ISAAC HULL.
The American navy has produced many men great in the handling of sailing-ships; but no more capable seaman ever trod the quarter-deck than Isaac Hull. In all of his achievements his faculty of handling his vessel, whether great or small, to the utmost possible advantage, was the most considerable factor in his success; and his tremendous popularity with seamen, who were always eager to ship with him, came from their conviction that in time of stress and danger they had a born sailor to look out for them.
Isaac Hull
Hull was the son of a Revolutionary officer, and was born at Derby, Massachusetts, in March, 1775, shortly before the affairs at Lexington and Concord. His father was taken prisoner and died on one of the Jersey prison ships, and Isaac was adopted by an uncle, General Hull. The means and station of the Hull family were such that a liberal education was within the lad's reach, and he was destined for a course at Yale College. But he early developed a passion for the sea; and his uncle, seeing the boy's determined bent, concluded to let him carry it out. The Continental navy had passed out of existence, and the reorganization did not take place until 1797-98, so that a naval career was not open to him at the start. General Hull, however, did the next best thing possible for the boy, by sending him to sea in a fine ship owned by a friend of the Hull family. Isaac proved himself capable and industrious from the start, and by the time he reached his twenty-first birthday was in command of a small vessel. The desire to hold a commission in the regular navy possessed him, and in March, 1798, he got a fourth lieutenant's commission, which was dated on his twenty-third birthday.
His first cruise was made in the ship in which he was afterward to win such splendid renown,—the Constitution. She was then commanded by Captain Samuel Nicholson. He remained in her for more than two years, and thus became thoroughly familiar with the great frigate,—a knowledge he was eventually to put to good use. In 1800 she was the flagship of Commodore Talbot, in the West Indies, and Hull was her first lieutenant. Commodore Talbot and the captain of a British frigate on that station were friends, and the American and British captains would often discuss the sailing qualities of their respective frigates, the British ship being a good sailer as well as the Constitution. At last a sailing-match was agreed upon, the captains wagering a cask of wine on the result. The two frigates started with a fresh breeze at sunrise, and the contest was to last until the sunset gun was fired. Hull sailed the Constitution, and his seamanship on that day of friendly rivalry was scarcely inferior to that which he displayed when Admiral Broke's squadron of five ships was hounding him on an August day, twelve years after. The Constitution could easily leg it at an eleven-knot gait, with a tolerable breeze, and was almost unapproachable on a wind; but that day, under Hull's skilful handling, she outdid herself, and beat her opponent by several miles. Hull kept the crew on deck the livelong day, and the seamanlike manner in which he beat the English frigate, which was also remarkably well sailed, won the admiration even of his opponents. Hull was too great a seaman himself to underrate either British skill or pluck, and many years after it is told of him that, speaking with a very steady old boatswain, the man remarked, "The British, sir, are hard fellows on salt water."
"I know that,—they are a hard set of fellows, sure enough," was Hull's emphatic reply.
Hull saw no very brilliant service during the hostilities with France in 1799-1800, but he cut out a French letter-of-marque in the harbor of Port Platte, Hayti, in a very handsome manner. He armed a small vessel, the Sally, with men from the Constitution, ran into the harbor in broad daylight, landed a company of marines, who spiked the guns of the fort and carried off the French letter-of-marque in fine style.