Six Frigates

by Ian W. Toll

  With Hull gone and Bainbridge in command, the Constitution was a tense ship. There was no doubt that several men would seize the first opportunity to desert, and Bainbridge posted eighteen sentries on deck the first night after taking command. When two sailors attempted to steal the frigate’s second cutter, they were quickly apprehended. Bainbridge saw an opportunity to turn the incident to his advantage. Mustering the crew the next morning, he offered to pardon the would-be deserters and spare them the flogging they would normally suffer, on the condition that their shipmates accepted Bainbridge as the frigate’s rightful commander. “This was appealing to our best feelings,” wrote Smith. “It was an argument in favor of our new commander at the very commencement of our acquaintance on the decks of the Constitution. The result was that nearly every man consented, to save his brother sailors from punishment.”

  Throughout September and most of October 1812, Constitution underwent repairs in Boston Harbor. Though she had not been seriously damaged in the recent action, Bainbridge was planning a long cruise to the southward, possibly even around Cape Horn and into the Pacific. The ship’s log is replete with the tedious details of stepping three new lower masts, setting up “an entire new Gang of Standing Rigging,” refitting the tops, mounting the trestletrees, and swaying up the topmasts and topgallant masts. New bridle ports were cut in the hull, just aft of the beakhead; they would allow more convenient handling of the anchor cables. Most of the spars were discarded and replaced with new ones, and what little damage the frigate had sustained in her hull was patched and painted over.

  Bainbridge preferred his old command, the President, which he called “one of the finest Ships in the World.” He offered John Rodgers $5,000 to exchange President for Constitution. Rodgers refused. Both commodores knew there was a fortune in prize money to be won in capturing British merchantmen, and the faster ship stood a better chance of bringing home more prizes.

  Bainbridge’s squadron would include the 32-gun frigate Essex, commanded by another ex-Tripolitan prisoner of war, Captain David Porter, and the 18-gun sloop of war Hornet, commanded by Master Commandant James Lawrence. For advice in choosing the squadron’s cruising ground, the commodore wrote William Jones, a Philadelphia merchant and future secretary of the navy, asking where he was most likely to fall in with unprotected British merchantmen. Jones recommended a cruise into the southern Atlantic, along the east coast of Brazil, where inbound and outbound East India convoys often touched for rewatering and reprovisioning. Accepting the advice, Bainbridge recruited a man who knew those waters well, a master navigator from Salem named John Carlton. Though he was not a clergyman, and evidently did not intend to conduct himself as one, Carlton was entered on the payroll as “chaplain.” The commodore also purchased Carlton’s book of charts, entitled The Complete East India Pilot; or, Oriental Navigator.

  During the first and second weeks of October, Constitution completed her stores. She would carry four to five months’ provisions, but only a hundred days’ freshwater ration. On October 16, she was warped across the harbor from Charlestown Wharf to Boston’s Long Wharf. Five days later she dropped down the fairway to President Roads, in company with Hornet, and on the twenty-seventh, with a fair tide and the wind shifting south and west, the two vessels put to sea.*

  A six-week passage delivered the Constitution and Hornet to São Salvador (formerly Bahia), Brazil. Master Commandant Lawrence took the Hornet in to reconnoiter the port. In the harbor he found an English sloop of war, Bonne Citoyenne. Lawrence learned that the English ship was taking on board the fantastic sum of $1.2 million in gold bullion, with orders to transport the money to London.

  The Americans could not attack the Bonne Citoyenne while she remained in São Salvador. Such an attack would infringe upon Portuguese neutrality and trigger a protest at the highest levels of government. Instead, Lawrence (with Bainbridge’s approval) sent a direct, written challenge to the English captain, Pitt Barnaby Greene, proposing that the Hornet and Bonne Citoyenne meet in the offing and fight a ship-to-ship duel. Bainbridge pledged to keep the Constitution clear of the battle. If Bonne Citoyenne was victorious, he wrote, Captain Greene would be free to take his prize and sail away without further interference.

