linda collison's Sea of Words
charting a course from imagination to publication
by J. Dennis Robinson
“To this day, we don’t really know who won the War of 1812. According to Jamie Trost, a naval history enthusiast who has captained Lynx in both Pacific and Atlantic waters, there are three answers. Trost says:
The British perspective is: What war? They barely acknowledge it happened. The Canadian perspective is: America attacked, Canada defended, and America retreated no less than 13 times. The American perspective is: We don’t remember much about that war, but we’re damn sure that we won it.”
– from America’s Privateer; Lynx and the War of 1812 by J. Dennis Robinson
That’s the average American for you! (Like Sweet Baby James used to sing, Don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology…) I don’t pretend to be a historian either, but I damn sure am working on it!
I was born in Baltimore where everybody knows at least one thing about the largely forgotten War of 1812 – that Francis Scott Key wrote a poem while detained on a British ship during the bombardment of Fort McHenry; a poem that would be printed in newspapers, sung to the tune of an English drinking song and voted our National Anthem more than a hundred years later, in 1931. I admit to becoming emotionally labile whenever I hear The Star-Spangled Banner sung at the beginning of a baseball game or at the Superbowl half-time show, I’ve been known to tear up. (Another song I learned growing up in Maryland was The Battle of New Orleans: In 1814 we took a little trip, along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip’We took a little bacon and we took a little beans and fought the bloody British in the town of New Orleans… Again, the words of this song suggests that the rednecks not the redcoats won the battle, if not the war!)
This year, 2012, we commemorate the bicentennial of the War of 1812, a war fought for free trade and sailors’ rights, a war fought in part, by letters-of-marque and privateers. For those of us who love ships and are interested in maritime tradition, the commemoration of this war will be a chance to rediscover history.
Having been aboard the schooner Lynx a few years ago, I was eager to buy this book when it came out. Though the modern Lynx is not exactly a replica ship, nor is she a privateer, she is none-the-less an active “tall ship” (I dislike that dumbed-down term, but find myself using it!) that promotes traditional sailing and America’s maritime heritage in the 21st century. On a day sail out of Kawaihae Harbor Bob and I helped raise sail, we listened to several crew members in period dress tell us about their duties and we witnessed a firing of one of the six-pounder carronades by a handy female gunner.
Aboard the Lynx, along the North Kohala Coast
America’s Privateer is a book about the “forgotten war” and the privateers who assisted America’s fledgling navy. It’s the story of the original Lynx, a licensed letter of marque “created to carry cargo swiftly under wartime conditions, and if need be, to run an enemy blockade or capture a ready prize” – and today’s Lynx, inspired by and similar to the original – custom-designed by legendary Melbourne Smith, designer and builder of historical ships including the US Brig Niagra, Californian, builder of the Pride of Baltimore, designer of the Spirit of Massachusetts and Maryland Federalist, and a consultant for HM Bark Endeavour,
Today’s Lynx is the result of one wealthy adventurer’s dream, a man to whom history matters. As any boat owner knows, boats are expensive to maintain, they are labors of love. (I, for one, am glad Mr. Woods put his money into a sailing, living history museum rather than a racing yacht or a football team.) The book, published by The Lynx Educational Foundation, tells the story of both Lynxes, why the war of 1812 matters and how today’s Lynx teaches maritime history and heritage.
Robinson says, “Today’s privateer Lynx is not on a mission to prove that America won the “Forgotten War,” but rather to remind us why we fight for liberty in the first place. It is precisely because the War of 1812 is unfamiliar to all but a few naval history buffs, that it is the ideal backdrop for a fresh conversation about the very meaning of freedom. Lynx is on a mission, we might say, to incite America to discussion. The enemy this time is not the British, but our own complacency and forgetfulness…
Current attacks at sea bear a haunting similarity to those of the early 19th century. Private security companies are at this moment trying to re-establish the “letter of marque” system that would allow privateers to take on 21st century pirates in Somalia and elsewhere” (pg. 148).
Will privateers make a come-back? Should they? Is it even possible in today’s world? I don’t know, but America’s Privateer is a book to read and ponder and if you get the chance to sail aboard her, don’t pass it up.
A seaman pressed into service aboard the Lynx
I have visited the town he was born in and I have stood on the black lava rock shore where he was killed, half a world away. I have sailed to few of the places he explored and charted so well. Join me today on English History Authors blog for a discussion about Captain James Cook, Royal Navy.
HM Bark Endeavour
HM Bark Endeavour is a working replica of the ship British explorer and navigator Capt. James Cook commanded on his first voyage around the world (1768-1771) .
Twelve years ago today Bob and I disembarked the bark after spending 3 weeks as 18th-century sailors. ( Watch this short YouTube video for a glimpse of what we experienced. HM Bark Endeavour
I heard about the ship’s circumnavigation in the newspaper: “Help wanted: Deckhands to man floating museum…a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sail as crew on Endeavour, the replica of Capt. James Cook’s ship that will visit Hawaii in November. Crewmembers sleep in hammocks slung together on the lower deck. They must be prepared to go aloft and work the sails at any time of day in any weather, not suffer from chronic seasickness or fear of heights, and be physically fit. Sailing experience is not essential…” Bob and I signed on for the experience of a lifetime.
Aboard the Endeavour Replica 54 of us lived the lives of 18th century sailors (with a few modern conveniences such as heads, showers, and back-up diesel engines. We were not made to eat ship biscuit and salt beef!) Females were expected to do the same work as the males, from climbing aloft to make and furl sail to heaving and hauling on braces and halyards. It was at times terrifying, exhausting, tedious, exhilarating and the commeraderie we established with our mates was intensely rewarding.
The idea for my character Patricia was born in the middle of the north Pacific Ocean. I was at the helm of Endeavour, I was steering the ship, keeping her on course, thinking what it might have been like to have been alive in the 18th century, to have been a woman on a ship like this. Not as a passenger but as part of the crew. In writing the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series I wanted to explore what it might have been like to have been a young woman aboard a ship during the Age of Sail. All those stories about girls dressing as boys and going to sea – maybe they weren’t just stories. After all, here I was doing a man’s work, wearing a man’s clothes, sleeping in a swinging hammock next to my male watch mates (one of whom I was married to.) Star-Crossed would be more than six years in the making but when I got off the ship in Kona, Hawaii I took the heart of the story with me.
After circumnavigating twice, the Endeavour Replica, built in Fremantle, is now moored permanently in Sydney, Australia.
Here’s the link again, to the video. HM Bark Endeavour
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