CHAPTER XVII.
Culpable as was the helplessness of the War Department in 1812, the public neither understood nor knew how to enforce responsibility for disasters which would have gone far to cost a European war minister his life, as they might have cost his nation its existence. By fortune still kinder, the Navy Department escaped penalty of any sort for faults nearly as serious as those committed by its rival. The navy consisted, besides gunboats, of three heavy frigates rated as carrying forty-four guns; three lighter frigates rated at thirty-eight guns; one of thirty-two, and one of twenty-eight; besides two ships of eighteen guns, two brigs of sixteen, and four brigs of fourteen and twelve,—in all sixteen sea-going vessels, twelve of which were probably equal to any vessels afloat of the same class. The eight frigates were all built by Federalist Congresses before President Jefferson’s time; the smaller craft, except one, were built under the influence of the war with Tripoli. The Administration which declared war against England did nothing to increase the force. Few of the ships were in first-rate condition. The officers complained that the practice of laying up the frigates in port hastened their decay, and declared that hardly a frigate in the service was as sound as she should be. For this negligence Congress was alone responsible; but the Department perhaps shared the blame for want of readiness when war was declared.
The only ships actually ready for sea, June 18, were the “President,” 44, commanded by Commodore Rodgers, at New York, and the “United States,” 44, which had cruised to the southward with the “Congress,” 38, and “Argus,” 16, under the command of Commodore Decatur. Secretary Hamilton, May 21, sent orders to Decatur to prepare for war, and June 5 wrote more urgently:[322] “Have the ships under your command immediately ready for extensive active service, and proceed with them to New York, where you will join Commodore Rodgers and wait further orders. Prepare for battle, which I hope will add to your fame.” To Rodgers he wrote on the same day in much the same words:[323] “Be prepared in all respects for extensive service.” He asked both officers for their advice how to make the navy most useful. Rodgers’s reply, if he made one, was not preserved; but Decatur answered from Norfolk, June 8,[324]—
“The plan which appears to me to be the best calculated for our little navy ... would be to send them out with as large a supply of provisions as they can carry, distant from our coast and singly, or not more than two frigates in company, without giving them any specific instructions as to place of cruising, but to rely on the enterprise of the officers.”
The Department hesitated to adopt Decatur’s advice, and began by an effort to concentrate all its ships at New York,—an attempt in which Secretary Hamilton could not wholly succeed, for the “Constellation” and the “Chesapeake,” 38-gun frigates, and the “Adams,” 28, were not in condition for sea; the “Essex,” 32, was not quite ready, and the “Wasp,” 18, was bringing despatches from Europe, while the “Constitution,” 44, detained at Annapolis by the difficulty of shipping a new crew, could not sail within three weeks. The secretary ordered Captain Hull, who commanded the “Constitution,” to make his way to New York with the utmost speed, and if his crew were in proper condition, to look for the British frigate “Belvidera” on the way. The only ships that could be brought to New York without delay were those of Decatur at Norfolk. To him the secretary, on the declaration of war, sent orders to proceed with all despatch northwards, and “to notice the British flag if it presents itself” on the way. “The ‘Belvidera’ is said to be on our coast,” added the secretary.[325] Before this letter reached Norfolk, Decatur and his squadron sailed from the Chesapeake and were already within sight of Sandy Hook; so that the only orders from the Navy Department which immediately affected the movement of the frigates were those sent to New York for Commodore Rodgers and the frigate “President,” but which included Decatur’s squadron when it should arrive.
“For the present,” wrote the secretary to Rodgers,[326] “it is desirable that with the force under your command you remain in such position as to enable you most conveniently to receive further more extensive and more particular orders, which will be conveyed to you through New York. But as it is understood that there are one or more British cruisers on the coast in the vicinity of Sandy Hook, you are at your discretion free to strike them, returning immediately after into port. You are free to capture or destroy them.”
These orders reached New York June 21. Rodgers in his fine frigate the “President,” with the “Hornet,” 18, was eager to sail. The hope of capturing the “Belvidera,” which had long been an intolerable annoyance to New York commerce, was strong both in the Navy Department and in the navy; but the chance of obtaining prize money from the British West India convoy, just then passing eastward only a few days’ sail from the coast, added greatly to the commodore’s impatience.[327] Decatur’s squadron arrived off Sandy Hook June 19. June 21, within an hour after receiving the secretary’s orders of June 18, the whole fleet, including two forty-four and one thirty-eight-gun frigates, with the “Hornet” and the “Argus,” stood out to sea.
