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Massachusetts Privateer Brigantine Active |
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| Active | (1) Commander Nathaniel Swasey |
| Sloop-of-War | 13 December 1780-[15 March] 1781 |
| Massachusetts Privateer Brigantine | (2) Commander John Pattin [Patten, Patton]
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| Commissioned/First Date: | 13 December 1780 |
| Out of Service/Cause: | 27 June 1781/captured by HM Frigate Oiseau |
| Owners: | (1) John Cabot et al of Beverly, Massachusetts; (2) Andrew and John Cabot of Beverly, Massachusetts |
| Tonnage: | 100, 150 |
| Battery: | Date Reported: 13 December 1780 Number/Caliber Weight Broadside 12/ Total: 12 cannon/ Broadside: 6 cannon/ Swivels: Date Reported: 9 April 1781 Number/Caliber Weight Broadside 14/4-pounder 56 pounds 28 pounds Total: 14 cannon/56 pounds Broadside: 7 cannon/28 pounds Swivels: Date Reported: 27 June 1781 Number/Caliber Weight Broadside 14/ Total: 14 cannon/ Broadside: 7 cannon/ Swivels: Date Reported: 2 July 1781 Number/Caliber Weight Broadside 14/6-pounder 84 pounds 42 pounds Total: 14 cannon/84 pounds Broadside: 7 cannon/42 pounds Swivels: |
| Crew: | (1) 13 December 1780: 61 [total]
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| Description: |
| Officers: |
| Cruises: | (1) Beverly, Massachusetts to sea, [April] 1781-27 June 1781 |
| Prizes: | (1) Brigantine Bee (John Clarke), [June] 1781 |
| Actions: |
Comments:
The 150-ton1 Massachusetts Privateer Brigantine Active was commissioned on 13 December 1780,2 out of Beverly, Massachusetts, with a $20000 Continental bond. Her commander, Nathaniel Swasey, of Beverly, was a bonder, as well as Andrew and Samuel Cabot, both of Beverly. She was listed as having twelve guns and a crew of sixty men.3 A second commission was issued on 9 April 1781, showing John Pattin4 [Patten,5 Patton]6 also of Beverly, as her commander. Pattin gave bond along with John and Andrew Cabot, with one Richard Quartermass.7 Active listed an increased battery of fourteen 4-pounders and a crew of sixty men.8 Curiously, her tonnage is now stated as 100 tons.9 Pattin was a veteran officer, a former Midshipman in the Continental Navy and former privateer commander.
Active was at sea soon after, in April 1781. As it happens, HM Frigate Oiseau (Captain Henry Lloyd) was escorting a convoy bound from Lisbon, Portugal to St. Johns, Newfoundland about the same time. Oiseau parted from the convoy on 28 April 1781, off St. Mary’s Island. Most of the convoy got into St. Johns safely, but the brigs Bee and Success had not arrived by early July.10
In the case of the 60-ton brigantine Bee (John Clarke) her non-arrival was more permanent, for she was captured by the Active and sent into Boston.11
On 16 June 1781 Oiseau sailed on a cruise and returned to St. Johns on 2 July 1781.12 Oiseau took an American prize on 26 June (Jenny) and took her in tow. At 0500 on 27 June her lookouts saw a sail to the north. Lloyd cast off the prize and chased the stranger. At 0900 he fired six 6-pounders and brought to the Active. Lloyd reported Active had fourteen guns. A prize crew of a lieutenant and twenty men went aboard and forty-one prisoners were removed.13 The British later described her as a brig of fourteen 6-pounders, with a crew of forty-two men. She was sent into St. Johns.14 The New York newspapers reported her capture on 24 September 1781.15
On 28 September 1781 the New York Mercury (a paper in British occupied New York) reported that a cartel had arrived at Boston with Pattin and the crew of the Active aboard.16 This was true: a cartel had arrived at Boston on 15 August 1781, from Newfoundland, with four hundred American prisoners.17
In an unexplained peculiarity, the Bee was libeled in the Massachusetts Maritime Court of the Middle District on 12 December 1783, more than two years after her capture. Her trial set for 23 December. Bee was libeled by Commander John Patten [Pattin], “late commander” of Massachusetts Privateer Brigantine Active. Since Patten was captured by the British in June 1781, he had apparently never prosecuted the libel.18
1 Howe, Beverly Privateers in the Revolution, 405
2 NRAR, 218. In Howe, Beverly Privateers in the Revolution, 405, the date is given as 16 December 1780.
3 NRAR, 218; Emmons, 127
4 NRAR, 218
5 Howe, Beverly Privateers in the Revolution, 405
6 McManemin, John A., Captains of the Privateers during the Revolutionary War, Ho-Ho-Kus Publishing Company: Spring Lake, NJ, 1985, 232, from the log of the Oiseau.
7 NRAR, 218
8 NRAR, 219; Howe, Beverly Privateers in the Revolution, 405; Emmons, 127
9 Howe, Beverly Privateers in the Revolution, 405
10 The London Gazette, Tuesday, October 16, to Saturday, October 20, 1781
11 The Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser [Boston], December 4, 1783; December 12, 1783
12 The London Gazette, Tuesday, October 16, to Saturday, October 20, 178
13 McManemin, Captains of the Privateers during the Revolutionary War, 232, from the log of the Oiseau.
14 The London Gazette, Tuesday, October 16, to Saturday, October 20, 178
15 The New-York Gazette; and The Weekly Mercury, Monday, September 24, 1781
16 Howe, Beverly Privateers in the Revolution, 405
17 The Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser [Boston], Thursday, August 16, 1781
18 The Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser [Boston], December 4, 1783; December 12, 1783
| Revised 14 September 2008 |
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