Name of Vessel:

Eagle

Master of Vessel:

Edward Spence [S. Spencer]

Rig of Vessel:

Snow

Date of Capture:

21 September 1778

Place of Capture:

51°26'N,  19°27'W

Captor:

Massachusetts Privateer Brig Vengeance

Home Port:

From What Port:

New York, New York

To What Port:

Falmouth, England

Cargo:

Mail, passengers

Tonnage:

 

Battery:

14x3

Crew:

60

Owners:

Royal mail service

Prizemaster:

Thomas Newman

Prizecrew:

Ordered Into:

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Into What Port:

 

Date Arrived:

 

Date Tried:

Date Sold:

Action:

Yes

Recaptured:

No

Comments: Massachusetts Privateer Brig Vengeance (Commander Wingate Newman) was at sea on 17 September 1778, at 49°N,20°W, when she fell in with HM Packet Ship Harriot (or Harriet, Captain Samson Sprague [Sparge]) and captured her. Four days later, on 21 September, at 51°26'N,  19°27'W, Vengeance encountered another packet, snow Eagle (Captain Edward Spence [S. Spencer] armed with twelve or fourteen 3-pounder carriage guns and with sixty men aboard including military passengers. She was bound from New York to Falmouth, and had sailed about 24 July 1778. After another long chase the Eagle was brought to action, Newman again holding his fire until very close to the British. After a twenty minute fight the Eagle surrendered with two killed and six wounded. Among the dead was a Colonel Howard of the 1st Guards Regiment, one of the passengers. Among the other passengers were four lieutenant colonels,  three majors, and a dragoon officer en route from America. The Americans had one man wounded, Commander Newman, hit in the thigh by a musket ball. After removing his prisoners, Newman sent the Eagle off to Newburyport with a prize crew.

Surgeon Nye reported this fight as follows: “Sept 21st Lat about 49 Discovered ourselves within a league of a sail at 7 AM came up with and engaged her She fought bravely fifteen or twenty minutes and then struck after having two of her people killed and four or five wounded one of them so badly I was obliged to amputate his leg The prize proved to be the Eagle Packet a snow Spence commander from New York to Falmouth out twenty eight days mounting twelve three pounders and having forty three men beside the following passengers Col Howard of the 1st Regiment Guards killed in the engagement Col McDonald 71st Regiment Highlanders Col Anstruther Col Stevens of the Guards Maj Barcley Maj Forbes and the Hon Maj afterwards Lord Charles Cathcart Capt of the Athol Highlanders and 2d Major of Lord Cathcart’s legion and brother to Lord Cathcart Mr Sloper cornet of horse two sergeants three or four servants and Miss Jane Marsh On board were some dry goods besides plate and cash to a considerable amount Got the prisoners on board our brig and sent Mr Thomas Newman prize master and a gang of our people aboard to repair her rigging We had no person hurt except Captain Newman who received a musket ball in the thigh wound not dangerous . . .”

Newman now had “more prisoners aboard than my own number consisted of, my vessel excessive crank, and not much provisions on board, I determined to go to Bilboa in order to get rid of my prisoners and to refit my vessel, but on making Cape Ortugal the wind came to the Eastward and blew very hard, which obliged me to put into this port [La Coru*a, Spain] . . .”

Upon arriving in La Coru*a, at some point before 1 October 1778, Newman turned his prisoners, all eighty-eight of them, plus a woman passenger,  over to the British consul residing there, who was obligated to give a receipt for the future exchange of American prisoners. The British consul, Herman Katenkamp, notified his superiors on 1 October and enclosed a list of the prisoners, as well as a certificate from Newman requesting the commanders of American and French vessels to allow the prisoners to pass unmolested to England.  This affair produced some ill feeling among the British and protests to the Spanish court, which led to a brief period of apparent inhospitality to the Americans by the Spanish.

Among the prisoners was one Jonathan Nutting, a passenger aboard the Harriot. He had been wounded in the fight with Vengeance. Nutting, and presumably the other prisoners, arrived in England about six weeks later.

[Allen, Naval History of the American Revolution, i, 359, from a letter by Newman in the Boston Post, January 9, 1779, 360; The Boston Gazette, and Country Journal, Monday, January 11, 1779, in a letter from Newman dated 4 October 1778. Here the packet is spelled Hariot. The British date the capture to 18 September, at 49°N, 22°W. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History or Biography, XIV, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia: 1890, 93, from The London Chronicle, October 22-24, 1778; Maclay, History of American Privateers, 117-118; The Massachusetts Spy: Or, American Oracle of Liberty [Worcester], October 29, 1778, datelined Boston, October 22; Blake, History of Newburyport, 117, from Surgeon Samuel Nye’s Journal; The Independent Ledger, and the American Advertiser [Boston], November 9, 1778; NRAR, 113 [On 16 August 1779 the Marine Committee forwarded a list of Newman’s released prisoners to Colonel John Beatty at West Point to use in prisoner exchanges.]; Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on American Manuscripts in the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Mackie & Co., Ltd, London: 1904, I, 307-308; Batchelder, Samuel Francis, The Life and Surprising Adventures of John Nutting Cambridge Loyalist, and His Strange Connection with the Penobscot Expedition of 1779, Cambridge Historical Society, Cambridge: 1912, 77]

Posted 11 November 2009