Читать книгу Gentlemen Rovers - E. Alexander Powell - Страница 6

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This is the story of some forgotten fights and fighters in a forgotten war. The governments of the two nations which did the fighting—France and the United States—refused, indeed, to admit that there was any war at all, and, in a sense, they were right, for there was never any declaration of hostilities, and there was never signed a treaty of peace. But it was a very real war, nevertheless, with some of the fiercest battles ever fought on deep water, and when it was over we had laid the foundations of a navy, we had won the respect of the European powers, and we had humbled the pride of Napoleon as it had been humbled only once before, when Nelson annihilated the French fleet in the battle of the Nile.

At the time that this narrative opens Bonaparte had just finished his wonderful campaign in northern Italy, and the French nation, flushed with confidence by his remarkable series of victories, was swaggering about with a chip on its shoulder, and defying the nations of the world to knock it off. In fact, the leaders of the Reign of Terror, drunk with unaccustomed power, had lost their heads as completely as the victims whom they had guillotined on the Place de la Révolution. Thoroughly typical of this insolent and arrogant attitude was the French Directory's peremptory demand that we instantly abrogate the treaty which John Jay, our minister to England, had just concluded with that country, basing its unwarrantable interference with our affairs on the ground that the terms of the treaty were injurious to the commercial interests of France. Upon our curt refusal to accede to this preposterous demand, Charles C. Pinckney, our minister at Paris, was notified by the French Government that it would hold no further intercourse with him, and the very next mail-packet brought the news that he had been expelled from France. Not content with this extraordinary and uncalled-for affront to a friendly nation, French cruisers began seizing our ships under a decree of their government authorizing the capture of neutral vessels having on board any of the products of Great Britain or her colonies, for at this time, remember, France and England were at war, as they were, indeed, throughout nearly the whole of Napoleon's reign. As the bulk of our trade at this period was with the British colonies in the West Indies, it was evident that this decree was aimed directly at us. Every packet that came from West Indian waters brought news of American ships overhauled and plundered, of sailors beaten and kidnapped, and of cargoes seized and confiscated by the French, the authenticated despatches to the State Department naming nearly a thousand vessels which had been captured. So bold did the French become that one of their privateers actually had the audacity to sail into Charleston Roads and, almost under the guns of the batteries, to burn to the water's edge a British vessel which was lying in the harbor.

Though it was evident that nothing short of a miracle could avert war, President Adams, appreciating the ill-preparedness of the United States, which had only recently emerged from the Revolution in a weakened and impoverished condition, determined to make one more try for peace by despatching to France a special mission composed of Minister Pinckney, Elbridge Gerry, and John Marshall, the last-named later Chief Justice of the United States. Though in all our diplomatic history we have sent abroad no more able or distinguished embassy, the reception its members received at the hands of the French Government was as disgraceful as it was ludicrous. The French Directory at this time was composed of low and irresponsible politicians of the ward-heeler type who had climbed to power during the French Revolution, so that, incredible as such a state of affairs may seem in these days, the negotiations soon degenerated into an attempt to fleece the American envoys, who were informed quite frankly that their success depended entirely upon their agreeing to bribe—or, as the French politely put it, to give a douceur to—certain avaricious members of the Directory. Not only this, but the American diplomatists were told that, if the bribes demanded were not forthcoming, orders would be given to the war-ships on the French West Indian station to ravage the coasts of the United States. The chronicles of our foreign relations contain nothing which, for sheer impudence and insult, even approaches this attempt to levy blackmail on the nation. Even the astute Talleyrand, at that time French Foreign Minister, so far misjudged the characters of the men with whom he was dealing as to insinuate that a gift of money to members of the government was a necessary preliminary to the negotiations, and that a refusal would bring on war. Then all the pent-up rage and indignation of Pinckney burst forth. "War be it, then!" he exclaimed. "Millions for defence, sir, but not one cent for tribute!"

Upon learning of this crowning insult to his representatives, President Adams, on March 19, 1798, informed Congress that the mission on which he had built his hopes of peace had proved a failure. Then the war-fever, which had temporarily been held in abeyance, swept over the country like fire in dry grass. Talleyrand's attempt to whip America into a revocation of Jay's treaty had ignominiously failed. He had made the inexcusable mistake of underestimating the spirit and resources of his opponents. Congress promptly abrogated all our treaties with France, prohibited American vessels from entering French ports, and French vessels from coming into American waters, and voted a large sum for national defence. The land forces were increased, the coastwise fortifications strengthened, ships of war were hurriedly laid down, volunteers from every walk of life besieged the recruiting stations, Washington reassumed command of the army. At Portland, Portsmouth, Salem, Chatham, Norwich, Philadelphia, and Baltimore the shipyards resounded to the clatter of tools, for those were before the days of big guns and armor-plate, and a man-of-war could, if necessary, be built and equipped in ninety days.

Out from behind this war-cloud rose the thrilling strains of "Hail, Columbia." When the war-fever was at its height, a young actor and singer named Fox—a vaudeville artist, we should call him nowadays—who was appearing at a Philadelphia theatre, called one morning on his friend Joseph Hopkinson, a young and clever lawyer, and a son of that Francis H. Hopkinson whose signature may be seen at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence.

"Look here, Joe," said Fox, dropping into a chair, "I need some help and you're the only man I know who can give it to me. No, no, old man, it's not money I'm after. To-morrow night I'm to have a benefit at the theatre, but not a single box has been sold; so, unless something can be done to attract public attention, I'm afraid I shall have a mighty thin house. Now it strikes me that, with all this war-fever in the air, if I could get some patriotic verses, something really fiery and inspiriting, written to the tune of 'The President's March,' I might draw a crowd. Several of the people around the theatre have tried it, but they have all given it up as a bad job, and say that it can't be done. So you're my last hope, Joe, and I think you could do it."

Shutting himself up in his study, within an hour Hopkinson had completed the first verse and chorus of what was to prove one of the greatest of our national songs, and had submitted them to his wife, who sang them to a harpsichord accompaniment. The tune and the words harmonized. A few hours later the song was completed and was being memorized by Fox. The next morning Philadelphia was placarded with announcements that that evening Mr. Fox would sing, for the first time on any stage, a new patriotic song. The house was packed to the doors. As the orchestra broke into the familiar opening bars of "The President's March," and Fox, slender and debonair, bowed from behind the footlights, the audience grew hushed with expectancy. When the now familiar words,

"Immortal patriots, rise once more!

Defend your rights, defend your shore!"

went rolling through the theatre from pit to gallery, the audience went wild. Eight times they made him sing it through, and the ninth time they rose and joined in the rousing chorus:

"Firm, united let us be,

Rallying round our Liberty.

Like a band of brothers joined,

Peace and safety we shall find."

Night after night the singing of "Hail, Columbia," in the theatres was applauded by audiences delirious with enthusiasm, and within a few days it was being sung by boys in the streets of every city from Portland to Savannah. Never since the days of Bunker Hill had the nation been so stirred as it was in that summer of 1798.

On July 6, with the red-white-and-blue ensign streaming proudly from her main truck, the sloop of war Delaware, twenty guns, of Baltimore, under Stephen Decatur, Sr., put to sea to an accompaniment of booming cannon. Cape Henry had scarcely sunk below the horizon before she was hailed by a merchantman which had been boarded and plundered by a French privateer only the day before. Upon hearing this news Decatur set off in a pursuit as eager as that with which a bloodhound follows the trail of a fugitive criminal. A few hours later his lookouts reported four vessels dead ahead. Being unable to determine which was the privateer, he ran in his guns, closed his ports, and keeping on his course until he was sure that he had been seen, stood hurriedly off, as though afraid of being captured. Just as he had anticipated, the Frenchman fell into the trap, and piling on his canvas, bore down upon him. It was not until the privateersman drew close enough to make out the gun-ports and the unusual number of men on the American's decks, that he discovered Decatur's ruse and attempted to escape. But it was too late. The Delaware's superior speed enabled her easily to overhaul the Frenchman, which proved to be La Incroyable, fourteen guns and seventy men. So accurate and deadly was the fire poured into her by the Delaware's gunners (forerunners, remember, of those bluejackets who handle the twelve-inch guns on the dreadnaught Delaware to-day) that within ten minutes after the action had commenced the French tricolor came fluttering down. We had struck our first blow against the power of France.

