Though he had given the enemy a sound thrashing, Jacob Brown found his righteous satisfaction spoiled by the destruction of the naval barracks, shipping, and storehouses. This was the act of a flighty lieutenant of the American navy who concluded too hastily that the battle was lost and therefore set fire to the buildings to keep the supplies and vessels out of the enemy's hands. Jacob Brown in his straightforward fashion emphatically placed the blame where it belonged:

The burning of the marine barracks was as infamous a transaction as ever occurred among military men. The fire was set as the enemy met our regulars upon the main line; and if anything could have appalled these gallant men it would have been the flames in their rear. We have all, I presume, suffered in the public estimation in consequence of this disgraceful burning. The fact is, however, that the army is ent.i.tled to much higher praise than though it had not occurred. The navy alone are responsible for what happened on Navy Point and it is fortunate for them that they have reputations sufficient to sustain the shock.

A few weeks later General Dearborn, after his repeated failures to shake the British grip on the Niagara front and the misfortunes which had darkened his campaigns, was retired according to his wish. But the American nation was not yet rid of its unsuccessful generals. James Wilkinson, who was inscrutably chosen to succeed Dearborn, was a man of bad reputation and low professional standing. "The selection of this unprincipled imbecile," said Winfield Scott, "was not the blunder of Secretary Armstrong." Added to this, Wilkinson was a man of broken health. He was shifted from command at New Orleans because the Southern Senators insisted that he was untrustworthy and incompetent. The regular army regarded him with contempt.

Secretary Armstrong endeavored to mend matters by making his own headquarters at Sackett's Harbor, where the next offensive, directed against Montreal, was planned under his direction. Success hung upon the cooperation and junction of two armies moving separately, the one under Wilkinson descending the St. Lawrence, the other under Wade Hampton setting out from Plattsburg on Lake Champlain. The fact that these two officers had hated each other for years made a difficult problem no easier. Hampton possessed uncommon ability and courage, but he was proud and sensitive, as might have been expected in a South Carolina gentleman, and he loathed Wilkinson with all his heart. That he should yield the seniority to one whom he considered a blackguard was to him intolerable, and he accepted the command on Lake Champlain with the understanding that he would take no orders from Wilkinson until the two armies were combined.

The expedition from Sackett's Harbor was ready to advance by way of the St. Lawrence in October, 1813, and comprised seven thousand effective troops. Even then the commanding general and the Secretary of War had begun to regard the adventure as dubious and were accusing each other of dodging the responsibility. Said Wilkinson to Armstrong: "It is necessary to my justification that you should, by the authority of the President, direct the operations of the army under my command particularly against Montreal." Said Armstrong to Wilkinson: "I speak conjecturally, but should we surmount every obstacle in descending the river we shall advance upon Montreal ignorant of the force arrayed against us and in case of misfortune having no retreat, the army must surrender at discretion." This was scarcely the spirit to inspire a conquering army. As though to clinch his lack of faith in the enterprise, the Secretary of War ordered winter quarters built for ten thousand men many miles this side of Montreal, explaining in later years that he had suspected the campaign would terminate as it did, "with the disgrace of doing nothing."

On the 17th of October the army embarked in bateaux and coasted along Lake Ontario to the entrance of the St. Lawrence. After being delayed by stormy weather, the flotilla pa.s.sed the British guns across from Ogdensburg and halted twenty miles below. There Wilkinson called a council of war to decide whether to proceed or retreat. Four generals voted to attack Montreal and two were reluctant but could see "no other alternative." Wilkinson then became ill and was unable to leave his boat or to give orders. Several British gunboats evaded Chauncey's blockade and annoyed the rear of the expedition. Eight hundred British infantry from Kingston followed along sh.o.r.e and peppered the boats with musketry and canister wherever the river narrowed. Finally it became necessary for the Americans to land a force to drive the enemy away. Jacob Brown took a brigade and cleared the bank in advance of the flotilla which floated down to a farm called Chrystler's and moored for the night.

