Naval War of 1812 — 02 Part 02

The American and British historians from whom we are thus at times forced to draw our material regard the war from very different stand-points, and their accounts generally differ.

Each writer naturally so colored the affair as to have it appear favorable to his own side.

Sometimes this was done intentionally and sometimes not.

Not unfrequently errors are made against the historian's own side; as when the British author, Brenton, says that the British brig _Peacock_ mounted 32's instead of 24's, while Lossing in his "Field-Book of the War of 1812" makes the same mistake about the armament of the American brig _Argus_.

Errors of this description are, of course, as carefully to be guarded against as any others.

Mere hearsay reports, such as "it has been said," "a prisoner on board the opposing fleet has observed," "an American (or British) newspaper of such and such a date has remarked," are of course to be rejected.

There is a curious parallelism in the errors on both sides.

For example, the American, Mr. Low, writing in 1813, tells how the _Constitution_, 44, captured the _Guerrière_ of 49 guns, while the British Lieutenant Low, writing in 1880, tells how the _Pelican_, 18, captured the _Argus_ of 20 guns.

Each records the truth but not the whole truth, for although rating 44 and 18 the victors carried respectively 54 and 21 guns, of heavier metal than those of their antagonists.

Such errors are generally intentional.

Similarly, most American writers mention the actions in which the privateers were victorious, but do not mention those in which they were defeated; while the British, in turn, record every successful "cutting-out" expedition, but ignore entirely those which terminated unfavorably.

Other errors arise from honest ignorance.

Thus, James in speaking of the repulse of the _Endymion's_ boats by the _Neufchatel_ gives the latter a crew of 120 men; she had more than this number originally, but only 40 were in her at the time of the attack.

So also when the captain of the _Pelican_ writes that the officers of the _Argus_ report her loss at 40, when they really reported it at 24 or when Captain Dacres thought the _Constitution_ had lost about 20 men instead of 14. The American gun-boat captains in recounting their engagements with the British frigates invariably greatly overestimated the loss of the latter.

So that on both sides there were some intentional misstatements or garblings, and a much more numerous class of simple blunders, arising largely from an incapacity for seeing more than one side of the question.

Among the early British writers upon this war, the ablest was James.

He devoted one work, his "Naval Occurrences," entirely to it; and it occupies the largest part of the sixth volume of his more extensive "History of the British Navy."

[Footnote: A new edition, London, 1826. ] Two other British writers, Lieutenant Marshall [Footnote: "Royal Naval Biography," by John Marshall (London, 1823-1835).

] and Captain Brenton, [Footnote: "Naval History of Great Britain," by Edward Pelham Brenton (new edition, London, 1837).

] wrote histories of the same events, about the same time;

but neither of these naval officers produced half as valuable a work as did the civilian James.

Marshall wrote a dozen volumes, each filled with several scores of dreary panegyrics, or memoirs of as many different officers.

There is no attempt at order, hardly any thing about the ships, guns, or composition of the crews; and not even the pretence of giving both sides, the object being to make every Englishman appear in his best light.

The work is analogous to the numerous lives of Decatur, Bainbridge, Porter, etc. , that appeared in the United States about the same time, and is quite as untrustworthy.

Brenton made a far better and very interesting book, written on a good and well-connected plan, and apparently with a sincere desire to tell the truth.

He accepts the British official accounts as needing nothing whatever to supplement them, precisely as Cooper accepts the American officials'.

A more serious fault is his inability to be accurate.

That this inaccuracy is not intentional is proved by the fact that it tells as often against his own side as against his opponents.

He says, for example, that the guns of Perry's and Barclay's squadrons "were about equal in number and weight," that the _Peacock_ (British) was armed with 32's instead of 24's, and underestimates the force of the second _Wasp_.

But the blunders are quite as bad when distributed as when confined to one side; in addition, Brenton's disregard of all details makes him of but little use.

James, as already said, is by far the most valuable authority on the war, as regards _purely British_ affairs.

He enters minutely into details, and has evidently laboriously hunted up his authorities.

He has examined the ships' logs, the Admiralty reports, various treatises, all the _Gazette_ reports, gives very well-chosen extracts, has arranged his work in chronological order, discriminates between the officers that deserve praise and those that deserve blame, and in fact writes a work which ought to be consulted by every student of naval affairs.

But he is unfortunately afflicted with a hatred toward the Americans that amounts to a monomania.

He wishes to make out as strong a case as possible against them.

