Another interesting fact is that she has been in commission within the last twelve years, and only a few years ago she again breasted the waves, and was towed from the capes of the Delaware to her final resting-place in Massachusetts Bay.
XVIII
THE “HORNET” AND THE “PENGUIN”
[March 23d, 1815]
MEDAL PRESENTED BY CONGRESS TO CAPTAIN JAMES BIDDLE
Lieutenant James Biddle had distinguished himself in the Mediterranean in the war with the Barbary pirates, having been one of the officers captured with Captain Bainbridge on board the Philadelphia, and being, with Bainbridge, held prisoner during those historic months of captivity in Tripoli. Biddle was a young man of much determination, and his career as a junior officer was full of adventure and the successful overcoming of hardships. On the outbreak of the war of 1812 he sought every opportunity to be in the thick of it, neglecting no chance to distinguish himself or to add lustre to his name.
In the action between the Wasp and His British Majesty’s sloop of war the Frolic, Biddle proved himself to have the proper spirit of a leader, and both he and Captain Jones were honored by Congress and the country after their short sojourn in an English prison; for it must be remembered that the Wasp and her prize were taken, within a few hours after their engagement, by a British seventy-four, the Poictiers.
Upon his return to the United States Biddle was promoted to the rank of captain, and at this time Captain James Lawrence, in consequence of his own promotion, had just left the sloop of war Hornet, which, under him, had fought so bravely and so fortunately in the southern seas. Captain Biddle asked for the command of the Hornet immediately upon Lawrence’s leaving her—she was then lying in New York Harbor. His request was granted, and orders were given him to join his vessel with the frigate Chesapeake, then at Boston nearly ready for a cruise. But he and the brave Lawrence were never to make a voyage in company. News travelled slowly in those days, and young Captain Biddle went on with his preparations, sailing at last without hearing of the sad fate of his superior.