On leaving the tea-table Max and Lulu had seated themselves in the
porch, along with their father, and just as he went in search of his
paper they were joined by Albert Austin.
“Ah, good-evening, Albert,” said Max, making haste to place a chair for
him near his own, “I’m pleased to see you.”
“Thanks; I’m pleased to come,” returned the English lad, accepting
the offered seat. “I was bored with listening to papa and some other
gentlemen talking on some subject that didn’t interest me in the least,
so I slipped away after telling papa where I could be found when
wanted.”
“He doesn’t object to our society then?” remarked Max, in a playfully
interrogative tone.
“No, indeed! I fancy he thinks I could hardly be in better company.
He’s taken a strong liking to your father, and I think I may add to
yourselves, also,” glancing admiringly at Lulu as he spoke.
“In spite of my not being an English girl?” she returned laughingly.
“Oh, assuredly, Miss Lulu! That could make no difference; in fact, I
believe Englishmen are, as a class, great admirers of American ladies.”
“In which they show their good taste,” laughed Max. “My father says
American ladies compare favorably with those of any other nation. I
wish you could see Mamma Vi and Grandma Elsie.”
“Who are they?” asked Albert, with a puzzled look.
“Mamma Vi is papa’s wife; his second wife, while we are the children
of the first. Her name is Violet; she isn’t old enough to be our real
mother, so she told us to call her Mamma Vi. Grandma Elsie is her
mother, and we call her that to distinguish her from an older lady whom
we call grandma also.”
“Ah, yes, I think I understand. That’s one of your American ways, I
suppose. And where are those ladies you would like to show me? not in
this state, I fancy, as I remember seeing you on the cars long before
we entered it.”
“Yes,” replied Max, with an amused look, “our home is so far away that
we crossed several states in coming here. But this is not a state.”
“Isn’t? What then?”
“A territory.”
“Ah, excuse me, but I don’t know the difference.”
“I’ll try to explain,” said Max. “Papa has taken some pains to give us
a clear understanding of our government and its workings.
“Each of the thirty-eight states has its own constitution, elects
its own governor, legislators, and judges. It elects two senators to
send to Congress, too, and from one to thirty-four representatives,
according to its population.
“But the territories can send only one delegate to Congress, and he has
no vote; they are governed by Congress, with a governor appointed by
the president.”
“Ah, yes, I see the difference, and that the states have the best of
it. The territories, I presume, look forward to becoming states?”
“Yes; but they must have a certain number of inhabitants before they
can hope to be admitted into the Union?”
“Your father’s an army officer, isn’t he?”
“No; he belonged to the navy, but resigned not very long ago.”
“The American navy is quite small, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t so large as it ought to be,” returned Max shortly.
“Britannia rules the wave!” quoted Albert, in an exultant tone.
“Yes; when Columbia isn’t there to interfere with her,” retorted Max, a
little mischievously.
“I’m thinking ’twill be a sorry day for Columbia when she attempts
that,” sneered Albert.
“It hasn’t always been in the past,” remarked Max quietly.
“When wasn’t it?” asked Albert.
“When John Paul Jones in the Bon Homme Richard fought Capt. Pearson in
the Serapis, for instance.”
“Well, yes; but that was a very close fight. Beside, you had six
vessels and we only two.”
“Two of ours were pilot boats and kept out of the fight altogether,”
said Max.
“So did the Vengeance; though she had been ordered to render the larger
vessels any assistance in her power; she didn’t even try to overhaul
the band of flying merchantmen.
“Then the Alliance, commanded by that bad-tempered Frenchman Landais,
who was so envious of Jones, went into the battle only at the last
moment, and instead of helping her allies, fired her broadsides into
the Richard. The fight was between the Richard, with forty guns, and
the Serapis with forty-four; the Pallas, twenty-two guns, and the
Countess of Scarborough, with twenty-two. So there was no advantage on
our side. If Landais had been in command of the Richard he wouldn’t
have tried to fight the Serapis at all.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because, as he dashed past her in the Alliance, pushing ahead to
reconnoitre, before the fight began, he cried out that if the enemy
proved to be a forty-four, the only course for the Americans was
immediate flight. He practiced on that idea, too, hauling off and
leaving the Richard and the Pallas to do the fighting.
