Name of Vessel:

Harriot [Harriet]

Master of Vessel:

Samson Sprague [Sparge]

Rig of Vessel:

Ship

Date of Capture:

17 September 1778

Place of Capture:

49°N,  20°W

Captor:

Massachusetts Privateer Brig Vengeance

Home Port:

From What Port:

Falmouth, England

To What Port:

New York, New York

Cargo:

Mail, passengers

Tonnage:

 

Battery:

16x3

Crew:

45

Owners:

Royal mail service

Prizemaster:

 

Prizecrew:

Ordered Into:

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Into What Port:

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Date Arrived:

19 October 1778

Date Tried:

Date Sold:

11 November 1778

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]). Harriot was bound from Falmouth, England to New York, having sailed about 2 September or 7 September. She was armed with sixteen 3-pounders and had a crew of forty-five men. Surgeon Samuel Nye of the Vengeance reports the beginning of the encounter: “Sept 17 Lat 49 Discovered a sail at 9 AM bearing ENE 4 leagues distance at 3 PM got within cannon shot of her gave her two or three bow chasers and received as many stern chasers from her soon after which she hauled up her courses and gave a broadside but her guns being light the shot did not reach she then endeavored to get away by making sail again but found it impracticable she again lay to till we got within pistol shot of her and then gave us another broadside which was returned on our part and to such purpose as to oblige her to strike at once after having one man killed and six wounded . . .”

After fifteen minutes the Harriot struck, with one killed and five wounded aboard. Vengeance had one man killed. Newman called this a “small resistance.” The crew was removed and the prize was manned and dispatched to Newburyport. She arrived in Boston about 19 October 1778. Harriot was advertised for sale on 9 November 1778, with the sale to be held on 11 November.

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 Coruña, Spain] . . .”

Upon arriving in La Coruña, 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; 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