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ChaPtEr ninE After the Battle Once the British were gone, the people of Pettipaug Point were left with cleaning up the mess, salvaging what they could and moving on. Several ship owners lost numerous vessels. The Hayden, Pratt and Starkey dynasties were particularly hard hit. Estimates of the value of the financial loss from the raid vary, but accounts seem to range between $150,000 and $200,000. In today’s economic equivalence we are looking at tens of millions of dollars. Imagine the cost of replacing twenty-seven vessels, many of them large ships, as well as the economic burden on the town that had built them. The impact was staggering, driving Pettipaug and several of the shipbuilding dynasties into years of economic peril. For the British, the raid was a major success.On Coote’s recommendation, Lieutenant Harry Pyne was promoted to commander. Commander Richard Coote was rewarded with his commission to full post captain, virtually guaranteeing he would one day make the admirals’ list. Lieutenant Parry would go on to make his mark in Arctic exploration, leading several famous expeditions , which included Lieutenant Matthew Liddon who also participated in the raid on Pettipaug. Parry became an admiral in 1852. In 1848 the Royal Navy authorized The Naval General Service Medal to retroactively award those involved in specific campaigns or operations from 1793 to 1840.These medals included the men who had served at Trafalgar and the other great naval operations of the golden age of British Sea power as well as those in special operations like the raid on Pettipaug.They were distributed to those involved who were still living at the time at the time of issue. For this action the clasp on the ribbon reads, “8 April Boat Service 1814.” Twenty-four of the British officers and men involved in the British Raid on Essex received the special boat service medals. Lieutenants Fanshawe and Farrant each received medals with five clasps in recognition of their service in other campaigns . Fittingly, Admiral Thomas Bladen Capel, veteran of Trafalgar and the man who ordered the raid on Pettipaug, was one of the members of the board that authorized the medal. On the American side, the first response was an outcry for protection. From the New England Repertory, Boston, April 16, 1814: 110 } The British Raid on Essex Alarms of War! A general alarm is spread from New Orleans to Maine from apprehensions that what has lately been dreadfully realized at Saybrook or Pettipague, in Connecticut, will be experienced in all our accessible seaports. There was good reason for concern. After the raid on Pettipaug, British activity along the coast continued unabated and there were several actions and exchanges of gunfire off the mouth of the Connecticut River. In June 1814, Admiral Cochrane was encouraged by General Sir George Prevost in Canada to increase the raids on America, and especially New England, in retaliation for United States depredations north of the border. Once he received 5,000 troops later that summer, Cochrane went after Washington and Baltimore , even as the Royal Navy was cracking down from Connecticut to Maine. Calls for increased preparedness spread along the Atlantic seaboard as did the question, how did this happen and who is to blame? In a correspondence to Connecticut’s Governor John Cotton Smith, Major-General Ebenezer Huntington of Norwich expressed the general mood: The late desultory movement of the enemy into the Connecticut River to the village of Pettipogue, the delay at that place with impunity for nearly twenty four hours, & their safe return after having destroyed so much property, cannot fail to excite much apprehension for the safety of the vessels in our bays & rivers, particularly for those which are in the River Thames & Norwich Landing. From the Alexandria Gazette on April 14, 1814: To whose fault ought to be ascribed the loss of the property destroyed by the British at Pettipaug! The defenseless state of the mouth of the Connecticut , one of the most important rivers in the United States, was well known to the government. From the American Mercury, May 31, 1814: The ostensible object in rising a State Corpse of 2500 enlisted men, at such a great expense was ‘to repel invasion, suppress insurrection and compel observance to the Laws of this state and of the United States.’ Hope and Charity oblige us to suppose that the framers of this Law had no other views in raising this force: —Then no one will doubt but this force...

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