The captured vessel was sent into port under a prize crew, was refitted, added to the American Navy as the Retaliation—fitting name!—went to sea under command of William Bainbridge (the same who a few years later was to lose the war-ship Philadelphia to the Barbary pirates in the harbor of Tripoli), and shortly afterward was recaptured by the French frigate l'Insurgente, being the only vessel of our little navy taken by the French.

By the beginning of 1799 the West Indian waters were as effectually patrolled by American war-ships as a great city is patrolled by policemen. The newly built American frigates were objects of great amusement and derision to the French and British officers stationed in the West Indian colonies, for they were far too heavily armed, according to European ideas, carrying almost double the number of guns usual to vessels of their class. It is interesting to recall the fact, however, that sixty-odd years later European officers were equally derisive and sceptical of another American innovation in war-ships which was destined to revolutionize naval warfare—the monitor. But before long the sceptics were compelled to revise their opinions of the fighting qualities of our infant navy. Our fleet was at this time divided into two squadrons, both of which made their headquarters at St. Christopher, or, as it was more commonly called, St. Kitts, on the island of Antigua; one, under Commodore Barry, running as far south as the Guianas, while the other, under Commodore Truxtun, cruised northward to Santo Domingo, thus effectually cutting off from commercial intercourse with the mother country the rich French colonies in the Caribbean.

Truxtun was a most picturesque and romantic figure. Short and stout, red-faced, gray-eyed, loud-voiced, gallant with women and short-tempered with men, he was as typical a sea fighter as ever trod a quarter-deck with a brass telescope tucked under his arm. From the time when, as a boy of twelve, he ran away to sea, until, a national hero, he was laid to rest in Christ Church graveyard in Philadelphia, his life was as full of hair-breadth escapes and hair-raising adventures as that of one of Mr. George A. Henty's heroes. A sailor before the mast when scarcely in his teens, he was impressed into the British Navy, where his ability attracted such attention that he was offered a midshipman's warrant, which he refused. When only twenty years of age he commanded his own ship, in which he succeeded, though at great personal hazard, in smuggling large quantities of much-needed powder into the rebellious colonies. Eventually his ship was captured and he was made a prisoner. Escaping from the British prison in the West Indies where he was confined, he made his way to the United States, obtained letters of marque from the first Continental Congress, and was the first to get to sea of that long line of privateersmen who, first in the Revolution, and afterward in the War of 1812, practically drove British commerce from the Atlantic. At the close of the Revolution Truxtun returned to the merchant service, in which he rose to wealth and position. When the American Navy was organized under the stimulus of French aggression, he was offered and accepted the command of the thirty-eight-gun frigate Constellation, a new and very beautiful vessel, splendidly officered and manned, and with heels as fast as her gun-fire was heavy.

While cruising off Antigua, on February 9, 1799, the Constellation's lookout reported a French war-ship, which, upon being overhauled, proved to be l'Insurgente, forty guns, which had the reputation of being one of the fastest ships in the world, and was commanded by Captain Barreault, an officer celebrated in the French Navy as a desperate fighter and a resourceful sailor. As the Constellation, with her crew at quarters and her decks cleared for action, came booming down upon him, Captain Barreault broke out the French tricolor at his masthead and fired a gun to windward, which signified, in the language of the seas, that he was ready for a yard-arm to yard-arm combat. Truxtun's reply was to range alongside his adversary, a flag of stripes and stars at every masthead, and pour in a broadside which raked l'Insurgente's decks from stem to stern. The first great naval action in which the American Navy ever bore a part had begun.

Waiting until the Constellation was well abreast of her, at a distance of perhaps thirty feet (modern war-ships seldom fight at a range of less than three miles), l'Insurgente replied, firing high in an attempt to disable the American by bringing down her rigging. Midshipman David Porter, a youngster barely in his teens, was stationed in the foretop. Seeing that the top-mast, which had been seriously damaged by the French fire, was tottering and about to fall, but being unable to make himself heard on deck above the din of battle, he himself assumed the responsibility of lowering the foretopsail yard, thus relieving the strain on the mast and preventing a mishap which would probably have changed the result of the battle. That midshipman rose, in after years, to be an admiral and the commander-in-chief of the American Navy.

Barreault, who had a much larger crew than his adversary, soon saw that his vessel was in danger of being pounded to pieces by the American gunners who were making every shot tell, and that his only hope of victory lay in getting alongside and boarding, depending upon his superior numbers to take the American vessel with the cutlass. With this in view, he ordered the boarding parties to their stations, sent men into the rigging with grappling-irons with which to hold the ships together when they touched, directed the guns to be loaded with small shot that they might cause greater execution at close quarters, and then, putting his helm hard down, attempted to run alongside the Constellation. But Truxtun had anticipated this very manœuvre, and was prepared for it. Seizing his opportunity—and in sea-battles opportunities do not last long or come often—he whirled his ship about as a polo player whirls his pony, and ran squarely across the enemy's bows, pouring in a rain of lead as he passed, which all but annihilated the boarding parties drawn up on the deck of l'Insurgente.

Foiled in his attempt to get to hand-grips with his enemy, the Frenchman sheered off and the duel at short range continued, the Constellation, magnificently handled, sailing first along l'Insurgente's port side, firing as she went, and then, crossing her bows, repeating the manœuvre on her starboard quarter. Nothing is more typical of the iron discipline enforced by the American naval commanders in those early days than an incident that occurred when this duel between the two frigates was at its height. As a storm of shot from the Frenchman's batteries came crashing and smashing into the Constellation, a gunner, seeing his mate decapitated by a solid shot, became so demoralized that he retreated from his gun, whereupon an officer drew his pistol and shot the man dead.

Time after time Truxtun repeated his evolution of literally sailing around l'Insurgente, until every gun in her main batteries had been dismounted, her crew being left only the small guns with which to continue the action. It speaks volumes for Barreault's bravery that, with half his crew dead or wounded, and with a terribly battered and almost defenceless ship, he did continue the action, his weary, blood-stained, powder-blackened men loading and firing their few remaining guns dauntlessly. Seeing the weakened condition of his enemy, Truxtun now prepared to end the battle. Before the French had time to grasp the full significance of his manœuvre, he had put his helm hard down, and the Constellation, suddenly looming out of the battle smoke, bore down upon l'Insurgente with the evident intention of crossing her stern and raking her with a broadside to which she would be unable to reply. Though no braver man than Barreault ever fought a ship, he instantly appreciated that this would mean an unnecessary slaughter of his men; so, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, he ordered his colors to be struck, and in token of surrender the flag of France slipped slowly and mournfully down. The young republic of the West had avenged the insult of Talleyrand.

It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the desperate fighting which characterized this battle, the Constellation had only two of her crew killed and three wounded, while the French loss was nearly twenty times that number. Lieutenant Rodgers and Midshipman Porter were immediately sent aboard the captured vessel with a prize crew of only eleven men. After the dead had been buried at sea, the wounded cared for by the American surgeons, and about half of the prisoners transferred to the Constellation, Rodgers set such sails on l'Insurgente as the wrecked rigging would permit, and laid his course for St. Christopher, it being understood that Truxtun would keep within hail in case his assistance was needed. During the night a heavy gale set in, however, and when day broke upon the heaving ocean the Constellation was nowhere to be seen. It was a ticklish situation in which the thirteen Americans found themselves, for they had their work cut out for them to navigate a leaking, shattered, and dismasted ship, while below decks, awaiting the first opportunity which offered to rise and overpower their captors, were nearly two hundred desperate and determined prisoners. There were neither shackles nor handcuffs on board, and the hatchcovers had been destroyed in the action, so that the prisoners were perfectly aware that, could they once force their way on deck by a sudden rush, the ship would again be theirs. But they reckoned without Rodgers, for the first men who put their heads above the hatchway found themselves looking into the muzzles of a pair of pistols held by the American lieutenant, whose fingers were twitching on the triggers. During the three days and two nights which the voyage to St. Christopher lasted, a guard of American bluejackets stood constantly around the open hatchway, a pile of loaded small arms close at hand, and a cannon loaded with grape-shot trained menacingly into the prisoner-filled hold. On the evening of the third day, after Truxtun had given her up for lost, l'Insurgente limped into port with the flag of the United States flaunting victoriously above that of France.

The 1st of February of the following year found the Constellation, still under the command of Commodore Truxtun, cruising off Guadaloupe in the hope of picking up some of the French privateers which were using that colony as a base from which to prey on our West Indian commerce. While loitering off the port of Basse Terre, and praying that something would turn up to pay him for his patience, Truxtun sighted a vessel coming up from the southeast, which from her size and build was evidently a French frigate of the first class. As she approached, the keen-eyed American naval officers, scanning her through their glasses, recognized her as the fifty-two-gun frigate La Vengeance, one of the most formidable vessels in the French Navy. It was evident from the first, however, that she would much rather run than fight, this anxiety to avoid an encounter being due to the fact that she had on board a large number of officials, high in the colonial service, whom she was bringing out to the colonies from the mother country. No sooner did she perceive the character of the Constellation, therefore, than she piled on every yard of canvas and headed for Basse Terre and the protecting guns of its forts. Never had the Constellation a better opportunity to display her remarkable sailing qualities, and never did she display them to better advantage. It was well after nightfall, however, before she was able to overhaul the flying Frenchman, so that it was by the light of a full moon, which illumined the scene almost as well as though it were day, that the preparations were completed for the combat. The sea, which was glasslike in its smoothness, as is so often the case in Caribbean waters, seemed to be covered with a veil of shimmering silver, while the battle-lanterns which had been lighted on both vessels swung like giant fireflies across the purple sky.

Seeing that escape was hopeless, the French commander hove to and prepared for a desperate resistance. Now, Truxtun had made up his mind that this was to be no long-range duel, in which the Frenchman's heavier metal could not fail to give him an advantage, but a fight at close quarters, in which the smashing broadsides which the Constellation was specially designed to deliver could not fail to tell. Just before the beginning of the battle the stout commodore, red-faced, white-wigged, cock-hatted, clad in the blue tail-coat and buff breeches of the American Navy, descended to the gun-deck and walked slowly through the batteries, acknowledging the cheers of the gunners, but emphatically warning them against firing a shot until he gave the word. No one knew better than Truxtun the demoralizing effect of a smashing broadside suddenly delivered at close quarters, and it was this demoralization which he intended to create aboard the enemy. "Load with solid shot," he ordered, and added, speaking to his officers so that the men could hear: "If a man fires a gun before I give the order, shoot him on the spot." Then with boarding-nettings triced up, decks sanded, magazines opened, and the tops filled with marines whose duty it was to pick off the French gunners, the Constellation, stripped to her fighting canvas, swept grandly into action. As she came within range the French commander opened with his stern-chasers, and in an instant the ordered decks of the American were turned into a shambles. The wounded were carried groaning to the cockpit, where the white-aproned surgeons, their arms bared to the elbow, awaited their grim work, while the dead were hastily ranged along the unengaged side—rows of stark and staring figures beneath the placid moon. Again and again the guns of La Vengeance belched smoke and flame, and redder and redder grew the sand with which the Constellation's decks were spread, but she still kept coming on. Not until she was squarely abreast of the Frenchman did Truxtun, leaping into the shrouds, bellow through his speaking-trumpet: "Now, boys, give 'em hell!" The American gunners answered with a broadside which made La Vengeance reel. The effect was terrible. On the decks of the Frenchman the dead and dying lay in quivering, bleeding heaps. But not for an instant did the French sailors flinch from their guns. Broadside answered broadside, cheer answered cheer, while the men, French and American alike, toiled and sweated at their work of carnage. So rapidly were the American guns fired that the men actually had to crawl out of the ports, in the face of a withering fire, for buckets of water with which to cool them off.

