Part 2 (1/2)

Disappointed and disgusted, Eaton returned to the United States in November, 1805, to find himself a national hero. From the moment he set his foot on American soil he was greeted with cheers wherever he appeared; it was ”roses, roses all the way.” The cities of Was.h.i.+ngton and Richmond honored him with public dinners; Ma.s.sachusetts, ”desirous to perpetuate the remembrance of an heroic enterprise,” granted him ten thousand acres of land in Maine; Boston named a street after the city which he had captured against such fearful odds; President Jefferson lauded him in his annual message; and in recognition of his services in effecting the release of some Danish captives in Tripoli, he was presented by the King of Denmark with a jewelled snuff-box. He was complimented everywhere except at the seat of government, and received every honor except that which he most deserved--a vote of thanks from Congress. Though his expedition had involved an expense of twenty-three thousand dollars, for which he had given his personal notes and the repayment of which exhausted all his means, Congress never reimbursed him. Notwithstanding the astounding indifference and ingrat.i.tude of the nation on whose flag he had shed such l.u.s.tre, he indignantly rejected the advances of Aaron Burr, who tried ineffectually to enlist him in his conspiracy to establish an empire beyond the Mississippi, and died, poverty-stricken and broken-hearted, on June 1, 1811. Though the most modest of monuments marks his resting-place in Brimfield churchyard, and though not one in a hundred thousand of his countrymen have so much as heard his name, his fame still lives in that wild and far-off region where it took an Italian army of forty thousand men to repeat the exploit which he accomplished with four hundred.

THE LAST FIGHT OF THE ”GENERAL ARMSTRONG”

We leaned over the rail of the _Hamburg_, Colonel Roosevelt and I, and watched the olive hills of Fayal rise from the turquoise sea. Houses white as chalk began to peep from among the orange groves; what looked at first sight to be a yellow snake turned into a winding road; then we rounded a headland, and the U-shaped harbor, edged by a sleepy town and commanded by a crumbling fortress, lay before us. ”In there,” said the ex-President, pointing eagerly as our anchor rumbled down, ”was waged one of the most desperate sea-fights ever fought, and one of the least known; in there lies the wreck of the _General Armstrong_, the privateer that stood off twenty times her strength in British men and guns, and thereby saved Louisiana from invasion. It is a story that should make the thrills of patriotism run up and down the back of every right-thinking American.”

Everything about her, from the carved and gilded figure-head, past the rakish, slanting masts to the slender stern, indicated the privateer.

As she stood into the roadstead of Fayal late in the afternoon of September 26, 1814, black-hulled and white-sparred, carrying an amazing spread of snowy canvas, she made a picture that brought a grunt of approval even from the surly Azorian pilot. Hardly had the red-white-and-blue ensign showing her nationality fluttered to her peak before a harbor skiff bearing the American consul, Dabney, shot out from sh.o.r.e; for these were troublous times on the Atlantic, and letters from the States were few and far between. Rounding her stern, he read, with a thrill of pride, ”_General Armstrong, New York_.”

The very name stood for romance, valor, hair-breadth escape. For of all the two-hundred-odd privateers that put out from American ports at the outbreak of the War of 1812 to prey on British commerce, none had won so high a place in the popular imagination as this trim-built, black-hulled schooner. Built for speed, and carrying a spread of canvas at which most skippers would have stood aghast, she was the fastest and best-handled privateer afloat, and had always been able to show her heels to the enemy on the rare occasions when the superior range of her seven guns had failed to pound him into submission. Her list of captures had made rich men of her owners, and had caused Lloyd's to raise the insurance on a vessel merely crossing the English Channel to thirteen guineas in the hundred.

The story of her desperate encounter off the mouth of the Surinam River with the British sloop of war _Coquette_, with four times her weight in guns, had fired the popular imagination as had few other events of the war. Although her commander, Samuel Chester Reid, was not long past his thirtieth birthday, no more skilful navigator or daring fighter ever trod a quarter-deck, and his crew of ninety men--Down-East fishermen, old man-o'-war's men, Creole privateersmen who had fought under Lafitte, reckless adventurers of every sort and kind--would have warmed the heart of bluff old John Paul Jones himself.

Just as dusk was falling the officer on watch reported a sail in the offing, and Reid and the consul, hurrying on deck, made out the British brig _Carnation_, of eighteen guns, with two other war-vessels in her wake: the thirty-eight-gun frigate _Rota_, and the _Plantagenet_, of seventy-four. Now, as the privateer lay in the innermost harbor, where a dead calm prevailed, while the three British s.h.i.+ps were fast approaching before the brisk breeze which was blowing outside, Reid, who knew the line which marks foolhardiness from courage, appreciating that the chances of his being able to hoist anchor, make sail, and get out of the harbor before the British squadron arrived to block the entrance were almost infinitesimal, decided to stay where he was and trust to the neutrality of the port, a decision that was confirmed by the a.s.surances of Consul Dabney that the British would not dare to attack a vessel lying in a friendly harbor. But therein the consul was mistaken, for throughout the entire duration of the war the British as cynically disregarded the observance of international law and the rights of neutrals as though they did not exist.

