CHAPTER VI

FOUGHT IN A HATTERAS GALE

WHEN THE SECOND YANKEE _WASP_ FELL IN WITH THE BRITISH _FROLIC_--THEY TUMBLED ABOUT IN THE CROSS SEA IN A WAY THAT DESTROYED THE BRITISH “AIM,” BUT THE YANKEES WATCHED THE ROLL OF THEIR SHIP, AND WHEN THEY WERE DONE THEY HAD KILLED AND WOUNDED NINE-TENTHS OF THE ENEMY’S CREW AND WRECKED HIS VESSEL--THE _FROLIC_ WAS A LARGER SHIP, CARRIED MORE GUNS, AND HAD ALL THE MEN SHE COULD USE, “FINE, ABLE-BODIED SEAMEN,” SURE ENOUGH!

Of glorious memory was the little Yankee sloop-of-war _Wasp_. Though carrying the rig of a ship--square sails on three masts, she was of the size of one of the smaller schooners that in these days cruise along the United States coast. She measured, that is to say, four hundred and fifty tons. But being built to a different model, she stood somewhat higher out of water than the schooners do. Her guns included sixteen short thirty-twos and two long twelves. Her commander in 1812 was Captain Jacob Jones, a Delaware sailor who had worked his way up, beginning as a midshipman under Captain Barry.

[Illustration: Jacob Jones.

_From an engraving by Edwin of the portrait by Rembrandt Peale._]

On October 13, 1812, the _Wasp_ sailed from Philadelphia, bound eastward to lie in wait in the track of British merchantmen in the voyages from the West Indies. She had on board one hundred and thirty-seven men, including marines, but two of her sailors were lost overboard in a gale of wind on the 15th. They were at work on the jib at the time. The _Wasp_ in plunging down a wave buried her bowsprit under water, and when she rose out of it the bowsprit was broken off and the men carried away.

For two days the gale blew hard, making an ugly sea, and then on the night of the 17th moderated somewhat, although the wind was still properly called a gale. That night at half-past eleven o’clock several lights were seen, showing that a number of vessels were weathering the storm together, and Captain Jones hauled to the wind, where he could keep his eye on them. When daylight came he found there were six large merchantmen under the convoy of a big brig. Although the brig was plainly as large as the _Wasp_, and some of the merchant ships carried guns, Captain Jones reefed down his topsails to fighting trim, sent his topgallant-yards down on deck and squared away for the fleet. As was afterwards learned the ships were a part of a fleet of fourteen bound from British Honduras to England, and the brig was the _Frolic_, Captain Thomas Whinyates. The fleet had been separated by the storm and the _Frolic_ had sprung her main-yard. She was making repairs when morning came, but as the Yankee bore down on the fleet the _Frolic_, under a fore-and-aft mainsail, fore-topsail and a jib, bore up to meet her.

So heavy was the gale and so short the canvas under which the ships had to work, that it was not until after 11 o’clock that they got within fighting distance, but when there, the Englishman hoisted a Spanish flag. This little trick did not deceive the Yankee, however, for he held his course, and very soon the two vessels were within sixty yards of each other and were steadily drawing nearer, both running almost before the wind, but not quite, the Yankee having a little the better of it, being a little to windward.

For a brief time they ran so in silence, and then Captain Jones stepped to the rail and hailed. For an answer the Englishman hauled down his Spanish flag, hoisted his red cross of St. George, and as the one came down and the other fluttered aloft, fired a broadside--fired it just as a fierce flaw of wind struck his sails to heel him over.

The Yankees waited till their vessel began to roll from the crest of a wave toward the enemy and then fired a broadside in return.

It was a battle off Cape Hatteras in the tail end of a Hatteras gale. The ships rolled and pitched over the heavy cross seas, and wallowed through the hollows. The crews, as they loaded their guns, saw the long rammers pointed to the clouds at one roll, and saw them dip in the spoondrift that rose to the port sills at the next. The muzzles of the guns were even dipped into the smother of it at times. The spray from the wave-crests in great masses splashed over the bulwarks. The smoke from the guns was snatched away by the gale, leaving clear targets for the gunners, who, from the excitement of it all, swabbed, and rammed, and fired--who shouted as they hauled out their guns to aim, and cheered as they fired their iron hail across the tossing seas. The roar and whizz of the gale were whelmed in the thunder of the broadsides and the scream of projectiles.

