uss frolick

Historical note: The real Stephen Hopkins was governor of Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War, who signed the Declaration of Independence. Hopkins suffered from Cerebral Palsy, and his signature is seen to be large and very shaky on that document, he wrote only "Steph" before he had to move on to his last name. His one great quote was "My hand may tremble, but my heart does not." In the famous painting of the signing, he's the guy in the back wearing the Quaker Oats hat. His brother was Esek Hopkins, the controversial commodore in the Continental Navy. His great, great grandfather - also named Stephen Hopkins - was a passenger on board the Mayflower, and he was also on the Jamestown expedition, and even once survived a shipwreck.

The late modeler Robert Bruckshaw (spelling?) did a really nice boxwood model of the USS Vixen back in the 1980's. Pix appear in P. C. Coker's "Charleston's Maritime Heritage", and I believe that she graced the cover of an 1980's "Ships in Scale" Magazine issue. My wife is both a vixen, and a former model.

We're only going to get so far on this quest, guys. Greater minds than ours have scoured the surviving naval records and have come up empty handed. It was Enterprise's 'bad' luck that HMS Boxer didn't capture her instead of the other way around. If any spar-plan, deck plan or hold plans were ever taken off, then they were probably torched, along with everything else, at the Norfolk Navy Yard in 1861, or at the Washington Navy Yard in 1814. If anyone wishes to model the USS Enterprise, he (or she) will have to make compromises, and base their model on other similar ships. I was encouraged by word of the discovery of the Venice Arsenal plans, supposedly taken off of the Enterprise in 1804, but on inspection, they look way too far off, to be of any use, without major alterations of their own. I personally think the closest anyone will ever get, will be to use the draught of the USS Vixen as a starting point, since she was thought by her contemporaries to have been modeled after her - but not copied - enlarge her to the known dimensions of the USS Enterprise, and use the visual details of the two contemporary paintings of her to flush her out. But that's still a lot to work with. There is even less information on the Bon Homme Richard, but look at how devoted and slavish some modelers have been to building her exactly from her plans - her entirely reconstructed, conjectural plans. Less still the Mayflower, Golden Hind, etc. The Burroughs Family hired a naval architect who realized this, used a different starting point, but ended up with a similarly beautiful result. Either way, you will get a model which will be very close to the real Enterprise. There are many beautiful contemporary Baltimore Clipper type US Navy schooners, detailed plans for which survive in abundance, and with really cool histories that begged to be modeled, like the USS Spark, the USS Grampus, or the stunning privateers the Dominica or Grecian. You will probably not find any plans of the Enterprise. But modelers are stubborn creatures, so get your snorkels, plastic buckets, shovels and water-proof measuring-tape ready, because the real Enterprise wrecked on Little Curacao Island in the West Indies in 1823. ...

The dashed lines generally mean proposed alterations for RN service, and they were usually done, if time permitted. If the alterations had been made before the ship's plan had been been completed, then those lines would have been drawn solid. American, French and privateer internal accommodations were usually not up to Royal Navy standards, especially powder magazines. Siggi's right. If you want to make her the American Privateer with the name "Oliver Cromwell" under her stern windows, she will be a different ship internally, than if you build her as "HMS Beaver's Prize". I don't know about tile magazine flooring, but historian Peter Goodwin reminds us "The doors and bulkheads were often lined with lead, or later with copper, to prevent sparks", in his "Construction and Fitting of the English Man of War". Perhaps the floor was sheathed to. It also prevented water and rat damage. Privateers often didn't have the time, or the extra money, to build such extra niceties.

That's not an apple. She caught one of the Frigate Alliance's round shot. What an excellent job!

I believe that the wreck of HMS Kingfisher is lying in those very same waters.

Alejandro, is the “San Juan Nepomuceno” pamphlet a published book? Is it available to purchase in hard copy? I would buy one, even though I don't read Spanish. If not, I would urge you to do so. I have the NMM admiralty draughts of Lord Cochrane's beautiful HMS Imperieuse. She was formerly the captured Spanish Frigate Fama. (She has all her carvings in special, 1/24th scale drawings ! How rare is that for 1809?) I have always wondered how the Spanish shipwrights constructed their ships. The Spanish shipwrights really liked flat floor timbers. Almost zero dead-rise!

Quite lovely! Well done!

