BY JAMES RUSSELL SOLEY AUTHOR OF "THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS" BOSTON PUBLISHED BY ESTES AND LAURIAT Copyright, 1887, By Estes and Lauriat . University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge ....

Simply to defend themselves against the tyrannical encroachments of the mother country was all that the thirteen colonies had in view when, in 1775, they took up arms against Great Britain. At this time the people hoped, and many of them expected, that by making a determined resistance they would induce the King and Parliament to treat them with fairness, and to give them their rights as English citizens. It was only gradually, during the summer and autumn of the first year,—after the battle had

There were two men in Hopkins's squadron who far excelled all the others in those qualities of energy, courage, and intelligence that are most required in a naval officer. These were Biddle, the captain of the "Andrew Doria," and Paul Jones, the lieutenant of the "Alfred." Jones was at this time twenty-eight years old; the son of a Scotch gardener, he was born and brought up on the shores of the Solway Frith. Across the Frith lay the prosperous seaport of Whitehaven; and the boy when twelve year

We have seen how the beginning of naval enterprise made by Washington in the summer of 1775 was taken up and borne along by the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, until little by little it had obtained a force at sea that was able to inflict serious loss upon the enemy. But a field for operations was now to be found in a new quarter; and happily for America, their direction was in the hands of its wisest and most far-sighted statesman. On the 7th of December, 1776, the United States brig-of-w

Sometime in the summer of 1777 Paul Jones was ordered to command the sloop-of-war "Ranger," at that time nearly completed at Portsmouth. The officers were detailed for their ships by resolution of Congress; and the same resolution that gave Jones his command, on the 14th day of June, is memorable as the first adoption of the flag of thirteen stars and stripes which was carried by Jones's ship, and which ever since has been the national emblem. The young captain had hard work before him to get hi

During the time that Wickes and Conyngham and Paul Jones were carrying on the war with such success in the enemy's waters under the guidance of Franklin, the Continental Navy was cruising on the American coast as actively as was possible, in the neighborhood of the great English fleets. But it was a work of the utmost danger and difficulty. Several of the ports at one time or another were in the enemy's hands, and in all of them the Tories, or Loyalists, as they called themselves, were ready to

Just at the close of the Revolution the country found itself independent, but laboring under a heavy burden of debt, and with a government that had hardly enough authority to be called a government at all. In fact, at this period the nation was little more than a collection of separate States, with a kind of league or confederation to hold them together. Each of these States had its own government, which paid little attention to the wants of the others. After a few years, however, it became clea

Soon after the battle of the 3d of August Commodore Preble received a letter from the French consul intimating that the Pasha would be ready to lower his terms and treat for peace. But the commodore refused to make the first advances, and on the 7th he was ready for another attack. The enemy's gunboats wisely kept their stations within the rocks, where it would have been folly to engage them, and the attack was directed only against the town and batteries. The bombs were ordered to take their po

Europe, at the period which we have now reached, was engaged in a general war. This had begun with the French Revolution, when France bade defiance to the rest of the world; and, kept alive by the aggressive policy and military ambition of Napoleon, it continued, with occasional interruptions, until the power of the French Emperor was overthrown at Waterloo. During all this time England was the most persistent and successful enemy of the French,—fighting them sometimes alone, sometimes in coalit

Difficulties which finally led to the outbreak of war had been growing for several years; and the Government, as I have said, had all this time done little or nothing in the way of preparation for defence either on land or at sea. The navy was opposed as bitterly as ever, and the money that was needed for its support was given grudgingly. After the war with Tripoli, in which gunboats had been found of so much use, the Administration had begun to build great numbers of vessels of this class. This

What American ships could do in battle, Captain Hull had now shown; and the hopes of the country were aroused, and it began with reason to look for fresh successes. Nor was it destined to be disappointed; for during that memorable autumn of 1812 and the early months of winter there came such a rapid and unbroken succession of naval victories as has fallen to the lot of hardly any nation before or since. And that these victories should have been won by a service that for fifteen years had been tr

Just before the "Wasp" had set out on her short but eventful cruise, Commodore Rodgers had put to sea again with his squadron. Soon after leaving New York, the "United States," still under Capt. Stephen Decatur, separated from the other ships, and steering to the southeast, proceeded alone across the Atlantic. The "United States" was now in the highest condition of efficiency: the captain had taken great pains to train the crew in all that was needed to make them good fighting men; and his effor

The two earliest actions of importance in the year 1813, though nearly six months apart in time, belong together, for they form the two great events in the career of one of our bravest officers; and unless I am much mistaken, the second of these events, which ended so tragically in defeat and death, was in great measure a consequence and outcome of the first. All our captains who were actively engaged during the first months of the war had carried out their enterprises gallantly, but still with

Of the vessels in commission at the opening of the war, a fine frigate of the third class was the "Essex," very fast, but poorly armed with carronades. She had been for some months under the command of Captain Porter, of whom we have heard in the war with France, and whose life had already been so full of active service, that though only two-and-thirty years of age, we think of him as a much older man. The "Essex" had first got to sea for a war-cruise on the 3d of August, and soon after, on a ha

Returning now, we take up the story of a young officer who, although he had passed fifteen years in the service, had never been so fortunate as to take part in any of its more striking operations, but who was now to leap at one bound to a height of glory and renown unsurpassed by any of his comrades in the navy. This was Oliver Hazard Perry. He had entered the service in 1798, during the hostilities with France, when he joined his father's ship as a midshipman at the age of thirteen. He had serv

So far most of the engagements which had taken place on the ocean were fought by frigates. Only two of them,—the first between the "Wasp" and "Frolic," and the second between the "Hornet" and "Peacock"—were sloop actions. But the sloops formed at this time a very important part of our navy, and no less than six sloop actions were fought later in the war, all but one of them resulting in victory for the Americans. The sloops-of-war of this period were generally small three-masted vessels, though

Once more our story goes back to the northern waters, this time to Lake Champlain. Little had been done here by either side during the first two years of the war. There was hardly a naval force on the lake worthy of being mentioned, and the only operations that took place were mere raids or forays. In June, 1813, Lieutenant Smith had been despatched with the two sloops "Growler" and "Eagle," which were the only vessels then possessed by the Americans, to annoy the British gunboats at the norther

During the latter part of the war, as might have been foreseen, there was little opportunity for American frigates to show that they could keep up the fame they had so gloriously won. The British were determined that none of them that ventured out to sea should escape; and by stationing a squadron, which their great resources enabled them to do, before each port where a frigate lay, they succeeded in keeping it cooped up and inactive. No longer were offers made by British captains, like that of

When the war with Great Britain broke out in 1812, it was no longer possible to keep ships cruising in the Mediterranean to overawe the States of Barbary. It was true that the severe lesson which Tripoli had received from Commodore Preble in 1804 was well remembered, and the Pasha had no desire to have it repeated. But Algiers, the most powerful State upon the northern coast of Africa, had always cherished a contemptuous feeling for the United States, which was still weakly paying tribute; and n

We now come to a long break of thirty years, during which the United States were at peace with all the nations of the earth. But in this period the navy was by no means idle. There was first a long and arduous campaign against the pirates of the West Indies, which ended at last in sweeping from the seas the gangs of cut-throats that had so long infested the Spanish Main. When this important work had been successfully accomplished, the navy was actively occupied in putting down the slave trade on