After an almost uneventful cruise, excepting the capture of the British war schooner Pictou, and a chase by two British frigates, the gallant and "lucky" Constitution remained in Boston eight or nine months. Late in December, 1814, she sailed from Boston for the Bay of Biscay, in command of Captain Charles Stewart, equipped with fifty-two guns and fully manned. She cruised for a while off the port of Lisbon and further southward; and late in February, 1815, she met, fought, and conquered the English frigate Cyane and her consort the Levant. The battle occurred in the night—the moon shining brightly. For fifteen minutes the three vessels kept up an incessant cannonade, and the moon was obscured by a dense cloud of smoke. By superior seamanship as well as gunnery, Stewart vanquished both his antagonists, while the Constitution was only slightly injured.
Stewart sailed with his prizes to Port Praya, Cape de Verde Islands. The next day three large British vessels were dimly seen in a fog approaching. The Constitution slipped out of the harbor under cover of the mist, followed by her prizes. The English vessels gave chase, but Stewart, by expert seamanship, saved his own ship and the Cyane from capture, but the Levant was overtaken and caught. This was the final cruise of the Constitution in the war of 1812-15, for peace had been proclaimed before this victory was achieved. "Old Ironsides" was ever afterward revered by the American people, and she is yet afloat in the service.
In 1814 Lake Champlain as well as Lake Ontario was a theatre of valiant deeds. In September a land and naval force invaded New York from Canada. The Americans had created a little navy on Lake Champlain to oppose the British, and placed it in charge of Commodore Macdonough. The hostile fleets met in Plattsburg Bay, and while a sharp conflict was raging between the land forces, a severe naval battle was fought on the lake. The British Commodore (Downie) was killed, and Macdonough achieved a brilliant victory, for which he was honored by citizens and by Congress. Meanwhile, Chauncey and Sir James L. Yeo were manœuvring for the control of Lake Ontario without coming to any very serious blows.
In the summer of 1814 some new vessels were added to the navy. In June the frigate Guerrière was launched at Philadelphia in the presence of 50,000 people. In August the Java was launched at Baltimore before 20,000 spectators. The public and private vessels were very active. Indeed, the story of the cruises of some of the privateers at this time might be made as exciting as any tale of fiction.
The Wasp, Captain Blakeley, made a successful cruise southward, vanquishing the Reindeer, Avon, and Atlanta. She was lost at sea in October, 1814, and was never heard of afterward. Captain Warrington cruised in the Peacock in the spring of 1814. He captured the Epervier, a most valuable prize. In May he crossed the Atlantic to the Bay of Biscay, captured fourteen merchant vessels, and returned to New York. At the same time Barney was very active with a flotilla of gun-boats on the waters of Chesapeake Bay, and in August, having destroyed his vessels to keep them from the British, he and his men assisted in the battle of Bladensburg.
At the beginning of 1815, Decatur was in command of a small squadron at New York. The President was his flag-ship. With her alone he sailed out of New York Harbor on a dark night, eluded the blockading fleet, and at dawn the next morning was chased by four British vessels. The President was deeply laden for a long cruise. One of her pursuers (the Endymion) overtook her, when a sharp action began. The two frigates ran side by side before the wind for two hours in a running fight, during which the Endymion was so crippled that she was about to strike her colors. At that moment the other pursuers came up, and the President was captured, not by a single vessel, but by a squadron.
The other vessels of Decatur's squadron, ignorant of the fate of the President, sailed for an appointed gathering-place in the South Atlantic Ocean. Captain Biddle, in the Hornet, captured the Penguin in March, after a conflict which called forth the highest praises for the American commander. Afterward, while the Hornet and Peacock were sailing together, they were chased by the Cornwallis, a British 74. They escaped, and the Peacock, continuing her cruise eastward, captured the Nautilus in the Straits of Sunda, the last vessel captured in the war.
The American privateers made such havoc among English shipping that the mercantile community were dismayed. "One of these sea-devils," said a London newspaper, "is seldom caught; but they impudently defy the English privateers and heavy 74's. Only think—thirteen guineas for one hundred pounds were paid to insure a vessel across the Irish Channel!" They had captured or destroyed during the war about sixteen hundred British merchant vessels of all classes. Our little navy had produced a wonderful change in public opinion in Europe concerning the resources and power of the United States. It had achieved the independence of the Republic.
In time of peace our navy has been employed in the beneficent work of giving aid to commerce; in making explorations of strange seas; in scientific investigations of ocean phenomena; and in the important operations of the Coast Survey, begun in 1817. The most conspicuous of the peaceful performances of our navy were known respectively as the "South Sea Exploring Expedition" and the "Japan Diplomatic Expedition." The former began in 1838, and ended in 1842. It was composed of six government vessels, furnished with a complete corps of scientific men, and was commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes. It went southward until it reached pack ice, in south latitude 66°, and made a voyage of about ninety thousand miles.