The secretary might have spared himself the trouble of giving further orders, for many a week passed before Rodgers and Decatur bethought themselves of his injunction to return immediately into port after striking the “Belvidera.” They struck the “Belvidera” within forty-eight hours, and lost her; partly on account of the bursting of one of the “President’s” main-deck guns, which blew up the forecastle deck, killing or wounding sixteen men, including Commodore Rodgers himself, whose leg was broken; partly, and according to the British account chiefly, on account of stopping to fire at all, when Rodgers should have run alongside, and in that case could not have failed to capture his enemy. Whatever was the reason, the “Belvidera” escaped; and Rodgers and Decatur, instead of returning immediately into port as they had been ordered, turned in pursuit of the British West India convoy, and hung doggedly to the chase without catching sight of their game, until after three weeks’ pursuit they found themselves within a day’s sail of the British Channel and the convoy safe in British waters.
This beginning of the naval war was discouraging. The American ships should not have sailed in a squadron, and only their good luck saved them from disaster. Rodgers and Decatur showed no regard to the wishes of the Government, although had they met with misfortune, the navy would have lost its last hope. Yet if the two commodores had obeyed the secretary’s commands their cruise would probably have been in the highest degree disastrous. The Government’s true intentions have been a matter of much dispute; but beyond a doubt the President and a majority of his advisers inclined to keep the navy within reach at first,—to use them for the protection of commerce, to drive away the British blockaders; and aware that the British naval force would soon be greatly increased, and that the American navy must be blockaded in port, the Government expected in the end to use the frigates as harbor defences rather than send them to certain destruction.
With these ideas in his mind Secretary Hamilton, in his orders of June 18, told Rodgers and Decatur that “more extensive” orders should be sent to them on their return to New York. A day or two afterward Secretary Gallatin complained to the President that these orders had not been sent.
“I believe the weekly arrivals from foreign ports,” said Gallatin,[328] “will for the coming four weeks average from one to one-and-a-half million dollars a week. To protect these and our coasting vessels, while the British have still an inferior force on our coasts, appears to me of primary importance. I think that orders to that effect, ordering them to cruise accordingly, ought to have been sent yesterday, and that at all events not one day longer ought to be lost.”
June 22 the orders were sent according to Gallatin’s wish. They directed Rodgers with his part of the squadron to cruise from the Chesapeake eastwardly, and Decatur with his ships to cruise from New York southwardly, so as to cross and support each other and protect with their united force the merchantmen and coasters entering New York harbor, the Delaware, and the Chesapeake. Rodgers and Decatur were then beginning their private cruise across the ocean, and never received these orders until the commerce they were to protect either reached port in safety or fell into British hands.
Probably this miscarriage was fortunate, for not long after Rodgers and Decatur passed the Banks the British Vice-Admiral Sawyer sent from Halifax a squadron to prevent the American navy from doing what Secretary Hamilton had just ordered to be done. July 5 Captain Broke, with his own frigate the “Shannon,” 38, the “Belvidera,” 36, the “Africa,” 64, and “Æolus,” 32, put to sea from Halifax and was joined, July 9, off Nantucket by the “Guerriere,” 38. Against such a force Rodgers and Decatur, even if together, would have risked total destruction, while a success would have cost more than it was worth. The Americans had nothing to gain and everything to lose by fighting in line-of-battle.
