Chapter 17

SEABOARD MARITIME OPERATIONS

Upon the Canada frontier the conditions of 1813 had permitted the United States an ample field for offensive operations, with good prospect of success. What use was made of the opportunity has now been narrated. Upon the seaboard, continuous illustration was afforded that there the country was widely open to attack, thrown wholly on the defensive, with the exception of preying upon the enemy's commerce by numerous small cruisers. As a secondary operation of war this has always possessed value, and better use of it perhaps never was made than by the American people at this time; but it is not determinative of great issues, and the achievements of the public and private armed vessels of the United States, energetic and successful as they were at this period, constituted no exception to the universal experience. Control of the highways of the ocean by great fleets destroys an enemy's commerce, root and branch. The depredations of scattered cruisers may inflict immense vexation, and even embarrassment; but they neither kill nor mortally wound, they merely harass. Co-operating with other influences, they may induce yielding in a maritime enemy; but singly they never have done so, and probably never can. In 1814 no commerce was left to the United States; and that conditions remained somewhat better during 1813 was due to collusion of the enemy, not to national power.

The needs of the British armies in the Spanish Peninsula and in Canada, and the exigencies of the West India colonies, induced the enemy to wink at, and even to uphold, a considerable clandestine export trade from the United States. Combined with this was the hope of embarrassing the general government by the disaffection of New England, and of possibly detaching that section of the country from the Union. For these reasons, the eastern coast was not included in the commercial blockade in 1813. But no motive existed for permitting the egress of armed vessels, or the continuance of the coasting trade, by which always, now as then, much of the intercourse between different parts of the country must be maintained, and upon which in 1812 it depended almost altogether. With the approach of spring in 1813, therefore, not only was the commercial blockade extended to embrace New York and all south of it, together with the Mississippi River, but the naval constriction upon the shore line became so severe as practically to annihilate the coasting trade, considered as a means of commercial exchange. It is not possible for deep-sea cruisers wholly to suppress the movement of small vessels, skirting the beaches from headland to headland; but their operations can be so much embarrassed as to reduce their usefulness to a bare alleviation of social necessities, inadequate to any scale of interchange deserving the name of commerce.

"I doubt not," wrote Captain Broke, when challenging Lawrence to a ship duel, "that you will feel convinced that it is only by repeated triumphs in even combat that your little navy can now hope to console your country for the loss of that trade it cannot protect."[128] The taunt, doubtless intended to further the object of the letter by the provocation involved, was applicable as well to coasting as to deep-sea commerce. It ignored, however, the consideration, necessarily predominant with American officers, that the conditions of the war imposed commerce destruction as the principal mission of their navy. They were not indeed to shun combat, when it offered as an incident, but neither were they to seek it as a mere means of glory, irrespective of advantage to be gained. Lawrence, whom Broke's letter did not reach, was perhaps not sufficiently attentive to this motive.

The British blockade, military and commercial, the coastwise operations of their navy, and the careers of American cruisers directed to the destruction of British commerce, are then the three heads under which the ocean activities of 1813 divide. Although this chapter is devoted to the first two of these subjects, brief mention should be made here of the distant cruises of two American vessels, because, while detached from any connection with other events, they are closely linked, in time and place, with the disastrous seaboard engagement between the "Chesapeake" and "Shannon," with which the account of sea-coast maritime operations opens. On April 30 Captain John Rodgers put to sea from Boston in the frigate "President," accompanied by the frigate "Congress," Captain John Smith. Head winds immediately after sailing detained them inside of Cape Cod until May 3, and it was not till near George's Bank that any of the blockading squadron was seen. As, by the Admiralty's instructions, one of the blockaders was usually a ship of the line, the American vessels very properly evaded them. The two continued together until May 8, when they separated, some six hundred miles east of Delaware Bay. Rodgers kept along northward to the Banks of Newfoundland, hoping, at that junction of commercial highways, to fall in with a West India convoy, or vessels bound into Halifax or the St. Lawrence. Nothing, however, was seen, and he thence steered to the Azores with equal bad fortune. Obtaining thereabouts information of a homeward-bound convoy from the West Indies, he went in pursuit to the northeast, but failed to find it. Not till June 9 did he make three captures, in quick succession. Being then two thirds of the way to the English Channel, he determined to try the North Sea, shaping his course to intercept vessels bound either by the north or south of Ireland. Not a sail was met until the Shetland Islands were reached, and there were found only Danes, which, though Denmark was in hostility with Great Britain, were trading under British licenses. The "President" remained in the North Sea until the end of July, but made only two prizes, although she lay in wait for convoys of whose sailing accounts were received. Having renewed her supply of water at Bergen, in Norway, she returned to the Atlantic, made three captures off the north coast of Ireland, and thence beat back to the Banks, where two stray homeward-bound West Indiamen were at last caught. From there the ship made her way, still with a constant head wind, to Nantucket, off which was captured a British man-of-war schooner, tender to the admiral. On September 27 she anchored in Narragansett Bay, having been absent almost five months, and made twelve prizes, few of which were valuable. One, however, was a mail packet to Halifax, the capture of which, as of its predecessors, was noted by Prevost.[129]

The "Congress" was still less successful in material result. She followed a course which had hitherto been a favorite with American captains, and which Rodgers had suggested as alternative to his own; southeast, passing near the Cape Verde Islands, to the equator between longitudes 24° and 31° west; thence to the coast of Brazil, and so home, by a route which carried her well clear of the West India Islands. She entered Portsmouth, New Hampshire, December 14, having spent seven months making this wide sweep; in the course of which three prizes only were taken.[130] It will be remembered that the "Chesapeake," which had returned only a month before the "Congress" sailed, had taken much the same direction with similar slight result.

These cruises were primarily commerce-destroying, and were pursued in that spirit, although with the full purpose of fighting should occasion arise. The paucity of result is doubtless to be attributed to the prey being sought chiefly on the high seas, too far away from the points of arrival and departure. The convoy system, rigidly enforced, as captured British correspondence shows, cleared the seas of British vessels, except in the spots where they were found congested, concentrated, by the operation of the system itself. It may be noted that the experience of all these vessels showed that nowhere was the system so rigidly operative as in the West Indies and Western Atlantic. Doubtless, too, the naval officers in command took pains to guide the droves of vessels entrusted to them over unusual courses, with a view to elude pursuers. As the home port was neared, the common disposition to relax tension of effort as the moment of relief draws nigh, co-operated with the gradual drawing together of convoys from all parts of the world to make the approaches to the English Channel the most probable scene of success for the pursuer. There the greatest number were to be found, and there presumption of safety tended to decrease carefulness. This was to be amply proved by subsequent experience. It had been predicted by Rodgers himself, although he apparently did not think wise to hazard in such close quarters so fine and large a frigate as the "President." "It is very generally believed," he had written, "that the coasts of England, Ireland, and Scotland are always swarming with British men of war, and that their commerce would be found amply protected. This, however, I well know by experience, in my voyages when a youth, to be incorrect; and that it has always been their policy to keep their enemies as far distant from their shores as possible, by stationing their ships at the commencement of a war on the enemy's coasts, and in such other distant situations, ... and thereby be enabled to protect their own commerce in a twofold degree. This, however, they have been enabled to do, owing as well to the inactivity of the enemy, as to the local advantages derived from their relative situations."[131]

The same tendency was observable at other points of arrival, and recognition of this dictated the instructions issued to Captain Lawrence for the cruise of the "Chesapeake," frustrated through her capture by the "Shannon." Lawrence was appointed to the ship on May 6; the sailing orders issued to Captain Evans being transferred to him on that date. He was to go to the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, seeking there to intercept the military store-ships, and transports with troops, destined to Quebec and Upper Canada. "The enemy," wrote the Secretary, "will not in all probability anticipate our taking this ground with our public ships of war; and as his convoys generally separate between Cape Race and Halifax, leaving the trade of the St. Lawrence to proceed without convoy, the chance of captures upon an extensive scale is very flattering." He added the just remark, that "it is impossible to conceive a naval service of a higher order in a national point of view than the destruction of the enemy's vessels, with supplies for his army in Canada and his fleets on this station."[132]

Lawrence took command of the "Chesapeake" at Boston on May 20. The ship had returned from her last cruise April 9, and had been so far prepared for sea by her former commander that, as has been seen, her sailing orders were issued May 6. It would appear from the statement of the British naval historian James,[133] based upon a paper captured in the ship, that the enlistments of her crew expired in April. Although there were many reshipments, and a nucleus of naval seamen, there was a large infusion of new and untrained men, amounting to a reconstitution of the ship's company. More important still was the fact that both the captain and first lieutenant were just appointed; her former first lying fatally ill at the time she sailed. The third and fourth lieutenants were also strange to her, and in a manner to their positions; being in fact midshipmen, to whom acting appointments as lieutenants were issued at Lawrence's request, by Commodore Bainbridge of the navy yard, on May 27, five days before the action. The third took charge of his division for the first time the day of the battle, and the men were personally unknown to him. The first lieutenant himself was extremely young.

The bearing of these facts is not to excuse the defeat, but to enforce the lesson that a grave military enterprise is not to be hazarded on a side issue, or on a point of pride, without adequate preparation. The "Chesapeake" was ordered to a service of very particular importance at the moment--May, 1813--when the Canada campaign was about to open. She was to act against the communications of the enemy; and while it is upon the whole more expedient, for the _morale_ of a service, that battle with an equal should not be declined, quite as necessarily action should not be sought when it will materially interfere with the discharge of a duty intrinsically of greater consequence. The capture of a single enemy's frigate is not to be confounded with, or inflated to, that destruction of an enemy's organized force which is the prime object of all military effort. Indeed, the very purpose to which the "Chesapeake" was designated was to cripple the organized force of the British, either the army in Canada, or the navy on the lakes. The chance of a disabling blow by unexpected action in the St. Lawrence much exceeded any gain to be anticipated, even by a victorious ship duel, which would not improbably entail return to port to refit; while officers new to their duties, and unknown to their men, detracted greatly from the chances of success, should momentary disaster or confusion occur.

The blockade of Boston Harbor at this moment was conducted by Captain Philip Vere Broke of the "Shannon", a 38-gun frigate, which he had then commanded for seven years. His was one of those cases where singular merit as an officer, and an attention to duty altogether exceptional, had not yet obtained opportunity for distinction. It would probably be safe to say that no more thoroughly efficient ship of her class had been seen in the British navy during the twenty years' war with France, then drawing towards its close; but after Trafalgar Napoleon's policy, while steadily directed towards increasing the number of his ships, had more and more tended to husbanding them against a future occasion, which in the end never came. The result was a great diminution in naval combats. Hence, the outbreak of the American war, followed by three frigate actions in rapid succession, opened out a new prospect, which was none the less stimulative because of the British reverses suffered. Captain Broke was justly confident in his own leadership and in the efficiency of a ship's company, which, whatever individual changes it may have undergone, had retained its identity of organization through so many years of his personal and energetic supervision. He now reasonably hoped to demonstrate what could be done by officers and men so carefully trained. Captain Pechell of the "Santo Domingo," the flagship on the American station, wrote: "The 'Shannon's' men were better trained, and understood gunnery better, than any men I ever saw;" nevertheless, he added, "In the action with the 'Chesapeake' the guns were all laid by Captain Broke's directions, consequently the fire was all thrown in one horizontal line, not a shot going over the 'Chesapeake.'"[134]

The escape of the "President" and "Congress" early in May, while the "Shannon" and her consort, the "Tenedos," were temporarily off shore in consequence of easterly weather, put Broke still more upon his mettle; and, fearing a similar mishap with the "Chesapeake," he sent Lawrence a challenge.[135] It has been said, by both Americans and English, that this letter was a model of courtesy. Undoubtedly it was in all respects such as a gentleman might write; but the courtesy was that of the French duellist, nervously anxious lest he should misplace an accent in the name of the man whom he intended to force into fight, and to kill. It was provocative to the last degree, which, for the end in view, it was probably meant to be. In it Broke showed himself as adroit with his pen--the adroitness of Canning--as he was to prove himself in battle. Not to speak of other points of irritation, the underlining of the words, "even combat," involved an imputation, none the less stinging because founded in truth, upon the previous frigate actions, and upon Lawrence's own capture of the "Peacock." In guns, the "Chesapeake" and "Shannon" were practically of equal force; but in the engagement the American frigate carried fifty more men than her adversary. To an invitation couched as was Broke's Lawrence was doubly vulnerable, for only six months had elapsed since he himself had sent a challenge to the "Bonne Citoyenne." With his temperament he could scarcely have resisted the innuendo, had he received the letter; but this he did not. It passed him on the way out and was delivered to Bainbridge, by whom it was forwarded to the Navy Department.

Although Broke's letter did not reach him, Captain Lawrence made no attempt to get to sea without engagement. The "Shannon's" running close to Boston Light, showing her colors, and heaving-to in defiance, served the purpose of a challenge. Cooper, who was in full touch with the naval tradition of the time, has transmitted that Lawrence went into the action with great reluctance. This could have proceeded only from consciousness of defective organization, for the heroic temper of the man was notorious, and there is no hint of that mysterious presentiment so frequent in the annals of military services. The wind being fair from the westward, the "Chesapeake," which had unmoored at 8 A.M., lifted her last anchor at noon, June 1, and made sail. The "Shannon," seeing at hand the combat she had provoked, stood out to sea until on the line between Cape Ann and Cape Cod, where she hove-to on the starboard tack, heading to the southeast. The "Chesapeake" followed under all sail until 5 P.M., when she took in her light canvas, sending the loftier--royal--yards on deck; and at 5.30 hauled up her courses, thus reducing herself to the fighting trim already assumed by her adversary. The "Shannon," which had been lying stopped for a long time, at this same moment filled her sails, to regain headway with which to manoeuvre, in case her opponent's action should require it; but, after gathering speed sufficient for this purpose, the British captain again slowed his ship, by so bracing the maintopsail that it was kept shaking in the wind. Its effect being thus lost, though readily recoverable, her forward movement depended upon the sails of the fore and mizzen masts (1). In this attitude, and steering southeast by the wind, she awaited her antagonist, who was running for her weather--starboard--quarter, and whose approach, thus seconded, became now very rapid. Broke made no further change in the ship's direction, leaving the choice of windward or leeward side to Lawrence, who took the former, discarding all tactical advantages, and preferring a simple artillery duel between the vessels.

Just before she closed, the "Chesapeake" rounded-to, taking a parallel course, and backing the maintopsail (1) to reduce her speed to that of the enemy. Captain Lawrence in his eagerness had made the serious error of coming up under too great headway. At 5.50, as her bows doubled on the quarter of the "Shannon" (1), at the distance of fifty yards, the British ship opened fire, beginning with the after gun, and continuing thence forward, as each in succession bore upon the advancing American frigate. The latter replied after the second British discharge, and the combat at once became furious. The previous history of the two vessels makes it probable that the British gunnery was the better; but it is impossible, seeing the course the action finally took, so far to disentangle the effects of the fire while they were on equal terms of position, from the totals afterwards ascertained, as to say where the advantage, if any, lay during those few minutes. The testimony of the "Chesapeake's" second lieutenant, that his division--the forward one on the gun deck--fired three rounds before their guns ceased to bear, agrees with Broke's report that two or three broadsides were exchanged; and the time needed by well-drilled men to do this is well within, yet accords fairly with, James' statement, that from the first gun to the second stage in the action six minutes elapsed. During the first of this period the "Chesapeake" kept moving parallel at fifty yards distance, but gaining continually, threatening thus to pass wholly ahead, so that her guns would bear no longer. To prevent this Lawrence luffed closer to the wind to shake her sails, but in vain; the movement increased her distance, but she still ranged ahead, so that she finally reached much further than abreast of the enemy. To use the nautical expression, she was on the "Shannon's" weather bow (2). While this was happening her sailing master was killed and Lawrence wounded; these being the two officers chiefly concerned in the handling of the ship.

Upon this supervened a concurrence of accidents, affecting her manageability, which initiated the second scene in the drama, and called for instantaneous action by the officers injured. The foretopsail tie being cut by the enemy's fire, the yard dropped, leaving the sail empty of wind; and at the same time were shot away the jib-sheet and the brails of the spanker. Although the latter, flying loose, tends to spread itself against the mizzen rigging, it probably added little to the effect of the after sails; but, the foresail not being set, the first two mishaps practically took all the forward canvas off the "Chesapeake." Under the combined impulses she, at 5.56, came up into the wind (3), lost her way, and, although her mainyard had been braced up, finally gathered sternboard; the upshot being that she lay paralyzed some seventy yards from the "Shannon" (3, 4, 5), obliquely to the latter's course and slightly ahead of her. The British ship going, or steering, a little off (3), her guns bore fair upon the "Chesapeake," which, by her involuntarily coming into the wind,--to such an extent that Broke thought she was attempting to haul off, and himself hauled closer to the wind in consequence (4),--lost in great measure the power of reply, except by musketry. The British shot, entering the stern and quarter of her opponent, swept diagonally along the after parts of the spar and main decks, a half-raking fire.

