IN THE WASTES OF THE SOUTH ATLANTIC
THE STORY OF A BATTLE--THE _HORNET_ AND THE _PENGUIN_ IN THE
SHADOWS OF TRISTAN D’ACUNHA--AS FAIR A MATCH AS IS KNOWN TO
NAVAL ANNALS--IT TOOK THE YANKEES TEN MINUTES TO DISMANTLE THE
ENEMY AND FIVE MORE TO RIDDLE HIS HULL--THE BRITISH CAPTAIN’S
FORCEFUL DESCRIPTION OF THE YANKEE FIRE--A MARVELLOUS ESCAPE FROM
A LINER--THE _PEACOCK_ IN THE STRAITS OF SUNDA--WHEN THE LONELY
SITUATION OF THIS SLOOP IS CONSIDERED DID WARRINGTON SHOW A LACK OF
HUMANITY?--IF HE DID, WHAT DID THE BRITISH CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW SHOW?
An echo to the prolonged salute which the ships of Sir George Collier
fired, in the harbor of Porto Praya, to the honor of Yankee pluck and
seamanship, comes from a giant mountain rising in the lonely wastes of
the South Atlantic--from the island of Tristan d’Acunha. On a line from
the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn, and 1,500 miles west of the Cape
of Good Hope, can be found three rugged islands, which, though small
in diameter, rise at one point to a height of no less than 8,300 feet
above the rollers that crash against their precipitous walls. No more
lonely and no more impressive rocks than these are found in all the
world.
But, though far away from civilized habitations, the group was itself
inhabited by sealers and whalers even as early as 1791, when a Yankee,
one Jonathan Lambert, “by a curious and singular edict declared himself
sovereign proprietor” of the group. For it was a breeding resort for
seals and sea lions, and it had also a climate and some soil fit
for a comfortable human habitation, and this enterprising Yankee had
settled there with associates and had “cleared about fifty acres of
land, and planted various kinds of seed, some of which, as well as the
coffee-tree and sugar-cane, were furnished by the American Minister at
Rio Janeiro.”
At the time of the War of 1812 it was a very well-known group to
Yankee seamen, and seemingly out of the way as it looked when glancing
at a chart of that sea, it was nevertheless but a little to one side
of what was counted the best route from New York to the East Indies.
Accordingly, when Decatur was ordered to take the _President_, the
_Hornet_, the new _Peacock_, and the store-ship _Tom Bowline_ for a
voyage against British commerce in the East Indies, he appointed the
Tristan d’Acunha group as the rendezvous where all the ships should
meet, replenish their water, stretch the legs of the seamen in a chase
after wild goats and hogs on shore, and then sail away in search of
English men-of-war to conquer.
As has been told, Decatur, when leaving New York, took the natural
course along the Long Island coast, instead of the bolder and therefore
safer course down the Jersey beach, and “was fairly mobbed” by the
British fleet. His consorts, the _Hornet_, the _Peacock_, and the _Tom
Bowline_, sailed a few days later (January 22d), without having learned
that the _President_ was captured, and having escaped the blockaders,
they sailed away to the meeting-point.
When a few days out, the _Hornet_ separated from her consorts and
thereafter proceeded without incident worth mention until, on March
23, 1815, she arrived at the group of Tristan d’Acunha. An action
which followed on the day she arrived was the next to the last one of
the war. Allen, in beginning his description of the two last, says:
“Two actions of a disgraceful character to the Americans remain to be
recorded.” He then tells that Captain Biddle, commanding the _Hornet_,
spoke to a neutral ship on March 20th, when the neutral captain said he
had heard that peace had been declared. “Information coming in this
questionable shape was not binding,” says Allen, but “it was Captain
Biddle’s duty to have acted cautiously before setting it at defiance.”
He did not act as cautiously as Allen thinks he should, and so the
action was “of a disgraceful character to the Americans.” As to the
facts, there is no dispute, save in the minor matters of the number of
each crew and the size of a couple of guns, so the reader is able to
decide for himself how far the action disgraced the American flag.
Having reached the anchorage off the tiny settlement on the main island
of the group at about 11 o’clock in the morning of March 23, 1815, the
sheets of the head-sails on the _Hornet_ were let go preparatory to
swinging her up into the wind and dropping her anchor. But no sooner
had the sails begun to flap than the lookout announced a sail in sight,
and hauling aft the sheets once more the _Hornet_ stood out to sea for
a look at the stranger.
As it happened, the strange vessel was the British brig sloop
_Penguin_, Captain James Dickenson, a new vessel on her first cruise.
