Chapter 63

French Decrees and British Orders in Council--Damage to American Commerce--The Embargo--Causes of the War of 1812--The Chesapeake and the Leopard--President and Little Belt--War Declared--Mr. Astor's Messenger --The Two Navies Compared--American Frigate Victories--Constitution and Guerriere--United States and Macedonian--Constitution and Java--American Sloop Victories--The Shannon and Chesapeake--"Don't Give Up the Ship."

The Barbary pirates had been brought to terms, but American commerce was being severely handled between French decrees and British orders in council. England had declared a blockade of all the coasts of Europe under the control of France, and Napoleon from his camp at Berlin and his palace at Milau retaliated by making British products contraband of war and subjecting to confiscation all vessels destined for British ports. Between these two mighty millstones the American carrying trade was sorely ground, and conditions were made far worse by the very means which the American government, in its comparative impotency, adopted to compel redress. The embargo was intended to inflict such injury on both France and England as to drive them into a recognition of America's rights as a neutral. Its only serious effect was to inflict an almost fatal wound on American commerce, and the repeal of the first embargo came too late to undo the injury it had done. It was not as clearly apparent then as now that all restrictions on exportation chiefly injure the nation which imposes them. The embargo played into the hands of the British by effecting through our own agency what England had vainly sought to accomplish through others. England commanding every sea with her fleets suffered but slight inconvenience by the withdrawal of American shipping from her ports, while Americans suffered most severely.

The British blockade of continental Europe would not, however, have led to the conflict which broke out in 1812. Other aggressions, offensive to American independence, and in grievous violation of American national rights, obliged Congress reluctantly to declare war, after years of irritation and provocation on the part of England. The British stopped American vessels on the high seas, and impressed American seamen into the British naval service. American merchantmen were halted in mid-ocean and deprived of the best men in their crews, who were forced to serve in the British navy.[1]

[1] In the famous sea-fight between the American frigate United States and the British frigate Macedonian several American seamen on the British vessel, through their spokesman, John Card, who was described by one of his shipmates as being "as brave a seamen as ever trod a plank," frankly told Captain Garden their objections to fighting the American flag. The British commander savagely ordered them back to their quarters, threatening to shoot them if they again made the request. Half an hour later Jack Card was stretched out on the Macedonian's deck weltering in his blood, slain by a shot from his countrymen.--_Maclay's History of the United States Navy, D. Appleton & Co._

Thousands of American seamen were thus impressed, while American vessels were seized by British cruisers, taken to port and unloaded and searched for contraband of war. The Leopard-Chesapeake affair was a crowning outrage on the part of the British, and had it not been promptly disavowed by the government at London, war would have been declared in 1807 instead of 1812. The Chesapeake, an American frigate of thirty-six guns, commanded by Captain James Barren, was hailed by the English fifty-gun frigate, Leopard, Captain Humphreys, in the open sea. The latter sent a lieutenant on board the Chesapeake, who handed to Captain Barren an order signed by the British Vice-Admiral Berkeley, directing all commanders in Berkeley's squadron to board the Chesapeake wherever found on the high seas, and search the vessel for deserters. Captain Barren's ship was utterly unprepared for battle, but he gave orders to clear tor action. So shameful was the lack of preparation on the Chesapeake that not a gun could be discharged until Lieutenant William Henry Allen seized a live coal from the galley fire with his fingers and sent a shot in response to repeated broadsides from the Leopard. The Chesapeake hauled down her flag after losing three killed and eighteen wounded. The British then boarded the vessel and carried off four of the crew, who were claimed as British deserters, although they all asserted to the last that they were American citizens. One of these men, Jenkin Ratford or John Wilson, was hanged at the yard-arm of the British man-of-war Halifax. The other three were sentenced each to receive five hundred lashes, but the sentences were not carried out, and two of them, the third having died, were returned on board the Chesapeake. Some indemnity was paid and the British government recalled Vice-Admiral Berkeley.

The British continued to impress Americans into their service, and to annoy American shipping, and the American temper was gradually becoming inflamed under repeated provocations. Nevertheless there was a powerful sentiment opposed to war in the State of New York and in New England, and the people generally hesitated to believe that war would be declared. In 1811 the American frigate President avenged in some degree the Leopard outrage by severely chastising the British twenty-two-gun ship Little Belt, which lost eleven killed and twenty-one wounded in the encounter. The Little Belt appears to have fired the first shot. War was at length declared by Congress, and proclaimed by President James Madison, June 18, 1812.

