Monday, July 22, 2013

Prizes For The Benjamin Franklin


Source: Fold3

From A History Of American Privateers:

Notwithstanding the fact that the British maintained a rigorous blockade off Sandy Hook and in Long Island Sound in the course of the war, New York managed to send to sea fifty-five privateers. ...the Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to get to sea, leaving port about July 24, 1812, and returning August 24th, in which time she made seven prizes and twenty-eight prisoners. This privateer was a schooner carrying eight guns and one hundred and twenty men, under the command of Captain J. Ingersoll.


Jim's Photo Of A Tall Ship

In general, the conduct of American privateersmen on the high seas was most commendable. They showed themselves to be not only daring, but gentlemanly. When the schooner Industry, Captain Eenneaux, a prize to the privateer Benjamin Franklin, Captain Ingersol, of New York, reached that port, August 24, 1812, it was learned that the craft belonged to a widow whose only dependence was on the earnings of that vessel. Although the Industry had two thousand dollars' worth of goods aboard, the Americans restored her and her cargo to the widow. 

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