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THE HISTORY OF OUR NAVY

CHASING A SLAVER, OFF THE AFRICAN COAST.

From a photograph, in the possession of Mr. Edward Trenchard, of the painting by Melbye.

THE
HISTORY OF OUR NAVY

FROM ITS ORIGIN TO THE PRESENT DAY
1775–1897

BY
JOHN R. SPEARS

AUTHOR OF “THE PORT OF MISSING SHIPS,”
“THE GOLD DIGGINGS OF CAPE HORN,” ETC.

WITH MORE THAN FOUR HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS
MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

IN FOUR VOLUMES

VOLUME III.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1897

COPYRIGHT, 1897, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

MANHATTAN PRESS
474 W. BROADWAY
NEW YORK

TO ALL WHO WOULD SEEK PEACE
AND PURSUE IT

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE HISTORY OF OUR NAVY

CHAPTER I
WHEN PORTER SWEPT THE PACIFIC

THE STORY OF THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE FAMOUS LITTLE FRIGATE ESSEX—AROUND CAPE HORN AND ALONE IN THE BROAD SOUTH SEA—CAPTURE OF A PERUVIAN PICAROON—DISGUISING THE ESSEX—THE BRITISH WHALING FLEET TAKEN BY SURPRISE—AN ARMED WHALER TRANSFORMED INTO A YANKEE CRUISER—THE SAILORMAN’S PARADISE AMONG THE NUKAHIVA GROUP—WHEN FARRAGUT WAS A MIDSHIPMAN—AN INCIPIENT MUTINY AMONG THE SAILORS WHO WANTED TO REMAIN AMONG THE ISLANDS—FARRAGUT AS A CAPTAIN AT TWELVE.

Of great renown in the annals of the American Navy is the name of Porter, for the deeds of Captain David Porter with the little frigate Essex fill a large space in the story of the War of 1812; while those of David D. Porter, the son of Captain David Porter, during the Civil War, of which the story will be told farther on, raised him to the highest rank.

The second cruise of the Essex began on October 28, 1812, when she sailed from the Delaware bound across the ocean to Port Praya, Cape de Verde, to meet the Constitution and the Hornet and join in a cruise against British commerce in the far East. Her luck in winds having made the passage longer than anticipated, she arrived after the Constitution and Hornet had sailed for Brazil. Having replenished his stores at Port Praya, Captain Porter stood away toward the coast of Africa from Port Praya in order to deceive the people as to his destination, and then ran away toward the island of Fernando de Noronha, where he expected once more to meet his consorts. This passage was without event until December 11, 1812, when at 2 o’clock in the afternoon a sail was seen to windward. Thereat the British signals captured from the Alert in the first cruise were displayed, but they failed to bring the stranger, which was soon seen to be a large brig, toward the Essex. So Porter stood up toward the brig, and by nightfall was near enough to see that she was flying British colors; and a little later she displayed night-signals. When Porter was seen to be unable to answer these, the crew of the brig crowded on all sail and manœuvred with skill to escape, but at 9 o’clock at night the Essex was alongside, and after a volley of musketry from the Yankee, the brig struck. She proved to be the British packet, Nocton, of ten guns and thirty-one men. Her cargo included $55,000 in coin. The coin was taken out and the brig sent toward home under a prize-crew of seventeen men, but she was recaptured by the swift-sailing Belvidera when near Bermuda.

The Essex reached Fernando de Noronha on December 14th, and there found a letter from Commodore Bainbridge. As this port was frequented by British men-of-war this letter was signed with the name of the captain of a British ship, the Acasta—Bainbridge having caused the Brazilian authorities of the island to believe that the Constitution and the Hornet were the Acasta and the Morgiana—and directed Porter to pose as Sir James Yeo, of the Southampton, on reaching the island. Because of this diplomacy—because Porter took a letter which Bainbridge had written to him under the name of Sir James Yeo—British writers have said he was guilty of conduct unbecoming to a gentleman and officer!

The letter was double; there was one letter in common ink that meant very little, and on the back of this was another in lime-juice that directed Porter to meet the Constitution and Hornet off Cape Frio.

To Cape Frio, a lofty and most picturesque point on the Brazilian coast, went Porter, and there he lay under short sail, filling and backing, on the day when Bainbridge, with the Constitution, won the memorable victory over the British frigate Java. He remained cruising off the Brazilian coast for several days, capturing the British schooner Elizabeth meantime, and eventually put into St. Catharine’s, where he learned what had happened off Bahia, including the fact that the British ship-of-the-line Montagu had driven the Hornet off to the north.

So Porter was left free to choose his own course. It was characteristic of the man that he should have decided, in spite of the fact that the Spaniards, who controlled the west coast of South America, were practically allies of Great Britain, that he would round the Horn and destroy the British shipping in the southern Pacific. He could not hope for a really friendly reception in any port there, but he was confident that he could live off the enemy. Sailing from St. Catharine’s on January 26, 1813, he found an enemy on board his ship next day which we, in this era of the medical science, can scarcely appreciate. A form of dysentery appeared among the crew that was apparently contagious, or was, at least, caused by conditions that threatened the whole crew. It was especially dangerous from the fact that he was bound around the Horn, where the weather would compel the closing of ports, hatches, and companion-ways, and so prevent ventilating the ship. But the commonsense of the captain served where the knowledge of medicine failed, for he adopted what would now be called rigorous sanitary measures; he kept the ship and crew absolutely clean and so stopped the epidemic and preserved the health of the crew in a way unheard of, in those days of scurvy and ship fever.

MAP SHOWING
CAPTAIN PORTER’S CRUISE
IN THE PACIFIC,
1813.

The ship made the Horn in February, the end of the southern summer season—the season of the fiercest gales in that region. The weather became frightful. The seas broke over the little frigate continually, gun-deck ports were broken in fore and aft, extra spars were swept overboard, and boats were knocked to pieces at the davits by the waves. At one time the boatswain was so terrified by the assaults of the sea that he shouted:

“The ship’s side is stove in. We are sinking!” and for a brief time there was a panic among some of the crew.

“This was the only instance in which I ever saw a regular good seaman paralyzed by fear of the perils of the sea,” wrote Midshipman Farragut.

However, early in March the Essex anchored at Mocha Island, where an abundance of hogs and horses were found running wild. The crew had a good time hunting both, and a large quantity of the meat of each was salted down for future use. From here the Essex sailed to Valparaiso, where it was learned that Chili had declared herself free of Spain.

Sailing from Valparaiso on March 20, 1813, Porter fell in with the American whaler Charles, of Nantucket, and learned that a Spanish ship of the coast had captured the American whalers Walker and Barclay off Coquimbo, only two days before.

At this, Porter headed for the scene of the trouble, and the next morning (March 26th) saw a sail.

“Immediately, from her appearance and the description I had received of her, I knew her to be one of the picaroons that had been for a long time harassing our commerce,” wrote Porter in his journal. So he hoisted British colors and sailed up beside the stranger and learned that she was the Peruvian cruiser Nereyda, of fifteen guns. Her commander being deceived by the British flag, boasted of having captured the two Yankee whalers. Then Porter got from him a list of the British ships in those waters, with a description of each, so far as the Peruvian could remember. This done, Porter disclosed the character of the Essex to the astonished Peruvian, threw overboard all the guns and arms of his corsairs, and wrote a letter to the Viceroy of Peru telling why this was done, after which the Nereyda was allowed to go.

Porter’s next work was in “disguising our ship, which was done by painting in such a manner as to conceal her real force and exhibit in its stead the appearance of painted guns, etc.; also by giving her the appearance of having a poop, and otherwise so altering her as to make her look like a Spanish merchant-vessel.”

The sailormen were still at this work when a sail was seen that, when captured, proved to be the British whaler Barclay. With this vessel in company the Essex sailed to the Galapagos group, where, on April 29th, the British whaler Montezuma, with 1,400 barrels of whale oil on board, was taken. On the same day the whalers Georgiana and Policy were overhauled. The wind having failed, Porter got out his boats to attack these two vessels. When the boats drew near the Georgiana her crew gave three cheers at the sight of the American flag and one of them shouted, “We are all Americans.” And that was very near the truth, for she was a British whaler, licensed as a letter of marque, and had a pressed crew of whom the majority were Americans. The Policy surrendered also without a fight. As the Georgiana was pierced for eighteen guns, and was a smart sailer, Porter transferred the ten guns carried by the Policy to her, which, with the six she already had on board, made her quite a respectable cruiser. She was manned by forty-one men under Lieutenant Downes. It was estimated that the three ships taken, with their cargoes, were worth $500,000; but their real value to Porter was in the fact that they carried an abundance of spare canvas, cordage, etc., so that he was able to fit out the Essex with new sails, running gear, and standing rigging wherever needed, and provide liberally for future needs.

On May 28th another sail was seen, but as night came on she was lost to view. Next morning, however, she was sighted from the Montezuma, and after a long chase was taken by the Essex. This prize was the letter-of-marque whaler Atlantic, mounting eight eighteen-pounders, and reputed as the fastest ship in those waters. She was commanded by a man named Weir, “who had the pusillanimity to say that ‘though he was an American-born he was an ‘Englishman at heart,’” so wrote Midshipman Farragut.

That same evening another vessel was seen, and late at night she was captured also. She proved to be the letter-of-marque whaler Greenwich, a ship that had sailed from England under convoy of the ill-fated Java. She was full of ship-stores and provisions of every kind, and had on board, moreover, one hundred tons of water and eight hundred large tortoises, sufficient to furnish all the ships with fresh provisions for a month.

“The little squadron now consisted of the Essex, forty-six guns and two hundred and forty-five men; the Georgiana, sixteen guns and forty-two men; the Greenwich, ten guns and fourteen men; the Atlantic, six guns and twelve men; the Montezuma, two guns and ten men; the Policy and the Barclay of ten and seven men, respectively; in all, seven ships carrying eighty guns and three hundred and forty men.” The prisoners numbered eighty. As the number of prizes as well as prisoners proved burdensome, Captain Porter sailed on June 8th for the mainland, and reached Guayaquil Bay on the 19th. Here some provisions were obtained, and while lying here the Georgiana, with her crew of forty men, was sent on a cruise under Lieutenant Downes. The character of Downes was well illustrated on this cruise. Near James Island two British ships were found and secured without a fight. They were the Catherine, of eight guns and twenty-nine men, and the Rose, of eight guns and twenty-one men. Securing his fifty prisoners on the Georgiana, Downes sent ten of his men to each craft taken, and sailed on. That same night another ship was overhauled, and her captain, instead of surrendering when called on to do so, ordered his guns cleared for action.

John Downes.

From an oil-painting at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.

Downes had but twenty men with which to handle his ship, work his guns, and guard his prisoners, but he promptly opened fire, and after the fifth broadside the enemy surrendered. She proved to be the British letter-of-marque Hector, of eleven guns and twenty-five men. She had lost in the fight her maintopmast and most of her standing and running rigging, and two of her crew were killed and six dangerously wounded.

On manning the Hector with ten men Downes had but ten left with which to guard more than seventy prisoners, care for the wounded, and work the ship. In this emergency he threw overboard the guns of the Rose, destroyed most of her cargo, and made a cartel of her to which to send the prisoners. Then he returned to Guayaquil Bay, from which the Rose sailed for St. Helena.

At Guayaquil a part of the armament and crew of the Georgiana were transferred to the larger and swifter Atlantic, which was rechristened Essex Junior, and the latter was ordered to convoy a part of the fleet of prizes to Valparaiso.

It is worth telling, because of the fame he afterward earned, that Midshipman Farragut was placed on the Barclay as prize-master—was made the captain of the ship. Her original captain had agreed to act as navigator, but he was greatly angered, for some reason, at the order to go to Valparaiso, and when outside he backed the maintopsail and refused to fill away and follow the Essex Junior, declaring “that he would shoot any man who dared to touch a rope without his orders.” Then he went below to get his pistols.

He afterward said he did it merely to scare the lad, but if that were so he failed, for Farragut called an able American seaman, and told him to have the main-sails filled away. This was done, and then Farragut told the obdurate captain “not to come on deck unless he wished to be thrown overboard,” and the captain remained below until Farragut made a report of the affair to Lieutenant Downes, of the Essex Junior, and the Britisher agreed to submit quietly to Farragut as captain. Farragut was at this time but twelve years old. Not many boys of twelve would be fit for such a responsible position at that age, and fewer still have had opportunity to show their metal.