Capt. Jack Aubrey: "Do you see those two weevils doctor?" Dr. Stephen Maturin: "I do." Aubrey: "Which would you choose? " Maturin: "Neither; there is not a scrap a difference between them. They are the same species of Curculio." Aubrey: "If you had to choose. If you were forced to make a choice. If there was no other response... " Maturin: "Well then if you are going to push me, I would choose the right hand weevil; it has significant advantage in both length and breadth." Aubrey: "There, I have you! You're completely dished! Do you not know that in the service, one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!"

Historian John Millar writes about the origins of the Oliver Cromwell, in his "Early American ships", p. 150: 'The late [Historian] Marion Brewington suggested that she had previously been a Philadelphia merchant ship called "Juno", while [author] V.R. Grimwood suggests that she was formerly a Rhode Island ship by the name of "Ye Terrible Creature". The figurehead of the lady could represent either of those former names, the latter being of course the first owner's wife, a joke entirely in keeping with the humor of the colonial period. Our own opinions, and it is no more than that, is that she was built in Providence about 1774. At the end of 1776, the Narragansett bay was occupied by a powerful British garrison and fleet at Newport which would have made it difficult to sail her in or out of Providence, so she was transferred to Philadelphia ownership and renamed "Oliver Cromwell" at that time.'

Awesome job so far, Charlie! I often wondered what the name Sultana referred to.

OK, if you all insist! "USS Barbie hoped to blow him out of the water, settle the affair quickly, but after a long, hard engagement, it was she who got licked in the end."

EDIT: Never mind. Too risque!

You know your history well, Overdale. She was boarded and taken by HMS Ken.

Hire a local art student to pose in costume, while you carve it from boxwood. And take your time.

Beautiful! I can't wait to see what you do with the Pegasus's stern carvings. They are very interesting figures, and for some reason, they were omitted from the TFFM books.

That sketch was reproduced in David Lyon's "The Sailing Navy List".

The Frigate Aquilion, the only British frigate that we know, for sure, actually chased an "American corvette", was a Hermione Class, 12-pounder frigate, designed by John Hunt, and launched in 1786. She mounted 26 twelve-pounder long guns on her main deck, with a mixture of six pounder long guns and 24-pounder carronades (mostly) on her upper works. This was probably her final cruise, as she was broken up in 1816. (Info from The Sailing Navy List, David Lyon, Conway Publishing.) Dr. Johnson wrote about the Horatio's career, "ever since her return to England, she has been laid up in ordinary, as completely lost to the service as the Wasp." The Frigate Horatio actually enjoyed a long and interesting career, but this statement holds true about the Aquilion.

