The crew of the Reindeer were trained seamen, but they did not know how to shoot. The Americans were Yankee farmer-lads, yet they shot like veteran gunners. I am sure you will think so when I tell you that the British could hardly hit the Wasp at all, though she was less than sixty yards away. But the Yankees hit the Reindeer so often that she was cut to pieces and her masts ready to fall. In fact, after she was captured, she could not be taken into port, but had to be set on fire and blown to pieces.
But I must say a good word for the gallant captain of the Reindeer. First, a musket ball hit him and went through the calves of both legs, but he kept on his feet. Then a grape-shot—an iron ball two inches thick—went through both his thighs. The brave seaman fell, but he rose to his feet again, drew his sword, and called his men to board the Wasp. He was trying to climb on board when a musket ball went through his head. "O God!" he cried, and fell dead.
This fight was in the English Channel, where Blakeley was doing what John Paul Jones had done years before. Two months after the sinking of the Reindeer the Wasp had another fight. This time there were three British vessels, the Avon, the Castilian, and the Tartarus, all of them brig-sloops like the Reindeer. These vessels were scattered, chasing a privateer, and about nine o'clock at night the Wasp came up with the Avon alone. They hailed each other as ships do when they meet at sea. Then, when sure they were enemies, they began firing, as ships do also in time of war. For forty minutes the fight kept up, and then the Avon had enough. She was riddled as the Reindeer had been. But the Wasp did not take possession; for before a boat could be sent on board, the two comrades of the Avon came in sight.
The Wasp, after her battle with the Avon, could not fight two more, so she sailed away and left them to attend to their consort. They could not save her. The Wasp had stung too deeply for that. The water poured in faster than the men of all three ships could pump it out, and at one o'clock in the morning down plunged the Avon's bow in the water, up went her stern in the air, and with a mighty surge she sank to rise no more. But the gallant Wasp had ended her work. She took some more prizes, but the sea, to whose depths she had sent the Reindeer and Avon, took her also. She was seen in October, and that was the last that human eyes ever saw of her.
CHAPTER XV
CAPTAIN LAWRENCE DIES FOR THE FLAG
His Words, "Do Not Give Up the Ship," Become the Famous Motto of the American Navy
THE United States navy had its Hornet as well as its Wasps. And they were well named, for they were all able to sting. The captain of the Hornet was a noble seaman named James Lawrence, who had been a midshipman in the war with Tripoli. In the War of 1812 he was captain in succession of the Vixen, the Wasp, the Argus, and the Hornet.