund really serve as a justification of martial law? Or was it just a sign of appreciation for a dying former president and national war hero?

The term “martial law” was at one time a synonym to “military law” and used to describe the legal tradition of absolute law – one characterized by a lack of civil liberties – that applied to those who served in the military while they were in active service. Only later, after the Congressional debates concerning the refunding of the Jackson fine, did “martial law” come to mean giving the military absolute authority over civilians in times of emergency. (Warshauer, p. 17).

Nationalism, according to Warshauser, was the force that allowed the constitutional limits on military authority to be breached, not just in the case of Andrew Jackson, but for every member of the executive branch since who has invoked emergency powers:

To many, Jackson represented the pinnacle of American nationalism. The Battle of New Orleans had invested him with the highest claims of patriotism and devotion to country… Jackson’s understanding of his nationalist appeal is one of the items that made him a formidable politician and president. Subsequent presidents have embraced the same political use of nationalism. Lincoln focused on the sanctity of the Union during the Civil War and … embraced martial law. Consider also the nationalism fomented by Franklin Roosevelt in the midst of the Great Depression. He utilized the overwhelming nationalist support of the 1936 election to challenge the Supreme Court’s threats to his New Deal legislation. … [E]ngagement in World War II was impossible without nationalist sentiment … in the form of … Pearl Harbor…Similarly, George W. Bush could not possibly have engaged in a war against Iraq … or curtailed civil liberties with the Patriot Act without the nationalism spawned by [9/11]. (Warshauer p. 18)

Did Andrew Jackson really invent American nationalism? Did it not exist before that moment in 1814 when he arrived in New Orleans? When exactly did American nationalism come into being? And what does the term mean in this context? Is it just a another word for patriotism? Or does it mean loyalty to one’s nation of origin?

It was not that sense of nationalism that led to the American Revolution. Abigail Adams, writing to her husband John, on November 12, 1775 referred to the common origin of the Americans and the British: “Let us separate, they are unworthy to be our Brethren. Let us renounce them and instead of supplications as formerly for their prosperity and happiness, Let us beseech the almighty to blast their counsels and bring to Nought all their devices.” Notice that there is no question that the British were the brethren of the American colonists. It was just that they weren’t worthy! If on national grounds alone, the Americans and the British were one people. But the American colonists’ insistence on the civil liberties secured to all Englishmen applying also to themselves was the reason for the separation. If anything, this was anti-nationalism. Civil liberties trumped national unity.

Andrew Jackson, while still a minor, served in the Revolutionary War. He defied the British, his brethren, at the risk of his life. When exactly did he become a nationalist? Could it be when he entered the City of New Orleans and realized that he would need to get Edward Livingston to translate everything he said to French before he could address the people of the city and hope to be understood?

To an ill-educated boy from the rural south, New Orleans was cosmopolitan and foreign. It was filled with people who had just recently been French and only a little earlier had belonged to Spain, and it was more foreign by far than the invading British forces! “Concerns over spies and dissent within the largely foreign city prompted Jackson to proclaim martial law.” (Warshauer p. 19). Jackson did not trust the people of New Orleans precisely because they were not his brethren!

While Jackson’s feelings of being outnumbered by foreigners in a city whose defense was chiefly his responsibility might be quite understandable, both retrospectively in 1842 when the congressional refund debates began and maybe even prospectively in 1814, the situation he was placed in came about through the extra-constitutional machinations of Thomas Jefferson in 1803.

There was no provision in the constitution for new territories –and the human population that lived within them– to be bought and sold at taxpayer expense . The provision for new states to be brought into the Union presupposed that the majority of those living there would petition to join of their own free will. And it was probably presumed, at the time of the writing, that these new people would be brethren who had colonised large wilderness areas and had come to outnumber the natives who were there first.

But Anglo-Americans in New Orleans were outnumbered by French Creoles and Cajuns, free blacks, Spanish merchants, Catholic clergymen and nuns, both French and Spanish, whose oath of loyalty was to the Pope before any State or monarch, and any number of other “foreigners” or at the very least, people who sounded and looked foreign, even though they were now legally American citizens, Louisiana having just joined the Union as a state in 1811.

Would Andrew Jackson ever have considered imposing martial law if he had been stationed in a state such as South Carolina during the beginning of the War of 1812? There, it was the local free white males who had failed to obey the orders of their governor, Joseph Alston, thereby leaving the state without a defense force during the beginning of the war. A writ of habeas corpus had been issued to free deserters from the militia, because the possibility of dying of malaria was felt to be much more real than any just-declared war against Britain.

The unusual state of affairs in New Orleans due to the Louisiana Purchase is one of the factors that led to Jackson’s decision to invoke martial law. He did not trust the citizens of New Orleans, because they seemed foreign. It is not, however, something that comes into the legal argument that was derived from this precedent, which was later applied against his own brethren by President Lincoln in the context of a civil war.

Andrew Jackson was not, in fact, the first American general to attempt to impose martial law on New Orleans, although he was the first to make it stick as a legal precedent. The first to impose martial law in American held New Orleans was General James Wilkinson, who was also, at the time, the Governor of Louisiana Territory, and his purpose in so doing was not to repel a foreign invasion, but to apprehend and disenfranchise Aaron Burr and his friends Erich Bollman and Samuel Swartwout, whom he accused of plotting to take over the Western territories and separate them from the United States.

At the time, Edward Livingston, also a friend of Burr’s, had just barely escaped being summarily arrested as well. Writs of habeas corpus were ignored and the attorneys presenting them threatened with arrest. Deprived of the right to counsel, the prisoners were transported by the military branch of the government and kept without right to trial. As it happens, James Wilkinson had been a Spanish spy, and it was in his capacity of an agent of Spain that he acted to repel Aaron Burr’s attempt to filibuster his way through Texas and Mexico. Which is a reminder that a person does not necessarily need to be a foreigner to serve as both a spy and a traitor.

Andrew Jackson was aware of these past events, for he, too, just like Bollman and Swartwout and Edward Livingston, was a good friend of Aaron Burr and a supporter of his would-be venture against Spanish held Mexico. He stood by Burr during the treason trial in Richmond, and he was aware of the Supreme Court decision in Ex Parte Swartwout and Ex Parte Bollman that stated that the right to habeas corpus may not be infringed by the executive branch unless Congress passed a law suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Thomas Jefferson had wanted to pass such a measure through Congress in his eagerness to foil Burr, but Congress did not grant his wishes.

So here was Andrew Jackson, like James Wilkinson before him, suddenly declaring an emergency and suspending the writ of habeas corpus. What would be the right course of action for anyone disagreeing with Andrew Jackson’s imposition of martial law? To file a motion for a writ of habeas corpus? It was exactly the right so to do that had been suspended. To openly rebel against the armed forces of the United States? Even if successful, that would open anyone so doing to a charge of treason.

The right to a writ of habeas corpus and to be free of martial law is one of those things that get hammered out in a court of law after the fact. They cannot under normal circumstances be resolved in the heat of the moment. Even in Ex Parte Bollman first the right to habeas corpus was suspended, and only later was this ruled to be unconstitutional.

One difference between the two cases was that the United States was not in fact at war when James Wilkinson tried to suspend the writ, so that the Supreme Court was still sitting, and it was possible to appeal directly to the highest court on a question of jurisdiction, even if lower court judges were imprisoned for speaking up in New Orleans. But America was under siege in 1814, and in August of that year the capital had been burned by the British. Government buildings were still in shambles at the time of the Battle of New Orleans.

Before the Battle of New Orleans the pragmatics of the situation and the extreme gravity of the British threat allowed Jackson to do whatever he chose without real resistance. Any checks and balances to his actions of a constitutional nature could only come too late and after the fact. This meant that restitution and/or a fine could be levied against Jackson later, but nobody could get an injunction to prevent him from doing whatever he chose to do right then.

Jackson was fully aware of this state of affairs. He asked the counsel of two legal advisors before he took this step:

Jackson’s advisors, Edward Livingston and Abner Duncan, ultimately concluded that martial law suspended all civil functions and placed every citizen under military control. The lawyers disagreed, however, on the legality of the proclamation. Livingston believed that it was “unknown to the Constitution or laws of the U.S.”… (Warshauer p.23)

On December 16, 1814 Andrew Jackson issued his proclamation imposing martial law on the City of New Orleans. “All who entered or exited the city were to report to the Adjutant General’s office. Failure to do so resulted in arrest and interrogation. All vessels, boats and other crafts desiring to leave the city required a passport, either from the General or Commodore Daniel T. Patterson. All street lamps were ordered extinguished at 9:00 p.m., and anyone found after that hour without a pass was arrested as a spy. New Orleans was officially an armed camp and General Jackson the only authority.” (Warshauer p.24)

It was ironic that Daniel T. Patterson was given almost equal authority with Andrew Jackson, since if there was ever a British sympathizer in the city of New Orleans, he, rather than the French speaking populace, must surely have been guilty. It was after all Patterson who attacked the Baratarian privateers, destroying their base, and capturing their ships, when Jean Laffite informed him that the British were anchored off Mobile Point and about to attack Fort Bowyer and offered to help him fight the British. But Daniel T. Patterson was an American naval officer, and Jackson trusted him implicitly. There was nothing foreign about him.

Among other powers that Jackson summarily granted himself with this proclamation of martial law was the power to draft into the militia or impress into naval service any person and to confiscate property, which included fencing, the wood in the walls of “negro houses”, muskets and flints, and even bales of cotton. Nothing taken was paid for, though receipts acknowledging the confiscations were provided.