General Boyd, who had been sent back with a strong force to protect the rear, reported next morning that the enemy was advancing in column. He was told to turn back and attack. This he did with three brigades. It was a brilliant opportunity to capture or destroy eight hundred British troops led by a dashing naval officer, Captain Mulcaster. Boyd lived up to his reputation, which was such that Jacob Brown had refused to serve under him. At this engagement of Chrystler's Farm, with two thousand regulars at his disposal, he was unmercifully beaten. Both Wilkinson and Morgan Lewis were flat on their backs, too feeble to concern themselves with battles. The American troops fought without a coherent plan and were defeated and broken in detail. Almost four hundred of them were killed, wounded, or captured. Their conduct reflected the half-hearted att.i.tude of their commanding general and some of his subordinates. The badly mauled brigades hastily took to the boats and ran the rapids, stopping at the first harbor below. There Wilkinson received tidings from Wade Hampton's army which caused him to abandon the voyage down the St. Lawrence, and it is fair to conjecture that he shed no tears of disappointment.

In September Hampton had led his forces, recruited to four thousand infantry and a few dragoons, from Lake Champlain to the Canadian border in faithful compliance with his instructions to join the movement against Montreal. His line of march was westward to the Chateauguay River where he took a position which menaced both Montreal and that vital artery, the St. Lawrence. Building roads and bringing up supplies, he waited there for Wilkinson to set his own undertaking in motion. Word came from Secretary Armstrong to advance along the river, hold the enemy in check, and prepare to unite with Wilkinson's army. Hampton acted promptly and alarmed the British at Montreal, who foresaw grave consequences and a.s.sembled troops from every quarter. Hampton then learned that his army faced an enemy which was of vastly superior strength and which had every advantage of natural defense, while he himself was becoming convinced that Wilkinson was a broken reed and that no further support could be expected from the Government. General Prevost's own reports and letters showed that he had collected in the Montreal district and available for defense at least fifteen thousand rank and file, including the militia which had been mustered to repel Hampton's advance. The American position at Chateauguay was not less perilous than that of Harrison on the Maumee and far more so than that which had cost Dearborn so many disasters at Niagara.

Hampton moved forward half-heartedly. He had received a message from the War Department that his troops were to prepare winter quarters and these orders confirmed his suspicions that no attempt against Montreal was intended. "These papers sunk my hopes," he wrote in reply, "and raised serious doubts of that efficacious support that had been antic.i.p.ated. I would have recalled the column, but it was in motion and the darkness of the night rendered it impracticable."

The last words refer to a collision with a small force of Canadian militia, led by Lieutenant Colonel de Salaberry, who had come forward to impede the American advance. These Canadians had obstructed the road with fallen trees and abatis, falling back until they found favorable ground where they very pluckily intrenched themselves. The intrepid party was comprised of a few Glengarry Fencibles and three hundred French-Canadian Voltigeurs. Colonel de Salaberry was a trained soldier, and he now displayed brilliant courage and resourcefulness. Two American divisions attacking him were unable to carry his breastworks and were driven along the river bank and routed. Hampton's troops abandoned much of their equipment, and returned to camp with a loss of about fifty men.

There was great rejoicing in Canada and rightly so, for a victory had been handsomely won without the aid of British regulars; and Colonel de Salaberry's handful of French Canadians received the credit for thwarting the American plans against Montreal. But, without belittling the signal valor of the achievement, the doc.u.mentary evidence goes to prove that Hampton's failure was largely due to the neglect of his Government. His state of mind at this time was such that he wrote: "Events have no tendency to change my opinion of the destiny intended for me, nor my determination to retire from a service where I can feel neither security nor expect honor."

With this tame conclusion the armies of Wilkinson and Hampton tucked themselves into log huts for the winter. Both accused the Secretary of War of leading them into an impossible venture and of then deserting them, while he in his turn accepted their resignations from the army. The fiasco was a costly one in quite another direction, for the Niagara sector had been overlooked in the elaborate attempt to capture Montreal. The few American troops who had gained a foothold on the Canadian side, at Fort George and the village of Niagara, were left unsupported while all the available regulars were sent to the armies of Wilkinson and Hampton. As soon as the British comprehended that the grand invasion had crumbled, they bethought themselves of the tempting opportunity to recover their forts at Niagara.