  Greene refused the challenge. He explained that it was his paramount duty to see the bullion safely home. He also doubted whether he could trust in the promised non-participation of the powerful Constitution. Angered by the Englishman’s reluctance to accept at face value the “sacred pledge I made to him,” Bainbridge left Lawrence and the Hornet to blockade São Salvador and took the flagship about thirty miles into the offing.

  Two days later, at about 8:00 a.m. on December 29, 1812, the lookout caught sight of two sails inshore. As they drew closer to the Constitution, it was apparent that one of the strangers was a large warship, either a frigate or a battleship. The other ran for the safety of São Salvador. The Constitution flew the American private signals, and the stranger flew unintelligible signals in response. At 11:30 a.m., when the unknown warship was about four miles distant, Bainbridge tacked the Constitution and made all sail away from the coast. Bainbridge later said his objective was to get clear of Portuguese territorial waters, but Dr. Evans wrote in his journal that the commodore had concluded that the stranger was a double-deck battleship, an overmatch for the Constitution. In any case, the stranger soon altered course and made all sail in chase.

  She was the British frigate Java, rated for 38 guns but mounting 47. She had been French, originally the Renommée; captured in a squadron action off Madagascar in May of the previous year. Java had sailed from Portsmouth on November 12, and was bound for the East Indies. She was carrying as a passenger the newly appointed governor of Bombay, Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Hislop, with his staff of about one hundred, as well as several dozen other military and civilian passengers. Her captain was Henry Lambert, a senior commander with extensive combat experience.

  With passengers and crew numbering 397, and a large quantity of baggage and naval stores stowed in the hold (including a quantity of copper-bottom sheathing intended for other British naval vessels in India), the Java was crowded and heavily laden. Her complement had been rounded out, just before she had sailed, with a draft of raw landsmen, many of whom “had never smelt salt water.” Captain Lambert had neglected the routine of gunnery practice during the passage from England. The crew had drilled at the guns only once, and only with blank cartridges. The British officers would regret the oversight.

  The Java was the faster ship, by a generous margin, and she soon overhauled the Constitution. Shortly after one in the afternoon, Bainbridge tacked the Constitution again, shortened sail, and stood back toward the Java under a moderate east northeast breeze. By now Bainbridge and his crew could plainly see that the enemy was a frigate.

  The Java bore down on the Constitution, intending to rake her fore and aft. Bainbridge wore the Constitution round in response. “Considerable Manoeuvers were made by both Vessels to rake and avoid being raked,” Bain-bridgewrote in his journal. The commodore set a large amount of sail, hoping to compensate for the superior sailing qualities of the Java. Both the English and American officers later testified that the other ship had kept away, at a distance, preferring “long balls” to close action.

  A few minutes after 2:00 p.m., with the breeze freshening, and the two ships sailing on parallel southeasterly headings about half a mile apart, Constitution opened fire from her larboard broadside. A few of the shots struck the Java’s starboard side or passed through her rigging; none did any significant damage. As the distance between them closed, both ships held their fire.

  As Java was ranging up on the Constitution’s weather quarter, Bainbridge observed that she had hauled down her ensign, and ordered the third division to fire a shot “to make him show his Colours.” The shot was answered by a broadside, and the battle was joined.

  Early in the action, Java’s 18-pounder long guns, carronades, and small arms did serious damage. Several Amer
ican seamen were killed or wounded. Spars and sections of rigging fell to the deck. Constitution’s wheel was blasted to splinters. Bainbridge was struck in the left hip by a musket ball fired by a marine sharpshooter in one of the Java’s tops. An 18-pounder ball struck the copper railing of the aft hatchway, dislodging a fragment of metal that hit Bainbridge in the right thigh, giving him his second wound in as many minutes.

  The loss of Constitution’s wheel required Bainbridge to shout orders down through a grating in the deck, to a specially placed crew of men hauling on relieving tackles fixed to the tiller in the wardroom pantry. With two wounds below the waist, the commodore’s trousers were visibly bloody on both the right and left sides. He did not leave the quarterdeck, however, until almost seven hours later.

