CHAPTER XIV.
A VERY good dinner was served on board the Dolphin that day, and onleaving the table most of her passengers sought the deck again, for itwas a lovely evening, warm and clear.
The captain and Violet were sitting side by side on a settee, whenElsie came to them with a wistful, inquiring look on her face that madeher father think she wanted something.
“What is it, my little daughter?” he asked, drawing her to a seat uponhis knee.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you to tell me about the War of1812, papa, I should be glad to learn more about it,” she said.
“It will be no trouble for me to give my dear little girl as muchinformation as she may crave about it,” he answered, patting her cheekaffectionately. “But if you think the other children will care to hearwhat I tell you, you may call them here before I begin.”
“Oh, yes, papa, I will,” she answered joyously, and hastened away insearch of them.
Her summons was obeyed by one and all, as if in expectation of a greattreat. They gathered about the captain and he began.
“We are now at peace with England; the two nations good friends, asI hope and trust they may be always. But between the wars of theRevolution and of 1812 this country was badly treated by that in moreways than one. To tell you all about it would make much too long astory for to-night. Lossing says of England in 1810 that she had seizedand confiscated the commercial property of American citizens to anincalculable amount. She had contemptuously disregarded the neutralityof the American territory, and the jurisdiction of the American lawswithin the waters and harbors of the United States. She had at thattime impressed from the crews of American merchant vessels peaceablynavigating the high seas not less than six thousand mariners whoclaimed to be citizens of the United States, and who were denied allopportunity to verify their claims. I think it was in February, 1811,that a richly laden American vessel bound for France was captured by aBritish cruiser within thirty miles of New York City; and early in Maya British frigate stopped an American brig only eighteen miles from NewYork and a young man, known to be a native of Maine, was taken fromher and impressed into the British service. Other such instances hadoccurred, and often the men thus shamefully robbed of their freedomwere most cruelly treated.”
“How, papa?” asked Ned. “What did they do to them?”
“For refusing to work for their captors, especially after hearing ofthe declaration of war in 1812; some American sailors were most cruellyused; three who had been impressed on board the British vessel Peacockrefused to fight against their country and demanded to be treated asprisoners of war. They were ordered to the quarter-deck, put in ironsfor twenty-four hours, then taken to the gangway, stripped naked, tiedand whipped, each one dozen and a half, and put to duty.
“When the Peacock went into action with the Hornet, they asked thecaptain to be sent below, that they might not fight against theircountrymen. The captain called a midshipman and told him to do hisduty, which was to hold a pistol to the head of Thompson and threatento blow his brains out if he and his companions did not do service.”
“How glad they must have been when the Hornet took the Peacock!”exclaimed Eric.
“Yes, indeed! For they had certainly been very cruelly used by thosewho had stolen them from American vessels,” said the captain. “Andthere were others who received still more cruel treatment from them,the robbers of the American seamen. It was no wonder that America wasroused to attempt a second war with Great Britain in order to stopthese dreadful outrages upon her people.”
“The navy did a great deal in that war, didn’t it, uncle?” asked Edward.
“Yes,” replied the captain; “they were more successful than the landforces.”
“Oh, please tell us some of their doings!” cried several children’svoices.
The captain mused a moment, then began.
“I will tell you some of the doings of Commodore Rodgers in hisfavorite frigate, the President. After some unsuccessful efforts tointercept vessels trading between the West Indies and Halifax, St.Johns and Quebec, but finding none, he determined to try his fortunein the North Sea in search of British merchantmen. But he did not meetwith a single vessel until he made the Shetland Islands, and there hefound only Danish ships trading to England. His supplies began to failand he went to North Bergen, in Norway, to replenish his stock. Therehe was disappointed, too, for there was a great scarcity of food allover the country and he could procure nothing but water.
“It seems he knew that a fleet of merchantmen were to sail fromArchangel in the middle of July. But just as he expected to make someprizes from among them, he fell in with two British ships of war.Knowing that he was not strong enough to battle with both at once,Rodgers with his vessel fled, hotly pursued by the enemy. (At thatseason in that northern region the sun is several degrees above thehorizon at midnight.) That enabled the vessels to keep up the chasemore than eighty hours, during which time they were much nearer thePresident than was at all agreeable to her officers and men.”
“Oh, I hope they didn’t catch her!” exclaimed Elsie.
“No,” said her father, “she escaped from them. Her stock of provisionshad been replenished from two vessels that had been taken before thewar vessels had appeared, and now she turned westward to interceptvessels coming out of and going into the Irish Channel.
“In the next six or seven days he (Rodgers) captured three vessels;then he thought it best to change his course, as the enemy was in thatvicinity with a superior force. He made a complete circuit of Ireland,then steered for the banks of Newfoundland, near which he made twomore captures. From these he learned that two British vessels, theBellerophon and Hyperion frigate, were only a few miles from him.However, he did not fall in with them, and soon stood for the coast ofthe United States.
“Toward evening on the 23d of September the President fell in with theBritish armed schooner Highflyer, tender to Admiral Warren’s flagshipSt. Domingo; she was commanded by Lieutenant Hutchinson; was a finevessel of her class—a fast sailer. When discovered she was six orseven miles distant, but by a stratagem Commodore Rodgers decoyed heralongside and captured her without firing a gun. She did not evendiscover that the President was her enemy until the stratagem hadsucceeded.
“Before starting upon this cruise Rodgers had placed in his possessionsome of the British signals. He had had some made on board his ship,and now he resolved to try their efficacy. He hoisted an English ensignover the President. The Highflyer answered by displaying another, andat the same time a signal from a mast-head.
“To Rodgers’s delight, he discovered that he possessed its complement.He then signalled that his vessel was the Sea Horse, one of the largestof its class known to be then on the American coast. The Highflyer atonce bore down, hove to under the stern of the President and receivedone of Rodgers’s lieutenants on board, who was dressed in Britishuniform. He bore an order from Rodgers for the commander of theHighflyer to send his signal books on board to be altered, as some ofthe Yankees, it was alleged, had obtained possession of some of them.
“The unsuspecting lieutenant obeyed, and Rodgers was put in possessionof the key to the whole correspondence of the British navy.
“Pretty soon the commander of the Highflyer followed his signal books.He was pleased with everything he saw on board what he believed wasthe English vessel Sea Horse, and admired even the scarlet uniform ofRodgers’s marines, whom he took for British soldiers. Invited into thecabin, he placed in the commodore’s hands a bundle of dispatches forAdmiral Warren, and informed his supposed friend that the main objectof the British commander on the American station at that time wasthe capture or destruction of the President, which had been greatlyannoying and destroying British commerce and spreading alarm throughoutBritish waters.
“The commodore asked what kind of a man Rodgers was. ‘An odd fish andhard to catch,’ replied the lieutenant.
“‘Sir,’ said Rodgers most emphatically, ‘do you know what vessel y
ouare on board of?’
“‘Why, yes,’ he replied; ‘on board His Majesty’s ship Sea Horse.’
“‘Then, sir, you labor under a mistake,’ said Rodgers. ‘You are onboard the United States frigate President, and I am Commodore Rodgers,at your service.’”
“Oh, how frightened that British man must have been!” exclaimed Elsie.“Wasn’t he, papa?”
“I suppose that at first he thought all the commodore had been sayingwas merely a joke,” replied her father. “He seemed astounded, and itwas difficult to make him believe that he was really on an Americanvessel. But the band on the President’s quarterdeck was playing ‘YankeeDoodle,’ and over it the American ensign was displayed, while theuniforms of the marines were suddenly changed from red to blue.
“It would seem that Hutchinson might well feel alarmed at findinghimself in the hands of Rodgers, for he had been one of Cockburn’ssubalterns when that marauder plundered and burned Havre de Grace afew months before; and it is said that Lieutenant Hutchinson hadnow in his possession a sword which he carried away from CommodoreRodgers’s house on that occasion.