Wilkinson advised that the Americans evacuate Fort George, which they did on the 10th of December, when five hundred British soldiers were marching to retake it. There was no effort to reinforce the garrison, although at the time ten thousand American troops were idle in winter quarters. Fort Niagara, on the American side, still flew the Stars and Stripes, but on the night of the 18th of December Colonel Murray with five hundred and fifty British regulars rushed the fort, surprised the sentries, and lost only eight men in capturing this stronghold and its three hundred and fifty defenders. It was more like a ma.s.sacre. Sixty-seven Americans were killed by the bayonet. A few nights later the Indian allies were loosed against Buffalo and Black Rock and ravaged thirty miles of frontier. The settlements were helpless. The Government had made not the slightest attempt to protect or defend them.

The war had come to the end of its second year, and by land the United States had done no more than to regain what Hull lost at Detroit. The conquest of Canada was a shattered illusion, a sorry tale of wasted energy, misdirected armies, sordid intrigue, lack of organization. A few worthless generals had been swept into the rubbish heap where they belonged, and this was the chief item on the credit side of the ledger. The state militia system had been found wanting; raw levies, defying authority and miserably cared for, had been squandered against a few thousand disciplined British regulars. The nation, angry and bewildered, was taking these lessons to heart. The story of 1814 was to contain far brighter episodes.

CHAPTER V

THE NAVY ON BLUE WATER

It has pleased the American mind to regard the War of 1812 as a maritime conflict. This is natural enough, for the issue was the freedom of the sea, and the achievements of Yankee ships and sailors stood out in brilliant relief against the somber background of the inefficiency of the army. The offensive was thought to be properly a matter for the land forces, which had vastly superior advantages against Canada, while the navy was compelled to act on the defensive against overwhelming odds. The truth is that the navy did amazingly well, though it could not prevent the enemy's squadrons from blockading American ports or raiding the coasts at will. A few single ship actions could not vitally influence the course of the war; but they served to create an imperishable renown for the flag and the service, and to deal a staggering blow to the pride and prestige of an enemy whose ancient boast it was that Britannia ruled the waves.

The amazing thing is that the navy was able to accomplish anything at all, neglected and almost despised as it was by the same opinion which had suffered the army system to become a melancholy jest. During the decade in which Great Britain captured hundreds of American merchant ships in time of peace and impressed more than six thousand American seamen, the United States built two sloops-of-war of eighteen guns and allowed three of her dozen frigates to hasten to decay at their mooring buoys. Officers in the service were underpaid and shamefully treated by the Government. Captain Bainbridge, an officer of distinction, asked for leave that he might earn money to support himself, giving as a reason: "I have hitherto refused such offers on the presumption that my country would require my services. That presumption is removed, and even doubts entertained of the permanency of the naval establishment."

But, though Congress refused to build more frigates or to formulate a programme for guarding American sh.o.r.es and commerce, the tiny navy kept alive the spark of duty and readiness, while the nation drifted inevitably towards war. There was no scarcity of capable seamen, for the merchant marine was an admirable training-school. In those far-off days the technique of seafaring and sea fighting was comparatively simple. The merchant seaman could find his way about a frigate, for in rigging, handling, and navigation the ships were very much alike. And the American seamen of 1812 were in fighting mood; they had been whetted by provocation to a keen edge for war. They understood the meaning of "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," if the landsmen did not. There were strapping sailors in every deep-water port to follow the fife and drum of the recruiting squad. The militia might quibble about "rights," but all the sailors asked was the weather gage of a British man-of-war. They had no patience with such spokesmen as Josiah Quincy, who said that Ma.s.sachusetts would not go to war to contest the right of Great Britain to search American vessels for British seamen. They had neither forgotten nor forgiven the mortal affront of 1807, when their frigate Chesapeake, flying the broad pennant of Commodore James Barron, refused to let the British Leopard board and search her, and was fired into without warning and reduced to submission, after twenty-one of the American crew had been killed or wounded.

That shameful episode was in keeping with the att.i.tude of the British navy toward the armed ships of the United States, "a few fir-built things with bits of striped bunting at their mast-heads," as George Canning, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, described them. Long before the declaration of war British squadrons hovered off the port of New York to ransack merchant vessels or to seize them as prizes. In the course of the Napoleonic wars England had met and destroyed the navies of all her enemies in Europe. The battles of Copenhagen, the Nile, Trafalgar, and a hundred lesser fights had thundered to the world the existence of an unconquerable sea power.