As Broke’s squadron swept along the coast it seized whatever it met, and July 16 caught one of President Jefferson’s 16-gun brigs, the “Nautilus.” The next day it came on a richer prize. The American navy seemed ready to outstrip the army in the race for disaster. The “Constitution,” the best frigate in the United States service, sailed into the midst of Broke’s five ships. Captain Isaac Hull, in command of the “Constitution,” had been detained at Annapolis shipping a new crew, until July 5,[329]—the day when Broke’s squadron left Halifax;—then the ship got under way and stood down Chesapeake Bay on her voyage to New York. The wind was ahead and very light. Not till July 10 did the ship anchor off Cape Henry lighthouse,[330] and not till sunrise of July 12 did she stand to the eastward and northward. Light head-winds and a strong current delayed her progress till July 17, when at two o’clock in the afternoon, off Barnegat on the New Jersey coast, the lookout at the masthead discovered four sails to the northward, and two hours later a fifth sail to the northeast. Hull took them for Rodgers’s squadron. The wind was light, and Hull being to windward determined to speak the nearest vessel, the last to come in sight. The afternoon passed without bringing the ships together, and at ten in the evening, finding that the nearest ship could not answer the night signal, Hull decided to lose no time in escaping.
Then followed one of the most exciting and sustained chases recorded in naval history. At daybreak the next morning one British frigate was astern within five or six miles, two more were to leeward, and the rest of the fleet some ten miles astern, all making chase. Hull put out his boats to tow the “Constitution;” Broke summoned the boats of his squadron to tow the “Shannon.” Hull then bent all his spare rope to the cables, dropped a small anchor half a mile ahead, in twenty-six fathom water, and warped his ship along. Broke quickly imitated the device, and slowly gained on the chase. The “Guerriere” crept so near Hull’s lee-beam as to open fire, but her shot fell short. Fortunately the wind, though slight, favored Hull. All night the British and American crews toiled on, and when morning came the “Belvidera,” proving to be the best sailer, got in advance of her consorts, working two kedge-anchors, until at two o’clock in the afternoon she tried in her turn to reach the “Constitution” with her bow guns, but in vain. Hull expected capture, but the “Belvidera” could not approach nearer without bringing her boats under the “Constitution’s” stern guns; and the wearied crews toiled on, towing and kedging, the ships barely out of gunshot, till another morning came. The breeze, though still light, then allowed Hull to take in his boats, the “Belvidera” being two and a half miles in his wake, the “Shannon” three and a half miles on his lee, and the three other frigates well to leeward. The wind freshened, and the “Constitution” drew ahead, until toward seven o’clock in the evening of July 19 a heavy rain-squall struck the ship, and by taking skilful advantage of it Hull left the “Belvidera” and “Shannon” far astern; yet until eight o’clock the next morning they were still in sight keeping up the chase.
Perhaps nothing during the war tested American seamanship more thoroughly than these three days of combined skill and endurance in the face of an irresistible enemy. The result showed that Hull and the “Constitution” had nothing to fear in these respects. There remained the question whether the superiority extended to his guns; and such was the contempt of British naval officers for American ships, that with this experience before their eyes they still believed one of their 38-gun frigates to be more than a match for an American forty-four, although the American, besides the heavier armament, had proved his capacity to out-sail and out-manœuvre the Englishman. Both parties became more eager than ever for the test. For once, even the Federalists of New England felt their blood stir; for their own President and their own votes had called these frigates into existence, and a victory won by the “Constitution,” which had been built by their hands, was in their eyes a greater victory over their political opponents than over the British. With no halfhearted spirit, the sea-going Bostonians showered well-weighed praises on Hull when his ship entered Boston harbor, July 26, after its narrow escape; and when he sailed again, New England waited with keen interest to learn his fate.
Hull could not expect to keep command of the “Constitution.” Bainbridge was much his senior, and had the right to a preference in active service. Bainbridge then held and was ordered to retain command of the “Constellation,” fitting out at the Washington Navy Yard; but Secretary Hamilton, July 28, ordered him to take command also of the “Constitution” on her arrival in port. Doubtless Hull expected this change, and probably the expectation induced him to risk a dangerous experiment; for without bringing his ship to the Charlestown Navy Yard, but remaining in the outer harbor, after obtaining such supplies as he needed, August 2, he set sail without orders, and stood to the eastward. Having reached Cape Race without meeting an enemy he turned southward, until on the night of August 18 he spoke a privateer, which told him of a British frigate near at hand. Following the privateersman’s directions the “Constitution” the next day, August 19, at two o’clock in the afternoon, latitude 41° 42´, longitude 55° 48´, sighted the “Guerriere.”
