venty-five men, had an engagement with His Majesty's
cutter 'Landrail,' of four guns, as the cutter was crossing the
Irish sea with dispatches. The 'Landrail' was captured, after a
somewhat smart action, and was sent to America, but was
recaptured on the way. The victory was not remarkable, but the
place of capture was very significant, and it happened July 12
only a fortnight after Blakely captured the 'Reindeer' farther
westward. The 'Siren' was but one of many privateers in those
waters. The 'Governor Tompkins' burned fourteen vessels
successively in the British Channel. The 'Young Wasp,' of
Philadelphia, cruised nearly six months about the coasts of
England and Spain, and in the course of West India commerce. The
'Harpy,' of Baltimore, another large vessel of some 350 tons and
fourteen guns, cruised nearly three months off the coast of
Ireland, in the British Channel, and in the Bay of Biscay, and
returned safely to Boston filled with plunder, including, as was
said, upward of L100,000 in British treasury notes and bills of
exchange. The 'Leo,' a Boston schooner of about 200 tons, was
famous for its exploits in these waters, but was captured at
last by the frigate 'Tiber,' after a chase of about eleven
hours. The 'Mammoth,' a Baltimore schooner of nearly 400 tons,
was seventeen days off Cape Clear, the southernmost point of
Ireland. The most mischievous of all was the 'Prince of
Neufchatel,' New York, which chose the Irish Channel as its
favorite haunt, where during the summer it made ordinary
coasting traffic impossible."

The vessels enumerated by Mr. Adams were by no means among the more famous
of the privateers of the War of 1812; yet when we come to examine their
records we find something notable or something romantic in the career of
each--a fact full of suggestion of the excitement of the privateersman's
life. The "Leo," for example, at this time was under command of Captain
George Coggeshall, the foremost of all the privateers, and a man who so
loved his calling that he wrote an excellent book about it. Under an
earlier commander she made several most profitable cruises, and when
purchased by Coggeshall's associates was lying in a French port. France
and England were then at peace, and it may be that the French remembered
the way in which we had suppressed the Citizen Genet. At any rate, they
refused to let C