One at least of the London journals, the _Statesman_, foresaw the danger from privateers in 1812. When war was threatened, it said: "America cannot certainly pretend to wage a maritime war with us. She has no navy to do it with. But America has nearly a hundred thousand as good seamen as any in the world, all of whom would be actively employed against our trade on every part of the ocean, in their fast-sailing ships of war, many of which will be able to cope with our small cruisers; and they will be found to be sweeping the West India seas, and even carrying desolation into the chops of the Channel." All this, and more, the two hundred and fifty privateers accomplished. They cruised in every sea, {212}and wrought such havoc with British commerce as had never been known before. Coggeshall's history of the service enumerates about fifteen hundred prizes taken by them in the two and a half years of war, and these were not all of the captures by privateers alone; while the government war-vessels, in their cruises, added considerably to the number. The fortunes of the privateers were of the most varied kind. Some of them made long cruises without falling in with a single British merchantman of which they could make a prize. Others took enough to enrich every man of the crew. The _Surprise_, of Baltimore, took twenty in a single month. The _True-Blooded Yankee_ was one of the most daring and most fortunate. On one cruise she took twenty-seven prizes in thirty-seven days. On the same cruise she captured a small island on the coast of Ireland, and held possession of it for six days. She also took a small seaport town of Scotland, and burned seven vessels in the harbor. A partial list of the spoils with which she was laden when she arrived in a French port, will give some idea of the business. She had eighteen bales of Turkish carpets, forty-three bales of raw silk, weighing six tons, twenty boxes of gums, twenty-four packs of beaver skins, one hundred and sixty dozen swan skins, forty-six packs of other skins, a hundred and {213}ninety hides, a quantity of copper, and various other articles. The _York_, of Baltimore, after cruising on the coast of Brazil and through the West Indies, returned home with prizes valued at $1,500,000. The _Snapdragon_, of Newbern, N. C., captured a brig with a cargo, mainly dry goods, worth half a million dollars, and got safely into port with her. The _Saucy Jack_, of Charleston, took the ship _Mentor_, with a cargo valued at $300,000, and sent her into New Orleans; and a short time afterward the same privateer took a brig with $60,000 worth of dry goods. The _Yankee_, in a cruise of a hundred and fifty days, scoured the whole western coast of Africa, taking eight prizes, and came home with thirty-two bales of fine goods, six tons of ivory, and $40,000 in gold dust; all together worth nearly $300,000.