Under these conditions Lawrence and the first lieutenant were mortally wounded, the former falling by a musket-ball through his body; but he had already given orders to have the boarders called, seeing that the ship must drift foul of the enemy (5). The chaplain, who in the boarding behaved courageously, meeting Broke in person with a pistol-shot, and receiving a cutlass wound in return, was standing close by the captain at this instant. He afterwards testified that as Lawrence cried "Boarders away", the crews of the carronades ran forward; which corresponds to Broke's report that, seeing the enemy flinching from their guns, he then gave the order for boarding. This may have been, indeed, merely the instinctive impulse which drives disorganized men to seek escape from a fire which they cannot return; but if Cooper is correct in saying that it was the practice of that day to keep the boarders' weapons, not by their side, but on the quarter-deck or at the masts, it may also have been that this division, which had so far stuck to its guns while being raked, now, at the captain's call, ran from them to get the side-arms. At the Court of Inquiry it was in evidence that these men were unarmed; and one of them, a petty officer, stated that he had defended himself with the monkey tail of his gun. Whatever the cause, although there was fighting to prevent the "Chesapeake" from being lashed to the "Shannon", no combined resistance was offered abaft the mainmast. There the marines made a stand, but were overpowered and driven forward. The negro bugler of the ship, who should have echoed Lawrence's summons, was too frightened to sound a note, and the voices of the aids, who shouted the message to the gun deck, were imperfectly heard; but, above all, leaders were wanting. There was not on the upper deck an officer above the grade of midshipman; captain, first lieutenant, master, marine officer, and even the boatswain, had been mortally wounded before the ships touched. The second lieutenant was in charge of the first gun division, at the far end of the deck below, as yet ignorant how the fight was going, and that the fate of his superiors had put him in command. Of the remaining lieutenants, also stationed on the gun deck, the fourth had been mortally wounded by the first broadside; while the third, who had heard the shout for boarders, committed the indiscretion, ruinous to his professional reputation, of accompanying those who, at the moment the ships came together, were carrying below the wounded captain.

Before the new commanding officer could get to the spar deck, the ships were in contact. According to the report of Captain Broke, the most competent surviving eye-witness, the mizzen channels of the "Chesapeake" locked in the fore-rigging of the "Shannon." "I went forward," he continues, "to ascertain her position, and observing that the enemy were flinching from their guns, I gave orders to prepare for boarding." When the "Chesapeake's" second lieutenant reached the forecastle, the British were in possession of the after part of the ship, and of the principal hatchways by which the boarders of the after divisions could come up. He directed the foresail set, to shoot the ship clear, to prevent thus a re-enforcement to the enemy already on board; and he rallied a few men, but was himself soon wounded and thrown below. In brief, the fall of their officers and the position of the ship, in irons and being raked, had thrown the crew into the confusion attendant upon all sudden disaster. From this state only the rallying cry of a well-known voice and example can rescue men. "The enemy," reported Broke, "made a desperate but disorderly resistance." The desperation of brave men is the temper which at times may retrieve such conditions, but it must be guided and fashioned by a master spirit into something better than disorder, if it is to be effective. Disorder at any stage of a battle is incipient defeat; supervening upon the enemy's gaining a commanding position it commonly means defeat consummated.

Fifteen minutes elapsed from the discharge of the first gun of the "Shannon" to the "Chesapeake's" colors being hauled down. This was done by the enemy, her own crew having been driven forward. In that brief interval twenty-six British were killed and fifty-six wounded; of the Americans forty-eight were killed and ninety-nine wounded. In proportion to the number on board each ship when the action began, the "Shannon" lost in men 24 per cent; the "Chesapeake" 46 per cent, or practically double.

Although a certain amount of national exultation or mortification attends victory or defeat in an international contest, from a yacht race to a frigate action, there is no question of national credit in the result where initial inequality is great, as in such combats as that of the "Chesapeake" and "Shannon," or the "Constitution" and "Guerrière." It is possible for an officer to command a ship for seven years, as Broke had, and fail to make of her the admirable pattern of all that a ship of war should be, which he accomplished with the "Shannon"; but no captain can in four weeks make a thoroughly efficient crew out of a crowd of men newly assembled, and never out of harbor together. The question at issue is not national, but personal; it is the credit of Captain Lawrence. That it was inexpedient to take the "Chesapeake" into action at all at that moment does not admit of dispute; though much allowance must be made for a gallant spirit, still in the early prime of life, and chafing under the thought that, should he get to sea by successful evasion, he would be open to the taunt, freely used by Broke,[136] of dodging, "eluding," an enemy only his equal in material force.

Having, however, undertaken a risk which cannot be justified, was Captain Lawrence also reckless, and vainly confident, in his conduct before and during the action? Was he foolhardy, or only rash? The reply, if favorable, is due to one of the most gallant and attractive personalities in the annals of the United States Navy.

From his action it is evident that Lawrence clearly recognized that a green crew can be more quickly formed to efficiency at the battery than to that familiarity with the rigging and the sails, and that habit of working together about decks, on which manoeuvring power depends. He therefore chose an artillery duel, surrendering even the opportunity of raking permitted him by Broke, who awaited his approach without an attempt at molestation. How far was his expectation as to the results overstrained? The American crew lost double in proportion to their enemy; but it did not fail to inflict a very severe punishment, and it must be added under a very considerable disadvantage, which there has been a tendency recently to underestimate. The loss of the head sails, and all that followed, is part of the fortune of war; of that unforeseeable, which great leaders admit may derange even the surest calculations. It is not, therefore, to be complained of, but it is nevertheless to receive due account in the scales of praise and blame; for the man who will run no risks of accidents accomplishes nothing.

In the preceding narrative, and in the following analysis, the account of the British naval writer James is in essentials adopted; chiefly because, of all historians having contemporary sources of information, he has been at most pains to insure precision.[137] As told by him, the engagement divides into three stages. First, the combat side to side; second, the period during which the "Chesapeake" lay in the wind being raked; third, the boarding and taking possession. To these James assigns, as times: for the first, six minutes; for the second, four; for the third, five; this last being again subdivisible into a space of two minutes, during which the "Chesapeake" was being lashed to her opponent, and the actual fighting on her decks, which Broke states did not exceed three.

The brief and disorderly, though desperate, resistance to boarding proves that the "Chesapeake" was already beaten by the cannonade, which lasted, as above, ten minutes. During only six of these, accepting James' times, was she on equal gunnery terms. During four tenths--nearly one half--of the gunnery contest she was at a great disadvantage. The necessity of manoeuvring, which Lawrence tried to avoid, was forced upon him; and the ship's company, or her circumstances, proved unequal to meeting it. Nevertheless, though little more than half the time on equal terms of position with her opponent, half her own loss was inflicted upon him. How great her subsequent disadvantage is best stated in the words of James, whom no one will accuse of making points in favor of Americans. "At 5.56, having had her jib-sheet and foretopsail tie shot away, and her helm, probably from the death of the men stationed at it, being at the moment unattended to, the 'Chesapeake' came so sharp to the wind as completely to deaden her way." How extreme this deviation from her course is shown by the impression made on Broke. "As the manoeuvres of the 'Chesapeake' indicated an intention to haul away, Captain Broke ordered the helm to be put a-lee, as the 'Shannon' had fallen off a little." The "Chesapeake's" way being deadened, "the ship lay with her stern and quarter exposed to her opponent's broadside. The shot from the 'Shannon's' aftermost guns now took a diagonal direction _along_[138] the decks of the 'Chesapeake,' beating in her stern ports, and sweeping the men from their quarters. The shot from the 'Shannon's' foremost guns, at the same time, entering the 'Chesapeake's' ports from the mainmast aft, did considerable execution." This describes a semi-raking fire, which lasted four minutes, from 5.56 to 6 P.M., when the ships came together.

The manner of collision and the injuries received bear out the above account. The quarter of the "Chesapeake" came against the side of the "Shannon," the angle at the moment, as represented in James' diagram, being such as to make it impossible that any of the "Chesapeake's" guns, save one or two of the after ones, could then bear; and as she was already paying off, they had been in worse position before. "She was severely battered in the hull, on the larboard quarter particularly; and several shot entered the stern windows.... Her three lower masts were badly wounded, the main and mizzen especially. The bowsprit received no injury." All these details show that the sum total of the "Shannon's" fire was directed most effectively upon the after part of the ship, in the manner described by James; and coupled with the fact that the British first broadside, always reckoned the most deadly, would naturally take effect chiefly on the fore part of the "Chesapeake," as she advanced from the "Shannon's" stern to her bow,[139] we are justified in the inference that the worst of her loss was suffered after accident had taken her movements out of Lawrence's instant control. Under these circumstances it may be claimed for him that the artillery duel, to which he sought to confine the battle, was not so entirely a desperate chance as has been inferred.

It may therefore be said that, having resolved upon a risk which cannot be justified at the bar of dispassionate professional judgment, Captain Lawrence did not commit the further unpardonable error of not maturely weighing and judiciously choosing his course. That the crew was not organized and exercised at the guns, as far as his time and opportunity permitted, is disproved by incidental mention in the courts martial that followed, as well as by the execution done. Within ten minutes at the utmost, within six of equal terms, the "Chesapeake," an 18-pounder frigate, killed and wounded of the "Shannon's" ship's company as many as the "Constitution" with her 24's did of the "Guerrière's" in over twenty;[140] and the "Constitution" not only was a much heavier ship than her opponent, but had been six weeks almost continuously at sea. When her crew had been together four months longer, the loss inflicted by her upon the "Java," in a contest spread over two hours, did not greatly exceed in proportion that suffered by the "Shannon"; and the circumstances of that engagement, being largely manoeuvring, justified Lawrence's decision, under his circumstances, to have none of it. His reliance upon the marksmanship of his men is further vindicated by Broke's report that neither vessel suffered much aloft. The American and best British tradition of firing low was sustained by both ships. Finally, although the organization of the "Chesapeake" was not matured sufficiently to hold the people together, without leaders, after a tremendous punishment by the enemy's battery, and in the face of well-trained and rapidly supported boarders, it had so far progressed in cohesion that they did not flinch from their guns through a severe raking fire. What further shows this is that the boatswain of the "Shannon," lashing the ships together in preparation for boarding, was mortally wounded, not by musketry only but by sabre. When thus attacked he doubtless was supported by a body of fighters as well as a gang of workers. In fact, Broke was himself close by.

Under thus much of preparation, certainly not sufficient, Lawrence chose for action a smooth sea, a royal breeze, an artillery duel, and a close range. "No manoeuvring, but downright fighting," as Nelson said of his most critical battle; critical, just because his opponents, though raw tyros compared to his own crews, had nothing to do but to work their guns. The American captain took the most promising method open to him for achieving success, and carried into the fight a ship's company which was not so untrained but that, had some luck favored him, instead of going the other way, there was a fighting chance of victory. More cannot be claimed for him. He had no right, under the conditions, voluntarily to seek the odds against him, established by Broke's seven years of faithful and skilful command. Except in material force, the "Chesapeake" was a ship much inferior to the "Shannon," as a regiment newly enlisted is to one that has seen service; and the moment things went seriously wrong she could not retrieve herself. This her captain must have known; and to the accusation of his country and his service that he brought upon them a mortification which endures to this day, the only reply is that he died "sword in hand." This covers the error of the dead, but cannot justify the example to the living.

As is customary in such cases, a Court of Inquiry was ordered to investigate the defeat of the "Chesapeake," and sat from February 2 to February 8, 1814. Little can be gleaned from the evidence concerning the manoeuvring of the ship; the only two commissioned officers surviving, having been stationed on the gun deck, could not see what passed above. Incidental statements by midshipmen examined confirm substantially the account above given. One mentions the particular that, when the head sheets were shot away, "the bow of the 'Shannon' was abreast of the 'Chesapeake's' midships, and she came into the wind;" he adds that the mizzen-topsail was a-back, as well as the main. This is the only important contribution to the determination of the relative positions and handling of the vessels. As far as it goes, it confirms a general impression that Lawrence's eagerness prevented his making due allowance for the way of the "Chesapeake," causing him to overshoot his aim; an error of judgment, which the accidents to the headsails converted into irretrievable disaster. The general testimony agrees that the crew, though dissatisfied at non-receipt of pay and prize money, behaved well until the moment of boarding. Four witnesses, all officers, stated as of their own observation that the "Shannon" received several shot between wind and water, and used her pumps continuously on the way to Halifax. Budd, the second lieutenant, "was informed by an officer of the 'Shannon' that she was in a sinking condition." "The 'Chesapeake' was not injured below her quarters, except by one or two shot." "The 'Chesapeake' made no water; but the 'Shannon' had hands at the pumps continually." A good deal of pumping in a ship seven years in commission did not necessarily indicate injuries in action; Midshipman Curtis, however, who was transferred to the "Shannon," testified that "the British officers were encouraging the men by cheering to work at the pumps," which looks more serious. The purser of the "Chesapeake" swore that she had shot plugs at the water-line, and that "her sailing master said she had three shot holes below." The repetition of remarks made by the "Shannon's" officers is of course only hearsay testimony; but as regards the shots below the water-line,--as distinguished from the general body of the ship,--this on the one hand shows that the "Shannon" had her share of bad luck, for in the smoke of the battle this result is not attributable to nice precision of aiming. On the other hand it strongly re-enforces the proof of the excellent marksmanship of the American frigate, deducible from the killed and wounded of her opponent, and it confirms the inference that her own disproportionate loss was at least partly due to the raking fire and her simultaneous disability to reply. Upon the whole, the conclusion to the writer is clear that, while Lawrence should not have courted action, the condition of the "Chesapeake" as a fighting ship was far better than has commonly been supposed. It may be added that an irresponsible contemporary statement, that his "orders were peremptory," is disproved by the Department's letter, which forms part of the Court's record. He was to "proceed to sea as soon as weather, and the force and position of the enemy, will admit." Even a successful action must be expected to compel return to port, preventing his proceeding; and there is an obvious difference between fighting an enemy when met, and going out especially to fight him. The orders were discretional.

Whether, by paying attention to favoring conditions, Captain Lawrence could have repeated the success of Commodore Rodgers in gaining the sea a month before, must remain uncertain. The "Constitution," under Captain Stewart, a seaman of very excellent reputation, was unable to do so, until the winter gales made it impossible for the blockaders to maintain an uninterrupted watch off Boston. The sailing of the "President" and "Congress" was the last successful effort for many months; and the capture of the "Chesapeake" was the first of several incidents illustrating how complete was the iron-barring of the coast, against all but small vessels.

Commodore Decatur, having found it impossible to get out from New York by the Sandy Hook route, undertook that by Long Island Sound. Passing through Hell Gate, May 24, with his little squadron,--the "United States," the "Macedonian," her late prize, and the sloop of war "Hornet,"--he was on the 26th off Fisher's Island, abreast of New London. Here he remained until June 1, obtaining various information concerning the enemy, but only certain that there was at least a ship of the line and a frigate in the neighborhood. On the last named day, that of the fight between the "Chesapeake" and the "Shannon," the wind serving, and the two enemy's vessels being far to the southwest of Montauk Point, at the east end of Long Island, the squadron put to sea together; but on approaching Block Island, which was close to their course, two more enemy's cruisers loomed up to the eastward. The hostile groups manoeuvred severally to get between the Americans and their ports of refuge, New London in the one quarter, Newport in the other. In plain sight of this overwhelming force Decatur feared the results of trying to slip out to sea, and therefore beat back to New London.[141] The enemy followed, and, having now this division securely housed, instituted a close blockade. It was apprehended even that they might endeavor to take it by main force, the defences of the place being weak; but, as is commonly the case, the dangers of an attack upon land batteries were sufficient to deter the ships from an attempt, the object of which could be attained with equal certainty by means less hazardous, if less immediate.

The upshot was that the two frigates remained there blockaded to the end of the war; dependent for their safety, in Decatur's opinion, rather upon the difficulty of the channel than upon the strength of the fortifications. "Fort Trumbull, the only work here mounted or garrisoned, was in the most unprepared state, and only one or two cannon were to be had in the neighborhood for any temporary work which should be erected. I immediately directed all my exertions to strengthening the defences. Groton Heights has been hastily prepared for the reception of a few large guns, and they will be mounted immediately.... I think the place might be made impregnable; but the hostile force on our coast is so great that, were the enemy to exert a large portion of his means in an attack here, I do not feel certain he could be resisted successfully with the present defences."[142] On December 6 he reported that the squadron was moored across the channel and under Groton Heights, which had been fortified; while in the mouth of the harbor, three gunshots distant, was anchored a British division, consisting of one ship of the line, a frigate, and two smaller vessels. Two other ships of the line and several frigates were cruising in the open, between the east end of Long Island and Gay Head. This state of affairs lasted throughout the winter, during which the ships were kept in a state of expectancy, awaiting a possible opportunity; but, when the return of spring found the hope unfulfilled, it was plainly idle to look to the summer to afford what winter had denied. The frigates were lightened over a three-fathom bar, and thence, in April, 1814, removed up the Thames fourteen miles, as far as the depth of water would permit. Being there wholly out of reach of the enemy's heavy vessels, they were dismantled, and left to the protection of the shore batteries and the "Hornet," retained for that purpose. Decatur was transferred to the "President," then at New York, taking with him his ship's company; while the crew of the "Macedonian" was sent to the lakes. The enemy's vessels then off New London were three seventy-fours, four frigates, and three sloops.

