Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/98

90 long sixes of the Experiment, but on each occasion they handed their dead and wounded, took on fresh men, and came again. And they came the third time,—it was in three divisions of three barges each—to attack the plucky Experiment at three points at once. There were more than 300 of the pirates; the Experiment's crew numbered 70; but in spite of the most ferocious assaults the pirates were driven off. The whole fight lasted seven hours. The Experiment had two men wounded. The pirates' loss is unknown, but several barges were raked and sunk.

On September 13, 1800, while under Lieutenant Charles Stewart (him who commanded the Constitution in the fight with the Cyane and Levant), the Experiment fell in with a French brig of eighteen guns, that had a schooner of fourteen guns in company. The two gave chase; but Stewart, by superior seamanship, separated the two, and then with a sudden dash captured the schooner. She was named La Diana. She carried two more guns than the Experiment, and she had a crew of 60 men, who were aided at the guns by 30-odd soldiers who happened to be on board.

Having placed Midshipman David Porter, with only four men, in charge of the prize, Stewart went in chase of the brig, but in vain. In spite of vastly superior power the brig's captain, after seeing the whirlwind work of the flying Yankee, made sail for a far-off country and got there.

It was on July 7, 1798, that our naval officers were authorized to fight for peace by attacking the enemy in his own waters. In the course of the war that followed in consequence of this act of Congress, 83 ships, carrying 466 guns and 3150 men, were captured, while others were sunk or driven ashore; several flotillas of picaroons were destroyed, and a great number of captured American merchantmen were retaken. The piratical privateers were driven from the sea; the spoliation of American commerce ceased because the spoilers did not dare to go afloat. In all this time the French took just one American naval ship—the Retaliation (Le Croyable),—and she was captured by two frigates because of the uncircumspect gallantry of her captain (Lieutenant William Bainbridge) in chasing strange ships. In short, the navy paid for itself several times over.

And yet the value of the captured French vessels and the overawing of privateersmen were the smallest of the results achieved—as a consideration of dates of the consequent diplomatic negotiations shows.

It was in the first week of April, 1798, that Congress first passed a warlike act. No sooner was news of this received in France than the French intimated in a roundabout fashion that if the Americans would send an envoy to their liking they would receive him. When the news of the capture of L'Insurgente reached Paris, the French announced directly that they would give a proper reception to any envoy sent. But they were as yet insincere, for when the American administration accepted this offer and sent three envoys (who sailed on November 3, 1799), the French ignored them, until the news of the decisive victory of the Constellation over La Vengeance had been received. It was on the night of February 2, 1800, that this battle occurred, it was near the end of March that the French government received the news, and on March 30 Napoleon, then First Consul, graciously received the American envoys.

The men of the new navy had set the pace for all who were to sail under the gridiron flag after their day. By good fighting they had won peace.

Of the treaty that was made thereafter nothing need be said here, but the words of Napoleon, when he had fully determined to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States, are well worth recalling. He was still First Consul. There was considerable opposition to the project from some of his cabinet, and members of his own family were decidedly against it, but Napoleon silenced all opposition, ordered the immediate sale of the colony, and then, with the prowess of the American navy in mind, said:

"This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States, and I have just given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride."