Baker did not, however, aspire to the post of privateer captain; he appointed to the command his son-in-law, John Dawson, who had made several voyages to the coast of Africa, and knew enough about navigation to get along somehow. The vessel measured 400 tons, carried 28 guns, and shipped a crew of 102 men; but they were a very queer lot: loafers picked up on the docks, landsmen in search of adventure, and so on. With this unpromising outfit--a lopsided, heavy-sailing vessel, an inexperienced commander, and a crew of incapable desperadoes--Peter Baker entered upon his privateering venture, and in due course the _Mentor_, provided, no doubt, with a king's commission, proceeded down the Irish Sea, hanging about in the chops of the Channel for homeward bound French merchantmen. Dawson was not very persistent or enterprising, for we are told that in something under a week he was on the point of returning, not having as yet come across anything worthy of his powder and shot. Falling in with another privateer, homeward bound, he made the usual inquiry as to whether she had seen anything, either in the way of a likely prize or a formidable enemy; and was informed that a large vessel, either a Spanish 74-gun ship, or Spanish East Indiaman, had been seen just previously in a given latitude. Dawson thereupon resolved to put his fortune to the test--"For," said he, "I might as well be in a Spanish prison as an English one, and if I return empty I shall most likely be imprisoned for debt." So he made sail after the assumed Spaniard, and found her readily enough; as he closed, he made out through his glass that she was pierced for 74 guns, and was, of course, in every respect a far more formidable craft than the lopsided _Mentor_. Handing the glass to his carpenter, John Baxter, evidently an observant and intelligent man, the latter exclaimed that the stranger's guns were all dummies! Thereupon John Dawson bore down to the attack, boarded the enemy, and carried her, with his harum-scarum crew, almost unopposed. She proved to be a French East Indiaman, the _Carnatic_, with a most valuable cargo--said to be worth pretty nearly half a million sterling. One box of diamonds alone was valued at £135,000. [Illustration: CAPTURE OF THE FRENCH EAST INDIAMEN "CARNATIC"] The crew had been three years in the vessel, trading in gold and diamonds, and did not even know that war had broken out. Here was a piece of luck for Peter Baker! When the rich prize was brought into the Mersey, in charge of the proud and happy Dawson and his crew, bells were set ringing, guns were fired, and both captors and victors were entertained in sumptuous fashion by the delighted townspeople. Baker became, of course, immediately a person of importance: he was jocosely alluded to as "Lord Baker," and was later elected Mayor of Liverpool and made a county magistrate.