The Congress gave Decatur a gold medal and each of his officers a silver medal. States and municipalities hastened to vote swords, resolutions and receptions. Lieutenant Allen was promoted. Eventually the United States, the Macedonian and the Hornet were fitted for sea and sailed through the Sound, but they met a British squadron of two seventy-fours and a frigate, and were obliged to take refuge in New London. Only the Hornet succeeded in escaping the blockade thereafter maintained, and what she did will be told further on.

As for the rest of the American squadron that sailed under Commodore Rodgers with the United States, it should be said that Rodgers in the President, with the Congress as a consort, chased the British frigate Nymphe on October 10, 1812, but failed to catch her. The Yankee frigates, it will be observed, did not prove faster than all of the British frigates, as it had been hoped they would do. The two captured a prize on the Banks of Newfoundland on October 18th that had $200,000 in coin on board. Then they chased the frigate Galatea, and failed to catch her, and eventually, on December 31st, came into Boston after having taken nine prizes.

The Argus, next to the United States, won most glory. After parting from the United States she cruised eastward and captured six prizes, one of which she took and manned while a British squadron was in chase of her. The enemy arrived so near that they opened fire, but by cutting away anchors and boats and starting some water, she escaped, although the chase lasted during three days and three moonlight nights. She reached home on January 3d.

CHAPTER VIII
WHEN THE CONSTITUTION SANK THE JAVA

THE BRITISH HAD PLENTY OF PLUCK, AND LAMBERT WAS A SKILFUL SEAMAN; BUT HIS GUNNERS HAD NOT LEARNED TO SHOOT, WHILE THE YANKEES WERE ABLE MARKSMEN—THE JAVA WAS RUINED BEYOND REPAIR—PROOF THAT THE BRITISH PUBLISHED GARBLED REPORTS OF BATTLES WITH THE AMERICANS—THOUGH TWICE WOUNDED, BAINBRIDGE REMAINED ON DECK—WIDE DIFFERENCE IN LOSSES—STORY OF A MIDSHIPMAN—WHEN BAINBRIDGE WAS A MERCHANT CAPTAIN.

On the morning of December 29, 1812, the Constitution, Commodore William Bainbridge commanding, was cruising along the coast of Brazil under short sail, about thirty miles to the southward and eastward of the old city of Bahia (then called San Salvador). A gentle breeze, a swirl, perhaps, of the southeast trades, was blowing from the north and east, and the long, low swells of the sea were roughed and flecked over with the tiny, white-capped waves that delight the eye of the sailor in tropical seas. The Constitution had sailed from Boston some weeks before in company with the Hornet, bound on a long voyage for the destruction of the enemy’s commerce, and the Essex had sailed from the Delaware at about the same date, intending to join these two in the waters where the Constitution was now cruising. Of the doings of the three ships up to the day mentioned something will be told further on, but at 9 o’clock on this morning the look-out on the Constitution hailed the deck and announced two sails to the north and inshore. As the event proved, the two sails were ships, one the British frigate Java, Captain Henry Lambert, and the other the American merchant ship William, that had been captured two weeks before that time. As the crew of the Constitution watched the two sails it was observed that one of them was making sail in chase, while the other headed away on a different course, and it was therefore plain that the coming ship was a man-o’-war looking for a fight.

Billet-Head of the Constitution.

From the original at the Naval Institute, Annapolis.

An hour later the Java was near enough to read signals, and she spread to the breeze a variety of small flags—the private ones by which the British ships were to recognize each other. These, of course, could not be answered on the Constitution, but Commodore Bainbridge a little later hoisted the American private signal. When this was not answered, Commodore Bainbridge eased away his sheets and ran off to the southeasterly to get further off shore, where he could have abundant sea-room. This was done at about 11 o’clock. The Java at once headed after her, taking a course that would keep the weather-gauge, and for two hours that was what a yachtsman would call a very pretty ladies’-day race, with the honors (sad to relate, so far as a race is to be considered) all with the Java. She was much the swifter vessel.