All day the wind was light, or there was a dead calm. The Constitution took advantage of every puff, and she got out her boats and tried to tow out of danger. Then, finding she was in about twenty fathom water, she took all the spare rope that could be found, and bent it to a kedge, which was carried ahead about half a mile and dropped. As soon as the kedge took the ground, the crew hauled away on the rope, walking aft with it as fast as they could; and in this way the ship moved away as though she had a steam-engine on board. The maneuver was repeated several times before the British discovered it, and then they tried the same trick.
Well, to make a long story short, that chase was kept up for three days in light wind or dead calm, the Constitution managing to keep just out of range and no more. All the ships had every stitch of canvas out, and the men were kept in the tops to wet down the sails and make them draw as much as possible. It's a wonder the Constitution escaped, when we remember she had five ships closing around her, two of them being right abeam of her at one time for several hours, one on the starboard and the other on the larboard.
The sailor who told me about the chase said that all through it everything on the Constitution was in the best of order, and all the evolutions were performed as though the ship had been lying at anchor in port. The chase was brought to an end by a squall. It came suddenly, and lasted only an hour; and the Constitution used it to such advantage that, when the clouds blew away, she was far ahead of the nearest of her pursuers, and they fired two guns to leeward as a signal that they gave up the struggle.
After escaping from the British fleet, as I have just described, the Constitution went into Boston to refit, and sailed from there on the second of August, in the hope of falling in with some one of the English war-ships that were cruising along the coast between Halifax and Nantucket. Captain Hull, her commander, was particularly anxious to fall in with the Guerrière and fight her single-handed; but it was not his fortune to meet her or any other British war-ship between Boston and the Bay of Fundy. Then Captain Hull cruised eastward, capturing a few merchant vessels, and then turned to the south. On the 19th of August his spirits were cheered by the report of a sail in sight; and he immediately gave chase in her direction.
She was soon made out to be a frigate, and the chances were largely in favor of her being British. She showed a willingness to meet the Constitution, and the captain ordered the decks cleared and everything made ready for a fight. The stranger hung out British colors, and was at length made out to be the Guerrière, the very ship that Hull was looking for.
The ships maneuvered for nearly an hour, the Englishman endeavoring to get in a position to rake the American, and at the same time avoid being raked himself. Both ships dodged about for a good while, and it was six o'clock in the evening before they got fairly together.
CHAPTER XVIII.
DESTRUCTION OF THE GUERRIÈRE BY THE CONSTITUTION.—CAPTAIN HULL'S WAGER.—HOW I TRICKED A BRITISH CAPTAIN.—DAVID'S RUSE.—FORTUNE FROWNS.