But your men have such a wild, reckless, daring, enterprising character that it would puzzle the devil to keep them in good order

From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 295.

All the British officials who had American prisoners under their charge complained that they were ungovernable. Just days after the crew of the privateer Frolic arrived in Barbados, Benjamin Browne’s jailer told him that their forty men were more trouble than the five hundred French prisoners he had: “A Frenchman settles down at once in a prison, into habits of quiet order, industry, mild gaiety, and respectful submission,… but your men have such a wild, reckless, daring, enterprising character that it would puzzle the devil to keep them in good order.” When a marine sentry struck an American on a prison hulk in Hamilton harbor in Bermuda, the prisoners promptly sent a committee to the British captain “demanding satisfaction” and forcing from him an apology and an order that the guards were not to strike or abuse the prisoners. “This is all the satisfaction we recd,” wrote Benjamin Palmer in his diary, “but should another American be struck Farewell Marines—These d—m Englishmen must not think they have got Frenchmen to deal with.” A prison keeper in Halifax discovered another example of the Americans’ “enterprising character” when a Spanish silver dollar snapped in two in his hand: it turned out that most of the dollars in circulation in the canteen had been manufactured by one of the prisoners.