ll meet with similar
treatment."

Perhaps the foremost of all the fighting privateers was the "Gen.
Armstrong" of New York; a schooner mounting eight long nines and one
long twenty-four on a pivot. She had a crew of ninety men, and was
commanded on her first cruise by Capt. Guy R. Champlin. This vessel
was one of the first to get to sea, and had cruised for several months
with fair success, when in March, 1813, she gave chase to a sail off
the Surinam River on the coast of South America. The stranger seemed
to evince no great desire to escape; and the privateer soon gained
sufficiently to discover that the supposed merchantman was a British
sloop-of-war, whose long row of open ports showed that she carried
twenty-seven guns. Champlin and his men found this a more ugly
customer than they had expected; but it was too late to retreat, and
to surrender was out of the question: so, calling the people to the
guns, Champlin took his ship into action with a steadiness that no old
naval captain could have exceeded. "Close quarters and quick work,"
was the word passed along the gun-deck; and the "Armstrong" was
brought alongside her antagonist at a distant of half pistol-shot. For
nearly an hour the two vessels exchanged rapid broadsides; but, though
the American gunners were the better marksmen, the heavy build of the
sloop-of-war enabled her to stand against broadsides which would have
cut the privateer to pieces. Capt. Champlin was hit in the shoulder
early in the action, but kept his station until the fever of his wound
forced him to retire to his cabin. However, he still continued to
direct the course of the action; and, seeing that the tide of battle
was surely going against him, he ordered the crew to get out the
sweeps and pull away from the enemy, whose rigging was too badly cut
up to enable her to give chase. This was quickly done; and the "Gen.
Armstrong," though badly injured, and with her decks covered with dead
and dying men, escaped, leaving her more powerful adversary to repair
damages and make the best of her way home. Capt. Champlin, on his
arrival at New York, was the hero of the hour. For a privateer to have
held out for an hour against a man-of-war, was thought a feat worthy
of praise from all classes of men. The merchants of the city tendered
the gallant captain a dinner, and the stockholders in his vessel
presented him with a costly sword.

But the "Gen. Armstrong" was destined to fight yet another battle