This accumulation of force, to watch Decatur's two frigates and the "President," which during October and November was lying at Bristol, Rhode Island, testified to the anxiety of the British Government to restrain or capture the larger American cruisers. Their individual power was such that it was unwilling to expose to attack by them the vessels, nominally of the same class, but actually much inferior, which were ranging all seas to protect British commerce. That this should suffer, and in some considerable degree, from the operations of well-developed privateering enterprise, pursued by a maritime people debarred from every other form of maritime activity, was to be expected, and must be endured; but the frigates carried with them the further menace, not indeed of serious injury to the colossal naval power of Great Britain, but of mortification for defeats, which, however reasonably to be accounted for by preponderance of force, are not patiently accepted by a nation accustomed to regard itself as invincible. There are few things more wearing than explaining adverse results; and the moral effect of so satisfactory a reply as the victory of the "Shannon" might well have weighed with an American captain, not to risk prestige already gained, by seeking action when conscious of deficient preparation. The clamor aroused in Great Britain by the three rapidly succeeding captures of the "Guerrière," "Macedonian," and "Java," was ample justification of the American policy of securing superior force in single cruisers, throughout their several classes; a policy entirely consistent with all sound military principle. It should be remembered, however, that a cruiser is intended generally to act singly, and depends upon herself alone for that preponderance of strength which military effort usually seeks by concentration of numbers. The advantage of great individual power, therefore, does not apply so unqualifiedly to the components of fleets, the superiority of which depends upon the mutual support of its members, by efficient combination of movement, as well as upon their separate power.

Both the Government and people of Great Britain expected with some confidence, from the large fleet placed under Sir John Warren, the utter destruction of the frigates and of the American navy generally. "We were in hopes, ere this," said a naval periodical in June, 1813, "to have announced the capture of the American navy; and, as our commander-in-chief on that station has sufficient force to effect so desirable an object, we trust, before another month elapses, to lay before our readers what we conceive ought long since to have happened."[143] The words of the Admiralty were more measured, as responsible utterances are prone to be; but their tenor was the same. Expressing to Warren disappointment with the results so far obtained, they added: "It is of the highest importance to the _character_ and interests of the country that the naval force of the enemy should be quickly and completely disposed of. Their Lordships therefore have thought themselves justified at this moment in withdrawing ships from other important services, for the purpose of placing under your command a force with which you cannot fail to bring the naval war to a termination, either by the capture of the American national vessels, or by strictly blockading them in their own waters."[144] This expectancy doubtless weighed with Broke; and probably also prompted a challenge sent to Decatur's squadron to meet two British frigates, under pledge of fair play, and of safe return if victorious. In the latter case they at least would be badly injured; so in either event the blockaders would be relieved of much of their burden.

The presence of several American frigates, blockaded close to the point where Narragansett Bay and Long Island Sound meet, constituted a great inconvenience to all that region, by attracting thither so many enemy's cruisers. To a coasting trade--then so singularly important--projecting headlands, or capes, are the places of greatest exposure; in this resembling the danger entailed by salients in all military lines, in fortification or in the field. Traffic between New England and New York, general and local, had derived a further impetus from the fact that Newport, not being included in the commercial blockade, could still receive external supplies by neutral vessels. Intercourse depended largely on these waters; and it was to them a grave misfortune that there were no United States frigates left in New York to divert the enemy's attention. The vexations entailed were forcibly presented by the Governor of Connecticut.[145] "The British force stationed in our waters having occasioned great inquietude along the whole of our maritime frontier, every precaution consistent with due regard to the general safety has been adopted for its protection.... In our present state of preparedness, it is believed a descent upon our coast will not be attempted; a well-grounded hope is entertained that it will be attended with little success. Unfortunately, we have not the means of rendering our navigation equally secure. Serious depredations have been committed even in our harbors, and to such an extent that the usual communication through the Sound is almost wholly interrupted. Thus, while anxiously engaged in protecting our public ships [Decatur's], we are doomed to witness the unrestrained capture of our private vessels, and the consequent suspension of commercial pursuits." As "the disapprobation of the war by the people of Connecticut had been publicly declared through the proper organs shortly after hostilities commenced,"[146] it may be supposed the conditions described, accompanied by continual alarms withdrawing the militiaman from his shop or his harvest, to repel petty invasion, did not tend to conciliate opinion. An officer of the Connecticut militia wrote in December, "Our engagements with the enemy have become so frequent that it would be in vain to attempt a particular statement of each."[147]

Similar conditions prevailed along the entire seaboard, from Maine to Georgia; being of course greatest where inland navigation with wide entrances, like Long Island Sound, had given particular development to the coasting trade, and at the same time afforded to pursuers particular immunity from ordinary dangers of the sea. Incidental confirmation of the closeness of the hostile pressure is afforded by Bainbridge's report of the brig "Siren's" arrival at Boston, June 11, 1813, from New Orleans. "Although at sea between thirty and forty days, and great time along our blockaded coast, she did not see one enemy's cruiser."[148] The cause is evident. The Chesapeake and Delaware were blockaded from within. Ships watching New York and Long Island Sound would be far inside the course of one destined to Boston from the southward. From Hatteras to the Florida line the enemy's vessels, mostly of small class, kept in summer well inside the line from cape to cape, harassing even the water traffic behind the sea-islands; while at Boston, her port of arrival, the "Siren" was favored by Broke's procedure. In his eagerness to secure action with the "Chesapeake," he had detached his consort, the "Tenedos," with orders not to rejoin until June 14. Under cover of her absence, and the "Shannon's" return to Halifax with her prize, the "Siren" slipped into a harbor wholly relieved of the enemy's presence. With such conditions, a voyage along the coast could well be outside the British line of cruising.

Owing to the difficulty of the New York entrance, except with good pilotage, and to the absence thence of ships of war after Decatur's departure, that port ceased to present any features of naval activity; except as connected with the lake squadrons, which depended upon it for supplies of all kinds. The blockade of the Sound affected its domestic trade; and after May its external commerce shared the inconveniences of the commercial blockade, then applied to it, and made at least technically effective. What this pressure in the end became is shown by a casual mention a year later, under the heading "progress of luxury. A private stock of wine brought the average 'extraordinary' price of twenty-five dollars the gallon; while at the same period one auction lot of prize goods, comprising three decanters and twelve tumblers, sold for one hundred and twelve dollars."[149] The arrival in August, 1813, of a vessel in distress, which, like the "Siren," had passed along the whole Southern coast without seeing a hostile cruiser, would seem to show some lapse of watchfulness; but, although there were the occasional evasions which attend all blockades, the general fact of neutrals turned away was established. A flotilla of a dozen gunboats was kept in commission in the bay, but under an officer not of the regular navy. As might readily have been foreseen from conditions, and from experience elsewhere, the national gunboat experiment had abundantly shown that vessels of that class were not only excessively costly in expenditure, and lamentably inefficient in results, as compared with seagoing cruisers, but were also deleterious to the professional character of officers and seamen. Two years before the war Captain Campbell, then in command both at Charleston and Savannah, had commented on the unofficer-like neglect noticeable in the gunboats, and Gordon now reported the same effect upon the crew of the "Constellation," while thus detached for harbor defence.[150] The Secretary of the Navy, affirming the general observation, remarked that officers having knowledge of their business were averse to gunboat duty, while those who had it yet to acquire were unwilling, because there it could not be learned. "It is a service in which those who are to form the officers for the ships of war ought not to be employed."[151] He therefore had recommended the commissioning of volunteer officers for this work. This local New York harbor guard at times convoyed coasters in the Sound, and at times interfered, both in that quarter and off Sandy Hook, to prevent small cruisers or boats of the enemy from effecting seizures of vessels, close in shore or run on the beach. Such military action possesses a certain minor value, diminishing in some measure the grand total of loss; but it is not capable of modifying seriously the broad results of a strong commercial blockade.

The Delaware and the Chesapeake--the latter particularly--became the principal scenes of active operations by the British navy. Here in the early part of the summer there seems to have been a formed determination on the part of Sir John Warren to satisfy his Government and people by evidence of military exertion in various quarters. Rear Admiral George Cockburn, an officer of distinction and energy, had been ordered at the end of 1812 from the Cadiz station, with four ships of the line and several smaller cruisers, to re-enforce Warren. This strong detachment, a token at once of the relaxing demand upon the British navy in Europe, and of the increasing purpose of the British Government towards the United States, joined the commander-in-chief at Bermuda, and accompanied him to the Chesapeake in March. Cockburn became second in command. Early in April the fleet began moving up the bay; an opening incident, already mentioned,[152] being the successful attack by its boats upon several letters-of-marque and privateers in the Rappahannock upon the 3d of the month. Some of the schooners there captured were converted into tenders, useful for penetrating the numerous waterways which intersected the country in every direction.

The fleet, comprising several ships of the line, besides numerous smaller vessels, continued slowly upwards, taking time to land parties in many quarters, keeping the country in perpetual alarm. The multiplicity and diverseness of its operations, the particular object of which could at no moment be foreseen, made it impossible to combine resistance. The harassment was necessarily extreme, and the sustained suspense wearing; for, with reports continually arriving, now from one shore and now from the other, each neighborhood thought itself the next to be attacked. Defence depended wholly upon militia, hastily assembled, with whom local considerations are necessarily predominant. But while thus spreading consternation on either side, diverting attention from his main objective, the purpose of the British admiral was clear to his own mind. It was "to cut off the enemy's supplies, and destroy their foundries, stores, and public works, by penetrating the rivers at the head of the Chesapeake."

On April 16 an advanced division arrived off the mouth of the Patapsco, a dozen miles from Baltimore. There others successively joined, until the whole force was reported on the 22d to be three seventy-fours, with several frigates and smaller vessels, making a total of fifteen. The body of the fleet remained stationary, causing the city a strong anticipation of attack; an impression conducing to retain there troops which, under a reasonable reliance upon adequate fortifications, might have been transferred to the probable scene of operations, sufficiently indicated by its intrinsic importance. Warren now constituted a light squadron of two frigates, with a half-dozen smaller vessels, including some of those recently captured. These he placed in charge of Cockburn and despatched to the head of the bay. In addition to the usual crews there went about four hundred of the naval brigade, consisting of marines and seamen in nearly equal numbers. This, with a handful of army artillerists, was the entire force. With these Cockburn went first up the Elk River, where Washington thirty years before had taken shipping on his way to the siege of Yorktown. At Frenchtown, notwithstanding a six-gun battery lately erected, a landing was effected on April 29, and a quantity of flour and army equipments were destroyed, together with five bay schooners. Many cattle were likewise seized; Cockburn, in this and other instances, offering to pay in British government bills, provided no resistance was attempted in the neighborhood. From Frenchtown he went round to the Susquehanna, to obtain more cattle from an island, just below Havre de Grace; but being there confronted on May 2 by an American flag, hoisted over a battery at the town, he proceeded to attack the following day. A nominal resistance was made; but as the British loss, here and at Frenchtown, was one wounded on each occasion, no great cause for pride was left with the defenders. Holding the inhabitants responsible for the opposition in their neighborhood, he determined to punish the town. Some houses were burned. The guns of the battery were then embarked; and during this process Cockburn himself, with a small party, marched three or four miles north of the place to a cannon foundry, where he destroyed the guns and material found, together with the buildings and machinery.

"Our small division," he reported to Warren, "has been during the whole of this day on shore, in the centre of the enemy's country, and on his high road between Baltimore and Philadelphia." The feat testified rather to the military imbecility of the United States Government during the last decade than to any signal valor or enterprise on the part of the invaders. Enough and to spare of both there doubtless was among them; for the expedition was of a kind continuously familiar to the British navy during the past twenty years, under far greater difficulty, in many parts of the world. Seeing the trifling force engaged, the mortification to Americans must be that no greater demand was made upon it for the display of its military virtues. Besides the destruction already mentioned, a division of boats went up the Susquehanna, destroyed five vessels and more flour; after which, "everything being completed to my utmost wishes, the division embarked and returned to the ships, after being twenty-two hours in constant exertion." From thence Cockburn went round to the Sassafras River, where a similar series of small injuries was inflicted, and two villages, Georgetown and Frederickstown, were destroyed, in consequence of local resistance offered, by which five British were wounded. Assurance coming from several quarters that no further armed opposition would be made, and as there was "now neither public property, vessels, nor warlike stores remaining in the neighborhood," the expedition returned down the bay, May 7, and regained the fleet.[153]

The history of the Delaware and its waters during this period was very much the same as that of the Chesapeake; except that, the water system of the lower bay being less extensive and practicable, and the river above narrower, there was not the scope for general marauding, nor the facility for systematic destruction, which constituted the peculiar exposure of the Chesapeake and gave Cockburn his opportunity. Neither was there the same shelter from the sweep of the ocean, nor any naval establishment to draw attention. For these reasons, the Chesapeake naturally attracted much more active operations; and Virginia, which formed so large a part of its coast-line, was the home of the President. She was also the leading member of the group of states which, in the internal contests of American politics, was generally thought to represent hatred to Great Britain and attachment to France. In both bays the American Government maintained flotillas of gunboats and small schooners, together with--in the Delaware at least--a certain number of great rowing barges, or galleys; but, although creditable energy was displayed, it is impossible to detect that, even in waters which might be thought suited to their particular qualities, these small craft exerted any substantial influence upon the movements of the enemy. Their principal effect appears to have been to excite among the inhabitants a certain amount of unreasonable expectation, followed inevitably by similar unreasoning complaint.

It is probable, however, that they to some extent restricted the movements of small foraging parties beyond the near range of their ships; and they served also the purpose of watching and reporting the dispositions of the British fleet. When it returned downwards from Cockburn's expedition, it was followed by a division of these schooners and gunboats, under Captain Charles Gordon of the navy, who remained cruising for nearly a month below the Potomac, constantly sighting the enemy, but without an opportunity offering for a blow to be struck under conditions favorable to either party. "The position taken by the enemy's ships," reported Gordon, "together with the constant protection given their small cruisers, particularly in the night, rendered any offensive operations on our part impracticable."[154] In the Delaware, a British corvette, running upon a shoal with a falling tide, was attacked in this situation by a division of ten gunboats which was at hand. Such conditions were unusually favorable to them, and, though a frigate was within plain sight, she could not get within range on account of the shoalness of water; yet the two hours' action which followed did no serious injury to the grounded ship. Meantime one of the gunboats drifted from its position, and was swept by the tide out of supporting distance from its fellows. The frigate and sloop then manned boats, seven in number, pulled towards her, and despite a plucky resistance carried her; their largely superior numbers easily climbing on board her low-lying deck. Although the record of gunboats in all parts of the world is mostly unfruitful, some surprise cannot but be felt at the immunity experienced by a vessel aground under such circumstances.[155]

On May 13 Captain Stewart of the "Constellation" reported from Norfolk that the enemy's fleet had returned down the bay; fifteen sail being at anchor in a line stretching from Cape Henry to near Hampton Roads. Little had yet been done by the authorities to remedy the defenceless condition of the port, which he had deplored in his letter of March 17; and he apprehended a speedy attack either upon Hampton, on the north shore of the James River, important as commanding communications between Norfolk and the country above, or upon Craney Island, covering the entrance to the Elizabeth River, through the narrow channel of which the navy yard must be approached. There was a party now at work throwing up a battery on the island, on which five hundred troops were stationed, but he feared these preparations were begun too late. He had assigned seven gunboats to assist the defence. It was clear to his mind that, if Norfolk was their object, active operations would begin at one of these approaches, and not immediately about the place itself. Meanwhile, he would await developments, and postpone his departure to Boston, whither he had been ordered to command the "Constitution."