“Our French allies did us more harm than good in the naval battles of
the Revolutionary War. If Captain Landais wasn’t crazy, he must have
been one of the greatest scoundrels that ever trod a quarter-deck.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Lulu, “when I read about his firing into the Bon
Homme Richard—when the poor fellows on it had been fighting so hard and
long, so many of them dreadfully wounded, and the ship almost sinking
already—I felt as if I could hardly stand it to think he escaped being
well punished for it. He ought to have been hung; for his fire killed
some of our poor fellows.”
“So he ought, the miserable coward!” assented the English lad. “I’m not
partial to the French anyway,” he added. “Of course my own countrymen
come first in my estimation, but I put the Americans next. We’re a sort
of cousins, you know.”
“Yes,” said Max. “But wasn’t it a crazy idea that this great big
country should go on being ruled by that little one across the sea?
Most absurd, I think.”
“At the beginning of the trouble between them it must have looked like
great folly for the thirteen weak colonies to go into the fight with
England,” remarked Albert.
“Particularly to the English, who didn’t know how in love with liberty,
and determined to keep her, the Americans were,” said Max. “Papa says
we triumphed at the last because our cause was the cause of right, and
God guided our counsels and gave success to our arms.”
“I don’t believe I’m as well-read on the subject as you are,” remarked
Albert. “I presume I would naturally take less interest in it than you
would.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” replied Max. “I’ve studied the history of the
United States, my native land, a great deal, especially in the last
year or two, and have had many talks with papa about the events, and
especially the doings of the navy; they interested me more than any
other part; first, because papa was a naval officer, and then because
I’m hoping to go into the navy myself.”
“And those studies didn’t increase your love for us—the English, I
mean?” said Albert interrogatively.
“No, not a bit,” returned Max with a slight laugh. He paused a moment,
then went on more gravely.
“The treatment they gave the Americans they took prisoner, was simply
barbarous; unworthy of a civilized—not to say Christian—nation.”
“Yes, perfectly dreadful!” chimed in Lulu.
“Now I really don’t remember any such barbarity,” remarked Albert,
rather apologetically. “But you know the Americans were considered
rebels, and I—suppose the British officers may have thought it a duty
to—refrain from coddling them.”
“Coddling indeed!” exclaimed Max. “Do you remember about the ‘Old
Jersey’ prison-ship?”
“Can’t say that I do.”
“It was a dismasted hulk—an old sixty-four gun-ship moored in Wallabout
Bay, near New York City. She was so old and worn-out and rotten that
she wasn’t fit to go to sea; so they used her as a prison for Americans
whom they captured, and starved them and treated them so horribly in
every way, that eleven thousand died in her.”
“Wouldn’t it be charitable to suppose the starving may have been
because of an unavoidable scarcity of provisions?” queried Albert
mildly.
“There was no such unavoidable scarcity,” asserted Max, “yet the poor
prisoners were sometimes so hungry as to be glad to eat cockroaches
and mice when they could catch them.”
“On that vessel?” asked Albert.
“I think it was on that very vessel,” said Max musingly; “but possibly
I might be mistaken; there were other prison-ships, but the Old Jersey
was the worst. But I’m certain it was American prisoners in the hands
of the British near New York. A piece of wanton cruelty the jailors
were guilty of, was bringing in a kettle of boiling soup, or mush, and
setting it down before those starving prisoners of war, with never a
spoon or anything to dip it up with.”
“Yes,” said Lulu, “and another time they marched some prisoners for
four days without a mouthful to eat, then rolled out barrels of salt
pork for them to eat raw. And another time, when they were exchanging
prisoners with the Americans, they put pounded glass into the last
meal’s victuals they gave to the American soldiers before they let them
go.”
“Well, if they did that ’twas mean and wicked enough,” admitted Albert.
“But don’t you think the world has grown a little better since those
days, and that then other nations were quite as cruel, if not more
so? always excepting the Americans, of course,” he added, with a
mischievous twinkle in his eye.
“I believe that’s so,” admitted Max.
“And some Americans—the Tories—were worse than the British,” said
Lulu; “some of their deeds were perfectly dreadful, shockingly wicked
and cruel! beside, it was so contemptible in them to turn against
their own country and ill-use—even to robbing and murdering—their own
countrymen.”
“Well, yes,” said Albert, “but then, we must remember that the way they
looked at it ’twas only being loyal to their king.”
“The English king, you mean,” she retorted. “But most of them—the
Tories—were low, mean, wicked fellows that really cared for neither
king nor country, and were only glad of an excuse to rob wherever they
could.”
“Then please don’t blame my country with what they did,” said Albert.
“No; it isn’t worth while; she has sins enough of her own to answer
for,” returned Lulu demurely. “And then she’s so little, poor thing!”
