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Connecticut Privateer Sloop Lively |
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| Lively | Commander Edward Latham |
| Armed Sloop | 27 March 1781-9 July 1781 |
| Connecticut Privateer Sloop |
| Commissioned/First Date: | 27 March 1781 |
| Out of Service/Cause: | 9 July 1781/driven ashore by British Privateer Ship Goodrich |
| Owners: | Thomas Mumford & Co. of Hartford, Connecticut |
| Tonnage: |
| Battery: | Date Reported: 27 March 1781 Number/Caliber Weight Broadside 14/ Total: 14 cannon/ Broadside: 7 cannon/ Swivels: |
| Crew: | 27 March 1781: 72 [total] |
| Description: |
| Officers: | (1) Prize Master Nathaniel Dickinson, 27 March 1781-9 July 1781 |
| Cruises: | (1) New London, Connecticut, to New London, Connecticut, [1] April 1781-24 April 1781
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| Prizes: | (1) Schooner Seaflower, 15 April 1781
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| Actions: | (1) Action with British Privateer Brig Admiral Rodney, [20] April 1781
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Comments:
Connecticut Privateer Sloop Lively was commissioned on 27 March 1781 under Commander Edward Latham of Groton, Connecticut. She was listed as having a battery of fourteen guns and a crew of seventy men. Lively’s $20,000 bond was executed by Latham, and John Chenevard and James Church, both of Hartford, Connecticut.1
On 15 April 1781 Lively captured2 the 80-ton3 British schooner Seaflower, bound from New York, New York to Quebec, Quebec with a cargo of salt and tobacco aboard. Seaflower had sailed from New York on 8 April.4 Nathaniel Dickinson was assigned as her prize master5and he took her into New London on 16 April.6 Seaflower was libeled on 27 April, with her trial set for 30 April.7 She was advertised for sale on 4 May 1781, with the sale to be held on 17 May.8
Continuing on the same cruise Lively encountered two brigs, bound from Jamaica, British West Indies, to New York, both with cargoes of rum. 9 The first brig, the 100-ton10 Bermuda, had been hit by lightening a few days before, which shattered her mainmast. She was easily captured.11 The second vessel was the 160-ton12 British Privateer Brig Admiral Rodney, formerly the Massachusetts Privateer Brig General Gates. Admiral Rodney mounted ten guns, and a fierce little fight erupted. Admiral Rodney surrendered after three of her men were killed. Following the fight Latham headed for home with the two prizes and arrived at New London on the morning of 24 April. The two brigs were libeled on 27 April and tried on 30 April.13 They were advertised for sale on 4 May 1781, with the sale to be held on 17 May.14
On 11 May a recruiting advertisement appeared in the New London paper for Latham’s next cruise. Lively was described as a “swift sailing Privateer sloop” and was to sail about 13 May on a “short” cruise.15
A shallop with no cargo except a bale of cloth arrived at New London on 19 May. She was bound from New York to Newfoundland, and had been captured by the Lively and the Connecticut Privateer Sloop Phoenix (Commander William Wattles), also out of New London, and the Rhode Island Privateer Sloop Success (Commander John Burroughs Hopkins), out of Providence, Rhode Island. A few days later, about 24 May the Lively, in company with the Connecticut Privateer Brig Sampson (Commander David Brooks), came to off the entrance to New London and lay to in the offing.16
On June 1 an advertisement appeared in the New London paper, stating that the prize money from Lively’s first cruise was ready for distribution.17 The Lively, in company with the Connecticut Privateer Schooner Young Cromwell (Commander Benjamin Hilliard), returned to New London from her largely fruitless cruise on 11 June.18
After, perhaps, three weeks in port, Lively sailed on her final cruise. On 9 July 1781, she was off Montauk Point, where Latham fell in with the British Privateer Ship Goodrich (Stanton Hazzard), of twenty-four guns. Lively ran for it, but was driven ashore on Montauk Point and wrecked. The sails and rigging were salvaged.19 A part, at least, of the crew were captured and taken into New York, where they wound up in the prison ships.20 Nathaniel Dickinson’s son later said that he was “captured and Imprisoned onboard the Jersey at N. York, my Mother sent a Cartile from N.L. to the Prison Ship and succeeded in getting him Exchanged, as he was reduced almost to a skeleton when he left the Jersey Prison Ship.”21
1 NRAR, 377; Middlebrook, History of Maritime Connecticut, II, 145
2 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, April 20, 1781
3 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, May 4, 1781
4 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, April 20, 1781
5 E-mail from a descendant, “Jane,” 26 July 2010, from family documents.
6 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, April 20, 1781
7 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, April 27, 1781
8 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, May 4, 1781
9 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, April 27, 1781
10 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, May 4, 1781
11 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, April 27, 1781
12 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, May 4, 1781
13 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, April 27, 1781
14 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, May 4, 1781
15 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, May 11, 1781
16 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, May 25, 1781
17 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, June 1, 1781
18 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, June 15, 1781
19 The Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer [New London], Friday, July 13, 1781
20 http://www.usmm.org/revdead.html#anchor253391, a list of 8000 men who were on the prison ships. It is by no means exhaustive.
21 E-mail from a descendant, “Jane,” 26 July 2010, from family documents. Thank you.
| Posted 29 July 2010 |
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