The war with the Barbary pirates was all sorts of a war. Sometimes there
was fighting, and sometimes there was none; and after Bainbridge was
released, he was engaged part of the time in the mercantile service
until the war with Great Britain broke out in 1812. Early in this war,
Bainbridge took command of the "Constitution," the same vessel which, a
few months before, had had a fight with the "Guerrière," in which the
latter was captured. It is a good deal better, sometimes, to fight with
a strong enemy who will stand up bravely in front of you, and let you
see what he is, than to contend with a mean little one who is
continually getting out of the way and bobbing up at unexpected places,
and making it very difficult either to get at him or to know when he is
going to get at you. Consequently there is no doubt that Bainbridge much
preferred to do battle with the naval power of Great Britain rather than
with the pirates of Barbary.
He sailed down the coast of South America, and there he met the "Java,"
a British frigate. He had a hard fight and a long fight, and the end of
it was that the "Java" hauled down her flag after having a great
portion of her crew killed and wounded; and, as she was so thoroughly
shattered and broken up by the guns of the "Constitution," the victors
could not take her home as a prize, but were obliged to burn her.
If any one had been inclined to deride the Jerseyman at sea, after what
had happened to Bainbridge in the Mediterranean, he changed his opinion
after the affair with the "Java." In fact, a gold medal was voted to the
gallant captain by Congress. When the war with Great Britain was over,
Bainbridge took a squadron to the Mediterranean to try his hand again at
protecting American commerce, and humbling the pirates; but fortune did
not favor him this time, for Decatur had already settled the matter with
the Dey, the Bey, and the rest of them, and peace was declared before
Bainbridge arrived on the scene. Our Jersey sailor did not do any more
fighting, but he held high positions in our navy, and died an honored
commodore.
Years after the affair with the "Philadelphia," when war had begun
between the United States and Great Britain, there was a great chance
for America to show what she could do on the sea. Then the fighting men
in ships were more important to the country than the fighting men on
shore; and Captain Lawrence, our fighting sailor from Burlington, showed
himself among the foremost of our naval heroes.
Very early in the war he was in command of the "Hornet," a snappish
vessel with more stings than one, and while cruising in South American
waters he met the British man-of-war "Peacock." Now, when a hornet and
a peacock quarrel, lively times are likely to ensue, and so it happened
in this case.
The two vessels began by endeavoring to get into favorable positions,
each anxious to rake the deck of the other. The "Peacock" did not spread
her tail, but she spread her sail, and the "Hornet" buzzed this way and
that, with her stings ready for action as soon as the proper moment
should arrive. When at last they actually began to fight, the battle was
a terrible one, such as was possible only in those days of wooden ships.
But a short distance apart, they poured into each other heavy shot and
small shot; musketry and cannon cracked and roared, while the clouds of
smoke nearly hid the vessels from each other. This tremendous
bombardment lasted about a quarter of an hour, and at the end of that
time the "Peacock" struck her colors and surrendered. The captain and a
good many of the crew had been killed, and the vessel was in such a
demolished condition that there was not time to get all the prisoners
and the wounded on board the "Hornet." The officers and men of the
American vessel labored hard to save those on board their unfortunate
enemy; but the "Peacock" sank before this could be entirely
accomplished, and several of the British sailors, with three of those
from the "Hornet," sank with her.
Captain Lawrence was not only a brave man, but he was a very kind one.
He treated the officers and crew of the "Peacock" so well, even
providing them with clothes (for they had no time to bring anything from
their own vessel), that when the prisoners reached New York, the
officers publicly thanked him in a paper which they drew up and signed.
This victory, following our other brilliant exploits at sea, gave
Lawrence great fame both here and abroad.
A few months after the battle between the "Hornet" and the "Peacock,"
Lawrence was again the hero of a great sea fight. The coast of New
England was blockaded by a British fleet, and in the harbor of Boston
lay the frigate "Chesapeake," commanded by Captain Lawrence. He had been
recently appointed to this vessel, and in fact had been in command only
ten days when he received a challenge to fight a naval duel.
This proposition came from the captain of the British frigate "Shannon,"
one of the blockading fleet, about the same size and strength as the
"Chesapeake." The British captain sent a very polite letter to Captain
Lawrence; for when people propose to fight duels, whether on land or
sea, they are always extremely courteous before they begin to try to
kill each other. The British captain said, that, as he understood the
"Chesapeake" was now ready to go to sea, he would like her to come out
and fight the "Shannon" for the honor of their respective flags. He
offered the American captain choice of fighting ground inside of certain
limits, and promised that the rest of the British fleet should keep far
away, so that Captain Lawrence need have no fear of being troubled by
any vessel except the "Shannon."
When Captain Lawrence read this challenge, he was as willing to go out
and fight the duel as the British captain was anxious to have him do
so; but he knew that his vessel was not nearly so well prepared as was
the "Shannon." The British ship had been at sea for a long time, she was
manned by a crew of brave sailors, and her captain was well acquainted
with his ship and his men.