The meeting was welcome on both sides. Only three days before, Captain Dacres had entered on the log of a merchantman a challenge to any American frigate to meet him off Sandy Hook. Not only had the “Guerriere” for a long time been extremely offensive to every seafaring American, but the mistake which caused the “Little Belt” to suffer so seriously for the misfortune of being taken for the “Guerriere” had caused a corresponding feeling of anger in the officers of the British frigate. The meeting of August 19 had the character of a preconcerted duel.
The wind was blowing fresh from the northwest, with the sea running high. Dacres backed his main-top-sail and waited. Hull shortened sail and ran down before the wind. For about an hour the two ships wore and wore again, trying to get advantage of position; until at last, a few minutes before six o’clock, they came together side by side, within pistol-shot, the wind almost astern, and running before it they pounded each other with all their strength. As rapidly as the guns could be worked, the “Constitution” poured in broadside after broadside, double-shotted with round and grape,—and, without exaggeration, the echo of these guns startled the world. “In less than thirty minutes from the time we got alongside of the enemy,” reported Hull,[331] “she was left without a spar standing, and the hull cut to pieces in such a manner as to make it difficult to keep her above water.”
That Dacres should have been defeated was not surprising; that he should have expected to win was an example of British arrogance that explained and excused the war. The length of the “Constitution” was 173 feet; that of the “Guerriere” was 156 feet; the extreme breadth of the “Constitution” was 44 feet; that of the “Guerriere” was 40 feet, or within a few inches in both cases. The “Constitution” carried thirty-two long 24-pounders, the “Guerriere” thirty long 18-pounders and two long 12-pounders; the “Constitution” carried twenty 32-pound carronades, the “Guerriere” sixteen. In every respect, and in proportion of ten to seven, the “Constitution” was the better ship; her crew was more numerous in proportion of ten to six. Dacres knew this very nearly as well as it was known to Hull, yet he sought a duel. What he did not know was that in a still greater proportion the American officers and crew were better and more intelligent seamen than the British, and that their passionate wish to repay old scores gave them extraordinary energy. So much greater was the moral superiority than the physical, that while the “Guerriere’s” force counted as seven against ten, her losses counted as though her force were only two against ten.
Dacres’ error cost him dear, for among the “Guerriere’s” crew of two hundred and seventy-two, seventy-nine were killed or wounded; and the ship was injured beyond saving before Dacres realized his mistake, although he needed only thirty minutes of close fighting for the purpose. He never fully understood the causes of his defeat, and never excused it by pleading, as he might have done, the great superiority of his enemy.[332]
Hull took his prisoners on board the “Constitution],” and after blowing up the “Guerriere” sailed for Boston, where he arrived on the morning of August 30. The Sunday silence of the Puritan city broke into excitement as the news passed through the quiet streets that the “Constitution” was below, in the outer harbor, with Dacres and his crew prisoners on board. No experience of history ever went to the heart of New England more directly than this victory, so peculiarly its own; but the delight was not confined to New England, and extreme though it seemed it was still not extravagant, for however small the affair might appear on the general scale of the world’s battles, it raised the United States in one half hour to the rank of a first-class Power in the world.
Hull’s victory was not only dramatic in itself, but was also supremely fortunate in the moment it occurred. The “Boston Patriot” of September 2, which announced the capture of the “Guerriere,” announced in the next column that Rodgers and Decatur, with their squadron, entered Boston harbor within four-and-twenty hours after Hull’s arrival, returning empty-handed after more than two months of futile cruising; while in still another column the same newspaper announced “the melancholy intelligence of the surrender of General Hull and his whole army to the British General Brock.” Isaac Hull was nephew to the unhappy General, and perhaps the shattered hulk of the “Guerriere,” which the nephew left at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, eight hundred miles east of Boston, was worth for the moment the whole province which the uncle had lost, eight hundred miles to the westward; it was at least the only equivalent the people could find, and they made the most of it. With the shock of new life, they awoke to the consciousness that after all the peace teachings of Pennsylvania and Virginia, the sneers of Federalists and foreigners; after the disgrace of the “Chesapeake” and the surrender of Detroit,—Americans could still fight. The public had been taught, and had actually learned, to doubt its own physical courage; and the reaction of delight in satisfying itself that it still possessed the commonest and most brutal of human qualities was the natural result of a system that ignored the possibility of war.
