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Thorn Captures Sparling 13 January 1780 |
Massachusetts Privateer Ship Thorn Captures Sparling
13 January 1780
Massachusetts Privateer Ship Thorn (Commander Daniel Waters) was en route back to Massachusetts with her prize brig the Governor Tryon, following a hard fight.
On 13 January 1780,1 Thorn met the 250-ton British privateer ship Sparling2 (Jonathan Jackson), eighteen 6-pounders and seventy-five men. She was bound from Liverpool, England to New York with coal and provisions. After a forty or fifty minute action the Sparling surrendered. The Americans lost one killed and two wounded, the British three killed and ten wounded (including Jackson and two lieutenants). Thorn arrived in Nantasket Roads with both prizes on 17 February 1780.3
Summary Table
Vessel | Tons | Guns | Broadside | Men | Killed | % | Wounded | % | Total | % | Thorn | 305 | 18 | 54 | 120 | 1 | 0.8 | 2 | 1.7 | 3 | 2.5 |
Sparling | 250 | 18 | 54 | 75 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 13 | 13 | 17 |
1 Allen, Naval History of the Revolution, ii, 418
2 The Continental Journal [Supplement] [Boston], Thursday, March 23, 1780; the Spartan (Maclay, History of American Privateers, 89) or Sparlin (The Continental Journal [Boston], Thursday, February 24, 1780).
3 The Continental Journal [Boston], Thursday, February 24, 1780.
| Posted 30 January 2009 |
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