By the exercise of remarkable seamanship 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 Washington 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 “Constitution” 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 ashore, 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
“Constitution” 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 cocked hat on the result
should the “Constitution” 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 ship 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 petition
to the God 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 “Constitution” 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 “Constitution” 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 Midshipman Madison and five men,
carrying the first suggestion of the brilliant news which was to follow.
A few days later the “Constitution” 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
“Constitution” 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
“Constitution” the most talked about ship afloat or else he would change
the timidity at the Navy Department into a panic for which there would be
some reason.
If the ship 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 rushing 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 glasses proved her plainly
to be a frigate, and the “Constitution” eased off her sheets, and with
the bit in her teeth boomed steadily down for her. For an hour the two
ships 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 “Constitution” 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 ship 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 “Constitution” 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 ship 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 ship 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 glass, and their confidence came back to them. The
excitement was intense, and one by one the men began throwing aside their
shirts and drawing in the buckles of their cutlass-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-ships
and impressed into the service of the enemy, and some of them still bore
upon their backs the scars of the bloody lashes of the relentless “Cat.”
The father of Captain Hull had died in the pest-ship “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.
On the “Guerriere” there was a feeling of unshaken confidence. That any
calamity to their ship could be expected from an American-built vessel,
manned by a crew collected haphazard among the merchant-ships of the
Atlantic harbors, never for a moment occurred to them. When the drum
beat to quarters, the men tumbled to their stations willingly enough,
with no more trepidation than if they were going to target-practice.
Captain Dacres summoned an American prisoner, the captain of the captured
merchant-brig “Betsy,” and asked him what he thought of the vessel which
was approaching. The skipper ventured that she was undoubtedly an American
frigate. Captain Dacres replied with a smile,--
“She comes down a shade too boldly for an American.” And then added,
“Well, the better he behaves the more honor we will have in taking him.”
As the “Constitution” bore down nearer, her ensign and jack flying
proudly, there could no longer be any doubt as to her nationality and
intentions, and he shouted to his crew, who stood at the guns,--
“There, my men, is a Yankee frigate. In forty-five minutes she is
certainly ours. Take her in fifteen, and I promise you four months’ pay.”
Shortly after this Captain Hull was within two or three miles, and the
“Guerriere” opened fire on the “Constitution,” to try the distance and
get the range.
The shots fell short, but Hull took in his light sails and came down more
warily under topsails. The “Constitution” fired a broadside, but these
shots, too, dropped in the water between them. As he came nearer, the
“Guerriere” squared away, wearing first to port and then to starboard,
firing alternate broadsides and manœuvring to avoid being raked. He wanted
to cripple the American’s rigging from a distance, if possible. But the
shot all missed their mark, and the “Constitution” only replied with
her bow-guns. Hull soon saw that this manœuvring might last the day out
without coming to close quarters, so he hoisted his top-gallant-sails and
made straight for the enemy.
Now the shot of the Englishman began coming aboard. Some of the standing
rigging was cut away and the vessel was hulled several times. But the
men, having carefully reloaded, stood silently at their guns, looking out
through the ports at the “Guerriere,” which, enveloped in smoke, kept up a
continuous fire. They looked anxiously at the short, stout, sturdy figure
of Captain Hull, but he continued pacing the quarter-deck, making no
sign that he was aware of the damage the shots were causing. In a moment
the report of “Nobody hurt yet, sir,” ceased suddenly. A shot struck the
“Constitution’s” starboard bulwarks up forward and sent a jagged hail of
splinters among the crew of two of the guns of the first division. Two men
were killed outright and one or two more were wounded by this shot, and
as their shipmates saw the men carried below to the cockpit they moved
uneasily, and several of the gun-captains wished to fire. Lieutenant
Morris now, with a view to quieting them, strode aft to the quarter-deck,
where Hull was still calmly pacing up and down, and said,--
“The enemy has killed two of our men. Shall we return it?”
“Not yet, sir,” replied the impenetrable Hull.
Morris returned to his station. But there is nothing more disorganizing to
men than to be fired at and not have the opportunity of firing in return,
and they besought Morris again to give the permission. Twice more the
lieutenant went aft to the quarter-deck, and twice he got the same reply.
Hull, like Paul Jones, believed in great broadsides at close quarters.
This silence under galling fire was the greatest test of discipline an
American crew had ever had. For in the heat of battle a man forgets to be
afraid. That the men stood to it, speaks well for Hull’s training.
At last the “Constitution,” which had been drawing closer and closer, drew
up to a position about forty yards off the “Guerriere’s” port-quarter,
and Hull, waiting until his guns could all bear, stooped low, bursting
his breeches from knee to waistband in the excitement of the moment, and
gave vent to all the pent-up feelings of two hours in the hoarse order,--
“Now, boys, give it to them!”
It was a well-directed broadside.
The shots crashed along the line of bulwarks and sent showers of splinters
flying over her spar-deck. The ships were so close together that the
effect of those shots could be seen distinctly. Some of the splinters flew
as high as the mizzen-top, and instantly the English cheering ceased and
the shrieks and cries of the wounded rang out between the concussions.
Dacres now, for the first time, must have realized how great the honor
would be if he took the “Constitution.”
Nor did the action promise any sign of being over in fifteen minutes.
So well aimed were the American guns that in a short time the enemy’s
main-yard was shot away, and he was otherwise damaged severely both
below and aloft. At a little after six a twenty-four pound shot went
through the “Guerriere’s” mizzen-mast, and, swaying a moment, over it
fell to starboard, making a wreck and drag which impeded the Englishman’s
manœuvres. The seas pounded it against the sides of the ship and a hole
was knocked under her stern, through which she began taking water badly.
When the mizzen-mast fell, Hull threw off his hat, and shouted,--
“Hurrah, boys, we’ve made a brig of her!”
[Illustration: IN THE TOPS OF THE “CONSTITUTION”]