  Constitution wore round and the two ships again maneuvered for a raking position. Fifteen minutes later they engaged from the opposite side, the gun crews of each ship crossing to serve the guns on the other side. At 2:35 p.m., the Java wore round and crossed close under the Constitution’s stern. It was a perfectly timed maneuver, and gave the English frigate an opportunity to fire a raking broadside that might have proved decisive. When the critical moment came, however, only one of the Java’s gun crews managed to get off a shot.

  The Constitution’s heavy broadsides were wreaking devastation on the Java’s gun deck, and the American marksmen picked off several British officers on her quarterdeck. With his crew falling at a greater rate, and his ship’s fire beginning to slacken noticeably, Lambert’s last hope was to carry the Constitution by a boarding action.

  At 2:50 p.m., Java’s helm was put hard to weather; as she turned down into the Constitution, her bowsprit passed over the American ship’s taffrail and fouled in her mizzen-rigging, and the scene must have looked remarkably similar to the moment when Guerrière and Constitution had come afoul of each other during their engagement the previous August. As the frigates came into contact, the Java’s boatswain, his arm bound in a tourniquet, sounded the pipe—but as the sailors and marines gathered in the gangway and forecastle, pikes and cutlasses in hand, they were cut to pieces by several tightly grouped volleys of grape, canister, and double-headed bar shot from the Constitution’s stern chasers. The marksmen stationed in the American mizzentop, meanwhile, took advantage of the close range, firing down at the boarders on the British forecastle and picking several of them off individually.

  The second hour of the action saw a steady wearing down of the Java’s defenses under the continuous heavy bombardment of the Constitution’s 24-pounders. Bainbridge’s journal records the dismantling of the Java in oddly laconic terms, as if he was describing an ordinary shipyard procedure:

  AT 3

  The Head of the enemies Bowsprit & Jib boom shot away by us

  AT 3.5

  Shot away the enemies foremast by the board

  AT 3.15

  Shot away The enemies Main Top mast just above the Cap

  AT 3.40

  Shot away Gafft and Spunker boom

  AT 3.55

  Shot his mizen mast nearly by the board

  The late historical novelist Patrick O’Brian depicted the Constitution-Java action in his novel The Fortune of War (1979). O’Brian’s rendering is based on a close reading of the relevant documents, and is faithful to the historical record with one exception—he places his main character, Jack Aubrey, in the Java’s forecastle at the moment her foremast comes down:

  But then over all the din, cutting clear through, the high shrieking hail from the Java’s foretop, “Stand from under,” and the mast, the towering great edifice of the foremast with all its spreading yards, its fighting-top, its sails, its countless ropes and blocks, came crashing down, the lower part kicking aft to cover the main deck, the upper covering the forecastle.

  There was an immense amount of rigging, of spars over them and over the forward guns; there were some men pinned, others wounded; and for the next few minutes, in the fury of clearing so that the guns could fire, Jack lost all track of the relative position of the ships. When at last the forward battery was to some extent restored he saw the Constitution well ahead, and in the act of wearing across the Java’s bows. Not a gun could the Java fire in this position, and the Constitution raked her deliberately from stem to stern, killing a score of men and bringing down her maintopmast.

  Once again the wild labour of clearing, slashing at the wreckage with axes, anything that came to hand; and now the Constitution lay on their starboard quarter, pouring in a diagonal fire; lay there a moment before bearing up and giving the Java her full larboard broadside….

  The Javas, undismayed, fired like demons, streaming with sweat under the smoky sun, often with blood; and the stabbing flames from almost every shot they fired set light to the tarred wreckage hanging over the side: fire-buckets, powder, fire-buckets, powder, the remaining officers had them running in a continual stream. At one point the ships were side by side again, and the Java’s great guns gave as good as they got; or at least did all they could to do so; and she being low in the water now, some of her round shot made cruel wounds. But the Java lacked her fighting-tops—fore and mizen were gone and the maintop was a wreck—whereas the American did not. Her tops were filled with marksmen, and it was one of these that brought Jack down. The blow knocked him flat, but he thought nothing of it until on getting up he found that his right arm would not obey him, that it was hanging at an unnatural angle. He stood, swaying, for with two masts and all but one sail gone the Java was rolling very heavily; and as he stood amidst the din, still shouting at the crew of number nine to depress their gun, an oak splinter knocked him down again.