The _animus_ of his work may be gathered from the not over complimentary account of the education of the youthful seafaring American, which can be found in vol. vi, p. 113, of his "History."

On page 153 he asserts that he is an "impartial historian"; and about three lines before mentions that "it may suit the Americans to invent any falsehood, no matter how barefaced, to foist a valiant character on themselves."

On page 419 he says that Captain Porter is to be believed, "so far as is borne out by proof (the only safe way where an American is concerned),"--which somewhat sweeping denunciation of the veracity of all of Captain Porter's compatriots would seem to indicate that James was not, perhaps, in that dispassionate frame of mind best suited for writing history.

That he should be biassed against individual captains can be understood, but when he makes rabid onslaughts upon the American people as a whole, he renders it difficult for an American, at any rate, to put implicit credence in him.

His statements are all the harder to confute when they are erroneous, because they are intentionally so.

It is not, as with Brenton and Marshall, because he really thinks a British captain _cannot_ be beaten, except by some kind of distorted special providence, for no man says worse things than he does about certain officers and crews.

A writer of James' undoubted ability must have known perfectly well that his statements were untrue in many instances, as where he garbles Hilyar's account of Porter's loss, or misstates the comparative force of the fleets on Lake Champlain.

When he says (p. 194) that Captain Bainbridge wished to run away from the _Java_, and would have done so if he had not been withheld by the advice of his first lieutenant, who was a renegade Englishman, [Footnote: Who, by the way, was Mr. Parker, born in Virginia, and never in England in his life.

] it is not of much consequence whether his making the statement was due to excessive credulity or petty meanness, for, in either case, whether the defect was in his mind or his morals, it is enough to greatly impair the value of his other "facts."

Again, when James (p. 165) states that Decatur ran away from the _Macedonian_ until, by some marvellous optical delusion, he mistook her for a 32, he merely detracts a good deal from the worth of his own account.

When the Americans adopt boarding helmets, he considers it as proving conclusively that they are suffering from an acute attack of cowardice.

On p. 122 he says that "had the _President_, when she fell in with the _Belvidera_, been cruising alone * * * Commodore Rodgers would have magnified the British frigate into a line-of-battle ship, and have done his utmost to avoid her," which gives an excellent idea of the weight to be attached to the various other anecdotes he relates of the much-abused Commodore Rodgers.

But it must always be remembered that untrustworthy as James is in any thing referring purely to the Americans, he is no worse than his compeers of both nationalities.

The misstatements of Niles in his "Weekly Register" about the British are quite as flagrant, and his information about his own side even more valuable.

[Footnote: In Niles, by the way, can be found excellent examples of the traditional American "spread-eagle" style.

In one place I remember his describing "The Immortal Rodgers," baulked of his natural prey, the British, as "soaring about like the bold bald eagle of his native land," seeking whom he might devour.

The accounts he gives of British line-of-battle ships fleeing from American 44's quite match James' anecdotes of the latter's avoidance of British 38's and 36's for fear they might mount twenty-four-pounders.

The two works taken together give a very good idea of the war; separately, either is utterly unreliable, especially in matters of opinion.

] Every little American author crowed over Perry's "Nelsonic victory over a greatly superior force."

The _Constitution_ was declared to have been at a disadvantage when she fought the _Guerrière_, and so on _ad infinitum_.

But these writers have all faded into oblivion, and their writings are not even referred to, much less believed.

James, on the contrary, has passed through edition after edition, is considered as unquestionable authority in his own country, and largely throughout Europe, and has furnished the basis for every subsequent account by British authors.

From Alison to Lieutenant Low, almost every English work, whether of a popular character or not, is, in so far as it touches on the war, simply a "rehash" of the works written by James.

The consequence is that the British and American accounts have astonishingly little resemblance.

One ascribes the capture of the British frigates simply to the fact that their opponents were "cut down line-of-battle ships"; the other gives all the glory to the "undaunted heroism," etc. , of the Yankee sailors.

One not very creditable trait of the early American naval historians gave their rivals a great advantage.

The object of the former was to make out that the _Constitution_, for example, won her victories against an equal foe, and an exact statement of the forces showed the contrary; so they always avoided figures, and thus left the ground clear for James' careful misstatements.

Even when they criticised him they never went into details, confining themselves to some remark about "hurling" his figures in his face with "loathing."

Even Cooper, interesting though his work is, has gone far less into figures than he should, and seems to have paid little if any attention to the British official statements, which of course should be received as of equal weight with the American.