I will now discuss Talos's question, 'who was the frigate?'. I believe the story is an amalgam of four incidents, involving four separate British frigates: Aquilion, Hyperion, Horatio, and Lacedaemonian. Dr. Johnson was of the stubborn belief that both the Charleston, SC, battle sightings and the Cadiz accounts were true, and that after fighting off Charleston, the damaged ship sailed across the Atlantic and put into Cadiz, instead of Halifax or Bermuda. He then states, without citing any sources, that: "Since these events, we have been informed that it was H.M. Frigate Horatio, which sunk that Wasp." He then goes on to wrongly describe her as a 44-gun frigate with 24-pounders on her main deck and "43" pounder carronades. Actually, there was a frigate called Horatio, but she was a Lively Class ship with 18-pounders, and was rated at 38 guns. But Horatio was indeed on the American Station prior to the action, and in Portuguese waters afterwards, and she was "damaged" en route, so her history fits his criteria nicely. He explains: "We then recapitulate, that when the Wasp boarded the Swedish Brig Adonis on the 19th October [the last true confirmed sighting of her], in Lat 18.35, and half across the Atlantic, she probably continued to run as far as the East Indies, then turned northward, and was first reported off the Turks Island about the 1st November, then was off Amelia Island, on the south side of the St. Mary's River, about the 10th of November; - then off Tybee, the entrance of the Savannah River on the 12th. There, meeting with the Lacedaemonian Frigate she was chased off, but having escaped, as reported by the crew of that frigate, she then tried to obey her orders and get into a southern port. That she made land midway between Port Royal and Charleston on the morning of the 21st, aiming to reach the latter port, but was cut off from it by the Frigate Horatio, which had just reached her station, and was seen the evening before off Charleston lighthouse. That the engagement between them ensued, which was heard in Charleston, and seen at St. Helena's Inlet, both vessels sailing off the coast and fighting as long as they cold be seen or heard. From that time, the Wasp was missing; and from that time, the British frigate was missing from her station on the southern coast, and never returned to it. About a month after that naval engagement, "a British frigate of the largest class" put into Cadiz, very much cut to pieces, having lost 104 of her men, reporting that she had been engaged with an American Frigate, and had sunk her.. No other American ship of war, but the Wasp, could have been so engaged, no other could, therefore have beaten off this first rate frigate." The general wanderings of HMS Horatio from April 1814 - Jan. 1815, as far as I am able to determine, were as follows: At Portsmouth, on 4 Apr 1814: Ordered To sail on following Wednesday for Newfoundland. At Portsmouth, 6 Apr 1814: Sailed for Newfoundland. Circa, 11 Jun 1814 departed Halifax with the HMS Hamadryad for Newfoundland. At Plymouth, 9 Aug 1814 Arrived from Newfoundland. Portsmouth, 10 Aug 1814 Arrived at Portsmouth, having accompanied HMS Victorious, after having struck a sunken rock near Disko Island, and being leaky. 18 Aug 1814, departed Plymouth for Cork. 21 Aug 1814, arrived at Cork, from Plymouth and hoisted the convoy signal for America. 3 Nov 1814, arrived Halifax, the brig Forth, from Cork, under convoy of the Horatio. At Newfoundland, 23 Dec 1814, Sailed with a convoy for Portugal and Spain &c. At Lisbon, 10 Jan 1815, In the Tagus. I could see how Dr. Johnson could identify HMS Horatio as the suspect, since she was on the North American station, then she sailed to Portugal, among other places, and was damaged en route (by a rock), but her log mentions no action. But another Frigate did put into the Cadiz Station very badly damaged at that time. I had hired English researcher extraordinaire, Mr. Graham Salt, years ago, to look through the various ships logs for me in preparation for my book, and he was able to identify another surprise suspect, the British Frigate Hyperion, of 32 guns. (Mr. Salt used advertises in the NRJ, and I highly recommend him.) The Hyperion had been sailing in company with the British Sloop Icarus when they encountered a severe storm. Hyperion became partially dismasted and had her windows smashed in by a following sea, and she was just barely able to limp into Cadiz. Hyperion lost sight of the little Icarus, and all aboard her feared that she had foundered. But the Icarus miraculously limped into Cadiz a few days later, completely dismasted. This incident, I believe, was responsible for the part of the story where a frigate loses sight of a damaged sloop of war at night. I think that Dr. Johnson confused Hyperion with Horatio - each name begins with an "H" - has four syllables - and both were 18-pounder ships launched in 1807. She sailed at night in company with a sloop which was also damaged. But neither Horatio's nor Hyperion's log mentions any battle. Any engagement with such a high casualty rate would certainly have been. Here's what I think might have happened, based only on the information found so far, barring any new discoveries: The US Sloop-of-War Wasp stayed in the waters between Teneriffe and Africa, not too very far from Cadiz, because those seas were rich with English prizes. The Wasp chased many more merchantmen, took several, possibly burned at least one, according to the Aquilion's log, and she briefly chased the British Sloops Jasper and Sloop Reynard (twice), and she in turn was chased by the British Frigate Aquilion, or at least the British Admiral Fleming on board HMS Elizabeth thought so. If there had been an actual action between the Aquilion and the Wasp, it was a running one, at distance, and must necessarily have caused few or no casualties on the British ship, for the incident to have stayed out of the press, and out of the naval history books. It wouldn't have been the first time that a running fight went unmentioned in a ship's log-book. But Aquilion's captain did mention in the log that he was chasing an American corvette. This information quickly made it's way back to shore, and soon merged in the public mind, with the appearance in Cadiz of the damaged Frigate Hyperion, and the damaged Sloop Icarus which temporarily having gone missing at night, and also the American account of the apparent battle, or at least the extended great gun exercise, on board the Frigate Lacedaemonian, along with the Sloop Dotteral, off Charleston. These three stories melted into the one, and that new convoluted tale, based on true, but disparate facts, is what finally appeared in all the papers. The Wasp's rigging had been badly damaged in an hour long fight with the Sloop Avon, and she even took a full 32-pounder carronade broadside from the Sloop Castillion through her rigging during her escape, and all those damages had been repaired at sea. Prior to that, the Wasp had fought the Sloop Reindeer, and had taken a 24-pound ball right through the center of her fore mast. The mast was taken out and repaired in L'Orient, France, but not replaced. The bottom line is that her rigging was weak and vulnerable. The Wasp could possibly have sunk in the storm that almost sank the Hyperion, or driven her ashore on the African coast ... But the Sloop Wasp could also have made it to the US coast - there were those two sightings of her off Tybee and Turk's Island, after all - but that would necessarily mean the four British sightings, at roughly the same time, far away off Tenerife, would have had to have been another ship, perhaps a rare, ship-rigged American privateer. But then, what happened to her? A storm? A frigate? We'll probably never know for sure.

