Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 06.djvu/464

NAVY the navy received scant attention. It was even proposed to do away completely with frigates and cruisers and to rely entirely upon gunboats; looking to these—and to the navy—for harbor defense only. Fortunately this policy was only partially given effect, and the war with England which began in 1812 found still a few frigates in commission and commanded by officers who had seen service during the four years of operations against the Barbary States. At this time the British navy was counted as supreme upon the sea. The stories of Trafalgar and the Nile were fresh in the memory of the world and especially in the memory of England and English seamen. And no one dreamed that the little navy of the United States had anything but defeat to anticipate in encounters with ships officered and manned by men trained in the school of Nelson and Hood.

The tradition of British invincibility was quickly shattered. Within the first few months of the war four encounters took place between American and British ships, in every one of which the Americans were victorious. War was declared by Congress on June 18, 1812. On Aug. 19th, the "Constitution" (American) captured the "Guerriere"; on Oct. 25th, the "United States" captured the "Macedonian"; on Oct. 17th, the "Wasp" captured the "Frolic"; and on Dec. 29th, the "Constitution" captured the "Java."

The prestige of the navy resulting from this unbroken series of victories was somewhat lessened by the loss of the "Chesapeake," Captain Lawrence, in an engagement with the British frigate "Shannon," but was carried to a higher point than ever by the great and very important victories won by the squadrons of Commodore Perry on Lake Erie, and of Captain McDonough on Lake Champlain, which put an end to all danger of invasion from Canada; and by later victories on the ocean, which, although accompanied by a few defeats, continued, upon the whole, the early successes of Hull and Decatur and Bainbridge.

From the close of the war with England in 1815 to the beginning of that with Mexico in 1846, the work of the navy, while less dramatic than in time of actual war, was not less important. And the area covered by its operations was probably larger than at any other period in its history, extending from Java and Sumatra on the W. to Palestine on the E., and including explorations in both the Arctic and the Antarctic oceans. A brief résumé of the operations during this period and that between the Mexican War and the Civil War will give a better idea than could be otherwise obtained, of the widely varied activities which fall to the lot of the navy in what are sometimes called "the piping times of peace."

In 1815, following immediately upon the close of the war with England, Commodore Decatur led a formidable squadron to the Mediterranean, where the Barbary States were again committing depredations against American commerce. The expedition was eminently successful and no further trouble was experienced from that quarter.

From 1821 to 1825 a considerable force was engaged in the suppression of piracy in the West Indies. At the same time, and for many years thereafter, a small squadron was maintained on the W. coast of Africa, engaged in the suppression of the slave-trade. In 1818, an expedition to the Pacific took possession in the name of the United States of the territory about the Columbia river, now included in the States of Washington and Oregon.

From 1838 to 1842 a squadron of five ships under Commodore Wilkes was engaged in explorations in the South Seas, one of the many important results of which was the discovery of the Antarctic continent, the existence of which had been suspected but not before known with certainty.

In 1848, an expedition commanded by Lieutenant William F. Lynch, was dispatched to Palestine and spent many months in studying the topography of the regions about the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee, and in exploring the River Jordan. The boats required for this work, among the first metallic boats ever built, were landed on the Syrian coast and transported across the desert to Tiberias on trucks drawn by camels. In 1850 and 1853, expeditions to the Arctic were made by ships manned by officers and men of the navy, in a search for the English explorer Sir John Franklin, who had disappeared into the Arctic regions several years before.

In 1853, Captain Matthew C. Perry commanded an expedition to Japan, until then a "Hermit Nation," which, thanks to the judicious combination by Perry of diplomacy and a show of force, resulted in throwing open the ports of Japan to intercourse with the world and started that nation on the road which, in less than half a century, was to bring it to a position of equality with the nations of the western world.

At the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846, Commodore Sloat, commanding the naval forces in the Pacific,