His comments on the actions are generally very fair, the book never being disfigured by bitterness toward the British; but he is certainly wrong, for example, in ascribing the loss of the _Chesapeake_ solely to accident, that of the _Argus_ solely to her inferiority in force, and so on.

His disposition to praise _all_ the American commanders may be generous, but is nevertheless unjust.

If Decatur's surrender of the _President_ is at least impliedly praised, then Porter's defence of the _Essex_ can hardly receive its just award.

There is no weight in the commendation bestowed upon Hull, if commendation, the same in kind though less in degree, is bestowed upon Rodgers.

It is a great pity that Cooper did not write a criticism on James, for no one could have done it more thoroughly.

But he never mentions him, except once in speaking of Barclay's fleet.

In all probability this silence arose from sheer contempt, and the certainty that most of James' remarks were false;

but the effect was that very many foreigners believe him to have shirked the subject.

He rarely gives any data by which the statements of James can be disproved, and it is for this reason that I have been obliged to criticise the latter's work very fully.

Many of James' remarks, however, defy criticism from their random nature, as when he states that American midshipmen were chiefly masters and mates of merchantmen, and does not give a single proof to support the assertion.

It would be nearly as true to assert that the British midshipmen were for the most part ex-members of the prize-ring, and as much labor would be needed to disprove it.

In other instances it is quite enough to let his words speak for themselves, as where he says (p. 155) that of the American sailors one third in number and one half in point of effectiveness were in reality British.

That is, of the 450 men the _Constitution_ had when she fought the _Java_ 150 were British, and the remaining 300 could have been as effectively replaced by 150 more British.

So a very little logic works out a result that James certainly did not intend to arrive at; namely, that 300 British led by American officers could beat, with ease and comparative impunity, 400 British led by their own officers.

He also forgets that the whole consists of the sum of the parts.

He accounts for the victories of the Americans by stating (p. 280) that they were lucky enough to meet with frigates and brigs who had unskilful gunners or worthless crews; he also carefully shows that the _Macedonian_ was incompetently handled, the _Peacock_ commanded by a mere martinet, the _Avon's_ crew unpractised weak and unskilful, the _Java's_ exceedingly poor, and more to the same effect.

Now the Americans took in single fight three frigates and seven sloops, and when as many as ten vessels are met it is exceedingly probable that they represent the fair average; so that James' strictures, so far as true, simply show that the average British ship was very apt to possess, comparatively speaking, an incompetent captain or unskilful crew.

These disadvantages were not felt when opposed to navies in which they existed to an even greater extent, but became very apparent when brought into contact with a power whose few officers knew how to play their own parts very nearly to perfection, and, something equally important, knew how to make first-rate crews out of what was already good raw material.

Finally, a large proportion of James' abuse of the Americans sufficiently refutes itself, and perhaps Cooper's method of contemptuously disregarding him was the best; but no harm can follow from devoting a little space to commenting upon him.

Much the best American work is Lieutenant George E. Emmons' statistical "History of the United States Navy."

Unfortunately it is merely a mass of excellently arranged and classified statistics, and while of invaluable importance to the student, is not interesting to the average reader.

Almost all the statements I have made of the force, tonnage, and armament of the American vessels, though I have whenever practicable taken them from the Navy Records, etc. , yet could be just as well quoted from Emmons.

Copies of most of the American official letters which I have quoted can be found in "Niles' Register," volumes 1 to 10, and all of the British ones in the "London Naval Chronicle" for the same years.

It is to these two authorities that I am most indebted, and nearly as much so to the "American State Papers," vol. xiv.

Next in order come Emmons, Cooper, and the invaluable, albeit somewhat scurrilous, James; and a great many others whose names I have quoted in their proper places.

In commenting upon the actions, I have, whenever possible, drawn from some standard work, such as Jurien de la Gravière's "Guerres Maritimes," Lord Howard Douglass' "Naval Gunnery," or, better still, from the lives and memoirs of Admirals Farragut, Codrington, Broke, or Durham.

The titles of the various works will be found given in full as they are referred to.

[Footnote: To get an idea of the American seamen of that time Cooper's novels, "Miles Wallingford," "Home as Found," and the "Pilot," are far better than any history; in the "Two Admirals" the description of the fleet manoeuvring is unrivalled.

His view of Jack's life is rather rose-colored however.

"Tom Cringle's log" ought to be read for the information it gives.

Marryatt's novels will show some of the darker aspects of sailor life.

