Such are some of the incidents of the two American wars; of this type were the men--or many of them--who commanded the privateers. The British records of the period, during the war of 1812, bear full testimony to their success, and the officers of the Royal Navy come in for some rough handling by the Press--as in _The Times_ of February 11th, 1815: "The American cruisers daily enter in among our convoys, seize prizes in sight of those that should afford protection, and, if pursued, 'put on their sea-wings' and laugh at the clumsy English pursuers. To what is this owing? Cannot we build ships? It must indeed be encouraging to Mr. Madison to read the logs of his cruisers. If they fight, they are sure to conquer; if they fly, they are sure to escape." That the Americans have the knack of building faster sailing-vessels than ours is a fact which we have been compelled to accept. Not that our smartest clippers would be beaten, as a matter of course, by any of theirs; but, taking it all round, an American who wants to turn out a specially swift sailing vessel will almost always eclipse our efforts in the same direction. Are we not still trying in vain to win back the "America" Cup? The long, rakish craft, of comparatively small beam and tapering lines, was no doubt originally an American production. These swift vessels, sailed by such men as Boyle, Haraden, Barney, Coggleshall, and others, were both hard to catch and bad to beat. The sentence quoted above from _The Times_ sums up the situation pretty accurately; and, this being the case, it is all the more to be regretted that the accounts of their exploits should so constantly be tainted with obvious exaggerations, or embellished with incredible little anecdotes. SOME MORE ODD YARNS CHAPTER XXII THE "PRINCESS ROYAL" PACKET In the days of sailing-vessels the mails were regularly carried by fast-sailing brigs, which were known as packets. They were virtually men-of-war, but were not heavily armed, nor did they carry a numerous crew. The captain's first duty was to convey the mails with expedition and safety, and he was not expected to go out of his way to engage an enemy, but to escape if possible. Some fire-eating commanders of packets required, indeed, to be admonished as to their duties in this respect. The brigs were usually very heavily masted, and it was considered a point of honour to "carry on" their canvas, sometimes to a dangerous extent. More than one of these craft has unaccountably disappeared, having no doubt foundered in a storm. They were very fine little vessels, however, and there was probably a certain amount of "swagger" attached to belonging to them--a sort of craft that was not under anybody's orders, and was not to be interfered with; and when they were attacked, and found escape impossible, their "swagger" assumed the form, in many instances, of a most heroic defence --while the mails were always sunk before surrendering.