The Constitution was the finest, perhaps, of the United States frigates, and a favorite ship with commanders, yet her fame began with her success in running away, Broke’s British squadron chasing her three nights and two days, only to lose her after all. The winds were so light that she sent out her boats to help the sails urge her forward. It was only a few days after that (August 19, 1812) that Commodore Isaac Hull, cruising in search of the British vessel Guerrière (the same that had been captured from the French in the battle of the Nile, and again dismasted at Trafalgar), overhauled her off the coast of Newfoundland. The London newspapers had not only been sneering at the Constitution as “a bundle of pine boards sailing under a bit of striped bunting,” but Captain Dacres had sent a boastful challenge to Hull to meet him and see what would happen. The vessels, though nominally of different rate, were actually in close equality, and both crews were eager for a fair fight. It was already well along in the afternoon, and the sea was rough, but Hull would not reply to the enemy’s fire until he was within pistol-shot, then his broadside opened.
“Fifteen minutes after the contest began,” to quote Lossing’s lively account, “the mizzenmast of the Guerrière was shot away, her mainyard was in slings, and her hull, spars, sails, and rigging were torn to pieces. By a skilful movement, the Constitution now fell foul of her foe, her bowsprit running into the larboard quarter of her antagonist. The cabin of the Constitution was set on fire by the explosion of the forward guns of the Guerrière, but the flames were soon extinguished. Both parties attempted to board, while the roar of the great guns was terrific. The sea was rolling heavily, and would not permit a safe passage from one vessel to the other. At length the Constitution became disentangled, and shot ahead of the Guerrière, when the mainmast of the latter, shattered into weakness, fell into the sea. The Guerrière, shivered and shorn, rolled like a log in the trough of the billows. Hull sent his compliments to Captain Dacres, and inquired whether he had struck his flag. Dacres, who was a ‘jolly tar,’ looking up and down at the stumps of his masts, coolly and dryly replied: ‘Well, I don’t know. Our mizzenmast is gone, our mainmast is gone,—upon the whole you may say we have struck our flag.’”
Too completely wrecked to be of any further use, the historic old ship was set on fire and blown up, and so ended her pride and her story. Hull lost only fourteen men killed and wounded, while the British lost seventy, dead, and all the survivors prisoners. This calamity, on the heels of similar successes elsewhere for the “bit of striped bunting,” spread consternation throughout Great Britain not only, but in the other European monarchies, for it presaged the rise of a new power to be reckoned with, where novel and superior instruments and methods of warfare opposed uncalculated forces to the old régime.
This conviction was enforced upon Europe anew only four months later by the Constitution overtaking and crushing in West Indian waters the 38-gun frigate Java, which also was burned to the water’s edge, because the wreck was not worth saving; and again the British loss was many times greater than the American. Captain William Bainbridge, who had distinguished himself in the Mediterranean, was her commander.
THE “CONSTITUTION” CHASED BY CAPTAIN BROKE’S SQUADRON
The ports on the upper deck aft were roughly cut to meet the emergency. The sailors in the rigging threw water from buckets upon the sails to make them hold better the faint breeze, and below hose pipe was used to the same purpose. During the three days’ chase boats were sent out to tow, and kedge-anchors were used to warp the ship forward.
Various successes marked her career for the next two years, until, under the command of Captain Charles Stewart, she had her memorable adventure off Madeira, in which she engaged with the two British ships Cyane, thirty-six guns, and Levant, eighteen guns, and captured both, with a loss of only three men killed and twelve wounded. Stewart set sail with his prizes and prisoners for Porto Praya, whence he purposed sending his prisoners to New York in a captured merchantman. Reaching there on March 10th, he was next day busy at these arrangements, when the topsails of several men-of-war were seen entering the harbor through the prevailing fog. Having no trust that, if these were British, their commanders would respect the courtesies of a weak neutral port, Stewart felt that his only chance was to try to run away in the fog, and made immediate preparations to do so, sending word to the Levant and Cyane to follow. Being discovered by the strangers—three large British frigates—at the outlet of the harbor, their escape immediately became a question of seamanship and sailing. Here the Americans showed their superiority, and effectually dodging both the ships and the cannon-balls of the pursuers, the Levant got back under the protection of the guns of the fort at Porto Praya, while the Constitution and Levant fairly outsailed the frigates and escaped.
In 1830 brave Old Ironsides was condemned as worn out, and ordered to be sold. But, as a similar sad fate overtaking the “Fighting Temeraire” had been made the occasion of an immortal painting by Turner, and so, perhaps, had caused Nelson’s still more famous battle-ship Victory to be preserved in the harbor of Portsmouth as a shrine of naval inspiration, so the obloquy that menaced the Constitution now fired the heart of a young poet to write a passionate appeal to patriotism. Who does not know Dr. Holmes’s ringing stanzas?—
Oh, better that her shattered hulk