] In a few cases, where extreme accuracy was necessary, or where, as in the case of the _President's_ capture, it was desirable that there should be no room for dispute as to the facts, I have given the authority for each sentence; but in general this would be too cumbersome, and so I have confined myself to referring, at or near the beginning of the account of each action, to the authorities from whom I have taken it.

For the less important facts on which every one is agreed I have often given no references.

Chapter II

_Overwhelming naval supremacy of England when America declared war against her--Race identity of the combatants--The American navy at the beginning of the war--Officers well trained--Causes tending to make our seamen especially efficient--Close similarity between the British and American sailors--Our ships manned chiefly by native Americans, many of whom had formerly been impressed into the British navy--Quotas of seamen contributed by the different States--Navy-yards--Lists of officers and men--List of vessels--Tonnage--Different ways of estimating it in Britain and America--Ratings--American ships properly rated--Armaments of the frigates and corvettes--Three styles of guns used--Difference between long guns and carronades--Short weight of American shot--Comparison of British frigates rating 38, and American frigates rating 44 guns--Compared with a 74. _ During the early years of this century England's naval power stood at a height never reached before or since by that of any other nation.

On every sea her navies rode, not only triumphant, but with none to dispute their sway.

The island folk had long claimed the mastery of the ocean, and they had certainly succeeded in making their claim completely good during the time of bloody warfare that followed the breaking out of the French Revolution.

Since the year 1792 each European nation, in turn, had learned to feel bitter dread of the weight of England's hand.

In the Baltic, Sir Samuel Hood had taught the Russians that they must needs keep in port when the English cruisers were in the offing.

The descendants of the Vikings had seen their whole navy destroyed at Copenhagen.

No Dutch fleet ever put out after the day when, off Camperdown, Lord Duncan took possession of De Winter's shattered ships.

But a few years before 1812, the greatest sea-fighter of all time had died in Trafalgar Bay, and in dying had crumbled to pieces the navies of France and of Spain.

From that day England's task was but to keep in port such of her foes' vessels as she had not destroyed.

France alone still possessed fleets that could be rendered formidable, and so, from the Scheldt to Toulon, her harbors were watched and her coasts harried by the blockading squadrons of the English.

Elsewhere the latter had no fear of their power being seriously assailed; but their vast commerce and numerous colonies needed ceaseless protection.

Accordingly in every sea their cruisers could be found, of all sizes, from the stately ship-of-the-line, with her tiers of heavy cannon and her many hundreds of men, down to the little cutter carrying but a score of souls and a couple of light guns.

All these cruisers, but especially those of the lesser rates, were continually brought into contact with such of the hostile vessels as had run through the blockade, or were too small to be affected by it.

French and Italian frigates were often fought and captured when they were skirting their own coasts, or had started off on a plundering cruise through the Atlantic, or to the Indian Ocean; and though the Danes had lost their larger ships they kept up a spirited warfare with brigs and gun-boats.

So the English marine was in constant exercise, attended with almost invariable success.

Such was Great Britain's naval power when the Congress of the United States declared war upon her.

While she could number her thousand sail, the American navy included but half a dozen frigates, and six or eight sloops and brigs; and it is small matter for surprise that the British officers should have regarded their new foe with contemptuous indifference.

Hitherto the American seamen had never been heard of except in connection with two or three engagements with French frigates, and some obscure skirmishes against the Moors of Tripoli; none of which could possibly attract attention in the years that saw Aboukir, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar.

And yet these same petty wars were the school which raised our marine to the highest standard of excellence.

A continuous course of victory, won mainly by seamanship, had made the English sailor overweeningly self-confident, and caused him to pay but little regard to manoeuvring or even to gunnery.

Meanwhile the American learned, by receiving hard knocks, how to give them, and belonged to a service too young to feel an over-confidence in itself.

One side had let its training relax, while the other had carried it to the highest possible point.

Hence our ships proved, on the whole, victorious in the apparently unequal struggle, and the men who had conquered the best seamen of Europe were now in turn obliged to succumb.

Compared with the great naval battles of the preceding few years, out bloodiest conflicts were mere skirmishes, but they were skirmishes between the hitherto acknowledged kings of the ocean, and new men who yet proved to be more than their equals.

For over a hundred years, or since the time when they had contended on equal terms with the great Dutch admirals, the British had shown a decided superiority to their various foes, and during the latter quarter of the time this superiority, as already said, was very marked, indeed; in consequence, the victories of the new enemy attracted an amount of attention altogether disproportionate to their material effects.

