valuable vessels
arrive, making at times hairbreadth escapes." The trade of Baltimore
and Philadelphia is thrown back upon New York and Boston; but both of
these, and the eastern entrance of Long Island Sound, have hostile
squadrons before them. The letter-of-marque schooner "Ned" has
transmitted an experience doubtless undergone by many. Bound to
Baltimore, she arrived off the Chesapeake April 18, and was chased
away; tried to get into the Delaware on the 19th, but was headed off;
made for Sandy Hook, and was again chased. Finally, she tried the east
end of the Sound, and there made her way through four or five ships of
war, reaching New York April 24.[30] Of course, under such
circumstances trade rapidly dwindled. Only very fast and weatherly
vessels could hope to cope with the difficulties. Of these the
conspicuous type was the Baltimore schooner, which also had not too
many eggs in one basket. In the general deprivation of commerce a
lucky voyage was proportionately remunerative; but the high prices of
the successful venture were but the complement and reflection of
suffering in the community. The harbors, even of New York, became
crowded with unemployed shipping.

This condition of things coastwise, supplemented by the activity of
American privateers, induced abnormal conditions of navigation in the
western Atlantic. The scanty success of Rodgers, Bainbridge, and the
"Chesapeake" have been noted; and it may be observed that there was a
great similarity in the directions taken by these and others. The Cape
Verdes, the equator between 24 deg. and 30 deg. west, the Guiana coast, the
eastern West Indies, Bermuda to Halifax, indicate a general line of
cruising; with which coincides substantially a project submitted by
Stewart, March 2, 1813, for a cruise by the "Constellation." These
plans were conceived with intelligent reference to known British
trade-routes; but, being met by the enemy with a rigid convoy system,
it was often hard to find a sail. The scattered American traders were
rapidly diminishing in numbers, retained in port as they arrived; and
it is noted that a British division of four vessels, returning to
Halifax after a four months' cruise between the Banks of Newfoundland
and Bermuda, have captured only one American.[31] An American
privateer, arriving at Providence after an absence of nearly four
months, "vexing the whole Atlantic," reports not seeing a single
enemy's merchant ship. Niles' return of pr