Albert looked nettled at that. “The sun never sets on the British
Empire,” he said, straightening himself proudly. “And, big as your
country is, I don’t believe either her army or navy can compare with
ours.”
“Yes, our regular army is small, I know,” admitted Max; “but we have
a great army of militia, and all so devoted to their country that
they make splendid fighters when called on to defend her. Our navy’s
small, too, but compares better in size with yours than it did at the
beginning of the war of 1812–14, and it came out of that with flying
colors.”
“Really, I don’t remember what was the difference then, or just what
the fight was about,” acknowledged Albert modestly.
“Don’t you?” asked Max, in some surprise. “Well, I shouldn’t either,
if papa hadn’t turned my attention to such subjects and talked with us
about them in such an interesting way. He says he wants his children to
be well acquainted with history, especially that of their own country.
That’s how I happen to be posted on those questions.
“When the United States declared war against England in 1812, our navy
consisted of twenty vessels, the largest carrying forty-four guns, most
of the others rating under thirty, while England had over a thousand
ships on the rolls of her navy, two hundred and fifty-four of them
ships of the line, mounting over seventy-four guns each.
“It really wasn’t much wonder the British laughed at the idea of our
attempting to fight them; especially as Britannia had ruled the wave up
to that time.”
“Yes; the Americans must have been a plucky little nation to try
it,” laughed Albert, “they must have been desperately angry about
something.”
“They were, and with good reason,” returned Max. “Oh, such wrongs as
our poor sailors had endured for years from British naval officers! It
makes my blood boil just to read, at this late day, of their arrogance
and injustice, and the dreadful cruelties they were guilty of toward
Americans they kidnapped from our vessels.”
“Kidnapped?” repeated Albert.
“Yes; what else could you call it when a British man-of-war would stop
an American merchant-vessel on the high seas—in time of peace—board
her, order the crew mustered aft, pick out any man they chose to say
was an Englishman, and carry him off to their own vessel against his
will?”
“Oh yes, I see you refer to the right of search.”
“Right of search, indeed!” exclaimed Max hotly, “there was no right
about it, it was all an outrageous wrong. The British had no more right
to search our ships than we had to search theirs.”
“But deserters should be caught and punished,” said Albert.
“Perhaps that’s so,” said Max: “I don’t say it is, or it isn’t; but
they often and often took native-born Americans, asserting, without a
shadow of proof, that they were English. American captains said they
always chose the most ship-shape sailors in the crew, and, of course,
those wouldn’t always be the Englishmen, supposing there were any
Englishmen among them.
“One can imagine that it was exceedingly exasperating to be forced in
that way into foreign service, especially that of a nation their own
country had been having a bloody war with only a little while before;
under the red flag of England, too, instead of the beautiful Stars and
Stripes they loved so well.
“And if one of them showed any unwillingness to serve his kidnappers,
he was triced up and flogged till his back was cut to ribbons, and the
blood spurted at every blow.
“Of course they detested the service they had been forced into, and
that was made so dreadful to them, would desert whenever they had a
chance; and if they were caught again they were speedily hung at the
yardarm.”
“It was hard when a mistake was made and a real American impressed,”
conceded Albert, “but, of course, the English government had a right to
take her own men wherever she could find them.”
“I have no objection to Englishmen submitting to such tyranny, if they
choose,” sneered Max, “but Americans are made of different stuff; they
are free and glory in their freedom, and never would, and never will,
put up with such treatment. And I say again, British officers had no
right to board our ships without leave or license, and forcibly rob
them of part of their crew. It was an abominably cruel and tyrannical
thing for them to do, even before the Revolution, and most outrageously
insulting beside, after the war when we were no longer colonies of
Great Britain, but free and independent states.”
“I don’t recall the occurrence you refer to,” said Albert, “but surely
before the war they had the same right to impress American subjects as
they had to take their fellow-subjects of Great Britain.”
“Let me recall one incident to your memory, and see if even an
Englishman can approve of it in these days,” said Max.
“In 1764—eleven years before the beginning of the war, you will
remember—the British man-of-war ‘Maidstone’ lay in the harbor of
Newport. It was a time of peace, and the officers had nothing to do; so
they amused themselves sending out press-gangs to seize any luckless
American sailor who happened to be on shore, and force him into his
Majesty’s service aboard their vessel.
