I will bear witness to their bravery, as I have seen them fight when surrounded by their enemies on all sides.

From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 293.

Ill-disciplined crews and incompetent commanders on a number of occasions led to privateers’ blundering directly into enemy hands. The risk of being taken was greatest when running through the blockading squadron, where the shore limited maneuver room and a privateer was likely to find himself outnumbered and surrounded by a vastly superior enemy force, but even on the open ocean American privateers sometimes threw away their considerable sailing advantages through misjudgment and atrocious seamanship. After blundering within musket shot of a British frigate in the fog on December 14, 1812, the captain of the George Washington ignored the advice of all his officers and insisted on running before the wind, with the result that the frigate “overhauled us without any difficulty” and the crew were all taken prisoner, and remained in British captivity until the end of the war. The crew of Josiah Cobb’s privateer sailed within range of three British frigates before the sleepy lookout spotted them; the crew, then deciding that capture was unavoidable, proceeded to calmly and methodically loot their own ship, one man steadily applying himself to stuffing away most of a ham and a large wheel of cheese in the half hour before the schooner surrendered. “I goes always for the solids,” he explained. The next morning the crew were taken aboard their captor, and two of the Americans immediately began fighting with each other on the deck of the British man-of-war over some simmering difference, which prompted one of the British officers to offer aloud a facetious observation: “I will bear witness to their bravery, as I have seen them fight when surrounded by their enemies on all sides.”

Another American privateer captain, mistaking a British seventy-four for an Indiaman, ran his ship close alongside and hailed the British ship to strike her colors. “I am not in the habit of striking my colors,” the British captain called back, and at the same moment all three tiers of gunports flew open. “Well,” the American captain replied, “if you won’t, I will.”