And it is a curious fact that our little navy, in which the art of handling and fighting the old broadside, sailing frigate in single conflict was brought to the highest point of perfection ever reached, that this same navy should have contained the first representative of the modern war steamer, and also the torpedo--the two terrible engines which were to drive from the ocean the very whitewinged craft that had first won honor for the starry flag.

The tactical skill of Hull or Decatur is now of merely archaic interest, and has but little more bearing on the manoeuvring of a modern fleet than have the tactics of the Athenian gallies.

But the war still conveys some most practical lessons as to the value of efficient ships and, above all, of efficient men in them.

Had we only possessed the miserable gun-boats, our men could have done nothing; had we not possessed good men, the heavy frigates would have availed as little.

Poor ships and impotent artillery had lost the Dutch almost their entire navy; fine ships and heavy cannon had not saved the French and Spanish from the like fate.

We owed our success to putting sailors even better than the Dutch on ships even finer than those built by the two Latin seaboard powers.

The first point to be remembered in order to write a fair account of this war is that the difference in fighting skill, which certainly existed between the two parties, was due mainly to training, and not to the nature of the men.

It seems certain that the American had in the beginning somewhat the advantage, because his surroundings, partly physical and partly social and political, had forced him into habits of greater self-reliance.

Therefore, on the average, he offered rather the best material to start with; but the difference was very slight, and totally disappeared under good training.

The combatants were men of the same race, differing but little from one another.

On the New England coast the English blood was as pure as in any part of Britain; in New York and New Jersey it was mixed with that of the Dutch settlers--and the Dutch are by race nearer to the true old English of Alfred and Harold than are, for example, the thoroughly anglicized Welsh of Cornwall.

Otherwise, the infusion of new blood into the English race on this side of the Atlantic has been chiefly from three sources--German, Irish, and Norse; and these three sources represent the elemental parts of the composite English stock in about the same proportions in which they were originally combined,--mainly Teutonic, largely Celtic, and with a Scandinavian admixture.

The descendant of the German becomes as much an Anglo-American as the descendant of the Strathclyde Celt has already become an Anglo-Briton.

Looking through names of the combatants it would be difficult to find any of one navy that could not be matched in the other--Hull or Lawrence, Allen, Perry, or Stewart.

And among all the English names on both sides will be found many Scotch, Irish, or Welsh--Macdonough, O'Brien, or Jones.

Still stranger ones appear: the Huguenot Tattnall is one among the American defenders of the _Constellation_, and another Huguenot Tattnall is among the British assailants at Lake Borgne.

It must always be kept in mind that the Americans and the British are two substantially similar branches of the great English race, which both before and after their separation have assimilated, and made Englishmen of many other peoples.

[Footnote: The inhabitants of Great Britain are best designated as "British"--English being either too narrow or too broad a term, in one case meaning the inhabitants of but a part of Britain, and in the other the whole Anglo-Saxon people.

] The lessons taught by the war can hardly be learned unless this identity is kept in mind.

[Footnote: It was practically a civil war, and was waged with much harshness and bitterness on both sides.

I have already spoken of the numerous grievances of the Americans; the British, in turn, looked upon our blockade-runners which entered the French ports exactly as we regarded, at a later date, the British steamers that ran into Wilmington and Charleston.

It is curious to see how illogical writers are.

The careers of the _Argus_ and _Alabama_ for example, were strikingly similar in many ways, yet the same writer who speaks of one as an "heroic little brig," will call the other a "black pirate."

Of course there can be no possible comparison as to the causes for which the two vessels were fighting; but the cruises themselves were very much alike, both in character and history.

] To understand aright the efficiency of our navy, it is necessary to take a brief look at the character and antecedents of the officers and men who served in it.

When war broke out the United States Navy was but a few years old, yet it already had a far from dishonorable history.

The captains and lieutenants of 1812 had been taught their duties in a very practical school, and the flag under which they fought was endeared to them already by not a few glorious traditions--though these, perhaps, like others of their kind, had lost none of their glory in the telling.

A few of the older men had served in the war of the Revolution, and all still kept fresh in mind the doughty deeds of the old-time privateering war craft.

Men still talked of Biddle's daring cruises and Barney's stubborn fights, or told of Scotch Paul and the grim work they had who followed his fortunes.

Besides these memories of an older generation, most of the officers had themselves taken part, when younger in years and rank, in deeds not a whit less glorious.

Almost every man had had a share in some gallant feat, to which he, in part at least, owed his present position.

