NO doubt most of my readers know very well what a wasp is and how nicely it can take care of itself. When I was a boy I found out more than once how long and sharp a sting it has, and I do not think many boys grow up without at some time waking up a wasp and wishing they had left it asleep.
The United States has had three Wasps and one Hornet in its navy, and the British boys who came fooling in their way found that all of them could sting. I will tell you about the time one of our Wasps met the British Frolic and fought it in a great gale, when the ships were tossing about like chips on the ocean billows.
Not long after the Constitution had her great fight with the Guerriere, a little sloop-of-war named the Wasp set sail from Philadelphia to see what she could find on the broad seas. This vessel, you should know, had three masts and square sails like a ship. But she was not much larger than one of the sloops we see on our rivers to-day, so it was right to call her a sloop. For captain she had a bold sailor named Jacob Jones.
The first thing the Wasp found at sea was a mighty gale of wind, that blew "great guns" for two days. The waves were so big and fierce that one of them carried away her bowsprit with two men on it. The next night, after the wind had gone down a little, lights shone out across the waves, and when daylight came Captain Jones saw over the heaving billows six large merchant ships. With them was a watch-dog in the shape of a fighting brig.
This brig was named the Frolic. It had been sent in charge of a fleet of fourteen merchantmen, but these had been scattered by the gale until only six were left. The Frolic was a good match for the Wasp, and seemed to want a fight quite as badly, for it sailed for the American ship as fast as the howling wind would let it. And you may be sure the Wasp did not fly away.
Captain Jones hoisted his country's flag like a man. He was not afraid to show his true colors. But the Frolic came up under the Spanish flag. When they got close together Captain Jones hailed,—
"What ship is that?"
The only answer of the British captain was to pull down the Spanish flag and run up his own standard, stamped with the red cross of St. George. And as the one flag went down and the other went up, the Frolic fired a broadside at the Wasp. But just then the British ship rolled over on the side of a wave, and its balls went whistling upward through the air. The Yankee gunners were more wide-awake than that. They waited until their vessel rolled down on the side of a great billow, and then they fired, their solid shot going low, and tearing into the Frolic's sides.
The fighting went that way all through the battle. The British gunners did not know their business and fired wild. The Yankees knew what they were about, and made every shot tell. They had sights on their guns and took aim; the British had no sights and took no aim. That is why the Americans were victors in so many fights.
But I think there was not often a sea-fight like this. The battle took place off Cape Hatteras, which is famous for its storms. The wind whistled and howled; the waves rose into foaming crests and sank into dark hollows; the fighting craft rolled and pitched. As they rolled upward the guns pointed at the clouds. As they rolled downward the muzzles of the guns often dipped into the foam. Great masses of spray came flying over the bulwarks, sweeping the decks. The weather and the sailors both had their blood up, and both were fighting for all they were worth. It was a question which would win, the wind or the men.