The Greenwich was made a store-ship, and the Essex, with her and the Georgiana as consorts, sailed on another cruise, leaving Guayaquil on July 9, 1813. On July 13th, when off Banks Bay, three ships were seen. They separated as soon as the Americans were sighted, whereupon the Essex went in chase, leaving the Georgiana and Greenwich behind. Seeing this, one of the strangers came about and stood for the Greenwich. At that the Greenwich backed her main-yard, brought a number of men from the Georgiana on board, and sailed boldly to meet the stranger.

While these two were approaching each other the Essex overhauled the vessel she was pursuing, and found it was the British whaler Charlton of ten guns and twenty-one men. Her captain informed Porter that the stranger approaching the Greenwich was the Seringapatam, a ship of 357 tons, carrying fourteen guns and forty men. She not only outweighed the metal of the Greenwich, but had a larger crew, and was the most dangerous ship in those waters. Nevertheless Porter saw serenely the two ships engage in battle, nor was his confidence in his officers and men misplaced, for, after a brief conflict, the Seringapatam hauled down her flag. A little later, however, she suddenly made sail and strove to escape. The Greenwich at once opened fire on her and kept it up until the British flag was lowered again. It is likely, however, that the Seringapatam would have escaped but for the rapid approach of the Essex, for she could outsail the Greenwich.

Meantime the third ship, the New Zealander, of eight guns and twenty-three men, was taken by the Essex. On overhauling the papers of the Seringapatam it appeared that, although she had no commission either as privateer or letter of marque, she had captured one American whaler, trusting to have the capture legalized by a commission she was expecting to arrive. As his act was really one of piracy the captain was sent to the United States for trial, but he was not convicted.

The other prisoners were put on the Charlton and sent under parole to Rio Janeiro. The guns of the New Zealander were transferred to the Seringapatam, giving her a battery of twenty-two, though this was of no great use, save for one broadside, for the reason that she had only men enough to work her sails. Then the Georgiana was loaded with a full cargo of oil, manned with such of the crew of the Essex as had served their full time and also wished to go home (most of those whose time was up re-shipped in the Essex), and on July 25th she sailed for the United States.

The Essex with the other three headed for Albemarle Island, and on July 28th sighted another British whaler. It was a region and a season of light airs and calms, but the Essex rigged a drag that when dropped in the water from the spritsail-yard was hauled aft by a line running through a block on the end of an outrigger aft, and this, although laborious, gave the ship a speed of two knots per hour. As the whaler got out boats to tow his ship, Porter sent a couple of boats of musketeers to drive them on board again. So she was headed off and then other boats were sent to board her. The stranger then hauled down her flag, but before the boats could get alongside a breeze came. At that she hoisted her colors, fired on the Yankee boats and escaped, for the Essex did not get the wind until too late. Porter was greatly mortified for the reason that this was the first ship that had escaped him.

However, on September 15th, while cruising among the Galapagos Islands, a whaler was seen cutting in a whale. The Essex was disguised by sending down the small yards, and succeeded in getting within four miles of her before she took alarm, and then by making sail Porter overhauled her. It was now learned that she was the Sir Andrew Hammond, of twelve guns and thirty-one men, and that she was the ship that had run away on July 28th. Luckily for the Essex she had ample stores of excellent beef, pork, bread, wood, and water.

Returning now to Banks Bay, the appointed rendezvous, the Essex was joined by the Essex Junior. Lieutenant Downes brought the news from Valparaiso that several English frigates had been sent to hunt the Essex. At this Porter determined to go to the Marquesas Islands, where he could give the Essex a thorough overhauling in safety. He had cleared those waters of the British whalers and letters of marque, and determined to fit his ship for a battle with equal force before sailing for home. He reached Nukahiva with his squadron on October 23d, built a fort to protect the harbor, and immediately began taking down the masts of the Essex in order to make everything aloft—spars and rigging—as sound as possible. In November the New Zealander was sent home with a full cargo of oil, but, unfortunately for the Americans, both she and the Georgiana, sent previously, were recaptured when almost in port by British blockaders. They were very rich prizes for the British tars.

The Essex and her Prizes at Nukahiva in the Marquesas Islands.

From an engraving by Strickland of a drawing by Captain Porter.

Nukahiva lies in the tropical climate of the South Pacific—a climate where the sea and the air dance together under an unclouded sun; where the wanton waves tumble and roll invitingly on the beeches; where seemingly the wind-driven light splashes the swaying fronds of the cocoanut-palms; where the air of night is soft and sweet and wooing; where nature asks no labor in return for her bounties; where the thoughts of the people run only to war and love. It was to Jack the ideal country—a paradise on earth.

There were several tribes on Nukahiva. The sailors made friends with those living close at hand, and subdued those, from farther away who came to make trouble. And thereafter they worked upon the ships by day, and at night, by turns, frolicked with the friendly natives.

Says Farragut in his journal:

“During our stay at this island the youngsters—I among the number—were sent on board the vessel commanded by our chaplain for the purpose of continuing our studies away from temptation.”

Map of the Harbor in which the Essex and her Prizes lay.

After a drawing by Captain Porter.

The prisoners, having liberty as well as the crews, not only went looking for temptation but they got together and planned to get in a lot of native canoes and carry the Essex Junior by assault, when, the Essex being dismantled, they hoped to capture the entire Yankee force. A traitor revealed the plot, however, and the prisoners were thereafter kept well in hand.

And then came an incipient mutiny. The sailormen had enjoyed life with their friends, the Nukahivas, so much that when, in December, Porter determined to go in search of an enemy worthy of the ship, they first grumbled, and then some of them, under the lead of an Englishman named Robert White, talked of refusing to go at all.

This talk reached flood-tide when on Sunday, December 9, 1813, a lot of the men from the Essex visited the Essex Junior, when White openly boasted that the crew would refuse to get the anchor at the word from Captain Porter. But White was very much mistaken. His words were reported to Porter, who, next morning, mustered the men on the port side of the deck and then, with a drawn sword lying across the capstan before him, said:

“All of you who are in favor of weighing the anchor when I give the order, pass over to the starboard side.”

A Marquesan War-canoe.

From an engraving by Strickland of a drawing by Captain Porter.

They all passed across the deck promptly. Then he called out White, and asked him about his Sunday boasting. White denied having made the boast, but a number of the crew testified to what he had said, and at that Porter turned on the fellow and said in a burst of anger:

“Run, you scoundrel, for your life.”

“And away the fellow went over the starboard gangway.” So Farragut tells the story. He was picked up by one of the ever-present native canoes and carried ashore.

After all it was a lucky affair for him, for the cruise of the Essex was drawing to a close, and had he remained in her he would have been hanged, very likely, by his countrymen as a traitor.

Having addressed the men briefly, praising their good qualities and telling them he “would blow them all to eternity before they should succeed in a conspiracy,” he ordered them to man the capstan, a fiddler began to play “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” the “anchor fairly flew to the bows,” the sails were spread, and the Essex and Essex Junior sailed away, leaving Lieutenant John Gamble with twenty-one men, to look after the Seringapatam, the Sir Andrew Hammond, and the Greenwich until Porter could return for them.

CHAPTER II
PORTER’S GALLANT ACTION AT VALPARAISO

A GENEROUS RECEPTION FOR A PREDATORY BRITISH FRIGATE—HILLYAR’S LUCKY ESCAPE—HILLYAR’S EXPLICIT ORDERS—WHEN THE ESSEX HAD LOST HER TOP-MAST THE PHŒBE AND THE CHERUB ATTACKED THE YANKEE IN NEUTRAL WATER—IT WAS A TWO-TO-ONE FIGHT AND THE ENEMY HAD LONG GUNS TO OUR SHORT—THE BRITISH HAD TO GET BEYOND THE RANGE OF THE ESSEX—MAGNIFICENT BRAVERY OF THE YANKEE CREW WHEN UNDER THE FIRE OF THE LONG RANGE BRITISH GUNS—THE ESSEX ON FIRE—FOUGHT TO THE LAST GASP—PORTER’S INTERRUPTED VOYAGE HOME—THE MEN WHO WERE LEFT AT NUKAHIVA IN SORRY STRAITS AT LAST.

The Essex, with her consort, the Essex Junior, got up anchor at Nukahiva on December 12, 1813. For two days they were in the offing and then they sailed for the coast of South America. They sighted the Andes early in January, and after getting water at San Maria and calling at Concepcion, went to Valparaiso, where they arrived on February 3, 1814. There Porter learned that the British frigate Phœbe, Captain James Hillyar, had been on the coast some time looking for the Essex. So Porter determined to await her at Valparaiso.

To make the time pass pleasantly a grand reception was given to the officials of the city and their friends on the night of the 7th, the Essex Junior, meantime, having been stationed outside to watch for the enemy. As it happened the enemy was seen next morning while yet the men of the Essex were taking down the bunting with which the ship had been decorated. But when Captain Porter came to read the signals on the guard-ship he found that two ships were in sight instead of the one looked for. After a time the two appeared and displayed British colors, and the Essex Junior was obliged to come into the port. And what made matters still more uncomfortable was the fact that half of the crew of the Essex were on shore enjoying life sailor fashion.

This last fact had not escaped the eye of the patriotic mate of an English merchantman lying in the harbor, and jumping into a small boat he rowed outside to tell his countrymen about the crew of the Essex. As it appeared very soon after this, the two British ships outside were the Phœbe already mentioned and the eighteen-gun war-ship Cherub, Captain Tucker.

Captain Hillyar, of the Phœbe, very naturally assumed that the Yankee sailors on shore were already so full of the excellent native wine of the country that even if got on board they would not be able to make a fight. The wind was in just the right direction to enable him to take his two ships into port and handle them there with certainty. It was true that Valparaiso was a neutral port, but that fact was considered unimportant. Captain Hillyar had been sent there expressly to capture the Essex, and the opportunity to do it comfortably seemed to have been made as if to order. So he cleared his ship for action, and, leaving the Cherub outside, steered boldly for the Essex.

But when the Phœbe swept up beside the Yankee ship Captain Hillyar experienced a very great revulsion of feeling. He had approached the Essex under the quarter, where not one of her guns could bear on him, and then slightly shifting his helm he ranged up alongside and within fifteen feet of her. And then to his utter discomfiture he found the Yankee guns fully manned, and every man save one was fit and eager for fight.

The warlike ardor of the Englishman instantly evaporated, and he remembered that he had met Captain Porter some years before on the Mediterranean station, and that they had exchanged friendly visits. Instead of ordering his men to fire he jumped on a gun, where he could get a better view of the deck of the Essex, and said, with marked politeness:

“Captain Hillyar’s compliments to Captain Porter, and hopes he is well.”

And Captain Porter, who had never felt better in his life than at that moment, replied:

“Very well, I thank you; but I hope you will not come too near for fear some accident might take place which would be disagreeable to you.” And with that he waved his trumpet toward some of the crew forward who, with ropes in hand, were awaiting the signal, and they instantly triced a couple of kedge anchors out to the weather yard-arms ready for dropping on the enemy to grapple him fast in reach of the well-trained Yankee boarders, armed with sharpened cutlasses and dirks made from old files.

Indeed the Yankee forecastlemen were so eager that they swarmed to the rail as the anchors rose to the yard-arms, while one of them, a quarter-gunner named Adam Roach, with his sleeves rolled up and cutlass in hand, climbed out on the cathead and stood there, in plain view of the British marines, awaiting the moment when the ships should come together.

But they did not come together, yard-arm to yard-arm, either then or afterward. Captain Hillyar hastily braced his yards aback and “exclaimed with great agitation:”

“I had no intention of getting on board of you—I had no intention of coming so near you; I am sorry I came so near you.”

“Well,” said Porter, “you have no business where you are. If you touch a rope yarn of this ship, I shall board instantly.” Then he hailed the Essex Junior, that was lying handy by, and ordered Lieutenant Downes to prepare to repel the enemy.