The captain had perhaps been a midshipman under Truxtun when he took the _Vengeance_, and had been sent aboard the captured French frigate with the prize-master; the lieutenant had borne a part in the various attacks on Tripoli, and had led his men in the desperate hand-to-hand fights in which the Yankee cutlass proved an overmatch for the Turkish and Moorish scimitars.

Nearly every senior officer had extricated himself by his own prowess or skill from the dangers of battle or storm; he owed his rank to the fact that he had proved worthy of it.

Thrown upon his own resources, he had learned self-reliance; he was a first-rate practical seaman, and prided himself on the way his vessel was handled.

Having reached his rank by hard work, and knowing what real fighting meant, he was careful to see that his men were trained in the _essentials_ of discipline, and that they knew how to handle the guns in battle as well as polish them in peace.

Beyond almost any of his countrymen, he worshipped the "Gridiron Flag," and, having been brought up in the Navy, regarded its honor as his own.

It was, perhaps, the Navy alone that thought itself a match, ship against ship, for Great Britain.

The remainder of the nation pinned its faith to the army, or rather to that weakest of weak reeds, the militia.

The officers of the navy, with their strong _esprit de corps,_ their jealousy of their own name and record, and the knowledge, by actual experience, that the British ships sailed no faster and were no better handled than their own, had no desire to shirk a conflict with any foe, and having tried their bravery in actual service, they made it doubly formidable by cool, wary skill.

Even the younger men, who had never been in action, had been so well trained by the tried veterans over them that the lack of experience was not sensibly felt.

The sailors comprising the crews of our ships were well worthy of their leaders.

There was no better seaman in the world than American Jack; he had been bred to his work from infancy, and had been off in a fishing dory almost as soon as he could walk.

When he grew older, he shipped on a merchant-man or whaler, and in those warlike times, when our large merchant-marine was compelled to rely pretty much on itself for protection, each craft _had_ to be well handled;

all who were not were soon weeded out by a process of natural selection, of which the agents were French picaroons, Spanish buccaneers, and Malay pirates.

It was a rough school, but it taught Jack to be both skilful and self-reliant; and he was all the better fitted to become a man-of-war's man, because he knew more about fire-arms than most of his kind in foreign lands.

At home he had used his ponderous ducking gun with good effect on the flocks of canvasbacks in the reedy flats of the Chesapeake, or among the sea-coots in the rough water off the New England cliffs; and when he went on a sailing voyage the chances were even that there would be some use for the long guns before he returned, for the American merchant sailor could trust to no armed escort.

The wonderful effectiveness of our seamen at the date of which I am writing as well as long subsequently to it was largely due to the curious condition of things in Europe.

For thirty years all the European nations had been in a state of continuous and very complicated warfare, during the course of which each nation in turn fought almost every other, England being usually at loggerheads with all.

One effect of this was to force an enormous proportion of the carrying trade of the world into American bottoms.

The old Massachusetts town of Salem was then one of the main depots of the East India trade; the Baltimore clippers carried goods into the French and German ports with small regard to the blockade; New Bedford and Sag Harbor fitted out whalers for the Arctic seas as well as for the South Pacific; the rich merchants of Philadelphia and New York sent their ships to all parts of the world; and every small port had some craft in the coasting trade.

On the New England seaboard but few of the boys would reach manhood without having made at least one voyage to the Newfoundland Banks after codfish;

and in the whaling towns of Long Island it used to be an old saying that no man could marry till he struck his whale.

The wealthy merchants of the large cities would often send their sons on a voyage or two before they let them enter their counting-houses.

Thus it came about that a large portion of our population was engaged in seafaring pursuits of a nature strongly tending to develop a resolute and hardy character in the men that followed them.

The British merchant-men sailed in huge convoys, guarded by men-of-war, while, as said before, our vessels went alone, and relied for protection on themselves.

If a fishing smack went to the Banks it knew that it ran a chance of falling in with some not over-scrupulous Nova Scotian privateer.

The barques that sailed from Salem to the Spice Islands kept their men well trained both at great guns and musketry, so as to be able to beat off either Malay proas, or Chinese junks.

The New York ships, loaded for the West Indies, were prepared to do battle with the picaroons that swarmed in the Spanish main;

while the fast craft from Baltimore could fight as well as they could run.

Wherever an American seaman went, he not only had to contend with all the legitimate perils of the sea, but he had also to regard almost every stranger as a foe.

Whether this foe called himself pirate or privateer mattered but little.

