The year 1814 was marked by only one great and perhaps decisive success on either side, except Macdonough’s victory. This single success was privateering. Owners, captains, and crews had then learned to build and sail their vessels, and to hunt their prey with extraordinary skill. A few rich prizes stimulated the building of new vessels as the old were captured, and the ship-yards turned them out as rapidly as they were wanted. In the neighborhood of Boston, in the summer of 1814, three companion ships were built,--the “Reindeer,” “Avon,” and “Blakeley;” and of these the “Reindeer” was said to have been finished in thirty-five working days, and all three vessels were at sea in the following winter. No blockade short of actual siege could prevent such craft from running out and in. Scores of them were constantly on the ocean. On the Atlantic privateers swarmed. British merchantmen were captured, recaptured, and captured again, until they despaired of ever reaching port. One British master who was three times taken and as often retaken, reported that he had seen ten American privateers crossing his course. A letter from Halifax printed in the London “Times” of December 19 said: “There are privateers off this harbor which plunder every vessel coming in or going out, notwithstanding we have three line-of-battle ships, six frigates, and four sloops here.” The West Indies and the Canaries were haunted by privateers. The “Rambler,” “Hyder Ali,” and “Jacob Jones” of Boston penetrated even the Chinese seas, and carried prize-goods into Macao and Canton. Had these pests confined their ravages to the colonies or the ocean, the London clubs and the lobbies of Parliament would have thought little about them; but the privateer had discovered the weakness of Great Britain, and frequented by preference the narrow seas which England regarded as her own. The quasi-blockade of the British coasts which American cruisers maintained in 1813 became a real and serious blockade in 1814. Few days passed without bringing news of some inroad into British waters, until the Thames itself seemed hardly safe.