Every slave, horse, ox, and cart was requisitioned for military use, and the general authorized the enlistment of all Indians within the district to serve on the same footing as the militia. Mayor Nicholas Girod received orders to “search every house and Store in the City for muskets, Bayonets, Cartridge boxes, Spades, shovels, pick axes and hoes”…

From the point of view of second amendment rights, it seems interesting that arms were being confiscated from their owners, rather than the owners simply being enlisted in the militia and asked to bring along their own weapons in the service of their country. This does not seem like the well-regulated militia contemplated by the second amendment. Instead, arms were taken from the people who owned them and being redistributed to other people who were considered more trustworthy.

While all this conscription and confiscation was going on under the guise of martial law, the thing that truly saved the city came in the form of a donation freely given. Jean Laffite and his Baratarian artillery unit were eager to serve and happy to donate flints and powder and artillery – if only the General would allow them to enter the city! As there were not enough flints available in the city, this donation was indispensable. It was in grudging cooperation with the Baratarians that Jackson was able to win the Battle of New Orleans and with that the undying gratitude of the nation. The glorious battle culminating in an American victory on January 8, 1815 led to much rejoicing, including public displays in the the Place d’Armes in which Baratarians alongside other American volunteers marched proudly, and at a banquet for high ranking officials, Jean Laffite stood side by side with Andrew Jackson as an honored hero. And then… everything should have gone back to normal, only it didn’t.

The citizenry of New Orleans may have grumbled, but they were by and large accepting of Jackson’s actions imposing martial law prior to the Battle of New Orleans. Despite his suspicion of them, most did not want to submit to the British and did everything they could to support the defense of the city. It was only after the American victory and when rumors that a peace treaty had been signed began to circulate that people started to openly rebel and inquire as to why it was that in peacetime martial law had not yet been lifted. “Desertions and mutiny among American troops prompted even more arrests. No longer perceiving a threat to their city after the January 8 victory, the citizens of New Orleans demanded a return to their former lifestyles.” (Warshauer p.31)

Businesses had been neglected. All commerce had ceased. Families lost their breadwinner. All this was acceptable during the thick of war, but the sooner things went back to normal once the war was over, the less suffering to the citizenry. Jackson, however, held onto wartime measures without any compunction for the suffering he was inflicting, long after the danger from the enemy was past. He ordered deserters imprisoned, then shot. One man, Pvt. James Harding, who deserted to help his wife who had been evicted from their home, was granted a reprieve from execution only at the last moment. These deserters were not career military, but ordinary citizens who had been glad to serve their country when the help was needed, but who had obligations in civilian life that were now pressing. Many residents of New Orleans of French and Spanish origin who had been happy to serve in the thick of battle were now starting to ask the French and Spanish consuls to provide them with exemptions on the grounds that they were really French or Spanish citizens. Everything that had united the residents in defense against the enemy was now conspiring to separate them in light of the continued iron rule of Andrew Jackson’s martial law. (Warshauer pp. 32-33.)

In mid-February, more than a month after the British had retreated for good, boarded their ships and disappeared, Jackson attempted to scare the citizenry into obedience by saying that “the enemy is hovering around us and perhaps meditating an attack.” (Warshauer p.32). Rather like an incompetent parent conjuring up the bogeyman to get children to obey, Jackson needed an invisible enemy to keep the people of New Orleans in line.

On February 24 Governor Claiborne wrote to exiled Attorney General Stephen Marerceau: “I can no longer remain a Silent Spectator of the prostration of the Laws. – I therefore request you, Sir, without loss of time to repair to this city… and resume your official duties…. And on receiving any information of any attempt of the Military to seize the person of any Private Citizen, not actually in Military Service of the United States, you are specially instructed to take for his protection, and for avenging the Injured Laws of this State such measures as your knowledge of the laws will point out.” (Warshauer p.34)

On March 3, an article appeared in the Louisiana Courier signed anonymously by “A Citizen of Louisiana of French Origin”:

[I]t is high time the laws should resume their empire; that the citizens of this state should return to the full enjoyment of their rights; that in acknowledging that we are indebted to General Jackson for the preservation of our city and the defeat of the British, we do not feel much inclined, through gratitude, to sacrifice any of our privileges, and less than any other, that of expressing our opinion of the acts of his administration….

The article was penned by state senator Louis Louaillier, and one of the chief acts of the administration that he complained of was bringing citizens before military tribunals “a kind of institution held in abhorrence even in absolute governments.” Two days after the article appeared, Jackson had Louaillier arrested and warned that any person serving a writ of habeas corpus to free Louiaillier would also be imprisoned.

If Jackson wanted to prove himself a tyrant, then there could have been no better way to do it. A request for a writ of habeas corpus had in fact already been made before Federal Disrict Court Judge Dominick Hall. Hall, who had been appointed by none other than Thomas Jefferson in 1804. Hall equivocated momentarily on the issue of jurisdiction – was this a Federal or a State matter? – then granted the request. No sooner had Judge Hall granted the motion for a writ of habeas corpus, then Andrew Jackson had him arrested for “aiding and abetting and exciting mutiny within my camp.” In Jackson’s mind, the entire city of New Orleans was his camp and every citizen, from Federal Judges to state senators to the lowliest householder – was a soldier at his beck and call. (Warshauer pp.35-36)

And this might never have ended, if not for the arrival of an official notification on March 13 to Andrew Jackson of the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent.

Signing of the Treaty of Ghent
Wikimedia

But as soon as the treaty, which had already been signed on December 24, 1814, while the Battle of New Orleans was ongoing, by Ambassador John Quincy Adams for the Americans and by Admiral of the Fleet James Gambier, and that was ratified by the Prince Regent ( aka George IV) on January 30, 1815, was also ratified by the U.S. Senate on February 18, 1815, it was in fact the law of the land. There was only one problem: Jackson had not been told about it through proper channels. Yes, he’d heard about it. But not through official channels. And Andrew Jackson always went by the book.

As soon as Jackson received notification of the peace of Ghent being ratified by all parties, he revoked martial law and all the many prisoners were released, those exiled were allowed to come back to the city, and the case against Jackson was brought to court. United States v. Major General Andrew Jackson was what it was called, Judge Hall presided, and when all the legal arguments were settled Andrew Jackson was found in contempt of court and fined one thousand dollars, which, without admitting any wrongdoing, he paid.

Jackson was not forced to spend a single day in prison, despite the many he imprisoned. He was not forced to undergo any corporal punishment such as a flogging that many an impressed sailor had to undergo, he was not court martialed, nor executed summarily like the men had shot, he was not stripped of rank and dignity, he was not forced to go into exile like Aaron Burr after his acquittal for treason, and he did not lose his military pension. For violating the most important provisions of the constitution, including the first and second amendments, while in the pay of the United States, it was a mere slap on the hand.

But to Jackson it rankled, and so he hoped that one day he would be vindicated. In fact, he has been, not merely by the Congressional award in 1844 of his fine with interest, but by the political reality and even by the narrative that is told today by historians.

The argument on either side has always been a question of constitutionality versus necessity, as first formulated by Edward Livingston. Those who felt Jackson’s imposition of martial law was not constitutional to this very day seem to argue that it was nevertheless necessary. Matthew Warshauer is certainly one example: “Can one violate civil liberties if doing so saves the government that provides those civil liberties? …However much one might like to disdain Jackson for military rule, he did in fact save the city in a victory that was unprecedented and perhaps impossible without martial law.” (Warshauer pp. 44-45.)

Do governments provide civil liberties? Or do the best of them merely stand aside and not infringe on civil liberties that the people are already endowed with? The declaration of independence seems to argue for the latter and to deny the former. Is the rise of American nationalism referred to earlier in the text by Warshauer in fact just a rise of statism, having nothing to do with nationality or patriotism, but with the state’s supremacy over individual citizens? And did Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans because he imposed martial law or despite his unpopular and unconstitutional wielding of absolute power? This depends on whether one acknowledges the contributions of Jean Laffite and the Baratarians.

James Wilkinson — What a real spy looks like

Warshauer distinguishes between unfortunate excesses to be deplored — the jailing of a Federal judge and a state senator in time of peace for expressing opinions or issuing writs — and the need for thwarting spies and saboteurs. But the belief that martial law is a good deterrent against spies or saboteurs (today known as terrorists) is misguided. In a war against the British, the enemy looked and acted just like us. It would not have been possible to tell who was a British sympathizer based on their place of origin or the accent they used when they spoke, the clothes they wore, their twirling mustaches or their overall manner. The man issuing passes was just as likely to be a British sympathizer as the lowliest citizen with a foreign accent. Foreign-sounding names like Louaillier and Laffite did not necessarily imply lack of loyalty, when real spies during that era had names like Arnold or Wilkinson, and British sympathizers were often called something like Patterson. The color of a person’s skin meant nothing when real spies — whether for England or Spain — had the rosy complexions and the clean shaven faces of Englishmen. You simply could not look at someone and tell that he was a spy, and while there were in fact spies (it was not all paranoia), no spy was ever caught thanks to the unconstitutional measures imposed by martial law.