Insignificant as it was, the American naval service boasted a history and a high morale. Its ships had been active. The younger officers served with seniors who had sailed and fought with Biddle and Barney and Paul Jones in the Revolution. Many of them had won promotions for gallantry in hand-to-hand combats in boarding parties, for following the bold Stephen Decatur in 1804 when he cut out and set fire to the Philadelphia, which had fallen into the hands of pirates at Tripoli, and helping Thomas Truxtun in 1799-1800 when the Constellation whipped the Frenchmen, L'Insurgente and La Vengeance. In wardroom or steerage almost every man could tell of engagements in which he had behaved with credit. Trained in the school of hard knocks, the sailor knew the value of discipline and gunnery, of the smart ship and the willing crew, while on land the soldier rusted and lost his zeal.

The bluejackets were volunteers, not impressed men condemned to brutal servitude, and they had fought to save their skins in merchant vessels which made their voyages, in peril of privateer, pirate, and picaroon, from the Caribbean to the China Sea. The American merchant marine was at the zenith of its enterprise and daring, attracting the pick and flower of young manhood, and it offered incomparable material for the naval service and the fleets of swift privateers which swarmed out to harry England's commerce.[2]

[2] For an account of the privateers of 1812, see The Old Merchant Marine, by Ralph D. Paine (in The Chronicles of America).

The American frigates which humbled the haughty Mistress of the Seas beyond all precedent were superior in speed and hitting power to anything of their cla.s.s afloat. It detracts not at all from the glory they won to remember that in every instance they were larger and of better design and armament than the British frigates which they shot to pieces with such methodical accuracy.

When war was declared, the American Government was not quite clear as to what should be done with the navy. In New York harbor was a squadron of five ships under Commodore John Rodgers, including two of the heavier frigates or forty-fours, the President and the United States. Rodgers had also the lighter frigate Congress, the brig Argus, and the sloop Hornet. His orders were to look for British cruisers which were annoying commerce off Sandy Hook, chase them away, and then return to port for "further more extensive and particular orders." One hour after receiving these instructions the eager Rodgers put out to sea, with Captain Stephen Decatur as a squadron commander. The quarry was the frigate Belvidera, the most offensive of the British blockading force. This warship was sighted by the President and overtaken within forty-eight hours. An unlucky accident then occurred. Instead of running alongside, the President began firing at a distance and was hulling the enemy's stern when a gun on the forecastle burst, and killed or wounded sixteen American sailors. Commodore Rodgers was picked up with a broken leg. Meanwhile the Belvidera cast overboard her boats and anchors, emptied the fresh water barrels to better her sailing trim, and, crowding on every st.i.tch of canvas, drew away and was lost to view. Rodgers then forgot his orders to return to New York and went off in search of the great convoy of British merchant vessels homeward bound from Jamaica, which was called the plate fleet. He sailed as far as the English Channel before quitting the chase and then cruised back to Boston.

Meanwhile Captain Isaac Hull of the Const.i.tution had taken on a crew and stores at Annapolis and was bound up the coast to New York. Hull's luck appeared to be no better than Rodgers's. Off Barnegat he sailed almost into a strong British squadron, which had been sent from Halifax. The escape from this grave predicament was an exploit of seamanship which is among the treasured memories of the service. It was the beginning of the career of the Const.i.tution, whose name is still the most ill.u.s.trious on the American naval list and whose commanders, Hull and Bainbridge, are numbered among the great captains. It is a privilege to behold today, in the Boston Navy Yard, this gallant frigate preserved as a heritage, her tall masts and graceful yards soaring above the grim, gray citadels that we call battleships. True it is that a single modern sh.e.l.l would destroy this obsolete, archaic frigate which once swept the seas like a meteor, but the very image of her is still potent to thrill the hearts and animate the courage of an American seaman.