  At about 3:30 p.m., Captain Lambert was taken down by one of the American sharpshooters. The ball struck him in the chest, near the heart. He was carried below. The Java’s surgeon instantly saw that the wound was mortal. It had shattered the captain’s sternum: “I put my finger in the wound, detached and extracted several pieces of bone.”

  With the loss of Lambert, command of the Java passed to First Lieutenant Henry Chads, who was also wounded, but had been treated by the surgeon and returned to action. Chads rallied the remaining men to keep fighting, but with part of her bowsprit and all of her jib boom shot away, and what remained of her headsails tattered and dangling, Java’s helm would not answer. The Constitution took up a raking position on the enemy’s starboard quarter, “pouring in a tremendous galling fire,” and maneuvering to prevent the Java’s full broadside coming to bear.

  At 4:00 p.m., the Constitution shot ahead to windward. Bainbridge set the hands to repairing the Constitution’s parted braces and shrouds, and re-reeving her damaged running rigging.

  The Java, according to the court-martial testimony of Lieutenant Chads, was “a perfect wreck, with our main-mast only standing, and main-yard gone in the slings.” Most of her starboard guns were hopelessly entangled in a dense thicket of wreckage from the fallen main topmast. During the brief respite provided by the Constitution’s withdrawal, the British crew hacked away at the trailing wreckage, and managed to rig a jury sail from the stump of the foremast and bowsprit. As this work was proceeding, however, the Java was rolling violently because of the loss of her sails, and seemed on the verge of rolling out the tottering remains of her mainmast. Lieutenant Chads concluded he had no choice but to cut away the weather shrouds and let the mast fall over the lee rail.

  When the crew was mustered and counted, 110 men were missing (casualties were later tallied at 22 killed and 102 wounded). Java’s hull was pierced in dozens of places, and a great deal of water was entering the ship. Every spar was gone; one of the pumps was shot away; four forecastle guns and six quarterdeck guns were dismounted. It was obvious that the Java was no longer capable of making effective resistance. Chads’s last remaining hope was that the Constitution would come close enough to permit a second boarding attempt.

  In his fictional version of the battle, Patrick O’Brian envisions the finish:

  Now was the time to
profit from a God-sent mistake: now or never. If the Constitution would only neglect the weathergage, would only come close enough to allow them to board in a last dash through her fire…but the Constitution intended nothing of the kind. Deliberately and under perfect control she crossed the Java’s bows at rather more than two hundred yards, shivered her main and mizen topsails, and lay there, gently rocking, her whole almost undamaged larboard broadside looking straight at the dismasted Java, ready to rake her again and again…. Jack could see her captain looking earnestly at them from his quarterdeck.

  “No,” said Chads in a dead voice. “It will not do.” He looked at Jack, who bowed his head: then walked aft, as a resolute man might walk to the gallows, walked between the sparse gun-crews, silent now, and hauled the colours down.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “The public will learn, with sentiments which we shall not presume to anticipate, that a third British frigate has struck to an American,” the London Pilot reported on March 20, 1813. One day earlier, Lloyds of London had released similarly distressing news: an estimated five hundred British merchant vessels had fallen into American hands during the first seven months of the war. “Five hundred merchantmen and three frigates!” the Pilot cried. “Can these statements be true, and can the English people hear them unmoved?”

  Anyone who had predicted such a result of an American war this time last year would have been treated as a madman or a traitor. He would have been told, if his opponents had condescended to argue with him, that long ere seven months had elapsed the American flag would be swept from the seas, the contemptible navy of the United States annihilated, and their maritime arsenals rendered a heap of ruins. Yet down to this moment not a single American frigate has struck her flag. They insult and laugh at our want of enterprise and vigour. They leave their ports when they please, and return to them when it suits their convenience. They traverse the Atlantic; they beset the West India Islands; they advance to the very chops of the Channel; they parade along the coasts of South America. Nothing chases, nothing intercepts, nothing engages them but to yield them triumph.