Stewart, however, was cool enough for the emergency, and had all hands called to their quarters to go out and meet the new ship, but when this was done two other huge sails were seen and it became evident that three large frigates were coming into the harbor. As was eventually learned, they were the fifty-gun frigate Newcastle, Captain Lord George Stewart; the fifty-gun frigate Leander, Captain Sir Ralph Collier, K.C.B., and the forty-gun Acasta, Captain Robert Kerr, ships that should have been blockading Boston when the Constitution escaped. Either of the larger ships was an overmatch for the Constitution. It was a neutral port, but the British regard for neutrality had been shown at Valparaiso and Fayal, and there was nothing to do but to run for liberty.
Signalling to his prizes to follow, Captain Stewart cut his cable, and so well-trained were the American officers and men that within ten minutes from the time the first ship of the enemy was seen, the Constitution and her two prizes were standing out of the harbor together. Though less spectacular than the manœuvres in the battle, the celerity, skill, and unanimity with which the Americans executed this movement show their seamanship quite as plainly.
As the American ships sailed through the fog the guns in the battery on shore began to roar. A number of prisoners who had been on shore on the business of fitting the cartel for sea had taken possession of the Portuguese forts and were firing signal-guns to attract the attention of the British ships. But the British ships were coming from the south—they were beating up against a good northeast breeze, and the Yankee and her prizes hugged the east side of the port and slipped out very well to windward of the enemy.
Until clear of the north point of the harbor the Yankees sailed under nothing higher than their top-sails; not even their higher yards were across, and so it happened that they escaped the eyes of the British lookouts. But when the point was cleared, top-gallant sail and royal-yards were crossed and the sails instantly spread to the breeze, to the astonishment of the lookouts perched above the fog-bank on the British ships. To them it was as if the Yankee sails had grown by magic up into the air and were sailing unsupported on the top of a cloud.
But if magical to the lookouts, it was sober business for the commanders below, who, by a series of “blunders” (James says so), had happened on the retreat of the ship they had failed to hold in Boston, and a race began such as had rarely stirred the souls of those engaged.
Once clear of land the Constitution cut adrift two boats that were towing astern. She was only a mile or so to windward of the enemy, and as the point was cleared, all six of the ships were on the port tack lying close up to the wind. The Constitution’s log says that at 12.50 o’clock she was holding her own with the Newcastle and Leander, on her lee quarter, while the Acasta, about dead astern, was dropping out of the race. And the log of the Acasta notes that the Constitution was gaining on her while she herself gained on the two prizes.
At 1.10 Captain Stewart ordered the Cyane to tack, and Lieutenant Hoffman, in command, obeyed. The Cyane was rapidly dropping into the clutches of the enemy before that, but now she sailed away and escaped altogether, the three British ships holding after the Constitution and Levant.
Charles Stewart
(and the Battle of the Constitution with the Cyane and Levant).