The case was very different with the "Chesapeake." Lawrence had been on
board scarcely long enough to find out what sort of a ship she was, but
he had been on board long enough to discover that her crew was a very
poor one. Many of them were Portuguese, they had not been well drilled,
and, worse than that, they did not want to fight. Few of them had been
in the service long enough to have a taste for naval warfare; and if
they had had their way, they would have let the "Shannon" lie outside
until her captain grew gray, before they would go out and accept his
challenge. The harbor was much more to their mind.
But Captain Lawrence had no such idea. He accepted the challenge without
hesitation, and prepared to go out and fight the duel. He would have
been glad enough if he had had a good crew, but he would do his best
with the crew he had. He put his ship in fighting trim, and his men in
the best order possible, and early on a summer afternoon the
"Chesapeake" went out to meet the "Shannon," which was boldly flying the
flag of St. George.
In those days, when men-of-war, as well as all other ships, were sailing
vessels, the tactics of naval combats were very different from what they
are now. Each of the commanders of vessels was obliged to think, not
only of what his enemy was about, but what the wind was about. A steamer
can take what position she pleases; she can steam far away from her
enemy, or she can use her long-range guns, or dash down upon her to
break in her sides with her ram. But in the old sailing times, maneuvers
were very much more difficult, and if the winds ever desired to stop a
sea fight, it often happened that they could do it simply by dying away
themselves.
The two ships sailed this way and that, each trying to get a position
which would be good for herself and bad for the other; and at last, when
they were very close, so near that their captains might have talked with
each other, their cannon began to speak. From their mouths came rolling
of thunder. From each ship, volleys of great shot swept the decks of the
other, while the rattle of musketry became incessant. This tremendous
fire was kept up for nearly ten minutes, and in this short time the
"Chesapeake" lost nearly one hundred men, killed and wounded, on her
upper deck.
Still she had the best of the fight, for in a few minutes she would have
taken a position in which she could have raked the decks of the enemy.
But unfortunately some of her rigging was shot away, and she could not
take advantage of the wind, and did not obey her helm. Nothing could be
worse than this; for, with sails flapping wildly in the wind, precision
of sailing, so necessary in a sea fight, was absolutely impossible.
But not only was the "Chesapeake" unable to take the position she
wanted, but she could not get out of the way, and she drifted against
the "Shannon;" and the rigging of the two vessels became entangled, with
the "Chesapeake" exposed to the full fire of the guns of the other ship.
In this case there was only one thing to be done, and Captain Lawrence
was the brave man to do it. He must board the "Shannon," and he and his
men must fight her captain and his men hand to hand. There was no use
trying to fight any longer with the "Chesapeake's" cannon.
Instantly Lawrence ordered the boarders to be called on deck, and he was
ready to put himself at their head and dash on board the "Shannon." He
was slightly wounded, but he did not care for that. But now came another
misfortune. The man who should have called the boarders to action by the
roll of the drum was not on duty, and the bugler was ordered to sound
the call. He was so frightened by this awful fight that he ran and hid
himself, and when he was pulled out from his retreat, he had not breath
enough to blow his bugle. Some of the men were sent below to shout for
the boarders and call them on deck,--a very slow procedure at such a
time; but before any of them arrived, the brave Lawrence was stretched
upon the deck by a musket ball.
The captain of the "Chesapeake" was not immediately killed, but he was
mortally wounded; and when he was carried below, he showed that, near
death as he was, he was still the bravest man on board. He thought
nothing of himself, he thought only of his country and his ship; and his
last orders were, "Don't give up the ship. Fight her till she sinks."
But it was not much use trying to fight the "Shannon" any longer; there
were no officers on the deck of the "Chesapeake," except two midshipmen,
and the British captain saw that he had a good chance to board his
enemy. So his crew were soon clambering over the sides of the American
vessel. Some wounded officers rushed up from below to help repel this
attack. Many of the American sailors fought bravely even at these great
odds; but some of the crew, especially the Portuguese, basely deserted
their comrades and hurried below. The fight on the deck of the
"Chesapeake" was not a long one; and very soon the stars and stripes
were hauled down from her masthead, and the British colors hoisted in
their place.
So ended the great duel between the "Chesapeake" and the "Shannon," and
the last words of the brave Lawrence were never forgotten. "Don't give
up the ship" became the watchword of the navy.
After this bloody sea fight, which lasted only fifteen minutes, but in
which nearly two hundred and fifty men were killed and wounded, the
"Shannon" sailed away for Halifax, taking with her the "Chesapeake,"
with the dead body of its brave commander on board. When the two vessels
entered the harbor, Lawrence lay upon the quarter-deck, wrapped in the
great flag of the "Chesapeake," while all the men on the British vessels
in the harbor manned their yards, and shouted a wild welcome to the
victorious "Shannon." But the flag which floated from the masthead of
the British frigate held no more honorable position than that which
covered the dead body of the American hero.