Combat· Quasi-War with France
Cutting Out of the Sandwich, Puerto Plata
One of the most daring boat actions of the war.
The French privateer Sandwich lay in the Spanish harbor of Puerto Plata on the north coast of Hispaniola, and Commodore Silas Talbot fitted out the captured sloop Sally from the frigate Constitution with about ninety Marines and sailors to take her. The Marines, officered by Captain Daniel Carmick and First Lieutenant William Amory, with the boat party under Lieutenant Isaac Hull, ran the Sally alongside the Sandwich, boarded and overpowered her crew, spiked the guns of the Spanish fort ashore, and brought the prize out, the whole job done in about an hour with no casualties. It was a brilliant stroke, but because it violated Spanish neutrality the government later disowned the action and the Sandwich was returned to her owners.
Podcast episodes on Quasi-War with France
Record no. 183