During the night the two vessels drifted apart, but at 8 o’clock the next morning the President ranged up and sent Lieutenant Creighton on board the stranger, to “regret the necessity which had led to such an unhappy result,” and offer assistance, if any were needed.
It was then learned that she was the “twenty-gun corvette Little Belt, Commander Arthur B. Bingham.” She had carried a crew of one hundred and twenty-one all told, and of these no less than eleven were killed, and twenty-one wounded—a list of casualties amounting to more than one-fourth of all she carried, although, even by the British account (see Allen) the time that elapsed between the first hail and the last was but half an hour, while the time passed in actual combat did not exceed fifteen minutes. On the President one boy was slightly hurt by a splinter.
The Little Belt Breaking up at Battersea.
From an engraving by Cooke of a drawing by Francia.
In the controversy that followed this conflict the significance of the figures—significance of the deadly fire of the Americans—was wholly lost to sight. The whole affair was, of course, carefully investigated by both Governments. The officers on each ship swore that the other fired the first gun. The British captain’s statement, however, was greatly weakened by his assertion that he had kept up the fight for three-quarters of an hour and that he had really beaten off his bigger opponent. So Allen, already quoted, says that “a gun was fired from each ship, but whether by accident or design, or from which ship first, remains involved in doubt.”
This fight occurred, as the reader remembers, when the two nations were nominally at peace, but it was a blow—the first blow struck at the press-gangs.
Another incident of similar import, though bloodless, occurred before the end of the year 1811. The Constitution, Captain Isaac Hull, had gone to Texel to carry specie for the payment of interest on the American bonds held there, and when returning had called at Portsmouth to enable Captain Hull to communicate with the American legation in London. One night, while the captain was in London, a British officer came on board the Constitution to say that an American deserter was on the British war-ship Havana, lying near by, and the Constitution could have him by sending for him. So the executive officer, Lieutenant Morris, sent a boat next morning, but it came back with a notice that an order for the man must first be obtained from Admiral Sir Roger Curtis. To this official then went Lieutenant Morris, when the admiral calmly informed him that the man claimed to be a British subject, and therefore he should not be returned.
It was fairly manifest that the British officials had for some reason been playing with the temporary commander of the Constitution, but Lieutenant Morris had his revenge within a day, for on the next night a British sailor boarded the Constitution, admitted that he was a deserter from the Havana, and said, when asked his nationality, that he was “An American, sor.”
At that, word was sent the commander of the Havana that a deserter from his ship was on the Constitution, but when an officer from the Havana came after the man, Lieutenant Morris blandly informed him that the man claimed to be an American and therefore he could not be given up.