We have said that there was only one other naval commander of the Revolution whose name shines with any lustre to-day—Nicholas Biddle. His career was a brief and brilliant one. Born in Philadelphia, he had gone to sea at the age of thirteen, was cast away on a desert island, was rescued, and enlisted in the English navy, but returned to America as soon as revolution threatened. He was given command of a little brig called the Andrea Doria, took a number of prizes, and made so good a record that in 1776 he was appointed to command the new frigate, Randolph. Using Charleston, South Carolina, as his base, he captured four prizes within a few days, but on his second cruise, fell in with a British sixty-four, the Yarmouth. After a sharp action of twenty minutes, fire got into the magazine of the Randolph, in some way, and she blew up, only four of her crew of 310 escaping. The blow was a heavy one to the American navy, for Biddle was its best commander, next to Jones, and the Randolph was its best ship. Luckily the French alliance placed the French fleet at the disposal of the colonies—or Cornwallis would never have been captured at Yorktown.
It is one of our polite fictions that the United States has always been victorious in war; but, as a matter of fact, we were not victorious in the second war with England, and, when the treaty of peace came to be signed, abandoned practically all the contentions which war had been declared to maintain. On land, the war was, for the most part, a series of costly blunders, beginning with the surrender of Detroit, and closing with the sack of Washington, and had England had her hands free of Napoleon, the result for us might have been very serious. The only considerable and decisive victory won by American arms was that of Andrew Jackson at New Orleans—a battle fought after the treaty of peace had been signed.
But on the ocean there was a different story—a series of brilliant victories which, while they did not seriously cripple the great English navy, caused Canning to declare in Parliament that "the sacred spell of the invincibility of the British navy is broken." The heaviest blow was struck to British commerce, no less than sixteen hundred English merchantmen falling victims to privateers and ships-of-war.
The group of men who commanded the American vessels was a most remarkable one, and their fighting qualities were worthy in every way of John Paul Jones. First blood was drawn by David Porter, illustrious scion of a family which gave five generations to brilliant service in the navy. On August 13, 1812, Porter, with the Essex, engaged in a sharp battle with the British ship Alert, which, after an action of eight minutes, surrendered in a sinking condition. He had seen hard service before that, had been twice impressed by British vessels and twice escaped, had fought French and pirates, and spent some time in a prison in Tripoli.
After his capture of the Alert, he went on a cruise in the Pacific, destroying the English whale fisheries there, capturing booty valued at two and a half million dollars, and taking four hundred prisoners. So great was the damage he inflicted, that a British squadron was fitted out and sent to the Pacific to capture him, found him in a partially disabled condition in the harbor of Valparaiso, and, disregarding the neutrality of the port, sailed in and attacked him. The engagement lasted two hours and a half, the Essex finally surrendering when reduced to a helpless wreck. On the Essex at the time was a midshipman aged twelve years, who got his first taste of fighting there, and whose name was destined to become, after that of Paul Jones, the most famous in American naval history—David Glasgow Farragut.
Less than a week after Porter's victory over the Alert, another and much more important one was won by Captain Isaac Hull in the frigate Constitution—"Old Ironsides"—the most famous ship-of-war the navy has ever possessed. Isaac Hull was a nephew of General William Hull, who, on August 16, 1812, surrendered Detroit and his entire army to the British without striking a blow. Three days later, Isaac Hull, having sailed from Boston without orders, in his anxiety to meet the enemy and for fear the command of the Constitution would be given to some one else—a breach of discipline for which he would probably have been court-martialled and shot, had the cruise ended disastrously—fell in with the powerful British frigate Guerrière. Inscribed across the Guerrière's mainsail in huge red letters were the words:
All who meet me have a care, I am England's Guerrière.
She was a powerful vessel, but neither the vessel nor the menace frightened Hull, and he sailed straight for her, holding his fire until he was within fifty yards, when he let fly a broadside and then another, which sent two of her masts by the board, and the third soon followed, leaving her unmanageable. Within a very few minutes, under Hull's raking fire, she was reduced to a "perfect wreck"—so perfect, in fact, that she had to be blown up and sunk, as there was no chance of getting her back to port. The Constitution was practically uninjured, and Hull sailed back to Boston, with his ship crowded with British prisoners. He was welcomed with the wildest enthusiasm, banquets were given in his honor, swords voted him by state legislatures, New York ordered a portrait painted of him, and Congress gave him a gold medal. The War Department discreetly permitted his disobedience of orders to drop out of sight.
Hull's victory was not the result of accident, but of long and careful training. He had begun his sea career in the merchant service at the age of fourteen, was a captain at the age of twenty, and entered the navy in 1798. He soon gained a high reputation for seamanship, and his genius for handling a ship under all conditions was one of the most important factors in his success. He saved his ship on one occasion, when she was becalmed and practically surrounded by a powerful British fleet, by "kedging"—in other words, sending a row-boat out with an anchor, which was dropped as far ahead as the boat could take it, and the ship pulled up to it by means of the windlass. As soon as the British saw him doing this, they tried it too, but Hull managed to get away from them by almost superhuman exertions. He served in the navy for many years after his memorable victory over the Guerrière, but never achieved another so notable.
The second capture of a British frigate in the war of 1812 was made by Stephen Decatur, who had distinguished himself years before by an exploit which Lord Nelson called "the most daring act of the age." Decatur, who possessed in unusual degree the dash and brilliance so valuable in a naval commander, came naturally by his love of the sea, for his grandfather had been an officer in the French navy, and his father was a captain in the navy of the United States.