My dear Mediterranean Friend, Probably you may stop here … I learnt before I left England, that you were bound for the Brazil coast; if so, perhaps we may meet at St. Salvadore or Rio Janeiro; I should be happy to meet and converse on our old affairs of captivity; recollect our secret in those times.
Your friend, of HM.’s ship Acasta.
KERR
The “secret” he was referring to was their use of invisible ink while prisoners in Tripoli back in 1804, and a postscript to Bainbridge’s letter that could be revealed only when heated read “I am bound off St. Salvadore, thence off Cape Frio, where I intend to cruise until the 1st of January. Go off Cape Frio, to the northward of Rio Janeiro, and keep a look out for me. Your Friend.”69
Every few days the crew of the Constitution exercised the great guns, or the marines practiced firing at marks, or the boarders exercised with small arms. There was no punishment recorded until December 6, when five seamen received a half-dozen to a dozen lashes apiece; then three days later a marine private convicted by a court-martial that Bainbridge had convened on board received fifty lashes for threatening the life of a midshipman. “Altho’ very young he bore it much better than many hardy veterans would have,” Evans observed.
On December 18 the Constitution rejoined the sloop of war Hornet in company off São Salvador, Brazil. James Lawrence was her captain, and he had just come from the port, where he had called on the American consul to gather what intelligence he could on British naval activity in the area. There were several British merchantmen in the harbor and a British sloop of war, the Bonne Citoyenne; the consul said that a British seventy-four was at Rio. He also said that the Bonne Citoyenne was rumored to be carrying $1.6 million in specie and was planning to sail in the next ten to fifteen days. Lawrence tried to goad the Bonne Citoyenne into a fight, sending her captain a challenge offering to meet him outside Brazilian territorial waters and pledging his and Captain Bainbridge’s honor that the Constitution would not interfere in their duel. The British captain prudently declined, replying in a note to Lawrence that were he to prevail, the Constitution’s captain would not be able to avoid the “paramount duty he owes his country” and remain “an inactive spectator, and see a ship belonging to the very squadron under his command fall into the hands of an enemy.” Bainbridge fumed about the insult to his own “sacred pledge” that was implied.70
The next day the Constitution and the Hornet again parted company, Lawrence remaining off São Salvador to keep an eye on the British ships. At nine in the morning on December 29 two sail were spotted off the weather bow. While one of the ships made for São Salvador, the other steered offshore for the Constitution. A little before noon the Constitution and the strange ship each hoisted signals that the other could not read and went unanswered, and fifteen minutes later they were close enough to see their respective English and American ensigns flying. The ships made straight for each other with no preliminaries, and the action that began a little after 2:00 p.m. would be the bloodiest yet between a British and an American frigate, a battle of close maneuver for two hours as the ships ranged alongside each other and each sought again and again to cross the other’s bow or stern to raking position. The British ship held the weather gauge from the start and twice in the first thirty minutes tried to pull across the Constitution’s bows; Bainbridge responded each time with a broadside and then suddenly wore away under the cover of his own smoke.
It was immediately apparent that the British frigate was a faster sailer, and Bainbridge took the risk of setting his main course and fore course to compensate. Almost at the start of the battle a musket ball struck Bainbridge in the left hip, but he later said he did not even feel the pain until nine hours later. At 2:30 a shot entirely carried away the wheel of the Constitution and a flying bolt struck Bainbridge, this time in the right thigh. A line of midshipmen was quickly assembled to relay his steering orders down to men hauling the tiller’s huge tackles in the steerage space behind the wardroom two decks below.
The two ships were side by side running east, and now the British frigate tried to tack to larboard, preparing to make a three-quarter circle to cross behind the Constitution’s stern. But her jibboom had been shot away, and without her head sails she hung agonizingly in stays; with her head to the wind and her stern fully exposed, she took two full broadsides before finally coming around. Again Bainbridge wore away, turning back to the west; again the British ship kept the weather gauge and this time headed right at her, obviously intending to run her aboard and take her by storm. But the British captain misjudged his timing, and the remains of his bowsprit skewered the Constitution’s mizzen rigging, almost exactly as the Guerriere’s had, pinning the British ship under the full weight of the Constitution’s broadside and musket fire. Her foremast was cut in two, then plunged straight down, spearing right through two decks before coming to a stop. Then the ships broke free and again were sailing side by side to the east, again the British frigate to the windward; Bainbridge wore to starboard and crossed the enemy’s stern twice, each time pouring in a devastating raking fire. “At 3.55 Shot his mizzen mast nearly by the board,” read the Constitution’s “Minutes Taken during the Action.” They continued:
At 4.5 Having silenced the fire of the enemy completely and his colours in main Rigging being down Supposed he had Struck, Then hawl’d about the Courses to shoot ahead to repair our rigging, which was extremely cut, leaving the enemy a complete wreck, soon after discovered that The enemies flag was still flying hove too to repair Some of our damages.