The Phœbe fell off with her jib-boom over the American deck, her bows exposed to the broadside of the American guns, and her stern exposed to the broadside of the Essex Junior.

At that moment the one member of the crew who had come on board the Essex drunk, narrowly escaped precipitating the battle. He was a big boy and served as powder-monkey. While standing beside his gun with a slow-burning match in hand waiting for orders, “he saw, through the port, someone on the Phœbe grinning at him.” He was deeply offended at once.

“My fine fellow, I’ll stop your making faces,” he said, and leaned over to put his match to the gun’s priming. The lieutenant in charge saw the move and knocked the youth to the deck. Had he fired the gun a fight would have followed and the Phœbe would have been taken. As it was she passed free, although some of her yards overlapped those of the Essex, and a little later she came to anchor half a mile away.

“We thus lost an opportunity of taking her, though we had observed the strict neutrality of the port under very aggravating circumstances.” So wrote Farragut, but no American at this day regrets the action of Captain Porter. It was, indeed, “over-forbearance, under great provocation,” but it showed the high sense of honor of a typical American officer, and every American reads the story of the Essex with unalloyed pleasure. Such exhibitions as this of the American spirit have done more than cannon-shot to promote and to preserve peace between the nations. Captain Hillyar was so much impressed by it that he promised Porter that he, too, would respect the neutrality of the port, and he would have done so, very likely, only that he was handicapped by his orders from the Admiralty, which compelled him to “capture the Essex with the least possible risk to his vessel and crew.” Hillyar was a cool and calculating man of fifty years. As he said to his first lieutenant, Mr. William Ingram, he had gained his reputation in single-ship encounters and he only expected to “retain it by an explicit obedience to orders.”

That he was going to take “the least possible risk” appeared a few days later when Porter asked him to send the Cherub to the lee side of the harbor and meet the Essex with the Phœbe alone. The Phœbe and the Cherub had by that time replenished their stores and taken a station outside. Hillyar at first agreed to do so, and made preparations for the fight. Among other things he had a huge flag painted with a motto in answer to Porter’s burgee containing “Free Trade and Sailor’s Rights.” The British motto read: “God and Country; British Sailors’ Best Rights; Traitors Offend Both.” It was a day when such displays were fashionable among sailors, and Porter at once painted another which he hoisted to the mizzen, where it read: “God, our Country and Liberty; Tyrants Offend them.”

Such things seem rather silly now, but they were inspiring to Jack in those days. With his banners flaunting before the Yankee eyes Captain Hillyar hove his main-yard aback off the weather-side of the harbor, having previously sent the Cherub a fair distance to leeward. Then he fired a gun to invite the Essex out. Captain Porter accepted the invitation and stood out of the harbor. He found he could outsail the Phœbe, and he got near enough to fire several shots from his long twelves that almost reached her, but she squared away for the Cherub, and Porter had to let her go.

Meantime Porter “had received certain information” that the frigate Tagus and two others were coming after him, while the sloop-of-war Raccoon, that had gone to the northwest coast of North America to destroy the fur-gathering establishment of John Jacob Astor, was to be expected at Valparaiso at any time. So Porter determined to sail out of the harbor, trusting to the speed of the Essex to carry him clear of the superior force. Should he succeed in drawing the enemy clear of the harbor the Essex Junior was at once to make sail also.

But the day after arriving at this determination a heavy squall came on from the south, the port cable of the Essex broke, and she began dragging the starboard one right out to sea. Without delay Porter made sail, setting his top-gallant sails over reefed top-sails, and stood out of the harbor. As he opened up the sea he saw that he had a chance for sailing between the southwest point of the harbor and the enemy—passing to windward of them, in fact, and so getting clear without trouble. The top-gallant sails were at once clewed up and the yards braced to sail close hauled. The Essex was making a course that was just what Porter wanted, and he was just clearing the point when a sudden squall from around the corner of the land struck the ship, knocking the maintopmast over the lee rail into the sea, and the men who were still aloft furling the top-gallant sail were lost.

At once both of the enemy’s ships gave chase, and Porter, after clearing the wreckage, turned to beat back to his old anchorage. But because he was crippled, and because of a sudden shift of wind, he could not make it, and so he “ran close into a small bay about three-quarters of a mile to leeward of the battery on the east side of the harbor,” and there let go his anchor “within pistol-shot of the shore.”

Here he was as much in neutral waters as he would have been at the usual anchorage, but the enemy, with mottoes and banners in abundance flying, came down to attack the cripple. The Cherub came cautiously to the wind off the bow of the Essex, the Phœbe, with equal caution, off her stern, and at 3.54 P.M., on March 28, 1814, in the presence of the whole population of Valparaiso, who thronged to the bluffs, the battle, that was to end the career of the Essex as an American frigate, began. To fully appreciate the fight that followed, the reader should recall the fact that in spite of the protests of Captain Porter the Essex had been compelled to sail with a battery of forty short thirty-twos in place of the long twelves that he wanted. In addition to these she carried six long twelves, three of which, when this fight began, were arranged to fight at the bow and three at the stern. Her crew numbered two hundred and fifty-five when she dragged her anchor, but of these at least four were lost from the top-gallant yard. The exact number is not given.

On the other hand the Phœbe, under the circumstances, was alone in weight of metal superior to the Essex. On her main deck were thirty long eighteens, to which were added sixteen short thirty-twos, one howitzer, and in the tops six three-pounders. In all she carried fifty-three guns. She carried more guns than ships of her class usually did, because she had been fitted out especially to catch the Essex with as little risk as possible. Her crew numbered three hundred and twenty, the usual number having been added to, when she was taking in supplies, by gathering sailors from the British ships in port. The Cherub mounted eighteen short thirty-twos, eight short twenty-fours, and two long nines. Her crew, with the additions received in port, numbered one hundred and eighty men.

But this was a battle fought at long range. Captain Hillyar obeyed his instructions to take as little risk as possible, and he held his ships beyond the range of Porter’s short thirty-twos. It was therefore a fight in which five hundred men were pitted against two hundred and fifty-one, and the fifteen long guns in the broadside of the Phœbe and both of the long guns of the Cherub—in short, seventeen long guns, throwing two hundred and eighty-eight pounds of metal, were pitted against six long guns, throwing by actual weight only sixty-six pounds of metal. That was the actual preponderance when the battle began, but even that did not satisfy the ideas of the British captains in their desire to obey their orders to take as little risk as possible, for the Cherub, finding her position off the bow of the Essex too hot, wore around and took a station near the Phœbe, where Porter could bring only three guns, throwing together but thirty-three pounds of metal, to bear on the two of them with their seventeen long guns throwing two hundred and eighty-eight pounds of metal. Rarely in the history of the world has a fight been maintained against such odds as these. The Englishmen did, indeed, draw in closer at one time of the battle, but it was for only a brief time. The short guns of the Essex soon made them withdraw to a safer distance.

When the first gun was fired at 3.54 P.M., Porter had not yet been able to get a spring on his cable and could not bring a gun to bear on either ship. For five minutes the Essex lay as an idle target. But as the spring was made fast and the cable veered, the long twelves began to bark and it was then that the Cherub made haste to get clear of the fire from forward, and take a place near the Phœbe. They both delivered a raking fire which “continued about ten minutes, but produced no visible effect,” to quote Hillyar’s report to Commodore Brown of the Jamaica station. But if the British fire produced no “visible effect,” the fire of the guns of the Essex was so well directed that Hillyar “increased our distance by wearing,” and he confesses that “appearances were a little inauspicious.” In fact, at the end of half an hour both the British ships sailed out of range to repair damages alow and aloft. The Phœbe alone had seven holes at the water-line to plug and she had lost the use of her mainsail and jib, her fore, main, and mizzen stays were shot away, and her jib-boom was badly wounded. This much the British admit.

But it had been a losing fight on the Essex, nevertheless. The springs on the cable were shot away three times and could be renewed only after delays that prevented working the guns under full speed, and the heavy shot of the enemy’s long guns had been cutting down the crew. And then the enemy returned once more to the fight. Brave Lieutenant William Ingram, of the Phœbe, wanted to close in and carry the Essex by boarding. The two British ships had at this time more than two men to the one of the Essex, but Hillyar refused, quoting the orders he had received from his superiors as a reason, and saying he had “determined not to leave anything to chance.” He would not face Yankee cutlasses wielded in defence of the Essex. So the safest possible positions were chosen, and fire was again opened at 5.35 P.M. It was “a most galling fire, which we were powerless to return.” Even the Essex’s “stern guns could not be brought to bear.”

At this juncture, the wind having shifted, Captain Porter ordered his crew to slip the cable and make sail; and it was then found that the running gear had been so badly cut that only the flying jib could be spread.

Did the courage and hope of the brave American falter at this? Not at all. Spreading that one little triangle of canvas by halyard and sheet to the wind, he loosed the square sails, and with their unrestrained and ragged breadths flapping from the yards, the Essex wore around, and while the shot of the enemy filled the air above her deck with splinters, she bore down upon them until her short guns began to reach them, and the Cherub was driven out of range altogether, while Hillyar made haste to obey his orders about taking as little risk as possible—made haste to spread his canvas and sail away to a point where he would be clear of the deadly aim of the Yankee gunners. The Phœbe “was enabled by the better condition of her sails to choose her own distance, suitable for her long guns, and kept up a most destructive fire on our helpless ship.” So says Farragut.

Fight of the Essex with the Phœbe and Cherub.

From an engraving by Strickland of a drawing by Captain Porter.

But fearful as was the scene on the doomed Essex, the story of the deeds of her heroic crew stir the blood as few other stories of battle can do. “Dying men who had hardly ever attracted notice among the ship’s company, uttered sentiments worthy of a Washington. You might have heard in all directions: ‘Don’t give her up, Logan’—a sobriquet for Porter—‘Hurrah for Liberty!’ and similar expressions.”

A man named Bissley, a young Scotchman by birth, on losing a leg, said: “I hope I have this day proved myself worthy of the country of my adoption. I am no longer of any use to you or to her, so good-by!” And with that he plunged through a port. And John Ripley, who had suffered in like fashion, also went overboard deliberately. John Alvinson, having been struck by an eighteen-pound shot, cried: “Never mind, shipmates; I die in defence of free trade and sailors’ ri——” and so his spirit fled while the last word quivered on his lips. William Call lost his leg and was carried down to the berth-deck. As he lay there weltering in his blood awaiting his turn with the doctor, he saw Quarter-Gunner Roach—he who had so bravely headed the boarders—skulking, and “dragged his shattered stump all around the bag-house, pistol in hand, trying to get a shot at him.”

And there was Lieutenant J. G. Cowell. He had his leg shot off just above the knee and was carried below. The surgeon on seeing him at once left a common sailor to attend to him, but Cowell said:

“No, doctor, none of that; fair play is a jewel. One man’s life is as dear as another’s; I would not cheat any poor fellow out of his turn.” And so he bled to death before his turn came.

In the record kept by young Farragut we have a wonderful story of a battle as seen by a lad of twelve. “I performed the duties of captain’s aid, quarter-gunner, powder-boy, and in fact did everything that was required of me,” he wrote.

“I shall never forget the horrid impression made upon me at the sight of the first man I had ever seen killed. He was a boatswain’s mate, and was fearfully mutilated. It staggered and sickened me at first, but they soon began to fall around me so fast that it all appeared like a dream, and produced no effect on my nerves. I can remember well, while I was standing near the captain, just abaft the mainmast, a shot came through the waterways and glanced upwards, killing four men who were standing by the side of the gun, taking the last one in the head and scattering his brains over both of us. But this awful sight did not affect me half as much as the death of the first poor fellow. I neither thought of nor noticed anything but the working of the guns.

“On one occasion Midshipman Isaacs came up to the captain and reported that a quarter-gunner named Roach had deserted his post. The only reply of the captain, addressed to me, was, ‘Do your duty, sir.’ I seized a pistol and went in pursuit of the fellow, but did not find him.