“The life on board a British man-of-war was a dreadful one in those
times, for any sailor; the cat-o’-nine-tails was flourished so often,
and for such slight offenses, and even a boy midshipman could order a
poor fellow to the grating to have his back cut to ribbons.
“So no wonder American sailors dreaded being forced into it; they had
no peace of their lives with those press-gangs roaming the streets in
search of them every night, and breaking into the taverns where a group
of them might be smoking and chatting together, to seize and carry them
off.
“But the incident I was going to speak of was this: One day a brig came
sailing up the bay into the harbor of Newport. She had been on a long
voyage—to the west coast of Africa—and the poor fellows aboard of her
were just wild with joy to think they had reached home at last and were
going ashore presently to see their mothers and wives and sweethearts,
and all the rest of their dear ones they had been separated from so
long, and who had crowded on the dock to watch the brig coming in.
“Oh, I can imagine how they felt! for I remember how glad we always
were when papa’s vessel came in from a long voyage, and we knew that
he’d be with us presently; and so I know something of how terrible,
how perfectly unbearable, it must have seemed to them, when just as
their ship was anchored, a couple of longboats from the man-of-war came
pulling up alongside of the brig, and two or three officers and a lot
of sailors climbed on board, and the head one ordered the American
captain to call his men aft, saying ‘His Majesty has need of a few fine
fellows for his service.’
“It was bad enough when they thought he was going to take some of them,
each poor jackie fearing he might be the unfortunate one, yet hoping he
might not; but just think of it! the officer ordered every one of them
to go below and pack up his traps.
“The American captain expressed his astonishment and indignation,
saying that the poor fellows were just home from a long voyage and
hadn’t seen their families yet. But it did no good; every man jack of
them was carried off to the man-of-war and forced to serve aboard of
her.
“It was such acts of tyranny as this that drove the colonies to rebel,
and finally to be determined to be free and independent.”
“And that drove them into the war of 1812, too,” said Lulu, “Oh, the
States, I mean; they were not colonies then, though the British did not
seem to have found it out.”
“It was a plucky little nation to declare war with England,” again
remarked Albert good humoredly. “I don’t know how they ever got up
courage to pit their twenty vessels against her thousand.”
“Love of liberty, and self-respect, and abhorrence of insult and
tyranny nerved them to it,” said Max. “Do you remember that affair of
the Chesapeake and Leopard?”
“Not at all; if I ever heard of it, it must have made but little
impression on my mind.”
“Well, I suppose it would naturally make a deeper one on an American
boy’s,” said Max.
“It happened in 1807, when we were at peace with England, and it seems
to me the most insulting thing ever heard of.
“The Chesapeake, an American man-of-war lying at the navy-yard at
Washington, was put in commission and ordered to the Mediterranean to
relieve the Constitution.
“It took nearly a month to get her ready, and while that was being
attended to the British minister informed our naval authorities that
three deserters from His British Majesty’s ship ‘Melampus’ had joined
the crew of the Chesapeake, and asked to have them given up.
“Our government was willing to do it, but on inquiring into the matter
found that the men were really native-born Americans who had been
impressed by the British and forced into their service. They were able
to prove it. So, of course, they weren’t given up.
“The facts were stated to the British minister, and as he didn’t
protest any further, it was supposed he was satisfied.
“A few weeks after this the Chesapeake left the navy-yard and dropped
down the river to Hampton Roads. There she stayed for some days,
taking on guns and stores and adding to her crew till she had three
hundred and seventy-five men; then she weighed anchor and started on
her voyage.
“But she started before she was in really proper condition. A quantity
of things, such as stores, ropes, lumber, trunks, and furniture, were
piled on the decks, instead of being stowed away in their proper
places. Somebody was to blame for that, of course, though papa says it
was not Commodore Barron, who was in command, and nobody could have
dreamed of the mischief the confusion was to cause, remembering that it
was in a time of peace, and right on our own coast.
“But there were four English men-of-war lying quietly at anchor in Lynn
Haven Bay, and as our ship passed out into the ocean there was a stir
on their decks; then one of them weighed anchor, set her sails, and
started in pursuit. The Chesapeake had to tack frequently, on account
of a stiff breeze that was blowing, and the American officers noticed
that the Leopard—the British ship—did the same, and kept right in their
wake; but it never occurred to them that she had any but peaceful
intentions. The ship kept on her course, and the sailors set busily to
work putting the decks in order.
“Presently the Leopard bore down rapidly, and when she got near enough,
hailed, saying that she had a dispatch for Commodore Barron. So the
Chesapeake hove to and waited for a boat to be sent. Now the two ships
were lying broadside to broadside, less than a pistol-shot apart.
