This was on June 21, 1812. Commodore Rodgers was bound out to intercept a big fleet of British merchantmen sailing home from Jamaica, convoyed only by the thirty-six-gun frigate Thalia and the eighteen-gun corvette Reindeer. This fleet had left Jamaica, it was said, on the 20th, and it was sure to follow the Gulf Stream under very easy sail. But when Rodgers was a short way out to sea an American brig reported the fleet well down the stream (about due east of Boston and well off shore) on June 17th. The fleet had sailed some days earlier than the Americans had supposed. So the squadron hauled to the northeast in pursuit.
At 6 o’clock on the morning of June 23d, when the squadron was thirty-five miles southwest of Nantucket shoals, a sail was seen. It was the thirty-three-gun frigate Belvidera, Captain Byron, that was then lying in wait for a French privateer expected from New London, Connecticut. At once the Belvidera headed toward the American squadron to examine them, but when at 6.30 A.M. she discovered their character she wore around and headed away to the northeast with a smacking breeze over the port quarter and studding-sails set.
At once the Yankees made sail in chase, with the President, the swiftest of the squadron when sailing free, well in the lead. By 11 o’clock the President was near enough to warrant clearing for action, but a shift of wind helped the Belvidera and she held her own until 2 P.M., when another shift favored the President, so that at 4.20 P.M. the Britisher with her colors flying was within range.
Getting behind one of the long bow-chasers on the forecastle of the President, Commodore Rodgers carefully sighted it, and pulling the lanyard, fired the first shot of the war of 1812. It knocked the splinters out of the stern of the flying enemy. The second shot was fired from a bow-chaser on the deck below, and a third was fired on the forecastle. Each of these reached its target. One passed through the rudder-coat, and another, striking the muzzle of a stern-chaser, broke into pieces, which killed two men, severely wounded two more, and slightly wounded three others, including a lieutenant who was aiming the gun.
Guns Secured for a Gale.
From the “Kedge Anchor.”
Greatly elated at the accuracy of their fire, the men working the President’s bow-chaser on the lower deck aimed a fourth shot. A boy with his leather box full of powder-cartridges arrived just as the gunner was pulling his lanyard, and then when the hammer fell the gun exploded and the flames from the splitting breech darted into the open box of powder, setting it off as well.
The explosion knocked the men in all directions, disabled for the moment every one of the bow-chasers, and bursting up the deck above, it threw Commodore Rodgers so violently into the air that when he fell his leg was broken. Of the men standing about the gun two were killed and thirteen wounded.
At that moment the Belvidera opened an effective fire with her stern-chasers, and one of her projectiles came crashing into the President’s bows, and went bounding along the gun-deck, killing a midshipman and wounding a number of seamen. For a time there was not a little confusion on the President, but her crew soon got to work again and began to make it warm on the Belvidera once more. But the mistake of yawing to fire broadsides was made. That “a whole broadside battery will be much less likely to ‘disable a flying enemy’ than the cool and careful use of one well-served gun,” has been amply proven. The yawing gave the Belvidera a gain in the race. That she would have waited for a fight with the President but for the presence of the other ships is not doubted, but, as it was, Captain Byron saw that something desperate must be done to escape, so he threw over his spare anchors and boats and fourteen tons of water in casks. So lightened, he was able to outsail the Yankee squadron and escape.