Hull’s famous victory taught the pleasures of war to a new generation, which had hitherto been sedulously educated to think only of its cost. The first taste of blood maddens; and hardly had the “Constitution” reached port and told her story than the public became eager for more. The old Jeffersonian jealousy of the navy vanished in the flash of Hull’s first broadside. Nothing would satisfy the craving of the popular appetite but more battles, more British frigates, and more daring victories. Even the cautious Madison was dragged by public excitement upon the element he most heartily disliked.
The whole navy, was once more, September 1, safe in port, except only the “Essex,” a frigate rated at thirty-two but carrying forty-four guns, commanded by Captain David Porter. She left New York, July 3, with orders,[333] dated June 24, to join Rodgers, or failing this to cruise southwardly as far as St. Augustine. June 11 she met a convoy of seven transports conveying a battalion of the First Regiment, or Royal Scots, from the West Indies to reinforce Prevost and Brock in Canada. Porter cut out one transport. With the aid of another frigate he could have captured the whole, to the great advantage of Dearborn’s military movements; but the British commander managed his convoy so well that the battalion escaped, and enabled Prevost to strengthen the force at Niagara which threatened and defeated Van Rensselaer. August 13 the British 20-gun sloop-of-war “Alert” came in sight, bore down within short pistol-shot, and opened fire on the “Essex.” Absurd as the idea seemed, the British captain behaved as though he hoped to capture the American frigate, and not until Porter nearly sunk him with a broadside did the Englishman strike his colors. After taking a number of other prizes, but without further fighting, September 7 Porter brought his ship back to the Delaware River.
The return of the “Essex” to port, September 7, brought all the national vessels once more under the direct control of the Department. Nearly every ship in the service was then at Boston. The three forty-fours—the “Constitution,” “United States,” and “President”—were all there; two of the thirty-eights—the “Congress” and “Chesapeake”—were there, and the “Constellation” was at Washington. The “Adams,” 28, was also at Washington; but the “Hornet,” 18, and “Argus,” 16, were with Rodgers and Decatur at Boston. The “Syren,” 16, was at New Orleans; the “Essex,” 32, and the “Wasp,” 18, were in the Delaware.
Carried away by Hull’s victory, the Government could no longer hesitate to give its naval officers the liberty of action they asked, and which in spite of orders they had shown the intention to take. A new arrangement was made. The vessels were to be divided into three squadrons, each consisting of one forty-four, one light frigate, and one sloop-of-war. Rodgers in the “President” was to command one squadron, Bainbridge in the “Constitution” was to command another, and Decatur in the “United States” was to take the third.[334] Their sailing orders, dated October 2,[335] simply directed the three commodores to proceed to sea: “You are to do your utmost to annoy the enemy, to afford protection to our commerce, pursuing that course which to your best judgment may under all circumstances appear the best calculated to enable you to accomplish these objects as far as may be in your power, returning into port as speedily as circumstances will permit consistently with the great object in view.”
Before continuing the story of the frigates, the fate of the little “Wasp” needs to be told. Her career was brief. The “Wasp,” a sloop-of-war rated at eighteen guns, was one of President Jefferson’s additions to the navy to supply the loss of the “Philadelphia;” she was ship-rigged, and armed with two long 12-pounders and sixteen 32-pound carronades. She carried a crew of one hundred and thirty-seven men, commanded by Captain Jacob Jones, a native of Delaware, lieutenant in the “Philadelphia” when lost in the war with Tripoli. The “Wasp” was attached to Rodgers’s squadron, and received orders from the commodore to join him at sea. She sailed from the Delaware October 13, and when about six hundred miles east of Norfolk, October 17, she fell in with the British 18-gun brig “Frolic,” convoying fourteen merchantmen to England. The two vessels were equal in force, for the “Frolic’s” broadside threw a weight of two hundred and seventy-four pounds, while that of the “Wasp” threw some few pounds less; the “Frolic” measured, by British report,[336] one hundred feet in length, the “Wasp” one hundred and six; their breadth on deck was the same; and although the “Wasp’s” crew exceeded that of her enemy, being one hundred and thirty-five men against one hundred and ten, the British vessel had all the men she needed, and suffered little from this inferiority. The action began at half-past eleven in the morning, the two sloops running parallel, about sixty yards apart, in a very heavy sea, which caused both to pitch and roll so that marksmanship had the most decisive share in victory. The muzzles of the guns went under water, and clouds of spray dashed over the crews, while the two vessels ran side by side for the first fifteen minutes. The British fire cut the “Wasp’s” rigging, while the American guns played havoc with the “Frolic’s” hull and lower masts. The vessels approached each other so closely that the rammers of the guns struck the enemy’s side, and at last they fell foul,—the “Wasp” almost squarely across the “Frolic’s” bow. In the heavy sea boarding was difficult; but as soon as the “Wasp’s” crew could clamber down the “Frolic’s” bowsprit, they found on the deck the British captain and lieutenant, both severely wounded, and one brave sailor at the wheel. Not twenty of the British crew were left unhurt, and these had gone below to escape the American musketry. The “Wasp” had only ten men killed and wounded. The battle lasted forty-three minutes.