It is true that when Andrew Jackson entered the city in December of 1814, there was a spirit of disaffection between the people of New Orleans and their American-imposed government, but it was not because they were sympathetic to the British. On the contrary, they hated the British fiercely, and it was only to the extent that the Americans behaved like the British that this disaffection carried over. Tax collectors and revenuers, men of the Revenue Cutter Service, were thwarting the commerce of the United States, first under the color of the Embargo Act, and later the Non-Intercourse Act, laws which were in fact unconstitutional and contrary to the spirit of the American revolution. Governor Claiborne’s real difficulty was in getting rid of smugglers and privateers who fought the British and then sold their goods to the citizens of New Orleans at a fraction of the cost. This was galling both to the tax collector and to the American merchants who had bought British goods at full price despite the embargo, but it was in fact a service to nation in its fight against the British. The crux of the disagreement between the people of New Orleans and their state Governor and with Commodore Patterson of the Federal government was who should pay for waging war. But to suggest that the citizens of New Orleans would not have fought to defend their city from the British unless they were conscripted under Jackson’s martial law is deeply misleading and offensive.

Who fights better, conscripts or volunteers? You can lead a man to battle, but can you force him to fight? How helpful were the bales of cotton, the fencing and the muskets and cartridges that were confiscated, when not placed in the willing hands of their owners to do battle for New Orleans? How many men who wanted to serve were alienated by being forced to serve? How many “foreigners” were sacrificed so that native born double dealers like Daniel Patterson could make money off stolen goods from Barataria? Wasn’t the Battle of New Orleans won largely through the generosity of Jean Laffite who donated flints and powder, artillery and trained men, who had learned professional shooting as privateers and could make important contributions to both tactics and strategic planning? Didn’t Andrew Jackson himself commend the dedication of Dominique You and Renato Beluche?

We don’t have to question the good intentions of Andrew Jackson to note that what he did was wrong. The excesses under martial law that we deplore are the natural and inevitable consequence of absolute power, and even the most well-intentioned man will fall into them as a result of wielding that power. When President Madison asked that Congress approve a declaration of war against Britain, it was impressment of sailors by the British that served as a pretext. Can impressment of sailors by Andrew Jackson be justified as a response to that? Or was the willing contribution of privateers to the success of the Battle of New Orleans the real reason the war was won?

References

Davis, William C. 2005. The Pirates Laffite: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf. Harcourt.

Hunt, Charles Havens. 1864. Life of Edward Livingston. D. Appleton and Co.: New York.

Kennedy, Roger. 1999. Burr, Hamilton and Jefferson: A Study in Character. Oxford University Press.

Warshauer, Matthew. 2006. Andrew Jackson and the Politics of Martial Law. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/abigail-adams-reveals-anger-toward-great-britain.html

http://www.historiaobscura.com/commemoration-of-a-hero-jean-laffite-and-the-battle-of-new-orleans/

Tags: Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Baratarian, Baratarians, Battle of New Orleans, Dominick Hall, Dominique You, Edward Livingston, Ex Parte Bollman, fine for contempt, Jean Laffite, Judge Hall, Louiaillier, Louis Louaillier, Louis Louiaillier, Louisiana militia, Louisiana Purchase, Louisiana State, martial law, Matthew Warshauer, New Orleans, privateers, Renato Beluche, Samuel Swartwout, Swartwout, Thomas Jefferson, Warshauer 4 Comments »

by Pam Keyes

Cobbett the Body-Snatcher, or What Happened to Thomas Paine’s Corpse

October 27, 2014 in American History, general history, History

Thomas Paine as he may have looked when Cobbett unearthed him.

Even before Thomas Paine had died, at least one of his “friends” had designs on acquiring his skull.

John Wesley Jarvis, an artist who was a close associate of the author of “Common Sense,” asked Paine once, in a rather morbid but friendly mood, if he would permit him to have his skull to study when he was dead, considering Jarvis had a “thing” for the study of craniology, and, being a younger man, would likely survive the American Revolution’s firebrand author. Paine replied “No, let me alone when I am dead; I should not like my bones to be disturbed.” However, Paine got only a decade of repose in the grave before his bones went rambling, and it is likely today those same remains are yet above ground, thanks to another “friend” who dug him up in the fall of 1819.

Radical newspaper editor William Cobbett, an on-again, off-again British resident of the United States, decided Paine’s forlorn final residence beneath a walnut tree on his New Rochelle, N.Y., farm was greatly ill-suited to someone he considered a fellow countryman, plus a revolutionary patriot, and all around “great man.” So the best thing to do, in Cobbett’s eyes, was to hire his printshop man Benbow plus a couple of others to head out with a covered wagon one night, and dig Paine up by lantern light so they could body-snatch the corpse and smuggle it away by ship to the country of his birth, where a suitable interment and ceremony would be held on sacred ground at St. Paul’s Church. Yet another friend of Paine’s happened to be riding by around that time, saw them in their nefarious act of grave-robbery, and alerted the local constables, but Cobbett’s men succeeded in dashing away with the coffin and mouldering contents. Cobbett, with Paine’s body packed in a probably musty-smelling large trunk, then left quickly for England by the ship Hercules as newspapers both bemoaned and applauded the act in America.

“Tom Paine has of late become literally a ‘bone of contention.’ Mr. Cobbett, it was reported, had formed a determination to ship off the rotting carcass of his fellow countryman, that it might finish the process of putrefication in the land where it germinated. Upon this, a very respectable writer observes_‘It is as it should be__let England be the sepulcher of her own blasphemy.’ The Democratic Press, and the National Advocate, take offence at such sentiments; and aver that Mr. Cobbett, if he has done the foul and ‘sacriligious’ deed, ought to be sent to the state prison,” wrote the editor of the Northern Whig of Hudson, N.Y. on Oct. 19, 1819.

The National Advocate of New York opined that they hoped the report of Paine being disinterred “is not true: we cannot bring ourselves to believe, that an act of sacrilege, so daring__so repugnant to every feeling of patriotism, has been committed by William Cobbett..remove the bones of a revolutionary patriot, from the soil which he eminently assisted in liberating, and send them to moulder in a land of slavery? What could have induced such an act? ….Whatever the errors of Paine may have been on the subject of religion, he is to be judged by a Higher Tribunal, whose rights no earthly power can usurp. As a patriot, he laboured indefatigably and successfully in achieving the Independence of America, and America is deeply indebted to him: let his errors be forgotten, and his good deeds, alone, remembered__and let no sacrilegious hand disturb his bones.”

Meanwhile, Cobbett’s “Igor” grave-robber, Benbow, sought to defend his actions at the New Rochelle farm by penning a letter to the National Advocate newspaper:

“Sir, In answer to numerous questions relative to the removal of the bones of the greatest man of the age, in which he lived, who lay in a state of degradation, and whom, as an Englishman, I claim as my countryman, I have to say we mean to raise a colossal statue in his memory, which will prove to you, in the first place, the value we as Englishmen set upon the merits of Mr. Paine; and on the other hand, will prove to you, as Americans, your ingratitude, neglecting, as you have done, the man, who had done more, ten times told, than any other person, towards emancipating America from British slavery. However, Mr. Paine’s remains are gone to the land where they will be honored; and, being instrumental in the removal, forms one of the happiest periods of my life.”

(Benbow appears to have had a very mean life indeed if he counts thieving a corpse from a grave at night like the resurrectionists of the period as the happiest time he had experienced.)

The editor of the City of Washington Gazette in November, 1819, wrote that “It must be admitted that Mr. Paine, with a few honorable exceptions, has been treated very scurvily in the United States…..Mr. Paine believed in a future state…in his treatise on dreams & c. (he) expressly states that he expected to exist hereafter. In truth, he was of too philosophical a turn of mind, and had too logical an intellect, to believe anything else. His infidelity extended no farther than to an unbelief in the Divinity of the Christian system. “

Paine had thought he would be buried in the Quaker church cemetery near his New Rochelle farm, but upon his death in 1809, that congregation refused him from being interred in their consecrated ground due to his unconventional religious beliefs, or lack thereof.

The public was so enthralled by the story of Tom Paine’s travels after death, one unknown author even wrote a witty and dark poem about it, which appeared in the New York Daily Advertiser. Some sample verses include what happened once Cobbett arrived in England with his moldy cargo:

“He grasps the atheist’s skull and cries—

Here are the bones of mighty Paine,

Bro’t in this box across the main—

His dreary grave I search’d and found,

And dug these reliques from the ground—

A spot neglected, wrapp’d in gloom,

A dismal, cheerless, hopeless tomb,

With briars and nettles overspread,

And covered with the hemlock’s shade.”

One wonders what Edgar Allan Poe would have done with this sort of inspiration: perhaps Paine would have quoth “Nevermore!”

Back to Cobbett & co., when he arrived at Liverpool, his luggage was taken from the vessel to the custom house to undergo the usual inspection. When the last trunk was opened, Cobbett observed to the surrounding spectators, who had assembled in great numbers “here are the bones of the late Thos. Paine!” This declaration exacted a sudden and visible sensation, and the crowd pressed forward to see the contents of the package. Cobbett remarked that “great indeed must that man have been, whose very bones attracted such attention.”

The customs officer took out a coffin plate, inscribed “Thomas Paine, aged 74, died 8^th June, 1809,” and having lifted up several of the bones, replaced the whole and passed them. The captain of the Hercules did not know the trunk had human remains in it until he arrived in Liverpool.

To welcome the corpse thief Cobbett back home, some of his political friends in Liverpool decided to have a public meeting with a special dinner in his honor (it is not known if Paine was invited also), but the weather turned out to be treacherous with snow and ice, and not many turned out. Cobbett gave a lengthy justification for unearthing and importing Paine, particularly in having once abused the very man whose bones he now intended to honor. This he did by citing he had had immaturity of judgment and want of experience at the time he had attacked Paine in print in Philadelphia years earlier, and because Paine was then supporting the enemies of his country.

