By the exercise of remarkable seamanship Captain Hull had succeeded in escaping from the British squadron, under Broke, off the Jersey coast. But he came so near capture that the secretary of the navy succeeded in frightening himself and the whole Cabinet at Washington into such a state of timidity that, had they had their way, no war-vessel flying the American flag would have been allowed to leave any Atlantic seaport and put to sea.

Captain Hull had carried the “Constitution” into Boston, where, if the orders had reached him in time, the secretary would have peremptorily bidden him to remain. But Hull was not in a humor to be inactive. What he wanted was a fight, yard-arm to yard-arm, with a frigate of the enemy, preferably the “Guerriere,” Captain Richard Dacres, who had sailed boldly up and down the coast with an open challenge to any frigate flying the American flag. Though very warm personal friends ashore, both Hull and Dacres had high opinions[91] of the merits of their own vessels. Dacres voiced the prevailing sentiment of the officers of his navy when he spoke of the “Constitution” as a bunch of pine boards which the British would knock to pieces in twenty minutes. Hull said little; but several months before war was declared had met Dacres, and wagered him a cocked hat on the result should the “Constitution” and the “Guerriere” ever meet. With the timidity at home, neither he nor any American officers had much encouragement. There was no confidence in the navy at this period, and the insults they heard from abroad were not half so hard to bear as the thinly-veiled indifference they met at home.

But Hull knew he had a good ship and a good crew. He had trained them himself, and he knew what they could do aloft and at the guns. Moreover, he knew what he could do himself. The navy was small, but the men who had smelt powder in the Revolution and before Tripoli were a stalwart set and had done deeds of gallantry that had set the greatest admirals of Europe by the ears. Many ingenious contrivances had been adopted, to be now tried for the first time. Sights had been put upon the guns, and the gun-captains knew better how to shoot than ever before. So, without waiting for the orders from[92] the secretary which he knew would hold him in port indefinitely, Hull sailed on the first fair wind and uncompromisingly put out to sea. If the orders came, he wouldn’t be back to obey unless he had captured a British frigate, or, at the very least, some merchant prizes. If he did not succeed, it meant that he might be hung or shot for sailing without orders. But even this sword of Damocles did not deter him. He would do his best, at any rate, and made a quiet seaman’s petition to the God of winds and seas to send him the “Guerriere.”

Thinking to find a better opportunity towards Halifax, where many British men-of-war and merchantmen put in, Hull sailed to the northward, and cruised as far as the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The frigate “Spartan,” 38, was in those waters; but after watching for her for some days, he stood out to sea. On the 15th of August he sighted five vessels. The “Constitution” set all sail and rapidly came up with them. Four of them scattered, leaving the fifth, a brig, on fire. Hull made for the largest of the others, and found her to be an English merchantman in charge of an American prize-crew. The “Constitution” saved her from capture at the hands of the other vessels. Before night another vessel was overhauled, and she was found[93] to be the American “Adeline,” in the hands of a prize-crew from the British “Avenger.” One vessel was destroyed and the other was sent to Boston in charge of Midshipman Madison and five men, carrying the first suggestion of the brilliant news which was to follow.

A few days later the “Constitution” chased and overhauled the American privateer “Decatur,” which, believing her to be an English cruiser, had thrown overboard almost all of her guns. The captain of the privateer had good news, though. He had sighted an English frigate the day before, sailing southward under easy sail. Hull immediately set everything the “Constitution” could carry and gave the quartermasters a course which should enable him to come up with her by the following day.

The next morning dawned clear, but the breezes fell light, and not until the morning watch was there wind enough to send the American frigate bowling along on her course under top-gallant-sails and royals. Hull took the deck for awhile himself and sent lookouts to the fore- and main-royal-yards to keep a sharp lookout. With moderate luck they should catch up with her. And then Hull felt that he would make the “Constitution” the most talked about ship afloat or else he[94] would change the timidity at the Navy Department into a panic for which there would be some reason.

