[6] Stephen Decatur had been in command of the frigate United States when it captured the British frigate Macedonian, in the engagement referred to.
[7] The reference is here to the recent Presidential election. Massachusetts had then by a very large majority thrown its vote in favor of De Witt Clinton, the Federalist, or Peace party, candidate against Madison, who was a candidate for reëlection.
[8] A circular to British naval officers was at this time issued by the Secretary of the Admiralty. It read as follows: “My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty having received intelligence that several of the American ships of war are now at sea, I have their Lordships’ commands to acquaint you therewith, and that they do not conceive that any of his Majesty’s frigates should attempt to engage, single-handed, the larger class of American ships, which, though they may be called frigates, are of a size, complement and weight of metal much beyond that class and more resembling line-of-battle ships.
“In the event of one of his Majesty’s frigates under your orders falling in with one of these ships, his captain should endeavor in the first instance to secure the retreat of his Majesty’s ship; but if he finds that he has an advantage in sailing he should endeavor to manœuvre, and keep company with her, without coming to action, in the hope of falling in with some other of his Majesty’s ships, with whose assistance the enemy might be attacked with a reasonable hope of success.
“It is their Lordships’ further directions that you make this known as soon as possible to the several captains commanding his Majesty’s ships.” (The Croker Papers, I, 44.)
In a paper recently prepared by him on the American Navy, Rear-Admiral French Ensor Chadwick pronounces this “the finest tribute ever paid any navy.” (Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for November, 1912, Vol. 46, pp. 207–208.)
[9] This incident resulted from what was known as the affair of the Little Belt. It occurred May 16, 1811, off Cape Charles, Virginia. The United States frigate President, of forty-four guns, and the British corvette, of twenty guns, were concerned in it. The affair was accidental, and the Little Belt escaped being sunk, but, at the time, asserted that after a sharp engagement it had driven off the American frigate of greatly superior force. It was alleged that the commander of the President had mistaken the Little Belt for the Guerrière; and consequently the captain of the Guerrière, it was said, subsequently had the name of the ship painted as indicated by Mr. Adams, in order that in future there should be no possibility of mistake.
[10] Reference is here made to the engagements between the frigates Constitution and Guerrière, August 19, between the frigates United States and Macedonian, October 25, and between the Wasp and the Frolic, both eighteen-gun sloops of war, October 17—all in 1812. The Wasp was commanded by Captain Jacob Jones of Delaware. The action lasted forty-three minutes, was desperately fought, and resulted in the capture of the Frolic.
[11] This statement illustrates the slowness with which news then traveled in Russia, or the degree to which information was suppressed during the campaign of 1812. St. Petersburg is about four hundred and fifty miles from the river Niemen, which constituted the boundary between East Prussia and Russia. Mr. Adams occupied an official position at St. Petersburg. What remained of Napoleon’s army had succeeded in effecting its escape by the crossing of the Beresina during the closing days of November. On the fifth of December Napoleon had left his army at Smorgoni, a town in the Russian province of Vilna, and about one hundred and twenty-five miles east of the river Niemen.
At the time this letter was written he had been thirteen days in Paris, having reached that place on the evening of December 18. Thus tidings of what had occurred on the fifth of December, in Russia, less than four hundred and fifty miles from St. Petersburg, had not reached St. Petersburg and become generally known on the thirty-first of that month.