[Illustration: Diagram of the WASP-FROLIC BATTLE.]

They swabbed, and rammed, and fired in frantic haste under the red cross--fired the moment the muzzles of the guns were hauled out through the bulwarks. Under the “gridiron flag” they loaded in haste and then calmly waited till the roll of the ship was right to make each projectile do its appointed work. The Englishman fired three broadsides by count to two of the Yankees, but scarce a projectile from the enemy struck the Yankee’s hull.

Nevertheless some damage was done by British projectiles. Within four minutes after the first broadside a shot struck the _Wasp’s_ maintopmast not far above the cap and over it went like a tree before a hurricane. The yards fell across the fore braces and “rendered the head-yards unmanageable.” Ten minutes later (11.46 A.M.) the mizzen-topgallant-mast was shot off and “at twenty minutes from the beginning of the action every brace and most of the rigging was shot away” on the _Wasp_.

But both vessels were driving along before the wind. The impulse of the gale upon their rigging was strong enough to give them steerage way. But the cutting away of the two masts on the _Wasp_ left her in such plight that the enemy had only to wear ship and haul to the wind on the port tack to escape. Some kinds of sea-fighters would have done that quickly, but not those of the Anglo-Saxon blood.

The Englishmen held their course and blazed away. The _Wasp_ having been squared away by the falling of the mainmast, drew forward and somewhat across the bow of the enemy, and the distance between them lessened until at last the men who were loading two of the broadside guns of the _Wasp_ felt their rammers strike the bluff of the enemy’s bows as they reached out to swab their guns. A moment later the ships came together with a crash, and then as they wallowed together in the trough of the sea two of the _Wasp’s_ guns pointed fairly through the bow ports of the enemy and along her gun-deck. At that instant the order to fire was given and it was obeyed before the waves could shift the position. The slaughter of that raking fire was terrible.

With the send of the next wave the _Wasp_ forged ahead until the bowsprit of the enemy fouled in the mizzen rigging of the _Wasp_ and the two ships were held together in an embrace that seemed likely to tear both to pieces. The men of the _Wasp_ had wished to board the instant the ships collided, but were then held back to fire a broadside. Now they would be restrained no longer. Without waiting for orders one, Jack Lang, a brawny fellow from New Brunswick, New Jersey, took his cutlass in his teeth, and grasping the rigging about the bowsprit of the enemy swung himself upon that spar. Captain Jones, of the _Wasp_, who wished to fire another broadside, bawled to him to come down but Jack had been impressed in the British service--he had a score of his own to settle--and he did not obey. And a dozen or more of his shipmates were hurrying from their guns to join him. The enthusiasm of the men could scarcely be restrained and the Captain let them have their way, giving the order to board.

[Illustration: The _Wasp_ Boarding the _Frolic_.

_From an old wood-cut._]

Lieutenant Biddle jumped on the bulwarks to lead the boarders, but because of the surging of his ship he got his feet caught among the hammocks. Little Midshipman Baker, who was entitled to second place, being too small to jump to the top as Biddle had done, saw Biddle’s coat-tails flopping in the gale and grabbed hold of them to help himself up. He got part way up when another surge of the ship threw both of them violently back to the deck.

All this time Jack Lang was alone on the enemy, but Biddle soon regained the top of the bulwarks, and then, followed by others, crossed over the enemy’s bowsprit. He found Jack Lang standing alone on the topgallant forecastle and looking away aft over the enemy’s deck.

At the wheel on the quarter deck stood a grizzled quarter-master, bleeding from a wound, but firm in staying at his post. Beyond him in a group at the taffrail stood three officers, two of whom were wounded. And that was all. Not another living man could be seen, though there were dead enough strewn about the deck, and the water that came in through the scuppers, deeply reddened by their blood, swashed to and fro over them and up the painted bulwarks at every roll.

The flag of the enemy was still flying, but as Lieutenant Biddle and his men started aft the three officers at the taffrail threw down their swords in token of surrender, while one buried his face in his hands and turned away. So Lieutenant Biddle himself hauled down the flag and reported the surrender of the ship to Captain Jones.