She had sailed from England to the Cape of Good Hope. When there, news
arrived that a heavy Yankee privateer called the _Young Wasp_ had
been making prizes of British Indiamen, using Tristan d’Acunha as a
retreat when water and fresh meat were needed. Accordingly, Admiral
Tyler, commanding the squadron, sent the _Penguin_ to the lonely group
to capture the venturesome privateer, placing on board of her twelve
marines from his own ship, the _Medway_, to make sure that she had
enough men.
[Illustration: The _Hornet_ and _Penguin_.
_From an old wood-cut_.]
So it happened that when the _Penguin_ reached the island and saw
a sail there, Captain Dickenson thought he had had the good luck
to alight on the saucy privateer. Being fearful that the supposed
privateer would run away, the _Penguin_ was handled very carefully.
Captain Dickenson did not want the Yankee to see how many guns the
_Penguin_ carried and so kept her end on to the _Hornet_ as he came
down wind to capture her--came down wind because he was fortunate
enough to come into the fight with the wind in his favor.
The _Hornet_, as the _Penguin_ approached, kept wearing first one way
and then the other to keep from getting raked until 1.40 P.M., when the
_Penguin_ had arrived within musket-shot. At that the _Penguin_ hauled
to the wind with the breeze coming in over her starboard bow, when she
“hoisted her colors and fired a gun; whereupon the _Hornet_ hauled up
on the starboard tack and discharged a broadside.” The quotation is
from Allen. It is a small matter, but the first gun of this “action of
a disgraceful character to the Americans” was fired by the British.
The battle that followed was another remarkable exhibit of the
superiority of the Yankee gunners. For ten minutes they hurled bar-shot
and other missiles at the rigging of the ill-fated _Penguin_. “In a
very short time” these projectiles “had done their work.” And then the
Yankee gunners began to load with solid shot, loading swiftly as the
gunners had done in the _Hornet’s_ action with the British _Peacock_,
but aiming with deliberation. And so, “notwithstanding a heavy swell
prevailed,” every broadside “was taking effect.” The quotations are
from Allen. “Taking effect” expressed the result of the Yankee fire but
mildly. Captain Dickenson, of the _Penguin_, described the work much
more forcibly. He said to First Lieutenant McDonald: “The fellows are
giving it to us like hell.”
They had thought to encounter one of the sea-militia, but they found a
well-trained Yankee man-of-war crew instead.
The _Penguin_ having the weather-gage, in spite of her crippled
rigging, was steadily drawing down on the Yankee. It was plain that the
British gunners were no match for the Yankees, and Captain Dickenson
determined to try boarding. Putting up his helm he sent his ship
straight at the _Hornet_. Just then a bullet stretched him dead on the
deck, but First Lieutenant James McDonald took his place and bravely
called on the men to follow him. The British bow came crashing against
the _Hornet’s_ side just abaft the main rigging. The Yankees flocked to
the quarter-deck to repel boarders. The blunt cutwater of the British
bow sawed up and down on the black waist of the _Hornet_, rasping the
thick planks as if to break them in; but the boarders never came over
to the bow.
“We tried,” said McDonald, afterward, “but found the men rather
backward--and so, you know, we concluded to give it up.”
The Yankee crew wanted, then, to board the _Penguin_ but Captain Biddle
stopped them, because it was “evident from the beginning that our fire
was greatly superior both in quickness and effect.”
[Illustration: The _Hornet_ and _Penguin_.
_From a wood-cut in the “Naval Monument.”_]
Moreover, there was no need for that movement. The _Hornet_ forged
ahead over the heavy sea, and the bowsprit of the _Penguin_ caught
her mizzen rigging and carried it away, and then the boat davits
and spanker-boom as well. The broken boom dropped on a marine who had
already had his leg broken by a musket-ball and it broke the leg again,
yet the eager fellow wriggled around and strove to point his musket
at the British in the foretop of the _Penguin_. The _Penguin’s_ chief
officer shouted that he had surrendered, and Captain Biddle, after
ordering his men to cease firing, climbed up on the _Hornet’s_ rail.
At that two of the British marines, who, very likely, had not heard
their chief officer surrender, fired at Biddle and at the man at the
_Hornet’s_ wheel. Biddle was severely wounded, and the two marines were
instantly killed by a return fire from the Americans.
Then the _Penguin_ drifted clear. Her bowsprit fell into the sea,
broken short off above the figure-head, and her foremast fell over the
lee rail. Her bow came up into the wind, and with such canvas as was
spread on her mainmast flat aback, she drifted stern on, a helpless
wreck.
The _Hornet_ wore around before the wind and came back with a fresh
broadside ready, but McDonald hauled down the _Penguin’s_ flag and once
more shouted that she had surrendered. The first of the two “actions of
a disgraceful character to the Americans” was ended. It had lasted but
twenty minutes from the first gun.
