From a lithograph at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.
Thirty-five minutes after the Cyane had tacked away, the Newcastle, the leading British ship, opened fire on the Constitution. The ships were close enough for the officers, standing on the hammock-nettings, to see each other, but the shots all fell short, so firing ceased and the ships stood along in the close-hauled race until 3 o’clock, when the Levant had lagged close enough to the enemy to be in real danger. So Captain Stewart signalled her to tack, as the Cyane had done, whereat, to the astonishment of the Yankees, all three of the British frigates tacked after her, and the Constitution sailed away free.
The explanation made by the British writers regarding this remarkable episode is that the commanders of both the Newcastle and the Leander supposed that the little Levant was either the “President, Congress, or Macedonian.” It is difficult for an unbiassed mind to see how this helps them any. Suppose it had been the big Yankee frigate President instead of a little low-decked-sloop-of-war? How did it happen that two frigates, each of which was of greater force than the Yankee President and another that was of but little less force, were needed to capture “the waggon?”
We cannot know what was in the minds of these British captains, but we do know that the British Admiralty had warned the captains of British frigates to take a reef in their “uncircumspect gallantry,” so to speak. They were, as the captain of the Phœbe said when after the Essex, to capture the Yankee frigates with the least possible danger to themselves. They were to take no risks. Granting that these two British captains really made an honest mistake in supposing a little sloop was a big Yankee frigate—granting it, although James called Rodgers a coward for making, as James says he did, a similar mistake—they abandoned the ship which they fully believed to be a frigate to chase a manifestly smaller ship, a ship that we may grant they imagined was the “Congress or Macedonian.”
It is very likely presumptuous for a landsman to tell what lesson is taught by any event at sea, but if the action of these three big British frigates shows anything, it shows the tremendous influence for evil which such orders as that of the British Admiralty are sure to have. Nothing more impressive is to be found in Mahan’s learned work on the influence of the sea power than what he says about the demoralization that followed, among the French naval officers, when a very similar order was issued by the French Marine Department. For the head of a navy department to warn the captains of the naval ships to be prudent—to in any way mention to them any such word as prudence—is to give a shield to those who are by nature cowards, and a blow in the face to those who are by nature brave and ambitious and enterprising. The most serious blunder made by any American in authority during the War of 1812 was made by the Secretary of the Navy when he sent an order to Boston for the Constitution to remain in port after her escape from Broke’s squadron. Had not Captain Hull, with an enterprise and daring that will never be sufficiently praised, taken her to sea without waiting for further orders, these stories of American victories afloat would never have been written, and the war would have ended—who can say how it would have ended?
It remained for the British Admiralty to make the blunder which our Secretary tried to make—and so the Constitution escaped from the British squadron off the Cape de Verde, and the great British squadron chased the little Levant back into the neutral port.
There, when the Levant had anchored, they surrounded her, and assisted by the escaped prisoners who had captured and manned the Portuguese battery on shore, they fired broadside after broadside at her. They were at a range of their own choosing. They were in the harbor where the water was a dead-flat level, and they continued their fire for fifteen minutes without a single shot striking her hull.
At the end of that time the Yankee lieutenant (Ballard) who commanded the little sloop, thinking that they might eventually hit her and hurt somebody, hauled down his flag.
Sir George Collier, who commanded the British squadron in this chase, committed suicide ten years later because his utter failure was thrown into his face at a public gathering.
The Cyane reached New York on April 10th, and the Constitution returned to Boston in May, to learn that the war was really ended when the battle took place. The Congress awarded a gold medal and a sword to Captain Stewart, and silver medals to the other officers under him for “gallantry, good-conduct, and services in the capture of the British vessels-of-war, the Cyane and Levant, and a brave and skilful combat.”