From a painting by Sully, at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.
On working her way homeward the Constitution fell in with the thirty-six-gun British frigate La Pique, Captain Maitland, off Porto Rico. Time had been, and that not so long before, when a British frigate of that size would have come booming down on the Constitution eager for a fight. But the results of a few such boomings had taken the “uncircumspect gallantry” out of the British Admiralty if not out of all the British commanders. Captain Maitland had written orders not to engage a ship of the weight of the Constitution, and he up-helm and ran for it. Night coming on, he escaped through Mona passage. James says that the crew of La Pique felt so very badly when they found that they were to run instead of fight, that they positively refused to take their evening’s allowance of grog.
The Constitution arrived off Cape Ann on April 3, 1814, and there found the two big British frigates Junon and Tenedos in chase of her. By throwing over provisions and starting her water the Constitution reached the harbor of Marblehead. This port was undefended by forts, and it is asserted by the British that Captain Parker, of the Tenedos, wanted to go in and have a fight, but was prevented by Captain Upton, of the Junon, who was the ranking officer. In any event, they did not go in nor did they prevent the Constitution leaving Marblehead for Salem soon afterward. Then she returned to Boston once more and there she remained until December 17, 1814, when she sailed out of Boston, still under command of Captain Stewart, while the blockading ships were temporarily off port. And then came the cruise in which, as Maclay says, “she achieved her greatest triumph and performed her most brilliant service.”
The Constitution’s Escape from the Tenedos and Junon.
From an old wood-cut.
The news that “the Constitution is again cruising,” was quickly learned on the blockading squadron on its return to the station, for the British had spies a-plenty in all American ports, and especially among the Federalist party in New England. The dread announcement was sent by every passing British vessel in all directions, “and thereafter British ships-of-the-line maintained a double lookout, and their smaller frigates sailed in couples, while their sloops-of-war stood away from every sail that bore the least resemblance to the Constitution.”
On December 24th, off the Bermudas, the British merchant-ship Lord Nelson was taken. She sailed thence by the way of the Madeiras to the Portuguese coast, and there “for several days cruised within sight of the Rock of Lisbon.” Here, on February 18, 1815, Captain Stewart went in chase of the big liner Elizabeth without knowing what he was after, but he left her to follow a smaller sail seen a little later, and so fell in with a British merchant-ship, the Susan, which was taken.
Meantime, the British liner arrived at Lisbon, where he learned that the Constitution was offshore. And as it happened, the British frigate Tiber was there and the Tiber was commanded by the Captain Dacres who had been so handsomely beaten in the Guerrière by the Constitution under Hull. Straightway the two started in chase of the Yankee, but they never had the satisfaction of overtaking her. For the Constitution, with equal, if not greater, speed, was returning once more down-wind toward the Madeiras.
A right curious story of this passage is told by Richard Watson Gilder in “Hours at Home.” He says that, on February 19th, while a group of lieutenants were standing on the quarter-deck of the Constitution talking about the fact that they had met no enemy of equal force during the cruise, and calling it ill-luck, they were approached by Captain Stewart, who had overheard their talk. He said: