Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 Part 2

[Begun in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE No. 37, July 13.]

THE STORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY.

BY BENSON J. LOSSING.

CHAPTER V.

"We have a right to enter any of your vessels without your leave to seek for suspected deserters from our navy, and to take them away when found," said the British government to the Americans again after the war with the Barbary States.

"By so doing you insult our flag. _Beware!_" replied the Americans.

There was no power in that "Beware!" for our little navy, which had performed such valiant deeds, had, under the pretext of "public economy," been transformed into a swarm of gun-boats--a "mosquito fleet"--that was ridiculed at home and despised abroad. British cruisers patrolled American waters, and insulted our flag whenever they pleased.

They became legalized plunderers, and no American merchant vessel leaving port was safe from their depredations.

In 1807 a British squadron lay in a bay on the coast of Virginia. The American frigate _Chesapeake_ put to sea from Hampton Roads, when the _Leopard_, one of the English s.h.i.+ps, stopped her, and demanded the delivery of three or four alleged deserters on board of her. When the demand was refused, the _Leopard_ sent no less than twenty round-shot through the surprised and unprepared _Chesapeake_, and British officers boarded her, and carried away the men. This outrage excited a hot war spirit among the Americans. The government ordered all armed British vessels to leave American waters immediately. Did they do it? No. There was no power back of the order to enforce it. The ridiculous gun-boat fleet was laughed at, and the government was placed in the position of a weak bl.u.s.terer. British cruisers continued to patrol American waters.

The people demanded more war s.h.i.+ps. The government heeded the demand.

The gun-boats retired, and in 1810 the Americans had four frigates and eight smaller armed vessels afloat.

In the spring of 1811 a British frigate was seen prowling along our coasts. Commodore Rodgers went in search of her in the frigate _President_, and on a pleasant May evening he gave chase to a vessel which he supposed to be the one he was searching for. As he drew near he asked, through his trumpet, "What sail is that?" The stranger repeated the question. Rodgers again asked, "What sail is that?" and was answered by a cannon-ball, which lodged in the main-mast of the _President_.

Rodgers opened a broadside upon the surly stranger, and after a short combat silenced her guns. At daylight she was seen several miles away.

She was the British sloop-of-war _Little Belt_.

This affair created great excitement, and from that time until the summer of 1812 the American war vessels were kept actively cruising along our coasts. Meanwhile, navy-yards had been built, the moral tone of the navy had been greatly improved, and its discipline was efficient.

It was almost unconsciously preparing for a great conflict, in which it was to gain imperishable renown.

Insult after insult caused the Americans to declare war against England in the summer of 1812. Measures were taken to create an efficient army, but, strange as it may seem, when war was to be waged against a powerful maritime nation there was persistent opposition in Congress to a navy.

The Southern members, representing a purely agricultural region, could not sympathize with New Englanders in desires for a navy to protect commerce. In vain it was wisely urged that protection to commerce is protection to agriculture. A South Carolina member declared he would "go further to see a navy burned than to extinguish the flames," and a proposition of a Ma.s.sachusetts member to build thirty frigates was voted down. And yet, so unprepared for maritime war, the Americans went boldly out on the ocean with a few public vessels and active privateers to defy the royal navy of England. The United States had twenty war vessels, exclusive of one hundred and twenty gun-boats. Great Britain had eight hundred efficient cruisers.

The British had nothing but sneers at and ribald jokes about the American Navy. They laughed in derision at our declaration of war. They spoke of the _Const.i.tution_ frigate, which had performed such gallant deeds in the Mediterranean, as "a bundle of pine boards sailing under a bit of striped bunting," and they declared that "a few broadsides from England's wooden walls" would, "drive the paltry striped bunting from the ocean." They did not heed the injunction, "Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off."

When war was declared, there was a small American squadron in the harbor of New York under Commodore Rodgers. It immediately went to sea in search of a large fleet of Jamaica merchantmen known to be off the coast. The _President_ frigate was Rodgers's flag-s.h.i.+p. She soon encountered the British frigate _Belvidera_, which, after a sharp combat, was lightened, and, outsailing the _President_, escaped. This was the first battle on sea or land of the war of 1812-15, which is properly called the "Second War for Independence." The _Belvidera_ carried the news of the declaration of war to the British at Halifax.

Captain Broke was sent from Halifax with a squadron to meet the Americans. His flag-s.h.i.+p was the frigate _Shannon_. He soon captured the little brig _Nautilus_, the _first_ vessel taken in that war. She was retaken in the East Indies in 1815, and was the _last_ vessel captured in the war.

The frigate _Const.i.tution_, Captain Isaac Hull, had just returned from Europe. She s.h.i.+pped a new crew, and cruised along the New England coasts. In the middle of July she fell in with Broke's squadron.

Perceiving his peril, Hull sought safety in flight; and then began one of the most remarkable naval retreats ever recorded, in which skillful seamans.h.i.+p won the race. There was almost a dead calm. Down went the boats of the _Const.i.tution_, with long lines attached to them, and strong sweeps were used with desperate energy in towing her. A long cannon was placed at the stern on her spar-deck, and two others were pointed out of her cabin windows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ESCAPE OF THE UNITED STATES FRIGATE "CONSt.i.tUTION."--DRAWN BY J. O. DAVIDSON.]

A gentle breeze now sprang up, and the _Shannon_ approached and attacked the _Const.i.tution_ with her bow guns. The breeze died away. The water was shallow, and Hull sent a kedge anchor with ropes attached, in a boat, half a mile ahead. It was cast, and the crew pulled the s.h.i.+p rapidly ahead. For a while Broke was puzzled by her mysterious movement, but discovering the secret he used the same means. Through breezes and calms, and a fierce thunder-storm that swept over the sea, the chase continued sixty-four hours, when Broke gave it up, and the _Const.i.tution_ escaped. A rhymer of the day wrote:

"'Neath Hull's command and a tough band, And naught beside to back her, Upon a day, as log-books say, A fleet bore down to thwack her.

A fleet, you know, is odds or so Against a single s.h.i.+p, sirs; So 'cross the tide her legs she tried, And gave the rogues the slip, sirs."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE "BOSS" FISH.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JEFF AND CHARLEY FIs.h.i.+NG BEFORE BREAKFAST.]

"No use, Charley. We might as well go home to breakfast."

"We got here early enough."

"I don't believe there's a trout in the brook."

"If there are any, they don't bite worms early in the morning any more'n they do any other time."

Charley looked mournfully down at his float, as it lopped wearily over on one side. The water of the little pool below the foot-bridge over the trout brook was as smooth as a looking-gla.s.s, and the float had not so much as wiggled since he dropped it in.

"I don't care much for trout, Jeff."

"I'd rather have some breakfast."

"And after that we'll take the boat, and go out on the pond. We've dug a pile of worms."

Slowly and grudgingly the line was pulled in, but the faces of both the boys brightened the moment they were turned in the direction of breakfast.

Half an hour later they were stopping for a moment to look at a stout, middle-aged man who was standing on the steps of the little village hotel, talking with the landlord. A strap over one shoulder held up a fis.h.i.+ng-basket that swung behind his left hip, and in his right hand he carried, all ready for use, the lightest fis.h.i.+ng-rod Charley Morris had ever seen. Even Jeff, who was from the city himself, and had looked at such things in the show windows of the shops, had an idea the stranger must have made a mistake in bringing that plaything into the country.

"It's a trout rod, Charley. If we'd had one like it this morning!"

"'Tisn't much bigger'n a horsewhip."

Just then the landlord was saying, "Thar isn't much in the pond 'cept perch and sunfish, but you may take something in the creek above. Your best show for trout is to work along the trout brook as far as the hill, and then cut across to the creek, and fish down. 'Tain't far to cross.

To-morrer you can try the brooks beyond the hill. Some of 'em'll give you a full baskit."

"Hear that, Jeff," whispered Charley. "Just isn't old Galloway a-fooling him! Sending him to fish in that brook! Why, if our cows got at it all at once, they'd drink it dry."

Jeff was looking at the high boots the stranger wore over his trousers, and was just saying, "They're for wading, so he won't wet his feet,"

when Charley looked right up into the face of the "fancy fisherman" from the city, and asked,

"Mister, do you want any worms?"

"Angle-worms, my lad?"

"And grubs? I know where you can dig lots of 'em. Where Jeff and I got ours this morning."

"No, thank you, my little man. I don't care for any worms. Would you like to see my bait?"