The comparison between the ships, their armament and their crews, is
exceedingly pleasing to an American. Rarely have two vessels so nearly
equal met in deadly conflict. Under the arbitrary rule of measuring
ships the Yankee was three tons larger than the Englishman, but the
Englishman had “a slightly greater breadth of beam, stouter sides, and
higher bulwarks.” That is to say, the British sailors were protected
better than the Americans were. The Yankee carried eighteen short
thirty-twos and two long twelves, making an actual-weight broadside of
two hundred and seventy-nine pounds of metal. The _Penguin_, according
to Captain Biddle, carried sixteen short thirty-twos, one short twelve
on the forecastle, and two long twelves arranged so that both could be
fired on one side, but James says she had long sixes instead of long
twelves. It is certain that before this war the British vessels of the
class of the _Penguin_ did usually carry long sixes for bow-chasers,
but the _Penguin_, was a new vessel, built after the effectiveness
of the larger guns carried by the Yankees had been abundantly
demonstrated. The new British frigates carried long twenty-fours
instead of long eighteens, as the older frigates had carried, so it is
entirely reasonable to believe that Captain Biddle told the truth when
he reported on the size of the _Penguin’s_ guns. Moreover, Biddle was a
careful man. He put a tape-line on the _Penguin’s_ hull to get at her
dimensions, and no one disputes the measurements he made there.
However, the later American writers have not been disposed to insist
on this point. They can afford to be generous. They allow the figures
of James to go into their tables of comparison, for even with but
one long six on the engaged side, the _Penguin_ threw two hundred
and seventy-four pounds of metal to the Yankee’s two hundred and
seventy-nine.
[Illustration: Medal Awarded to James Biddle for the Capture of the
_Penguin_ by the _Hornet_.]
But to a student of history at the end of the nineteenth century there
never was a sea-duel where the comparison of the weights of metal in
the two broadsides was more ridiculous than in this one between the
_Hornet_ and the _Penguin_. For not one solid shot from the _Penguin_
struck the Yankee--not one; and what is worse still, not one solid shot
struck the Yankee’s spars. Moreover, the storm of British projectiles
was hurled so high that the injury to the Yankee’s rigging was worse
above the top-sails than below them. On the other hand, the Yankees,
in ten minutes’ firing, in spite of the heavy swell, had destroyed the
sail-power of the British boat (by Allen’s own account), and in five
minutes more (not including the time after the ships drifted apart,
when no great guns were fired) the Yankees had riddled her hull until
she was not worth saving. It is not the weight of metal carried, nor
the weight of metal thrown; _it is the weight of metal driven home into
the enemy that wins the battle_.
This, although not the last encounter, was the last real battle of the
War of 1812; like the first of the war (_Constitution_-_Guerrière_),
and like every other in which the Americans won, and like that between
the _Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_, where the British were victorious,
it proved, beyond dispute, that the most important art known to a naval
ship is the art of aiming guns accurately.
The _Hornet_ lost two killed and nine wounded; the British lost
fourteen killed and twenty-eight wounded--nearly one-third of her crew.
The numbers of the crews cannot be stated beyond dispute. It is
admitted that the _Penguin_ had twelve marines beyond her full
complement--she had more men than she needed to work her guns. The
Yankees admit that they had enough in spite of the fact that eight
had been sent away on a prize, and that nine were too sick to leave
their beds. By showing the utmost generosity toward British writers,
we find that the _Penguin_ had one hundred and thirty-two in her crew,
including “seventeen boys.” The Yankee had at most one hundred and
forty-two on board, of whom nine were sick in their hammocks. There
were one hundred and thirty-three Yankees at the quarters.
A few days after the battle the Yankee _Peacock_ and the store-ship
_Tom Bowline_ arrived. The store-ship was sent to Rio Janeiro with the
prisoners, and then, after waiting until April 13th for the _President_
to come, the two sloops sailed away to continue the war in the East
Indies. On April 27th a sail was seen and both vessels went in chase,
and the next morning the _Peacock_ drew rapidly ahead of her older
consort. Eventually, when the _Peacock_ was about six miles ahead,
she suddenly hauled her wind and signalled that the stranger was a
line-of-battle ship. This was at 2 P.M. of April 28, 1815.
So both sloops took to their heels. The swift _Peacock_ had no trouble
in getting out of the way, but the _Hornet_ was slow, and the liner
chose to follow her. About the time the liner made the choice (she was
the seventy-four _Cornwallis_, Admiral Sir George Burleton, K.C.B.)
she lost a man overboard, and stopped to pick him up, but she soon
made up the time so lost, and at 9 o’clock, seven hours after learning
the character of the enemy, the _Hornet’s_ crew began to lighten ship.