Well, the problem with this article is that the name of the frigate, and the time and place of the action, were not provided, nor was the Wasp known to be in the offing around Cadiz. Further dashing everyone's hopes was a brief, and oddly specific public denial by Lieutenant Conkling. He didn't deny the particulars of the story, only "his having a conversation with a British Lieutenant on the subject is entirely unfounded." But Dr. Johnson was undeterred: "We consider the card of Lieutenant Conkling only of his having received the statement of "a British lieutenant". He does not deny that he reported to his 'commanding officer', the particulars of the Wasp's last engagement, or of the publication being substantially true. He appears, therefore, to confirm all we care to know of the Wasp's last action, and the fate of the wasp. He only contradicts the statement of his having had received the information from a British lieutenant.. He does not say that he did not receive it from a midshipman ... or some other officer of respectability, whom he believed. He probably intended his own verbal communication for his own navy department and not for publication, fearing that his friend in the British Navy might incur the censure of their Admiralty, for divulging their secret." Captain John H. Aulick, USN, a former steerage messmate of Commander Johnston Blakeley's in the Frigates President, Congress, and John Adams, agreed with the story, but remembered a difference source, in an undated letter to then Captain David Geisinger, USN, Aulick's then commander at the Washington Navy Yard, and the Wasp's senior surviving officer (Midshipman Thomas N. Bonneville, illegitimate son of founder Thomas Paine, being the only other), and former prize-master of the Brig Atalanta, stated: "That an officer of our navy who was a prisoner in England, at the close of the last war, (he thinks an officer of the Brig Siren) told him that he then there saw and conversed with a British officer, who said that the frigate in which he had been then recently cruising, had had a night action with a vessel which he took to be a sloop of war, though his captain maintained that she was a frigate. That this vessel suddenly disappeared in the darkness of the night, and that they on board the frigate believed she had sunk." Dr. Johnson then quotes a letter dated 22nd March, 1847, written by Mr. Robert R. Stewart, "A very respectable inhabitant of Philadelphia." What Johnson curiously didn't state, possibly because he might not have known it, but that would be one hell of a coincidence, that Mr. Stewart came home from France as a passenger in the Wasp, serving as a volunteer during the Wasp/Avon action, and he went home with Midshipmen Geisinger and Bonneville in the prize Atlanta. Blakeley had instructed Mr. Stewart to personally carry his and the State Department's dispatches to the Secretary of the Navy, William Jones, in Washington, which he did. Anyway, Stewart wrote: "The action between a British frigate and an American Ship of War off Cadiz, I think very probable, as it came from various sources. One in particular reported to me by Mr. Jas. Robinet of this city (since dead) who, during the latter part of the war, and after the peace, was a clerk in Mr. Hackney's counting house in Cadiz He told me that when the frigate entered Cadiz, he went on board of her and inquired the news, and was in formed as nearly related by Mr. [sic] Johnson, with a slight difference as to the killed and wounded on board the frigate. They told him they had lost 104 killed and wounded."

Now we go back across the Atlantic again ... Dr. Johnson continues: "About a year after this excitement, the following publication appeared in The Weekly Museum, taken from the Norfolk Beacon of13th Dec., 1815: 'The Wasp sunk. - Notwithstanding the reports we have heretofore published, a conversation with an officer of the first standing and respectability in the navy, permits us to entertain no doubts of the loss of the U.S. sloop-of-war Wasp, and her end has been as glorious as her cruise has been brilliant. All readers of newspapers must recollect that, about a year ago there was an account of a british frigate putting into Cadiz, much cut to pieces, and 100 men killed and wounded, reporting her having had an engagement in that quarter, and that the Wasp was believed to be cruising in that neighborhood; but little was said or thought about it at that time, as the report was not generally credited. We now learn fro a source which cannot be doubted, that there was an action between a British frigate of the largest class, and an American ship, and that it was undoubtably the Wasp. Lieut. Conkling, who commanded the Schooner Ohio, of Commodore Sinclair's squadron, on Lake Erie, and who was captured in August 1814, off Fort Erie, and sent to England, has lately reported himself to his commanding officer, to whom it appears he related having met with one of the officers on board the above mentioned frigate, and he was informed by him, that the ship they engaged was not a frigate, as was stated, and that his commander, as well as every person on board, could see by her battle lanterns having been lighted, and fro the clashes of her guns, that she was a corvette ship mounting 22 guns, and that they themselves believed that it was no other than the Wasp. But after being so gallantly beaten off, and having suffered so severely, they were reluctant to acknowledge how inferior the force had been which had inflicted such severe chastisement on them. It appears by the lieutenant's own accounts, that the action lasted several hours; that the frigate sheered off to refit, intending to renew the action at daylight, which was not far off, if circumstances would admit it, but at its earliest dawn there was no vestige of their gallant enemy. from the crippled state of the ship, and from the short time intervening between their separation and daylight, the lieutenant believed it impossible that they could have been out of sight, had their opponents been above water. The above account essentially coincides with with the opinions of the best informed naval men about the seat of government, who generally agree in the belief that the Wasp was the vessel engaged with the British frigate above alluded to.' " They loved to write in run-on sentences back then ! Analysis the above article to come next ...