French, Spaniards, Algerines, Malays, from all alike our commerce suffered, and against all, our merchants were forced to defend themselves.

The effect of such a state of things, which made commerce so remunerative that the bolder spirits could hardly keep out of it, and so hazardous that only the most skilful and daring could succeed in it, was to raise up as fine a set of seamen as ever manned a navy.

The stern school in which the American was brought up, forced him into habits of independent thought and action which it was impossible that the more protected Briton could possess.

He worked more intelligently and less from routine, and while perfectly obedient and amenable to discipline, was yet able to judge for himself in an emergency.

He was more easily managed than most of his kind--being shrewd, quiet, and, in fact, comparatively speaking, rather moral than otherwise; if he was a New Englander, when he retired from a sea life he was not unapt to end his days as a deacon.

Altogether there could not have been better material for a fighting crew than cool, gritty American Jack.

Moreover, there was a good nucleus of veterans to begin with, who were well fitted to fill the more responsible positions, such as captains of guns, etc. These were men who had cruised in the little _Enterprise_ after French privateers, who had been in the _Constellation_ in her two victorious fights, or who, perhaps, had followed Decatur when with only eighty men he cut out the _Philadelphia_, manned by fivefold his force and surrounded by hostile batteries and war vessels,--one of the boldest expeditions of the kind on record.

It is to be noted, furthermore, in this connection, that by a singular turn of fortune, Great Britain, whose system of impressing American sailors had been one of the chief causes of the war, herself became, in consequence of that very system, in some sort, a nursery for the seamen of the young Republican navy.

The American sailor feared nothing more than being impressed on a British ship--dreading beyond measure the hard life and cruel discipline aboard of her;

but once there, he usually did well enough, and in course of time often rose to be of some little consequence.

For years before 1812, the number of these impressed sailors was in reality greater than the entire number serving in the American navy, from which it will readily be seen that they formed a good stock to draw upon.

Very much to their credit, they never lost their devotion to the home of their birth, more than two thousand of them being imprisoned at the beginning of the war because they refused to serve against their country.

When Commodore Decatur captured the _Macedonian_, that officer, as we learn from Marshall's "Naval Biography" (ii.

1019), stated that most of the seamen of his own frigate, the _United States_, had served in British war vessels, and that some had been with Lord Nelson in the _Victory_, and had even been bargemen to the great Admiral,--a pretty sure proof that the American sailors did not show a disadvantage when compared with others.

[Footnote: With perfect gravity, James and his followers assume Decatur's statement to be equivalent to saying that he had chiefly British seamen on board; whereas, even as quoted by Marshall, Decatur merely said that "his seamen had served on board a British man-of-war," and that some "had served under Lord Nelson."

Like the _Constitution_, the _United States_ had rid herself of most of the British subjects on board, before sailing.

Decatur's remark simply referred to the number of his American seamen who had been impressed on board British ships.

Whenever James says that an American ship had a large proportion of British sailors aboard, the explanation is that a large number of the crew were Americans who had been impressed on British ships.

It would be no more absurd to claim Trafalgar as an American victory because there was a certain number of Americans in Nelson's fleet, than it is to assert that the Americans were victorious in 1812, because there were a few renegade British on board their ships.

] Good seaman as the impressed American proved to be, yet he seldom missed an opportunity to escape from the British service, by desertion or otherwise.

In the first place, the life was very hard, and, in the second, the American seaman was very patriotic.

He had an honest and deep affection for his own flag; while, on the contrary, he felt a curiously strong hatred for England, as distinguished from Englishmen.

This hatred was partly an abstract feeling, cherished through a vague traditional respect for Bunker Hill, and partly something very real and vivid, owing to the injuries he, and others like him, had received.

Whether he lived in Maryland or Massachusetts, he certainly knew men whose ships had been seized by British cruisers, their goods confiscated, and the vessels condemned.

Some of his friends had fallen victims to the odious right of search, and had never been heard of afterward.

He had suffered many an injury to friend, fortune, or person, and some day he hoped to repay them all; and when the war did come, he fought all the better because he knew it was in his own quarrel.

But, as I have said, this hatred was against England, not against Englishmen.

Then, as now, sailors were scattered about over the world without any great regard for nationality; and the resulting intermingling of natives and foreigners in every mercantile marine was especially great in those of Britain and America, whose people spoke the same tongue and wore the same aspect.

When chance drifted the American into Liverpool or London, he was ready enough to ship in an Indiaman or whaler, caring little for the fact that he served under the British flag;

and the Briton, in turn, who found himself in New York or Philadelphia, willingly sailed in one of the clipper-built barques, whether it floated the stars and stripes or not.

