The Seafight Between the Boxer and the Enterprise

"I remember the sea-fight far away, how it thundered o'er the tide!" wrote Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem "In My Youth". He was writing about the battle between the British brig Boxer and the USS Enterprise on September 5, 1813 in the midst of America's truly forgotten and ignored War of 1812. This little battle, based almost solely on wits and skill, may have been one of the high points of America's fight to retain its autonomy. In a war in which Washington, our national capital, was burned by the British, Maine's little sea fight was a source of pride. To quote an old sea chantey, "we had an Enterprising Brig that knocked your Boxer out". (Pickering)

During the summer of 1813, the 14 gun Enterprise was sent to Portland "for the protection of the coast in the neighborhood". All aboard knew of the Boxer and her sister ships, and of their harassment of the Maine coast. Only days before the battle the Enterprise put into Portland with a new captain on his maiden voyage. He was a 28 year old Philadelphian named William Burrows. The Enterprise was his first command; for some time he had been passed over for command of his own ship to the point of utter discouragement. Burrows served under Preble on the USS Constitution. and was considered to be a most worthy officer candidate, however he apparently lacked influence with the Navy. His commission came while he was trying to resign. Now Burrows was out to prove himself.

The Sea Fight: Burrows' opportunity was imminent. He left port to investigate a report of a brig firing upon a ship entering the Kennebec on Saturday afternoon. Early Sunday morning, September 5th, he found the brig sailing out of Pemaquid Harbor. She was the HMS Boxer with 12 guns under the command of 29 year old Samuel Blyth. The two ships exchanged fire before the Enterprise pulled away in light seas. She was hardly retreating. Burrows is quoted as promising to outsail and then outshoot the enemy; but first he needed to maneuver into the best position. This took all day.

From Gould's Portland in the Past
With Historical Notes of Old Falmouth.

The ships were soon becalmed a few miles off Monhegan. Over the course of this long day, it became obvious to Mainers up and down the coast that there would be a battle at sea. The Harrington militia was called out early Sunday and took up a position at the fort in Pemaquid. Captain Lemuel Moody, the keeper of Portland Observatory, gave the people of Portland a running account of the battle as he watched from his vantage point through his English telescope. Longfellow's poem is more artistic than truthful. The people of Portland could neither see nor hear the battle; they took a great interest in Moody's reports. The sound of guns did alarm church goers in Wiscasset and were even more distinct across the river on Edgecomb heights. Hundreds of people watched the battle from shores east of Portland and waited for the smoke to clear and reveal the outcome.

Finally, the breeze came up in Burrows' favor. He tested his ship against the Boxer with nearly two hours of jockeying for the perfect advantage. Around two o'clock he began his approach. Both ships held their fire until they were within "half a pistol shot". Then they let loose broadsides. Immediately, Captain Blyth took a cannon ball through the body and died. Soon Capt. Burrows was hit by musket fire that traveled up an angle from leg to body, a wound which would soon prove fatal. Burrows refused to be carried below and had himself propped up on the deck where he could watch. Command descended to Lt. David McCreery on the Boxer , and Lt. Edward McCall of the Enterprise, both inexperienced in combat.

Moving out in front and across her enemy's bow, the Enterprise was able to rake the deck of the Boxer cutting away her maintopmast and foretopsail-yard. She then took up a position on the starboard bow continuing all the while to pound the increasingly unmanageable Boxer. Within 45 minutes of the first volley, the Boxer had enough. However, she could not strike her colors as they were nailed to the masts. To the derisive laughter of the Americans, the British had to go aloft and cut down their colors. Blyth's sword was brought on board the Enterprise and presented to Burrows who said, "I die content." He had achieved his ultimate goal - glory!

These old sea battles were hellish affairs. Cannonballs careened across the decks leveling anything in their way. Their speed and force of impact were terrifying. Wood splintered under this force impaling unlucky nearby men. Tons of sail, mast and spar crashed to the decks. A ship's guns often wreaked havoc on her own sailors who were run over by recoiling canons or burned and injured by misfires. Six men aboard the Boxer where killed and fourteen wounded. Interestingly, four British sailors deserted their posts during the battle. The Americans had three fatalities, and ten were wounded. By McCall's description the Enterprise "suffered much in Spars and Rigging"; the Boxer's guns were not totally ineffectual. On the other hand, the Boxer was crippled; rigging and sails were shot away and her hull was peppered by cannon shot. McCall counted fourteen 18-pounder holes; eight in a single plank. It is no wonder that the Boxer was prized out and not refurbished for use by our own navy.
English accounts of the sea battle are a tad defensive; they were not accustomed to loosing at sea. Their excuses are numerous. The Enterprise was longer (13' ), heavier ( 40 tons), and had more guns (2 ). More telling descriptions, the masts were 15" bigger in circumference, the guns were better quality and had double breechings, the broadside metal was heavier (but not by much). Perhaps most to the point, the Enterprise had a lot more men on board (32), and they were better trained. Accounts, other than by the British, claim that this was one of the most closely matched sea fights of the times. Sour grapes! The British were outsailed and then out gunned!

