Part 5 (1/2)
The other vessel now tried to luff up and rake the ”Const.i.tution” from the bows. But the American filled away immediately and let them have her other broadside. Side by side the ”Const.i.tution” and the larger s.h.i.+p sailed, firing individually and by battery as fast as they could sponge and load. Here and there a shot would strike within the stout bulwarks of the American; and one of these tore into the waist, killing two men and smas.h.i.+ng through a boat in which two tigers were chained. A sailor named John Lancey, of Cape Ann, was carried below horribly mutilated. When the surgeon told him he only had a few moments to live, he said, ”Yes, sir, I know it; but I only want to know that the s.h.i.+p has struck.” Soon after, when he heard the cheers at her surrender, he rose from his cot, and, waving the stump of his blood-stained arm in the air, gasped out three feeble cheers and fell back lifeless.
Having silenced the larger vessel, Stewart immediately hurried to the smaller one, which had been firing through the smoke at the gun-flashes.
The ”Const.i.tution” fell off, and, gathering headway, succeeded in getting again across her stern, where she poured in two raking broadsides, which practically cut her rigging to pieces. Returning to the larger vessel, Stewart rounded to on her port-quarter and delivered broadside after broadside with such a telling effect that at 6.50 she struck her colors.
The other vessel having in a measure refitted, came down gallantly but foolishly to the rescue of her consort. The ”Const.i.tution” met her with another broadside, which she tried to return, and then spread all sail to get away. But the American s.h.i.+p could outsail as well as outpoint her, and under the continuous fire of the bow-chasers of the ”Const.i.tution” she became practically helpless, and at about ten o'clock, when the dreaded broadside was about to be put into play again, she surrendered.
It was a wonderful battle. In a fight between one sailing-s.h.i.+p and two the odds were four-fold on the side of the majority. For it was deemed next to impossible to rake without being doubly raked in return. This obvious disadvantage was turned by Stewart to his own account by what critics throughout the world consider to be the finest manuvring ever known in an American s.h.i.+p in action. He fought both his broadsides alternately, and luffed, wore, or backed his great vessel as though she had been a pleasure-boat. Neither of his adversaries succeeded in delivering one telling raking broadside. She seemed to be playing with them, and skilfully presented her reloaded guns to each vessel as it attempted to get her at a disadvantage.
The larger vessel was discovered to be the ”Cyane,” 32, Captain Gordon Falcon, and the smaller one the sloop-of-war ”Levant,” 21, Captain George Dougla.s.s. The ”Const.i.tution” had fifty-one guns, while the Englishmen had fifty-three; but of the ”Const.i.tution's” crew four were killed and ten wounded. On the ”Cyane” and ”Levant” thirty-five were killed and forty-two were wounded.
After the battle, while the two English captains were seated in Stewart's cabin dining with their victor, a discussion arose between them in regard to the part each had borne in the battle, while Stewart listened composedly. Their words became warmer and warmer, and each accused the other in plain terms of having been responsible for the loss of the vessels. At a point when it seemed as though the bitterness of their remarks bade fair to result in blows, Stewart arose and said, dryly,--
”Gentlemen, there is no use getting warm about it; it would have been all the same, whatever you might have done. If you doubt that, I will put you all on board again, and we can try it over.”
The invitation was declined in silence.
For this gallant action Congress awarded Stewart a sword and a gold medal, and ”Old Ironsides” soon after the war was over was temporarily put out of commission. Her day of fighting was over. But years after, refitted and remodelled, she served her country in peace as gracefully as she had served it gloriously in war.
THE ”CONSt.i.tUTION” AND THE ”GUERRIERE”
By the exercise of remarkable seamans.h.i.+p Captain Hull had succeeded in escaping from the British squadron, under Broke, off the Jersey coast.
But he came so near capture that the secretary of the navy succeeded in frightening himself and the whole Cabinet at Was.h.i.+ngton into such a state of timidity that, had they had their way, no war-vessel flying the American flag would have been allowed to leave any Atlantic seaport and put to sea.
Captain Hull had carried the ”Const.i.tution” into Boston, where, if the orders had reached him in time, the secretary would have peremptorily bidden him to remain. But Hull was not in a humor to be inactive. What he wanted was a fight, yard-arm to yard-arm, with a frigate of the enemy, preferably the ”Guerriere,” Captain Richard Dacres, who had sailed boldly up and down the coast with an open challenge to any frigate flying the American flag. Though very warm personal friends ash.o.r.e, both Hull and Dacres had high opinions of the merits of their own vessels. Dacres voiced the prevailing sentiment of the officers of his navy when he spoke of the ”Const.i.tution” as a bunch of pine boards which the British would knock to pieces in twenty minutes. Hull said little; but several months before war was declared had met Dacres, and wagered him a c.o.c.ked hat on the result should the ”Const.i.tution” and the ”Guerriere” ever meet. With the timidity at home, neither he nor any American officers had much encouragement.
There was no confidence in the navy at this period, and the insults they heard from abroad were not half so hard to bear as the thinly-veiled indifference they met at home.