When Captain Porter wrought such havoc among the British whalers in the South Seas, he found that no inconsiderable portion of their crews consisted of Americans, some of whom enlisted on board his own vessel; and among the crews of the American whalers were many British.

In fact, though the skipper of each ship might brag loudly of his nationality, yet in practical life he knew well enough that there was very little to choose between a Yankee and a Briton.

[Footnote: What choice there was, was in favor of the American.

In point of courage there was no difference whatever.

The _Essex_ and the _Lawrence_, as well as the _Frolic_ and the _Reindeer_, were defended with the same stubborn, desperate, cool bravery that marks the English race on both sides of the Atlantic.

But the American was a free citizen, any one's equal, a voter with a personal interest in his country's welfare, and, above all, without having perpetually before his eyes the degrading fear of the press-gang.

In consequence, he was more tractable than the Englishman, more self-reliant, and possessed greater judgment.

In the fight between the _Wasp_ and the _Frolic_, the latter's crew had apparently been well trained at the guns, for they aimed well; but they fired at the wrong time, and never corrected the error; while their antagonists, delivering their broadsides far more slowly, by intelligently waiting until the proper moment, worked frightful havoc.

But though there was a certain slight difference between the seamen of the two nations, it must never be forgotten that it was very much less than that between the various individuals of the same nation; and when the British had been trained for a few years by such commanders as Broke and Manners, it was impossible to surpass them, and it needed our best men to equal them.

] Both were bold and hardy, cool and intelligent, quick with their hands, and showing at their best in an emergency.

They looked alike and spoke alike; when they took the trouble to think, they thought alike; and when they got drunk, which was not an infrequent occurrence, they quarrelled alike.

Mingled with them were a few seamen of other nationalities.

The Irishman, if he came from the old Dano-Irish towns of Waterford, Dublin, and Wexford, or from the Ulster coast, was very much like the two chief combatants; the Celto-Turanian kern of the west did not often appear on shipboard.

The French, Danes, and Dutch were hemmed in at home; they had enough to do on their own seaboard, and could not send men into foreign fleets.

A few Norse, however, did come in, and excellent sailors and fighters they made.

With the Portuguese and Italians, of whom some were to be found serving under the union-jack, and others under the stars and stripes, it was different; although there were many excellent exceptions they did not, as a rule, make the best of seamen.

They were treacherous, fond of the knife, less ready with their hands, and likely to lose either their wits or their courage when in a tight place.

In the American navy, unlike the British, there was no impressment;

the sailor was a volunteer, and he shipped in whatever craft his fancy selected.

Throughout the war there were no "picked crews" on the American side, [Footnote: James' statements to the contrary being in every case utterly without foundation.

He is also wrong in his assertion that the American ships had no boys; they had nearly as many in proportion as the British.

The _Constitution_ had 31, the _Adams_ 15, etc. So, when he states that our midshipmen were generally masters and mates of merchantmen; they were generally from eleven to seventeen years old at the beginning of the war, and besides, had rarely or never been in the merchant marine.

] excepting on the last two cruises of the _Constitution_.

In fact (as seen by the letter of Captains Stewart and Bainbridge to Secretary Hamilton), there was often much difficulty in getting enough men.

[Footnote: Reading through the volumes of official letters about this war, which are preserved in the office of the Secretary of the Navy, one of the most noticeable things is the continual complaints about the difficulty of getting men.

The _Adams_ at one time had a crew of but nineteen men--"fourteen of whom are marines," adds the aggrieved commander.

A log-book of one of the gun-boats records the fact that after much difficulty _two_ men were enlisted--from the jail, with a parenthetical memorandum to the effect that they were both very drunk.

British ships were much more easily manned, as they could always have recourse to impressment.

The _Constitution_ on starting out her last cruises had an extraordinary number of able seamen aboard, viz.

, 218, with but 92 ordinary seamen, 12 boys, and 44 marines, making, with the officers, a total of 440 men.

(See letter of Captain Bainbridge, Oct.

16, 1814; it is letter No. 51, in the fortieth volume of "Captains' Letters," in the clerk's office of the Secretary of the Navy.

)] Many sailors preferred to serve in the innumerable privateers, and, the two above-mentioned officers, in urging the necessity of building line-of-battle ships, state that it was hard work to recruit men for vessels of an inferior grade, so long as the enemy had ships of the line.