“Soon after this, some gun-primers were wanted, and I was sent after them. In going below, while I was on the ward-room ladder, the captain of the gun directly opposite the hatchway was struck full in the face by an eighteen-pound shot, and fell back on me. We tumbled down the hatch together. I struck on my head, and, fortunately, he fell on my hips. I say fortunately, for, as he was a man of at least two hundred pounds’ weight, I would have been crushed to death if he had fallen directly across my body. I lay for some moments stunned by the blow, but soon recovered consciousness enough to rush up on deck. The captain, seeing me covered with blood, asked if I was wounded, to which I replied, ‘I believe not, sir.’ ‘Then,’ said he, ‘where are the primers?’ This first brought me completely to my senses, and I ran below again and carried the primers on deck. When I came up the second time I saw the captain fall, and in my turn ran up and asked if he was wounded. He answered me almost in the same words, ‘I believe not, my son; but I felt a blow on the top of my head.’ He must have been knocked down by the windage of a passing shot, as his hat was somewhat damaged.”

With such scenes as these on deck Porter strove to overtake the enemy. The picture of that American ship, with her unsheeted sails flapping in the wind as she struggled to get within range, is among the most heroic known to history. It was a vain struggle. The wind veered once more. The shot from the long guns of the enemy were ripping her hull to pieces, and, in the language of the British first lieutenant, murdering her crew. The brave American commander was baffled but was not yet conquered. Putting up his helm he turned once more toward the shore, determined to beach the ship, broadside on, fight to the last gasp, and then blow her to pieces.

Firing from his stern guns as he ran, he reached out for the sands until they were but half a mile away, and then once more the treacherous wind shifted, and catching the sails aback, wrapped their torn folds as a shroud about the masts. A hawser was bent to the sheet-anchor, which was then let go. That brought her head around where the long guns would bear, but the hawser broke a minute later, and once more the Essex drifted offshore a helpless target.

And then came an explosion below. The ship was on fire, and the men came rushing up on deck, “many with their clothes burning.” The men on deck hastened to rip the burning garments from their shipmates, but some whose clothes were flaming were ordered to “jump overboard and quench the flames.” Smoke was rolling up the hatches, and “many of the crew, and even some of the officers, hearing the order to jump overboard, took it for granted that the fire had reached the magazine, and that the ship was about to blow up; so they leaped into the water, and attempted to reach the shore.”

Hope had at last fled from the doomed ship. The decks were strewn with the dead and wounded. There were twenty-one bodies in one pile on the main deck. The long-range shot of the enemy were sinking her. The hold was in flames. The captain called for his lieutenants to ask their opinion of the condition of affairs, and found but one, Lieutenant McKnight, to answer the call. Of the two hundred and fifty-one men who began the fight only seventy-five, including officers and boys, remained on the ship in condition fit for duty. Further effort was useless, “and at 6.20 P.M. the painful order was given to haul down the colors.”

At that, Benjamin Hazen, a Groton seaman (who, though painfully wounded, had remained at his post, and at the last had joined in the request to haul down the flag to save the wounded), bade adieu in hearty fashion to those around him, said he had determined never to survive the surrender of the Essex, and jumped overboard. He was drowned.

In what has been said regarding the handling of the Phœbe there was no desire to cast a slur upon the personal character of Captain Hillyar. He had proved his bravery in previous contests. The point to be made clear is that his superiors had so far learned to respect Yankee prowess that he was under definite order to take no unnecessary risks. He conducted the fight in the only way that insured certain victory. Every fair-minded American will grant what Sir Howard Douglas, in his text-book on gunnery (page 108), claims—that “this action displayed all that can reflect honor on the science and admirable conduct of Captain Hillyar and his crew,” save only so far as he broke his word of honor pledged to Captain Porter. And that is to say that it is admitted that a sneer at the “respectful distance the Phœbe kept” is “a fair acknowledgment of the ability with which Captain Hillyar availed himself of the superiority of his arms.”

The losses of the Essex were fifty-eight killed and mortally wounded, thirty-nine severely wounded, twenty-seven slightly wounded, and thirty-one missing, the most of whom, if not all, were drowned in trying to swim ashore when the Essex was on fire. These numbers were given by the American officers. Hillyar reported that the Essex lost one hundred and eleven in killed or wounded. The difference in these official reports is unquestionably due to the fact that Hillyar, naturally enough, did not count as wounded those of his prisoners who had received minor scratches and contusions, even though these wounds had temporarily disabled the men during the battle. Nevertheless, the favorite British historian James, although he had read Hillyar’s letter, wrote:

“The Essex, as far as is borne out by proof (the only safe way where an American is concerned), had twenty-four men killed and forty-five wounded. But Captain Porter, thinking by exaggerating his loss to prop up his fame, talks of fifty-eight killed and mortally wounded, thirty-nine severely, twenty-seven slightly.”

And Allen, whose latest edition appeared in 1890, follows the false statement of James.

The British loss was, of course, trifling. They had five killed and ten wounded. But it is not unconsoling to reflect that the Phœbe received in all eight shot at and under the water-line, and that she and the Cherub were not a little cut up aloft—in short the damage inflicted by the Essex was greater than the British Java, Macedonian, and Guerrière all together inflicted on the American ships in their battles. Captain Hillyar had good reason for writing to his superior that “the defence of the Essex, taking into consideration our superiority of force and the very discouraging circumstance of her having lost her maintopmast and being twice on fire, did honor to her brave defenders.”

As Roosevelt says, “Porter certainly did everything a man can do to contend successfully with the overwhelming force opposed to him. As an exhibition of dogged courage it has never been surpassed since the time when the Dutch Captain Kaesoon, after fighting two long days, blew up his disabled ship, devoting himself and all his crew to death, rather than surrender to the hereditary foes of his race.”

While no one can justly criticise Captain Hillyar for his handling of his ship during the battle, there is something to be said about his having made an attack on the American ship under the circumstances. And this cannot be better said than in the words of Roosevelt, whose fairness has been acknowledged by the English in the most emphatic manner. He says:

“When Porter decided to anchor near shore, in neutral water, he could not anticipate Hillyar’s deliberate and treacherous breach of faith. I do not allude to the mere disregard of neutrality. Whatever international moralists may say, such disregard is a mere question of expediency. If the benefits to be gained by attacking a hostile ship in neutral waters are such as to counterbalance the risk of incurring the enmity of the neutral power, why then the attack ought to be made. Had Hillyar, when he first made his appearance off Valparaiso, sailed in with his two ships, the men at quarters and guns out, and at once attacked Porter, considering the destruction of the Essex as outweighing the insult to Chili, why his behavior would have been perfectly justifiable. In fact, this is unquestionably what he intended to do; but he suddenly found himself in such a position that, in the event of hostilities, his ship would be the captured one, and he owed his escape purely to Porter’s over-forbearance, under great provocation. Then he gave his word to Porter that he would not infringe on the neutrality; and he never dared to break it, until he saw Porter was disabled and almost helpless! This may seem strong language to use about a British officer, but it is justly strong. Exactly as any outsider must consider Warrington’s attack on the British brig Nautilus in 1815 as a piece of needless cruelty, so any outsider must consider Hillyar as having most treacherously broken faith with Porter.”

Fair as this statement must seem to candid minds, there is yet a word to be said for Captain Hillyar. A fair interpretation of his orders demanded that he break his faith and attack the ship, and as an officer accustomed to obey all orders from his superiors, he believed his obligation to the Admiralty and his country was greater than his obligation to keep his word. Captain Hillyar believed that his country demanded that he break faith with Porter, and the proof that the British nation has ever since approved of his treachery toward an American is found in the fact that “the naval medal is granted for the capture” of the Essex (see Allen); that the officer who sailed her to England was at once promoted, and that every British writer who has referred to the action has praised Captain Hillyar in the highest terms, and refers to Captain Porter as James did when he said: “Few, even in his own country, will venture to speak well of Captain David Porter.”

After the battle the Essex was repaired and sent to England, where she was added to the British Navy. It is worth noting that she was built in 1779 by the people of Salem, Massachusetts, and the surrounding country, who were enthusiastic in their desire to revenge the injuries done by French cruisers to American commerce. She was the product of the Federalist party ardor, and Rear-Admiral George Preble says, “the Federalists considered it a patriotic duty to cut down the finest sticks of their wood lots to help build the ‘noble structure’ that was to chastise French insolence and piracy.” They gave her as a present to the nation, and as armed at that time she was probably the most efficient ship of her size afloat.

The Essex Junior was disarmed and the American prisoners were put into her, and she was sent as a cartel to New York. Off the east coast of Long Island, on July 5, 1814, she was detained by British cruisers so long that the Americans were lawfully released from their parole, when Porter and a boat’s crew escaped ashore aided by a fog, and that was the only occasion during that cruise of this Yankee captain, that weather did aid him. He landed in Long Island, where he had to show his commission before the people would believe his story. He was then carried to New York by enthusiastic admirers, and was there received with every mark of honor. Meantime, the Essex Junior was allowed to come in also.

A few words will tell the fate of Lieutenant Gamble and the men left at Nukahiva with the captured whalers Seringapatam, Greenwich, and Sir Andrew Hammond. Immediately after Porter sailed away the natives began to rob the Americans of everything they could carry away, and Gamble had “to land and overpower them.” On February 28, 1814, one man was drowned accidentally. A week later four men deserted in a whale-boat to join their native sweethearts. On April 12th Gamble rigged the Seringapatam and the Hammond for sea, intending to burn the Greenwich, but the men became mutinous. So Gamble removed all the arms, as he supposed, to the Greenwich; but when he boarded the Seringapatam on May 7th, the men there attacked him, shot him in the foot with a pistol, set him adrift in a native canoe, and then sailed away with the Seringapatam, leaving Gamble with but eight men.

Two days later the natives came off to assault the ship. They were repulsed, but Midshipman William W. Feltus was killed, and three men wounded. The fight occurred on the Hammond. The following night the survivors went to sea. They eventually reached the Sandwich Islands, where they were captured by the Cherub, and were detained on her seven months. They finally reached New York in August, 1815.

A Marquesan “Chief Warrior.”

From an engraving by Strickland of a drawing by Captain Porter.

The voyage of the Essex ended in disasters all around, due solely to the misfortune of losing a top-mast in a squall off the Point of Angels at Valparaiso. But she had captured twelve British ships, aggregating 3,369 tons, armed with one hundred and seven guns and carrying three hundred and two men. She had maintained herself for more than a year entirely from supplies captured from the enemy—she did not cost the national treasury a cent after her first outfit. A great fleet of British ships were sent at large expense to search for her. On the whole her cruise damaged the enemy millions of dollars—Porter estimated the damage at $6,000,000—and her crew, from master to boy, had “afforded an example of courage in adversity that it would be difficult to match elsewhere.”

Porter was, indeed, defeated, but the victory of the enemy was like those obtained at Bunker Hill and on Lake Champlain during the war of the Revolution. It was a British victory but it strengthened the power of the young republic, and gave renown to the defeated leaders.

When Grecian bands lent Persia’s legions aid,

On Asia’s shores their banners wide displayed,

Though heaven denied success—their leader’s name

Has still ranked foremost in the rolls of fame;

Hence the Retreat, the theme of every tongue,

Through every age and clime incessant rung;

With Zenophon the bard adorned his lays,

And gave the mighty chief immortal praise.

With him the historian grac’d his proudest page,

And bade his glories live through every age:

Thus thine, O Porter, shall, in lays sublime

Of future poets, live through endless time;

Thy noble daring, though with adverse fate,

The rich historic page shall long relate,

And the glad voice of freemen’s loud acclaim

Teach lisping infancy thy honored name.

Captain Porter aided in the defence of Baltimore after his return home. After the war he served as a commissioner on naval affairs, and in 1826 resigned his commission. He was afterward American Minister to Turkey, and died at Constantinople in 1843. His body was brought to America and was eventually buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Philadelphia.