Still the commodore did not suspect any mischief. Some of the younger
officers noticed that the Leopard had her cannon all ready to fire, and
they ought to have told the commodore; but they didn’t.
“Soon a boat put off from the Leopard, bringing an English officer. One
of the American officers received him and took him to the commodore’s
cabin. There he produced an order from the British Admiral Berkeley,
commanding all British ships to watch for the Chesapeake and search her
for deserters.
“Commodore Barron said he didn’t harbor deserters, and couldn’t permit
his crew to be mustered by an officer of any foreign power. Just
then there was a signal from the Leopard recalling her officer. Then
Commodore Barron came out of his cabin, and was much surprised to see
that the Leopard was quite in fighting trim.”
Sandy McAlpine had drawn near the little group, and was listening with
profound interest to Max’s story. “And did they have a fight between
the two ships?” he burst out, as Max made a momentary pause in his
narrative.
“A fight!” echoed Max. “No; there was a disgraceful, insulting attack
by the Leopard, which the Americans had not power to respond to,
because, though their guns were loaded and they ready to use them
with a will, no matches, powder-flasks, wads, rammers or gun-locks
could be found.
“While they were hunting for them, there was a hail from the Leopard.
Commodore Barron shouted back that he did not understand. They hailed
again:
“‘Commodore Barron must be aware that the orders of the vice-admiral
must be obeyed.’
“The commodore again answered that he didn’t understand, and after
another hail or two the British fired a gun at the Chesapeake, then
poured in a full broadside. The heavy shot crashed through the sides of
the American ship, wounding a number of men.”
“And they couldn’t fire back?” queried Sandy.
“For want of matches and the other necessary things that were not to be
found, they had to let their guns keep silence, though they were filled
with fury that they had no chance at all to defend themselves and show
their insolent foe how American blue-jackets can fight. They heated
pokers red-hot in the galley fire, but they cooled too much before they
could get them to the guns.
“So for eighteen minutes the Leopard kept on firing at a helpless,
unresisting foe. Then the Chesapeake’s flag was hauled down, two
British lieutenants and some midshipmen came in a boat from the
Leopard, boarded the Chesapeake, and again demanded the deserters.
“Of course, there was no choice but to give them up. Four sailors were
seized and carried aboard the Leopard in triumph. One of them they
hung, one died before he could escape, but five years later the other
two got back to the Chesapeake.”
“Max, you are forgetting that one shot was fired from the Chesapeake?”
said Lulu.
“Yes, you tell about it.”
“There was a Lieutenant Allen among the officers of the Chesapeake, who
cried out in his anger, ‘I’ll have one shot at those rascals, anyhow,’
ran to the galley fire, picked up a live coal in his fingers, and,
never caring for the pain, ran with it to one of the guns and fired it
off just as the flag came fluttering down.”
“He was a brave fellow,” commented Sandy. “Well, I s’pose the British
didn’t fire any more after they got what they wanted. But hadn’t their
shot made some big holes in the Chesapeake?”
“I presume so,” replied Lulu. “Anyhow, she turned and went back.
“Everybody in the whole country was furious on hearing the news—which
I don’t blame them for, I’m sure; but it was a great shame that the
government punished Commodore Barron, by suspending him from the
service, without pay, for five years. Papa says it was very unjust, for
it wasn’t his fault that things were not in order on the vessel, but
the fault of the fitting-out officers. And I feel perfectly certain
that the commodore and everybody else on the Chesapeake would have
fought bravely if they’d had half a chance, and whipped the insolent
British well. Oh, I do wish they had had a chance!”
“Well, never mind,” said Max. “We whipped them well in the war that
followed a few years later.”
“Now, if I remember right, the Americans didn’t always whip in that war
either on land or on water,” said Albert.
“No, not always,” acknowledged Max, “but a good many times; and the war
accomplished what we went into it for: putting a stop to their insolent
claim to a right to search our vessels, and their impressment of our
seamen.”
“Was that mentioned and given up in the treaty of peace?”
“No,” acknowledged Max, “but they haven’t tried it since, and they’d
better not, as I guess they know.”
“Perhaps you mightn’t have fared so well if we hadn’t had another war
on our hands at the same time,” retorted Albert.
But just here the talk was interrupted by Captain Raymond and Mr.
Austin joining them, the former coming from his interview with Mrs.
McAlpine in the sitting-room, the latter entering from the street.