The Challenge by Andrew Lambert

Author:Andrew Lambert [Andrew Lambert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780571273218
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2012-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

DESPERATE MEASURES

In December 1813 Secretary Jones issued cruising orders to the brigs Siren, Enterprise and Rattlesnake. His over-riding concerns were to attack British commerce, and avoid combat. Siren would head for Madeira and the African coast, where there were many rich, unescorted prizes, and the Indian Ocean, operating between Mauritius, Bourbon and India, looking for homeward-bound East Indiamen. If the prizes provided food and water the cruise should be extended because, Jones stressed, no prizes were to be taken.

A Single Cruiser, if ever so successful, can man but a few prizes, and every prize is a serious diminution of her force; but a Single Cruiser, destroying every captured vessel, has the capacity of continuing in full vigour her destructive power so long as her provisions and stores can be replenished, either from friendly ports, or from the Vessels captured. Thus has a Single Cruiser, upon the destructive plan, the power perhaps of twenty acting upon pecuniary views alone; and thus may the employment of our small force, in some degree compensate for the great inequality compared with that of the Enemy.

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