Much to Stewart's surprise, considering the force of the enemy, which he, as a seaman, could estimate accurately and compare with what he knew to be the conditions confronting them, most of the British fleet soon after put to sea with the commander-in-chief, leaving Cockburn with one seventy-four and four frigates to hold the bay. This apparent abandonment, or at best concession of further time to Craney Island, aroused in him contempt as well as wonder. He had commented a month before on their extremely circumspect management; "they act cautiously, and never separate so far from one another that they cannot in the course of a few hours give to each other support, by dropping down or running up, as the wind or tide serve."[156] Such precaution, however, was not out of place when confronted with the presence of gunboats capable of utilizing calms and local conditions. To avoid exposure to useless injury is not to pass the bounds of military prudence. It was another matter to have brought so large a force, and to depart with no greater results than those of Frenchtown and Havre de Grace. "They do not appear disposed to put anything to risk, or to make an attack where they are likely to meet with opposition. Their conduct while in these waters has been highly disgraceful to their arms, and evinces the respect and dread they have for their opponents."[157] He added a circumstance which throws further light upon the well-known discontent of the British crews and their deterioration in quality, under a prolonged war and the confinement attending the impressment system. "Their loss in prisoners and deserters has been very considerable; the latter are coming up to Norfolk almost daily, and their naked bodies are frequently fished up on the bay shore, where they must have been drowned in attempting to swim. They all give the same account of the dissatisfaction of their crews, and their detestation of the service they are engaged in."[158] Deserters, however, usually have tales acceptable to those to whom they come.

Whether Warren was judicious in postponing attack may be doubted, but he had not lost sight of the Admiralty's hint about American frigates. There were just two in the waters of the Chesapeake; the "Constellation," 36, at Norfolk, and the "Adams," 24, Captain Charles Morris, in the Potomac. The British admiral had been notified that a division of troops would be sent to Bermuda, to be under his command for operations on shore, and he was now gone to fetch them. Early in June he returned, bringing these soldiers, two thousand six hundred and fifty in number.[159] From his Gazette letters he evidently had in view the capture of Norfolk with the "Constellation"; for when he designates Hampton and Craney Island as points of attack, it is because of their relations to Norfolk.[160] This justified the forecast of Stewart, who had now departed; the command of the "Constellation" devolving soon after upon Captain Gordon. In connection with the military detachment intrusted to Warren, the Admiralty, while declining to give particular directions as to its employment, wrote him: "Against a maritime country like America, the chief towns and establishments of which are situated upon navigable rivers, a force of the kind under your orders must necessarily be peculiarly formidable.... In the choice of objects of attack, it will naturally occur to you that on every account any attempt which should have the effect of crippling the enemy's naval force should have a preference."[161] Except for the accidental presence of Decatur's frigates in New London, as yet scarcely known to the British commander-in-chief, Norfolk, more than any other place, met this prescription of his Government. His next movements, therefore, may be considered as resulting directly from his instructions.

The first occurrence was a somewhat prolonged engagement between a division of fifteen gunboats and the frigate "Junon," which, having been sent to destroy vessels at the mouth of the James River, was caught becalmed and alone in the upper part of Hampton Roads; no other British vessel being nearer than three miles. The cannonade continued for three quarters of an hour, when a breeze springing up brought two of her consorts to the "Junon's" aid. The gunboats, incapable of close action with a single frigate in a working breeze, necessarily now retreated. They had suffered but slightly, one killed and two wounded; but retired with the confidence, always found in the accounts of such affairs, that they had inflicted great damage upon the enemy. The commander of a United States revenue cutter, lately captured, who was on board the frigate at the time, brought back word subsequently that she had lost one man killed and two or three wounded.[162] The British official reports do not allude to the affair. As regards positive results, however, it may be affirmed with considerable assurance that the military value of gunboats in their day, as a measure of coast defence, was not what they effected, but the caution imposed upon the enemy by the apprehension of what they might effect, did this or that combination of circumstances occur. That the circumstances actually almost never arose detracted little from this moral influence. The making to one's self a picture of possible consequences is a powerful factor in most military operations; and the gunboat is not without its representative to-day in the sphere of imaginative warfare.

The "Junon" business was a casual episode. Warren was already preparing for his attack on Craney Island. This little strip of ground, a half-mile long by two hundred yards across, lies within easy gunshot to the west of the Elizabeth River, a narrow channel-way, three hundred yards from edge to edge, which from Hampton Roads leads due south, through extensive flats, to Norfolk and Portsmouth. The navy yard is four miles above the island, on the west side of the river, the banks of which there have risen above the water. Up to and beyond Craney Island the river-bed proper, though fairly clear, is submerged and hidden amid the surrounding expanse of shoal water. Good pilotage, therefore, is necessary, and incidental thereto the reduction beforehand of an enemy's positions commanding the approach. Of these Craney Island was the first. From it the flats which constitute the under-water banks of the Elizabeth extend north towards Hampton Roads, for a distance of two miles, and are not traversable by vessels powerful enough to act against batteries. For nearly half a mile the depth is less than four feet, while the sand immediately round the island was bare when the tide was out.[163] Attack here was possible only by boats armed with light cannon and carrying troops. On the west the island was separated from the mainland by a narrow strip of water, fordable by infantry at low tide. It was therefore determined to make a double assault,--one on the north, by fifteen boats, carrying, besides their crews, five hundred soldiers; the other on the west, by a division eight hundred strong,[164] to be landed four miles away, at the mouth of the Nansemond River. The garrison of the island numbered five hundred and eighty, and one hundred and fifty seamen were landed from the "Constellation" to man one of the principal batteries.

The British plan labored under the difficulty that opposite conditions of tide were desirable for the two parties which were to act in concert. The front attack demanded high water, in order that under the impulse of the oars the boats might get as near as possible before they took the ground, whence the advance to the assault must be by wading. The flanking movement required low water, to facilitate passing the ford. Between the two, the hour was fixed for an ebbing tide, probably to allow for delays, and to assure the arrival of the infantry so as to profit by the least depth. At 11 A.M. of June 22 the boat division arrived off the northwest point of the island, opposite the battery manned by the seamen, in that day notoriously among the best of artillerists. A difference of opinion as to the propriety of advancing at all here showed itself among the senior naval officers; for there will always be among seamen a dislike to operating over unknown ground with a falling tide. The captain in command, however, overruled hesitations; doubtless feeling that in a combined movement the particular interest of one division must yield to the requirements of mutual support. A spirited forward dash was therefore made; but the guiding boat, sixty yards ahead of the others, grounded a hundred yards from the battery. One or two others, disregarding her signal, shared her mishap; and two were sunk by the American fire. Under these circumstances a seaman, sounding with a boat hook, declared that he found along side three or four feet of slimy mud. This was considered decisive, and the attack was abandoned.

The shore division had already retreated, having encountered obstacles, the precise character of which is not stated. Warren's report simply said, "In consequence of the representation of the officer commanding the troops, of the difficulty of their passing over from the land, I considered that the persevering in the attempt would cost more men than the number with us would permit, as the other forts must have been stormed before the frigate and dockyard could be destroyed." The enterprise was therefore abandoned at the threshold, because of probable ulterior difficulties, the degree of which it would require to-day unprofitable labor even to conjecture; but reduced as the affair in its upshot was to an abortive demonstration, followed by no serious effort, it probably was not reckoned at home to have fulfilled the Admiralty's injunctions, that the character as well as the interest of the country required certain results. The loss was trifling,--three killed, sixteen wounded, sixty-two missing.[165]

Having relinquished his purpose against Craney Island, and with it, apparently, all serious thought of the navy yard and the "Constellation", Warren next turned his attention to Hampton. On the early morning of June 26 two thousand troops were landed to take possession of the place, which they did with slight resistance. Three stand of colors were captured and seven field guns, with their equipment and ammunition. The defences of the town were destroyed; but as no further use was made of the advantage gained, the affair amounted to nothing more than an illustration on a larger scale of the guerilla depredation carried on on all sides of the Chesapeake. With it ended Warren's attempts against Norfolk. His force may have been really inadequate to more; certainly it was far smaller than was despatched to the same quarter the following year; but the Admiralty probably was satisfied by this time that he had not the enterprise necessary for his position, and a successor was appointed during the following winter.

For two months longer the British fleet as a whole remained in the bay, engaged in desultory operations, which had at least the effect of greatly increasing their local knowledge, and in so far facilitating the more serious undertakings of the next season. The Chesapeake was not so much blockaded as occupied. On June 29 Captain Cassin of the navy yard reported that six sail of the line, with four frigates, were at the mouth of the Elizabeth, and that the day before a squadron of thirteen--frigates, brigs, and schooners--had gone ten miles up the James, causing the inhabitants of Smithfield and the surroundings to fly from their homes, terrified by the transactions at Hampton. The lighter vessels continued some distance farther towards Richmond. A renewal of the attack was naturally expected; but on July 11 the fleet quitted Hampton Roads, and again ascended the Chesapeake, leaving a division of ten sail in Lynnhaven Bay, under Cape Henry. Two days later the main body entered the Potomac, in which, as has before been mentioned, was the frigate "Adams"; but she lay above the Narrows, out of reach of such efforts as Warren was willing to risk. He went as high as Blakiston Island, twenty-five to thirty miles from the river's mouth, and from there Cockburn, with a couple of frigates and two smaller vessels, tried to get beyond the Kettle Bottom Shoals, an intricate bit of navigation ten miles higher up, but still below the Narrows.[166] Two of his detachment, however, took the ground; and the enterprise of approaching Washington by this route was for that time abandoned. A year afterwards it was accomplished by Captain Gordon, of the British Navy, who carried two frigates and a division of bomb vessels as far as Alexandria.

Two United States gunboats, "The Scorpion" and "Asp", lying in Yeocomico River, a shallow tributary of the Potomac ten miles from the Chesapeake, were surprised there July 14 by the entrance of the enemy. Getting under way hastily, the "Scorpion" succeeded in reaching the main stream and retreating up it; but the "Asp", being a bad sailer, and the wind contrary, had to go back. She was pursued by boats; and although an attack by three was beaten off, she was subsequently carried when they were re-enforced to five. Her commander, Midshipman Sigourney, was killed, and of the twenty-one in her crew nine were either killed or wounded. The assailants were considerably superior in numbers, as they need to be in such undertakings. They lost eight. This was the second United States vessel thus captured in the Chesapeake this year; the revenue cutter "Surveyor" having been taken in York River, by the boats of the frigate "Narcissus", on the night of June 12. In the latter instance, the sword of the commander, who survived, was returned to him the next day by the captor, with a letter testifying "an admiration on the part of your opponents, such as I have seldom witnessed, for your gallant and desperate attempt to defend your vessel against more than double your numbers."[167] Trivial in themselves as these affairs were, it is satisfactory to notice that in both the honor of the flag was upheld with a spirit which is worth even more than victory. Sigourney had before received the commendation of Captain Morris, no mean judge of an officer's merits.

The British fleet left the Potomac July 21, and went on up the bay, spreading alarm on every side. Morris, with a body of seamen and marines, was ordered from the "Adams" to Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, on the River Severn, to command the defences. These he reported, on August 13, to be in the "miserable condition" characteristic of all the national preparations to meet hostilities. With a view to entering, the enemy was sounding the bar, an operation which frequently must be carried on beyond protection by ships' guns; "but we have no floating force to molest them." The bulk of the fleet was above the Severn, as were both admirals, and Morris found their movements "contradictory, as usual."[168] As many as twenty sail had at one time been visible from the state-house dome in the city. On August 8, fifteen, three of which were seventy-fours, were counted from North Point, at the mouth of the Patapsco, on which Baltimore lies. Kent Island, on the eastern shore of the bay abreast Annapolis, was taken possession of, and occupied for some days. At the same period attacks were reported in other quarters on that side of the Chesapeake, as elsewhere in the extensive basin penetrated by its tributaries. The prosecution of these various enterprises was attended with the usual amount of scuffling encounter, which associates itself naturally with coastwise warfare of a guerilla character. The fortune of war inclined now to one side, now to the other, in the particular cases; but in the general there could be no doubt as to which party was getting the worst, undergoing besides almost all the suffering and quite all the harassment. This is the necessary penalty of the defensive, when inadequate.

Throughout most of this summer of conflict there went on, singularly enough, a certain amount of trade by licensed vessels, neutral and American, which passed down Chesapeake Bay and went to sea. Doubtless the aggregate amount of traffic thus maintained was inconsiderable, as compared with normal conditions, but its allowance by either party to the war is noticeable,--by the British, because of the blockade declared by them; by the Americans, because of the evident inexpediency of permitting to depart vessels having full knowledge of conditions, and almost certain to be boarded by the enemy. Sailing from blockaded ports is of course promoted in most instances by the nation blockaded, for it is in support of trade; and with the sea close at hand, although there is risk, there is also chance of safe passage through a belt of danger, relatively narrow and entered at will. The case is quite different where a hazardous navigation of sixty to a hundred miles, increasing in intricacy at its further end, and lined throughout with enemy's cruisers, interposes before the sea is reached. The difficulty here is demonstrated by the fact that the "Adams," a ship by no means large or exceptionally fettered by navigational difficulties, under a young captain burning to exercise his first command in war, waited four months, even after the bulk of the enemy's fleet had gone, before she was able to get through; and finally did so only under such conditions of weather as caused her to miss her way and strike bottom.

The motive of the British for collusion is clear. The Chesapeake was the heart of the wheat and flour production of the United States, and while some provision had been made for meeting the wants of the West Indies, and of the armies in Canada and Spain, by refraining from commercial blockade of Boston and other eastern ports, these necessary food supplies reached those places only after an expensive transport which materially increased their price; the more as they were carried by land to the point of exportation, it not suiting the British policy to connive at coasting trade even for that purpose. A neutral or licensed vessel, sailing from the Chesapeake with flour for a port friendly to the United States, could be seized under cover of the commercial blockade, which she was violating, sent to Halifax, and condemned for her technical offence. The cargo then was available for transport whither required, the whole transaction being covered by a veil of legality; but it is plain that the risks to a merchant, in attempting _bonâ fide_ to run a blockade like that of Chesapeake Bay, exceeded too far any probable gain to have been undertaken without some assurance of compensation, which did not appear on the surface.

Taken in connection with intelligence obtained by this means, the British motive is apparent; but why did the United States administration tolerate procedures which betrayed its counsels, and directly helped to sustain the enemy's war? Something perhaps is due to executive weakness in a government constituted by popular vote; more, probably, at least during the period when immediate military danger did not threaten, to a wish to frustrate the particular advantage reaped by New England, through its exemption from the restrictions of the commercial blockade. When breadstuffs were pouring out of the country through the coast-line of a section which gloried in its opposition to the war,[169] and lost no opportunity to renew the declaration of its disapproval and its criticism of the Government, it was at least natural, perhaps even expedient, to wink at proceedings which transferred elsewhere some of the profits, and did not materially increase the advantage of the enemy. But circumstances became very different when a fleet appeared in the bay, the numbers and action of which showed a determination to carry hostile operations wherever conditions permitted. Then, betrayal of such conditions by passing vessels became an unbearable evil; and at the same time the Administration had forced upon its attention the unpleasant but notorious fact that, by the active complicity of many of its own citizens, not only the flour trade continued, but the wants of the blockading squadrons along the coast were being supplied. Neutrals, real or pretended, and coasting vessels, assuming a lawful destination, took on board cattle, fresh vegetables, and other stores acceptable to ships confined to salt provisions, and either went direct to enemy's ports or were captured by collusion. News was received of contracts made by the British admiral at Bermuda for fresh beef to be supplied from American ports, by American dealers, in American vessels; while Halifax teemed with similar transactions, without serious attempt at concealment.

Such aid and comfort to an enemy is by no means unexampled in the history of war, particularly where one of the belligerents is shrewdly commercial; but it is scarcely too much to say that it attained unusual proportions at this time in the United States, and was countenanced by a public opinion which was more than tolerant, particularly in New England, where the attitude of the majority towards the Government approached hostility. As a manifestation of contemporary national character, of unwillingness to subordinate personal gain to public welfare, to loyalty to country, it was pitiable and shameful, particularly as it affected large communities; but its instructive significance at this time is the evidence it gives that forty years of confederation, nearly twenty-five being of the closer union under the present Constitution, had not yet welded the people into a whole, or created a consciousness truly national. The capacity for patriotism was there, and readiness to suffer for patriotic cause had been demonstrated by the War of Independence; but the mass of Americans had not yet risen sufficiently above local traditions and interests to discern clearly the noble ideal of national unity, and vagueness of apprehension resulted inevitably in lukewarmness of sentiment. This condition goes far to palliate actions which it cannot excuse; the reproach of helping the enemies of one's country is somewhat less when the nation itself has scarcely emerged to recognition, as it afterwards did under the inspiring watchword, "The Union."

The necessity to control these conditions of clandestine intercourse found official expression in a message of the President to Congress, July 20, 1813,[170] recommending "an immediate and effectual prohibition of all exports" for a limited time; subject to removal by executive order, in case the commercial blockade were raised. A summary of the conditions above related was given, as a cause for action. The President's further comment revealed the continuity of thought and policy which dictated his recommendation, and connected the proposed measure with the old series of commercial restrictions, associated with his occupancy of the State Department under Jefferson's administration. "The system of the enemy, combining with the blockade of our ports special licenses to neutral vessels, and insidious discrimination between different ports of the United States, if not counteracted, will have the effect of diminishing very materially the pressure of the war on the enemy, and encourage perseverance in it, and at the same time will leave the general commerce of the United States under all the pressure the enemy can impose, thus subjecting the whole to British regulation, in subserviency to British monopoly."

