Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/97

Rh ed. The Constellation was the more powerful ship; she carried twenty-four-pounders in her main battery, where L'Insurgente carried eighteens; but it was not the extra size of her shot that won, it was the number of her shot that struck home.

As it happened, the work of getting the prize to port showed the quality of the men of our navy to a greater advantage than the battle had done. Lieutenant John Rodgers and Midshipman David Porter with eleven men were sent to the prize, and the work of transferring her crew, as prisoners, to the Constellation began. But a tropical gale came on, and the ships were separated while yet 173 French sailors remained on L'Insurgente.

The gratings for covering the hatches had disappeared, and there were no handcuffs aboard. But the thirteen Americans drove the Frenchmen into the lower hold, put on all hatches but one, loaded a gun with grape and canister, pointed it at the one hatch that was left open, and then for two days and three nights guarded the prisoners and worked the ship through the gale. They did not get a wink of sleep in that time, but they took the prize into St. Kitts.

More important for the good of the nation and the honor of the navy was the next frigate battle, February 2, 1800.

At 7.80 o'clock on February 1 a large sail rose above the horizon in the south-east. It was heading to westward, and English colors were hoisted on the Constellation to decoy her within range. But red was not a good lure that morning, and the Constellation had to go in chase.

Until noon the Constellation gained rapidly, but at that hour the wind failed, and thereafter, for more than twenty-four hours, both ships rocked to the long swell from the east. At 1 o'clock, of the 2d, a fair working breeze came, the Constellation once more went hunting for the stranger, and finally, at eight o'clock at night, as the tropical twilight disappeared, she found herself within range. The enemy was the French frigate La Vengeance, Captain A. M. Pitot. Her battery was more powerful than that of the Constellation by about thirty-four per cent., and she had an ample crew of valorous men. But she lost 50 killed and 110 wounded out of 330, while the Americans lost but 14 killed and 25 wounded. That the Americans were so much occupied in shooting the enemy to pieces as not to observe the condition of their own rigging is one of the most notable features of this battle. If a naval officer may ever be commended for an error, it is for one like this. For his gallantry in this fight Truxtun received a gold medal from Congress with a vote of thanks. It was the first medal voted to an officer of the new navy.

A converted merchantman made the first stroke in this war for peace, and a converted merchantman fought the last ship action. At 3.45 o'clock on the afternoon of October 12, 1800, the Boston, Captain G. Little, ranged up alongside of the French sloop of war Berceau, Captain André Senez, and ordered the Frenchman to strike his colors. But Senez was of a nature to strike back instead. The Boston opened fire at pistol-range, after the usual fashion, and, with shouts of "Vive la République," the French fired back. Thereafter until the next afternoon the Yankees worked their guns—for twenty-one hours they fought without cessation, save only as they hauled off for brief periods now and then to repair their rigging. But at 2 of the 13th the Berceau was a dismantled wreck and her captain had to surrender. It was one of the most obstinate fights in the history of our navy.

Meantime two swift cruising schooners had been built and commissioned, the Enterprise and the Experiment. The work of the Enterprise has been described already in this magazine, and the men of the Experiment shall now have their turn.

On January 1, 1800, under Lieutenant-Commandant William Maley, the Experiment, with a number of merchantmen in convoy, was lying becalmed in the Bight of Leogane. To the people on shore it seemed a rare chance for plunder, and manning ten large barges with from thirty to forty men each, they came off to the attack.

No more determined horde of pirates ever went afloat. Twice they were driven away by the grape and canister from the