The news of war with Great Britain was carried, to New York by a special courier, and American merchants at once sent out a swift sailing vessel to warn American merchantmen in the ports of Northern Europe of the new danger that threatened them. By this warning many American vessels were saved from capture. Very different in result, although presumably not in intent, was the warning sent by John Jacob Astor, of New York, to his agent across the border. Mr. Astor, upon receiving the news from Washington, at once dispatched a messenger by swiftest express, to Queenstown, Canada, with the view of protecting as speedily as possible Mr. Astor's fur-trading interests. The messenger sped through the settlements of western New York, by farms and villages calmly reposing in the confidence of peace, and without saying a word of his momentous secret, he crossed the Niagara River with his master's message. The recipient of that message was a British subject, and felt bound by his allegiance to communicate it to the authorities. The following morning the people of Buffalo were surprised to see the Canadians descend upon their harbor and seize the shipping within reach.

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Hostilities were opened promptly on land and sea. The American navy consisted only of seventeen vessels, 442 guns and 5025 men, while that of Great Britain included 1048 vessels, 27,800 guns and 151,572 men. It is no wonder that the American people hesitated to send forth their men-of-war against such tremendous odds, even although England's navy was largely engaged in the tremendous conflict with France, or rather in keeping Napoleon cribbed and cabined within his continental boundaries; and it is no wonder that British naval officers assumed to regard with contempt the fir-built frigates which bore the Stars and Stripes. The defeat and capture of the British frigate Guerriere, forty-nine guns, Captain Dacres, by the American frigate Constitution, fifty-five guns, Captain Isaac Hull, made British contempt give place to surprise. In this naval battle the Americans proved their superiority in rapidity and accuracy of fire, and it is perhaps needless to say that they showed themselves fully the equals of the British in bravery. It is pleasant to read in the official report of Captain Dacres the following tribute to his generous foe: "I feel it my duty to state that the conduct of Captain Hull and his officers to our men has been that of a brave enemy, the greatest care being taken to prevent our men losing the smallest trifle, and the greatest attention being paid to the wounded." The Guerriere lost her second lieutenant, Henry Ready, and fourteen seamen killed, and Captain Dacres, First Lieutenant Kent, Sailing Master Scott, two master's mates, one midshipman and fifty-seven sailors were wounded, six of the wounded afterward dying. The Constitution lost her first lieutenant of marines, William Sharp Bush, and six seamen killed, and her first lieutenant, Charles Morris, her sailing master, four seamen and one marine were wounded. Thus resulted the first naval combat between British and American built men-of-war.[2]

[2] The Constitution may still be seen in the Navy Yard at Portsmouth, N. H. The following famous poem, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, saved the grand old vessel from destruction in 1833:

"Ay, tear the tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle-shout, And burst the cannon's roar-- The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquered knee-- The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave; Her thunders shook the mighty deep. And there should be her grave; Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storm The lightning and the gale!"

For rapid and accurate firing and destructive effect thereof upon the enemy the records of naval warfare probably offer nothing to surpass the conduct of the American frigate United States, fifty-four guns, Captain Decatur, in battle with the British frigate Macedonian, forty-nine guns, Captain Garden. "The firing from the American frigate at close quarters was terrific. Her cannon were handled with such rapidity that there seemed to be one continuous flash from her broadside, and several times Captain Garden and his officers believed her to be on fire. * * * Her firing was so rapid that 'in a few minutes she was enveloped in a cloud of smoke which from the Macedonian's quarter-deck appeared like a huge cloud rolling along the water, illuminated by lurid flashes of lightning, and emitting a continuous roar of thunder.' But the unceasing storm of round shot, grape and canister, and the occasional glimpse of the Stars and Stripes floating above the clouds of smoke, forcibly dispelled the illusion, and showed the Englishmen that they were dealing with an enemy who knew how to strike and who struck hard. * * * 'Grapeshot and canister were pouring through our port holes like leaden hail; the large shot came against the ship's side, shaking her to the very keel, and passing through her timbers and scattering terrific splinters, which did more appalling work than the shot itself. A constant stream of wounded men were being hurried to the cockpit from all quarters of the ship.' And still the American frigate kept up her merciless cannonading. As the breeze occasionally made a rent in the smoke her officers could be seen walking around her quarter-deck calmly directing the work of destruction, while her gun-crews were visible through the open ports deliberately loading and aiming their pieces."[3] The action had lasted about an hour and a half, when the Macedonian struck. The United States, lost five men killed and seven wounded; the Macedonian lost thirty-six killed and sixty-eight wounded.