The House passed a bill meeting the President's suggestions, but it was rejected by the Senate on July 28. The Executive then fell back on its own war powers; and on July 29 the Secretary of the Navy, by direction of the President, issued a general order to all naval officers in command, calling attention to "the palpable and criminal intercourse held with the enemy's forces blockading and invading the waters of the United States." "This intercourse," he explicitly added, "is not only carried on by foreigners, under the specious garb of friendly flags, who convey provisions, water, and succors of all kinds (ostensibly destined for friendly ports, in the face, too, of a declared and rigorous blockade),[171] direct to the fleets and stations of the enemy, with constant intelligence of our naval and military force and preparation, ... but the same traffic, intercourse, and intelligence is carried on with great subtlety and treachery by profligate citizens, who, in vessels ostensibly navigating our own waters, from port to port [coasters], find means to convey succors or intelligence to the enemy, and elude the penalty of law."[172] Officers were therefore instructed to arrest all vessels, the movements or situation of which indicated an intention to effect any of the purposes indicated.

A similar order was issued, August 5, by the War Department to army officers.[173] In accordance with his instructions, Captain Morris of the "Adams," on July 29 or 30, stopped the ship "Monsoon," from Alexandria. Her agent wrote a correspondent in Boston that, when the bill failed in the Senate, he had had no doubt of her being allowed to proceed, "but the Secretary and Mr. Madison have made a sort of embargo, or directed the stoppage of vessels."[174] He added that another brig was lying in the river ready loaded, but held by the same order. Morris's indorsement on the ship's papers shows the barefacedness of the transaction. "Whereas the within-mentioned ship 'Monsoon' is laden with flour, and _must_ pass within the control of the enemy's squadron now within, and blockading Chesapeake Bay, if she be allowed to proceed on her intended voyage, and as the enemy might derive from her such intelligence and succor as would be serviceable to themselves and injurious to the United States, I forbid her proceeding while the enemy shall be so disposed as to prevent a reasonable possibility of her getting to sea without falling into their possession."[175] At this writing the British had left the Potomac itself, and the most of them were above. A week later, at Charleston, a ship called the "Caroline" was visited by a United States naval officer, and found with a license from Cockburn to carry a cargo, free from molestation by British cruisers.[176] "With flour at Lisbon $13 per barrel, _no sale_, and at Halifax $20, _in demand_," queries a Baltimore paper of the day, "where would all the vessels that would in a few days have been off from Alexandria have gone, if the 'Monsoon' had not been stopped? They would have been _captured_ and sent to Halifax."[177]

Morris's action was in accordance with the Secretary's order, and went no further than to stop a voyage which, in view of the existing proclaimed blockade, and of the great British force at hand, bore collusion on its face. The President's request for legislation, which Congress had denied, went much further. It was a recurrence, and the last, to the policy of commercial retaliation, fostered by himself and Jefferson in preference to armed resistance. By such measures in peace, and as far as commercial prosperity was concerned, they had opened the nation's veins without vindicating its self-respect. The military value of food supplies to the enemy in Canada and on the coast, however, could not be contested; and during the recess of Congress it received emphasis by a Canadian embargo upon the export of grain. Hence, at the next session the President's recommendation of July was given attention, and there was passed almost immediately--December 17, 1813,--a sweeping embargo law, applicable not only to external commerce but to coasters. As this ended the long series of commercial restrictions, so was it also of limited duration as compared with them, being withdrawn the following April.

By the Act of December 17, as interpreted by the Treasury, foreign merchant vessels might depart with cargoes already laden, except provisions and military stores, which must be relanded; but nothing could be shipped that was not already on board when the Act was received. Coasters, even for accustomed voyages, could obtain clearances only by permission from the President; and the rules for such permission, given through the collectors, were extremely stringent. In no case were the vessels permitted to leave interior waters, proceeding from one sound or bay to another, and be "at sea" for even a short distance; nor were they to be permitted to carry any provisions, or supplies useful to an enemy, if there was the slightest chance of their falling into his power. It would appear that the orders of July 29 had been allowed to lapse after the great body of the British left the Chesapeake; for Morris, still in the Potomac, acknowledging the receipt of this Act on December 20, writes: "There are several vessels below us in the river with flour. I have issued orders to the gunboats to detain them, and as soon as the wind will permit, shall proceed with this ship, to give all possible effect to the Act." Six days afterwards, having gone down as he intended, he found the British anchored off the mouth of the stream, at a point where the bay is little more than five miles wide. "Two American brigs passed down before us, and I have every reason to believe threw themselves into the enemy's hands last Wednesday."[178]

On September 6 the principal part of the British fleet quitted Chesapeake Bay for the season; leaving behind a ship of the line with some smaller vessels, to enforce the blockade. Viewed as a military campaign, to sustain the character as well as the interests of the country, its operations cannot be regarded as successful. With overwhelming numbers, and signally favored by the quiet inland waters with extensive ramifications which characterized the scene of war, the results, though on a more extensive scale, differed nothing in kind from the harassment inflicted all along the coast from Maine to Georgia, by the squadrons cruising outside. Ample demonstration was indeed afforded, there as elsewhere, of the steady, remorseless, far-reaching effect of a predominant sea power; and is confirmed explicitly by an incidental remark of the Russian minister at Washington writing to Warren, April 4, 1813, concerning an armistice, in connection with the abortive Russian proffer of mediation.[179] Even at this early period, "It would be almost impossible to establish an armistice, without raising the blockade, since the latter does them more harm than all the hostilities."[180] But in direct military execution the expedition had undoubtedly fallen far short of its opportunity, afforded by the wretchedly unprepared state of the region against which it had been sent. Whether the fault lay with the commander-in-chief, or with the Admiralty for insufficient means given him, is needless here to inquire. The squadron remaining through the winter perpetuated the isolation of Norfolk from the upper bay, and barred the "Constellation" and "Adams" from the sea. Ammunition and stores had to be brought by slow and unwieldly transportation from the Potomac across country, and it was not till January 18, 1814, that the "Adams" got away. Two attempts of the "Constellation" a month later were frustrated.

The principal two British divisions, the action of which has so far been considered, the one blockading the Chesapeake, the other watching Decatur's squadron in New London, marked the extremities of what may be considered the central section of the enemy's coastwise operations upon the Atlantic. Although the commercial shipping of the United States belonged largely to New England, much the greater part of the exports came from the district thus closed to the world; and within it also, after the sailing of the "President" and "Congress" from Boston, and the capture of the "Chesapeake", lay in 1813 all the bigger vessels of the navy, save the "Constitution".

In the conditions presented to the enemy, the sections of the coast-line south of Virginia, and north of Cape Cod, differed in some important respects from the central division, and from each other. There was in them no extensive estuary wide open to the sea, resembling Chesapeake and Delaware bays, and Long Island Sound, accessible to vessels of all sizes; features which naturally determined upon these points the chief effort of a maritime enemy, enabling him readily to paralyze the whole system of intercourse depending upon them, domestic as well as foreign. The southern waters abounded indeed in internal coastwise communications; not consecutive throughout, but continuous for long reaches along the shores of North and South Carolina and Georgia. These, however, were narrow, and not easily approached. Behind the sea islands, which inclose this navigation, small craft can make their voyages sheltered from the perils of the sea, and protected in great measure from attack other than by boats or very light cruisers; to which, moreover, some local knowledge was necessary, for crossing the bars, or threading the channels connecting sound with sound. Into these inside basins empty numerous navigable rivers, which promoted intercourse, and also furnished lines of retreat from danger coming from the sea. Coupled with these conditions was the fact that the United States had in these quarters no naval establishment, and no naval vessels of force. Defence was intrusted wholly to gunboats, with three or four armed schooners of somewhat larger tonnage. American offensive operation, confined here as elsewhere to commerce destroying, depended entirely on privateers. Into these ports, where there were no public facilities for repair, not even a national sloop of war entered until 1814 was well advanced.

Prior to the war, one third of the domestic export of the United States had issued from this southern section; and in the harassed year 1813 this ratio increased. The aggregate for the whole country was reduced by one half from that of 1811, and amounted to little more than one fourth of the prosperous times preceding Jefferson's embargo of 1808, with its vexatious progeny of restrictive measures; but the proportion of the South increased. The same was observable in the Middle states, containing the great centres of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. There a ratio to the total, of a little under fifty per cent, rose to something above that figure. The relative diminution, corresponding to the increases just noted, fell upon New England, and is interesting because of what it indicates. Before the war the export of domestic produce from the eastern ports was twenty per cent of the national total; in 1813 it fell to ten per cent. When the domestic export is taken in conjunction with the re-exportation of foreign products, the loss of New England is still more striking. From twenty-five per cent of the whole national export, domestic and foreign, she now fell to ten per cent of the diminished total. When it is remembered that throughout 1813 the Eastern ports alone were open to neutral ships, no commercial blockade of them having yet been instituted, these results are the more noticeable.

The general explanation is that the industries of the United States at that time divided into two principal classes,--agricultural and maritime; the former of which supplied the material for commerce, while the latter furnished transportation for whatever surplus of production remained for export. Manufactures sufficed only for home demands, being yet in a state of infancy; forced, in fact, upon an unwilling New England by the policy of commercial restriction which drove her ships off the sea. Domestic products for export therefore meant almost wholly the yield of the fields, the forests, and the fisheries. The latter belonged to New England, but they fell with the war. Her soil did not supply grain enough to feed her people; and her domestic exports, therefore, were reduced to shipments of wheat and flour conveyed to her by inland transportation from the more fertile, but blockaded, regions to the southward. Despite the great demand for provisions in Halifax and the St. Lawrence region, and the facility for egress by sea, through the absence of blockade, the slowness and cost of land carriage brought forward an insufficient supply, and laid a heavy charge upon the transaction; while the license system of the British, modifying this condition of things to their own advantage, by facilitating exports from the Chesapeake, certainly did operate, as the President's message said, to regulate American commerce in conformity with British interests.

The re-exportation of foreign produce had once played a very large part in the foreign trade of New England. This item consisted chiefly in West India commodities; and although, owing to several causes, it fell off very much in the years between 1805 and 1811, it had remained still considerable. It was, however, particularly obnoxious to British interests, as then understood by British statesmen and people; and since it depended entirely upon American ships,--for it was not to the interest of a neutral to bring sugar and coffee to an American port merely to carry it away again,--it disappeared entirely when the outbreak of war rendered all American merchant vessels liable to capture. In fact, as far as the United States was concerned, although this re-exportation appeared among commercial returns, it was not an interest of commerce, accurately so called, but of navigation, of carrying trade. It had to do with ships, not with cargoes; its gain was that of the wagoner. Still, the loss by the idleness of the ships, due to the war, may be measured in terms of the cargoes. In 1805 New England re-exported foreign products to the amount of $15,621,484; in 1811, $5,944,121; in 1813, no more than $302,781. It remains to add that, as can be readily understood, all export, whether of foreign or domestic produce, was chiefly by neutrals, which were not liable to capture so long as there was no blockade proclaimed. From December 1 to 24, 1813, forty-four vessels cleared from Boston for abroad, of which five only were Americans.[181]

Under the very reduced amount of their commercial movement, the tonnage of the Middle and Southern states was more than adequate to their local necessities; and they now had no need of the aid which in conditions of normal prosperity they received from the Eastern shipping. The latter, therefore, having lost its usual local occupation, and also the office it had filled towards the other sections of the Union, was either left idle or turned perforce to privateering. September 7, 1813, there were in Boston harbor ninety-one ships, two barks, one hundred and nine brigs, and forty-three schooners; total, two hundred and forty-five, besides coasters. The accumulation shows the lack of employment. December 15, two hundred square-rigged vessels were laid up in Boston alone.[182] Insurance on American vessels was stated to be fifty per cent.[183]

Whether tonnage to any large amount was transferred to a neutral flag, as afterwards so much American shipping was during the Civil War, I have not ascertained. It was roundly intimated that neutral flags were used to cover the illicit intercourse with the enemy before mentioned; but whether by regular transfer or by fraudulent papers does not appear. An officer of the frigate "Congress," in her unprofitable voyage just mentioned, says that after parting with the "President," she fell in with a few licensed Americans and a great number of Spaniards and Portuguese.[184] The flags of these two nations, and of Sweden, certainly abounded to an abnormal extent, and did much of the traffic from America; but it seems unlikely that there was at that particular epoch any national commerce, other than British, at once large enough, and sufficiently deficient in shipping of its own, to absorb any great number of Americans. In truth, the commerce of the world had lost pretty much all its American component, because this, through a variety of causes, had come to consist chiefly of domestic agricultural products, which were thrown back upon the nation's hands, and required no carriers; the enemy having closed the gates against them, except so far as suited his own purposes. The disappearance of American merchant ships from the high seas corresponded to the void occasioned by the blockade of American staples of commerce. The only serious abatement from this generalization arises from the British system of licenses, permitting the egress of certain articles useful to themselves.

The results from the conditions above analyzed are reflected in the returns of commerce, in the movements of American coasters, and in the consequent dispositions of the enemy. In the Treasury year ending September 30, 1813, the value of the total exports from the Eastern states was $3,049,022; from the Middle section, $17,513,930; from the South, $7,293,043. Virginia is here reckoned with the Middle, because her exports found their way out by the Chesapeake; and this appreciation is commercial and military in character, not political or social. While this was the state of foreign trade under war conditions, the effect of local circumstances upon coasting is also to be noticed. The Middle section, characterized by the great estuaries, and by the description of its products,--grain primarily, and secondly tobacco,--was relatively self-sufficing and compact. Its growth of food, as has been seen, was far in excess of its wants, and the distance by land between the extreme centres of distribution, from tide-water to tide-water, was comparatively short. From New York to Baltimore by road is but four fifths as far as from New York to Boston; and at New York and Baltimore, as at Boston, water communication was again reached for the great lines of distribution from either centre. In fact, traffic from New York southward needed to go no farther than Elk River, forty miles short of Baltimore, to be in touch with the whole Chesapeake system. Philadelphia lies half-way between New York and Baltimore, approximately a hundred miles from each.

The extremes of the Middle section of the country were thus comparatively independent of coastwise traffic for mutual intercourse, and the character of their coasts co-operated to reduce the disposition to employ coasters in war. From the Chesapeake to Sandy Hook the shore-line sweeps out to sea, is safely approachable by hostile navigators, and has for refuge no harbors of consequence, except the Delaware. The local needs of the little communities along the beaches might foster a creeping stream of very small craft, for local supply; but as a highway, for intercourse on a large scale, the sea here was too exposed for use, when taken in connection with the facility for transport by land, which was not only short but with comparatively good roads.

In war, as in other troublous times, prices are subject to complicated causes of fluctuation, not always separable. Two great staples, flour and sugar, however, may be taken to indicate with some certainty the effects of impeded water transport. From a table of prices current, of August, 1813, it appears that at Baltimore, in the centre of the wheat export, flour was $6.00 per barrel; in Philadelphia, $7.50; in New York, $8.50; in Boston, $11.87. At Richmond, equally well placed with Baltimore as regarded supplies, but with inferior communications for disposing of its surplus, the price was $4.00. Removing from the grain centre in the other direction, flour at Charleston is reported at $8.00--about the same as New York; at Wilmington, North Carolina, $10.25. Not impossibly, river transportation had in these last some cheapening effect, not readily ascertainable now. In sugar, the scale is seen to ascend in an inverse direction. At Boston, unblockaded, it is quoted at $18.75 the hundredweight, itself not a low rate; at New York, blockaded, $21.50; at Philadelphia, with a longer journey, $22.50; at Baltimore, $26.50; at Savannah, $20. In the last named place, nearness to the Florida line, with the inland navigation, favored smuggling and safe transportation. The price at New Orleans, a sugar-producing district, $9.00, affords a standard by which to measure the cost of carriage at that time. Flour in the same city, on February 1, 1813, was $25 the barrel.

