Meantime a separate battle was going on at the rear of the line. Here the British had their strongest gunboats, and the Americans their weakest. It was upon the "Preble" that the attack was first directed, and after a time the gunboats succeeded in making her berth too warm, and cutting her cable she drifted in to leeward. After this repulse she was not again engaged. In a short time the "Finch," attempting to carry the "Ticonderoga," was disabled by two well-aimed broadsides, and she also drifted out of the fight, at last going ashore on Crab Island, where she struck to the neighboring battery. The "Ticonderoga" was now pressed hard by the English gunboats, which attacked her with great dash and energy; but Lieutenant Cassin, who commanded her, defended her valiantly, standing on the taffrail amid a shower of grape and canister, and beating back the assailants as they crowded around his little sloop. It was thus due to Cassin's vigorous efforts that the rear was held so firmly on that trying day.
The fight had now been going on for an hour or more, and the critical point in the battle had been reached, when the forces of both sides were nearly exhausted, and the next move meant victory or defeat. The "Ticonderoga" might still hold the rear, and the "Eagle" could make some reply to the "Confiance;" but the "Saratoga" had not a gun left on her starboard side, which was toward the enemy, and the "Linnet," unopposed, had stationed herself off the American flagship's bow, and was raking her without resistance. To remain where she was meant destruction to the "Saratoga." Now, then, was the time to use the appliances which MacDonough's careful forethought had provided. He resolved to wind the ship, so that his port broadside could be brought to bear. It was a difficult and dangerous process in the face of the enemy's fire, for if once his men should be thrown into confusion all would be lost. But with the captain standing on the quarter-deck, calm and collected, there was no danger that any one would lose his head. The stream anchor was let go astern, and the hawser, bent to the kedge on the starboard bow, which had been carried to the starboard quarter, was hauled in until the ship was half-way round. Then the men clapped on a line bent to the stream anchor, and pulled and tugged, but with all their efforts they could only swing her far enough to make one gun bear on the "Confiance." Instantly this was manned and opened fire. But this was not enough. The ship now hung with her stern exposed to the raking fire of the "Linnet." Something must be done, and quickly. What should it be? There still remained the other kedge, planted broad off the port bow. That alone could accomplish the result. Its hawser, leading to the port quarter, was carried forward, passed under the bow and then aft on the other side, where the crew roused on it with a will. It seemed not much, but it was enough, and in a few minutes more the "Saratoga" was heading south, and firing at the "Confiance" from a clean, fresh, broadside battery.
This ended the battle. The "Confiance" herself, attempting to wind, was caught when half-way round, and after enduring a few moments of the "Saratoga's" fresh fire, struck her colors and surrendered. The "Linnet" held out a little longer, but it was a useless struggle, and she too hauled down her flag.
It was a complete victory. The enemy were more than defeated,—they were annihilated, their squadron wiped out of existence. Lake Champlain, which till this point in the war had been almost a British lake, was now delivered up without a possibility of recovery. Sir George Prevost, seeing the issue of the battle in the bay, made only a feeble demonstration against Plattsburg, and soon he was in full retreat to Canada, and New York was saved from the threatened invasion.
CHAPTER XVII.
STEWART AND "OLD IRONSIDES."
During the latter part of the war, as might have been foreseen, there was little opportunity for American frigates to show that they could keep up the fame they had so gloriously won. The British were determined that none of them that ventured out to sea should escape; and by stationing a squadron, which their great resources enabled them to do, before each port where a frigate lay, they succeeded in keeping it cooped up and inactive. No longer were offers made by British captains, like that of the chivalrous Broke before Boston, to send away part of their vessels, leaving one to fight a duel with the frigate that was in the harbor. A steady watch was kept up before each port by the whole blockading squadron. The "Constellation," which had won such high renown under Truxtun in the French war, sailed from Washington down the Chesapeake Bay; but falling in with the heavy squadron of the enemy near Hampton Roads, composed of ships-of-the-line and frigates, she took refuge at Norfolk, and here or in the river below she remained blockaded till the end of the war. The "President" was lying at New York, and off the port were the "Majestic" (razee) and three frigates,—the "Endymion," "Pomone," and "Tenedos." The "United States" and "Macedonian," after getting out from New York though Hell Gate, encountered the British squadron of a line-of-battle ship and two frigates at the eastern entrance of the Sound, and put in to New London, where they lay in the mud for eighteen months unable to get out. The "Constitution," under Captain Stewart at Boston, found herself checked in the same way by a squadron of heavy frigates.
The "Adams," which had been a 28-gun frigate, but which was now a corvette, managed to slip out from Washington in January, 1814, under the command of Charles Morris, who had been promoted to a captain for his service in the battle with the "Guerrière" seventeen months before. Six months were passed in cruising, part of the time off the Irish coast, but with no great success; for Morris was not fortunate in meeting prizes of any value, and once or twice he narrowly escaped the enemy's larger frigates. At length the scurvy showed itself among the crew, and the ship was turned toward home. But it was almost as difficult for American ships to get in as to get out. About the middle of August Morris arrived off the coast of Maine, where unluckily for him he sighted the English sloop "Rifleman," which he chased, but which escaped in the fog. Soon after the "Adams" went ashore at the mouth of the Penobscot River, and when she got off, Morris found her so much injured that he resolved to go several miles up the river to Hampden, where he could refit, as there were ship-yards all along the bank.