Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

PRIVATEERING. 287
If any apology is necessary for men fighting against the
common enemy " on their own hook,/ it may be found
perhaps in the great disparity of forces of the contending
powers. The British fleet comprised 1060 men-of-war, of
which 800 were in commission. The American navy had
seven effective frigates, and 12 or 15 sloops-of-war!
The disparity is absolutely ludicrous, and yet what glory
was acquired by our gallant navy! The fights of the
Constitution, the Essex, the Enterprise and their noble
compeers, quite eclipsed in history the deeds of daring
performed by the Fox, the Portsmouth, the Gen. Armstrong, the Decatur, the young Wasp, the Yankee, the
Teazer, the Rolla, the Globe, and a hundred others.
But in the story of man's boldness and bravery, nothing
excels the deeds of the American Privateers, in the war of
1812. The record, however, so far as we know, is very
slight. There was published in New York in 1856, a crude
and skeleton sketch of them, entitled "History of the
American Privateers and Letters of Marque," &c. by George
Coggeshall, captain of a Privateer.
We well recollect, Capt. Tom Shaw as well as Capt.
Elihu D. Brown, who led two "private armed" ships
against the commerce of Great Britain. No doubt our
readers will be interested in the following extracts of the
work referred to. The book is a valuable addition to the
History of the United States, though compiled by an old
sailor of 72 years of age from such materials as he could
command. Cooper's Naval History perhaps has something
on the subject, but we know of no other History of the
American Privateers,-an ample detail of their wonderful
and romantic daring, bearding the British Lion ia his den,
and capturing his ships on every sea, has yet to be written.
The affair of the General Armstrong, Capt. Reid, which
was attacked in the harbor of Fayal by two or three British men-of-war, has been before Congress within a few