The Mentor: The War of 1812 / Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916.

by Albert Bushnell Hart

WAR AT SEA

A proof that the defeats of the War of 1812 were not due to lack of fiber among the American people as a whole, was the brilliant success of the operations on the high seas. Jefferson and Madison both thought the navy would do more harm than good. The British had twice seized the little navy of the Danes, and it seemed as though our ships would only be a whet to the appetite of the British naval giant. Against our 18 ships of war, of which only six were sizable frigates, the British could oppose 170 large ships and 700 others. They had the prestige of a hundred years of naval supremacy; they had driven the French and Spanish ships of war from the sea.

Therefore it was a joy to the nation when, seven weeks after the outbreak of the war, the frigate Constitution captured the Guerriere and later the Java; then the United States captured the Macedonian; the Frolic took the Wasp; the Essex, the first American ship of war to appear in the Pacific, captured numbers of British whalers there. In thirteen duels, one ship on each side, the Americans won eleven victories.

Gradually the fleet was worn down; the Chesapeake was taken by the Shannon; the President and the Adams were captured; and at the end of the war there was not a public ship on the ocean flying the flag of the United States. However the navy in two unexpected directions won new laurels. On Lake Erie Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British fleet at the battle of Put-in Bay, and sent his ever memorable despatch, "We have met the enemy and they are ours: two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop." On Lake Champlain, Commodore Macdonough beat the British; while McComb with his militia withstood and repelled the British attack at Plattsburg.

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON
Harrison was one of the few able leaders that the United States had during the War of 1812. He was President for only one month in 1841. He died in office.
From the portrait of by J.B. Lambdin

When the cruisers were driven off the sea, the privateers continued the naval war. At that time a merchantman could be turned into a capable fighting ship by adding strengthening timbers and providing the necessary guns. Such a ship, when commissioned as a privateer by the United States government, could capture the enemy's merchantmen and on occasion fight small cruisers. For instance, the brig Yankee, 160 tons burden, eighteen guns, 120 men, captured twenty-nine prizes, one of which sold for more than $500,000. The money was divided equally between the owners and the men on board. The privateers together captured about 2,000 British vessels; though over 1,500 American vessels were captured by the English. The whole British nation felt the shock of this unexpected naval resistance; and it was the pressure of the shippers and shipowners of England which caused that power to make favorable terms of peace.

PERRY RECEIVING THE SURRENDER OF THE BRITISH COMMANDERS ABOARD THE "LAWRENCE"
From the painting by W.J. Aylward
Courtesy, Harper's Magazine
Copyright, Harper & Brothers

For a hundred years experts have been trying to find out just why the United States was so successful in the naval war. The British newspapers of the day tried to prove that it was because they called a vessel a frigate when it was really bigger and stronger than the British frigate. That did not affect the captain of the Guerriere when he accepted battle with the Constitution: he evidently thought that he had size and power enough to capture his adversary. The Americans appear to have had heavier guns, better training in handling the guns, better marksmanship, to have been quicker and smarter.

It was the privateers that were in the long run most effective. The London Times complained toward the end of 1814 that "there are privateers off this harbor which plunder every vessel coming in or going out, notwithstanding we have three line of battle, six frigates, and four sloops here." The Morning Chronicle complained that a great part of the coast of Ireland had "been for above a month under the unresisted dominion of a few petty 'fly-by-nights' from the blockaded ports of the United States—a grievance equally intolerable and disgraceful." The Annual Register thought it a mortifying reflection that, notwithstanding a navy of a thousand ships, "it was not safe for a vessel to sail without convoy from one part of the English or Irish Channel to another."

THE NIAGARA BREAKS THE ENGLISH LINE
When Perry's flagship, the "Lawrence," was riddled by the enemy, he transferred himself in a small boat to the "Niagara." This ship broke the British line, and then the battle was won. From a painting by Carlton T. Chapman
From "Naval Actions of The War of 1812," by James Barnes.
Copyright 1896, by Harper & Brothers

In March, 1915, a British squadron captured the German frigate Dresden in the neutral Chilean waters of the Island of Juan Fernandez. A similar episode occurred in 1814, when the United States ship Essex was cornered and destroyed by two British vessels in the harbor of Valparaiso. The American privateer General Armstrong was also cut out and destroyed by the British under the guns of the Portuguese fort at Fayal in the Azores.