On that luckless July morning, at break of day, off the New Jersey coast, it seemed as though the Const.i.tution would be flying British colors ere she had a chance to fight. On her leeward side stood two English frigates, the Guerriere and the Belvidera, with the Shannon only five miles astern, and the rest of the hostile fleet lifting topsails above the southern horizon.

Not a breath of wind stirred. Captain Hull called away his boats, and the sailors tugged at the oars, towing the Const.i.tution very slowly ahead. Captain Broke of the Shannon promptly followed suit and signaled for all the boats of the squadron. In a long column they trailed at the end of the hawser; and the Shannon crept closer. Catspaws of wind ruffled the water, and first one ship and then the other gained a few hundred yards as upper tiers of canvas caught the faint impulse. The Shannon was a crack ship, and there was no better crew in the British navy, as Lawrence of the Chesapeake afterwards learned to his mortal sorrow. Gradually the Shannon cut down the intervening distance until she could make use of her bow guns.

At this Captain Hull resolved to try kedging his ship along, sending a boat half a mile ahead with a light anchor and all the spare rope on board. The crew walked the capstan round and hauled the ship up to the anchor, which they then lifted, carried ahead, and dropped again. The Const.i.tution kept two kedges going all through that summer day, but the Shannon was playing the same game, and the two ships maintained their relative positions. They shot at each other at such long range that no damage was done. Before dusk the Guerriere caught a slant of breeze and worked nearer enough to bang away at the Const.i.tution, which was, indeed, between the devil and the deep sea.

Night came on. The sailors, British and American, toiled until they dropped in their tracks, pulling at the kedge anchors and hawsers or bending to the sweeps of the cutters which towed at intervals and were exposed to the spatter of shot. It seemed impossible that the Const.i.tution could slip clear of this pack of able frigates which trailed her like hounds. Toward midnight the fickle breeze awoke and wafted the ships along under studding sails and all the light cloths that were wont to arch skyward. For two hours the men slept on deck like logs while those on watch grunted at the pump-brakes and the hose wetted the canvas to make it draw better.

The breeze failed, however, and through the rest of the night it was kedge and tow again, the Shannon and the Guerriere hanging on doggedly, confident of taking their quarry. Another day dawned, hot and windless, and the situation was unchanged. Other British ships had crawled or drifted nearer, but the Const.i.tution was always just beyond range of their heavy guns. We may imagine Isaac Hull striding across the p.o.o.p and back again, ruddy, solid, composed, wearing a c.o.c.ked hat and a gold-laced coat, lifting an eye aloft, or squinting through his bra.s.s telescope, while he d.a.m.ned the enemy in the hearty language of the sea. He was a nephew of General William Hull, but it would have been unfair to remind him of it.

Near sunset of the second day of this unique test of seamanship and endurance, a rain squall swept toward the Const.i.tution and obscured the ocean. Just before the violent gust struck the ship her seamen scampered aloft and took in the upper sails. This was all that safety required, but, seeing a chance to trick the enemy, Hull ordered the lower sails double-reefed as though caught in a gale of wind. The British ships hastily imitated him before they should be overtaken in like manner and veered away from the chase. Veiled in the rain and dusk, the Const.i.tution set all sail again and foamed at twelve knots on her course toward a port of refuge. Though two of the British frigates were in sight next morning, the Const.i.tution left them far astern and reached Boston safely.

Seafaring New England was quick to recognize the merit of this escape. Even the Federalists, who opposed and hampered the war by land, were enthusiastic in praise of Captain Hull and his ship. They had outsailed and outwitted the best of the British men-of-war on the American coast, and a general feeling of hopelessness gave way to an ardent desire to try anew the ordeal of battle. With this spirit firing his officers and crew, Hull sailed again a few days later on a solitary cruise to the eastward with the intention of vexing the enemy's merchant trade and hopeful of finding a frigate willing to engage him in a duel. From Newfoundland he cruised south until a Salem privateer spoke him on the 18th of August and reported a British warship close by. The Const.i.tution searched until the afternoon of the next day and then sighted her old friend, the Guerriere.

