With these preliminary remarks, let us now recount the doings of some of the American privateersmen, commencing with Silas Talbot.
"The Life and Surprising Adventures of Captain Silas Talbot; containing a Curious Account of the Various Changes and Gradations of this Extraordinary Character." Such is the title of a small volume published in America about the year 1803; and the editor states that the bulk of the information contained therein was communicated personally by Talbot, and has since been substantially confirmed from various quarters.
Silas Talbot, we learn, was born at Dighton, Mass., about the year 1752, and commenced his career at sea as cabin-boy. At the age of twenty-four, however, he blossoms into a captain in the U.S. Army--or the rebel army, according to British notions--in the year 1776; and by virtue, we must suppose, of his nautical training, he was placed in command of a fireship at New York, and soon after promoted to the rank of major--but still with naval duties. He speedily attracted attention as a daring and ingenious officer, and was very successful in several enterprises, the most notable being the conquest and capture of a well-armed stationary British vessel, moored in the east passage off Rhode Island. He made the attack at night, and devised an ingenious plan for breaching the high boarding-nettings of the Britisher, fixing at the bowsprit end of his sloop a small anchor, which, being forcibly rammed into the net by the impetus of the vessel, tore it away. The attack was devised as a surprise, but the approach of the gallant Talbot was observed, and it was under a heavy fire that he and his men succeeded in their desperate enterprise.
In 1779, having meanwhile been promoted to the rank of colonel, he commenced his career as a privateer commander. The British had a considerable number of private ships of war afloat on the American coast at that time, and Talbot was placed in command of the _Argo_, a sloop of under 100 tons, armed with twelve 6-pounders, and carrying 60 men. She was very heavily sparred--with one mast, of course, and an immense mainsail, the main boom being very long and thick. She was steered with a long tiller, had very high bulwarks, a wide stern, and looked like a clumsy Albany trader; we are told, however, that "her bottom was her handsomest part," which is only another way of saying that, with her big spars, she was, in spite of her uncouth appearance, a swift and handy craft.