In a life he wrote about Paine in the early 1800s, Cobbett ripped him with the following poisonous pen:

“How Tom gets a living now, or what brothel he inhabits, I know not, nor does it much signify. He has done all the mischief he can in the world; and whether his carcass is at last to be suffered to rot on the earth, or to be dried in the air, is of very little consequence. Whenever or wherever he breathes his last, he will excite neither sorrow nor compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes, not a groan will be uttered, not a tear will be shed. Like Judas, he will be remembered by posterity; men will learn to express all that is base, malignant, treacherous, unnatural, and blasphemous, by the single monosyllable__Paine!”

At the Liverpool dinner, Cobbett said his conscience hurt him about this earlier nastiness, and when he learned how Paine’s bones had been dishonored in America, though he was the founder of her independence, he determined to give his former enemy a more respectful and suitable burial. With respect to his object in bringing the bones to England, Cobbett declared it was to have them exhibited in London to as many people as might choose to see them, thus raising a sufficient sum to create a colossal statue to Paine’s memory.

Later, Cobbett tried to proceed with the plan further by going so far as to try to hawk rings made of locks of hair carefully clipped from Paine’s skull. This last venture appears not to have found many takers.

Paine’s death mask

Within a year of the exhumation, Cobbett had gone bankrupt and had a stay in Newgate Prison, while Paine was exhibited by Benbow. Then the skeleton was stored away in a cellar at Cobbett’s home to enjoy some “quiet time” until Cobbett himself died.

In February 1836, the effects of the late William Cobbett Esq were put up at auction at his farm in the parish of Ash, near Farnham. Towards the end of the sale, a curious large box was brought forward. Auctioneer Piggott opened it, and stepped back quickly, aghast. It was Thomas Paine’s remains, wrapped in several papers. Piggott flatly refused to sell the contents, saying as he had never been a dealer in human flesh, he certainly wasn’t going to now sell human bones. The coffin plate of Thomas Paine was exhibited but went unsold, too.

Thomas Paine’s travels were just beginning, but the mystery of everything that happened to the remains, including his current status, remains a bone to gnaw on for historians.

In the 1870s, the trail of the remains focused mostly on Paine’s skull and right hand, which had stayed in the London area after Cobbett’s death. The second host of the bones was Lord King, a religious and political radical; then they went to a friend of Cobbett’s named Tillett, and disappeared for some years. The next appearance was in the study of the Rev. Mr. Ainslie of Brighton, a conservative Unitarian preacher, who claimed he had the skull.

“As that skull would be invaluable to the admirers of Paine, most of whom are believers in craniology or some kind of cerebral philosophy, Mr. Ainslie has been approached in various ways, but has thus far steadily avoided conversing on the subject. As the Rev. Mr. Ainslie has a good deal of fighting to do with the orthodox of Brighton, there is some ground for a suspicion that he does not wish it to come out that he keeps for secret homage the sacred ashes of St. Tom,” wrote a writer with tongue planted firmly in cheek for the San Francisco Bulletin in 1872.

So where are Thomas Paine’s remains now? Were they sold to a rag and bone recycler in England, as one tale says? Were they made into buttons? Were they dumped in the Thames? Were they kindly reburied? Or does the skull at least still stare out with sightless eyes through a cabinet of curiosities in some macabre collector’s study, the skull that held the mind which one day long ago opined, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

Tags: American Revolution, Benbow, body-snatching, bones, burial, Common Sense, craniology, England, grave robbers, human remains, London, Philadelphia, resurrection men, skeleton, Thomas Paine, William Cobbett 7 Comments »

by Pam Keyes

The Poison Pen Duels of William Duane and Peter Porcupine

October 16, 2014 in American History, general history, History

The Weekly Aurora and Editor William Duane, and at botttom, William Cobbett (Peter Porcupine) and the Porcupine Gazette

Some eight thousand times a day, six days a week, pressmen cranked the heavy wooden press of the Weekly Aurora newspaper of Philadelphia. They were printing platens of tiny type on the Aurora’s eight linen paper pages, much of it poison pen invective written by pro-Jeffersonian editor William Duane against mortal enemy Peter Porcupine (William Cobbett), the editor of the pro-Federalist paper The Porcupine’s Gazette, just a few blocks away.

Duane and Cobbett continued their written vendetta through their respective presses for over 15 years and even across the Atlantic, until, with the end of the War of 1812 and the Treaty of Ghent, the fiery Irishman Duane and prickly Brit Cobbett “buried the hatchet” in early 1815, shook hands symbolically, forgave each other their lying slanders, and called a pax on their maddened mud-slinging.

The editors’ political battles began with the swearing in of President John Adams, whose Executive Mansion residence was just down the block from the Aurora’s press. Both Duane and his publisher, Benjamin Franklin Bache, despised Adams as a Federalist with British monarchist sympathies. The Aurora was a Jeffersonian Democrat political publication friendly toward the French, even during the US Quasi-War with France. Duane began writing lengthy editorials against presidential policies and cohorts, saying “the pen and the press are my formidable weapons,” and he kept his press running scorching hot most of the time. Cobbett, a British emigrant and bookseller in Philadelphia, started the Porcupine’s Gazette the day Adams took the presidential oath, and keenly defended with his quill any critical press about the President or his party, especially coming from the Aurora. Cobbett took up the prickly “nom de guerre” Peter Porcupine for his essays, and chiefly delighted in shredding the Aurora opinions with biting vitriol. In the maiden issue of the Porcupine’s Gazette, Cobbett declared the Aurora and its editorial staff “his enemies,” declaring “engarde!” for a lengthy duel of type fonts, ink, and paper.

Like boxers in a ring, both editors were well-matched: Duane and Cobbett were equally gifted writers, both thrived on provoking controversy, and both likewise found themselves the targets of such unfriendly responses as broken office windows and libel suits from readers who didn’t appreciate being victimized in the press. Both also served stints in jails and prisons for their published opinions. Both were called “crazy.” They thrived in testing the boundaries of a “free” press.

Duane, in conjunction with Bache, produced a noteworthy attack on Cobbett in a June 1796 issue of the Aurora called the “History of Peter Porcupine” in which the authors deigned to give a formal account of the “celebrated manufacturer of lies and retailer of filth.”

“His usual occupation at home was that of a garret-scribbler, excepting a little night-business occasionally, to supply unavoidable exigencies…He took a French leave for France. His evil genius pursued him there, and, as his fingers were as long as ever he was obliged as suddenly to leave the Republic, which has now drawn forth all his venom for her attempt to do him justice. On his arrival in this country, he figured some time as a pedagogue; but as this employment scarcely furnished salt to his porridge, he having been literally without any bread to eat, and not “a second shirt to his back,” he resumed his old occupation of scribbling, having little chance of success in the other employments which drove him to this country.”

Peter Porcupine countered “Their great object is to silence me, but I am sorry to tell them it is all in vain; for I am one of those whose obstinacy increases with opposition.”

Cobbett, not content to just nettle Duane and the Aurora, also made it his particular business to sully the reputation of noted physician Dr. Benjamin Rush, whom he called a murderer due to his bleeding practices while attending patients ill from yellow fever. Dr. Rush sued Peter Porcupine for $5,000 in damages, and as luck would have it, the judge who heard the case happened to have been libelled by Cobbett, too, so the case was found in the plaintiff’s favor, Cobbett was bankrupted, and soon went back home to England to regroup. Duane and Bache gloried in the finding, but not for long. Bache died of yellow fever, and Duane assumed ownership of the Aurora after marrying his publisher’s widow. Cobbett, now back in his British homeland, began publication of a new paper, the Political Register, targeting some British practices as well as his old arch-foe, William Duane. The Atlantic offered no defense from his pen.

In 1802, the Republican newspaper of Baltimore Maryland published an editorial examining the Duane-Cobbett feud thusly:

“On every occasion where the French government has been the subject of discussion, either in its concerns with this country, or its war, or peace with Great Britain, the Aurora man has discovered the strongest predilection for the plundering republic. This he has displayed particularly, in his many false, contradictory and blundering paragraphs, respecting the cession of Louisiana, the bloody scenes in St. Domingo, and the conduct of Le Clerc relative to the property in St. Domingo of American merchants. On all these subjects Duane has manifested a peculiar sympathy with the French; and it was consistent in him, because their conduct and principles are congenial with the depraved sentiments of his own mind, and their revolution has exhibited on a large scale, what he has experienced on a small one__the complete triumph of scoundrelism.

“On the ebullitions of his gall, he has often attacked the ‘noted’ Peter Porcupine (as he affects to call him) and this conduct is natural, for Peter’s enmity to the French republic is as well known as this united Irishman’s cordial attachment. When Porcupine’s house was attacked by the rabble of London, for refusing to illuminate for the peace, our jacobin editor could not suppress his exultation; and with the same spleen has he lately noticed Cobbett’s letters to the British ministers, who negociated the preliminaries with the French agent. But, for his own sake, this MERCENARY ALIEN should be cautious how he introduces the name of Porcupine to the public with disrespect, as it invites an examination of his own character contrasted with that of William Cobbett. Two characters cannot be more dissimilar; and whenever they are mentioned together, the contrast fixes itself on the mind, much to the disadvantage of the hero of Clonmel {note: Duane’s family was from Clonmel Ireland} __The one has always been a consistent, loyal subject; the other, ever since he has been known has been distinguished as a seditious traitor. The one detests the modern French, for their numerous and unexampled crimes against the rights and independence of other nations; the other vindicates them for the same reason. The one has been the scourge of Jacobins and mock patriots; the other their constant panegerist. The one possesses a rough, unequivocal, unaccomodating independence of mind, scorning to wear the livery of any man; the other has been the supple tool, and sycophant of a party ‘no less intolerant, than despotic and wicked.’ The one has been unremunerated for numerous services, in the “defence of his country, of religion and social order; the other has been compensated, with a prodigality disgraceful to the United States, for his wicked labours in the cause of anarchy and atheism. The one has acquired and deserves the thanks of many good men, although they condemn SOME of his publications; the other has merited, though from the fatality of the times, he has hitherto escaped it, a ____.” [One can only imagine what epithet filled in the blank.]