At 4.20 The Enemies Main Mast went by the board.
At 4.50 Wore ship and stood for the Enemy
At 5.25 Got very close to the enemy in a very rakeing position, athwart his bows & was at the very instance of rakeing him, when he most prudently Struck his Flag.71
All but one of the Constitution’s eight boats had been reduced to splinters during the action, shot to pieces on their davits. The lone remaining boat was sent across and returned at 7:00 p.m. with Lieutenant Henry D. Chads, second in command of the frigate Java. Her captain, Henry Lambert, lay in his ship mortally wounded. The Java had been on her way to Bombay, carrying the new governor general of India, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Hislop, and a hundred other passengers. Chads maintained that the Java’s casualties were 22 dead and 102 wounded, but a letter accidentally dropped on the Constitution’s deck by one of the British army officers taken prisoner told of 65 killed and 170 wounded, and when Bainbridge examined the British ship’s muster roll and compared it with his list of prisoners, there were at least 53 who had not been accounted for.72 At 3:00 p.m. on New Year’s Day the Java was set on fire and blown up, not nearly as spectacular an explosion as the Guerriere, Evans observed, owing to her smaller quantity of powder in the magazine.
The Constitution had suffered severely too. There were 12 killed and 22 wounded. In his official report Bainbridge tried to downplay the damage his ship had received, but he wrote his old friend Dr. Bullus a far more candid account a few weeks later:
U.S.F. Constitution 23d Jany. 1813
At Sea Lat 4.20 N°. Long 36 W.
Homeward Bound
Dear Bullus.
Knowing the interest you take in the success of our navy, I am confident the enclosed paper, will afford you pleasure.
The damage the Frigate Constitution received in the action with the Java and the decayed state in which she is in made it necessary for me to return to the U. States for Repairs—Otherwise I should beyond doubt, by following my intended plans, have made a most successful Cruise against the Enemies Commerce and thereby have made the fortune of myself & Crew.…
The Constitution was a good deal cut. Some Shott between wind & water. Her upper bulwarks considerably Shott. Foremast & mizzen mast Shott through. Main & mizzen Stays Shott through, Eight lower shrouds cut off. Fore top, mast Stays, & every back Stay and all the Top Sail eyes Shott of. And almost every Topmast Shroud. All the Braces standing and Preventers, and Bowlines, were th
ree times Shott away during the Action. But rove again the very heat of it. 7 Boats out of 8 destroyed by Shott. Our Sails extremely cut to pieces. The main Topmast, Main Topsail yards, Jib Boom, Spanker Boomb Gaft & Try Sail mast were all so Shott as to render them unserviceable. Yet this damage, is incredibly inconceivable to the wreck we made the Enemy. The Sea was smooth, that havock could not been otherwise than great.73
His long-looked-for victory made Bainbridge exultant but not magnanimous, almost oblivious to his own wounds and eager for more glory, yet ungenerous even in triumph. “I was wounded in the early part of the action by a musquet Ball in my Hip and a piece of langrage in my Thigh,” he told Bullus. “But did not feel the inconvenience so great as to cause me to quit the Deck to have it dressed until 11 oclock at night, after which, returning on Deck and remaining on my Legs nearly 3 days & nights, brought on such inflammation & violent pains in my wounds as to heave me on my Beam ends for some time. Ten days after the action, the Surgeon extracted the piece of langrage by operating at the wound. And I am now I thank God almost perfectly recovered. And ready to hazard again a leg and an arm for such another victory.”
And then he added with his usual sourness, “My Crew owing to the constant Exercise we give them, are very active & clever at their Guns, but in all other respects they are inferior to any Crew I ever had.”
The crew had, though, apparently let off some unauthorized steam; after the prisoners were put ashore at São Salvador on parole, Lieutenant Chads wrote to London, “I am sorry to find that the Americans did not behave with the same liberality towards the crew that the officers experienced on the contrary they were pillaged of almost every thing.” He also reported the names and descriptions of four of the Java’s men who had entered on board the Constitution.74
Bainbridge spent the trip home writing other letters carefully designed to burnish his stature and milk the maximum benefit from his accomplishment. One, to a “friend” but obviously intended for publication—it was widely reprinted in American newspapers almost as soon as he got home—modestly abjured any interest in prize money for himself while making the strongest possible case for a large cash award for the capture of the Java. For officers such as himself, of course, “patriotism and laudable thirst for renown” were motivation enough; “the applause of my countrymen has for me greater charms than all the gold that glitters.” But his “poor fellows” the crew, alas, required the stimulus of prize money to keep up their spirits and ardor. “For if it is, as I hold it, the indispensable duty of the commander to destroy the captured vessel, on account of the gauntlet he would have to run with both the prize and his own ship—and the captain to receive all the honor, and otherwise no compensation—is it not natural to suppose that the ardent desire which our seamen at present so strongly manifest to get into battle would diminish?”75 Like Hull, Bainbridge would eventually receive $7,500 of a $50,000 payment voted by Congress in lieu of the prize money that would have been awarded had he brought the enemy frigate home intact; each sailor and marine aboard the Constitution got about $50.
