During the last cruise made by the Constitution in the War of 1812 she was caught in a hurricane and strained so that she leaked badly, and at the last the carpenter, after sounding her well and finding the water gaining rapidly, went to Lieutenant Shubrick, the officer of the deck, and said:

“Sir, the ship is sinking.”

“Well, sir,” replied Shubrick, “as everything in our power is made tight, we must patiently submit to the fate of sailors, and all of us sink or swim together.”

The Constitution did not sink, but the words of the gallant Shubrick show us how the Yankee crew of the Wasp met their fate.

CHAPTER V
ON THE UPPER LAKES IN 1814

AN EXPEDITION INTO LAKE HURON—THE BRITISH HAD THE BEST OF IT IN THE END—GALLANT ACTION OF A BRITISH COMMANDER AT THE HEAD OF THE NIAGARA RIVER—CAUTIOUS CAPTAIN CHAUNCEY AS A KNIGHT OF THE WHIP-SAW, ADZE AND MAUL—HIS EQUALLY PRUDENT OPPONENT—BRITISH TORPEDOES THAT FAILED—WHEN A THOUSAND MEN SUPPORTED BY SEVEN SHIPS ARMED WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE CANNON “WITH GREAT GALLANTRY” ROUTED THREE HUNDRED YANKEES AT OSWEGO—SUPPLIES THE BRITISH DID NOT GET—A NAVAL FLOTILLA CAUGHT IN BIG SANDY CREEK—CHAUNCEY AFLOAT ON THE LAKE—GALLANT YOUNG AMERICAN OFFICERS—LINE OF BATTLE-SHIPS THAT WERE NEVER LAUNCHED.

The story of the deeds of the American naval sailors on the fresh-water seas during 1814 may very well begin with the actions in the extreme west. The Lake Erie victory of September 10, 1813, had annihilated the British naval power west of Niagara Falls, and no attempt to build another British fleet there has been made since that day. Nevertheless, in 1814, there were British successes afloat on both Lake Huron and Lake Erie that showed at once the resourcefulness and bravery of the British officers and men—that proved they were still able to damage the Yankee cause even if without shipping.

As the reader will remember, Perry, when operating on Lake Erie, was subordinate to, though fortunately not under the immediate supervision of, Captain Chauncey, who made his headquarters at Sackett’s Harbor. It would have been fortunate for the American cause had Perry superseded Chauncey, but he was brought to the Atlantic instead, where circumstances prevented his accomplishing anything, while Captain Arthur Sinclair was sent to take charge of the American fleet west of the Niagara, and that region was made an independent station—Sinclair was responsible only to the Navy Department. Sinclair had first seen active service as a midshipman in the Constellation along with Macdonough, under Truxton, when the French frigate Insurgent was whipped. He next appeared in history as the captain of the brig Argus that sailed with the squadron of Rodgers—a squadron of which the United States was a member, and that was the cruise when the Macedonian was captured. The Argus took five merchantmen and reached port in safety—it was something to the credit of an American captain to bring in his ship when one remembers the overwhelming naval force the British kept on the western side of the Atlantic.

Aside from keeping watch over the enemy’s coast of the great lakes to see that no more war-ships were built there, Sinclair had but one thing to do really worth doing, and that was to recapture the important frontier trading post of Mackinaw that the British had surprised on the morning of July 17, 1812, and with an overwhelming force captured without resistance. The American garrison had not even heard that war had been declared! Besides retaking Mackinaw, the Americans wished to destroy some union posts occupied by the British, and damage the British fur trading company as much as possible, because the company’s officials had been the active and efficient agents of the British Government in securing the aid of the western savages with their scalping-knives for attacks on the American settlements.

With the Niagara, the Caledonia, the Ariel, the Scorpion, and the Tigress, Captain Sinclair sailed into Lake Huron late in July, carrying along nearly one thousand soldiers including some militia.