Duane and Cobbett’s pugilistic press matches reached their peak in late 1806, when Peter Porcupine had the nerve to suggest in the Political Register the assassination of his American rival, and said Duane’s earlier banishment from India “has cost us (Great Britain) millions in the other hemisphere (America), and greatly decieved am I,” he opined, “if this cost has yet reached its amount.” Duane wasn’t going to take that lying down, so in one of his typical long-winded rebuttals, he shot Cobbett down in the pages of the Oct. 27, 1806 Aurora:

“Cobbett knew how and by whom and for what purposes the millions were expended in America__he says the resistance of the Aurora to the views and policy of England cost her millions! Where are we to look for the expenditure of those millions? They were not lavished in supporting the Aurora certainly__there was no doing anything with such a man unless you take his life [referring to Cobbett’s statement advising someone should get rid of him] !”

Not content with that, Duane went on: “Millions were expended by England to oppose a single newspaper! And how expended?__Look at the rival newspapers__look at their columns__see English prejudices__English alliances__English laws__even English vices, fashions and follies how they are extolled, defended and held forth for invitation_go farther, look at the columns of those newspapers, opposed to the Aurora, and see the names registered in their advertisements, one of the prices of British devotion is to be found there…. Look at the facts. Why do the merchants shun the Aurora, which prints more papers, and has a more extensive circulation, and more readers, than any other paper in America__and go to papers which have little circulation out of the city, which have less in the union at large, and whose hostility to the American principles of the government are as open and unequivocal as their abject servility to British views!”

Then he took direct issue with Cobbett’s statement there is “no doing any thing with such a man unless you take his life.” Duane wrote, “The editor would be guilty of squeamish affectation or hypocrisy, if he did not most proudly exult in the sentiments conveyed by this pithy sentence. There is no doing with such a man__that is you can neither terrify him from the assertion of his principles and opinion__you cannot corrupt him__and the only mode in which you can get rid of him is by the hand of an assassin.”

Cobbett said in the same Political Register that “Of all the men in America, whether natives or foreigners, whether high or low in life, William Duane has been, and yet is, the most formidable enemy of England.”

Duane responded, “Upon the absurdity of this, no two men in America can form a different opinion; but it was necessary to the end in view that to justify an act of assassination, the object should be made of the greatest possible importance, therefore it is that the hyperbole is resorted to; the publication of Mr. Cobbett was not calculated for Philadelphia where we knew it would be laughed at; it was calculated for London__and by enhancing the supposed consequence of a vigorous and independent press in Philadelphia, and indirectly to obtain a similar credit of consequences for himself there.”

No attempt was ever made on Duane’s life, but he did occassionally suffer vandalism at the offices of the Aurora, when enemies broke windows overnight and kept the glass-installer busy.

When the two battling editors finally called their truce in early 1815, US newspapers were amused but not overly surprised, given that in their late 50s Duane and Cobbett had become milder year by year in their attacks on each other, as each in turn went from radical extremes of political thought to meet more or less in the middle.

According to the Connecticut Mirror of March 27, 1815, “Cobbett…confesses in his paper that when he was in this country, he used to tell lies about Duane, and Duane, unwilling to be left behind in the race of magnanimity, in the Aurora of March 16, 1815, confesses that he lied about Cobbett,__”was his great opponent. We said very bitter things of each other, and some things, which, on both sides, were very false.” Duane continued that in those days of turbulence and terror, “To the violence of which Mr. Cobbett contributed so largely when he was the great opponent of the editor of the Aurora, much was no doubt said concerning Mr. Cobbett which was a matter of inference from the tenor and effect of his writings.”

The editor of the Connecticut Mirror reflected tongue in cheek that “So long as this course is pursued by these patriots, they will not only be secure of the goodwill of the Madisonian party in this country, but their mutual attachment will be beyond the danger of interruption. That sympathy which commences within the walls of a prison and is cemented by a course of lying and scurrility abroad against every thing virtuous and praise-worthy, will be as lasting as life, and will go in full vigour with its possessor to the grave, even if the lenity of the laws should suffer their existence to be lengthened to the ordinary age of man.”

Duane and “Peter Porcupine” remained friends and penpals for the rest of their lives.

So who were these mud-slinging fireballs of the press, and what were their backgrounds, other than that both came from humble origins, and were mostly self-taught?

Born near Lake Champlain, N.Y., in 1760, William Duane was raised by his mother in Ireland, where he learned printing by apprenticeship before he left for India in 1784. In India, he was editor of the popular “The World” newspaper for a brief period before his unfavorable opinions about the East India Company government found him arrested, his goods confiscated, and himself on a swift ship back to England. Undaunted, Duane soon became editor of the “General Advertizer” and continued his controversial writings until disfavor prompted him to return to the United States in 1795. There he joined Benjamin Franklin’s namesake grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, as editor for the Weekly Aurora at Philadelphia, a post he would hold until his retirement in 1822. He died in 1834.

Cobbett was born in Farnham, Surrey, in 1763, and in his youth had been a farmer and then a British soldier who had served in Nova Scotia before being discharged in 1791. He taught himself grammar and essay writing, and then studied printing. After publishing a pamphlet critical of the treatment of enlisted men in the British Army, Cobbett was nearly indicted before he fled to France in 1792, only to have to flee again due to the French Revolution underway. He arrived in the US and moved to Philadelphia in 1793. He ran the Porcupine’s Gazette only a few years before returning to England in 1800, and in 1801 he started the Political Register, which appeared weekly from January 1802 until his death in 1835. He became a member of Parliament late in life.

TO COME: William Cobbett the Bodysnatcher, or What Happened To Thomas Paine’s Corpse

Tags: British, Democrats, England, Federalist, Irish, Jefferson, John Adams, Peter Porcupine, Philadelphia, Political Register, Porcupine's Gazette, Weekly Aurora, William Cobbett, William Duane Comments Off on The Poison Pen Duels of William Duane and Peter Porcupine

by Governor

Talk at Laffite Society Meeting October 14, 2014

October 12, 2014 in Legal History

There will be a talk about the effect of the changing laws about privateering on the career of Jean Laffite October 14, 2014 at 6 pm at the Laffite Society Meeting at the Meridian Towers in Galveston, Texas.

The Effect of the Changing Laws Concerning Privateering on the Career of Jean Laffite

Today, very few people have a clear idea of what privateering is and how it differs from piracy, despite the fact that the United States constitution still has a provision for the issuing of letters of marque and reprisal. Many people think that the word “privateer” is a synonym for “pirate”. But before the War of 1812 privateering was a respectable way of life, and this perception changed after the war. Jean Laffite, who had been both a smuggler and a privateer under a letter of marque from Cartagena suffered considerably from a misperception that he was a pirate.

Some of the laws covered will include The Neutrality Act of 1794, the Embargo Act of 1807, the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 and the Neutrality Act of 1817.

The talk will be preceded by a meeting of the Laffite Society at 6pm and will actually begin at 7pm.

Tags: Aya Katz, Career of Jean Laffite, Embargo Act, Galveston, Jean Laffite, Laffite Society, letter of marque, Neutrality Act, non-intercourse act, privateer, Texas, the business of privateering Comments Off on Talk at Laffite Society Meeting October 14, 2014

by Pam Keyes

Laffite Talk at Battle of New Orleans Historical Symposium Jan. 10, 2015

October 5, 2014 in American History, History, Louisiana History, Native American History, Nautical History

Get your travel plans ready now for the Third Annual Battle of New Orleans Historical Symposium slated Jan. 9 and 10, 2015, at Nunez Community College Auditorium at Chalmette, La., near the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park.

Among featured speakers will be William C. Davis, who will deliver the keynote address about “The Pirates Laffite” at 1:30 p.m. Jan. 10. Davis is the author of The Pirates Laffite, the Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf, largely regarded as the most definitive biography of the Laffite brothers ever written.

“The actions of Jean and Pierre Laffite immediately before, during, and after the British invasion of 1814-1815 and the Battle of New Orleans, have been the stuff of myth and romance for two centuries. The result is that most of what Americans think they know of the story is pure invention, or at best garbled tradition laced with bits of fact. This talk explores the real background of their involvement and carefully follows the documentary trail, such as it is, in some interesting directions that Lyle Saxon and Cecil B. DeMille missed. As so often with the brothers Laffite, the result is a mixed and still somewhat elusive tale of self-interest, patriotism, and betrayal.” said Davis regarding his plans for the talk at Nunez.

Director of programs for the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech before his retirement, Davis is a widely sought speaker who has written over 40 books on Civil War and other Southern US history.

