It is recorded that the _Revenge_ “proved a remarkably successful vessel, taking prizes daily,” which were, for the most part, sent to Spanish ports and sold. The means so obtained were of the utmost value to the American commissioners already in Europe and to those who came after, while the damage inflicted on the British marine was, as already intimated, something to make the British merchant wonder whether, after all, his investments for the ruin of American rivals were likely to prove profitable. Nor was the injury felt alone by those British merchants whose ships happened to be captured. The insurance rates on all British ships rose at one period to twenty-five per cent., and ten per cent. was demanded for the simple voyage from Dover to Calais. Worse yet, the fear of the Yankee cruisers became so great that shipments in British vessels were so far abandoned that “_forty sail of French ships_ were loading in the Thames on freight; an instance never before known.” An escort was asked for and received for British ships in the trade with Ireland, “something that had never been known even in the wars with France.” But the best of the story of Captain Connyngham’s cruise remains to be told. Having been considerably injured by a gale, the captain felt obliged to go into port for repairs. To return to a French port was extremely dangerous because the whole French coast was closely watched and because even were he found safely in port he would be very likely delivered over to the English, so he sought safety in audacity and found it. Disguising his cutter as best he might with the paint and materials in store, he entered an English port (the name of which is not recorded), thoroughly refitted, and sailed away unsuspected. Some time later he entered an Irish port and got a full supply of provisions, paying for them with drafts on his agent in Spain. Later still he refitted at Ferrol, and then sailed for America. It is not uncommon for people to speak in these days of such deeds as Captain Connyngham’s as if they were something of the past that might never be repeated. They do not realize that every class graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis contains men of equal bravery and resources--men needing only the opportunity to show their metal. It must be noted here that the British ministry chose to make a distinction between the two ships fitted out wholly in the French ports (the _Surprise_ and the _Revenge_) and those that had come over from America; they made a distinction in spite of the fact that these two were fitted out by the American commissioners of the American government that had maintained itself for a year. The _Surprise_ and the _Revenge_ were denounced as pirates, and Connyngham as a pirate commander.