Privateers and PrivateeringStatham, Edward Phillips
History
Privateers and Privateering
Statham, Edward Phillips
Naval biography; Privateering
With 18 guns and a complement of 192 men, the _Revenant_, a swift
sailer, was quite as formidable as her predecessor; and so effectually
did Surcouf scour the Bay of Bengal and the adjacent seas, so crafty and
determined was he in attack, so swift in pursuit or in flight, that his
depredations called forth an indignant but somewhat illogical memorial,
in December 1807, from the merchants and East India Company to the
Admiralty. The fact was that the British men-of-war on the station were
doing pretty well all that could be done, but the _Revenant_, when it
came to chasing her, was apt to become as ghostly as her
figure-head--she had the heels of all of them, and her captain seemed to
have an intuitive perception as to the whereabouts of danger.
Surcouf eventually settled down as a shipbuilder and shipowner at St.
Malo. He had, of course, made a considerable fortune, and his business
prospered, so he was one of the most wealthy and influential men in the
place. He died in 1827.
Captain Marryat, in one of his novels, "Newton Forster," gives a vivid
description of a fight between Surcouf and the _Windsor Castle_
Indiaman, commanded by the plucky and pugilistic Captain Oughton. Such a
yarn, by an expert seaman and a master-hand, is delightful reading, and
the temptation to transcribe it here is strong. It must, however, be
resisted, as the story is, after all, a fiction, and therefore would be
out of place.
There are other French privateersmen well worthy of notice, did space
permit, foremost among whom is Thurot, who, single-handed, contrived to
harass the English and Irish coasts for months; the brothers Fourmentin,
the eldest of whom has the Rue du Baron Bucaille in Boulogne named after
him, though his biographer informs us that he never called himself
Bucaille, nor was he a baron--but somehow this title became attached to
him.
M. Henri Malo, in "Les Corsaires," tells a story of him which is said to
be traditional in his family, and is certainly entertaining; so it shall
be transcribed as related.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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