Background
Little is known of Boyle's life. It is said that he was born on June 29, 1776 at Marblehead, Massachusetts, was commanding a ship at sixteen.
Little is known of Boyle's life. It is said that he was born on June 29, 1776 at Marblehead, Massachusetts, was commanding a ship at sixteen.
In July 1812, Boyle took command of the 14-gun privateer schooner Comet. The first cruise of four months netted prizes valued at about half a million dollars.
In December 1812, he dodged the Chesapeake blockading squadron and made for Pernambuco, where he took three armed British merchantmen after fighting off their convoy, a Portuguese warship. Altogether, he captured twenty-seven prizes in the Comet.
In 1814, he changed to an even faster vessel, the 16-gun brig Chasseur, known as "The Pride of Baltimore. " A cruise in the English Channel and West Indies resulted in eighteen prizes. At one time, he was nearly surrounded by four British warships, but he outmaneuvered them all. Boyle dispatched it in a released cartel, requesting that it be posted in Lloyd's Coffee House.
On his final cruise, he captured the British naval schooner St. Lawrence in a fifteen-minute fight off Cuba on February 26, 1815.
Boyle took particular delight in tantalizing the stronger but slower British warships with his own fast craft.
He returned to the merchant service after the war. In 1824, he beat off a pirate attack in the brig Panopea. He is said to have died at sea a year later.
Quotations: He stated that he considered his force "adequate to maintain strictly, vigorously and effectually, the said blockade. " This was a direct burlesque of the "paper blockades" of the American coast pompously proclaimed by Admirals Cochrane and Warren.
Boyle was described as a quiet, unassuming man with a strong sense of humor and "superb audacity. "
Quotes from others about the person
Coggeshall, the contemporary privateersman-historian, said that Boyle combined "the impetuous bravery of a Murat with the prudence of a Wellington. "
Boyle was married in 1794.
