The officers and crew of the Philadelphia reached home in the autumn of 1805, and were welcomed with the warmth that their privations entitled them to receive.
Capt. Bainbridge had married, when a young man, and he now found himself embarrassed in his circumstances, with an increasing family. But few ships were employed, and there were officers senior to himself to command them. The half-pay of his rank was then only $600 a year, and he determined to get leave to make a voyage or two, in the merchant service, in order to repair his fortunes. He had been appointed to the navy yard at New York, however, previously to this determination, but prudence pointed out the course on which he had decided. A voyage to the Havana, in which he was part owner, turned out well, and he continued in this pursuit for two years; or from the summer of 1806, until the spring of 1808. In March of the latter year, he was ordered to Portland, and, in December following, he was transferred to the command of the President 44, then considered the finest ship in the navy. Owing to deaths, resignations, and promotions, the list of captains had undergone some changes since the passage of the reduction-law. It now contained thirteen names, a number determined by an act passed in 1806, among which that of Bainbridge stood the sixth in rank. The difficulties with England, which had produced the armament, seemed on the point of adjustment, and immediate war was no longer expected. Bainbridge hoisted his first broad pennant in the President, having the command on the southern division of the coast; Com. Rodgers commanding at the north. In the summer of 1809 the President sailed on the coast service, and continued under Bainbridge’s orders, until May, 1810, when he left her, again to return to a merchant vessel.
On this occasion Bainbridge went into the Baltic. On his way to St. Petersburg, a Danish cruiser took him, and carried him into Copenhagen. Here, his first thought was of his old friend Nissen. Within half an hour, the latter was with him, and it is a coincidence worthy of being mentioned, that at the very moment the benevolent ex-consul heard of Bainbridge’s arrival, he was actually engaged in unpacking a handsome silver urn, which had been sent to him, as a memorial of his own kindness to them, by the late officers of the Philadelphia.
Through the exertions of this constant friend, Bainbridge soon obtained justice, and his ship was released. He then went up the Baltic. In this trade, Capt. Bainbridge was induced to continue, until the rencontre occurred, between his late ship, the President, and the British vessel of war, the Little Belt. As soon as apprized of this event, he left St. Petersburg, and made the best of his way to the Atlantic coast, over-land. In February, 1812, he reached Washington, and reported himself for service. But no consequences ever followed the action mentioned, and a period of brief but delusive calm succeeded, during which few, if any, believed that war was near. Still it had been seriously contemplated; and, it is understood, the question of the disposition of the navy, in the event of a struggle so serious as one with Great Britain’s occurring, had been gravely agitated in the cabinet. To his great mortification, Bainbridge learned the opinion prevailed that it would be expedient to lay up all the vessels; or, at most, to use them only for harbor defence. Fortunately, the present Com. Stewart, an officer several years the junior of Bainbridge in rank, but one of high moral courage and of great decision of character, happened to be also at the seat of government. After a consultation, these two captains had interviews with the Secretary and President, and, at the request of the latter, addressed to him such a letter as finally induced a change of policy. Had Bainbridge and Stewart never served their country but in this one act, they would be entitled to receive its lasting gratitude. Their remonstrances against belonging to a peace-navy were particularly pungent; but their main arguments were solid and convincing. After aiding in performing this act of vital service to the corps to which he belonged, Bainbridge proceeded to Charlestown, Massachusetts, and assumed the command of the yard.
War was declared on the 18th June, 1812; or shortly after Bainbridge was established at his new post. By this time death had cleared the list of captains of most of his superiors. Murray was at the head of the navy, but too old and infirm for active service. Next to him stood Rodgers; James Barron came third, but he was abroad; and Bainbridge was the fourth. This circumstance entitled him to a command afloat, and he got the Constellation 38, a lucky ship, though not the one he would have chosen, or the one he might justly have claimed in virtue of his commission. But the three best frigates had all gone to sea, in quest of the enemy, and he was glad to get any thing. A few weeks later, Hull came in with the Constitution, after performing two handsome exploits in her, and very generously consented to give her up, in order that some one else might have a chance. To this ship Bainbridge was immediately transferred, and on board her he hoisted his broad pennant on the 15th September, 1812.
