vessels as schooners of a hundred tons was a serious loss, for the whole British force in Boston was hungry, while houses had to be torn down to supply fuel. To add to the mortification of the enemy, some of the captures were made within sight of British frigates which, through the failure of the wind or the action of the tide, were unable to interfere. A British account of one of these audacious attacks that in the end was frustrated will illustrate the character of the Yankee privateer. “On the 23d of November a small fleet of transports under convoy of the frigate _Tartar_ arrived off Boston, and with the exception of two safely entered the port. The ship _Hunter_ and a brig, owing to a shift in the wind, were obliged to anchor outside the harbor, which being observed by two American privateers that had been following the convoy, they in the most daring manner attacked and boarded them, setting them on fire. A signal was immediately made for the _Raven_ to weigh anchor and go in chase, but Lieutenant John Bourmaster, who had been appointed to protect Boston Lighthouse, then under repair, and who was in command of an armed transport, on observing the privateers fire upon the _Hunter_, set sail and reached the transports in time to save them from destruction.” Among the little cruisers that saw the most service was the _Franklin_ schooner. Under Capt. John Selman she went with the _Lynch_ to the St. Lawrence River to intercept the two transports mentioned in the report of the doings of the Congress on October 5, 1775, wherein it was resolved that “a letter be sent to General Washington to inform him that Congress having received certain intelligence of the sailing of two north country built brigs, of no force, from England on the 11th of August last, loaded with arms, powder and other stores, for Quebec, without convoy, which it being of importance to intercept,” etc., the general was to send two cruisers after them. [Illustration: _From the copy at the Lenox Library._] Captain Selman failed to find the brigs, but “missing them, they took ten other vessels and Governor Wright of St. John’s. All these vessels were released as we had waged a ministerial war and not one against our most gracious sovereign.” They changed their tactics after their most gracious sovereign was pleased to send Hessians to crush them. The _Franklin_ was thereafter stationed in and near Massachusetts Bay, and early in the spring of 1776, under Capt. James Mugford, captured a transport having 1,500 barrels of powder in her hold, besides other war supplies. It is recorded that Capt. Samuel Tucker, while in command of Massachusetts cruisers, captured no less than thirty vessels belonging to the enemy.