If the American people had acquired a taste for blood, the battle of the “Wasp” and “Frolic” gratified it, for the British sloop was desperately defended, and the battle, won by the better marksmanship of the Americans, was unusually bloody. Captain Jones lost the full satisfaction of his victory, for a few hours afterward the “Poictiers,” a British seventy-four, came upon the two disabled combatants and carried both into Bermuda; but the American people would have been glad to part with their whole navy on such terms, and the fight between the “Wasp” and the “Frolic” roused popular enthusiasm to a point where no honors seemed to satisfy their gratitude to Captain Jones and his crew.
The “Wasp’s” brilliant career closed within a week from the day she left the Delaware. A week afterward another of these ship-duels occurred, which made a still deeper impression. Rodgers and Decatur sailed from Boston October 8, with the “President,” the “United States,” “Congress,” and “Argus,” leaving the “Constitution,” “Chesapeake,” and “Hornet” in port. Rodgers in the “President,” with the “Congress,” cruised far and wide, but could find no enemy to fight, and after making prize of a few merchantmen returned to Boston, December 31. The “Argus” also made some valuable prizes, but was chased by a British squadron, and only by excellent management escaped capture, returning Jan. 3, 1813, to New York. Decatur in the “United States,” separating from the squadron October 12, sailed eastward to the neighborhood of the Azores, until, October 25, he sighted a sail to windward. The stranger made chase. The wind was fresh from south-southeast, with a heavy sea. Decatur stood toward his enemy, who presently came about, abreast of the “United States” but beyond gunshot, and both ships being then on the same tack approached each other until the action began at long range. The British ship was the 38-gun frigate “Macedonian” commanded by Captain Carden, and about the same force as the “Guerriere.” At first the “United States” used only her long 24-pounders, of which she carried fifteen on her broadside, while the “Macedonian” worked a broadside of fourteen long 18-pounders. So unequal a contest could not continue. Not only was the American metal heavier, but the American fire was quicker and better directed than that of the Englishman; so that Carden, after a few minutes of this experience, bore down to close. His manœuvre made matters worse. The carronades of the “United States” came into play; the “Macedonian’s” mizzen-mast fell, her fore and main top-mast were shot away, and her main-yard; almost all her rigging was cut to pieces, and most of the guns on her engaged side were dismounted. She dropped gradually to leeward, and Decatur, tacking and coming up under his enemy’s stern, hailed, and received her surrender.
The British ship had no right to expect a victory, for the disparity of force was even greater than between the “Constitution” and “Guerriere;” but in this case the British court-martial subsequently censured Captain Carden for mistakes. The battle lasted longer than that with the “Guerriere,” and Decatur apologized for the extra hour because the sea was high and his enemy had the weather-gauge and kept at a distance; but the apology was not needed. Decatur proved his skill by sparing his ship and crew. His own loss was eleven men killed and wounded; the “Macedonian’s” loss was nine times as great. The “United States” suffered little in her hull, and her spars and rigging suffered no greater injury than could be quickly repaired; while the “Macedonian” received a hundred shot in her hull, and aloft nothing remained standing but her fore and main masts and her fore-yard.
