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CRUISE OF THE WASP.

R. Dacres. She was so completely torn to pieces that it was found necessary to set her on fire the succeeding day, and she soon blew up. The Constitution received so little injury, that in a very short time she was ready for another action. Her loss was seven killed, and seven wounded; that of the Guerriere, fifteen killed, sixty-two wounded, including the captain and several officers, and twenty-four missing.

The news of this victory was received in the United States with the greatest joy and exultation. All parties united in celebrating it, and the citizens and public authorities vied with each other in bestowing marks of approbation upon Captain Hull, and his gallant officers and crew.

The United States sloop-of-war Wasp, of eighteen guns, commanded by Captain Jacob Jones, sailed from the Delaware, on the 13th of October; and on the 18th of the month, after a long and heavy gale, fell in with a convoy of six merchantmen, four of them strongly armed, under the protection of His Britannic Majesty's sloop-of-war Frolic, of twenty-two guns, Captain Whinyates. There was a heavy swell in the sea, and the weather was boisterous. At half-past eleven in the morning, the action commenced between the two national vessels, at the distance of about fifty yards. But, during the action, so near did they come to each other, that the rammers of the Wasp's cannon were, in one instance, struck against the side of the Frolic. The fire of the English vessel soon slackened; and after a most sanguinary action of forty-three minutes, every brace of the Wasp being shot away, and her rigging so much torn to pieces, that Captain Jones was afraid the Frolic would escape him, he resolved to board her. With this view he wore ship, and running down upon the enemy, the vessels struck each other, the Wasp's side rubbing against the Frolic's bow, so that her jib-boom came in between the main and mizen-rigging of the Wasp. At this moment, giving them a sweeping broadside, Captain Jones ordered the boarders to their places. Lieutenant Biddle, and a seaman named Jack Lang, were the first to reach the enemy's deck; but what was their astonishment when they found no person

on it except three officers and the seaman at the wheel. The officers surrendered the vessel, and the colours were hauled down by Lieutenant Biddle. The Frolic was in a shocking condition; the berth-deck, particularly, was crowded with dead, wounded, and dying; but a small proportion of her crew having escaped. Captain Jones instantly sent on board his surgeon's mate, and all the blankets of the Frolic were brought from her slop-room, for the comfort of the wounded. To increase this confusion, both the Frolic's masts soon fell, covering the dead and everything on deck, and she lay a complete wreck. The brave officers and crew of the Wasp, were unfortunately deprived, shortly afterwards, of their hard-earned prize. No sooner had the engagement ceased, than a sail was seen, which soon approached near enough for them to discover that she was an enemy's seventy-four-gun ship. From the disabled state of both vessels, an escape was impracticable; they were, therefore, obliged to surrender to the British ship Poictiers, of seventy-four guns, by which they were carried into Bermuda.

102

UNITED STATES AND MACEDONIAN.

The next of the brilliant actions of this war which we have to record, is that of Commodore Decatur, in the frigate United States. On the 25th of October, being off the Western Islands, she fell in with the British frigate Macedonian, of fortynine guns and three hundred men, a vessel newly built, and of superior equipment, commanded by Captain John S. Carden, one of the ablest officers in the British navy. The enemy, being to windward, had the advantage of choosing his own distance; and, supposing the United States to be the Essex, which only mounted carronades, kept at first at long shot, and did not at any moment come within the complete effect of the musketry and grape. As soon, however, as the United States was able to bring her enemy to close action, the superiority of the Americans in gunnery was manifestly displayed. The enemy's mizen-mast, and most of his spars and rigging being soon shot away, he deemed it expedient to surrender, with the loss of thirty-six killed and sixty-eight wounded. The damage of the United States was comparatively trivial, having only four killed and seven wounded; and she suffered so little in her hull and rigging, that she might have continued her cruise, had not Commodore Decatur thought it important to convoy his prize into port. The whole engagement lasted for an hour and a half, being prolonged by the distance at which the early part of it was fought, and by a heavy swell of the sea. Both frigates arrived in safety at New York, where Decatur was received with a similar degree of rejoicing and gratitude, to that which the republic had heretofore bestowed upon Captain Hull. The great disproportion in the loss of lives which was remarkably displayed in all the naval actions during the war, while it afforded a striking proof of the precision of the Americans in the art of firing, rendered their victories doubly grateful, by depriving them, in a great measure, of the alloy of individual grief, with which such events are too often intermixed.