[Illustration: _From an original water color, by H. Rich at the Naval Academy, Annapolis._]

When the Americans came to examine their prize they were astonished at the result of their gunnery. The lower deck was simply covered over with wounded men. The _Frolic_ had carried a crew of one hundred and ten all told, and less than twenty of them remained unwounded. Captain Whinyates and Lieutenant Frederick B. Wintle were among the wounded, and another lieutenant and the master were among the killed. Whinyates and Wintle were so badly wounded that they were obliged to lean on the taffrail for support when the _Frolic_ was boarded. Only their pluck kept them from going below. The masts of the _Frolic_ were so badly cut that the mainmast broke off at the deck soon after the two vessels drifted apart, and the foremast twelve feet above the deck. Her hull was full of holes.

[Illustration: James Biddle.

_From an engraving by Gimbrede of the portrait by Wood._]

Because of the tremendous destruction wrought--because nine-tenths of the enemy’s crew had been counted among the casualties, the time required for this destruction is the most interesting fact of the battle. The first broadside was fired at 11.32 A.M. Lieutenant Biddle hauled down the enemy’s flag at 12.15. Just forty-three minutes had elapsed, and the _Frolic_ was a wreck, with barely enough men left unhurt to navigate a sound merchantman of her size into port. And that was done while both ships were rolling and plunging about in a cross sea!

It is particularly interesting to compare the _Wasp_ with the _Frolic_. The facts are that the _Wasp_ measured 450 tons and the _Frolic_ 467. The _Wasp_ could fire nine guns, throwing 250 pounds of metal at a broadside, and the _Frolic_, ten guns throwing 274 pounds. This is the lowest British estimate of her guns. Captain Jones after looking carefully over his prize reported officially that she carried twenty-two guns, throwing 292 pounds of metal. Jones had no reason for misrepresenting the matter in his report. Captain Whinyates makes no mention of guns in his. The _Wasp_ carried 135 men, and Allen, the British historian, says they were “fine, able-bodied seamen.” It is quite certain that they were as fine as any afloat. But to assert that they were all experienced seamen is to tell a falsehood. They were an ordinary Yankee crew.

The _Frolic_ carried 110 men and Allen says they were “worn down by long service in a tropical climate.” No one need dispute this, even if they did fire three broadsides to the Yankee’s two. The _Wasp_ had but five men killed and five wounded, nearly all of whom were struck while aloft. They tumbled from the tops and rigging like squirrels shot from the limbs of a tree.

To sum it up, the two ships were as nearly equal in force as any two ships meeting at sea were likely to be in those days. The British ship was somewhat the more powerful, for she had “all the men we could use,” as Captain Whinyates put it; and she carried more guns and threw more metal than the American.

The fact is this victory made such a deep impression upon the minds of the British officials that they were led to a most extraordinary proceeding in order to modify the effect it was likely to have upon the British public as a whole, and consequently upon the fortunes of the political party then in power in Parliament. The report of the fight was garbled before it was given out to the press. The account given out said that “the _Wasp_ measured 434 tons and the _Frolic_ 384,” so “the tonnage of the _Wasp_ gave her an immense advantage” in the heavy sea-way. Allen, the British historian, prints the garbled reports of the battle in the work already quoted, although the official registers of ships would have given him the facts. Allen, however, but follows James in this matter.

[Illustration: Medal Awarded to Jacob Jones, after the Capture of the _Frolic_ by the _Wasp_.]

Having placed a prize crew on the _Frolic_, Captain Jones began the work of repairing the damage done aloft with a view of overhauling some of the merchantmen that had formed the convoy. As he began this work a sail was seen rising above the horizon to windward and the crew made haste with the work, at first, for they thought it might be one of the convoy. But when the sails were fairly in view they gave over the task, for it appeared that the ship was a big man-o’-war. A little later still they learned that it was the _Poictiers_, a seventy-four, commanded by Captain John Poer Beresford. The victory over the _Frolic_ was to be of no value to the United States save through its moral influence. Both the _Frolic_ and the _Wasp_ were carried to Bermuda, and it was there that the garbled report of the fight was written.

The _Wasp_ was taken into the British navy under the same name, but she was lost at sea without having accomplished anything.

What the first American _Wasp_ did has already been related in the story of the naval actions of the Revolution.

Captain Jones and his crew, having soon been exchanged, returned home, where they were received with the honors due to “fine, able-bodied seamen” who had thrashed an enemy in such thorough fashion. The Congress voted $25,000 to them as a reward, and Captain Jones was soon placed in command of the frigate _Macedonian_, which was captured from the enemy, as will be told in the next chapter.

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