Here is the full schedule for the symposium, which will be presented by The Louisiana Institute of Higher Education:

The Third Annual Battle of New Orleans Historical Symposium

January 9th & 10th, 2015 – at the Nunez Community College Auditorium

(You will hear lectures likely on the very spot that soldiers mustered for the Battle – though some comforts have been added in the last 200 years)

Friday, January 9th, 2015

A British Perspective

10:30 to 10:35 am – Welcome – Dr. Samantha Cavell

10:40 to 11:15 am – The Battle: January 8th, the Fateful Day

Ron Chapman will discuss the Battle, especially the operations on the West Bank.

11:20 to 12:05 pm – Jazz Brunch Demonstrations, exhibits/artifacts, informal interaction

12:10 to 12:45 pm – Cochrane, Tonnant, and the War of 1812: A British Admiral and His French Ship in the American War

William Griffin will deliver a portrait of a dominant yet often dismissed figure in the War of 1812: the honourable Sir Alexander Forester Inglis Cochrane, Knight of the Bath, Vice Admiral of the Red Squadron of His Majesty’s Fleet, Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s Ships & Vessels on the Halifax & Jamaica Sations, as well as of his favourite ship, HMS Tonnant, 80 guns.

12:50 to 1:25 pm – The British Navy – Dr. Samantha Cavell

1:30 to 2:05 pm – What might have happened to America had the British won – Dr. Robert Wettemann, U.S. Air Force Academy Center for Oral History

2:10 to 2:45 pm – Andrew Jackson – Dr. Jason Wiese, Williams Research Center

2:50 to 3:25 pm –Weaponry in the Battle-Philip Schreier, National Firearms Museum

3:30 to 4:05 p.m.-History of the 44th Regiment of Infantry from Activation to Consolidation 1812-1815)-Harold Youman

4:10 to 4:15 p.m.-Closing Remarks-Curtis Manning

All events, including the Jazz Brunches, are free and open to the public. At 3710 Paris Rd., Chalmette, LA. Parking is nearby and free. Contact Curtis Manning (504 512 5120 / manning.curtis@gmail.com) for details

Saturday, January 10th, 2015

An American Perspective

10:30 to 10:40 am – Welcome – Martin K. A. Morgan

10:40 to 11:15 am – St. Bernard Parish in 1815 – Dr. Christina Vella

11:20 to 12:05 pm – Jazz Brunch Demonstrations, exhibits/artifacts, informal interaction, book-signings

12:10 to 12:45 pm– Locals & the land (Chalmette, Denis de La Ronde and Villere)-William Hyland

12:50 to 1:25 pm – Kentuckians – Eddie Price

1:30 to 2:30 pm –Keynote Address – Pirates Laffite – William Davis

2:35 to 3:10 pm – Free People of Color & Slaves – Dr. Ina Fandrich

3:15 to 3:50 pm – The Experience of Defeat: the Influence of the Battle on Post-War National Defense Planning

Martin K. A. Morgan will compare the construction of the U.S. 3rd System of Fortifications after the War of 1812 to the construction of the French Maginot Line after World War I and argue that, in both cases, the experience of defeat led swiftly to a frontier-oriented defensive posture that was both costly and ineffective

3:55 to 4:00 pm – Closing Remarks – Curtis Manning

Tags: Battle of New Orleans, Bicentennial, Historical Symposium, Nunez Community College, Pirates Laffite, William C. Davis Comments Off on Laffite Talk at Battle of New Orleans Historical Symposium Jan. 10, 2015

by Pam Keyes

The Aurora Editor Snipes at Britain, Post War of 1812

September 30, 2014 in American History, European History, general history, History, Louisiana History

The Weekly Aurora of Philadelphia

With one of those quill pens he so often had wielded to acidulously attack targets in his Weekly Aurora newspaper at Philadelphia, Editor William Duane reflected at length in March 1815 about the Causes and Character of the Late War with Great Britain, in an exposition that flowed like a river of tiny type and took up three weeks’ worth of issues of his Jeffersonian Democrat newspaper, a publication which was widely read by both his admirers and his Federalist and British detractors. Duane included the British visit and offer to Jean Laffite in a portion of this work, published March 28, 1815:

“Great Britain has violated the laws of humanity and honor, by seeking alliances, in the prosecution of war, with savages, pirates, and slaves.

…when the war was declared, the alliance of the British government with the Indians, was avowed, upon principles, the most novel, producing consequences the most dreadful_The savages were brought into the war, upon the ordinary footing of allies, without regard to the inhuman character of their warfare, which neither spares age nor sex, and which is more desperate towards the captive, at the stake, than even towards the combatant, in the field. It seemed to be a stipulation of the compact between the allies, that the British might imitate, but should not control the ferocity of the savages__While the British troops behold, without compunction, the tomahawk and the scalping knife, brandished against prisoners, old men and children, and even against pregnant women, and while they exultingly accept the bloody scalps of the slaughtered Americans; the Indian exploits in battle, are recounted and applauded by the British general orders. Rank and station are assigned to them, in the military movements of the Brtitish army, and the unhallowed league was ratified with appropriate emblems, by intertwining an American scalp with the decorations of the mace.

…the savage, who had never known the restraints of civilized life. and the pirate, who had broken the bonds of society, were alike the subjects of British conciliation and alliance, for the purposes of an unparalleled warfare. A horde of pirates and outlaws had formed a confederacy and establishment on the island of Barrataria, near the mouth of the river Mississippi. Will Europe believe, that the commander of the British forces, addressed the leader of the confederacy [Jean Laffite], from the neutral territory of Pensacola, “calling upon him, with his brave followers, to enter into the service of Great Britain, in which he should have the rank of captain; promising that lands should be given to them all, in proportion to their respective ranks, on a peace taking place; assuring them, that their property should be guaranteed, and their persons protected; and asking, in return, that they would cease all hostilities against Spain, or the allies of Great Britain, and place their ships and vessels, under the British commanding officer on the station, until the commander in chief’s pleasure should be known, with a guarantee of their fair value at all events?” There wanted only to exemplify the debasement of such an act, the occurrence, that the pirate should spurn the proffered alliance; and accordingily, Lafitte’s answer was indignantly given, by a delivery of the letter, containing the British proposition, to the American governor of Louisiana.

There were other sources, however, of support, which Great Britain was prompted by her vengeance to employ, in opposition to the plainest dictates of her own colonial policy. The events, which have extirpated, or dispersed, the white population of St. Domingo, are in the recollection of all men.Although British humanity might not shrink, from the infliction of similar calamities upon the southern states of America, the danger of that course, either as an incitement to a revolt, of the slaves in the British islands, or as a cause of retaliation, on the part of the United States, ought to have admonished her upon its adoption. Yet, in a formal proclamation issued by the commander in chief of his Brittanic majesty’s squadrons, upon the American station, the slaves of the American planters were invited to join the British standard, in a covert phraseology, that afforded but a slight veil for the real design. Thus, admiral Cochrane, reciting “that it had been represented to him, that many persons now resident in the United States, had expressed a desire to withdraw therefrom, with a view of entering into his majesty’s service, or of being received as free settlers into some of his majesty’s colonies,” proclaimed, that “all those who might be disposed to emigrate from the United States, would, with their families, be received on board his majesty’s ships or vessels of war, or at the military posts that might be established upon, or near, the coast of the United States, when they would have their choice of entering into his majesty’s sea or land forces, or of being sent as free settlers to the British possessions in North America, or the West Indies, where they would meet all due encouragement.” But even the negroes seem, in contempt, or disgust, to have resisted the solicitation: no rebellion, or massacre, ensued; and the allegation, often repeated, that in relation to those who were seduced, or forced, from the service of their masters, instances have occurred of some being afterwards transported to the British West India Islands, and there sold into slavery, for the benefit of the captors, remains without contradiction. So complicated an act of injustice, would demand the reprobation of mankind. And let the British government, which professes a just abhorrence of the African slave trade; which endeavors to impose, in that respect, restraints upon the domestic policy of France, Spain and Portugal, answer, if it can, the solemn charge, against their faith and their humanity.”

Duane took Great Britain to task for allying themselves with the “savage” Indians and their known depradations, then in having the lowness in character to try to associate with people some regarded as pirates, and, worst of all, trying to start a violent slave insurrection by promising the slaves their freedom for their help. For once, his exposition found friendly readers among most of the general public of the United States. Much of the lengthy opus was reprinted widely. The British, including his old arch-enemy journalist with a similar poison pen, William Cobbett, stayed silent on the matter. (By the spring of 1815, Duane and Cobbett had reconciled and become friends after a bitter battle in print that had lasted for over 15 years).

The Aurora, once a powerful publication that could help sway presidential elections (Jefferson claimed it helped him gain office), had declined in its political pull by the time the War of 1812 ended. By late 1815, Duane published a letter to the editor from the same “pirate” he had disparaged in his exposition earlier that year: the mercurial newspaperman’s favor was as capricious as the wind.

TO COME:

William Duane and “Peter Porcupine,” the Epic Battle of the Word-Dueling Journalists

Tags: American Indians, Aurora, British, Cochrane, Great Britain, Jean Laffite, Philadelphia, pirates. slaves. insurrection, St. Domingo. Barataria, War of 1812, William Duane 2 Comments »

by Pam Keyes

Jean Laffite and the Treaty of Ghent — Satirical Editorial of 1814

September 18, 2014 in American History, general history, History, Louisiana History, Nautical History

A rare 1828 book about Jean Laffite

While angling in the old newspaper archives, the following wonderfully satirical editiorial about Jean Laffite and the War of 1812 Treaty of Ghent negotiations was discovered in the Nov. 11, 1814, issue of the Daily National Intelligencer of Washington, D.C. It was reprinted from the Weekly Aurora newspaper of Philadelphia, and the author was undoubtedly that paper’s editor, William Duane, given the style matches his. He was spurred to pen the piece in response to the news that Laffite had turned down the British in September when they sought his assistance and ships at Barataria. The editorial makes light of what might have happened if Laffite had joined the British.

