But they did not reckon on the superb seamanship of the “Constitution.” In a trice the men were aloft with their axes, the wreck was cleared away, new gear was rove, and in half an hour a new mast was aloft and another royal was spread to the breeze.
But the ships had been enabled to close with each other, and Stewart had lost the opportunity of attacking them separately. They made one ineffectual effort to get the weather-gauge, but, finding that the “Constitution” outpointed them, they settled back in line of battle and cleared ship for action. Stewart immediately showed his colors and beat to quarters.
The fog had blown away and the sun had set behind a lowering bank of clouds. The wind still blew briskly, but the “Constitution” only pitched slightly, and offered a fairly steady platform for the guns, which were now trained upon the nearest vessel, but a few hundred yards broad off the port-bow. The darkness fell rapidly, and the moon came out from behind the fast-flying cloud-bank and silvered the winter twilight, gleaming fitfully on the restless water, a soft reproach upon the bloody work that was to follow.
At a few moments past six the long guns of the “Constitution’s” port-battery opened fire, and the battle was on. Both ships responded quickly to the fire, and for fifteen minutes the firing was so rapid that there was not a second’s pause between the reverberations. The English crews cheered loudly. But the gunners of the “Constitution” went on grimly with their work, sponging and loading as though at target-practice, content to hear the splintering of the timbers of the nearest vessel as the double-shotted thirty-twos went crashing into her. Before long the smoke became so thick that the gunners could not see their adversaries; and Stewart, ordering the batteries to cease firing, drew ahead and ranged abeam of the foremost ship, with his port-battery reloaded and double-shotted. He waited until he was well alongside before giving the order to fire, when he delivered such a terrible hail of round-shot, grape, and canister that the enemy staggered and halted like an animal mortally wounded. For the moment her battery was entirely silenced, and during the lull they could hear the cries of the wounded as they were carried below to the cockpit. The English cheered no longer. Another such a broadside might have finished her; but before Stewart could repeat it he saw that the other ship was luffing up so as to take a raking position under the stern of the “Constitution.”
Nowhere did the wonderful presence of mind of Stewart and the splendid seamanship of his crew show to better advantage than in the manœuvre which followed. He quickly braced his main- and mizzen-topsails flat to the mast, let fly all forward, and actually backed down upon the other enemy, who, instead of being able to rake the “Constitution,” found her emerging from the smoke abreast his bows in a position to effectually rake him. The “Constitution’s” guns by this time had all been reloaded, and a terrific fire swept fore and aft along the decks of the Englishman, tearing and splintering her decks and dismounting many of the guns of both batteries. So terrible was the blow that she faltered and fell off. Before she could recover from the first, another terrible broadside was poured into her.
The other vessel now tried to luff up and rake the “Constitution” from the bows. But the American filled away immediately and let them have her other broadside. Side by side the “Constitution” and the larger ship sailed, firing individually and by battery as fast as they could sponge and load. Here and there a shot would strike within the stout bulwarks of the American; and one of these tore into the waist, killing two men and smashing through a boat in which two tigers were chained. A sailor named John Lancey, of Cape Ann, was carried below horribly mutilated. When the surgeon told him he only had a few moments to live, he said, “Yes, sir, I know it; but I only want to know that the ship has struck.” Soon after, when he heard the cheers at her surrender, he rose from his cot, and, waving the stump of his blood-stained arm in the air, gasped out three feeble cheers and fell back lifeless.
Having silenced the larger vessel, Stewart immediately hurried to the smaller one, which had been firing through the smoke at the gun-flashes. The “Constitution” fell off, and, gathering headway, succeeded in getting again across her stern, where she poured in two raking broadsides, which practically cut her rigging to pieces. Returning to the larger vessel, Stewart rounded to on her port-quarter and delivered broadside after broadside with such a telling effect that at 6.50 she struck her colors.
The other vessel having in a measure refitted, came down gallantly but foolishly to the rescue of her consort. The “Constitution” met her with another broadside, which she tried to return, and then spread all sail to get away. But the American ship could outsail as well as outpoint her, and under the continuous fire of the bow-chasers of the “Constitution” she became practically helpless, and at about ten o’clock, when the dreaded broadside was about to be put into play again, she surrendered.
It was a wonderful battle. In a fight between one sailing-ship and two the odds were four-fold on the side of the majority. For it was deemed next to impossible to rake without being doubly raked in return. This obvious disadvantage was turned by Stewart to his own account by what critics throughout the world consider to be the finest manœuvring ever known in an American ship in action. He fought both his broadsides alternately, and luffed, wore, or backed his great vessel as though she had been a pleasure-boat. Neither of his adversaries succeeded in delivering one telling raking broadside. She seemed to be playing with them, and skilfully presented her reloaded guns to each vessel as it attempted to get her at a disadvantage.
The larger vessel was discovered to be the “Cyane,” 32, Captain Gordon Falcon, and the smaller one the sloop-of-war “Levant,” 21, Captain George Douglass. The “Constitution” had fifty-one guns, while the Englishmen had fifty-three; but of the “Constitution’s” crew four were killed and ten wounded. On the “Cyane” and “Levant” thirty-five were killed and forty-two were wounded.