CHAPTER III
TALES OF THE YANKEE CORVETTES

A LITTLE LOP-SIDED FRIGATE REBUILT INTO A SUPERIOR SLOOP-OF-WAR—OVERLAND (ALMOST) TO ESCAPE THE BLOCKADE—HER LUCK AS A CRUISER—A MARVELLOUS RACE WITH A BRITISH FRIGATE OVER A COURSE FOUR HUNDRED MILES LONG—SAVED BY A SQUALL—CORNERED IN THE PENOBSCOT—THE GALLANT FIGHT OF THE YANKEE CREW AGAINST OVERWHELMING NUMBERS—BUILDING A NEW NAVY—THE SHORT-LIVED PORTSMOUTH CORVETTE FROLIC—ONE BROADSIDE WAS ENOUGH—CAPTURED BY THE ENEMY—SWIFT AND DEADLY WORK OF THE CREW OF THE YANKEE PEACOCK WHEN THEY MET THE EPERVIER—DISTINCTLY A LUCKY SHIP—FATE OF THE SIREN AFTER THE COFFIN FLOATED.

Of the seventeen war-ships, big and little, that were named on the register of the American Navy when war was declared in 1812, the Adams, rated as a twenty-eight-gun frigate, lay at Washington. It had been determined to alter this ship into what was known as a corvette. Readers not trained to a life at sea not infrequently find themselves puzzled by the terms applied to the old style war-ships, and no term is quite so annoying as that of corvette, for the reason that it is used interchangeably with sloop-of-war. The dictionaries do not help one very much. In a “Vocabulaire des Termes de Marine” printed in 1783, a corvette is said to be “a general name for sloops-of-war and all vessels under twenty guns,” but it is manifest, from a consideration of the size and force of the Adams and other American vessels called corvettes, that American officers applied the name only to the largest ships that had one deck of guns only, with neither a poop nor a forecastle.

United States Razee* Independence at Anchor.

From the “Kedge Anchor.”

* A Razee is a line-of-battle ship from which the upper deck has been cut, leaving her with two decks of guns.

A most remarkable ship was the Adams, for, when let to a contractor to build, he sublet one side of her to another man who had the instincts of a thief and of a traitor. The sub-contractor, to increase his profits, scamped his timbers and his work. The Adams was a creditable ship on one side and a fraud on the other. It is a pity that the name of the scoundrel has not been perpetuated in the accounts of naval matters that have hitherto appeared. When altered at Washington it was necessary, of course, to follow the old lines and she was still lopsided, although lengthened until she could carry twenty-eight guns on the one deck. Her armament in her new fashion included a long twelve for a bow-chaser and thirteen medium-length eighteen-pounders (called Columbiads, sometimes) on each side. It was a pretty good armament for that day, in fact much superior to the ordinary sloop-of-war armament that was made up of two long twelves and twenty of the wretched short thirty-twos.

Charles Morris.

From a photograph owned by Mr. C. B. Hall.

Captain Charles Morris, who, as the first lieutenant of the Constitution, had first gained fame in her race with the British fleet, was placed in command of the rebuilt Adams, and Lieutenant Wadsworth, who was second on the Constitution in her great race, was made first on the Adams. There was a strong blockading squadron in the Chesapeake, but on the night of January 18, 1812, “which came on cloudy, boisterous, and with frequent snow squalls,” he headed away for sea. There was a strong northwest wind blowing, and there was not a beacon-light in the bay. Worse still, while the ship was driving along at twelve knots an hour, the two men who were engaged as pilots became confused, and at 11 o’clock at night a light was seen dead ahead which showed that she was flying straight at the land. Instantly her helm was shoved down and she came about on the other tack, but a few minutes later she was thumping over a bar, no one knew where, the heavy swells lifting her clear only to drop her again on the sand. However, over she went, and when it was found she did not leak, Morris decided to send her on her way once more, and at 1 o’clock passed two British ships at Lynnhaven and got out to sea.

Running across to the coast of Africa the Adams cruised from Cape Mount to Cape Palmas, then visited the vicinity of the Canaries and the Cape de Verde Islands. “A few small prizes, laden with palm oil and ivory” were taken. On March 25th the Woodbridge, a large Indiaman, was overhauled. It was thick weather at the time, and while Captain Morris was taking possession the weather suddenly cleared, when it was seen that a fleet of vessels were jogging along to windward under convoy of two big men-of-war. It took Morris a full day to get clear of the men-of-war.

Returning across the Atlantic the Adams ran into Savannah on May 1st—the day on which the British Epervier, prize to the Yankee Peacock, got in—and remained there till the 8th, when she sailed for the Gulf Stream in search of the Jamaica fleet. He found it with a ship-of-the-line, two frigates, and three brigs in charge. At the sight of the Adams the fleet closed in like a flock of ducks, and although the Yankee dogged them for two days he got nothing—not even a chase from the war-ships. So he sailed to the banks of Newfoundland, where he found only ice and fogs, and so went on to the coast of Ireland, in sight of which he arrived on July 3d. A few prizes were made here, but on July 15th “she stumbled across the eighteen-pounder thirty-six-gun frigate Tigris” The Tigris was no mean sailer, and in the chase that followed the Adams threw overboard all the guns taken from the ships she had captured, her heaviest anchors, and finally some of her own guns. Then the wind died out entirely, and that was good-luck for the Adams, for her captain repeated the tactics employed on the Constitution off the Jersey beach by towing his ship so far away from the Tigris that a lucky slant of wind carried her clear out of sight.

A still more remarkable chase followed this one. It began on July 19th, when two frigates found the Adams. The one was fat and slow, the other as lean and eager as a hound. A half a gale of wind was blowing. Every thread of canvas was spread, and for forty hours the frigate and the sloop stretched away across the stormy sea with every sail as round and firm as the breast of a giant runner; with the weather rigging singing taut; with every man on deck alert, and with each captain pacing to and fro without rest, looking at every turn from the sea to the clouds and from them to his sails and then away to the enemy; with the cutwater sawing through the solid blue as she rose to the swell, and burying itself in smother and foam that tumbled and roared away for half her length ahead as she boiled in the trough of the sea, and the sissing foam swept aft to mingle with the swirling wake. And that for forty hours with the frigate just out of gunshot! They covered four hundred miles with never a loss or a gain on either side, and then under the shades of night the gale hardened into a squall that hid the Adams out of sight, when she up helm and swung away so far on another course that when light came the hound had wholly lost the scent.

On returning westward the crew of the Adams were attacked by the scurvy. Several died and a considerable number were made unfit for duty, so Captain Morris headed for Portland, Maine. Off the Maine coast, while driving along at ten knots an hour through a fog at 4 o’clock on the morning of August 17th, the Adams found land—rock, to speak accurately. She ran up on a ledge until her bow was six feet out of water, and when the sun came to clear the fog the crew found themselves only one hundred yards from a cliff near Mount Desert. The next tide floated the ship and she continued her course. A little later the British brig Rifleman was seen and chased, but the strain of the press of canvas made the Adams leak at the rate of nine feet of water into her hold per hour, so Captain Morris gave it up and ran into the Penobscot.

As it happened, the Rifleman was able to carry the news of the arrival of the Adams to a British fleet, “consisting of two line-of-battle ships, three frigates, three sloops, and ten troop transports” which were lying in wait to descend on Machias. Captain Morris moored his ship at Hampden, twenty-seven miles up the river, where he intended to heave her down and repair the leaking bottom. When the British fleet came after him he made such preparations as were possible to fight. Of his original crew of two hundred and twenty, seventy had died or had been disabled by the scurvy. The others, including one hundred and thirty seamen and officers and twenty marines, many of them sick, were mustered on shore for the fight. Nine of the lighter guns of the Adams were set up as a battery on the bluff overlooking the wharf, and these were put in charge of Lieutenant Wadsworth. Morris himself took charge of the wharf. The crew were joined by thirty (some say forty) experienced soldiers, and by a force of militia variously estimated at from three hundred to six hundred men. Whatever their number, they proved utterly worthless, for they had never been under fire. Anyway, they were but half armed, and the guns they had were the inferior fowling-pieces of that day.

On September 3d came the enemy. There was a land force of six hundred experienced troops, eighty marines, and eighty seamen. There was a force afloat in boats and barges well-armed that raised the whole command to 1,500 men. The crew of the Adams, stationed on the wharf, checked the flotilla, in spite of overwhelming numbers, but the American militia fled without firing a gun when the British land forces approached them. Captain Morris was left with only his crew and the thirty regulars to face a force eight times as great. Yet he burned the ship and made a successful retreat without losing a man save those too ill with scurvy to march away. The conduct of the Yankee militia was disgraceful, as it usually was throughout that war; but what shall be said of the failure of the 1,500 experienced men in the British force who were unable to hinder the retreat of the Yankee crew?

United States Ship-of-war Columbus at Anchor.

From the “Kedge Anchor.”

As has been noted, when the War of 1812 began, the authorities at Washington were determined to keep their ships in port. That a Yankee ship could meet a British ship of equal force or even of somewhat inferior force and keep her flag afloat seemed impossible. The idea of building anything except for harbor defence was too ridiculous for any consideration. But after the first six months of the war had demonstrated that the capacity and courage of the American personnel was unsurpassed, the ring of broadaxe and hammer, the rasp of saws, and the easy crunch of augers began to make melody for patriotic ears in the yards of the Yankee builders. The frames of ships-of-the-line, and of frigates and of corvettes, as the big sloops were called, rose steadily above the keel-blocks. The names that were given to these new ships showed that the naval authorities of the nation were disposed to flaunt red flags in the face of Johnnie Bull; they were determined to keep alive the memory of American victories by perpetuating the names of the defeated British ships. One frigate was named Guerrière and another Java, while the new sloops were named Peacock, Frolic, etc. Not many of the new ships were destined to see service against the British, for the reason that the war ended before they were fully ready. Still, three of the sloops got away to sea, and this chapter shall tell of the fate of one of them and give a part of the brilliant record made by another.

The first that got to sea was the Frolic. She was built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, famous for its fine ships in the days of wood. Under Master-Commandant Joseph Bainbridge she sailed from the home port in February and some time later fell in with a Carthagenian privateer that was cruising for Yankee merchantmen off the southern coast. The privateer refused to surrender, when called on to do so, and Bainbridge fired one broadside at her, and that one blast sank her so quickly that nearly one hundred of her crew were drowned. As the Frolic carried only ten short thirty-twos in a broadside, it is certain that every shot struck the privateer below the water-line as she rolled to the swell. The fact is especially worth mentioning for the reason that it shows the great advantage of training the crew of a war-ship to shoot accurately.

The career of the Frolic, however, was brief. On April 20, 1814, when off the extreme south point of Florida, she fell in with the British thirty-six-gun frigate Orpheus, Captain Pigot, and the twelve-gun schooner Shelburne, Lieutenant Hope. The enemy were to leeward, but both of them were swifter than the Frolic. For more than twelve hours she struggled to windward, cutting away her anchors and throwing over her guns, but all in vain, for the Orpheus closed on her. The Frolic had carried twenty short thirty-twos and two long twelves, while the Orpheus carried sixteen short thirty-twos and twenty-eight long eighteens. Nevertheless, James, in commenting on the surrender of the Frolic, says:

“We should not have hesitated to call a French, or even a British, captain, who had acted as Master-Commandant Joseph Bainbridge, of the United States Navy, did in this instance, a ——.”

Another of the new corvettes with irritating names was the Peacock. She was built in New York City, and sailed under Master-Commandant Lewis Warrington, on March 12, 1814, bound south. Her cruise was without incident until April 28th, when, at 7 o’clock in the morning, a number of vessels were seen to windward. The Peacock was at this time not far from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was learned later that the fleet sighted included two merchantmen under convoy of the British brig sloop Epervier, Captain R. W. Wales, of eighteen guns. They were bound from Havana for the Bermudas, and the Epervier carried $120,000 in coin.

Because of the result of the battle that followed it is worth mentioning the fact that the Peacock class of Yankee sloops were designed with especial reference to the Epervier class of brigs, just as the Terrible class of cruisers were designed in Great Britain with a certain Yankee protected cruiser in mind, in these last years of the nineteenth century.

Lewis Warrington.

From an engraving by Gimbrede of the painting by Jarvis.

The Peacock having made chase, the wind suddenly shifted to the southward, when the merchantmen made all sail to run away and the Epervier hauled close to the wind on the port tack, and stood toward the Peacock quite willing for the fight.

Diagram of the
PEACOCK-EPERVIER BATTLE.

