CHAPTER VII
"DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP!"
The second year of the war by sea opened brilliantly enough to satisfy the American people, who were now in a mood to expect too much of their navy. In February the story of the Wasp and the Frolic was repeated by two ships of precisely the same class. The American sloop-of-war Hornet had sailed to South America with the Constitution and was detached to blockade, in the port of Bahia, the British naval sloop Bonne Citoyenne, which contained treasure to the amount of half a million pounds in specie. Captain James Lawrence of the Hornet sent in a challenge to fight, ship against ship, pledging his word that the Constitution would not interfere, but the British commander, perhaps mindful of his precious cargo, declined the invitation. Instead of this, he sensibly sent word to a great seventy-four at Rio de Janeiro, begging her to come and drive the pestiferous Hornet away.
The British battleship arrived so suddenly that Captain Lawrence was compelled to dodge and flee in the darkness. By a close shave he gained the open sea and made off up the coast. For several weeks the Hornet idled to and fro, vainly seeking merchant prizes, and then off the Demerara River on February 24, 1813, she fell in with the British brig Peacock, that flew the royal ensign. The affair lasted no more than fifteen minutes. The Peacock was famous for shining brass work, spotless paint, and the immaculate trimness of a yacht, but her gunnery had been neglected, for which reason she went to the bottom in six fathoms of water with shot-holes in her hull and thirty-seven of her crew put out of action. The sting of the Hornet had been prompt and fatal. Captain Lawrence had only one man killed and two wounded, and his ship was as good as ever. Crowding his prisoners on board and being short of provisions and water, he set sail for a home port and anchored in New York harbor. He was in time to share with Bainbridge the carnival of salutes, processions, dinners, addresses of congratulation, votes of thanks, swords, medals, prize money, promotion—every possible tribute of an adoring and grateful people.
One of the awards bestowed upon Lawrence was the command of the frigate Chesapeake. Among seamen she was rated an unlucky ship, and Lawrence was confidently expected to break the spell. Her old crew had left her after the latest voyage, which met with no success, and other sailors were reluctant to join her. Privateering had attracted many of them, and the navy was finding it difficult to recruit the kind of men it desired. Lawrence was compelled to sign on a scratch lot, some Portuguese, a few British, and many landlubbers. Given time to shake them together in hard service at sea, he would have made a smart crew of them no doubt, as Isaac Hull had done in five weeks with the men of the Constitution, but destiny ordered otherwise.
In the spring of 1813 the harbor of Boston was blockaded by the thirty-eight-gun British frigate Shannon, Captain Philip Vere Broke, who had been in this ship for seven years. In the opinion of Captain Mahan, "his was one of those cases where singular merit as an officer and an attention to duty altogether exceptional had not yet obtained opportunity for distinction. It would probably be safe to say that no more thoroughly efficient ship of her class had been seen in the British navy during the twenty years' war with France."
Captain Broke was justly confident in his own leadership and in the efficiency of a ship's company, which had retained its identity of organization through so many years of his personal and energetic supervision. Indeed, the captain of the British flagship on the American station wrote: "The Shannon's men were trained and understood gunnery better than any men I ever saw." Every morning the men were exercised at training the guns and in the afternoon in the use of the broadsword, musket, and pike. Twice each week the crew fired at targets with great guns and musketry and the sailor who hit the bull's eye received a pound of tobacco. Without warning Captain Broke would order a cask tossed overboard and then suddenly order some particular gun to sink it. In brief, the Shannon possessed those qualities which had been notable in the victorious American frigates and which were lamentably deficient in the Chesapeake.
Lawrence's men were unknown to each other and to their officers, and they had never been to sea together. The last draft came aboard, in fact, just as the anchor was weighed and the Chesapeake stood out to meet her doom. Even most of her officers were new to the ship. They had no chance whatever to train or handle the rabble between decks. Now Captain Broke had been anxious to fight this American frigate as matching the Shannon in size and power. He had already addressed to Captain Lawrence a challenge whose wording was a model of courtesy but which was provocative to the last degree. A sailor of Lawrence's heroic temper was unlikely to avoid such a combat, stimulated as he was by the unbroken success of his own navy in duels between frigates.
On the first day of June, Captain Broke boldly ran into Boston harbor and broke out his flag in defiance of the Chesapeake which was riding at anchor as though waiting to go to sea. Instantly accepting the invitation, Captain Lawrence hoisted colors, fired a gun, and mustered his crew. In this ceremonious fashion, as gentlemen were wont to meet with pistols to dispute some point of honor, did the Chesapeake sail out to fight the waiting Shannon. The news spread fast and wide and thousands of people, as though they were bound to the theater, hastened to the heights of Malden, to Nahant, and to the headlands of Salem and Marblehead, in hopes of witnessing this famous sight. They assumed that victory was inevitable. Any other surmise was preposterous.