[3] From statements of witnesses on the Macedonian, in Maclay's "History of the United States Navy."

The next naval victory was won by Captain William Bainbridge, this time in command of the Constitution, forty-four guns, over the British thirty-eight-gun frigate Java, Captain Henry Lambert. The battle began at 2.40 p. m., and at 4.05 p. m., the British frigate was "an unmanageable wreck." The Java at length surrendered, having lost sixty killed, besides one hundred and one wounded, while the loss of the Constitution was nine killed and twenty-five wounded. Both commanders were wounded, the British captain mortally, and there was a touching scene when Captain Bainbridge, supported by his officers to the bedside of the dying Lambert, gave back to the latter his sword.

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The British press foamed almost deliriously over these disasters to their navy, which robbed of half its luxury the imminent downfall of Napoleon. The London "Times" could hardly find words to express its emotion over the fact that five hundred merchantmen and three frigates; had been captured in seven months by the Americans. An attempt was made to explain the repeated and astounding defeats on the ocean by the plea that the American frigates were almost ships of the line in disguise, and that their superior size and armament carried an unfair advantage. The same plea could not be offered in explanation of the victories won by American sloops, in the case of the American Hornet and British Peacock, of about equal strength, while the American Wasp was considerably inferior in guns and weight of metal to the British Frolic. Master-Commandant James Lawrence, of the Hornet, captured the Peacock in eleven minutes from the beginning of the action, the American guns being fired so rapidly that buckets of water were constantly dashed on them to keep them cool. A Halifax paper said that "a vessel moored for the purpose of experiment could not have been sunk sooner. It will not do for our vessels to fight theirs single-handed." The American eighteen-gun sloop-of-war Wasp, Master-Commandant Jacob Jones, had a longer fight with the British brig-of-war Frolic, twenty-two guns, Captain Thomas Whinyates. The action lasted forty-three minutes from the first broadside, and the Frolic was taken by boarding. The Wasp had five killed and five wounded, and the Frolic fifteen killed and forty-seven wounded. The fact is, it was not the number but the handling of the guns that won American victories.

The capture of the American forty-nine-gun frigate Chesapeake, Captain James Lawrence, by the British fifty-two-gun frigate Shannon, Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke, consoled the English in some degree for their losses, and the very exultation with which the news was received in Great Britain showed the high estimate which the mistress of the seas had formed of the American navy from previous experience during the war. It is but just to the gallant Lawrence to say that he had no fair opportunity to prepare for battle, that he had the poorest crew--largely Portuguese and other riff-raff--ever put on board an American man-of-war, and that with a crew such as Hull or Decatur or Bainbridge had commanded, or that he had himself commanded on the Hornet, he might have recorded a victory instead of losing his ship and his life. At the same time it must also be admitted that Captain Broke was a superb naval officer, and that his victory was chiefly due to the perfect discipline and devotion of his men, with whom he was thoroughly acquainted, whereas Lawrence had been but a few days in command of the Chesapeake. When mortally wounded and carried below, Lawrence cried: "Keep the guns going!" "Fight her till she strikes or sinks!" and his last words were--"Don't give up the ship!" The British boarded the Chesapeake, after a brief cannonading. The Americans on board made a desperate resistance, and it is a question whether there was any formal surrender. The Chesapeake lost forty-seven killed and ninety-nine wounded, and of the latter fourteen afterward died. The Shannon lost twenty-four killed and fifty-nine wounded. There could hardly have been greater joy in England over a Peninsular victory. Parliament acclaimed, the guns of the Tower thundered, and Captain Broke was made a baronet and a Knight Commander of the Bath. America keenly felt the defeat, but honored the heroic dead, and a gold medal was voted to the nearest male descendant of Captain Lawrence.