The different tactics adopted by the two commanders soon began to show results, for, whereas Truxtun had given orders that his men were to disregard the upper works and to concentrate their fire on the main-deck batteries and the hull, the French commander had from the first directed his fire upon the American's rigging in the hope of crippling her. Shortly after midnight the French fire, which had grown weaker and weaker under the terrible punishment of the Constellation's successive broadsides, ceased altogether, and an officer was seen waving a white flag in token of surrender. Twice before, in fact, La Vengeance had struck her colors, but owing to the smoke and darkness the Americans had not perceived it. And there was good reason for her surrender, for she had lost one hundred and sixty men out of her crew of three hundred and thirty, while the Constellation had but thirty-nine casualties out of a crew of three hundred and ten. Though the French fire had done small damage to the Constellation's hull, and had killed a comparatively small number of her crew, it had worked terrible havoc in her rigging, it being discovered, just as she was preparing to run alongside her capture and take possession, that every shroud and stay supporting her mainmast had been shot away, and that the mast was tottering and about to fall. The men in the top were under the command of a little midshipman named James Jarvis, who was only thirteen years old. He had been warned by one of his men that the mast was likely to fall at any moment, and had been implored to leave the top while there was still time, which he would have been entirely justified in doing, particularly as the battle was over. But that thirteen-year-old midshipman had in him the stuff of which heroes are made, and resolutely refused to leave his post without orders. The orders never came, for before the crew had time to secure it the great mast crashed over the side, carrying with it to instant death little Jarvis and all of his men save one. Though his name and deed have long since been forgotten by the nation for which he died, he was no whit less a hero than that other boy-sailor, Casabianca, whose self-sacrifice at the battle of the Nile has been made familiar by song and story.

The falling of the Constellation's mast reversed conditions in an instant, for the surrendered frigate, taking prompt advantage of the victor's temporary helplessness, crowded on all sail and slowly disappeared into the night. By the time the wreck had been chopped away any pursuit of her was hopeless. A few days later she put into the Dutch port of Curaçao in a sinking condition.

Thus continued until February, 1801, an unbroken series of American successes, French war-ships, French privateers, and French merchantmen alike being sunk, captured, or driven from the seas. France's trade with her West Indian colonies was paralyzed, and the prestige of her navy was enormously diminished. Napoleon, as First Consul, had abolished the Directory, and was now the virtual ruler of France, having entire command of all administrative affairs, both civil and military. Forced to admit that from first to last his ships had been out-sailed, out-fought, and out-manœuvred by the despised Americans, and that a continuance of the war could only result in further disaster and loss of prestige, he began negotiations which led, about the time that the nineteenth century passed its first birthday, to a suspension of hostilities.

During the two and a half years of this unofficial war with the most powerful military nation in the world our infant navy had captured eighty-four armed French vessels, mounting over five hundred guns—a success all the more remarkable when it is remembered that our entire naval establishment at the outbreak of hostilities comprised but twenty-two vessels, with four hundred and fifty-six guns. In other words, we had captured almost four times as many ships as we possessed. Not only had we practically destroyed French commerce on this side of the Atlantic, but our own commerce had risen, under the protection of our guns, from fifty-seven million dollars in 1797 to more than seventy-eight million dollars in 1799. Most important of all, however, we had shown to France and to Europe that, when occasion demanded, we both would and could, in the words of our national song, defend our rights and defend our shore.