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MAYFLOWER
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Guernsey privateer
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- 1799 Mr James Le BAIR (or BARR?).
On the 13 October 1799 he returned to Guernsey after a six months cruise off the coasts of Portugal and Spain during which he captured a Spanish gunboat mounting two long brass 18-pounders with 43 men which he sent in to Minorca, and a Spanish cutter-rigged packet with eight guns which he sent into Gibraltar. He also captured four merchant vessels. The French brig LA CAROLINE bound from Livorno to Toulon with hemp and tin was sent to Minorca and a brig under Danish colours and carrying Spanish brandy was sent to Gibraltar.
Off Lisbon he took a Spanish lateen barque, ST. JOSE, from Rio-de-Plata to Barcelona with cocoa and hides and the Spanish schooner, SANTA CHRISTO DEL GRAO, from Cadiz. The latter he sent back in the homeward bound Lisbon convoy.
During a second cruise in the spring of 1800 he captured a number of vessels: The Spanish privateer ST. FRANCISCO DE ASIS with six 6-pounders, the French schooner NEPTUNE bringing General Des Fourneaux and his suite from Guadeloupe to France and a French lateen rigged privateer called the TARN. He also recaptured a Portuguese brig which had been taken as a prize.
On the 8 April he gave chase to a schooner off Cape Penas and engaged her for five hours before she struck. She was the French privateer LE TROISIEME FERRAILEUR of Bordeaux, commanded by Francois Lugeol and mounting two 12-pounder carronades and twelve long 4-pounders. Three men were killed and five wounded out of her crew of 68. MAY FLOWER lost one man killed and four wounded. The French privateer had captured the American schooner ACTIVE, Jonathon Holbrook, from Liverpool to Boston, and had burnt a Teignmouth brig bound for Newfoundland.
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