The Peacock now had the best of the wind, and when, soon after 10 o’clock, the two ships were approaching each other end on, and had arrived within gunshot, she was headed off wind a bit in order to bring her starboard battery to bear on the Epervier and rake her. But Captain Wales, of the Epervier, was not to be caught by any such move as that. Putting up his helm, he eased off to meet the Yankee, and then shoving down his helm, he rounded to on the Peacock’s bow and delivered his starboard broadside, two shots from which struck the foreyard of the Peacock, entirely disabling that very important spar. The British captain had clearly outmanœuvred the Yankee up to this time, which was not far from 10.20 A.M.

Captain Warrington fired his starboard broadside as he passed the Epervier, and then ordered his men to load with bar-shot, bundles of scrap-iron (called langrage), etc., in order to cripple the British brig aloft, and reduce her to a sailing capacity as bad as his own. While the Yankees were doing this the Epervier might have sailed away and left the crippled Peacock, but Captain Wales was not that kind of a man. On the contrary, he tacked about as rapidly as possible, in spite of the fact that he had to risk a raking fire from the Americans, and then bore down with his port battery to the Peacock’s starboard.

At this the bar-shot and scrap-iron from the Yankee began to tell on the British head-gear. Jib after jib was cut away, while the sails of the foremast were torn to shreds. The pressure on the after-sails threw her stern down away from the wind and her bow up into it. Then her sails caught aback and the Peacock ran across her stern and fired a few guns to rake her, though because of the headway of the Peacock only a few were fired. A moment later the maintopmast of the British ship fell with a crash, and her main-boom was cut in two and fell on the wheel, so that she was for the time helpless.

The Peacock and the Epervier.

From a wood-cut in the “Naval Monument.”

At that Warrington hauled the Peacock close under the port quarter of the Epervier and opened a deadly fire of solid shot directed chiefly at the enemy’s water-line—the favorite target of the Yankee gunners. One easily pictures the scene at this time as the Yankee crews, stripped to the waist, in the warm summer air, worked like white devils in the sulphurous smoke over their guns. They waved their arms and cheered as they saw the shot knock the splinters low down on the black-painted hull of the half-obscured enemy that was now adrift, unable to turn either to port or starboard. But some of them aimed high enough to dismount every gun on the port side of the Epervier, which faced the Yankee.

Meantime, the Epervier had been gathering stern way and was drifting on board the Peacock. Allen says Captain Wales thought to wear the Epervier in order to run on board the Peacock, but this is absurd, because she was aback.

On seeing that the Epervier was likely to fall aboard the Peacock, Captain Wales called his men aft, intending to make a last brave effort by boarding. But, as James says, “the British crew declined a measure so fraught with danger.” Allen says: “A large proportion of the crew evinced a great distaste for the measure.” So Captain Wales hauled down his flag at 11 o’clock. The action had lasted forty-five minutes.

Captain Wales showed conspicuous bravery and ability, and his chief officer, Lieutenant John Hackett, ably seconded him. In fact, Hackett had his left arm shattered and was dangerously wounded in the hip by a splinter, “but it was with difficulty that this gallant officer could be persuaded” to leave the deck.

That the crew should have flinched is not a matter of wonder. The British sailors had been accustomed to go at the Frenchmen “hammer and tongs,” and “whoop and hurrah.” It was a lark to meet a Latin-blood crew. But in 1812 they had a new kind of an enemy to face. It should be remembered that, after they had “seen the countenance” of this enemy for a few months, even the British Admiralty flinched, for James says, on page 402 of Volume VI., that “the Admiralty had issued an order that no eighteen-pounder frigate was voluntarily to engage one of the twenty-four-pounder frigates of America.”

This is a slight digression from the story of the Peacock-Epervier fight, but it seems worth the making because it offers an explanation of the rancor and the deliberate falsehoods of the British writers when referring to British naval contests with Yankees. A knowledge of the whole truth about the prowess of American naval seamen had had a disturbing influence on the minds of the British sailors on more than one occasion, and the records of the sea-fights with the Yankees were deliberately falsified in order to preserve the self-confidence of British Jack.

As to the effect of the fire of the two ships, Allen admits that “the Peacock, in a short time, unrigged the Epervier, and cut her sails into ribands. Most of the lower rigging of the Epervier was shot away, and her foremast was left so tottering that the calm state of the weather alone saved it from falling. Her hull was shot in every direction, and she had five feet of water in her hold.” In addition to this she had lost, as already told, her maintopmast and her main-boom, and her bowsprit was badly wounded. There were forty-five shot holes in her hull, of which twenty were within a foot of the water-line and dipped under at every roll to let the water spurt in. To realize the significance of the fact that she had five feet of water in her, it must be known that she measured only fourteen feet in depth of hold (the same depth as the Peacock).

The Peacock and the Epervier.

From an engraving by Strickland of a drawing by Birch.

Allen says that she went into the fight with “a crew of one hundred and two men and sixteen boys.” They are especially careful to specify the number of boys when they are defeated. James is at the pains to announce that “two of her men were each seventy years of age!”

Captain Warrington reported that she had a crew of one hundred and twenty-eight—his list of prisoners numbered one hundred and twenty, including the wounded. It is agreed on both sides that she lost eight men killed and fifteen wounded, and that she had enough men at least to work all of her guns efficiently.

On the other hand, the Peacock did not receive even one shot in her hull, and the only damage aloft worth mention was the disabling of the foreyard. In fifteen minutes from the time her crew began to repair the damages every cut rope had been rove anew, and half an hour later the foreyard was up in place, repaired fit to stand a gale, and the foresail was spread to the breeze. The broken foreyard was actually sent down on deck, fished, hoisted aloft again, and the sail spread in forty-five minutes. The injury to the crew was scarcely worth mentioning, for not one was killed, and only two were wounded, and they but slightly. Allen says she carried “a picked crew of one hundred and eighty-five seamen.” She had, in fact, including captain and powder-monkeys, one hundred and sixty-six.

In view of the fact that the British gunners were unable to hit the broadside of the ship when half a pistol shot away, a comparison of the armament of the two ships is as absurd as it was when the Yankee Hornet shot the British Peacock under water in fourteen minutes. However, it ought to be given to complete the record. The Peacock in this battle had a broadside of ten guns that threw three hundred and fifteen pounds actual weight of metal at a round. The Epervier had one gun less in her broadside and threw two hundred and seventy-four pounds of metal from it. The “relative force” of the two ships was as “twelve to ten;” the damage done to each was not quite as one hundred to nothing, because the Peacock did get a bad cut in the foreyard and the Epervier was not quite destroyed. Perhaps the reader will find amusement and even instruction in considering what the relative damage of the two ships really was.

After the British flag was hauled down the Yankee sailors made haste to repair the captured ship and by nightfall had her sails spread in a run for Savannah in company with the Peacock. En route to that port a British frigate chased the two, but the Peacock drew her off and then outsailed her. The Epervier was carried into Savannah on May 1st, and on the 4th, the Peacock arrived. As the reader will remember the Adams happened to be in port at this time. The Epervier proved a very rich prize to the victorious crew, for in addition to the $120,000 in coin (James would reduce it to $118,000) the Government bought the prize for $55,000. The Epervier was built in 1812.

It is worth telling that in breadth and depth the Peacock and Epervier were exactly alike—32 × 14 feet. The Peacock, however, was 118 feet long, while the Epervier was 107. There are whole fleets of Yankee schooners in this day bigger than either—plenty that can carry more cargo than both put together—which are nevertheless called small coasters; of such a character has been the development of modern ship building.

Medal awarded to Lewis Warrington after the capture of the Epervier by the Peacock.

The Epervier was brought into port by Lieutenant John B. Nicholson. Congress voted a gold medal to Warrington and the usual silver medals and swords to the other officers. Nicholson was transferred to the Siren, of which something will be told presently. The Peacock sailed on another cruise on June 4th. Crossing the Banks of Newfoundland she cruised on the coasts of Ireland for a time and then sailed to the Bay of Biscay and finally back via the Barbadoes to New York, where she arrived on October 29, 1814. In all she took fourteen merchantmen, most of them on the Irish coast. They were manned by one hundred and forty-eight men and they were valued at $1,493,000. She was distinctly a lucky ship.

An interesting little story showing somewhat of sailors’ superstitions is told of Lieutenant John B. Nicholson, who brought the Epervier into port. He was transferred to the little sixteen-gun brig Siren, of which Lieutenant George Parker was commander, and she was sent to cruise on the coast of Africa. Off the Canaries Parker died, and after putting his body into a coffin it was put overboard with the usual funeral services. The coffin sank out of sight, but as soon as the brig filled away on her course the coffin came to the surface, where it floated like a cork.

Knowing that this event, though due entirely to the carpenter’s failure to properly weight the coffin, was regarded as an ill omen by the seamen, Lieutenant Nicholson, who was now captain by right of succession, called the men to the capstan and let them decide whether to continue the cruise, or return to port. They decided, with cheers, to cruise on.

For a time everything seemed to go well. An English frigate was dodged by hanging out false lights on a raft of casks. Two English merchantmen were taken and destroyed, but in the Senegal River another one escaped after the brig had given her a broadside, and about two months after leaving home the Siren fell in with the British liner Medway. Anchors, cables, guns, and shot were thrown overboard, but she was taken after all. It was a disastrous cruise.

CHAPTER IV
MYSTERY OF THE LAST WASP

A TYPICAL NEW ENGLAND YANKEE CREW—YOUTHFUL HAYMAKERS AND WOOD-CHOPPERS—SEA-SICK FOR A WEEK—FROM FLAILS TO CUTLASSES, FROM PITCHFORKS TO BOARDING-PIKES, FROM A NIGHT-WATCH AT A DEER-LICK TO A NIGHT BATTLE WITH THE BRITISH—AFTER BRITISH COMMERCE IN BRITISH IN-SHORE WATERS—MET BY THE BRITISH SLOOP-OF-WAR REINDEER—MAGNIFICENT PLUCK OF THE BRITISH CAPTAIN WITH A CREW THAT WAS “THE PRIDE OF PLYMOUTH”—SHOT TO PIECES IN EIGHTEEN MINUTES—A LINER THAT COULD NOT CATCH HER—WONDERFUL NIGHT BATTLE WITH THE AVON—SHOOTING MEN FROM THE ENEMY’S TOPS AS RACCOONS ARE SHOT FROM TREE-TOPS—THE ENEMY’S WATER-LINE LOCATED BY DRIFTING FOAM—NOT CAPTURED BUT DESTROYED—THE MYSTERY.

Well-manned, but ill-fated at the last, were all the Yankee Wasps. They were swift of wing for their day, and the pain of their stings still rankles. But the first, the little Baltimore clipper of eight guns, was burned at Philadelphia to keep her out of the hands of the British invaders. The second, she that deluged the decks of the British brig Frolic with blood, was captured by a British liner, and then with a British crew sailed from port and never returned. The story of the third shall now be told.

She was a beautiful ship, a sloop-of-war called large and heavy in that day. Like her sister ships, the Peacock and the Frolic, of whose deeds something was told in the last chapter, she was designed to outsail and outweigh, and so conquer with ease, the sloops-of-war of the British navy. Her keel was stretched on blocks beside that of her sister, the Frolic, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On the day the Epervier, the first prize of her sister, the Peacock, reached Savannah on May 1, 1814, the new Wasp winged her way through the British blockaders that lay off Whaleback Reef, and headed away to the east, bound for the coast of England.

Johnston Blakeley.

From an engraving by Gimbrede.

