Identifier: boysof1812othern00sole (find matches)
Title: The boys of 1812 and other naval heroes
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Soley, James Russell, 1850-1911
Subjects: United States. Navy
Publisher: Boston, Estes and Lauriat
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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m for the present. About the time that the Lexington had come out from America, in the spring of 1777, the commissioners at Paris, finding that they could not get more ships in France, because the English made so great an outcry, bethought themselves that they would send a trusty agent across the channel to Dover, to see what he could get there. In this way they purchased secretly a swift English cutter, the Surprise, and they appointed to command her Gustavus Conyngham. a bold and adventurous officer. He started on a cruise in May from Dunkirk, and in a few days returned with two of the enemy's brigs, — one of them a mail-packet which he had captured off the coast of Holland. The English ambassador again protested, and the French 40 THE BOYS OF 1812. Government told Franklin that, though much against its will, it would be compelled to restore the prizes. It even went so far as to imprison Conyngham and his crew ; but this was only a make-believe, for they were shortly afterward released.
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'HE TOUCHED AT A SMALL TOWN IN IRELAND FOR SUPPLIES; Unmoved by this event, Franklin immediately procured another cutter, the Revenge, and giving Conyngham a new commission, he sent him off from Dunkirk in charge of her. The second cruise was even more successful than the first. Conyngham roved about with his little ship as he pleased, keeping carefully away from the enemy's cruisers, which vainly sought to catch him. and capturing prizes on all sides. These he WAR ON THE ENEMY'S COAST. 41 destroyed, or sometimes when he saw his chance sent into seaports on the Continent. Once during his cruise, being hard pushed for supplies, he touched at a small town in Ireland and bought them. At another time when off the English coast, finding his vessel unseaworthy and needing some repair, he took her into one of the smaller ports and refitted there, with the help of the inhabitants, without being discovered. Finally, when so many ships were sent out in pursuit of him that his cruising-ground became too

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