In both articles the jump between Boston and New York suggests forcibly the harassment of the coasting trade. It manifests either diminution of supply, or the effect of more expensive conveyance by land; possibly both. The case of the southern seaboard cities was similar to that of Boston; for it will not be overlooked that, as the more important food products came from the middle of the country, they would be equally available for each extreme. The South was the more remote, but this was compensated in some degree by better internal water communications; and its demand also was less, for the white population was smaller and less wealthy than that of New England. The local product, rice, also went far to supply deficiencies in other grains. In the matter of manufactured goods, however, the disadvantage of the South was greater. These had to find their way there from the farther extreme of the land; for the development of manufactures had been much the most marked in the east. It has before been quoted that some wagons loaded with dry goods were forty-six days in accomplishing the journey from Philadelphia to Georgetown, South Carolina, in May of this year. Some relief in these articles reached the South by smuggling across the Florida line, and the Spanish waters opposite St. Mary's were at this time thronged with merchant shipping to an unprecedented extent; for although smuggling was continual, in peace as in war, across a river frontier of a hundred miles, the stringent demand consequent upon the interruption of coastwise traffic provoked an increased supply. "The trade to Amelia,"--the northernmost of the Spanish sea-islands,--reported the United States naval officer at St. Mary's towards the end of the war, "is immense. Upwards of fifty square-rigged vessels are now in that port under Swedish, Russian, and Spanish colors, two thirds of which are considered British property."[185] It was the old story of the Continental and License systems of the Napoleonic struggle, re-enacted in America; and, as always, the inhabitants on both sides the line co-operated heartily in beating the law.

The two great food staples chosen sufficiently indicate general conditions as regards communications from centre to centre. Upon this supervened the more extensive and intricate problem of distribution from the centres. This more especially imparted to the Eastern and Southern coasts the particular characteristics of coasting trade and coast warfare, in which they differ from the Middle states. These form the burden of the letters from the naval captains commanding the stations at Charleston, Savannah, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire; nor is it without significance that Bainbridge at Boston, not a way port, but a centre, displayed noticeably less anxiety than the others about this question, which less touched his own command. Captain Hull, now commanding the Portsmouth Yard, writes, June 14, 1813, that light cruisers like the "Siren," lately arrived at Boston, and the "Enterprise," then with him, can be very useful by driving away the enemy's small vessels and privateers which have been molesting the coasting trade. He purposes to order them eastward, along the Maine coast, to collect coasters in convoy and protect their long-shore voyages, after the British fashion on the high seas. "The coasting trade here," he adds, "is immense. Not less than fifty sail last night anchored in this harbor, bound to Boston and other points south. The 'Nautilus' [a captured United States brig] has been seen from this harbor every week for some time past, and several other enemy's vessels are on the coast every few days." An American privateer has just come in, bringing with her as a prize one of her own class, called the "Liverpool Packet," which "within six months has taken from us property to an immense amount."[186]

Ten days later Hull's prospects have darkened. There has appeared off Portsmouth a blockading division; a frigate, a sloop, and two brigs. "When our two vessels were first ordered to this station, I believed they would be very useful in protecting the coasting trade; but the enemy's cruisers are now so much stronger that we can hardly promise security to the trade, if we undertake to convoy it." On the contrary, the brigs themselves would be greatly hazarded, and resistance to attack, if supported by the neighborhood, may entail destruction upon ports where they have taken refuge; a thought possibly suggested by Cockburn's action at Havre de Grace and Frenchtown. He therefore now proposes that they should run the blockade and cruise at sea. This course was eventually adopted; but for the moment the Secretary wrote that, while he perceived the propriety of Hull's remarks, "the call for protection on that coast has been very loud, and having sent those vessels for that special purpose, I do not now incline immediately to remove them."[187] It was necessary to bend to a popular clamor, which in this case did not, as it very frequently does, make unreasonable demands and contravene all considerations of military wisdom. A month later Hull reports the blockade so strict that it is impossible to get out by day. The commander of the "Enterprise," Johnston Blakely, expresses astonishment that the enemy should employ so large a force to blockade so small a vessel.[188] It was, however, no matter for surprise, but purely a question of business. The possibilities of injury by the "Enterprise" must be blasted at any cost, and Blakely himself a year later, in the "Wasp," was to illustrate forcibly what one smart ship can effect in the destruction of hostile commerce and hostile cruisers.

Blakely's letter was dated July 31. The "Enterprise" had not long to wait for her opportunity, but it did not fall to his lot to utilize it. Being promoted the following month, he was relieved in command by Lieutenant William Burrows. This officer had been absent in China, in mercantile employment, when the war broke out, and, returning, was captured at sea. Exchanged in June, 1813, he was ordered to the "Enterprise," in which he saw his only service in the war,--a brief month. She left Portsmouth September 1, on a coasting cruise, and on the morning of the 5th, being then off Monhegan Island, on the coast of Maine, sighted a vessel of war, which proved to be the British brig "Boxer," Commander Samuel Blyth.

The antagonists in the approaching combat were nearly of equal force, the respective armaments being, "Enterprise," fourteen 18-pounder carronades, and two long 9-pounders, the "Boxer," twelve 18-pounder carronades and two long sixes. The action began side by side, at half pistol-shot, the "Enterprise" to the right and to windward (position 1). After fifteen minutes the latter ranged ahead (2). As she did so, one of her 9-pounders, which by the forethought of Captain Burrows had been shifted from its place in the bow to the stern,[189] was used with effect to rake her opponent. She then rounded-to on the starboard tack, on the port-bow of the enemy,--ahead but well to the left (3),--in position to rake with her carronades; and, setting the foresail, sailed slowly across from left to right. In five minutes the "Boxer's" maintopmast and foretopsailyard fell. This left the "Enterprise" the mastery of the situation, which she continued to hold until ten minutes later, when the enemy's fire ceased. Her colors could not be hauled down, Blyth having nailed them to the mast. He himself had been killed at the first broadside, and almost at the same instant Burrows too fell, mortally wounded.

The "Boxer" belonged to a class of vessel, the gun brigs, which Marryat through one of his characters styled "bathing machines," only not built, as the legitimate article, to go up, but to go down. Another,--the immortal Boatswain Chucks,--proclaimed that they would "certainly d--n their inventor to all eternity;" adding characteristically, that "their low common names, 'Pincher,' 'Thrasher,' 'Boxer,' 'Badger,' and all that sort, are quite good enough for them." In the United States service the "Enterprise," which had been altered from a schooner to a brig, was considered a singularly dull sailer. As determined by American measurements, taken four days after the action, the size of the two was the same within twenty tons; the "Boxer" a little the larger. The superiority of the "Enterprise" in broadside force, was eight guns to seven; or, stated in weight of projectiles, one hundred and thirty-five pounds to one hundred and fourteen. This disparity, though real, was in no sense decisive, and the execution done by each bore no comparison to the respective armaments. The hull of the "Boxer" was pierced on the starboard side by twelve 18-pound shot, nearly two for each of the "Enterprise's" carronades. The 9-pounder had done even better, scoring five hits. On her port side had entered six of 18 pounds, and four of 9 pounds. By the official report of an inspection, made upon her arrival in Portland, it appears that her upper works and sides forward were torn to pieces.[190] In her mainmast alone were three 18-pound shot.[191] As a set-off to this principal damage received, she had to show only one 18-pound shot in the hull of the "Enterprise," one in the foremast, and one in the mainmast.[192]

From these returns, the American loss in killed and wounded, twelve, must have been largely by grapeshot or musketry. The British had twenty-one men hurt. It has been said that this difference in loss is nearly proportionate to the difference in force. This is obviously inexact; for the "Enterprise" was superior in gun power by twelve per cent, while the "Boxer's" loss was greater by seventy-five per cent. Moreover, if the statement of crews be accurate, that the "Enterprise" had one hundred and twenty and the "Boxer" only sixty-six,[193] it is clear that the latter had double the human target, and scored little more than half the hits. The contest, in brief, was first an artillery duel, side to side, followed by a raking position obtained by the American. It therefore reproduced in leading features, although on a minute scale, the affair between the "Chesapeake" and "Shannon"; and the exultation of the American populace at this rehabilitation of the credit of their navy, though exaggerated in impression, was in principle sound. The British Court Martial found that the defeat was "to be attributed to a superiority of the enemy's force, principally in the number of men, as well as to a greater degree of skill in the direction of her fire, and the destructive effects of her first broadside."[194] This admission as to the enemy's gunnery is substantially identical with the claim made for that of the "Shannon,"--notably as to the first broadside. As to the greater numbers, one hundred and twenty is certainly almost twice sixty-six, and the circumstance should be weighed; but in an engagement confined to the guns, and between 18-pounder carronade batteries, it is of less consequence than at first glance appears. A cruiser of those days expected to be ready to fight with many men away in prizes. Had it come to boarding, or had the "Boxer's" gunnery been good, disabling her opponent's men, the numbers would have become of consideration. As it was, they told for something, but not for very much.

If national credit were at issue in every single-ship action, the balance of the "Chesapeake" and "Shannon," "Enterprise" and "Boxer," would incline rather to the American side; for the "Boxer" was not just out of port with new commander, officers, and crew, but had been in commission six months, had in that time crossed the ocean, and been employed along the coast. The credit and discredit in both cases is personal, not national. It was the sadder in Blyth's case because he was an officer of distinguished courage and activity, who had begun his fighting career at the age of eleven, when he was on board a heavily battered ship in Lord Howe's battle of June 1, 1794. At thirty, with little influence, and at a period when promotion had become comparatively sluggish, he had fairly fought his way to the modest preferment in which he died. Under the restricted opportunities of the United States Navy, Burrows had seen service, and his qualities received recognition, in the hostilities with Tripoli. The unusual circumstance of both captains falling, and so young,--Burrows was but twenty-eight,--imparted to this tiny combat an unusual pathos, which was somewhat heightened by the fact that Blyth himself had acted as pall-bearer when Lawrence, three months before, was buried with military honors at Halifax. In Portland, Maine, the two young commanders were borne to their graves together, in a common funeral, with all the observance possible in a small coast town; business being everywhere suspended, and the customary tokens of mourning displayed upon buildings and shipping.

After this engagement, as the season progressed, coastwise operations in this quarter became increasingly hazardous for both parties. On October 22, Hull wrote that neither the "Enterprise" nor the "Rattlesnake" could cruise much longer. The enemy still maintained his grip, in virtue of greater size and numbers. Ten days later comes the report of a convoy, with one of the brigs, driven into port by a frigate; that the enemy appear almost every day, and never without a force superior to that of both his brigs, which he fears to trust out overnight, lest they find themselves at morning under the guns of an opponent of weightier battery. The long nights and stormy seas of winter, however, soon afforded to coasters a more secure protection than friendly guns, and Hull's letters intermit until April 6, 1814, when he announces that the enemy has made his appearance in great force; he presumes for the summer. Besides the danger and interruption of the coasting trade, Hull was increasingly anxious as to the safety of Portsmouth itself. By a recent act of Congress four seventy-fours had been ordered to be built, and one of them was now in construction there under his supervision. Despite the navigational difficulties of entering the port, which none was more capable of appreciating than he, he regarded the defences as so inadequate that it would be perfectly possible to destroy her on the stocks. "There is nothing," he said, "to prevent a very small force from entering the harbor." At the same moment Decatur was similarly concerned for the squadron at New London, and we have seen the fears of Stewart for Norfolk. So marked was Hull's apprehension in this respect, that he sent the frigate "Congress" four miles up the river, where she remained to the end of the war; her crew being transferred to Lake Ontario. New York, the greater wealth of which increased both her danger and her capacity for self-protection, was looking to her own fortifications, as well as manning, provisioning, and paying the crews of the gunboats that patrolled her waters, on the side of the sea and of the Sound.

The exposure of the coasting trade from Boston Bay eastward was increased by the absence of interior coastwise channels, until the chain of islands about and beyond the Penobscot was reached. On the other hand, the character of the shore, bold, with off-lying rocks and many small harbors, conferred a distinct advantage upon those having local knowledge, as the coasting seamen had. On such a route the points of danger are capes and headlands, particularly if their projection is great, such as the promontory between Portsmouth and Boston, of which Cape Ann is a conspicuous landmark. There the coaster has to go farthest from his refuge, and the deep-sea cruiser can approach with least risk. In a proper scheme of coast defence batteries are mounted on such positions. This, it is needless to say, in view of the condition of the port fortifications, had not been done in the United States. Barring this, the whole situation of the coast, of trade, and of blockade, was one with which British naval officers had then been familiar for twenty years, through their employment upon the French and Spanish coasts, as well Mediterranean as Atlantic, and in many other parts of the world. To hover near the land, intercepting and fighting by day, manning boats and cutting out by night, harassing, driving on shore, destroying the sinews of war by breaking down communications, was to them simply an old experience to be applied under new and rather easier circumstances.

Of these operations frequent instances are given in contemporary journals and letters; but less account has been taken of the effects, as running through household and social economics, touching purse and comfort. These are traceable in commercial statistics. At the time they must have been severely felt, bringing the sense of the war vividly home to the community. The stringency of the British action is betrayed, however, by casual notices. The captain of a schooner burned by the British frigate "Nymphe" is told by her commander that he had orders to destroy every vessel large enough to carry two men. "A brisk business is now carrying on all along our coast between British cruisers and our coasting vessels, in ready money. Friday last, three masters went into Gloucester to procure money to carry to a British frigate to ransom their vessels. Thursday, a Marblehead schooner was ransomed by the "Nymphe" for $400. Saturday, she took off Cape Ann three coasters and six fishing boats, and the masters were sent on shore for money to ransom them at $200 each." There was room for the wail of a federalist paper: "Our coasts unnavigable to ourselves, though free to the enemy and the money-making neutral; our harbors blockaded; our shipping destroyed or rotting at the docks; silence and stillness in our cities; the grass growing upon the public wharves."[195] In the district of Maine, "the long stagnation of foreign, and embarrassment of domestic trade, have extended the sad effects from the seaboard through the interior, where the scarcity of money is severely felt. There is not enough to pay the taxes."[196]

South of Chesapeake Bay the coast is not bold and rocky, like that north of Cape Cod, but in its low elevation and gradual soundings resembles rather those of New Jersey and Delaware. It has certain more pronounced features in the extensive navigable sounds and channels, which lie behind the islands and sandbars skirting the shores. The North Carolina system of internal water communications, Pamlico Sound and its extensions, stood by itself. To reach that to the southward, it was necessary to make a considerable sea run, round the far projecting Cape Fear, exposed to capture outside; but from Charleston to the St. Mary's River, which then formed the Florida boundary for a hundred miles of its length, the inside passages of South Carolina and Georgia were continuous, though in many places difficult, and in others open to attack from the sea. Between St. Mary's and Savannah, for example, there were seven inlets, and Captain Campbell, the naval officer in charge of that district, reported that three of these were practicable for frigates;[197] but this statement, while literally accurate, conveys an exaggerated impression, for no sailing frigate would be likely to cross a difficult bar for a single offensive operation, merely to find herself confronted with conditions forbidding further movement.

The great menace to the inside traffic consisted in the facility with which cruisers outside could pass from entrance to entrance, contrasted with the intricacies within impeding similar action by the defence. If a bevy of unprotected coasters were discerned by an enemy's lookouts, the ship could run down abreast, send in her boats, capture or destroy, before the gunboats, if equidistant at the beginning, could overcome the obstacles due to rise and fall of tide, or narrowness of passage, and arrive to the rescue.[198] A suggested remedy was to replace the gunboats by rowing barges, similar to, but more powerful than, those used by the enemy in his attacks. The insuperable trouble here proved to be that men fit for such work, fit to contend with the seamen of the enemy, were unwilling to abandon the sea, with its hopes of prize money, or to submit to the exposure and discomfort of the life. "The crews of the gunboats," wrote Captain Campbell, "consist of all nations except Turks, Greeks, and Jews." On one occasion the ship's company of an American privateer, which had been destroyed after a desperate and celebrated resistance to attack by British armed boats, arrived at St. Mary's. Of one hundred and nineteen American seamen, only four could be prevailed upon to enter the district naval force.[199] This was partly due to the embarrassment of the national finances. "The want of funds to pay off discharged men," wrote the naval captain at Charleston, "has given such a character to the navy as to stop recruiting."[200] "Men could be had," reported his colleague at St. Mary's, now transferred to Savannah, "were it not for the Treasury notes, which cannot be passed at less than five per cent discount. Men will not ship without cash. There are upwards of a hundred seamen in port, but they refuse to enter, even though we offer to ship for a month only."[201]

During the American Civil War, fifty years after the time of which we are speaking, this internal communication was effectually intercepted by stationing inside steamers of adequate force; but that recourse, while not absolutely impracticable for small sailing cruisers, involved a risk disproportionate to the gain. Through traffic could have been broken up by keeping a frigate in any one of the three sounds, entrance to which was practicable for vessels of that class. In view of the amount of trade passing back and forth, which Campbell stated to be in one period of four months as much as eight million dollars, it is surprising that this obvious expedient was not adopted by the enemy. That they appreciated the situation is shown by the intention, announced in 1813, of seizing one of the islands; which was effected in January, 1815, by the occupation of Cumberland and St. Simons'. As it was, up to that late period the routine methods of their European experience prevailed, with the result that their coastwise operations in the south differed little from those in the extreme north. Smaller vessels occasionally, armed boats frequently, pushed inside the inlets, seizing coasters, and at times even attacking the gunboats. While the positive loss thus inflicted was considerable, it will readily be understood that it was much exceeded by the negative effect, in deterring from movement, and reducing navigation to the limits of barest necessity.

