Captain Warrington in the “Peacock” continued his cruise to the Indian Ocean, and captured four Indiamen. In the Straits of Sunda, June 30, he encountered a small East India Company’s cruiser, whose commander hailed and announced peace. Warrington replied, “directing him at the same time to haul his colors down if it were the case, in token of it,—adding that if he did not, I should fire into him.” The brig refused to strike its colors, and Warrington nearly destroyed her by a broadside.[96] For this violence little excuse could be offered, for the “Nautilus” was not half the “Peacock’s” strength, and could not have escaped. Warrington, like most officers of the American navy, remembered the “Chesapeake” too well.
The cruise of the “President,” “Peacock,” and “Hornet” ended in the loss of the “President,” the disabling of the “Hornet,” and the arrival of the “Peacock” alone at the point intended for their common cruising-ground. No other national vessels were at sea after peace was signed, except the “Constitution,” which late in December sailed from Boston under the command of Captain Charles Stewart,—a Philadelphian of Irish descent, not thirty-nine years old, but since 1806 a captain in the United States service.
Cruising between Gibraltar and Madeira, at about one o’clock on the afternoon of February 20 Captain Stewart discovered two sail ahead, which he chased and overtook at six o’clock. Both were ship-rigged sloops-of-war. The larger of the two was the “Cyane.” Americans preferred to call her a frigate, but that designation, though vague at best, could hardly be applied to such a vessel. The “Cyane” was a frigate-built sloop-of-war, or corvette, like the “Little Belt,” carrying a regular complement of one hundred and eighty-five men. Her length on the lower deck was one hundred and eighteen feet; her breadth was thirty-two feet. She carried thirty-three guns, all carronades except two long-nines or twelves. Her companion, the “Levant,” was also a sloop-of-war of the larger sort, though smaller than the “Cyane.” She mounted twenty-one guns, all carronades except two long nine-pounders. Her regular crew was one hundred and thirty-five men and boys.
Either separately or together the British ships were decidedly unequal to the “Constitution,” which could, by remaining at long range, sink them both without receiving a shot in return. The “Constitution” carried thirty-two long twenty-four-pounders; while the two sloops could reply to these guns only by four long nine-pounders. The “Constitution” carried four hundred and fifty men; the two sloops at the time of the encounter carried three hundred and thirty-six seamen, marines, and officers.[97] The “Constitution” was built of great strength; the two sloops had only the frames of their class. The utmost that the British captains could hope was that one of the two vessels might escape by the sacrifice of the other.
Instead of escaping, the senior officer, Captain George Douglass of the “Levant,” resolved to engage the frigate, “in the hopes, by disabling her, to prevent her intercepting two valuable convoys that sailed from Gibraltar about the same time as the ‘Levant’ and ‘Cyane.’”[98] Captain Douglass knew his relative strength, for he had heard that the American frigate was on his course.[99] Yet he seriously expected to disable her, and made a courageous attempt to do so.
The two ships, close together, tried first for the weather-gauge, but the “Constitution” outsailed them also on that point. They then bore up in hope of delaying the engagement till night, but the “Constitution” overhauled them too rapidly for the success of that plan. They then stood on the starboard tack, the “Cyane” astern, the “Levant” a half-cable length ahead, while the “Constitution” came up to windward and opened fire. Commodore Stewart’s report described the result:[100]—
“At five minutes past six ranged up on the starboard side of the sternmost ship [the ‘Cyane’], about three hundred yards distant, and commenced the action by broadsides,—both ships returning our fire with great spirit for about fifteen minutes. Then the fire of the enemy beginning to slacken, and the great column of smoke collected under our lee, induced us to cease our fire to ascertain their positions and conditions. In about three minutes the smoke clearing away, we found ourselves abreast of the headmost ship [the ‘Levant’], the sternmost ship luffing up for our larboard quarter.”
Three hundred yards was a long range for carronades, especially in British sloops whose marksmanship was indifferent at best. According to the British court-martial on the officers of the “Cyane” and “Levant,” their carronades had little effect.[101] If Stewart managed his ship as his duty required, the two sloops until that moment should have been allowed to make little effective return of the “Constitution’s” broadside of sixteen twenty-four-pounders except by two nine-pounders. They were in the position of the “Essex” at Valparaiso. The “Cyane” naturally luffed up, in order to bring her carronades to bear, but she was already cut to pieces, and made the matter worse by closing.
“We poured a broadside into the headmost ship,” continued the American account, “and then braced aback our main and mizzen topsails and backed astern under cover of the smoke abreast the sternmost ship, when the action was continued with spirit and considerable effect until thirty-five minutes past six, when the enemy’s fire again slackened.”
The “Levant,” after receiving two stern-raking fires, bore up at forty minutes past six and began to repair damages two miles to leeward. The “Cyane,” having become unmanageable, struck at ten minutes before seven. The most remarkable incident of the battle occurred after the “Cyane” struck, when the “Constitution” went after the “Levant” which was in sight to leeward. The little “Levant,” instead of running away, stood directly for the huge American frigate, more than three times her size, and ranging close alongside fired a broadside into her as the two ships passed on opposite tacks. Although the sloop received the “Constitution’s” broadside in return, she was only captured at last after an hour’s chase, at ten o’clock, much cut up in spars and rigging, but still sea-worthy, and with seven men killed and sixteen wounded, or only one casualty to six of her crew.