“What means were adopted for the safety of the ship I know not, for my curiosity had full employment in following the old commodore [Sir George Collier] about the deck in his mad ravings. I have read and heard much of the coolness, intrepidity and readiness of the English naval officers in all sudden cases of emergency and danger; and this commodore was one of the oldest in commission and a staunch veteran in the service. He had seen long service, fought many a fight, been slashed and cut to disfiguration—as his numerous scars plainly told—had had one of his legs broken at three different places, at three separate periods between the hip and knee, each setting worse than the last, making his leg crooked, more crooked, most crooked.
“When he saw that the frigate was gathering sternway toward the bluff, he raved, stormed and swore at the ship, cable, anchor, officers, men, boys, hell and the devil, clinching each oath separately by a whack of his cane at and on everything within his reach. Now he was running toward the wheel at the stern, then furiously driving across the deck to the hawseholes at the bow, tacking first to larboard, then to the starboard side of the ship; yelling at the first lieutenant for not making the anchor hold on, swearing at the anchor for not obeying the lieutenant, damning the cable for not being longer, the water for being so deep, the bottom for lying so low; and, at last, when he had nothing else to crisp with his red-hot blessings, he blasted his own eyes, heart, liver and lights, winding up with a curse upon the prisoners, conveying their souls in a trice to the lower regions without benefit of clergy, for being the cause of all the disasters in store for him and his frigate—henceforth and forever.
“I was as fully sensible of the danger of our situation as any one, but I could not suppress my laughter at the antics which this hero of many wars was cutting about the decks. I have no simile nor comparison for his movements, for, verily, there is none. It was not a hitch-and-go-ahead, nor a half-hitch and side lurch; neither was it a back-and-fill, balance-haul or a bob-and-hop, straddling slide. No more like a cock-and-primed, tip-toe dance than a toe-and-heel, fore-and-after is like a cut-and-thrust, forward-spring, a back-staggering or blinker-wiper. It partook of the whole in about equal parts. In fact, I could liken his run with his crooked leg to nothing but the effort of the crab to walk upright upon a slippery surface, doggedly intent to win the wager of the half-blown terrapin, who, in the same attitude, is being balked in his first trial at the double-shuffle by attempting it in a wig, gown and Wellingtons instead of short-cuts and pumps and going at it with sleeves rolled up as an honest one should.
“At last the second anchor brought her up, and lucky it was that it did, for she had drifted within a few minutes’ distance of the bluff, where the frigate would not have held together five minutes. With the freshened winds and lashing waves throwing the spray mast-high, every soul on board must have been lost, for the water was deep and the first thing the frigate would have struck was the perpendicular cliff—three hundred feet high and of unknown depth below.”
After this narrow escape Sir George transferred his prisoners to the sloop of war Pheasant and, after replenishing his stores, resumed his chase after the Yankee frigate. Just what course was pursued by the commander from this point is not shown in American or British records. It is a fact, however, that the presence of the Constitution in European waters was known in many ocean ports and that several British cruisers were sent out from Lisbon, Gibraltar and other nearby ports to intercept her.
It was, undoubtedly, by means of this “wireless marine telegraphy” that Sir George so shaped his course, after leaving Fayal, that he arrived off Port Praya, March 10, 1815, only a few hours after the Constitution with her two prizes, the Cyane and Levant, had entered that harbor. The miraculous escape of the American frigate from Sir George’s overwhelming force in the offing of Port Praya is a matter of history. It is recorded that he was so chagrined over the extraordinary escape of the Constitution—after he had so successfully followed her, by means of the first “marine wireless,” across the Atlantic—that ten years afterward, on being reminded of the incident, he committed suicide.
SKETCHES OF WILLIAM DUNLAP, THOMAS P. JOHNSON AND THOMAS SHARP, DISTINGUISHED IRISH AMERICANS DURING REVOLUTIONARY TIMES.
BY JAMES L. O’NEILL OF ELIZABETH, N. J., A MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.
The following short series of articles relate to distinguished people of our race who played prominent parts in the stirring scenes during the Revolution, and whose memoirs are full of interesting anecdotes and descriptions of those times.
William Dunlap, son of Samuel Dunlap, who was a native of Ireland, Thomas P. Johnson, one of the prominent members of the New Jersey Bar 100 years ago, and others are referred to. Mr. Dunlap himself, in his memoirs, gives a graphic description of Revolutionary scenes in New Jersey. Another of the articles is a history by Thomas Sharp, a member of the Society of Friends, of Newton, Gloucester County, N. J. The brief history is here quoted exactly as compiled by the ancient author, and its quaint language, with its disregard for spelling and construction, is interesting. Thatcher, a military writer of that time, gives a characteristic anecdote of Washington, which is here appended.