In these operations the ships of war were seconded by privateers from the West Indies, which hovered round this coast, as the Halifax vessels did round that of New England, seeking such scraps of prize money as might be left over from the ruin of American commerce and the immunities of the licensed traders. The United States officers at Charleston and Savannah were at their wits' ends to provide security with their scanty means,--more scanty even in men than in vessels; and when there came upon them the additional duty of enforcing the embargo of December, 1813, in the many quarters, and against the various subterfuges, by which evasion would be attempted, the task was manifestly impossible. "This is the most convenient part of the world for illicit trade that I have ever seen," wrote Campbell. From a return made this summer by the Secretary of the Navy to Congress,[202] it is shown that one brig of eighteen guns, which was not a cruiser, but a station ship at Savannah, eleven gunboats, three other schooners, and four barges, were apportioned to the stretch of coast from Georgetown to St. Mary's,--over two hundred miles. With the fettered movement of the gunboats before mentioned, contrasted with the outside cruisers, it was impossible to meet conditions by distributing this force, "for the protection of the several inlets," as had at first been directed by the Navy Department. The only defensive recourse approximately satisfactory was that of the deep-sea merchant service of Great Britain, proposed also by Hull at the northward, to assemble vessels in convoys, and to accompany them throughout a voyage. "I have deemed it expedient," wrote Campbell from St. Mary's, "to order the gun vessels to sail in company, not less than four in number, and have ordered convoy to the inland trade at stated periods, by which means vessels may be protected, and am sorry to say this is all that can be effected in our present situation."[203] In this way a fair degree of immunity was attained. Rubs were met with occasionally, and heavy losses were reported from time to time. There was a certain amount of fighting and scuffling, in which advantage was now on one side, now on the other; but upon the whole it would appear that the novelty of the conditions and ignorance of the ground rather imposed upon the imagination of the enemy, and that their operations against this inside trade were at once less active and less successful than under the more familiar features presented by the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts.

Whatever more or less of success or injury attended the coastwise trade in the several localities, the point to be observed is that the enemy's operations effectually separated the different sections of the country from one another, so far as this means of intercourse was concerned; thereby striking a deadly blow at the mutual support which might be given by communities differing so markedly in resources, aptitudes, and industries. The remark before made upon the effect of headlands, on the minor scale of a particular shore-line, applied with special force to one so extensive as that of the United States Atlantic coast in 1813. Cape Cod to the north and Cape Fear to the south were conspicuous examples of such projection. Combined with the relatively shelterless and harborless central stretch, intervening between them, from the Chesapeake to Sandy Hook, they constituted insuperable obstacles to sustained intercommunication by water. The presence of the enemy in great numbers before, around, and within the central section, emphasized the military weakness of position which nature herself had there imposed. To get by sea from one end of the country to the other it was necessary to break the blockade in starting, to take a wide sweep out to sea, and again to break it at the desired point of entrance. This, however, is not coasting.

The effect which this coast pressure produced upon the welfare of the several sections is indicated here and there by official utterances. The war party naturally inclined to minimize unfavorable results, and their opponents in some measure to exaggerate them; but of the general tendency there can be no serious doubt. Mr. Pearson, an opposition member of the House from North Carolina, speaking February 16, 1814, when the record of 1813 was made up, and the short-lived embargo of December was yet in force, said: "Blocked up as we are by the enemy's squadron upon our coast, corked up by our still more unmerciful embargo and non-importation laws, calculated as it were to fill up the little chasm in the ills which the enemy alone could not inflict; the entire coasting trade destroyed, and even the little pittance of intercourse from one port to the other in the same state destroyed [by the embargo], the planters of the Southern and Middle states, finding no market at home for their products, are driven to the alternative of wagoning them hundreds of miles, in search of a precarious market in the Northern and Eastern states, or permitting them to rot on their hands. Many articles which are, or by habit have become, necessary for comfort, are obtained at extravagant prices from other parts of the Union. The balance of trade, if trade it may be called, from these and other causes being so entirely against the Southern and Middle states, the whole of our specie is rapidly travelling to the North and East. Our bank paper is thrown back upon the institutions from which it issued; and as the war expenditures in the Southern and Middle states, where the loans have been principally obtained, are proportionately inconsiderable, the bills of these banks are daily returning, and their vaults drained of specie, to be locked up in Eastern and Western states, never to return but with the return of peace and prosperity."[204]

The isolation of North Carolina was extreme, with Cape Fear to the south and the occupied Chesapeake north of her. The Governor of the central state of Pennsylvania, evidently in entire political sympathy with the national Administration, in his message to the legislature at the same period,[205] is able to congratulate the people on the gratifying state of the commonwealth; a full treasury, abundant yield of agriculture, and the progress of manufacturing development, which, "however we may deprecate and deplore the calamities of protracted war, console us with the prospect of permanent and extensive establishments equal to our wants, and such as will insure the real and practical independence of our country." But he adds: "At no period of our history has the immense importance of internal navigation been so strikingly exemplified as since the commencement of hostilities. The transportation of produce, and the intercourse between citizens of the different states, which knit more strongly the bonds of social and political union, are greatly retarded, and, through many of their accustomed channels, entirely interrupted by the water craft of the enemy, sinking, burning, and otherwise destroying, the property which it cannot appropriate to its own use." He looks forward to a renewal of similar misfortune in the following year, an anticipation more than fulfilled. The officials of other states, according to their political complexion, either lamented the sufferings of the war and its supposed injustice, or comforted themselves and their hearers by reflecting upon the internal fruitfulness of the country, and its increasing self-sufficingness. The people were being equipped for independence of the foreigner by the progress of manufactures, and by habits of economy and self-denial, enforced by deprivation arising from the suppression of the coasting trade and the rigors of the commercial blockade.

The effect of the latter, which by the spring of 1814 had been in force nearly a twelvemonth over the entire coast south of Narragansett Bay, can be more directly estimated and concisely stated, in terms of money, than can the interruption of the coasting trade; for the statistics of export and import, contrasted with those of years of peace, convey it directly. It has already been stated that the exports for the year ending September 30, 1814, during which the operation of the blockade was most universal and continuous, fell to $7,000,000, as compared with $25,000,000 in 1813, and $45,000,000 in 1811, a year of peace though of restricted intercourse. Such figures speak distinctly as well as forcibly; it being necessary, however, to full appreciation of the difference between 1813 and 1814, to remember that during the first half of the former official period--from October 1, 1812, to April 1, 1813,--there had been no commercial blockade beyond the Chesapeake and Delaware; and that, even after it had been instituted, the British license system operated to the end of September to qualify its effects.

Here and there interesting particulars may be gleaned, which serve to illustrate these effects, and to give to the picture that precision of outline which heightens impression. "I believe," wrote a painstaking Baltimore editor in December, 1814, "that there has not been an arrival in Baltimore from a foreign port for a twelvemonth";[206] yet the city in 1811 had had a registered tonnage of 88,398, and now boasted that of the scanty national commerce still maintained, through less secluded ports, at least one half was carried on by its celebrated schooners,[207] the speed and handiness of which, combined with a size that intrusted not too many eggs to one basket, imparted special facilities for escaping pursuit and minimizing loss. A representative from Maryland at about this time presented in the House a memorial from Baltimore merchants, stating that "in consequence of the strict blockade of our bays and rivers the private-armed service is much discouraged," and submitting the expediency "of offering a bounty for the destruction of enemy's vessels;" a suggestion the very extravagance of which indicates more than words the extent of the depression felt. The price of salt in Baltimore, in November, 1814, was five dollars the bushel. In Charleston it was the same, while just across the Spanish border, at Amelia Island, thronged with foreign merchant ships, it was selling at seventy cents.[208]

Such a contrast, which must necessarily be reproduced in other articles not indigenous, accounts at once for the smuggling deplored by Captain Campbell, and at the same time testifies both to the efficacy of the blockade and to the pressure exercised upon the inland navigation by the outside British national cruisers and privateers. This one instance, affecting one of the prime necessaries of life, certifies to the stringent exclusion from the sea of the coast on which Charleston was the chief seaport. Captain Dent, commanding this naval district, alludes to the constant presence of blockaders, and occasionally to vessels taken outside by them, chased ashore, or intercepted in various inlets; narrating particularly the singular incident that, despite his remonstrances, a flag of truce was sent on board the enemy by local authorities to negotiate a purchase of goods thus captured.[209] This unmilitary proceeding, which evinces the necessities of the neighborhood, was of course immediately stopped by the Government.

A somewhat singular incidental circumstance, supporting the other inferences, is found in the spasmodic elevation of the North Carolina coast into momentary commercial consequence as a place of entry and deposit; not indeed to a very great extent, but ameliorating to a slight degree the deprivation of the regions lying north and south,--the neighborhood of Charleston on the one hand, of Richmond and Baltimore on the other. "The waters of North Carolina, from Wilmington to Ocracoke, though not favorable to commerce in time of peace, by reason of their shallowness and the danger of the coast, became important and useful in time of war, and a very considerable trade was prosecuted from and into those waters during the late war, and a coasting trade as far as Charleston, attended with less risk than many would imagine. A vessel may prosecute a voyage from Elizabeth City [near the Virginia line] to Charleston without being at sea more than a few hours at any one time."[210] Some tables of arrivals show a comparative immunity for vessels entering here from abroad; due doubtless to the unquestioned dangers of the coast, which conspired with the necessarily limited extent of the traffic to keep the enemy at a distance. It was not by them wholly overlooked. In July, 1813, Admiral Cockburn anchored with a division off Ocracoke bar, sent in his boats, and captured a privateer and letter-of-marque which had there sought a refuge denied to them by the blockade elsewhere. The towns of Beaufort and Portsmouth were occupied for some hours. The United States naval officer at Charleston found it necessary also to extend the alongshore cruises of his schooners as far as Cape Fear, for the protection of this trade on its way to his district.

The attention aroused to the development of internal navigation also bears witness to the pressure of the blockade. "It is my opinion," said the Governor of Pennsylvania, "that less than one half the treasure expended by the United States for the protection of foreign commerce, if combined with state and individual wealth, would have perfected an inland water communication from Maine to Georgia." It was argued by others that the extra money spent for land transportation of goods, while the coasting trade was suspended, would have effected a complete tide-water inland navigation such as here suggested; and there was cited a declaration of Robert Fulton, who died during the war, that within twenty-one months as great a sum had been laid out in wagon hire as would have effected this object. Whatever the accuracy of these estimates, their silent witness to the influence of the blockade upon commerce, external and coastwise, quite overbears President Madison's perfunctory denials of its effectiveness, based upon the successful evasions which more or less attend all such operations.

Perhaps, however, the most signal proof of the pressure exerted is to be seen in the rebound, the instant it was removed; in the effect upon prices, and upon the movements of shipping. Taken in connection with the other evidence, direct and circumstantial, so far cited, what can testify more forcibly to the strangulation of the coasting trade than the fact that in the month of March, 1815,--news of the peace having been received February 11,--there sailed from Boston one hundred and forty-four vessels, more than half of them square-rigged; and that of the whole all but twenty-six were for United States ports. Within three weeks of April there arrived at Charleston, exclusive of coasters, one hundred and fifty-eight vessels; at Savannah, in the quarter ending June 30, two hundred and three. Something of this outburst of activity, in which neutrals of many nations shared, was due, as Mr. Clay said, to the suddenness with which commerce revived after momentary suspension. "The bow had been unstrung that it might acquire fresh vigor and new elasticity"; and the stored-up products of the country, so long barred within, imparted a peculiar nervous haste to the renewal of intercourse. The absolute numbers quoted do not give as vivid impression of conditions at differing times as do some comparisons, easily made. In the year 1813, as shown by the returns of the United States Treasury, out of 674,853 tons of registered--sea-going--shipping, only 233,439--one third--paid the duties exacted upon each several voyage, and of these many doubtless sailed under British license.[211] In 1814 the total tonnage, 674,632, shows that ship-building had practically ceased; and of this amount one twelfth only, 58,756 tons, paid dues for going out.[212] In 1816, when peace conditions were fully established, though less than two years had passed, the total tonnage had increased to 800,760; duties, being paid each voyage, were collected on 865,219.[213] Thus the foreign voyages that year exceeded the total shipping of the country, and by an amount greater than all the American tonnage that put to sea in 1814.

The movement of coasting vessels, technically called "enrolled," is not so clearly indicated by the returns, because all the trips of each were covered by one license annually renewed. A licensed coaster might make several voyages, or she might make none. In 1813 the figures show that, of 471,109 enrolled tonnage, 252,440 obtained licenses. In 1814 there is, as in the registered shipping, a diminution of the total to 466,159, of which a still smaller proportion, 189,662, took out the annual license. In 1816 the enrolment was 522,165, the licensing 414,594. In the fishing craft, a class by themselves, the employment rose from 16,453 in 1814 to 48,147 in 1816;[214] the difference doubtless being attributable chiefly to the reopening of the cod fishing on the banks of Newfoundland, necessarily closed to the American flag by the maritime hostilities.

The influence of the peace upon prices is likewise a matter too interesting to a correct appreciation of effects to be wholly passed over. In considering it, the quotations before the receipt of the news doubtless represent conditions more correctly than do the immediate changes. The official tidings of peace reached New York, February 11, 1815. The Evening Post, in its number of February 14, says, "We give to-day one of the effects of the prospect of peace, even before ratification. Our markets of every kind experienced a sudden, and to many a shocking, change. Sugar, for instance, fell from $26 per hundredweight to $12.50. Tea, which sold on Saturday at $2.25, on Monday was purchased at a $1.00. Specie, which had got up to the enormous rate of 22 per cent premium, dropped down to 2. The article of tin, in particular, fell from the height of $80 the box to $25. Six per cents rose from 76 to 88; ten per cents and Treasury notes from 92 to 98. Bank stock generally rose from five to ten per cent." In Philadelphia, flour which sold at $7.50 the barrel on Saturday had risen to $10 on Monday; a testimony that not only foreign export but home supply to the eastward was to be renewed. The fall in foreign products, due to freedom of import, was naturally accompanied by a rise in domestic produce, to which an open outlet with proportionate increase of demand was now afforded. In Philadelphia the exchange on Boston reflected these conditions; falling from twenty-five per cent to thirteen.

It may then be concluded that there is little exaggeration in the words used by "a distinguished naval officer" of the day, in a letter contributed to Niles' Register, in its issue of June 17, 1815. "No sooner had the enemy blockaded our harbors, and extended his line of cruisers from Maine to Georgia, than both foreign and domestic commerce came at once to be reduced to a deplorable state of stagnation; producing in its consequences the utter ruin of many respectable merchants, as well as of a great multitude besides, connected with them in their mercantile pursuits. But these were not the only consequences. The regular supply of foreign commodities being thereby cut off, many articles, now become necessaries of life, were raised to an exorbitant price, and bore much upon the finances of the citizen, whose family could not comfortably exist without them. Add to this, as most of the money loaned to the Government for the purposes of the war came from the pockets of merchants, they were rendered incapable of continuing these disbursements in consequence of this interruption to their trade; whence the cause of that impending bankruptcy with which the Government was at one time threatened.... At a critical period of the war [April, 1814] Congress found it necessary to remove all restrictions upon commerce, both foreign and domestic. It is a lamentable fact, however, that the adventurous merchant found no alleviation from these indulgences, his vessels being uniformly prevented by a strong blockading force, not only from going out, but from coming into port, at the most imminent risk of capture. The risk did not stop here; for the islands and ports most frequented by American vessels being known to the enemy, he was enabled from his abundance of means to intercept them there also. The coasting trade, that most valuable appendage to an extensive mercantile establishment in the United States, was entirely annihilated. The southern and northern sections of the Union were unable to exchange their commodities, except upon a contracted scale through the medium of land carriage, and then only at a great loss; so that, upon the whole, nothing in a national point of view appeared to be more loudly called for by men of all parties than a naval force adequate to the protection of our commerce, and the raising of the blockade of our coast."

Such was the experience which sums up the forgotten bitter truth, concerning a war which has left in the United States a prevalent impression of distinguished success, because of a few brilliant naval actions and the closing battle of New Orleans. The lesson to be deduced is not that the country at that time should have sought to maintain a navy approaching equality to the British. In the state of national population and revenue, it was no more possible to attempt this than that it would be expedient to do it now, under the present immense development of resources and available wealth. What had been possible during the decade preceding the war,--had the nation so willed,--was to place the navy on such a footing, in numbers and constitution, as would have made persistence in the course Great Britain was following impolitic to the verge of madness, because it would add to her war embarrassments the activity of an imposing maritime enemy, at the threshold of her most valuable markets,--the West Indies,--three thousand miles away from her own shores and from the seat of her principal and necessary warfare. The United States could not have encountered Great Britain single-handed--true; but there was not then the slightest prospect of her having to do so. The injuries of which she complained were incidental to a state of European war; inconceivable and impossible apart from it. She was therefore assured of the support of most powerful allies, occupying the attention of the British navy and draining the resources of the British empire. This condition of things was notorious, as was the fact that, despite the disappointment of Trafalgar, Napoleon was sedulously restoring the numbers of a navy, to the restraining of which his enemy was barely competent.