The Essex 32, Capt. Porter, and Hornet 18, Capt. Lawrence, were placed under Bainbridge’s orders, and his instructions were to cruise for the English East India trade, in the South Atlantic. The Essex being in the Delaware, she was directed to rendezvous at the Cape de Verdes, or on the coast of South America. The Constitution and Hornet sailed in company, from Boston, on the 26th October, but the events of the cruise prevented the Essex, which ship was commanded by Porter, his old first lieutenant in the Philadelphia, from joining the commodore.
The Constitution and Hornet arrived off St. Salvador on the 13th of December. The latter ship went in, and found the Bonne Citoyenne, an enemy’s cruiser of equal force, lying in the harbor. This discovery led to a correspondence which will be mentioned in the life of Lawrence, and which induced Bainbridge to quit the offing, leaving the Hornet on the look-out for her enemy. On the 26th, accordingly, he steered to the southward, intending to stand along the coast as low as 12° 20′ S., when, about 9, A. M., on the 29th, the ship then being in 13° 6′ S. latitude, and 31° W. longitude, or about thirty miles from the land, she made two strange sail, inshore and to windward. After a little manœuvring, one of the ships closing, while the other stood on towards St. Salvador, Bainbridge was satisfied he had an enemy’s frigate fairly within his reach. This was a fortunate meeting to occur in a sea where there was little hazard of finding himself environed by hostile cruisers, and only sixty-four days out himself from Boston.
In receiving the Constitution from Hull, Bainbridge found her with only a portion of her old officers in her, though the crew remained essentially the same. Morris, her late first lieutenant, had been promoted, and was succeeded by George Parker, a gentleman of Virginia, and a man of spirit and determination. John Shubrick and Beekman Hoffman, the first of South Carolina and the last of New York, two officers who stood second to none of their rank in the service, were still in the ship, however, and Alwyn, her late master, had been promoted, and was now the junior lieutenant.[[4]] In a word, their commander could rely on his officers and people, and he prepared for action with confidence and alacrity. A similar spirit seemed to prevail in the other vessel, which was exceedingly well officered, and, as it appeared in the end, was extra manned.
At a quarter past meridian, the enemy showed English colors. Soon after, the Constitution, which had stood to the southward to draw the stranger off the land, hauled up her mainsail, took in her royals, and tacked toward the enemy. As the wind was light and the water smooth, the Constitution kept every thing aloft, ready for use, closing with the stranger with royal yards across. At 2 P. M. the latter was about half a mile to windward of the Constitution, and showed no colors, except a jack. Bainbridge now ordered a shot fired at him, to induce him to set an ensign. This order, being misunderstood, produced a whole broadside from the Constitution, when the stranger showed English colors again, and returned the fire.
This was the commencement of a furious cannonading, both ships manœuvring to rake and to avoid being raked. Very soon after the action commenced, Bainbridge was hit by a musket ball in the hip; and, a minute or two later, a shot came in, carried away the wheel, and drove a small bolt with considerable violence into his thigh. Neither injury, however, induced him even to sit down; he kept walking the quarter-deck, and attending to the ship, greatly adding to the subsequent inflammation, as these foreign substances were lodged in the muscles of his leg, and, in the end, threatened tetanus. The last injury was received about twenty minutes after the firing commenced, and was even of more importance to the ship than the wound it produced was to her captain. The wheel was knocked into splinters, and it became necessary to steer below.[[5]] This was a serious evil in the midst of a battle, and more particularly in an action in which there was an unusual amount of manœuvring. The English vessel, being very strong manned, was actively handled, and, sailing better than the Constitution in light winds, her efforts to rake produced a succession of evolutions, which caused both ships to ware so often, that the battle terminated several miles to leeward of the point on the ocean at which it commenced.