Sir John Sherbrooke (Halifax)

Career (Nova Scotia)
Owner:	Joseph Freeman, Enos Collins, John Barss, Joseph. Barss, Benjamin Knaut
Port of registry:	Halifax, Nova Scotia
Commissioned:	Feb. 11, 1813
Honours and awards:	18 captures
Fate:	Captured and burned 1814
General characteristics
Type:	Privateer Brig
Tons burthen:	278 bm
Sail plan:	brig
Crew:	150; reduced to 40 men when engaged in mercantile trade
Armament:	18 9-pounder cannons; reduced to 12 when engaged in mercantile trade

For other ships of the same name, see Sir John Sherbrooke.

Sir John Sherbrooke was a successful and famous Nova Scotian privateer brig during the War of 1812. In addition to preying on American merchant ships (she captured 18 between her commissioning on 11 February 1813 and her conversion to a merchant vessel in 1814), she also defended Nova Scotian waters during the war. After her conversion to a merchantman she fell prey to an American privateer in 1814. She was burnt to prevent her reuse.

Origins

She was originally the American 16-gun privateer brig Thorn, Asa Hooper master. Thorn was from Marblehead and commissioned at the outbreak of the War of 1812. She and her crew of 124 men were on their first cruise when the British captured her. At the time of her capture she had already taken as prizes the brig Freedom, loaded with salt, and the American vessel Hiram, with a cargo of flour and bread on a voyage to Lisbon and traveling with a British license (safe conduct pass) that asked all British naval vessels and privateers to let her pass, provided that she was on a bona fide passage to Spain or Portugal with flour. This capture, on 15 October, gave rise to a US Supreme Court court case in which the court ruled that Hiram, although an American vessel, was a legitimate prize.

The British naval vessels Tenedos, Shannon, Nymphe and Curlew captured Thorn on 31 October 1812. Thorn was sold at Halifax as a prize and re-named after the former colonial administrator Sir John Coape Sherbrooke.

Privateer

She had three letters of marque issued to her: 27th November, 1812 (Captain Thomas Robson); 15 February, 1813 (Captain Joseph Freeman); and 27th August, 1814 (Captain Wm Corken). Sir John Sherbrooke's primary captain was Joseph Freeman, an experienced privateer officer from Liverpool, Nova Scotia, who was a veteran who did everything in navy fashion. Freeman co-operated with the navy, which treated him with the same respect as a naval officer.

On 18 December 1813, the prize agents advertised the distribution of prize money for the following captures:

• Sloops Red Bird, Apollo, Betsey, and Fame
• Brig Columbia
• Schooners Mary, Paulina and Caroline
• Privateer schooner Governor Plummer, of six guns

as well as salvage for the recapture of the ship Loyal Sam, brig Paragon and sloop General Hodgson.

Sir John Sherbrooke provided reinforcements for HMS Shannon prior to her famous victory over the USS Chesapeake, although Sir John Sherbrooke was not present at the battle. Sir John Sherbrooke had gathered 50 Irish volunteers when on 26 May 1813 she recaptured the Duck, which was transporting them as laborers from Waterford to Newfoundland. The Duck had been the prize of the American privateer General Plummer, which Sir John Sherbrooke captured two days latter. Sir John Sherbrooke lent 22 of the laborers to the Shannon.

The month before, Sir John Sherbrooke had sailed in company with HMS Rattler and the schooner HMS Bream. Together the three captured 11 American vessels between 7 and 9 April.

Sir John Sherbrooke also began the chase of the notorious American privateer schooner Young Teazer, which British naval ships, including HMS Hogue and HMS Orpheus, then took up and which ended with Young Teazer's destruction at the hands of her own crew.

Merchantman

Far larger than most colonial privateers, Sir John Sherbrooke required a constant supply of American captures to pay for her large crew. Following the destruction of most American shipping during the war, the Sir John Sherbrooke became unprofitable to operate as a privateer and her owners sold her in 1814. Her new owners then converted her to a merchant ship.

Fate

In the autumn of 1814 Sir John Sherbrooke was outward bound from Halifax with a cargo of oil and dried fish. She encountered the American privateer Syren, which captured her and put a prize crew aboard her. However, a British squadron came along and chased Sir John Sherbrooke ashore. The American crew managed to get away with all the valuables on board despite the fire of the British frigate's guns. The frigate sent her boats to attempt a rescue, but gunfire from a nearby fort drove them off. Salvage was impracticable, so Sir John Sherbrooke was set on fire and burned to the water's edge.

Ironically, shortly thereafter, Syren was herself run ashore by a British blockading squadron off the Delaware River and burned by her crew. One of the British vessels involved was Telegraph, also a former American privateer.

Cultural references

Sir John Sherbrooke was the largest privateer from Atlantic Canada in the War of 1812 but not as famous as her smaller and more successful counterpart, the schooner Liverpool Packet. However some believe that the line "I wish I was in Sherbrooke now", from the Stan Rogers song Barrett's Privateers, was inspired by this vessel, as the town of Sherbrooke, Nova Scotia did not yet exist.

References

• Dan Conlin, profile of privateer brig Sir John Sherbrooke
• Snider, C.H.J. (1928) Under the Red Jack; Privateers of the Maritime Provinces of Canada in the War of 1812. (London: Martin Hopkinson & Co.).
• Kert, Fay. Prize and Prejudice.