ber of prisoners, and hoped by means of exchange to release an equal number of American seamen from captivity. Accordingly he ran into Basse Terre roads, Guadeloupe, under a flag of truce. Captain Murray in the Montezuma, who happened to be in the vicinity just at that time convoying a fleet of merchantmen, in a report to the Navy Department, February 20, says: "I parted with Com. Barry off the road of Bassaterre, where he sent his boat with a flag to endeavor to negociate an exchange of prisoners he took up from the privateer he sunk off Martinico, which he will inform you of, but the fort fired on them and would not let them land.”1 There upon Barry hauled down his white flag and bom barded the fort in return. February 26, the United States captured an English prize of the French privateer Democrat, but the latter escaped. An American prize also was recaptured. Barry made another attempt to exchange prisoners, sending a flag of truce to Guadeloupe. Governor Desfourneax assured Barry that there were no Americans on the Island and had not been since Bainbridge and his fellow prisoners had departed, except a few who remained from choice and the crew of an American ship recently brought in who were to be released. Barry was skeptical as to this statement, but he put his French prisoners ashore, wishing to get them off his hands. The governor maintained that he did not recognize a condition of war as exist1 Mass. Mercury, March 29, 1799. ing, and that Guadeloupe was open to American trade.1 The ship Merrimack, 24, Captain Moses Brown, arrived at the rendezvous in Prince Rupert's Bay January 20. This vessel had recently been built for the service at Newburyport, with a fund raised by citizens under the act of June 30, 1798. She was the first of four ships of the same name on the United States navy list, a name afterwards made famous at Hampton Roads and at Santiago de Cuba. She sailed from Boston January 3, and a few days after her arrival on the station fell in with her flagship, the United States. Commodore Barry sent her back to the United States with a large convoy of merchantmen. During the homeward voyage of this fleet they fell in with several English armed vessels, but were not much disturbed by the French. From St. Christopher they were accompanied a short distance by the Montezuma. Convoy duty was subject to many difficulties and annoyances, due to the insubordination of the shipmasters, the varying sailing qualities of the ships, and other causes. Brown wrote to Barry, February 16: "Our Countrymen want Convoy but pay no attention to keep with it and such tubs as some of them are under my convoy I never saw, and they are sure to spread each night as far as possible to see them."2 Strange vessels not infrequently found their way into the fleet during 1 Decatur, pp. 31-34; Barry, pp. 377, 378, 383-387. |