To retell the story of their fight in all the vanished sea lingo of that day would bewilder the land-man and prove tedious to those familiar with the subject. The boatswains piped the call, "all hands clear ship for action"; the fife and drum beat to quarters; and four hundred men stood by the tackles of the muzzle-loading guns with their clumsy wooden carriages, or climbed into the tops to use their muskets or trim sail. Decks were sanded to prevent slipping when blood flowed. Boys ran about stacking the sacks of powder or distributing buckets of pistols ready for the boarding parties. And against the masts the cutla.s.ses and pikes stood ready.

Captain John Dacres of the ill-fated Guerriere was an English gentleman as well as a gallant officer. But he did not know his antagonist. Like his comrades of the service he had failed to grasp the fact that the Const.i.tution and the other American frigates of her cla.s.s were the most formidable craft afloat, barring ships of the line, and that they were to revolutionize the design of war-vessels for half a century thereafter. They were frigates, or cruisers, in that they carried guns on two decks, but the main battery of long twenty-four-pound guns was an innovation, and the timbers and planking were stouter than had ever been built into ships of the kind. So stout, indeed, were the sides that shot rebounded from them more than once and thus gave the Const.i.tution the affectionate nickname of "Old Ironsides."

Sublimely indifferent to these odds, Captain Dacres had already sent a challenge, with his compliments, to Commodore Rodgers of the United States frigate President, saying that he would be very happy to meet him or any other American frigate of equal force, off Sandy Hook, "for the purpose of having a few minutes' tete-a-tete." It was therefore with the utmost willingness that the Const.i.tution and the Guerriere hoisted their battle ensigns and approached each other warily for an hour while they played at long bowls, as was the custom, each hoping to disable the other's spars or rigging and so gain the advantage of movement. Finding this sort of action inconclusive, however, Hull set more sail and ran down to argue it with broadsides, coolly biding his time, although Morris, his lieutenant, came running up again and again to beg him to begin firing. Men were being killed beside their guns as they stood ready to jerk the lock strings. The two ships were abreast of each other and no more than a few yards apart before the Const.i.tution returned the cannonade that thundered from every gun port of her adversary.

Within ten minutes the Guerriere's mizzenmast was knocked over the side and her hull was shattered by the accurate fire of the Yankee gunners, who were trained to shoot on the downward roll of their ship and so smash below the water line. Almost unhurt, the Const.i.tution moved ahead and fearfully raked the enemy's deck before the ships fouled each other. They drifted apart before the boarders could undertake their b.l.o.o.d.y business, and then the remaining masts of the British frigate toppled overside and she was a helpless wreck. Seventy-nine of her crew were dead or wounded and the ship was sinking beneath their feet. Captain Isaac Hull could truthfully report: "In less than thirty minutes from the time we got alongside of the enemy she was left without a spar standing, and the hull cut to pieces in such a manner as to make it difficult to keep her above water."

Captain Dacres struck his flag, and the American sailors who went aboard found the guns dismounted, the dead and dying scattered amid a wild tangle of spars and rigging, and great holes blown through the sides and decks. The Const.i.tution had suffered such trifling injury that she was fit and ready for action a few hours later. Of her crew only seven men were killed and the same number hurt. She was the larger ship, and the odds in her favor were as ten to seven, reckoned in men and guns, for which reasons Captain Hull ought to have won. The significance of his victory was that at every point he had excelled a British frigate and had literally blown her out of the water. His crew had been together only five weeks and could fairly be called green while the Guerriere, although short-handed, had a complement of veteran tars. The British navy had never hesitated to engage hostile men-of-war of superior force and had usually beaten them. Of two hundred fights between single ships, against French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Danish, and Dutch, the English had lost only five. The belief of Captain Dacres that he could beat the Const.i.tution was therefore neither rash nor ill-founded.

The English captain had ten Americans in his crew, but he would not compel them to fight against their countrymen and sent them below, although he sorely needed every man who could haul at a gun-tackle or lay out on a yard. Wounded though he was and heartbroken by the disaster, his chivalry was faultless, and he took pains to report: "I feel it my duty to state that the conduct of Captain Hull and his officers toward our men has been that of a brave and generous enemy, the greatest care being taken to prevent our men losing the smallest trifle and the greatest attention being paid to the wounded."