No finer crew by nature than that of the Wasp ever sailed from any port. She was commanded by Master-Commandant Johnston Blakeley, of Wilmington, North Carolina. He had not in any way especially distinguished himself thus far in the war, but that no mistake was made in giving him the command was evident later on. First Lieutenant James Reilly and Third Lieutenant Frederick Baury had served in the Constitution when she captured both the Guerrière and the Java, while Second Lieutenant T. G. Tillinghast was the second lieutenant of the Enterprise when she whipped the Boxer. Of the younger officers not a man but was worthy of his place, and as for the crew they were to a man Americans, and almost all of them Yankees of the Yankees—the typical New Englanders whose drawling, nasal style of speech has for time out of mind served English writers as an abundant source of amusement. That they talked about the “keows” and the “critters” need not be doubted. They were young haymakers and wood-choppers—very likely more than one-half of them were from the farms. As one of her officers wrote they were men “whose ages average only twenty-three years. The greatest part (are) so green, that is, unaccustomed to the sea, that they were sick for a week.” But that some of them had looked through the sights of a rifle at running deer, to the destruction of the deer, is also certain, as will appear farther on, and the back that could swing a scythe could lend vigor to the stroke of a cutlass or the lunge of a boarding-pike. They were not only good physically but mentally. They were from the “deestrict” schools, on one hand, and from “teown meetin’” on the other—they had common school educations, and they were independent-minded voters, while the traditions which their fathers had told them before the wide fireplaces of their log-cabin homes were of the deeds done along shore by British naval officers, beginning with that of the infamous Mowatt when nearby Portland (Falmouth) was burned in winter, and ending, very likely, when John Deguyo was taken by a press-gang from a Portland coaster when she was in the waters of New York Harbor. Unaccustomed to the sea they certainly were, but under such officers as they had, the training of a very few weeks served to fit them to meet “the pride of Plymouth” with honor to the gridiron flag. By the time the Wasp was in the mouth of the English Channel, the crew had forgotten their seasickness; they had learned that the stroke of the flail was not quite the best for a cutlass, though a pitchfork thrust was good enough for a boarding-pike. The men who had been accustomed to down the running deer and moose found no difficulty in hitting a target with either great gun or musket, even though the deck heaved and fell beneath their feet or their “roosting places” in the tops swayed through wide angles.

For a time the uncertainty as to the character of each ship sighted served to train their nerves, as the work of boarding the merchant ships, which were the only ones seen for a time, gave them experiences of another kind, and then came the day of trial—their first taste of blood.

It was on June 28, 1814. The early morning was dark and gloomy, but at 4.15 o’clock two sails were seen, and the Wasp spread all her canvas to a light northeast breeze and went slipping down for a look at them. A little later a new sail hove in sight on the weather beam and Captain Blakeley hauled up to look at her before pursuing the other two farther; for he was in the mouth of the English Channel and British war-ships of all sizes haunted all that region. The stranger was coming down for a look at the Wasp, and as she was plainly not a frigate the Wasp held up to meet her. And then, at 10 o’clock, the stranger hoisted English colors with private signals that Blakeley could not answer.

Thereafter the Yankee crew hauled and eased away and tacked in the hope of getting the weather gage of the enemy, but all in vain, for she was a handy brig and her captain was as able a seaman as was Captain Blakeley. Seeing this, at last, Captain Blakeley gave it up, and at 1.50 o’clock fired a gun to windward and hoisted the American flag. Instantly the stranger answered the challenge, and easing off her sheets she bore down upon the Wasp.

It was a gentle breeze that wafted her down over the greasy, dull-gray seas, but at 3.15 o’clock she was less than sixty yards away on the port (weather) quarter of the Wasp, and with a short twelve-pounder mounted on her forecastle she opened fire with both solid shot and grape. For eleven minutes her crew worked this gun while the Yankees stood at their stations in silence—the British fired five charges of shot and grape into the deck of the Wasp while the New England backwoodsmen under a Tarheel captain eyed the blasts unflinchingly. The Tarheel Blakeley had been waiting for the enemy to draw nearer. At 3.26 o’clock she had done so to his satisfaction, and shoving down his helm he luffed up as if to cross her bows and opened fire as his guns began to bear—the backwoods gunners had a target more than one hundred feet long lying less than sixty feet away. It was their first live sea target. They were not quite so firm-nerved as they were later—but for eight minutes they worked their guns with an energy and skill that were simply stunning, while the enemy with equal energy replied.

“The concussions of the explosions almost deadened what little way the vessels had on”—almost but not quite, and Blakeley hauled up his mainsail lest he cross the enemy’s bow too soon. The smoke rose up in huge volumes above the loftiest sails and rolled away in bulging clouds on every side, but the men at the great guns of the Wasp, peering through the sulphurous fog, hurled their shot with unerring accuracy, while those that were perched in the tops used their muskets to pick off the officers of the enemy, first of all.

It was a desperate struggle, but the weight of metal, as well as the superiority of marksmanship was found with the American crew. They had opened fire at 3.26 P.M., and at 3.34 P.M. the enemy’s sails had been so damaged that the Wasp’s mainsail was hauled up lest she drift clear across the stranger’s bow. And then for six minutes more the Yankees drove their shot through the splintering walls of the enemy “when, in consequence of her unmanageable state,” she “fell foul of the Wasp.” So says Allen, and so was the fact. “And in this position (she) became exposed to a destructive raking fire.”

The Wasp and Reindeer.

From a wood-cut in the “Naval Monument.”

But though disabled, the enemy was not yet conquered. Her captain had, early in the fight, been cut through the calves of both legs by a musket-ball that made a most painful wound. Of course, he stood to his post. And then, as his ship was fouling the Wasp, a grape shot—a round iron ball more than two inches in diameter—pierced both thighs. He fell to his knees, but he struggled up and, sword in hand, cheered on his men, and then calling away boarders he ran forward to lead them, and was climbing into the rigging when two musket-balls, fired simultaneously from the maintop of the Wasp, struck him in the top of the head and passed down through to come out beneath his chin. “Placing one hand to his forehead and with the other convulsively brandishing his sword, he exclaimed ‘Oh God!’ and dropped lifeless on his own deck.”

The end had come. The British seamen recoiled, as their leader fell, and Blakeley’s men who had gathered to repel boarders now boarded in turn and swept the crew of the shattered ship into her hold. It was exactly 3.44 P.M. and twenty-nine minutes had passed since the first gun was fired by the enemy, and but eighteen since the Wasp returned the fire.

And then the Yankees learned that they had captured the British brig-sloop Reindeer, commanded by Captain William Manners. “The captain’s clerk, the highest officer left, surrendered the brig.” Her captain and purser were dead; her first (and only) lieutenant and sailing-master were wounded. So were one midshipman, a boatswain and a master’s mate. Whether she had other midshipmen is not stated—probably she had none.

In this action between the Wasp and the Reindeer we have, at last, after describing a year’s fighting, a British crew of which British writers speak well. That they do so only because the Reindeer’s armament and the number of her crew were much under the Wasp is not to be doubted. Nevertheless it is a pleasure to note that James is willing to write that “the British crew had long served together, and were called the pride of Plymouth,” but he states their number as consisting of “ninety-eight men and twenty boys.” No crew ever fought more bravely than they did until Captain Manners fell; and when he was down they yielded exactly as did the crew of the Yankee Argus when her captain was shot down.

Being assured that the Reindeer had the best of British crews, we can form an estimate of their skill by considering the damage which they were able to do to the Wasp during the twenty-nine minutes they were firing at her—firing at a range that varied from sixty yards down to a point where the ships touched each other—a range which for eighteen minutes was under sixty feet.

With nine short twenty-fours in their broadside and one short twelve on a high pivot what damage does the uninformed reader suppose that this one of the ablest of British crews—a crew that could and did load and fire their guns every two minutes—was able to do? They hulled the Yankee with six round shot and put another in the foremast. They fired at least eighty-six shots at the Yankee—a target that was one hundred feet long, eight or ten feet high, and for eighteen minutes less than sixty feet away—and yet only seven struck home. With their grape, and their musketry, fired when the ships were grinding together, they killed and mortally wounded eleven Yankees and severely or slightly wounded fifteen more.

Medal Awarded to Johnston Blakeley after the Capture of the Reindeer by the Wasp.

On the other hand, the Yankees had not “long served together.” Most of them were landsmen who were seasick for a week on leaving port. And yet because of native ability they had been easily trained; they stood in silence under fire for five shots, and in this, their first battle, they aimed their guns so accurately that “the hull of the Reindeer was literally cut to pieces and her masts were in a tottering state.” This quotation is from Allen. The fact is that she was so badly cut to pieces in the wake of her gun-ports that it was impossible to tell how many Yankee shots did strike her hull. A breeze that sprang up the next day at once toppled the foremast overboard, and, in short, she was so badly injured that she could not be carried into either of the nearby French ports, and she was accordingly fired and blown to pieces. The British lost in killed and mortally wounded thirty-three, and in wounded thirty-four, “nearly all severely.”

The Wasp measured 509 tons to the Reindeer 477. She fired eleven guns, throwing 315 pounds of metal to a broadside, where the Reindeer fired ten guns throwing 210 pounds of metal to a broadside. The Wasp had a crew of 173, mostly landsmen, who had been together less than two months; the Reindeer had 118 who were “the pride of Plymouth.”

While nothing that is written here can add to the fame of Captain Manners, of the Reindeer, it may be said that Anglo-Saxon republicans are proud of his skill, and are thrilled by the story of his magnificent gallantry just as the Anglo-Saxon nominal-monarchists are.

Having destroyed the Reindeer, Blakeley sailed with the Wasp to L’Orient, France, the port where of old the Yankee cruisers had refitted after cruising against British commerce in the English Channel. En route, three days after the battle, a number of the wounded prisoners were put on a Portuguese brig, called the Lisbon Packet, and sent to Plymouth.

The Wasp was detained at L’Orient until August 27th, refitting, and then she got away to continue her work on the high seas. It was her luck to fall in with another British brig-sloop, within four days—a sloop like the Reindeer—and few, if any, more instructive pages of history can be found than those that compare the two actions which the Wasp had with these vessels of the class she was designed to destroy with ease.

The second brig-sloop to meet her fate under the guns of the Wasp was the Avon, “commander the Honourable James Arbuthnot,” and the battle was fought on September 1, 1814.

That was a most interesting day in the lives of the Wasp’s crew. To begin the day they fell in with a fleet of ten merchantmen, guarded by the big seventy-four-gun British liner Armada and a bomb ship. The liner was an average ship of her class, but the lively Wasp dashed boldly into the fleet and cut out the brig Mary loaded with cannon captured from the Spaniards and other military stores.

Having effectually fired the Mary, the Wasp tried for another, but the Armada chased her away this time and she went hunting other game, and found it.

The covey included a fleet of four vessels, of which, as the event showed, three were British brig-sloops of the class of the beaten Reindeer, and a merchantman that had been recaptured from a Yankee privateer. The vessels were rather widely separated, one of them, the Castilian by name, having gone in chase of the privateer. What another of the brig sloops, the Tartarus, was doing is not told in any printed account, while the third, which was the Avon, Captain Arbuthnot, had started with the Castilian in chase of the Yankee privateer, but had not been fast enough to keep up with the procession. So it happened that she was right in the way as the Wasp came along in the first shades of night.

A fresh southeast wind was blowing and the Avon was bowling along toward the southwest. As the Wasp came on in chase, the Avon hoisted signal flags and then signal lights and fired some rockets. The Wasp, of course, was unable to answer these, and the Avon was cleared for action. No effort to run away having been made by the Avon—on the contrary she fired a shot from her stern chaser—the Wasp had arrived close on her port quarter by 9.20 o’clock when one of the officers of the Avon shouted:

“What ship is that?” Captain Blakeley replied by repeating the question. Again the Avon hailed, when Blakeley replied:

“Heave to and I’ll let you know who I am,” and then fired the little twelve-pounder he had taken from the forecastle of the captured Reindeer. At that the Avon set her foretop-mast studding sail and began firing her stern chaser.

The Wasp and Avon.

From a wood-cut in the “Naval Monument.”

Fearing she might escape, Captain Blakeley put up his helm, ran down under the Avon’s lee, and as he ranged up under her quarter, gave her a raking broadside of bar shot and (presumably) langrage that set her rigging adrift in every direction. Another broadside of these projectiles was still more effective, for it brought down the fore-and-aft mainsail of the Avon, and it fell over the lee guns abaft the mainmast—the guns that bore on the Wasp—and for the time, put them entirely out of action, while her speed was materially diminished.

It was a moonless night, but the crew of the Wasp “could see through the smoke and gloom of the night the black hull of the Avon as she surged through the waters; and aloft, against the sky, the sailors could be discerned, clustering in the tops.”

