Part 18 (1/2)

The ketch still clings to the blazing frigate, from whose portholes the flames are shooting out. The gunpowder left on the deck is covered only with canvas. Life is in peril. They find that the stern rope has not been cast off. Up rush Decatur and his {167} officers, and cut the hawser with their swords. The boat swings clear, and the men row for their lives.

The fierce flames of the burning s.h.i.+p bring the Intrepid into plain view. She is a target for every gun. Bang! bang! thunder a hundred cannon.

”Stop rowing, boys, and give 'em three cheers,” shouts Decatur.

Everybody is on his feet in an instant, and joins in the hurrahs.

Solid shot, grape, and sh.e.l.ls whistle and scream in the air above the little ketch, and throw up showers of spray as they strike the water.

Only one shot hits, and that whizzes through the mainsail. The men bend to their oars and pull for dear life. They are soon well out of {168} range, and, in a short time, safe under the guns of the Siren.

What wild hurrahs were heard when Decatur, clad in a sailor's pea-jacket, and begrimed with powder, sprang on board and shouted, ”Didn't she make a glorious bonfire, and we didn't lose a man!”

In telling the story afterwards, the men said it was a superb sight.

The flames burst out and ran rapidly up the masts and the rigging, and lighted up the sea and the sky with a lurid glare. The guns soon became heated and began to go off. They fired their hot shot into the s.h.i.+pping, and even into the town. Then, as if giving a last salute, the Philadelphia parted her cables, drifted ash.o.r.e, and blew up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Burning of the Philadelphia]

As a popular saying goes, ”Nothing succeeds like success.” So it was with Decatur's deed. His cool head and the fine discipline of his men won success. The famous Lord Nelson, the greatest naval commander of his time, said it was ”the most bold and daring act of the age.”

Decatur was well rewarded. At twenty-five he was made a captain, and given the command of ”Old Ironsides,” probably the finest frigate at that time in the world.

{169}

CHAPTER XII

”OLD IRONSIDES”

”Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!

Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky.”

In 1833, when the old war s.h.i.+p Const.i.tution, unfit for service, lay in the navy yard in Charlestown, the Secretary of the Navy decided to sell her or to break her up. On the appearance of this bit of news in a Boston paper, Oliver Wendell Holmes, a law student at Harvard, scribbled some verses and sent them to the editor.

This poem of twenty-four lines was at once published, and was soon copied into the leading newspapers of the country. In our large cities, the poem was circulated as a handbill. Popular indignation rose to a white heat, and swept everything before it.

The order was at once revoked, and Congress decided that the old frigate, so dear to the hearts of the American people, should be rebuilt.

Why did the people care so much about ”Old Ironsides”?

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Old Ironsides”]

For twenty-five years after the adoption of the Const.i.tution, we had a rough road to travel. We were {170} nearly crushed by our foreign debts, and could do little to defend ourselves on the high seas.

England boarded our s.h.i.+ps and carried off our sailors, and France captured our vessels and stole their cargoes. Even the Barbary pirates, when they spied the new flag, began to plunder and burn our merchantmen, and sell their crews into slavery.

In the fall of 1793, eight Algerine pirate craft sailed out into the Atlantic, and within a month had captured eleven of our s.h.i.+ps and made slaves of more than a hundred of our sailors.

Think of our consul at Lisbon writing home, ”Another Algerine pirate in the Atlantic. G.o.d preserve us!”

In behalf of American citizens held as slaves by these pirates, a pet.i.tion was sent to Congress. A bill was then pa.s.sed, allowing President Was.h.i.+ngton to build or to buy six frigates.