Porter had shown up at Fernando de Noronha on December 15, ten days after Bainbridge passed through, retrieved the letter to “sir James Yeo,” and sailed immediately for Cape Frio. But he was far to the east on a futile chase of a small five-ship British convoy when Bainbridge passed north along the Brazilian coast heading for home.
Porter waited until January 13 before turning west for St. Catherine’s, five hundred miles down the coast from Rio, one of the two final rendezvous points Bainbridge had set for the squadron.
Proclamation of blockade, February 1813 (The National Archives, U.K.)
CHAPTER 6
Walls of Wood
IT TOOK at least forty days for news of each of the British defeats to reach London, the delay only adding to the sense of unreality and stunned disbelief that each left in its wake. British commentators found themselves literally at a loss for words, or at least rational words, to explain how the world could have been turned so upside down. “Another frigate has fallen into the hands of the enemy!—The subject is too painful for us to dwell on,” was all that the editors of the Naval Chronicle could at first find to say at the news of the Java’s defeat.1 The Times found it simply incredible that such things could be: “The public will learn, with sentiments which we shall not presume to anticipate that a third British frigate has struck to an American.” The news came atop a report that Lloyd’s had just listed five hundred British merchantmen captured by the Americans in the first seven months of the war:
Five hundred merchantmen, and three frigates! Can these statements be true; and can the English people hear them unmoved? Any one 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 triumph.2
Many British commentators noted that one, or even three, frigates amounted to a trivial material loss to the Royal Navy. But the symbolic consequences were positively incalculable. “It is not merely that an English frigate has been taken,” the Times averred after the very first British defeat, “but that it has been taken by a new enemy, an enemy unaccustomed to such triumphs, and likely to be rendered insolent and confident by them. He must be a weak politician, who does not see how important the first triumph is in giving a tone and character to the war.” And to Britain’s aura of invincibility throughout the world: “We have suffered ourselves to be beaten in detail by a Power that we should not have allowed to send a vessel to sea,” the Times added as the losses mounted. “The land-spell of the French is broken; and so is our sea-spell”; just a few more years like this would “render our vaunted navy the laughing-stock of the universe.” Above all, it was now essential that no effort should be spared to achieve the one essential object, “the entire annihilation of the American navy.”3
Stunned disbelief among the British public was equaled by frantic efforts by British officialdom to explain away the defeats. A perfunctory court-martial of Captain Dacres was quickly convened in Halifax upon his arrival there and promptly concluded that the loss of the Guerriere was simply due to bad luck, a result of “the accident of her masts going, which was occasioned more by their defective state than from the fire of the enemy.” Dacres, and his officers and men, were “honourably acquitted” of any blame.4 The Macedonian’s court-martial sat for four days and took much more extensive testimony, but focused almost entirely on demonstrating that there was not “the most distant wish to keep back from the engagement” and that the captain and his officers “behaved with the firmest and most determined courage,” as the court concluded in its final judgment.5 Exactly why the Macedonian was defeated was never particularly examined, discussed, or considered.
Letters poured into the Naval Chronicle and other publications indignantly defending the honor of the defeated British ships’ officers and crews. Several writers went so far as to insist that not only was there nothing shameful about the British defeats, there was actually something contemptible about the American victories. “Not a tarnish is to be found on the trident of the seas,” declared one correspondent after the Guerriere’s defeat. Another writer to the Naval Chronicle, signing himself “An Englishman,” opined that “the Americans are welcome … to amuse themselves for three wonderful victories over the haughty Britons; it is a triumph worthy of themselves, a success which wo
uld disgrace an honourable foe, and cause no emotion but regret in the bosom of a high spirited enemy, in having gained success only by an unequal contest.” “America, like an ungrateful and malignant minion, turns upon her benefactor,” said the London Evening Star. “Is Great Britain to be driven from the proud eminence which blood and treasures of her sons have attained for her among the nations, by a piece of striped bunting flying at the mastheads of a few fir-built frigates, manned by a handful of bastards and outlaws?”6
Many suggested it was little more than a dastardly trick for “a navy so small we scarcely know where to find it,” as one writer put it, to call such large, powerful, and heavily manned ships frigates. “Is not the term frigate most violently perverted when applied to such vessels?” asked the Evening Star.7 British writers repeatedly referred to the “overgrown American frigates,” those oversize vessels that “the Americans choose to call frigates,” those “disguised ships of the line” that had enticed brave British captains into believing they were challenging an equal foe, only to be surprised by overpowering force. By the traditions of naval honor there was nothing shameful in declining combat with a superior enemy; the Americans had thus resorted to dishonorable deception to secure their victories.
Perilous Fight Page 24