Soon after the attack began, Captain Bainbridge was wounded by a musket-ball in the hip, but he refused to leave his post. A few minutes later a piece of langrage entered his thigh, causing intense pain; but still he stayed on deck directing the movement of his ship as calmly as if his men were at drill instead of in battle. The firing had now lasted forty minutes, and no great damage had been done, owing to the distance between the ships; Bainbridge became impatient, and determined to close with the "Java" in spite of her raking. So he set his foresail and mainsail, and luffed up close to her, pouring in that furious fire for which the American frigates were to acquire their greatest fame.
In a few minutes the head of the "Java's" bowsprit was shot away. Bainbridge now wore ship, and the "Java," as the quickest way to get about, tacked; but unfortunately for her, her headsails were gone, and after coming up in the wind she paid off slowly. The American captain, ever on the watch, saw his opportunity, and luffing up astern of her, as she was in the midst of her manœuvre, raked her deck; then wearing again, he resumed his course and the "Java" was once more alongside. But she had better be anywhere else; for the American gunners, cool and steady, were now firing with fatal precision. She seemed to have become a mere target floating alongside. Captain Lambert bore up toward the "Constitution," trying to get on board; but at this instant his foremast fell and his design was frustrated. A few minutes more, and the "Java's" maintopmast tottered and came down; next the gaff and spanker boom were shattered; and finally down came the mizzen-mast, leaving her nothing but the ragged stump of the main-mast above the deck. On all sides the men were falling at the guns, under the withering fire of grape-shot from the "Constitution." Captain Lambert was mortally wounded, and the command fell to Lieutenant Chads, the first lieutenant, who refused to believe himself beaten. But he could do nothing; his fire ceased, and as the clouds of smoke rolled away they disclosed on the one hand a dismasted wreck, and on the other a frigate sound and whole, except for some slight damage to her spars and rigging. So there was nothing left for him but surrender.
In this gallant action—gallant on the enemy's side as well as on our own—the "Constitution" had thirty-four killed and wounded, and the "Java" one hundred and fifty. Captain Lambert died soon after of his wounds. Among the prisoners was General Hislop, the Governor of Bombay, who was on his way to assume his post. The General and all the other prisoners, whom Captain Bainbridge treated with the utmost courtesy and kindness, were paroled, and landed at San Salvador. The ship could not be taken into port, and two days after the action, on New Year's eve, she was set on fire and blown up. The "Constitution" now gave up her cruise in the Pacific and returned to the United States.
With this battle ended the year 1812, the most memorable that ever occurred in the history of our navy. For though gallant things had been done before this time, during the Revolution and the war with Tripoli, and though in the later wars, as well as in the later years of this same war, the record of naval achievements showed no falling off in brilliancy, there was a splendor so full, so dazzling, and so unexpected about this uninterrupted succession of triumphs on the ocean, that it would be hard to describe in words the depths to which it stirred the nation. That despised and belittled navy,—despised alike at home and abroad,—which the Government had proposed at the outbreak of war to lay up, that it might be kept out of harm's way as a plaything and an ornament fit only for peaceful use, had shown itself a most terrible engine of offensive war. Those much-abused frigates, of which we had but half a dozen for the nation's defence, had met the frigates of Great Britain in battle, and had conquered,—conquered the victors of Camperdown and Cape St. Vincent, of Aboukir and Trafalgar; beaten them on their own ground in honest hard fighting, beaten them thrice over, and beaten them as they had never been beaten before. The bitter strife of political parties, the truckling to this or that foreign State, which had vexed the councils of the nation for twenty years, and lowered the self-respect of Americans, was cast aside in united rejoicings at the success with which Hull, Decatur, and Bainbridge had asserted and maintained American independence and the rights of American citizens; and the country at last began to look upon the navy as its best protection, and as the stanchest supporter of the national honor.
The frigate actions of 1812 had produced results almost as marked in England as in America. For twenty years English ships had been accustomed to victory over every enemy, even in the face of heavy odds. The nation looked upon them as invincible. About the Americans it knew so little and cared so little that it had hardly felt any general interest or concern in the war. The loss of the "Guerrière" came upon it like a clap of thunder in a clear sky. Of course some reason must be discovered for so extraordinary an event, and it was said that the frigate was old and rotten, and her powder, was bad. But as capture followed capture, as the "Frolic," the "Macedonian," and the "Java" were surrendered in quick succession, the first murmurs of discontent swelled to an angry outcry. The naval administration was bitterly assailed, and called upon to take more energetic measures. It was necessary to devise something to serve as an excuse for defeat. Then arose that foolish clamor that the frigates of the Americans were not frigates at all, but ships-of-the-line in disguise, and that the naval authorities of Great Britain had been hoodwinked by a Yankee trick into sending frigates to fight them. As if they had not had scores of opportunities—in the Mediterranean, on the American coast, and even in their own ports of Southampton and Gibraltar—to find out what the "Constitution" and her sister ships were like; and as if anything but their own folly and arrogance had prevented them from seeing long before that our constructors had built for us superior frigates!
CHAPTER XII.
CAPTAIN JAMES LAWRENCE.
The two earliest actions of importance in the year 1813, though nearly six months apart in time, belong together, for they form the two great events in the career of one of our bravest officers; and unless I am much mistaken, the second of these events, which ended so tragically in defeat and death, was in great measure a consequence and outcome of the first. All our captains who were actively engaged during the first months of the war had carried out their enterprises gallantly, but still with discretion and circumspection, as became them in fighting against the greatest naval power in the world; but Lawrence, borne beyond the bounds of prudence by one brilliant success, risked most where the danger was greatest, and so came to an untimely end.