No backwoods gunner would ask for a better target than was then afforded by the enemy. With their rifles the Yankee marksmen began to pick the British sailors from the Avon’s tops as they had shot raccoons from the tree crotch, while those behind the great guns loaded with ball as the Wasp ran through her lee, and aiming at the white line which the smoother and spoon drift drew along the bow and waist of the Avon’s black hull, they fired with unerring precision. They had been under fire—they were veterans now, though but three months on board ship.

Meantime the crew of the Avon had returned the fire furiously—after the manner of the British sailors of that day. Their manner of fighting was described by Lord Howard Douglas as “uncircumspect gallantry.” The same author describes the handling of the Wasp and of her guns with the words “wary caution.”

As the Yankees with “wary caution” fired their second or third broadside of round shot, the mainmast of the Avon fell over the rail, and her fire gradually died away while the men of the Wasp with unabated vigor worked their guns. At 10 o’clock the fire of the Avon ceased altogether, and Captain Blakeley hailed to ask her if she had struck. In reply the Avon opened a feeble fire and for twelve minutes more the Yankee gunners continued their deadly work, when the Avon being again silent, Blakeley once more hailed, and this time had the satisfaction of learning that the enemy had struck.

An appalling work had been done, for it was the work chiefly of men who had in themselves never suffered visible wrong at the hands of the British. They had never been enslaved by a press-gang. They had never felt the lash of the cat. They struck at the enemy because of an inherited hatred—rather because of a hatred that came to them through tradition—and every blow struck home.

Diagram of the
WASP-AVON BATTLE.

After the Avon struck, the luck of the Wasp turned. As the crew of the small boat were lowering it to the water in order to go over and take possession of the Avon, a new enemy appeared. The boat was at once hoisted in and the drums beat to quarters. Then the Wasp was sent away before the wind while the topmen hurried aloft to reeve off new rigging in place of some that had been shot away. A few minutes sufficed, but before everything was quite ready two more ships were seen bearing down and Blakeley wrote: “I felt myself compelled to forego the satisfaction of destroying the prize.”

As a matter of fact he had already destroyed her, as we learn from the reports of the ships of the enemy. The first of the vessels to come to the aid of the Avon was the Castilian. She bore down on the quarter of the Wasp and fired one broadside which whistled harmlessly over the Wasp’s quarter-deck. Then she tacked around and hastened back to the Avon, for the Avon was firing guns and making other signals of distress. The survivors of her crew were working desperately at the pumps and with plugs to stop the leaks, and the crew of the Castilian and those of the Tartarus as well came to their aid. But neither the strength of the men at the pumps nor the skill of the carpenters could avail to undo the work of the Yankee backwoodsmen done during the few minutes—perhaps twenty—that the Wasp lay on the Avon’s lee bow. At 11.55 the work of transferring the Avon’s crew began and at 1 o’clock the next morning, as the last boat was leaving her, the Avon’s bow sank down under water, her stern rose high in air, and down she went.

As it seems to a student of naval history at the end of the nineteenth century, it is both interesting and instructive to compare the Reindeer battle with the Avon battle. For while the Yankee crew in the first battle ruined the Reindeer, she was still able to float. She was cut to pieces in the wake of her ports and comparatively few shot struck the water-line or under. But in this battle with the Avon they had so far improved in their skill with great guns, that, although there was now a rolling sea and it was night, they were, nevertheless, able to shoot so many holes into her at the water-line and below it that all the efforts of three crews could not save her.

The men of the Wasp, though their story ends in a mystery, yet speak to their countrymen. For their battles proved that the first requisite of a sea power is the ability to strike. As long as the American people can reach out with good ships carrying good guns manned by clear-eyed marksmen, they shall have peace.

The Wasp was struck by four round shot in the course of the battle, and these killed two men. A wad from one of her guns that was aimed too high, hit a third man and hurt him some.

We have only the account of the favorite British naval history from which to obtain the number of the crew of the Avon and her losses. He puts it at “one hundred and four men and thirteen boys.” He says she lost ten killed and thirty-two wounded. It is worth while giving James’s opinion of the matter. He says:

“The gallantry of the Avon’s officers and crew cannot for a moment be questioned; but the gunnery of the latter appears to have been not one whit better than, to the discredit of the British navy, had frequently before been displayed in combats of this kind. Nor, judging from the specimen given by the Castilian, is it likely that she would have performed any better.”

Roosevelt figures that the Wasp used twelve guns firing 327 pounds of metal to the Avon’s eleven throwing 280 pounds. The crews are set down at 160 to 117 and the relative force at fourteen to eleven in favor of the Yankees, the loss of men being as forty-two to three. Then he adds:

“It is self-evident that in the case of this action the odds, fourteen to eleven, are neither enough to account for the loss inflicted, being as fourteen to one, nor for the rapidity with which, during a night encounter, the Avon was placed in a sinking condition.”

After the night battle the Wasp ran with a free sheet and a favoring current away to the south and west. A merchantman was captured on the 12th, and another on the 14th. On the 21st she took the Atalanta, of eight guns, that had been a Baltimore privateer named Siro—“a beautiful brig of two hundred and fifty-three tons, coppered to the bends and copper fastened, and has a very valuable cargo on board, consisting of brandy, wines, cambrics, etc.” So wrote one of the Wasp’s officers. The Atalanta was manned and placed under the command of Midshipman David Geisinger. All the crew wrote letters to their friends, and Captain Blakeley sent in her his official report of the battle with the Avon. Then the Atalanta sailed for home, reaching Savannah on November 4, 1814, and the letters she carried were the last ever received from any member of the crew of the Wasp.

Yet a brief glimpse of her subsequent career was found in the log of the Swedish bark Adonis. As the reader will recall, the gallant crew of the Essex had for the most part arrived in New York under parole on the Essex Junior. There were two, however, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur McKnight and Master’s-Mate Lyman, who were landed at Rio Janeiro by the Phœbe, and these started for home on the Swedish bark Adonis, but they did not arrive, and when the time of their absence grew long, their friends made inquiry. The Adonis had arrived, though without publicly reporting anything about her passengers, but when her log was searched the following entry was found:

“Oct. 9th. In lat 18° 35′ N., long. 30° 10′ W., sea account, at 8 o’clock in the morning, discovered a strange sail giving chase to us, and fired several guns; she gaining very fast. At half-past 10 o’clock hove to, and was boarded by an officer dressed in an English doctor’s uniform, the vessel also hoisted an English ensign. The officer proceeded to examine my ship’s papers, &c., &c., likewise the letter bags, and took from one of them a letter to the victualling office, London. Finding I had two American officers as passengers, he immediately left the ship, and went on board the sloop-of-war; he shortly after returned, took the American gentlemen with him, and went a second time on board the sloop. In about half an hour, he returned again with Messrs. McKnight and Lyman, and they informed me that the vessel was the United States sloop-of-war, the Wasp, commanded by Captain Bleaky, or Blake, last from France, where she had refitted; had lately sunk the Reindeer, English sloop of war, and another vessel which sunk without their being able to save a single person, or learn the vessel’s name—that Messrs. McKnight and Lyman had now determined to leave me, and go on board the Wasp—paid me their passage in dollars, at 5s. 9d., and having taken their luggage on board the Wasp, they made sail to the southward. Shortly after they had left, I found that Lieutenant McKnight had left his writing-desk behind; and I immediately made signal for the Wasp to return, and stood toward her; they, observing my signals, stood back, came alongside, and sent their boat on board for the writing-desk; after which they sent me a log line, and some other presents, and made all sail in a direction for the line; and I have reason to suppose for the convoy that passed on Thursday previous.”

The above is quoted by Cooper. It locates the Wasp say two hundred miles about northwest of the Cape de Verde Islands. Cooper adds:

“There is a rumor that an English frigate went into Cadiz, much crippled and with a very severe loss of men, about this time, and that she reported her injuries to have been received in an engagement with a heavy American corvette, the latter disappearing so suddenly in the night, that it was thought she had sunk.

“There is only one other rumor in reference to this ship that has any appearance of probability. There is little doubt that Captain Blakeley intended to run down toward the Spanish Main, and to pass through the West Indies, in order to go into a southern port according to his orders. It is said that two English frigates chased an American sloop-of-war, off the southern coast, about the time the Wasp ought to have arrived, and that the three ships were struck with a heavy squall, in which the sloop-of-war suddenly disappeared. There is nothing surprising in a vessel of that size being capsized in a squall, especially when carrying sail hard to escape enemies.

“She was a good ship, as well manned and as ably commanded as any vessel in our little navy; and it may be doubted if there was at that time any foreign sloop-of-war of her size and strength that could have stood against her in fair fight.”

During the last cruise made by the Constitution in the War of 1812 she was caught in a hurricane and strained so that she leaked badly, and at the last the carpenter, after sounding her well and finding the water gaining rapidly, went to Lieutenant Shubrick, the officer of the deck, and said:

“Sir, the ship is sinking.”

“Well, sir,” replied Shubrick, “as everything in our power is made tight, we must patiently submit to the fate of sailors, and all of us sink or swim together.”

The Constitution did not sink, but the words of the gallant Shubrick show us how the Yankee crew of the Wasp met their fate.

CHAPTER V
ON THE UPPER LAKES IN 1814

AN EXPEDITION INTO LAKE HURON—THE BRITISH HAD THE BEST OF IT IN THE END—GALLANT ACTION OF A BRITISH COMMANDER AT THE HEAD OF THE NIAGARA RIVER—CAUTIOUS CAPTAIN CHAUNCEY AS A KNIGHT OF THE WHIP-SAW, ADZE AND MAUL—HIS EQUALLY PRUDENT OPPONENT—BRITISH TORPEDOES THAT FAILED—WHEN A THOUSAND MEN SUPPORTED BY SEVEN SHIPS ARMED WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE CANNON “WITH GREAT GALLANTRY” ROUTED THREE HUNDRED YANKEES AT OSWEGO—SUPPLIES THE BRITISH DID NOT GET—A NAVAL FLOTILLA CAUGHT IN BIG SANDY CREEK—CHAUNCEY AFLOAT ON THE LAKE—GALLANT YOUNG AMERICAN OFFICERS—LINE OF BATTLE-SHIPS THAT WERE NEVER LAUNCHED.

The story of the deeds of the American naval sailors on the fresh-water seas during 1814 may very well begin with the actions in the extreme west. The Lake Erie victory of September 10, 1813, had annihilated the British naval power west of Niagara Falls, and no attempt to build another British fleet there has been made since that day. Nevertheless, in 1814, there were British successes afloat on both Lake Huron and Lake Erie that showed at once the resourcefulness and bravery of the British officers and men—that proved they were still able to damage the Yankee cause even if without shipping.

As the reader will remember, Perry, when operating on Lake Erie, was subordinate to, though fortunately not under the immediate supervision of, Captain Chauncey, who made his headquarters at Sackett’s Harbor. It would have been fortunate for the American cause had Perry superseded Chauncey, but he was brought to the Atlantic instead, where circumstances prevented his accomplishing anything, while Captain Arthur Sinclair was sent to take charge of the American fleet west of the Niagara, and that region was made an independent station—Sinclair was responsible only to the Navy Department. Sinclair had first seen active service as a midshipman in the Constellation along with Macdonough, under Truxton, when the French frigate Insurgent was whipped. He next appeared in history as the captain of the brig Argus that sailed with the squadron of Rodgers—a squadron of which the United States was a member, and that was the cruise when the Macedonian was captured. The Argus took five merchantmen and reached port in safety—it was something to the credit of an American captain to bring in his ship when one remembers the overwhelming naval force the British kept on the western side of the Atlantic.

Aside from keeping watch over the enemy’s coast of the great lakes to see that no more war-ships were built there, Sinclair had but one thing to do really worth doing, and that was to recapture the important frontier trading post of Mackinaw that the British had surprised on the morning of July 17, 1812, and with an overwhelming force captured without resistance. The American garrison had not even heard that war had been declared! Besides retaking Mackinaw, the Americans wished to destroy some union posts occupied by the British, and damage the British fur trading company as much as possible, because the company’s officials had been the active and efficient agents of the British Government in securing the aid of the western savages with their scalping-knives for attacks on the American settlements.

With the Niagara, the Caledonia, the Ariel, the Scorpion, and the Tigress, Captain Sinclair sailed into Lake Huron late in July, carrying along nearly one thousand soldiers including some militia.