Decatur saved the “Macedonian,” and brought her back to New London,—the only British frigate ever brought as a prize into an American port. The two ships arrived December 4, and from New London the “Macedonian” was taken to New York and received in formal triumph. Captain Jones of the “Wasp” took command of her in reward for his capture of the “Frolic.”
Before the year closed, the “Constitution” had time for another cruise. Hull at his own request received command of the Navy Yard at Charlestown, and also took charge of the naval defences in New York harbor, but did not again serve at sea during the war. The “Constitution” was given to Captain Bainbridge, one of the oldest officers in the service. A native of New Jersey, Bainbridge commanded the “Philadelphia” when lost in the Tripolitan war, and was held for eighteen months a prisoner in Tripoli. In 1812, when he took command of the “Constitution,” though a year older than Hull and five years older than Decatur, he had not yet reached his fortieth year, while Rodgers, born in 1771, had but lately passed it. The difference in age between these four naval officers and the four chief generals—Dearborn, Wilkinson, Wade Hampton, and William Hull—was surprising; for the average age of the naval commanders amounted barely to thirty-seven years, while that of the four generals reached fifty-eight. This difference alone accounted for much of the difference in their fortune, and perhaps political influence accounted for the rest.
Bainbridge showed no inferiority to the other officers of the service, and no one grumbled at the retirement of Hull. The “Constitution” sailed from Boston, October 25, with the “Hornet.” The “Essex,” then in the Delaware, was ordered to join the squadron at certain specified ports in the south Atlantic, and sailed October 28, expecting a very long cruise. December 13 Bainbridge arrived at San Salvador, on the coast of Brazil, where he left the “Hornet” to blockade the “Bonne Citoyenne,” a British 18-gun sloop-of-war bound to England with specie. Cruising southward, within sight of the Brazilian coast, in latitude 13° 6´ south, Bainbridge sighted the British frigate “Java,” a ship of the same tonnage as the “Guerriere,” throwing a slightly heavier broadside and carrying a large crew of four hundred and twenty-six men, if the American account was correct. Bainbridge tacked and made sail off shore, to draw the stranger away from a neutral coast; the British frigate followed him, until at half-past one o’clock in the afternoon Bainbridge shortened sail, tacked again, and stood for his enemy. Soon after two o’clock the action began, the two ships being on the same tack, the “Java” to windward and the better sailer, and both fighting their long-range guns. The British frigate insisted upon keeping at a distance, obliging Bainbridge after half an hour to risk the danger of being raked; and at twenty minutes before three o’clock the “Constitution” closed within pistol-shot.[337] At ten minutes before three the ships were foul, the “Java’s” jibboom in the “Constitution’s” mizzen rigging; and from that point the battle became slaughter. In fifteen minutes the “Java’s” bowsprit, fore-mast, and main top-mast were cut away, and a few minutes after four o’clock she ceased firing. Her captain, Lambert, was mortally wounded; the first lieutenant was wounded; forty-eight of her officers and crew were dead or dying; one hundred and two were wounded; little more than a hulk filled with wreck and with dead or wounded men floated on the water.
The “Constitution” had but twelve men killed and twenty-two wounded, and repaired damages in an hour. Owing perhaps to the death of Captain Lambert the reports of the battle were more contradictory than usual, but no one disputed that although the “Java” was to windward and outsailed the American frigate, and although her broadside counted as nearly nine against her enemy’s ten,—for the “Constitution” on this cruise carried two guns less than in her fight with the “Guerriere,”—yet the “Java” inflicted no more damage than she ought to have done had she been only one fourth the size of the American frigate, although she was defended more desperately than either the “Guerriere” or the “Macedonian.”
With this battle the year ended. Bainbridge was obliged to blow up his prize, and after landing and paroling his prisoners at San Salvador sailed for Boston, where he arrived in safety, February 27, 1813. During the six months the war had lasted the little United States navy captured three British frigates, besides the 20-gun “Alert” and the 18-gun “Frolic;” privateers by scores had ravaged British commerce, while the immense British force on the ocean had succeeded only in capturing the little “Nautilus,” the 12-gun brig “Vixen,” and the “Wasp.” The commerce of America had indeed suffered almost total destruction; but the dispute was to be decided not so much by the loss which England could inflict upon America, as by that which America could inflict upon England.