The anxiety caused to the British Admiralty by the operations of the small American squadrons in the autumn of 1812 has already been depicted in quotations from its despatches to Warren.[215] Three or four divisions, each containing one to two ships of the line, were kept on the go, following a general round in successive relief, but together amounting to five or six battle ships--to use the modern term--with proportionate cruisers. It was not possible to diminish this total by concentrating them, for the essence of the scheme, and the necessity which dictated it, was to cover a wide sweep of ocean, and to protect several maritime strategic points through which the streams of commerce, controlled by well-known conditions, passed, intersected, or converged. So also the Admiralty signified its wish that one ship of the line should form the backbone of the blockade before each of the American harbors. For this purpose Warren's fleet was raised to a number stated by the Admiralty's letter to him of January 9, 1813, to be "upwards of ten of the line, exclusive of the six sail of the line appropriated to the protection of the West India convoys." These numbers were additional to detachments which, outside of his command, were patrolling the eastern Atlantic, about the equator, and from the Cape Verde Islands to the Azores, as mentioned in another letter of February 10. "In all, therefore, about twenty sail of the line were employed on account of American hostilities; and this, it will be noticed, was after Napoleon's Russian disaster was fully known in England. It has not been without interfering for the moment with other very important services that my Lords have been able to send you this re-enforcement, and they most anxiously hope that the vigorous and successful use you will make of it will enable you shortly to return some of the line of battle ships to England, which, if the heavy American frigates should be taken or destroyed, you will immediately do, retaining four line of battle ships." Attention should fasten upon the importance here attached by the British Admiralty to the bigger ships; for it is well to learn of the enemy, and to appreciate that it was not solely light cruisers and privateers, but chiefly the heavy vessels, that counted in the estimate of experienced British naval officers. The facts are little understood in the United States, and consequently are almost always misrepresented.

The reasons for this abundance of force are evident. As regards commerce Great Britain was on the defensive; and the defensive cannot tell upon which of many exposed points a blow may fall. Dissemination of effort, however modified by strategic ingenuity, is thus to a certain extent imposed. If an American division might strike British trade on the equator between 20° and 30° west longitude, and also in the neighborhood of the Cape Verdes and of the Azores, preparation in some form to protect all those points was necessary, and they are too wide apart for this to be effected by mere concentration. So the blockade of the United States harbors. There might be in New York no American frigates, but if a division escaped from Boston it was possible it might come upon the New York blockade in superior force, if adequate numbers were not constantly kept there. The British commercial blockade, though offensive in essence, had also its defensive side, which compelled a certain dispersion of force, in order to be in local sufficiency in several quarters.

These several dispersed assemblages of British ships of war constituted the totality of naval effort imposed upon Great Britain by "the fourteen sail of vessels of all descriptions"[216] which composed the United States navy. It would not in the least have been necessary had these been sloops of war--were they fourteen or forty. The weight of the burden was the heavy frigates, two of which together were more than a match for three of the same nominal class--the 38-gun frigate--which was the most numerous and efficient element in the British cruising force. The American forty-four was unknown to British experience, and could be met only by ships of the line. Add to this consideration the remoteness of the American shore, and its dangerous proximity to very vital British interests, and there are found the elements of the difficult problem presented to the Admiralty by the combination of American force--such as it was--with American advantage of position for dealing a severe blow to British welfare at the period, 1805-1812, when the empire was in the height of its unsupported and almost desperate struggle with Napoleon; when Prussia was chained, Austria paralyzed, and Russia in strict bonds of alliance--personal and political--with France.

If conditions were thus menacing, as we know them to to have been in 1812, when war was declared, and the invasion of Russia just beginning, when the United States navy was "fourteen pendants," what would they not have been in 1807, had the nation possessed even one half of the twenty ships of the line which Gouverneur Morris, a shrewd financier, estimated fifteen years before were within her competency? While entirely convinced of the illegality of the British measures, and feeling keenly--as what American even now cannot but feel?--the humiliation and outrage to which his country was at that period subjected, the writer has always recognized the stringent compulsion under which Great Britain lay, and the military wisdom, in his opinion, of the belligerent measures adopted by her to sustain her strength through that unparalleled struggle; while in the matter of impressment, it is impossible to deny--as was urged by Representative Gaston of North Carolina and Gouverneur Morris--that her claim to the service of her native seamen was consonant to the ideas of the time, as well as of utmost importance to her in that hour of dire need. Nevertheless, submission by America should have been impossible; and would have been avoidable if for the fourteen pendants there had been a dozen sail of the line, and frigates to match. To an adequate weighing of conditions there will be indeed resentment for impressment and the other mortifications; but it is drowned in wrath over the humiliating impotence of an administration which, owing to preconceived notions as to peace, made such endurance necessary. It is not always ignominious to suffer ignominy; but it always is so to deserve it.

President Washington, in his last annual message, December 7, 1796, defined the situation then confronting the United States, and indicated its appropriate remedy, in the calm and forcible terms which characterized all his perceptions. "It is in our own experience, that the most sincere neutrality is not a sufficient guard against the depredations of nations at war. To secure respect for a neutral flag requires a naval force, organized and ready, to vindicate it from insult or aggression. This may even prevent the necessity of going to war, by discouraging belligerent powers from committing such violations of the rights of the neutral party as may, first or last, leave no other option" [than war]. The last sentence is that of the statesman and soldier, who accurately appreciates the true office and sphere of arms in international relations. His successor, John Adams, yearly renewed his recommendation for the development of the navy; although, not being a military man, he seems to have looked rather exclusively on the defensive aspect, and not to have realized that possible enemies are more deterred by the fear of offensive action against themselves than by recognition of a defensive force which awaits attack at an enemy's pleasure. Moreover, in his administration, it was not Great Britain, but France, that was most actively engaged in violating the neutral rights of American shipping, and French commercial interests then presented nothing upon which retaliation could take effect. The American problem then was purely defensive,--to destroy the armed ships engaged in molesting the national commerce.

President Jefferson, whose influence was paramount with the dominant party which remained in power from his inauguration in 1801 to the war, based his policy upon the conviction, expressed in his inaugural, that this "was the only government where every man would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern;" and that "a well-disciplined militia is our best reliance for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them." In pursuance of these fundamental principles, it was doubtless logical to recommend in his first annual message that, "beyond the small force which will probably be wanted for actual service in the Mediterranean [against the Barbary pirates], whatever annual sum you may think proper to appropriate to naval preparations would perhaps be better employed in providing those articles which may be kept without waste or consumption, and be in readiness when any exigence calls them into use. Progress has been made in providing materials for seventy-four gun ships;" but this commended readiness issued in not laying their keels till after the war began.

Upon this first recommendation followed the discontinuance of building ships for ocean service, and the initiation of the gunboat policy; culminating, when war began, in the decision of the administration to lay up the ships built for war, to keep them out of British hands. The urgent remonstrances of two or three naval captains obtained the reversal of this resolve, and thereby procured for the country those few successes which, by a common trick of memory, have remained the characteristic feature of the War of 1812.

NOTE.--After writing the engagement between the "Boxer" and the "Enterprise," the author found among his memoranda, overlooked, the following statement from the report of her surviving lieutenant, David McCreery: "I feel it my duty to mention that the bulwarks of the 'Enterprise' were proof against our grape, when her musket balls penetrated through our bulwarks." (Canadian Archives, M. 389, 3. p. 87.) It will be noted that this does not apply to the cannon balls, and does not qualify the contrast in gunnery.

FOOTNOTES:

[128] Broke's Letter to Lawrence, June, 1813. Naval Chronicle, vol. xxx. p. 413.

[129] Rodgers' Report of this cruise is in Captains' Letters, Sept. 27, 1813.

[130] Captains' Letters, Dec. 14, 1813.

[131] Captains' Letters, June 3, 1812.

[132] The Department's orders to Evans and the letter transferring them to Lawrence, captured in the ship, can be found published in the Report on Canadian Archives, 1896, p. 74. A copy is attached to the Record of the subsequent Court of Inquiry, Navy Department MSS.

[133] James' Naval History, vol. vi., edition of 1837. The account of the action between the "Chesapeake" and "Shannon" will be found on pp. 196-206.

[134] Secretary to the Admiralty, In-Letters, May, 1814, vol. 505, p. 777.

[135] Naval Chronicle, vol. xxx, p. 413.

[136] Broke, in his letter of challenge, "was disappointed that, after various verbal messages sent into Boston, Commodore Rodgers, with the 'President' and 'Congress,' had _eluded_ the 'Shannon' and 'Tenedos,' by sailing the first chance, after the prevailing easterly winds had obliged us to keep an offing from the coast."

[137] For the reason here assigned, and others mentioned in the narrative, the author has preferred to follow in the main James' account, analyzed, and compared with Broke's report (Naval Chronicle, vol. xxx. p. 83), and with the testimony in the Court of Inquiry held in Boston on the surrender of the "Chesapeake," and in the resultant courts martial upon Lieutenant Cox and other persons connected with the ship, which are in the Navy Department MSS. The official report of Lieutenant Budd, the senior surviving officer of the "Chesapeake", is published in Niles' Register (vol. iv, p. 290), which gives also several unofficial statements of onlookers, and others.

[138] Not "across"; the distinction is important, being decisive of general raking direction.

[139] Actually, a contemporary account, borrowed by the British "Naval Chronicle" (vol. xxx. p. 161) from a Halifax paper, but avouched as trustworthy, says the "Chesapeake" was terribly battered on the larboard bow as well as quarter. The details in the text indicate merely the local preponderance of injury, and the time and manner of its occurrence.

[140] A slight qualification is here needed, in that of the injured of the "Shannon" some were hurt in the boarding, not by the cannonade; but the general statement is substantially accurate.

[141] Decatur to Navy Department. Captains' Letters, June, 1813.

[142] Decatur to Navy Department. Captains' Letters, June, 1813.

[143] Naval Chronicle, vol. xxix. p. 497.

[144] Croker to Warren, Jan. 9, 1813. Admiralty Out-Letters, British Records Office. My italics.

[145] Message of the Governor of Connecticut, October, 1813. Niles' Register, vol. v. p. 121.

[146] Message of the Governor of Connecticut, October, 1813. Niles' Register, vol. v. p. 121.

[147] Niles' Register, vol. v. p. 302.

[148] Captains' Letters.

[149] Niles' Register, vol. vi. p. 136.

[150] Captains' Letters, Nov. 3 and Dec. 31, 1809; March 26, 1810; and Oct. 12, 1813.

[151] American State Papers, Naval Affairs, vol. i. p. 307.

[152] Ante, page 16.

[153] The official reports of Warren and Cockburn concerning these operations are published in the Naval Chronicle, vol. xxx. pp. 162-168.

[154] Captains' Letters, June 21, 1813.

[155] The American official account of this affair is given in Niles' Register, vol. iv. pp. 375, 422. James' Naval History, vol. vi. pp. 236-238, gives the British story.

[156] Captains' Letters, April, 1813.

[157] Captains' Letters, May 21, 1813.

[158] Ibid.

[159] James, Naval History (edition 1837), vol. vi. p. 231.

[160] Warren's Gazette Letters, here referred to, can be found in Naval Chronicle, vol. xxx. pp. 243, 245.

[161] Croker to Warren, March 20, 1813. Admiralty Out-Letters, Records Office.

[162] Niles' Register, vol. iv. p. 404.

[163] The rise of the tide is about two and a half feet.

[164] This is the number stated by James, the British naval historian, and is somewhat difficult to reconcile with Warren's expression, "the troops and a re-enforcement of seamen and marines from the ships." To be effective, the attack should have been in greater numbers.

[165] The British story of this failure, outside the official despatches, is given in James' Naval History, vol. vi. pp. 232-234.

[166] Report of the commander of the "Scorpion" to Captain Morris, July 21, 1813. Captains' Letters.

[167] This letter, from the commanding officer of the "Narcissus", is in Niles' Register, vol. iv. p. 279.

[168] Morris to Navy Department, August 13, 23, and 27. Captains' Letters.

[169] Captain Hayes, of the "Majestic," in charge of the blockade of Boston, wrote to Warren, October 25, 1813: "Almost every vessel I meet has a license, or is under a neutral flag. Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedes are passing in and out by hundreds, and licensed vessels out of number from the West Indies. I find the licenses are sent blank to be filled up in Boston. This is of course very convenient, and the Portuguese consul is said to be making quite a trade of that flag, covering the property and furnishing the necessary papers for any person at a thousand dollars a ship." Canadian Archives, M. 389. 3. p. 189.

[170] Annals of Congress, 1813-1814, vol. i. p. 500.

[171] This parenthesis shows that the censures were not directed against New England only, for the blockade so far declared did not extend thither.

[172] Niles' Register, vol. iv. pp. 370, 386.

[173] Ibid., p. 387.

[174] Niles' Register, vol. iv. p. 387.

[175] Ibid., p. 402.

[176] Ibid.

[177] Ibid. Author's italics.

[178] Morris to Navy Department, Dec. 20 and 26, 1813. Captains' Letters.

[179] Post, chapter xviii.

[180] British Records Office, Secret Papers MSS.

[181] Niles' Register, vol. v. p. 311.

[182] The Columbian Centinel, Boston, Sept. 7 and Dec. 15, 1813.

[183] Ibid., Dec. 18.

[184] Ibid.

[185] Campbell to the Navy Department, Nov. 11, 1814. Captains' Letters.

[186] Captains' Letters.

[187] Ibid., June 24, 1813.

[188] Hull to Navy Department, July 31, 1813. Ibid.

[189] Cooper tells the story that when this gun was transported, and preparations being made to use it as a stern instead of a bow chaser, the crew--to whom Burrows was as yet a stranger, known chiefly by his reputation for great eccentricity--came to the mast to express a hope that the brig was not going to retreat.

[190] Report of Lieutenant Tillinghast to Captain Hull. Captains' Letters, Sept. 9, 1813.

[191] Hull to Bainbridge, Sept. 10. Niles' Register, vol. v. p. 58.

[192] Report of the carpenter of the "Enterprise." Captains' Letters.

[193] There is a discrepancy in the statements concerning the "Boxer's" crew. Hull reported officially, "We have sixty-seven, exclusive of those killed and thrown overboard." (Sept. 25. Captains' Letters.) Lieutenant McCall, who succeeded to the command after Burrows fell, reported that "from information received from officers of the 'Boxer' it appears that there were between twenty and thirty-five killed, and fourteen wounded." (U.S. State Papers, Naval Affairs, vol. i. p. 297.) The number killed is evidently an exaggerated impression received, resembling some statements made concerning the "Chesapeake;" but it is quite likely that the "Boxer's" loss should be increased by several bodies thrown overboard.

[194] Naval Chronicle, vol. xxxii. p. 473.

[195] Columbian Centinel, July 28, Sept. 1, and Nov. 13, 1813.

[196] Ibid., Sept. 25.

[197] Campbell to Navy Department, Jan. 4, 1814. Captains' Letters.

[198] For full particulars see Captains' Letters (Campbell), June 12, 1813; Jan. 2 and 4, Aug. 20, Sept. 3, Oct. 8, Oct. 15, Dec. 4, 1814.

[199] Campbell, Dec. 2, 1814. Captains' Letters.

[200] Dent to Navy Department, Jan. 28, 1815. Ibid.

[201] Campbell, Feb. 3, 1815. Ibid.

[202] June 7, 1813. Navy Department MSS.

[203] Captains' Letters, Sept. 3, 1814.

[204] Benton's Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, vol. v. p. 202.

[205] Dec. 10, 1813. Niles' Register, vol. v. pp. 257-260.

[206] Niles' Register, vol. vii. p. 194.

[207] Ibid., vol. viii. p. 234.

[208] Ibid., vol. vii. p. 168. Quoted from a Charleston, S.C., paper.

[209] Captains' Letters, May 3, 23, 24; June 27, 29; August 7, 17; Nov. 9, 13, 23, 1813.

[210] Niles' Register, vol. viii. p. 311. Quoted from a Norfolk paper.

[211] American State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, vol. i. p. 1017.

[212] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 12.

[213] American State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, vol. ii. p. 87.

[214] Ibid., vol. i. p. 1017; vol. ii. pp. 12, 87.

[215] Ante, vol. i. pp. 402-404.

[216] Admiralty's Letter to Warren. Feb. 10, 1813.