If the ship were the “Guerriere,” he promised himself a new hat.

Not a sail hove in sight until towards two in the afternoon, when a lookout aloft shouted, in a voice that was taken up by four hundred throats on the spar- and gun-decks,—

“Sail ho!”

In a moment the watch below came rushing up. So great was the excitement that many of them went half-way to the tops, without orders or permission, to view the stranger. In an hour the stronger glasses proved her plainly to be a frigate, and the “Constitution” eased off her sheets, and with the bit in her teeth boomed steadily down for her. For an hour the two ships moved in this position, the stranger making no effort to escape and leaving her colors, which were soon made out to be British, flying in defiance. In fact, as soon as she discovered the “Constitution” to be an American frigate she took in sail, laid her maintop-sail to the mast, and silently awaited the approach. Hull sailed on until within about three miles of the enemy, when he sent his light yards down, reefed his topsails, and cleared ship for action.

[95]

An American-built frigate was for the first time to test her stanchness against a worthy representative of the mistress of the seas and “Terror of the World.” Most of the crew had never been in close action before. The chase of the “Constitution” had tired their hearts less than their bodies, for the firing of the British squadron had been at a very long range, and there was never a time when their ship was in danger from the cannonading of the enemy. There was not a qualm or a fear to be seen on the faces either of grizzled seaman or powder-boy, and they went to quarters with enthusiasm.

But underlying it all there was a note of gravity. They were going to bring an American ship into action with a frigate whose navy had scored hundreds of victories over the vessels of all the great nations of the earth. They half wondered at their audacity and that of their captain in defying a frigate so redoubtable as the “Guerriere,” for there seemed no further doubt that it was she. But they looked up at Hull, who was calmly pacing up and down the quarter-deck, taking a look now and then at the enemy through his glass, and their confidence came back to them. The excitement was intense, and one by one the men began throwing aside their shirts and[96] drawing in the buckles of their cutlass-hangers, most of the gun-crews stripping themselves to the waist and casting aside their shoes to avoid slipping on the decks when the blood began to flow. More than one of them had his own private score to settle with the British navy. Many of them had been at one time or another taken off American merchant-ships and impressed into the service of the enemy, and some of them still bore upon their backs the scars of the bloody lashes of the relentless “Cat.” The father of Captain Hull had died in the pest-ship “Jersey,” in the Revolution, and the other officers had all some grievances of their own which made them look eagerly forward to the battle which they intended should mean victory or death.

On the “Guerriere” there was a feeling of unshaken confidence. That any calamity to their ship could be expected from an American-built vessel, manned by a crew collected haphazard among the merchant-ships of the Atlantic harbors, never for a moment occurred to them. When the drum beat to quarters, the men tumbled to their stations willingly enough, with no more trepidation than if they were going to target-practice. Captain Dacres summoned an American prisoner, the captain of the captured merchant-brig “Betsy,” and[97] asked him what he thought of the vessel which was approaching. The skipper ventured that she was undoubtedly an American frigate. Captain Dacres replied with a smile,—

“She comes down a shade too boldly for an American.” And then added, “Well, the better he behaves the more honor we will have in taking him.”

As the “Constitution” bore down nearer, her ensign and jack flying proudly, there could no longer be any doubt as to her nationality and intentions, and he shouted to his crew, who stood at the guns,—

“There, my men, is a Yankee frigate. In forty-five minutes she is certainly ours. Take her in fifteen, and I promise you four months’ pay.”

Shortly after this Captain Hull was within two or three miles, and the “Guerriere” opened fire on the “Constitution,” to try the distance and get the range.

The shots fell short, but Hull took in his light sails and came down more warily under topsails. The “Constitution” fired a broadside, but these shots, too, dropped in the water between them. As he came nearer, the “Guerriere” squared away, wearing first to port and then to starboard, firing alternate broadsides and man?uvring to avoid being[98] raked. He wanted to cripple the American’s rigging from a distance, if possible. But the shot all missed their mark, and the “Constitution” only replied with h............