The _Carnation_, learning the ident.i.ty of the American vessel from the pilot, hauled close into the harbor, not letting go her anchor until she was within pistol-shot of the _General Armstrong_. Instantly a string of signal-flags fluttered from her mast, and the message was promptly acknowledged by her approaching consorts, which thereupon proceeded to stand off and on across the mouth of the harbor, thus barring any chance of the privateer making her escape. So great was the commotion which ensued on the _Carnation's_ deck that Reid, becoming suspicious of the Englishman's good faith, warped his s.h.i.+p under the very guns of the Portuguese fort.

About eight o'clock, just as dark had fallen, Captain Reid saw four boats slip silently from the shadow of the _Carnation_ and pull toward him with m.u.f.fled oars. If anything more were needed to convince him of their hostile intentions, the moon at that moment appeared from behind a cloud and was reflected by the scores of cutla.s.ses and musket-barrels in all four of the approaching boats. As they came within hailing distance Reid swung himself into the shrouds.

”Boats there!” he shouted, making a trumpet of his hands. ”Come no nearer! For your own safety I warn you!”

At his hail the boats halted, as though in indecision, and their commanders held a whispered consultation. Then, apparently deciding to take the risk, and hoping, no doubt, to catch the privateer unprepared, they gave the order: ”Give way all!” The oars caught the water together, and the four boats, loaded to the gunwales with sailors and marines, came racing on.

”Let 'em have it, boys!” roared Reid, and at the word a stream of flame leaped from the dark side of the privateer and a torrent of grape swept the crowded boats, almost annihilating one of the crews and sending the others, crippled and bleeding, back to the shelter of their s.h.i.+p.

By this time the moon had fully risen, and showed the heights overlooking the harbor to be black with spectators, among whom were the Portuguese governor and his staff; but the castle, either from weakness or fear, showed no signs of resenting the outrageous breach of neutrality to which the port had been subjected. Angered and chagrined at their repulse, the British now threw all caution aside. The long-boats and gigs of all three s.h.i.+ps were lowered, and into them were crowded nearly four hundred men, armed with muskets, pistols, and cutla.s.ses. Reid, seeing that an attack was to be made in force, proceeded to warp his vessel still closer insh.o.r.e, mooring her stem and stern within a few rods of the castle. Moving two of the nine-pounders across the deck, and cutting ports for them in the bulwarks, he brought five guns, in addition to his famous ”long tom,” to bear on the enemy.

With cannon double-shotted, boarding-nets triced up, and decks cleared for action, the crew of the _General Armstrong_ lay down beside their guns to await the British attack.

It was not long in coming. Just as the bells of the old Portuguese cathedral boomed twelve, a dozen boats, loaded to the water's edge with sailors and marines, whose burnished weapons were like so many mirrors under the rays of the moon, swung around a promontory behind which they had been forming and, with measured stroke of oars, came sweeping down upon the lone privateer. The decks of the _General Armstrong_ were black and silent, but round each gun cl.u.s.tered its crew of half-naked gunners, and behind the bulwarks knelt a line of cool, grim riflemen, eyes sighting down their barrels, cheeks pressed close against the b.u.t.ts. Up and down behind his men paced Reid, the skipper, cool as a winter's morning.

”Hold your fire until I give the word, boys,” he cautioned quietly.

”Wait till they get within range, and then teach 'em better manners.”

Nearer and nearer came the shadowy line of boats, the oars rising and falling with the faultless rhythm which marks the veteran man-o'-war's man. On they came, and now the waiting Americans could make out the gilt-lettered hat-bands of the bluejackets and the white cross-belts and the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on the tunics of the marines. A moment more and those on the _Armstrong's_ deck could see, beneath the shadow of the leather shakoes, the tense, white faces of the British boarders.

”Now, boys!” roared Captain Reid; ”let 'em have it for the honor of the flag!” and from the side of the privateer leaped a blast of flame and lead, cannon and musketry cras.h.i.+ng in chorus. Never were men taken more completely by surprise than were those British sailors, for they had expected that Reid, relying on the neutrality of the port, would be quite unprepared to resist them. But, though the American fire had caused terrible havoc in the crowded boats, with the bull-dog courage for which the British sailors were justly famous, they kept indomitably on. ”Give way! Give way all!” screamed the boy-c.o.xswains, and in the face of a withering rifle-fire the sailors, recovering from their momentary panic, bent grimly to their oars. Through a perfect hail-storm of lead, right up to the side of the privateer, they swept. Six boats made fast to her quarter and six more to her bow. ”Boarders up and away!” bellowed the officers, hacking desperately at the nettings with their swords, and firing their pistols point-blank into the faces they saw above them. The _Armstrong's_ gunners, unable to depress the muzzles of their guns enough so that they could be brought to bear, lifted the solid shot and dropped them from the rail into the British boats, mangling their crews and cras.h.i.+ng through their bottoms. From the shelter of the bulwarks the American riflemen fired and loaded and fired again, while the negro cook and his a.s.sistant played their part in the defence by pouring kettles of boiling water over the British who were attempting to scramble up the sides, sending them back into their boats again scalded and groaning with pain.

There has been no fiercer struggle in all the annals of the sea. The Yankee gunners, some of them gray-haired men who had seen service with John Paul Jones in the _Bon Homme Richard_, changed from cannon-b.a.l.l.s to grape, and from grape to bags of bullets, so that by the time the British boats drew alongside they were little more than floating shambles. The dark waters of the harbor were lighted up by spurts of flame from muskets and cannon; the high, shrill yell of the Yankee privateersmen rose above the deep-throated hurrahs of the English sailors; the air was filled with the shouts and oaths of the combatants, the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the incessant trampling of struggling men upon the decks, the splash of dead and injured falling overboard, the clash and clang of steel on steel, and all the savage, overwhelming turmoil of a struggle to the death. Urged on by their officers' cries of ”No quarter! Give the Yankees no quarter!” the British division which had attacked the bow hacked its way through the nettings, and succeeded by sheer weight of numbers in getting a footing on the deck, all three of the American lieutenants being killed or disabled in the terrific hand-to-hand struggle that ensued.

At this critical juncture, when the Americans on the forecastle, their officers fallen and their guns dismounted, were being pressed slowly back by overwhelming numbers, Captain Reid, having repulsed the attack on the _Armstrong's_ quarter, led the after division forward at a run, the privateersmen, though outnumbered five to one, driving the English overboard with the resistless fury of their onset. As the British boats, now laden with dead and dying, attempted to withdraw into safety, they were raked again and again with showers of lead; two of them sank, two of them were captured by the Americans. Finally, with nearly three hundred of their men--three-quarters of the cutting-out force--dead or wounded, the British, now cowed and discouraged, pulled slowly and painfully out of range. Some of the most brilliant victories the British navy has ever gained were far less dearly purchased.

At three in the morning Reid received a note from Consul Dabney asking him to come ash.o.r.e. He then learned that the governor had sent a letter to the British commander asking him to desist from further hostilities, as several buildings in the town had been injured by the British fire and a number of the inhabitants wounded. To this request Captain Lloyd had rudely replied that he would have the Yankee privateer if he had to knock the town into a heap of ruins. Returning on board, Reid ordered the dead and wounded taken ash.o.r.e, and told the crew to save their personal belongings.

At daybreak the _Carnation_, being of lighter draught than the other vessels, stood close in for a third attack, opening on the privateer with every gun she could bring to bear. But even in those days the fame of American gunners was as wide as the seas, and so well did the crew of the _General Armstrong_ uphold their reputation that the _Carnation_ was compelled to beat a demoralized retreat, with her rigging cut away, her foremast about to fall, and with several gaping holes between wind and water. But Reid, appreciating that there was absolutely no chance of escape, and recognizing that further resistance would entail an unnecessary sacrifice of his men's lives, by which nothing could be gained, ordered the crew to throw the nine-pounders which had rendered such valiant service overboard and to leave the s.h.i.+p. The veteran gunners, who were as much attached to their great black guns as a cavalryman is to his horse, obeyed the order with tears ploughing furrows down their powder-begrimed cheeks. Then Reid with his own hand trained the long-tom down his vessel's hatchway, and pulling the lanyard sent a charge of grape cras.h.i.+ng through her bottom, from which she at once began to sink. Ten minutes later, before a British crew could reach her side, the _General Armstrong_ went to the bottom with her flag still defiantly flying.

Few battles have been fought in which the odds were so unequal, and in few battles have the relative losses been so astounding. The three British war-s.h.i.+ps carried two thousand men and one hundred and thirty guns, and of the four hundred men who composed the boarding party they lost, according to their own accounts, nearly three hundred killed and wounded. Of the American crew of ninety men, two were killed and seven wounded. This little crew of privateersmen had, in other words, put out of action more than three times their own number of British, and had added one more laurel to our chaplet of triumphs on the sea.

The Americans had scarcely gained the sh.o.r.e before Captain Lloyd--who, by the way, had been so severely wounded in the leg that amputation was necessary--sent a peremptory message to the governor demanding their surrender. But the men who could not be taken at sea were not the men to be captured on land, and the Americans, retreating to the mountainous centre of the island, took possession of a thick-walled convent, over which they hoisted the stars and stripes, and from which they defied British and Portuguese alike to come and take them. No one tried.