But Hull knew he had a good s.h.i.+p and a good crew. He had trained them himself, and he knew what they could do aloft and at the guns. Moreover, he knew what he could do himself. The navy was small, but the men who had smelt powder in the Revolution and before Tripoli were a stalwart set and had done deeds of gallantry that had set the greatest admirals of Europe by the ears. Many ingenious contrivances had been adopted, to be now tried for the first time. Sights had been put upon the guns, and the gun-captains knew better how to shoot than ever before. So, without waiting for the orders from the secretary which he knew would hold him in port indefinitely, Hull sailed on the first fair wind and uncompromisingly put out to sea. If the orders came, he wouldn't be back to obey unless he had captured a British frigate, or, at the very least, some merchant prizes. If he _did not_ succeed, it meant that he might be hung or shot for sailing without orders. But even this sword of Damocles did not deter him. He would do his best, at any rate, and made a quiet seaman's pet.i.tion to the G.o.d of winds and seas to send him the ”Guerriere.”
Thinking to find a better opportunity towards Halifax, where many British men-of-war and merchantmen put in, Hull sailed to the northward, and cruised as far as the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The frigate ”Spartan,” 38, was in those waters; but after watching for her for some days, he stood out to sea. On the 15th of August he sighted five vessels.
The ”Const.i.tution” set all sail and rapidly came up with them. Four of them scattered, leaving the fifth, a brig, on fire. Hull made for the largest of the others, and found her to be an English merchantman in charge of an American prize-crew. The ”Const.i.tution” saved her from capture at the hands of the other vessels. Before night another vessel was overhauled, and she was found to be the American ”Adeline,” in the hands of a prize-crew from the British ”Avenger.” One vessel was destroyed and the other was sent to Boston in charge of Mids.h.i.+pman Madison and five men, carrying the first suggestion of the brilliant news which was to follow.
A few days later the ”Const.i.tution” chased and overhauled the American privateer ”Decatur,” which, believing her to be an English cruiser, had thrown overboard almost all of her guns. The captain of the privateer had good news, though. He had sighted an English frigate the day before, sailing southward under easy sail. Hull immediately set everything the ”Const.i.tution” could carry and gave the quartermasters a course which should enable him to come up with her by the following day.
The next morning dawned clear, but the breezes fell light, and not until the morning watch was there wind enough to send the American frigate bowling along on her course under top-gallant-sails and royals.
Hull took the deck for awhile himself and sent lookouts to the fore- and main-royal-yards to keep a sharp lookout. With moderate luck they should catch up with her. And then Hull felt that he would make the ”Const.i.tution” the most talked about s.h.i.+p afloat or else he would change the timidity at the Navy Department into a panic for which there would be some reason.
If the s.h.i.+p were the ”Guerriere,” he promised himself a new hat.
Not a sail hove in sight until towards two in the afternoon, when a lookout aloft shouted, in a voice that was taken up by four hundred throats on the spar- and gun-decks,--
”Sail ho!”
In a moment the watch below came rus.h.i.+ng up. So great was the excitement that many of them went half-way to the tops, without orders or permission, to view the stranger. In an hour the stronger gla.s.ses proved her plainly to be a frigate, and the ”Const.i.tution” eased off her sheets, and with the bit in her teeth boomed steadily down for her. For an hour the two s.h.i.+ps moved in this position, the stranger making no effort to escape and leaving her colors, which were soon made out to be British, flying in defiance. In fact, as soon as she discovered the ”Const.i.tution” to be an American frigate she took in sail, laid her maintop-sail to the mast, and silently awaited the approach. Hull sailed on until within about three miles of the enemy, when he sent his light yards down, reefed his topsails, and cleared s.h.i.+p for action.
An American-built frigate was for the first time to test her stanchness against a worthy representative of the mistress of the seas and ”Terror of the World.” Most of the crew had never been in close action before. The chase of the ”Const.i.tution” had tired their hearts less than their bodies, for the firing of the British squadron had been at a very long range, and there was never a time when their s.h.i.+p was in danger from the cannonading of the enemy. There was not a qualm or a fear to be seen on the faces either of grizzled seaman or powder-boy, and they went to quarters with enthusiasm.
But underlying it all there was a note of gravity. They were going to bring an American s.h.i.+p into action with a frigate whose navy had scored hundreds of victories over the vessels of all the great nations of the earth. They half wondered at their audacity and that of their captain in defying a frigate so redoubtable as the ”Guerriere,” for there seemed no further doubt that it was she. But they looked up at Hull, who was calmly pacing up and down the quarter-deck, taking a look now and then at the enemy through his gla.s.s, and their confidence came back to them. The excitement was intense, and one by one the men began throwing aside their s.h.i.+rts and drawing in the buckles of their cutla.s.s-hangers, most of the gun-crews stripping themselves to the waist and casting aside their shoes to avoid slipping on the decks when the blood began to flow. More than one of them had his own private score to settle with the British navy. Many of them had been at one time or another taken off American merchant-s.h.i.+ps and impressed into the service of the enemy, and some of them still bore upon their backs the scars of the b.l.o.o.d.y lashes of the relentless ”Cat.”
The father of Captain Hull had died in the pest-s.h.i.+p ”Jersey,” in the Revolution, and the other officers had all some grievances of their own which made them look eagerly forward to the battle which they intended should mean victory or death.