There was a swashbuckling historical novel, written about 1900 by John Cameron Rogers, if memory serves me, about the Wasp fighting a British frigate, called "Will-o-the-Wasp." It even had a female stow-away!

"The Fate of the Wasp, Sloop of War", North Carolina University Magazine, July 1849, article written by Dr. Joseph Johnsson. Dr. Johnson was of the opinion, that Captain Johnston Blakelely, UNC alumni and favorite son, perished in a battle off the coast of Charleston, SC, teh good doctor's home, after trying unsuccessfully to get into port. After correctly quoting the above two articles from the Savannah Ledger, he presented his evidence thus: "On the 20th, Sunday evening, the Charleston pilots reported a British frigate, supposed to be the Lacemedonian, off the lighthouse at sunset, with two schooners possibly prizes, On the 23rd, [Captain] Anone of the Cinderella, from Savannah, reported that he saw the Lacedaemonian, in company with the Dotteral, off Tybee [island], on the 20th or 21st, the very time which an English Frigate was seen off the Charlestown lighthouse. The three Charleston papers concur in stating that a heavy firing was heard there on Monday, the 21st November. It lasted from 10 o'clock until after 12, gradually diminishing and was doubtless a naval engagement a little south of the Charleston Bar. The results not known when the papers went to press. On the 24th Nov., they say: 'Captain Parker of the three masted Beauford Packet heard the firing on Monday, about 15 miles from the sea, and believes it to have been an engagement between two heavy vessels. I boat which came up from the seaboard informs us that they saw the action and that it was between two ships, that they were sailing off from the coast, and continued fight until out of sight.' The evening paper, The Times, concurs in substance with these paragraphs from the two morning papers." My thoughts on this: 1. HMS Lacedaemonian was a new oak, 18-pounder frigate (launched in 1812) of the Leda/Shannon's class, and the Brig Dotterall (1808-27) was a sloop of war of the Reindeer/Avon/Cruiser's Class. Both were off the bar that day, according to the surviving log of the former. 2. Cinderella is a cool name for a ship! 3. If this were true about the Lacedaemonian engaging the Wasp, then it must necessarily negate the early British Admiralty accounts of the Wasp remaining in waters off the Azores and Africa, and chasing with Aquilion, Reynard and Jasper, as the events took place at about the same time in waters too far away. 4. The log of HMS Lacedaemonian survives, and I had the opportunity of examining it. No fight is mentioned, however, earlier that morning, the two Britons did engage in "exercising the guns", which may have included some live fire. But given the expense of powder and shot, no exercise would continue as long as two hours and 'continuing until out of sight'. When I wrote my book on the subject, I concluded that the excitement ashore must have been caused by a misunderstood gunnery practice between the Lacedaemonian and the Dotterall, but now I'm not entirely sure. No practice firing could have been "heavy" and have lasted that long. Anyway, Captain Parker reported two ships, not a ship and a brig, and he was in a position to know the difference. But the Britons would have needed to practice, as everyone ashore was expecting the arrival of the Wasp, and surely the blockading captains would have heard those rumors, and they determined to prepare for that real possibility. Then again, the duration and intensity of the firing might surely have been exaggerated with each retelling before reaching the newspapers. At any rate, Blakelely was ordered to return to a southern port, and had he followed his orders, he could have easily have appeared off Charleston by this time. Dr. Johnson then quoted a letter, dated 27th June, 1844, written by the then Governor of the State of South Carolina, Whitemarsh B. Seabrook. "At the time of the occurrence (the firing off Edisto Island, on the 21st Nov., 1814) I had just crossed the Edisto Ferry, on my way, I think, to Columbia. The day was calm and the firing heavy and obviously very near. It was evident that two vessels of unequal size were engaged, and the gradually diminishing sound of their broadsides showed that it was a running fight, and that they were opposite to each other. Shortly afterwards, in conversation with a gentleman from St. Helena, whose name has escaped me, he stated that two negroes who were on Coffin's Island, the most eastern of the Hunting Islands, when the engagement took place. informed him that one of the vessels was much larger than the other, and that while they continued in sight, they were very near each other. It further appears, from the representations of these negroes, that the engagement commenced off the eastern end of Coffin's Island, and that the vessels steered about southeast. Two or three days before the event alluded to, it was reported that the Wasp had been seen off the Savannah Bar, and about three months after it, I well remember reading in the newspaper that a British frigate stationed off the coast had not been heard from for a long time. I then came to the conclusion, but without any other data than those so briefly related that the fight was between the Wasp and the missing frigate, and that both were sunk by accidental or designed explosion of the magazine of the former. Such, however, has always been the impression on my mind. Blakeley was a daring and chivalrous commander, had been victorious in two engagements, and was not likely to surrender to an enemy unless greatly superior." But later, when it was learned that the Lacedaemonian had not been lost, Dr. Johnson started looking around for another British warship to blame. To be continued ...