In 1815, the two captains were joined by midshipman Kervin Waters of the Enterprise who had languished for two years in Portland and finally succumbed to wounds received during the battle. Waters was just eighteen at the time of his death. The young men of Portland erected an elaborate table-like monument over his grave consisting of five columns topped by a slab. Blyth's crew had a brick cenotaph topped by a marble slab erected over his grave. Interestingly, no stone was placed on the grave of the American hero until a New Yorker, Mathew L. Davis, accidentally came upon the neglected grave. Davis, inscribed as "a passing stranger", had a sandstone and marble cenotaph erected over the grave as a "monument of respect". How strange! How quickly Burrows became a forgotten hero in a forgotten war.

There is another graveyard tale pertaining to the Boxer and the Enterprise. Up in Thomaston in the Village Cemetery there are also three graves side by side. In the middle is the grave of Harriet Shibles; to either side are her husbands. On one side is James Burnham who returned to Thomaston after fighting aboard the Enterprise. On the other side is Charles Walker who fought on board the Boxer. (Packard)

A Dirty Little Secret: As with many patriotic stories, there is an undercurrent of ambiguity. The Boxer was not just patrolling the Maine coast in search of American prizes. It was escorting an American brig thinly disguised as the Swedish vessel Margaretta from St John, NB to Bath. The Margaretta was, in fact, smuggling much needed woolen goods. According to Charles Tappan, a merchant aboard the Margaretta, there was a tacit agreement that American vessels shipping British goods need not fear British ships; it was a matter of economics. American privateers were, perhaps, another matter; the Embargo Act was, after all, American law.

The Margaretta hired Blyth and the Boxer to escort them to the mouth of the Kennebec in return for a bill of exchange on a London bank in the amount of £100. Mercenary and illegal - true, but also quite common. At one point, off Quoddy Head, the Boxer actually towed the Margaretta in the fog. It was also part of the agreement that the Boxer would fire over the Margaretta at the mouth of the Kennebec for appearance's sake. And so an ordinary business deal went awry.

After the battle it became apparent to certain merchants that the Blyth's bill of exchange might prove embarrassing. They employed a certain "Esquire K" (Kinsman) to exchange the bill for $500 in specie. Lt. McCall of the Enterprise was responsible for the sealing and inventorying of the Boxer. The intermediary was able to persuade McCall to replace the bill with the specie perhaps by convincing him it was his patriotic duty to assure woolen goods for the army.

There is still more to this than meets the eye. The Margaretta was carrying "39 Bales and one hundred and ninety three Casks of British merchandize" according to the marshall's notice of seizure for breech of US laws. Wool isn't generally shipped in casks. Despite Tappan's assurances that the merchants intended to pay all duties, the Margaretta was surely smuggling goods.
And who were the merchants? General William King of Bath, brother of Federalist leader Rufus King, friend of President Madison and the man in charge of milirtary affairs in Maine, was a half owner of the Margaretta alias the Latona. Despite the fact that King himself persistently lined his pockets with smuggling profits, he had ordered strict treatment of anyone breaking the law by trafficking with the enemy. Here he was nearly caught in the act himself by the arrangement with Blyth. But King was a brazen man who pulled off many such contre temps. Perhaps this is why he represents Maine in the US Capitol Building's statuary hall.

Aftermath: What became of the "lucky little Enterprise"? She went on to serve her country doing pretty much what she did throughout her service - protecting American merchantmen and combating piracy, smugglers, and slavers. The Enterprise had a long and illustrious service beginning as a schooner in 1799. She captured nineteen vessels and fought in five actions in her first eight months. From 1801 to 1807, she joined other US warships in their fight against the Barbary pirates off 'the shores of Tripoli'. While on tour in the Mediterranean she was captained by Stephen Decatur, and played a part in his daring raid into Tripoli harbor, but thatÕs another story. During the War of 1812, the USS Enterprise, refitted as a brig, cruised the eastern seaboard and took at least three prizes in addition to the Boxer. From 1817 to 1823, the Enterprise sailed the Caribbean and took another thirteen prizes before she ran aground and broke up on Little Curacao Island in the West Indies. Even then, she was a lucky ship; not a single crew member was injured. (Ancient Mariner)

The not so lucky Boxer was sold as a prize for $11, 674 which was shared out between the Enterprise officers and crew. Prize money for a seaman came to $54.31. The Boxer finished out its life as a merchant ship. Kenneth Roberts wrote that the Boxer's bad luck went with her guns which were used to arm the Hyder Ally, a Portland privateer. The Hyder Ally took several prizes in the Indian Ocean but never managed to bring a single one to port. But that's another story.

Sources: Chase, Fannie. Wiscasset in Pownalborough. Wiscasset, ME, 1967. • Crowe, Mike. "Enterprise vs. Boxer." Fishermen's Voice Monthly Newspaper. January 2000. .(As of 12/2002, Crowe's page is no longer available at this site) • Goold, William. Portland in the Past With Historical Notes of Old Falmouth. 1886 edition. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1997. • James, William. "USS Enterprise engages HMS Boxer". The naval history of Great Britain. London 1902. • Lemke, William. The Wild, Wild East.. Camden, ME: Yankee Books, 1990. • Packard, Aubigne Lermond. A town that went to sea. Portland, ME: Falmouth Publishing House, 1950. • Picking, Sherwood. Seafight Off Monhegan: Enterprise and Boxer. Portland, ME: Machigine Press, 1941. • Roberts, Kenneth. Trending into Maine. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1938. • The Ancient Mariner. "U.S.S. Enterprise." .