At 2 o’clock on the morning of the 29th the enemy was forward of the
_Hornet’s_ lee beam and outfooting the Yankee rapidly, so the Yankee
went about. The enemy followed, and at daylight, though still to
leeward, was within gunshot, and her bow-chasers gave tongue.
[Illustration: The _Hornet’s_ Escape from the _Cornwallis_.
_From a wood-cut in the “Naval Monument.”_]
That set the Yankees working for life. The anchors and cables, the
spare spars, the ship’s launch, and the six cannon and some hundreds of
round shot were tumbled into the sea. The _Hornet_ drew out of range
then, but the wind hauled to the east, favoring the enemy, and once
more the crew went at the work of lightening ship. They were sure they
would be captured, but they would not give up. Three of the enemy’s
shot had come on board, but these had done no injury. All the guns
but one were now dumped into the sea, and so was everything else that
could be spared. “Many of our men had been impressed and imprisoned for
years in their horrible service, and hated them and their nation with
the most deadly animosity, while the rest of the crew, horror-struck
with the narration of the sufferings of their shipmates who had been
in the power of the English, and now equally flushed with rage, joined
heartily in execrating the present authors of our misfortune.” So wrote
one of the _Hornet’s_ officers. This letter shows not only why the crew
made every endeavor to escape; it shows why the fire of the _Hornet_
had been more effective than that of the _Penguin_. Their work,
however, would have been vain but for another shift of wind. It came in
a freshening gale from the west, and the _Hornet_ drew ahead. By sunset
of the 29th the enemy was four miles astern. By sunrise of the 30th,
after a squally night, the liner was twelve miles astern, and at 9.30
she abandoned the chase. The _Hornet_ reached home on June 9th. She
escaped because her commander was not one of the kind to give up until
he had not a plank that would swim.
The _Peacock_ continued on the original cruise. Four rich Indiamen,
with crews aggregating two hundred and ninety-one men, were captured,
and then on June 30th she fell in with the East India Company’s cruiser
_Nautilus_, Lieutenant Charles Boyce, a brig of less than half the size
of the _Peacock_, and carrying four long nines and ten short eighteens.
The _Nautilus_ was at anchor off Fort Anjers, in the Straits of Sunda.
A boat from the _Nautilus_ took her purser on board the _Peacock_ to
announce, according to Allen, that peace had been declared. Allen says
that the purser “was instantly sent below, without being suffered to
ask a question.” The _Peacock_ continued approaching the _Nautilus_,
and the British captain “hailed and asked if the captain (of the
_Peacock_) knew that peace had been declared.”
Captain Warrington fully believed this hail was a ruse to enable the
brig to escape to the protection of the fort, and ordered the brig to
surrender. Captain Boyce refused, and one or two broadsides (accounts
differ) were exchanged, when the brig, having lost seven men killed
and eight wounded, and having been badly cut up as well, while the
_Peacock_ was not even scratched, the British flag was lowered.
The gallantry of the British captain was as praiseworthy as the
marksmanship of his gunners was execrable.
Allen says that Captain Warrington, in firing on the British brig,
after Boyce’s hail, exhibited a “savage barbarity unworthy of a Red
Indian.”
Roosevelt says: “I regret to say that it is difficult to believe
he (Warrington) acted with proper humanity.” Cooper says it was an
“unfortunate mistake.” No writer on this subject seems to have asked
himself seriously what he would have done had he been in command of a
little sloop in the Straits of Sunda, with all the fleets of the mighty
British Empire between him and a home-port--what he would have done
had he found a legitimate prize just beyond the guns of a powerful
fort of the enemy. Did a legitimate desire for self-preservation in
that situation warrant the Yankee in taking every advantage possible
of the enemy, and in doubting what the enemy, apparently caught at a
disadvantage, might say?
But if Warrington, the Yankee, showed “savage barbarity,” what shall be
said of the act of Captain Bartholomew, of the British ship _Erebus_,
in firing a broadside at the Yankee gun-boat Number 168, commanded
by Sailing-master Hurlburt, after learning _officially_ that peace
had been declared? “Peace having been declared and having been known
to exist for over three weeks,” the gun-boat, en route to deliver
despatches to the British admiral off Tybee Bar, Georgia, did not heave
to when ordered to do so as he was passing the _Erebus_. Instead,
he told the British his errand. Captain Bartholomew, cursing like a
pirate, said he would sink the gun-boat if a boat from her were not
sent on board the _Erebus_ instantly, and when Mr. Hurlburt began to
reply the British marines opened fire with muskets, and he was ordered
to haul down his flag. He refused and the big ship fired a broadside.
Hurlburt returned the fire as best he could and then surrendered. He
was soon allowed to proceed.
Perhaps it is worth noting that although the gun-boat was within easy
musket range, the gunners of the _Erebus_ did not hit her with even one
shot save in the rigging.