Way too cool. A mislabeled picture, dated 1879, of possibly your very deck house, belonging to either the Santee or the Sabine, is reproduced in that above-mentioned illustrated history of the US Naval Academy, who name I sadly don't have. I had just photocopied the two pictures 20 years ago, because they looked interesting. The structure, of that size you described, sits just before the mainmast, apparently atop where one would find the gratings. She mounts 24 broadside guns, possibly light 32-pounders on skid carriages, starting from the wheel to the forecastle, with a barrel of a big pivot Dahlgren gun aft of the mizen mast. There are what looks like two sliding wooden doors in the center of the aft-facing deckhouse bulkhead. The photographer is standing to port of the pivot gun, looking forward. I don't have a functioning scanner at hand, but I can snail-mail them to you.

Here's an interesting alternative fate from The Niles Weekly Register, a national newspaper, dated June 4, 1825: "The Wasp, sloop of war, Captain Blakeley, was remarkably successful in annoying the British during the the late war, and captured one sloop of the enemy and sunk another. The last account he had of her was, that, on September 23, 1814 she was off the Madeira Islands, and it has been ever since supposed that she has foundered at sea, whereby the whole of her officers and crew perished, and no trace was left of her. The Spring Grove , whale ship, was lost on the African coast on the 23rd November last and some of the crew have been rescued from the Arabs, by that distinguished philanthropist, Mr. Wilshire, the British Counsel at Mogadore In the account of the affair there, is the following paragraph. 'A circumstance is related by one of the rescued men, which is as follows - They said that the Arab chief in whose hands they fell, could speak a little English; and contrived to inform them, that, some years ago, and English ship was lost on the African Coast, that the crew reached the shore to the number of three hundred men, well armed; that his own tribe consisting of five hundred men, attacked them and were repulsed; that he solicited the assistance of a neighboring tribe to renew the attack, with an additional force of four to five hundred men; that the British drove them back a second time, and were making good their retreat for some settlement of security, when they were a third time surrounded by a body of thirteen hundred men; and that the British fought till three-fourths of their numbers fell; and the remainder were cut to pieces after laying down their arms, and after killing 250 Arabs. The name of the ship and the time of the shipwreck are unknown. It will appear very possible, and even probably to everyone, on reading this paragraph, that we have just learned the probable fate of our gallant countrymen. The Americans might easily have been mistaken, by the Arabs, for Englishmen. The amount given as the strength of the crew is greater than the Wasp had, but she may have had some recent captures and have had many prisoners on board - who in the case of a shipwreck , and attack by Arabs, would have made a common cause with her officers and crew. There would be melancholy satisfaction in ascertaining the certainty of what is now supposed to have been the fate of the gallant Blakeley and his gallant crew." This story was quoted from the rival publication, "The National Intelligencer", and their editors dismissed the story as probably just an old tale, it being similar to one they printed back in 1800, but the Niles Register's editors thought it legitimate, having come from English Council Wilshire.