Little Porga [ Little Porgia ] Armed Brig Commander William Armstrong Massachusetts Privateer Brigantine 30 April 1781-3 November 1781

Commissioned/First Date: 30 April 1781 Out of Service/Cause: 3 November 1781/captured by British Privateer Cutter Guernsey

Owners: Tristram Dalton of Newburyport, Massachusetts

Tonnage: 100

Battery: Date Reported: 30 April 1781 Number/Caliber Weight Broadside 10/ Total: 10 cannon/ Broadside: 5 cannon/ Swivels:

Crew: 30 April 1781: 61 [] total

Description:

Officers: (1) First Mate Joseph Buckley, -3 November 1781; (2) Master John Brown, -3 November 1781

Cruises: (1) Newburyport, Massachusetts to sea, October 1781-3 November 1781

Prizes: (1) Brigantine Olive (Nathaniel Freeman), [] April 1781

Actions:

Comments:

The 100-ton 1 Massachusetts Privateer Brigantine Porga was commissioned on 28 September 1780

1 Currier, History of Newburyport, Mass: 1764-1905 , Volume 1, 645

©awiatsea.com-posted July 2019 under Commander William Armstrong. 2 As the Little Porga 3 (or Little Porgia )4 she was again commissioned on 30 April 1781 under Armstrong, listed as being from Newburyport, Massachusetts. She was listed as being armed with ten guns and as having a crew of sixty men. Her $20000 bond was signed by Armstrong and by Tristram Dalton and Robert Hooper, both of Newburyport. 5 The First Mate was Joseph Buckley. 6 John Brown served aboard as Master. 7

On 30 April 1781 Armstrong libeled the 120-ton brigantine Olive (Nathaniel Freeman) in the Massachusetts Maritime Court of the Middle District. Her trial was set for 22 May 1781. [ The Boston Gazette and the Country Journal , Monday, April 30, 1781 ]

Porga sailed from Newburyport bound for Bordeaux, France with a cargo of cotton, sugar and tobacco. On 3 November 1781 the Little Porga was captured by the British Privateer Cutter Guernsey (Edward Conyers), 8 a privateer belonging to the island of Guernsey in the Channel Isles. The prisoners were taken in there. What followed is described by her owner, in a letter to John Adams, one of the American Commissioners in France:

“ . . . belonging to the Island of Guernsey—whither Capt Armstrong and his company were carried, after being stripped almost naked, according to the custom of the privateer' s men from that Island. From thence They were sent 80 to Portsmouth, and put on board a guard ship, called the Diligent, from that vessell most of them were order' d to Mill Prison, at Plymouth—but, by letters of March 7. 1782, from the chief Mate,1 who dates them in France, it appears Capt Armstrong, on his arrival in Portsmouth, was seperated from his own people, and put between decks of the Guard ship, with the British Seamen, and confined in Irons, on both legs, and not suffered to speak to one of his own men—no reason being given for this singular treatment. The Mate writes me he left Mill Prison 28th Feby—that he had not seen Capt Armstrong there, tho' he heard he was sent to Plymouth to be examined—for what he does not say—neither can I conjecture. A Letter from his 3d Mate, dated in Mill Prison, Jany 10th, gives a full confirmation of the ill usage given his former commander—and that he was left on

2 V MSSAR, 1:296

3 NRAR, 375; Allen, Massachusetts Privateers of the Revolution , 208

4 Claghorn, Naval Officers of the American Revolution , 7

5 NRAR, 375; Allen, Massachusetts Privateers of the Revolution , 208

6 Letter, Tristram Dalton to John Adams, May 25, 1782, in Papers of John Adams, vol. 13, Adams Papers Digital Edition

7 Resolves of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in New England : begun and held at Boston, in the county of Suffolk on Wednesday, the Twenty-Fifth Day of October, Anno Domini, 1780 . Boston: Nathaniel Willis, 1781, June 1781, p. 13; Prize Papers Online 1: American Revolutionary War and Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: Interrogation of Joseph Buckley, at Brill Online

8 Prize Papers Online 1: American Revolutionary War and Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: Interrogation of Joseph Buckley and William Armstrong, at Brill Online

Dalton added a brief biography of Armstrong’s life: “Capt Armstrong, was born in or near New Castle, Britain; came to this country before hostilities commenced with the British—being then a boy. Soon after that nation began capturing our property on the Seas, he was taken in a letter of Marque Ship bound to Philada—sent to New York—where he was put on Board the Somerset Ship of War—and was in her, when she was wrecked on Cape Cod. This event releasing him, he came to town, and put himself under his former master, a Capt Roberts, who, meeting with misfortunes, gave this lad his liberty. By his merit he got employ—and, before he was 20 years of age, commanded a letter of marque Brig, of mine, and captured a large Ship—afterwd was successful, in a privateer, untill this misfortune happen' d him. The Prisoners, whom he took, spoke, in the highest terms of praise, of the usage received from him. I know not a single circumstance of his conduct, that can have, justly, led to the uncommonly severe treatment inflicted on him.”10

11 Eleven of her crew were committed to Mill Prison on 3 January 1782. Little Porga was tried and condemned in the High Court of Admiralty in 1782. She was described as an American merchant vessel with a letter-of-marque in the court records. 12

Before the letter reached Adams, Armstrong reached America. In a second letter to Adams, Dalton reveals Armstrong’s brief account of his captivity: “He tells that on his arrival at Portsmouth he was put on board a Guard Ship—Admiral Pye’s, there confined in Irons on both legs, for three months and three days—and part of the time handshackled, for which treatment no reason was given him. At a very great risque, tired of his cruel situation, he effected a happy escape.”

9 Letter, Tristram Dalton to John Adams, May 25, 1782, in Papers of John Adams, vol. 13, Adams Papers Digital Edition

10 Letter, Tristram Dalton to John Adams, May 25, 1782, in Papers of John Adams, vol. 13, Adams Papers Digital Edition

11 ; “A List of the Americans Committed to Old Mill Prison Since the American War,” in New England Historical and Genealogical Register , vol. XIX, p. 213

12 HCA 32/390/16/1-7