THE FIRST SLOOP ACTION.
What American ships could do in battle, Captain Hull had now shown; and
the hopes of the country were aroused, and it began with reason to look
for fresh successes. Nor was it destined to be disappointed; for during
that memorable autumn of 1812 and the early months of winter there came
such a rapid and unbroken succession of naval victories as has fallen to
the lot of hardly any nation before or since. And that these victories
should have been won by a service that for fifteen years had been
treated with derision and contempt even by those in the highest station
in the country, who should have given it both honor and support, and
that they were won too over the mistress of the seas, made them in
people's eyes tenfold more marvellous. It mattered little that the force
engaged was small, that in comparison with the great fleet actions of
European navies these encounters seemed the battles of pygmies; for
their significance as victories was not thereby diminished; whether the
force engaged was one ship or fifty ships, the same qualities in
officers and men were needed to achieve a victory. The English had been
beaten,--beaten in part no doubt by the better quality of American
ships, but beaten too by the superior skill and training of American
seamen.
The second victory of the naval war[1] was won by the sloop-of-war
"Wasp," which left the Delaware on the 13th of October under the command
of Capt. Jacob Jones. She had been out only five days, when one Sunday
morning she fell in with the British brig "Frolic," convoying a small
fleet of merchantmen, somewhere to the eastward of Albemarle Sound. At
the first sign of battle the convoy made off under a press of sail. It
was blowing fresh at the time, with a heavy sea, so that the ships came
into action under short canvas.
[Footnote 1: This was really the third victory, counting the unimportant
action between the "Essex" and the "Alert" as the first.]
At eleven o'clock in the forenoon the "Frolic" hoisted Spanish colors,
but Captain Jones knew that this was a ruse; and as he came down to
windward of her and hailed, she displayed the English flag and opened
the battle. The ships were very close, so that in spite of their
pitching and tossing the firing told severely on both sides; but the
Americans, following the same wise rule of aiming low that Truxtun had
put in practice in the "Constellation," fired while the engaged side
of their ship was going down with the swell, and the enemy fired while
theirs was rising; so that the "Frolic's" wounds were on her decks or in
her hull, and the "Wasp's" chiefly aloft. In a few minutes the
American's main-topmast fell, followed by his gaff and
mizzen-topgallant-mast. Nevertheless, Captain Jones succeeded in placing
himself on the port bow of the "Frolic," where he raked her with
terrible effect, and man after man fell upon her decks, dead or dying,
until her fire began to slacken. By this time the masts of the "Wasp"
were almost unsupported, so much of the rigging had been cut away; and
the captain, fearful lest the enemy should escape him, prepared to board
notwithstanding the heavy sea.
[Illustration: "JACK LANG, A BRAVE AMERICAN BLUE-JACKET, LEAPED FIRST."]
Presently the ships fell foul, the "Frolic's" bowsprit running over the
quarter-deck of the "Wasp," which was just the position most favorable
for accomplishing the captain's purpose. The men were eager to board,
and could not wait for the order. Jack Lang, a brave American
blue-jacket, who had sometime before been the victim of a British
press-gang, and who thus had old scores to wipe out, leaped first upon
the enemy's bowsprit. Next to him came Biddle, the first lieutenant of
the "Wasp," who climbed upon the bulwarks; but his foot caught in a rope
and he lost his balance. Behind Biddle came a midshipman, who, by way of
helping himself up, in his eagerness seized the lieutenant's coat and so
dragged him back to the deck. Biddle was on his feet in a twinkling, and
getting on board the enemy, he rushed with a handful of men along her
deck. But there was no force to oppose him, only the quartermaster at
the wheel and three officers who threw down their swords in token of
surrender. Biddle hauled down the British flag himself, and in a short
time the shattered remnant of the crew on the gun-deck below were made
prisoners. It had been a most heroic defence of the "Frolic," one that
has few parallels in the whole range of naval history, for more than
three fourths of her people were strewn about the decks; but it only
shows that heroism alone without care and skill cannot always win a
battle, for the Americans, with better knowledge of their art, had
gained the victory, and it had only cost a loss of five men killed and
as many more wounded.
The "Wasp" was not to gather the fruits of victory, however. Soon after
the battle an English line-of-battle ship, the "Poictiers," came in
sight, and her great battery of seventy-four guns, before which both the
little sloops would have fled had they been able to make sail, found
them an easy capture. But all the same the real battle had been fought
and the real victory won; and the loss of the two disabled ships in the
face of such an overwhelming force was as nothing in its real import to
the added proof which Captain Jones had given that American ships could
meet and conquer on the seas an equal foe.