“He had been warned by Captain Oliver, when receiving instructions ascommander of the Highflyer, to take care not to be outwitted by theYankees. ‘Especially be careful,’ said Oliver, ‘not to fall into thehands of Commodore Rodgers, for if he comes across you he will hoistyou upon his jib-boom and carry you into Boston.’”
“And did he do it, now he’d got him?” asked Ned.
“No,” said Captain Raymond. “Well was it for him that the enemy intowhose hands he had fallen was an American. Rodgers treated him withcourtesy such as is due to a prisoner of war, and soon allowed him togo at large on parole.”
“And did Commodore Rodgers get back to his own country, papa?” askedElsie.
“Yes; three days after the capture of the Highflyer he sailed intoNewport harbor, having his prize with him, her commander andfifty-five other prisoners. He said his cruise had not added muchlustre to the American navy, but he had rendered his country signalservice by harassing the enemy’s commerce, and keeping more than twentyvessels in search of him for several weeks. He had captured elevenmerchant vessels and two hundred and seventy-one prisoners.”
“What could he do with so many prisoners, uncle?” asked Eric. “I shouldhardly think he’d have room for them in his ship.”
“All but those he carried into Newport had been paroled and sent homein the captured vessels,” replied the captain.
“Did he go out catching British ships again, uncle?” asked Edward.
“Yes; on the 5th of December, 1813, he sailed from Newport on anothercruise in the President. He expected to fall in with the Britishsquadron, but with a stiff breeze from the north-northwest he got wellto sea without falling in with them. The next day he captured theCornet, which British cruisers had taken from the Americans; then hesailed southward. In the vicinity of the Barbadoes he took, one afteranother, three British merchantmen. He ran down into the Caribbean Seaand cruised there unsuccessfully for awhile, but finally captured andsunk a British merchantman, then sailed for the coast of Florida.
“Going northward, he was off Charleston Bar on the 11th of February. Hedid not enter it, however, but continued on up the coast, chasing andbeing chased, dashing through a vigilant British blockading squadronoff Sandy Hook, and sailed into New York harbor on the evening of theeighteenth.”
“Then New York did him honor, didn’t she, father?” said Grace, sittingnear, listening to his story.
“Yes,” replied the captain; “many of the citizens did so, and a dinnerwas given in compliment to him at Tammany Hall. At that dinner, wheremost of the notables of the city were present, Rodgers gave thistoast: ‘Peace, if it can be obtained without the sacrifice of nationalhonor or the abandonment of maritime rights; otherwise, war until peaceshall be secured without the sacrifice of either.’”
“A good toast. I like the sentiment expressed,” said Grace. “I think Ihave read that a good many gentlemen were present there at the dinner.”
“Yes, more than three hundred; many of them shipmasters,” said thecaptain. “A toast was given to the commodore, followed by eighteencheers, and a song that some one had written in his honor that morningwas sung.”
“Papa,” said Elsie, “was it right for him to put the name of a Britishvessel on his, and British uniform on his marines, to deceive theBritish on the Highflyer so that they would come to him and be takenprisoners?”
“No, daughter, I do not think it was,” replied the captain, “though,no doubt, the motive of all of them was good—to defend their countryand countrymen from robbery and oppression. But it is never right to doevil that good may come. My good mother’s teaching was, ‘You should dierather than tell a lie, though it were no more than to deny that twoand two make four.’ But, no doubt, Rodgers thought his manœuvres allright and fair; and they certainly inflicted no wrong upon the enemy.”
“Is that all the story about him, papa?” asked Ned.
“Just about,” replied his father. “His good ship, the President, nowneeded a thorough overhauling, and the Secretary of the Navy offeredCommodore Rodgers the command of the Guerriere, the ship which Hulltook from Dacres, and which might be made ready for sea much soonerthan the President. The commodore went to Philadelphia, where theGuerriere was being put in order, and, finding that she was not sonearly ready as he had supposed, he informed the Secretary that hepreferred to retain command of the President. But in the meantime thePresident had been offered to Decatur. Rodgers courteously allowed thatcommander to take his choice of vessels, and he chose the President.Now, my dears, I think we may consider our naval studies ended forto-night.”