After his capture of the Guerriere, Captain Hull resigned the command of the Constitution, for the purpose of attending to his private affairs; and was succeeded by Commodore Wil

CONSTITUTION AND JAVA.

103

liam Bainbridge, who soon after sailed from Boston, in company with Captain Lawrence, in the sloop-of-war Hornet, on a cruise to the East Indies. In running down the coast of Brazil, in the month of December, they found the Bonne Citoyenne, a British sloop-of-war, loaded with specie, lying in the port of St. Salvador. The Bonne Citoyenne was a larger vessel, and had a greater force, both in guns and men, than the Hornet; but so eager was Lawrence to engage her, that he sent through the American consul at St. Salvador, a challenge to her commander, Captain Greene, asking him to come out, and pledging himself that the Constitution should not interfere. Captain Greene did not think fit to accept the challenge, and preferred to lie in the harbour, where he was blockaded by the Hornet, till the 24th of January, 1813, when the arrival of the Montague, a British seventy-four-gun ship, which had sailed from Rio Janeiro, for the express purpose of relieving him, appeared, and obliged Captain Lawrence to withdraw.

In the meantime, Commodore Bainbridge, in the Constitution, left St. Salvador, in order that the Bonne Citoyenne might not be deterred from fighting the Hornet by his presence, and was sailing down the coast of Brazil, when, on the 29th of December, he fell in with the Java, a British frigate of forty-nine guns, and upwards of four hundred men, commanded by Captain Lambert. The action commenced about two o'clock, and continued, almost without intermission, until five minutes after four, when the fire of the Java was completely silenced, and she lay on the waters an unmanageable wreck, entirely dismantled, without a spar of any kind standing. After removing the prisoners and baggage, a service which it took two days to perform, there being but a single boat left between the two frigates, the Java was blown up, and the Constitution put into St. Salvador. The loss of the Java was sixty killed; and among these was Captain Lambert. Of the wounded, the accounts varied from one hundred and one (which were ascertained positively) to one hundred and seventy. On board the Constitution, nine were killed and

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BRITISH CAPTURES.

twenty-five wounded; among the latter was Commodore Bainbridge.

When Commodore Bainbridge arrived in the United States he was received with an enthusiastic welcome by his countrymen. Fifty thousand dollars prize-money, as a compensation for the loss of the Java, were given by Congress to the officers and crew, and a gold medal was presented to the commodore.

Six months had now elapsed from the commencement of hostilities, during which time the national vessels of the republic had carried its flag into almost every ocean. Three of them only, had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and those under such circumstances of relative force, as to reflect no discredit on the captured. The Wasp, sloop-of-war, was taken, as we have seen, by a seventy-four-gun ship; the schooner Nautilus, of twelve guns, commanded by Lieutenant Crane, surrendered, after a long chase, to a squadron of the enemy's frigates; and the Vixen, gun-brig, was captured on the 22d of November, by the frigate Southampton, and carried into the West Indies, where her commander, Captain Read, subsequently died.

On the other hand, the havoc made upon the commerce of the enemy was beyond all previous calculation. Before the meeting of Congress in November, nearly two hundred and fifty vessels had been captured by the American cruisers, and more than three thousand prisoners taken; while of the American merchantmen, comparatively few had fallen into the power of the enemy. The injury thus inflicted on the British commerce was produced only in a partial degree by the public vessels. The American privateers swarmed in every sea, and the enterprise, so conspicuous in the character of the nation, rendered them most formidable opponents. Being mostly built with a view to expeditious sailing, they were, in general, able to overtake the merchant-vessels, and to escape from the fastest frigates of the enemy. These advantages were never sullied by inhumanity; and the generosity with which they, in many instances, acted in opposition to the love of profit, reflects credit on the national character.