Dear Brother, Your letter made me hope your undertakings prosper by land as mine do by sea, although not all the news I send by this missive is good.
Two squadrons broke out of Boston, only days after your letter reached me. One sailed under Commodore Hull with Constitution and Chesapeake, to trail their coat toward Halifax, and ours was the other. The British met Hull and drove him back to port in an action where we took Endymion and sank Tenedos but Hull was killed. Both our frigates will also need much work, and Commodore Stewart now commands in Boston, with Captain Perry in Chesapeake.
We sailed straight for France, in the strength of a ship of the line, La Legion (which means «legion» although there is only one of her), four frigates, Le Malin (which means "crafty"), United States, President, and Constellation, sloop of war Somers, and no less than seventeen privateers. If our kin in Baltimore do not hasten fitting out their ships, the New Englanders will surely try to strip the seas bare of British sails.
Rodgers, being senior to Decatur, could not resist being the first American commodore to fly his broad pennant in a two-decker. The man stands much on his rank, and his dark and dour countenance well matches his choleric disposition. However, he is a sound seaman and somewhat eased in mind and purse by the award of prize money for bringing the Macedonian into New York.
It also helped to have two commodores, because we could thus form two Navy squadrons to attack the rich convoys, leaving the privateers to dispose of single ships. The British certainly had guarded their convoys rather well against frigates, but I do not think it was "dreamt of in their philosophies" to see a well-found seventy-four flying American colors. As a ruse de guerre, Rodgers also flew the British East India Company's house flag, some of their larger ships being easily mistaken for ships of the line.
Suffice it to say, we demolished a West India convoy, then we and Constellation feinted at the Irish coastal trade, being now well supplied with coffee and sugar from our prizes. For a gift of either, the Irish would gladly supply us with information as to the whereabouts of the British Navy, so we made a fine bag of English merchant ships and coast guard vessels, as well as burning several shore stations. Smugglers will go about their occasions unmolested for some time, in that part of Ireland.
Commodore Rodgers took his portion of the squadron into Nantes, nearly losing La Legion on a reef because the French were slow to send pilots. However, they at once made amends, and now we at last are all safe in Nantes. La Legion will need to be drydocked and refitted after her grounding. It is well that she met that accident in France, for there is not a drydock in America.
In truth, I have had no occasion to use my French to charm the ladies, and no wish to use my prize money on those whose charms may be purchased. The ladies of Nantes in any case mostly lack charm, and the French Navy is jealous of its position in regard to them. (At times I think they are jealous also of American victories over "Perfidious Albion.").
Few of us have as yet received much in specie, except for the division of the moveable goods taken aboard our thirty-one prizes (to the Navy alone; I have no count for the privateers) and is not being spent to repair the flagship. (Naval stores are terribly dear in France, after so many years of blockade.) All the prize agents in France could not command enough specie to pay what is owed us just for the prizes we sent in, to say nothing of what we burned.
However, we have agreed with the French that they will provide us with a lading of lace, silks, and brandy, sure to fetch a good price in America. They are sending it to America in two of their own
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