When the Englishman was climbing up the side of the Const.i.tution as a prisoner, Isaac Hull ran to help him, exclaiming, "Give me your hand, Dacres. I know you are hurt." No wonder that these two captains became fast friends. It is because sea warfare abounds in such manly incidents as these that the modern naval code of Germany, as exemplified in the acts of her submarine commanders, was so peculiarly barbarous and repellent.

On board the Guerriere was Captain William B. Orne, of the Salem merchant brig Betsy, which had been taken as a prize. His story of the combat is not widely known and seems worth quoting in part:

At two P.M. we discovered a large sail to windward bearing about north from us. We soon made her out to be a frigate. She was steering off from the wind, with her head to the southwest, evidently with the intention of cutting us off as soon as possible. Signals were soon made by the Guerriere, but as they were not answered the conclusion was, of course, that she was either a French or American frigate. Captain Dacres appeared anxious to ascertain her character and after looking at her for that purpose, handed me his spygla.s.s, requesting me to give him my opinion of the stranger. I soon saw from the peculiarity of her sails and from her general appearance that she was, without doubt, an American frigate, and communicated the same to Captain Dacres. He immediately replied that he thought she came down too boldly for an American, but soon after added, "The better he behaves, the more honor we shall gain by taking him."

When the strange frigate came down to within two or three miles' distance, he hauled upon the wind, took in all his light sails, reefed his topsails, and deliberately prepared for action. It was now about five o'clock in the afternoon when he filled away and ran down for the Guerriere. At this moment Captain Dacres politely said to me: "Captain Orne, as I suppose you do not wish to fight against your own countrymen, you are at liberty to go below the water-line." It was not long after this before I retired from the quarter-deck to the c.o.c.k-pit; of course I saw no more of the action until the firing ceased, but I heard and felt much of its effects; for soon after I left the deck the firing commenced on board the Guerriere, and was kept up almost incessantly until about six o'clock when I heard a tremendous explosion from the opposing frigate. The effect of her shot seemed to make the Guerriere reel and tremble as though she had received the shock of an earthquake.

Immediately after this, I heard a tremendous crash on deck and was told that the mizzen-mast was shot away. In a few moments afterward, the c.o.c.k-pit was filled with wounded men. After the firing had ceased I went on deck and there beheld a scene which it would be difficult to describe: all the Guerriere's masts were shot away and, as she had no sails to steady her, she lay rolling like a log in the trough of the sea. Many of the men were employed in throwing the dead overboard. The decks had the appearance of a butcher's slaughter-house; the gun tackles were not made fast and several of the guns got loose and were surging from one side to the other.

Some of the petty officers and seamen, after the action, got liquor and were intoxicated; and what with the groans of the wounded, the noise and confusion of the enraged survivors of the ill-fated ship rendered the whole scene a perfect h.e.l.l.

Setting the hulk of the Guerriere on fire, Captain Hull sailed for Boston with the captured crew. The tidings he bore were enough to amaze an American people which expected nothing of its navy, which allowed its merchant ships to rot at the wharves, and which regarded the operations of its armies with the gloomiest forebodings. New England went wild with joy over a victory so peculiarly its own. Captain Hull and his officers were paraded up State Street to a banquet at Faneuil Hall while cheering thousands lined the sidewalks. A few days earlier had come the news of the surrender of Detroit, but the gloom was now dispelled. Americans could fight, after all. Popular toasts of the day were:

OUR INFANT NAVY-We must nurture the young Hercules in his cradle, if we mean to profit by the labors of his manhood.

THE VICTORY WE CELEBRATE-An invaluable proof that we are able to defend our rights on the ocean.

Handbills spread the news through the country, and artillery salutes proclaimed it from Carolina to the Wabash. Congress voted fifty thousand dollars as prize money to the heroes of the Const.i.tution and medals to her officers. The people of New York gave them swords, and Captain Hull and Lieutenant Morris received pieces of plate from the patriots of Philadelphia. Federalists laid aside for the moment their opposition to the war and proclaimed that their party had founded and supported the navy. The moral effect of the victory was out of all proportion to its strategic importance. It was like sunshine breaking through a fog. Such rejoicing had been unknown, even in the decisive moments of the War of the Revolution. It served to show how deep-seated had been the American conviction that Britain's mastery of the sea was like a spell which could not be broken.