Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/96

88 ordered every American naval ship to go to sea as soon as possible.

This change of policy roused the enthusiasm of the people. The three frigates were hastily commissioned, and the twelve merchantmen were soon purchased and fitted. Veterans who had "showed willing" in the Revolution were appointed to the command. The crews were filled in a day with similar material. The merchants of the seaboard laid down by subscription two frigates and five large sloops of war, of the swiftest model, for government use.

Of this fleet, that within a few months numbered twenty-eight ships, only the ships and men that did decisive work can be mentioned here. It was the converted merchantman Delaware that gave the enemy the first blow. She went to sea early in June, 1798, under Captain Stephen Decatur, Sr., and in a few days overhauled the French privateer schooner Le Croyable, off the capes of the Delaware. This privateer had been reported for depredations on American commerce, and she was seized, taken, and brought in according to act of Congress. She was adopted into the navy under the name Retaliation.

There was no fight, yet this was an important capture. For after she was brought in Congress was spurred on to abrogate all treaties with France (early in July), and then, a few days later, to authorize the navy to "subdue, seize, and take any armed French vessel" anywhere on the high seas.

In some respects this was the most important naval act ever passed by Congress. It was passed at the inauguration of the work of the American navy, and it declared that when we would compel an enemy to do justice we need not depend on harbor-defence gun-boats, but could send ships fit to keep the sea in search for the enemy in his own waters.

As a consequence of this policy the Constellation, Captain Thomas Truxtun, was cruising fifteen miles to the eastward of Nevis Island at noon on Februarv 9, 1799. At 12.30 a sail was discovered on the southwest horizon, heading to westward, and, squaring away before an easterly breeze, Captain Truxtun went in chase.

A half-hour later the stranger was seen to come to the wind and wait for the Constellation, greatly to the joy of the Yankee crew; but at 1.30 o'clock a black squall covered both vessels, and when it had cleared away the stranger was seen with her mainmast gone, and she headed for St. Eustatius to escape. A little later she set an American ensign; but when Truxtun hoisted the private signal by which American ships were to identify each other, no reply was made. The chase was therefore continued; and seeing this, the stranger shortened sail, hoisted the French ensign, fired a gun to windward, and waited.

Soon after three o'clock, as the Constellation's broad bow was drawing up at pistol-range—less than a hundred feet—off the stranger's weather quarter, a hail was heard; but Truxtun was not there for words. With his men at their guns in perfect silence, he held his way until every gun of the broadside could bear, and then, as another hail was heard, gave the order to fire.

It was a splintering blast. The guns of the Frenchman answered instantly; but the guns of the Constellation had been aimed at the hull, while those of the Frenchman were fired without aiming. The broadside of the Constellation "made terrible havoc" on the Frenchman's quarter-deck, as the captain wrote afterward; the shot of the Frenchman knocked holes in the Constellation's sails.

Then the Frenchman put down his helm to force a collision and board, but the Constellation forged ahead, crossed his bows, and raked him fore and aft.

Reaching forward alee, the Constellation now brought a fresh battery to bear, and with a will born of the sense of the wrong that the Americans had suffered, her crew loaded and fired, and loaded and fired again. And when one man of the 309 aboard flinched, the lieutenant of his division, Andrew Sterett, killed him.

The French fought with a valor unsurpassed; but they had never learned to shoot, and at the end of an hour and a half or two hours (accounts differ) the Constellation ran clear of the smoke, took a new position for raking, and then the Frenchman surrendered. It was the frigate L'Insurgente, Captain Barreaut. The French lost 29 killed and 41 wounded; the Americans, 2 killed and 3 wound-