“How unfortunate for the British Commissioners at Ghent, that the pirates of the island of Barataria refused the treaty of alliance and friendship offered to them by the gallant officer of his Britannic majesty! Had M. Lafitte accepted the generous offers of that worthy officer, Colonel Nicholls, and determined to fight for the cause of order and regular government, and the cause of morality and religion, in order to deliver the poor Americans from the tyrannical government under which they groan, the American Commissioners would have been furnished, at their next meeting, with a new sine qua non to an amicable adjustment. The independence of Barataria might have been insisted upon, & an acknowledgement, on our part, of this new power, would have been demanded; we should have been required to increase the Baratarian territory, and not to purchase an of their newly acquired lands, but to admit to an entry into our ports_to receive and pay for every kind of merchandize acquired by their laudable industry upon the high seas, which they would have been pleased to send to us.

Had our Commissioners rejected such moderate and honorable terms, my Lord Castlereagh’s friends amongst the friends of peace, would have, with great propriety, declaimed against an administration, which instead of accepting such a trifling condition, would prolong the horrors of such an impious and iniquitous war! The adhesion of these buccaneers to his Britannic majesty’s offers would have added a new sovereign to the list of deliverers of Europe and America, and in the Congress of Vienna: my Lord Castlereagh would have introduced Mr. Lafitte and the red chiefs Split Log and Walk-in-the-Water, with Ohee-go-ke-fus-kee_to their majesties the Emperors of Russia, Austria, and King of Prussia, as their worthy co-adjutors in the great work of the restoration of good order and government in both hemispheres. What a short sighted fellow that Monsieur Lafitte must have been! instead of opposing himself to the disagreeable risk of being hanged as a pirate, he would now be sovereign of Barataria, and an ally of the sovereign of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland! and perhaps might have had a Bible society in correspondence with the bench of bishops.”

AURORA

Duane was known for writing lots of political editorials in his Jeffersonian publication. The Aurora editor would later receive and publish a letter to the editor from Jean Laffite in late 1815 when Laffite was seeking restitution in Washington for the goods and ships taken in the raid on Barataria on Sept. 16, 1814. Duane was a sympathizer to the Carthagenian privateers, and in the 1820s even went to Colombia in person. Laffite seems to have read the Aurora frequently, so one has to wonder if he ever read the humorous editorial about himself.

Tags: Aurora newspaper, Barataria, Col. Nicolls, Jean Laffite, Lord Castlereagh, Treaty of Ghent, War of 1812, William Duane 3 Comments »

by Pam Keyes

The First Battle of New Orleans Poem

September 16, 2014 in American History, general history, History, Louisiana History

Andrew Jackson After the Battle of New Orleans, 1815, from a miniature

The following is believed to be the first poem written about the Battle of New Orleans, published in the New Orleans Gazette in either late February or early March 1815, and reprinted widely in newspapers throughout the United States in April and May, 1815. The author, sadly, is unknown, but from the content of the poem, was likely an American soldier who served with Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans.

THE RETREAT OF THE ENGLISH

-A YANKEE SONG-

The English mustered mighty strong’,

And bro’t their choicest troops along,

And thoght it but a little song,

To take our town of Orleans.

From Plymouth and the Chesapeake,

From Portsmouth, too, and Cork, so sleek,

All came to take a Christmas freak

In our gay town of Orleans.

See Cochrane, who is stiled Sir Knight,

With Gordon too, that naval wight,

And Packenham, all full of fight,

To have a dash at Orleans.

With Gibbs and Keane and Lambert too,

And others, who kept out of view,

Making, in all, a pretty crew,

To take our town of Orleans.

To Ile au Chat their fleets first steer’d,

Where near a hundred sail appear’d;

And, from their numbers, many fear’d

Th’ impending fate of Orleans.

They entered Bayou Bienvenue,

Where there were traitors not a few,

To help them on and bring them thro’

To this our town of Orleans.

They to the Levee quickly come,

And made, a tho’ they were at home_

Indeed, they were but eight miles from

The very town of Orleans.

The news at last to Jackson came;

His mighty soul was in a flame;

He swore an oath, I dare not name,

He’d save the town of Orleans.

The town was in a mighty rout’;

He ordered all the forces out

His troops so steady and so stout,

To fight and bleed for Orleans.

Away went Jackson at their head,

And many a gallant man he led;

All swore they’d fight till they were dead,

To save the town of Orleans.

The English camp he’s soon among;

And found them near five thousand strong,

From swamp to river stretch’d along

Against the town of Orleans.

And now began a bloody fight;

The English heroes tried their might,

But many think, the coming night,

Did save these foes of Orleans.

Then Jackson, not to risk the town,

Reined for a while his spirit down,

And trenches dug, and raised a mound,

To save the town of Orleans.

The English grown twelve thousand strong,

The Twenty eighth again came on,

And tho’t our lines would soon belong

To them, as well as Orleans.

Repuls’d:-on New-Years next they came,

But on that day were serv’d the same,

And met a loss, they do not name

From those who fought for Orleans.

But ‘twas the Eighth they tried their might,

And brought their army all in sight,

And swore our men would at the sight,

All fly toward New-Orleans.

That morning’s sun did rise in blood:

For all our men right valiant stood,

As every honest Yankee should,

Against the foes of Orleans.

The muskets and the cannons roar,

Our men most dreadful volley pour;

A rolling fire, unknown before,

Upon the foes of Orleans.

Sir Edward led the eager crew,

And pointing to the town in view,

Gave them the sack and pillage too,

If they would get to Orleans.

But see! his threatening spirit’s fled;

And Gibbs too lies among the dead,

With many more who boasting said,

They’d dine that day at Orleans.

Such carnage ne’e was known before;;

More than three thousand stain our shore,

And some assert a thousand more

Of the proud foes of Orleans.

Soldiers! you’ve had no vulgar game!

Wellington’s troops here yield their fame;

Invincibles was once their name,

But this they’ve lost near Orleans.

A bloodless victory, on our side,

May well increase our general’s pride;

For see_the field is only dyed

With English blood near Orleans.

The proud, but disappointed foe

Is now well taught our worth to know,

And all they ask, is but to go

Far__far away from Orleans.

See how these heroes scour the plain!

Their boats can scarce their haste restrain,

So anxious now their fleet to gain,

And get away from Orleans.

Aboard, and sick of Yankee sport,

They’re dressing up a long report,

To suit their gracious sovereign’s court,

Of their great feats near Orleans.

Here’s to the EIGHTH! a brilliant day!

‘Tis pride to have been in that affray,

Which drove these Englishmen away,

From this our town of Orleans.

Here’s to the gallant GENERAL! who

Has saved our town and country too!

A braver man the world ne’er knew

Than he who fought for Orleans.

Brave Sons of Tennessee! a toast!

Of you your country well may boast,

She cannot find a braver host

‘Mong those who fought for Orleans.

Tags: Andrew Jackson, Battle of New Orleans, Bayou Bienvenue, Edward Packenham, Eighth of January, General Gibbs, Ile au Chat, Keane, Lambert, Louisiana, Tennessee, War of 1812 4 Comments »

by Pam Keyes

Capt. Percy’s Folly at Fort Bowyer

September 14, 2014 in American History, general history, History, Louisiana History, Native American History

This shows the first battle of Fort Bowyer, with positions of the ships. The Anaconda shown is not correct: this ship was the Childers.

Young British Capt. William H. Percy found himself in dire straits on the afternoon of Sept. 15, 1814. His ship, the sixth rate class HMS Hermes, was mired for the second time that day on a sand bar in shoal water within 150 yards of Fort Bowyer near Mobile Bay, and the Americans at the fort were taking full advantage of the ship’s predicament, mercilessly strafing it with grape shot, langrege and musket fire.

To Percy’s horror, plans for an easy British attack on the fort had gone terribly awry, thanks to almost no wind, a shot to the anchor line, shallower water than expected, and the fact that the American fort’s 130 defenders led by Major William Lawrence were much better entrenched and armed than earlier British spying missions had forecast.

More than a third of Percy’s men were casualties of the devastating raking ammo, which ripped sails into rags, and strafed all the rigging of the Hermes. There was only one way out to avoid more loss of British lives: Capt. Percy had to disembark everyone, then personally set fire to his own ship, which blew up a few hours later as the flames hit the powder magazine. Perhaps due to the thick barrage, no attempt seems to have been made to spike any of the Hermes’ 22 guns; a few of the cannons were salvaged later by Lawrence and his men.

The rest of the four-ship British squadron couldn’t save the Hermes as, with the exception of the HMS Sophie under Capt. Nicholas Lockyer, a contrary wind and strong tide prevented them from getting close enough to effectively fire back at the fort. The Sophie, like the flagship Hermes, suffered damage while firing some broadsides at the fort, but the Sophie managed to tack away out of range of the worst of it. The captains and crews of HMS Carron and HMS Childers, and the land forces of the Royal Colonial Marines and some 600 Indians on Mobile Point could only watch in dismay as the Hermes was battered. An earlier foray from the land side by the Marines and Indians, armed with a Howitzer, had seen but little success on the fort’s flank due to the Americans’ secured entrenchment even on the weak side.

