It was a lovely day, warm enough for most of them to be very comfortable on deck while the sun was shining. The older people sat together chatting in a lively way while the children roamed the deck.
At length Elsie Raymond came and sat down beside her father.
“Tired, daughter?” he asked kindly.
“Not so very much, papa, but I think I’d like to hear a naval story—it seems as if it would be suitable while we are here on a vessel, and I feel sure you must know a good many of them.”
He laughed a little at that. “Perhaps I do,” he said, “and I suppose it is natural for a naval officer’s daughter to crave naval stories. Shall I tell you of the fight between the Wasp and Frolic—a fight that took place during our last war with England?
“Oh, yes, papa,” she answered eagerly, at the same time beckoning to the other children to come. They understood, hastened to gather about the captain, and he began at once.
“Near the middle of October, 1812—you know we were then at war with England—the American gun sloop Wasp, with Jacob Jones for captain, and a crew of one hundred and thirty-seven men, left the Delaware and sailed southeast to get into the tracks of the West India traders. On the next day she met a heavy gale, in which she lost her jib-boom and two men who were on it. By the seventeenth the weather had moderated somewhat and she discovered several sail, which were part of a fleet of armed merchantmen from Honduras, bound for England, under convoy of the British eighteen-gun brig-sloop of war Frolic, of nineteen guns and one hundred and ten men, and commanded by Captain Whinyates.
“Those vessels had been dispersed by the gale the Wasp had passed through. The Frolic had spent the day in repairing damages, and by dark six of her convoy had rejoined her. Four of them mounted from sixteen to eighteen guns each.