Looking at the details of the fight from the present time, the most remarkable fact in connection with it seems to be that the Argus endured the raking fire of her antagonist from 6.18 P.M. until 6.45 P.M., although scarcely able to fire a gun in return. With men who were either worn out, or drunk, or both, Lieutenant Allen stubbornly endured the sulphurous and iron storm. That an American crew would do this after the loss of the captain, and of the executive officer as well, was a fact that did not escape the notice of the enemy at the time. However much the report of the affair was exaggerated by the British writers, the British authorities knew the real facts. It was a defeat, but the Americans compelled respect even in this, that was, all things considered, one of the most unfortunate defeats suffered at sea during the war.

How it was particularly unfortunate appears from a consideration first of the losses. The Argus sailed with one hundred and thirty-seven men, but had manned enough prizes to reduce her crew to one hundred and four. The Pelican carried one hundred and sixteen men, but since the Argus had enough men to handle her guns the superiority of numbers on the Pelican was a matter of no importance. But the Argus had ten killed and fourteen wounded, while the Pelican lost but two killed and five wounded. The Argus was a much smaller vessel—she measured but two hundred and sixty-eight tons to the Pelican’s four hundred and sixty-seven, and she could fight with but ten guns, throwing two hundred and ten pounds of metal at a broadside, to the Pelican’s eleven guns throwing two hundred and eighty pounds of metal. Nevertheless, the difference in losses was much greater than the difference in forces. It has been asserted that the American fire proved ineffective because the powder used after the first few rounds was from a lot taken from a prize that was bound to South America, loaded with what is known in commercial circles as “export powder”—a very inferior quality. If Captain Allen permitted this it shows he was not well posted in the tricks of the British export trade of his day. It is not denied that the Pelican’s sides were full of dents where the Yankee’s shot struck but did not penetrate. Still the most reasonable explanation of the inferiority of the Americans’ fire is in the fact that they had captured a wine-ship. By the modern standard of morals it would be disgraceful to allow a ship’s crew to drink of a captured cargo of wine. In that day the standard of morals was different. Then, and for many years afterward, grog was served to all hands at least once every day in every naval ship afloat in the world. The men of the Argus had been working as never before in their lives for a month. It was entirely natural that some extra grog should be allowed them when the wine was captured, and it was entirely natural for the men to take too much.

A writer who lived at the time of the battle said of the result of it:

“We admit that the Argus was taken by a British sloop-of-war whose force was not materially greater than hers. It is one of those rare accidents which sometimes occur in the course of worldly events, and which, defying all calculation, and being in direct contradiction, not only to the usual course of events, but to the ordinary effects of known and acknowledged causes, are set down by the worldly as resulting from chance; by the orthodox as the effect of a miracle. We will not stain the memory of gallant but unsuccessful men by stating in extenuation of defeat that they were unskilful, negligent and physically inferior to their opponents.” And that is a very proper view to take of the whole matter. Even the British historian Allen says “no disgrace attached to the vanquished.”

For the consolation of the American patriot, however, it is worth comparing this fight with that between the Hornet and the Peacock. In the Hornet-Peacock fight the American forces were just about as much superior to the British as was the Pelican to the Argus, for the Argus carried short twenty-fours as did the British Peacock. But the Hornet sank the Peacock in fourteen minutes, while the Pelican was not able to subdue the Argus until after forty-five minutes. Worse yet, although firing at the closest range, the crew of the Pelican scarcely hurt the hull of the Argus—although she drifted practically as an idle target for almost twice fourteen minutes, the British gunners made so little impression on her hull that no writer of the time thought it worth while to tell just what they really did accomplish on her hull. And if the victories which the second American Wasp won over the Frolic, and the third American Wasp won over the British Avon, and the American Peacock won over the British Epervier be considered, it is found that they, too, outweighed the victory of the Pelican as did that of the Hornet.

But if this fails to console the extreme American patriot—the “jingo” of these days—he has only to consider the effect of this victory of the British, together with that over the Chesapeake, upon the British themselves. That the announcement of the victory of the Shannon should have been cheered vociferously in Parliament; that the guns of London Tower should have been fired to express the national jubilation; that Broke should have been made a baronet; that the victory over the little Argus should have filled the nation anew with joy—where can one find as flattering an acknowledgment of the prowess of the American Navy as all this? The people whose “maritime supremacy had become a part of the law of nations” were not now fighting either Frenchmen or Spaniards.

The Argus was at once taken by a prize-crew to Plymouth. Captain Allen had had his leg amputated by his own surgeon when carried below. On arrival at Plymouth, he was taken to the Mill Prison hospital, where he died on August 18th. He was buried on August 21st, with the highest military honors, because in his treatment of both the passengers and the crews of all the ships he had captured, he had shown that he was a typical American gentleman. His name was given to a street in New York City to remind the wayfarer of his deeds.

CHAPTER XVII
THE LUCK OF A YANKEE CRUISER

THERE WAS NEVER A MORE FORTUNATE VESSEL THAN THE CLIPPER-SCHOONER ENTERPRISE—AS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED SHE WAS THE SWIFTEST AND BEST ALL-AROUND NAVAL SHIP OF HER CLASS AFLOAT—MEN SHE MADE FAMOUS IN THE WEST INDIES—A GLORIOUS CAREER IN THE WAR WITH THE MEDITERRANEAN PIRATES—EVEN WHEN THE WISDOM OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT CHANGED HER TO A BRIG AND OVERLOADED HER WITH GUNS SO THAT SHE “COULDN’T GET OUT OF HER OWN WAY,” HER LUCK DID NOT FAIL HER—HER FIGHT WITH THE BOXER—EVEN A GOOD FRIGATE COULD NOT CATCH HER.

If the reader would like to learn the story of the luckiest American naval ship let him look up the details of the career of the little cruiser Enterprise, for of all the vessels that have carried the gridiron flag on the salt seas, or on any other seas, not one has had the credit of as many victories as she. Modelled with the finest lines known in the ship-yards of her day, she was launched in the year 1800, rigged as a schooner, armed with twelve six-pounders, and was then sent under Lieutenant John Shaw to the West Indies in search of the French privateers that were preying there on American commerce. In a brief time she had taken eight of these privateers. Among them were included l’Agile, a vessel of practically the same weight of metal and of almost an equal crew, whose captain was noted as the most daring of his kind in that region, and the Flambeau, a larger vessel mounting twelve nine-pounders to the Enterprise’s twelve sixes, and carrying a crew of one hundred and ten to the Enterprise’s eighty-three. And that this Frenchman was both brave and persistent is amply shown by the fact that he did not surrender until forty out of his one hundred and ten men had been killed and wounded, leaving but seventy able to fight. A year later she was in the Mediterranean under Lieutenant Andrew Sterrett, and on August 1st she fell in with the Tripolitan polacre Tripoli, a vessel of fourteen guns and eighty men. So stubborn was the resistance of this pirate that he would not surrender until twenty of his men had been killed and thirty wounded out of the crew of eighty. The Enterprise did not lose a man. It was the Enterprise that captured the ketch Mastico, rechristened the Intrepid, with which Decatur entered Tripoli Harbor and burned the Philadelphia. And so the story runs.