British plans for a great victory which would lead them to an easy route to Baton Rouge and control of the Mississippi River had literally blown up in their faces.

As a result of his actions, Percy faced a tense court-martial Jan. 18, 1815, onboard the HMS Cydnus off Cat Island. Presiding was Edward Codrington, rear admiral of the White, captain of the Fleet, and third officer in command of His Majesty’s ships and vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. Percy was exonerated for destroying his own ship at a critical time in the Gulf Coast campaign, but he would never again be entrusted as captain of any ship. He had torched his own naval career at the same time that he torched his ship.

The HMS Hermes (large ship) is shown in battle with a French ship in 1811.

The primary evidence at the court-martial was Percy’s Sept. 16, 1814 letter to Vice Admiral A. Cochrane, a lengthy and detailed account of what happened during the whole action to try to seize control of Fort Bowyer.

“Having embarked Brevet Lieut. Col. Nicolls and his detachment of Marines and Indians…, on the 11^th instant I left this Port (Pensacola) in company with His Majesty’s Ships Carron and Childers and off the entrance of it fell in with and took with me His Majesty’s Sloop Sophie, Capt. Lockyer, returning from Barataria…acquainting me with the ill success of his mission (to enlist Laffite and the use of his light draft schooners in the attack on Mobile).

On the evening of the 12^th I landed Lieut. Col. Nicolls with his party about 9 miles to the Eastward of Fort Bowyer and proceeded .. off the Bar of Mobile, which we were prevented from passing by contrary winds until the afternoon of the 15^th, during which time the Enemy had an opportunity of strengthening themselves, which we perceived them doing; having reconnoitred in the Boats within half a mile of the Battery. I had previously communicated to the Captains of the Squadron the plan of attack, and at 2:30 p.m. on the abovementioned day having a light breeze from the Westward I made the Signal for the Squadron to weigh, and at 3:10 passed the Bar in the following line of Battle: Hermes, Sophie, Carron & Childers.

At 4:16 the Fort commenced firing, which was not returned until 4:30 when being within Pistol shot of it, I opened my broadside, and anchored by the Head and Stern, at 4:40 the Sophie having gained her station did the same; at this time the wind, having died away and a strong ebb tide having made, notwithstanding their exertions, Captains Spencer (Carron) and Umfreville (Childers) finding their ships losing ground, and that they could not possibly be brought into their appointed stations, anchored, but too far off to be of any great assistance to the Hermes or Sophie, against whom the great body of the fire was directed. At 5:30 the bow spring (cable) being shot away, the Hermes swung with Head to the Fort and grounded, whence she laid exposed to a severe raking fire, unable to return except with one carronade and the small arms in the Tops; at 5:40 finding the Ship floated forward, I ordered the small bower cable to be cut, and the Spanker to be set, there being a light wind to assist, with the intention of bringing the Larboard Broadside to bear, and having succeeded in that, I let go the Best bower anchor to steady the ship forward and recommenced the Action.

At 6:10 finding that we made no visible impression on the Fort, and having lost a considerable number of our Men and being able only occasionally to fire a few guns on the larboard side in consequence of the little effect the light wind had on the ship, I cut the cables and springs and attempted to drop clear of the fort with the strong tide then running, every sail having been rendered perfectly unserviceable and all the rigging being shot away, in doing which, unfortunately His Majesty’s ship again grounded with her Stern to the Fort.

There being now no possibility of returning an effective fire from the ship I made the Signal No. 203, it having been already arranged that the storming parties destined to have acted in conjunction with the forces landed under Lieut. Col. Nicolls were to assemble on board the Sophie to put themselves under the orders of Captain Lockyer. While they were assembling Captains Lockyer and Spencer came on board the Hermes, and on my desiring their opinion as to the probable result of an attempt to escalade the fort, they both agreed that it was impracticable under existing circumstances (at the same time offering their services to lead the party if it should be sent) In this opinion I (concurred) with them.

The Ship being entirely disabled and there being no possibility to move her from the position in which she lay exposed I thought it unjustifiable to expose the remaining men to the showers of grape and langrege incessantly poured in, and Captains Lockyer and Spencer who saw the state of the ship at the same time giving it as their decided opinions that she could not by any means be got off, I determined to destroy her and ordered Captain Lockyer to return to the Sophie and send the boats remaining in the squadron to remove the wounded and the rest of the crew and to weigh; at the same time I made the signal for the squadron to prepare to do so. The crew being removed and seeing the rest of the squadron under weigh, at 7:20 assisted by M.A. Matthews 2^nd Lieutenant (Mr. Maingy, 1^st Lieut having been ordered away to take charge of the people) I performed the painful duty of setting fire to His Majestys Ship.

I then went on board the Sophie and finding it impossible to cross the bar in the night, I anchored the ships about 1 ½ mile from the Fort, and at 10 I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing His Majestys ship blow up in the same place in which I left her.

The squadron having during the night partly repaired the damages in their rigging, at daylight I took them out of the bar having previously communicated with the Commanding Officer of the detachment on shore, and desired that he would fall back upon bon secour.

Altho this attack has unfortunately failed, I should be guilty of the greatest injustice did I not acquaint you sir of the high sense I entertain of the intrepidity and coolness displayed throughout this action by the officers, petty officers and crew of His Majestys late ship Hermes, from Mr. Peter Maingy the 1^st Lieut. I received the greatest assistance, and I beg to mention the activity and good conduct of M. Alfred Mathews 2^nd Lieut.; in Mr. Pyne the late Master (who fell early in the action) the service has sustained a severe loss.

Lieut. Col. Nicolls having been seriously ill on shore had been removed to the Hermes and was on board during the Action; it is almost unnecessary for me to mention of him that he was actively assisting on deck, to which post he returned, after a severe wound which he had received in the Head had been dressed.

W.H. Percy, Captain”

Nicolls had been especially unlucky that day. He had been charged with leading his Royal Colonial Marines and the Indians on a land attack toward the rear of the fort, but a severe attack of dysentery sent him early to the Hermes for treatment from the ship’s surgeon, and while he was watching the action from its deck, a stray splinter from a fire of grapeshot hit him in the head and cost him the sight in one eye.

The “butcher’s bill” of the British side was 232, with 162 of that number killed: the Americans, by contrast, had only eight casualties, with four killed. The Hermes’ surgeon’s report reflects the gruesome nature of the wounds: Edward Hall, 34, landsman, left hand torn off by a cannon ball; William James, 16, struck on left knee with a cannon ball, leg amputated on HMS Carron; Walter Price, wounded in the head by grapeshot while serving on the HMS Sophie, died 15 days later. Many of the wounded survived amputations only to die a few days later from tetanus, according to the surgeon’s notes.

Born in 1788, Percy was the sixth son of Algernon Percy, the first Earl of Beverley, and started his naval career in 1801. He was promoted to commander in 1810, with his first ship being the HMS Mermaid in 1811. At that time, he transported troops beween Britain and Iberia during the Peninsular War. He was made post captain on March 21, 1812. His last (and only second) command was the HMS Hermes, which he assumed in April, 1814. After that ship’s destruction, Percy carried back to Britain the dispatches announcing the British defeat at the Battle of New Orleans. From 1818-1826, Percy was active in politics as the Tory MP for Stamford, Lincolnshire. Later, he was made a rear admiral on the retired list in 1846.

Historian Arsene Lacarriere Latour, writing in 1815, summed up Percy’s misadventure best with this eloquent assessment:

“Instead of the laurels he was so confident of gathering, he carried off the shame of having been repulsed by a handful of men, inferior by nine-tenths to the forces he commanded. Instead of possessing himself of an important point, very advantageous for the military operations contemplated by his government, he left under the guns of fort Bowyer the wrecks of his own vessel, and the dead bodies of one hundred and sixty-two of his men. Instead of returning to Pensacola in triumph, offering the Spaniards, as a reward for their good wishes and assistance, a portion of the laurels obtained, and the pleasure of seeing the American prisoners he was confident of taking, he brought back to that port, which had witnessed his extravagant boasting, nothing but three shattered vessels full of wounded men.”

For further reading:

Latour, Arsene Lacarriere. Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814-15, with an Atlas, Expanded Edition, edited by Gene A. Smith, The Historic New Orleans Collection and University of Florida, 1999.

Tags: Barataria, British Gulf Coast campaign, Capt. William H. Percy, Col. Nicolls, Commander Nicholas Lockyer, Fort Bowyer, HMS Carron, HMS Cydnus, HMS Hermes, HMS Sophie, Jean Laffite, Major William Lawrence, Mobile, Royal Colonial Marines, War of 1812 Comments Off on Capt. Percy’s Folly at Fort Bowyer

Historia Obscura

The Case of the Spanish Prize Ship at Dauphin Island

Andrew Jackson’s Fine and the Place of Martial Law in American Politics

Cobbett the Body-Snatcher, or What Happened to Thomas Paine’s Corpse

The Poison Pen Duels of William Duane and Peter Porcupine

Talk at Laffite Society Meeting October 14, 2014

Laffite Talk at Battle of New Orleans Historical Symposium Jan. 10, 2015

The Aurora Editor Snipes at Britain, Post War of 1812

Jean Laffite and the Treaty of Ghent — Satirical Editorial of 1814

The First Battle of New Orleans Poem

Capt. Percy’s Folly at Fort Bowyer

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