This report was dated May 21, five days after the battle, in “lat. 36° 53´ N.; long. 71° 49´ W. Cape Charles bearing W. 48 miles,”—which, according to the senior lieutenant’s evidence, May 29, was about the spot of the action, from fifty to fifty-four miles east of Cape Charles. Yet a glance at the map showed that these bearings marked a point more than two hundred miles east of Cape Charles. This carelessness could not be set to the account of a misprint.
The date proved only inaccuracy; other parts of Bingham’s report showed a willingness to confuse the facts. He claimed to have hoisted his colors at two o’clock in the afternoon, after making out the American commodore’s pennant and resuming a southerly course. Rodgers averred that the “Little Belt” obstinately refused to show colors till darkness concealed them; and Bingham’s report itself admitted that at 6.30 he decided to hoist his colors, “that no mistake might arise.” During the five hours’ chase his colors were not flying. His assertion, too, that at 6.30 the American frigate was within gunshot, and that the “Little Belt” was brought to because she could not escape, agreed ill with his next admission, that the “President” consumed nearly two hours in getting within hailing distance.
The most evident error was at the close of the British story. Bingham declared that the general action lasted three quarters of an hour, and that then the enemy ceased firing; appeared to be on fire about the main hatchway, and “stood from us,” firing no more guns. The two lieutenants, boatswain, and purser of the “Little Belt” swore that the action lasted “about an hour;” the surgeon said “about forty-five minutes.” Every American officer declared under oath that the entire action, including the cessation of firing for three minutes, did not exceed a quarter of an hour, or eighteen minutes at most. On this point the American story was certainly correct. Indeed, two years later, after the “Constitution” had silenced the “Guerriere” in thirty-five minutes, and the “United States” had, in a rough sea and at comparatively long range, left the “Macedonian” a wreck in less than two hours of action, no officer in the British service would have sacrificed his reputation for veracity by suggesting that a British corvette of eighteen guns could have lain nearly an hour within pistol-shot, in calm weather, under the hot fire of an American “line-of-battle ship in disguise.” The idea of forcing her to “stand from us” would have seemed then mere gasconade. Some fifteen months afterward, the British sloop-of-war “Alert,” of twenty guns, imitated the “Little Belt” by attacking Commodore Porter’s 32-gun frigate “Essex,” and in eight minutes struck her colors in a sinking condition. If the “President” had been no heavier than the “Essex,” she should still have silenced the “Little Belt” in a quarter of an hour.
The “Little Belt” escaped destruction, but she suffered severely. Bingham reported: “I was obliged to desist from firing, as, the ship falling off, no gun would bear, and had no after-sail to help her to; all the rigging and sails cut to pieces; not a brace nor a bowline left.... I have to lament the loss of thirty-two men killed and wounded, among whom is the master. His Majesty’s ship is much damaged in masts, rigging, and hull; ... many shot through between wind and water, and many shots still remain inside, and upper works all shot away; starboard pump also.” He did not know his good fortune. Two years afterward he would have been well content to escape from the “President” on any terms, even though the “Little Belt” had been twice the size she was. The “President’s” loss consisted of one boy wounded, and some slight damage to the rigging.
Bingham’s report was accepted by the British government and navy with blind confidence, and caused no small part of the miscalculation which ended in disasters to British pride. “No one act of the little navy of the United States,” said the British historian five years afterward, “had been at all calculated to gain the respect of the British. First was seen the ‘Chesapeake’ allowing herself to be beaten with impunity by a British ship only nominally superior to her. Then the huge frigate ‘President’ attacks and fights for nearly three quarters of an hour the British sloop ‘Little Belt.’”[37] So self-confident was the British navy that Bingham was believed to have fought the “President” with credit and success; while, on the American side, Rodgers and his ship’s company believed that the British captain deliberately delayed the meeting until dark, with the view of taking advantage of the night to punish what he thought the insolence of the chase.
Whatever opinion might be formed as to the conduct of the two captains, the vehemence of feeling on each side was only to be compared with the “Chesapeake” affair; but in this instance the grievance belonged to the British navy, and Dacres and the “Guerriere” felt the full passion and duty of revenge. The news met Foster on his arrival at Norfolk, a few weeks afterward, and took away his only hope of a cordial reception. His instructions intended him to conciliate good-will by settling the “Chesapeake” outrage, while they obliged him to take a tone of refusal or remonstrance on every other subject; but he found, on arriving, that the Americans cared nothing for reparation of the “Chesapeake” outrage, since Commodore Rodgers had set off against it an outrage of his own, and had killed four men for every one killed by Captain Humphries. Instead of giving redress, Foster found himself obliged to claim it.
July 2 Foster was formally received by the President; and the same day, as though he had no other hope but to take the offensive, he began his official correspondence by a letter on the seizure of West Florida, closing with a formal notice that if the United States persevered in their course, his orders required him to present the solemn protest of his Government “against an attempt so contrary to every principle of public justice, faith, and national honor.”
The language was strong; but unfortunately for Foster’s influence, the world at the moment showed so little regard for justice, faith, or honor, that the United States had no reason to be singular in Quixotism; and although in logic the tu quoque was an argument hardly deserving notice, in politics it was only less decisive than cannon. The policy of Foster’s remonstrance was doubtful in another respect. In proportion as men exposed themselves to reprimands, they resented the reprimand itself. Madison and Monroe had each his sensitive point. Madison resented the suggestion that Napoleon’s decrees were still in force, regarding the matter as involving his veracity. Monroe equally resented the assertion that West Florida belonged to Spain, for his character as a man of sense, if not of truth, was involved in the assertion that he had himself bought West Florida in his Louisiana purchase. Yet the mildness of his reply to Foster’s severe protest proved his earnest wish to conciliate England. In a note[38] of July 8 he justified the seizure of West Florida by the arguments already used, and offered what he called a “frank and candid explanation” to satisfy the British government. In private he talked with more freedom, and—if Foster could be believed—showed himself in a character more lively if not more moral than any the American people would have recognized as his. July 5 Foster wrote to Wellesley:[39]—
“It was with real pain, my Lord, that I was forced to listen to arguments of the most profligate nature, such as that other nations were not so scrupulous; that the United States showed sufficient forbearance in not assisting the insurgents of South America and looking to their own interests in the present situation of that country.”
Foster was obliged to ignore the meaning of this pointed retort; while his inquiries how far the American government meant to carry its seizures of Spanish territory drew from Monroe no answer but a laugh. The Secretary of State seemed a transformed man. Not only did he show no dread of interference from England in Florida, but he took an equally indifferent air on every other matter except one. He said not a word about impressments; he betrayed no wish to trouble himself about the “Chesapeake” affair; he made no haste in apologizing for the attack on the “Little Belt;” but the Orders in Council—these, and nothing else—formed the issue on which a change of policy was to depend.