Warring 



against 



piracy 



and slavery 



Interludes of peace between wars 

 were all too brief for the cutters. No 

 sooner was the War of 1812 brought to 

 a close, in 1815, than they were ordered 

 to sea against pirates and slave ships. The 

 cutter Active captured a number of priva- 

 teers in Chesapeake Bay between 1816 and 



1819. The Dallas captured others off 

 Savannah in 1818. 



In 1819, the Alabama and Louisiana, on 

 their way to stations in the Gulf of Mexico, 

 overtook and easily captured the Mexican 

 privateer Bravo, commanded by La Farge, 

 a lieutenant of the notorious pirate Jean 

 La Fitte. Then the two cutters wiped out 

 Patterson's Town, a pirate den on Breton 

 Island. This practically ended organized 

 piracy in the Gulf, though occasional 

 raiders came up from the West Indies and 

 Central and South America. The Louisi- 

 ana, with a United States and a British 

 warship, took five pirate ships in 1822. 



500 slaves freed 



The Dallas captured a slave ship in 



1820, and the Alabama took three slavers 

 in 1822. In all, nearly 500 Negro slaves 

 were liberated by cutters enforcing the 

 law forbidding their importation. 



There was more trouble in the wind in 

 1832, when South Carolina "nullified" the 



tariff on imports entering through her 

 ports. Five cutters were dispatched to 

 Charleston to enforce the collection of 

 customs, and President Andrew Jackson 

 declared: "If a single drop of blood shall 

 be shed in opposition to the laws of the 

 United States, I will hang the first man 

 I can lay my hands on upon the first tree I 

 can reach." Ships arriving with sugar from 

 Havana anchored under the guns of the 

 cutters and their cargoes were impounded 

 in Fort Moultrie until the import duties 

 were paid. The crisis was ended with 

 Henry Clay's tariff compromise of 1833. 



In 1836, the Seminole Indians went on 

 the warpath in Florida and eight cutters 

 were ordered to the scene. The W^ashing- 

 ton arrived just in time to land men 

 and guns to save Fort Brook after the 

 Seminoles had ambushed and massacred 

 all but one of the soldiers defending the 

 fort. This was the first amphibious land- 

 ing by combined forces in United States 

 history and anticipated by more than 100 

 years similar operations carried out by the 

 Coast Guard in World War II. 



The cutters continued cooperation with 

 the Army and Navy in Florida for two and 

 a half years, blockading rivers, carrying 

 dispatches, transporting troops and am- 

 munition, and providing landing parties 

 for the defense of settlements. When 

 peace was finally restored all hands were 

 rewarded with a grant of a quarter 

 square mile of public land in Florida. 



Reorganization, 1843 



Under Secretary of the Treasury John 

 Spencer, the Revenue Marine was set up 

 as a bureau within the department along 

 lines similar to the present Coast Guard 

 establishment. It had accounting, engi- 

 neering, personnel, operations, intelli- 



8 



