America

= = Originally built as a merchant marine ship for the East India Trade, the [|privateer] America is best known as a swift commerce destroyer in the War of 1812. Comissioned by the prominent [|Crowninshield] family of Salem, Massachusetts and built by Retire Becket, the America was highly profitable for her shareholders before being reworked as a warship. Armed with twenty guns and 150 crewmembers, the America completed five cruises during the war, capturing twenty-seven British vessels as well as tremendously valuable cargo.

== //Privateer America at Marsailles, 1806//

= =[moa&root=/moa/newe/newe0017/&tif=00296.TIF&view=50&frames=1|The Privateer "America". The New England magazine. / Volume 17, Issue 3, November 1894] //access a pdf facsimile of this article from the Library of Congress American Memory collection.// [|American Merchant Marine and Privateers in War of 1812] //This website, maintained by the US Maritime service veterans highlights the central issue over which the war was fought -- protecting free trade and the rights of merchant sailors//. Payne, Ralph D. __The Ships and Sailors of Old Salem__ Chicago, A. C. McClurg, 1912. Payne, Ralph D. __The Old Merchant Marine__. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1919.=