CHAPTER XVI
LOSS OF THE LITTLE SLOOP _ARGUS_
SHE WAS CAPTURED BY THE _PELICAN_, A VESSEL THAT WAS OF SLIGHTLY SUPERIOR FORCE--A CLEAN VICTORY FOR THE BRITISH, BUT ONE THAT IN NO WAY DISHEARTENS THE FIERCEST OF THE AMERICAN PATRIOTS--ILL-LUCK OF “THE WAGGON.”
The story of the American Navy during the first eighteen months of the War of 1812 is by no means completed. There were battles which, in spite of the fact that only small forces were involved, were really no less significant in demonstrating the character of the sea-power of the new American nation than were the great victories already described. There was at least one defeat that was in one way most significant. And there were other events that were matters of consideration then and are now.
For instance there was the act of the Congress on January 2, 1813, when it was ordered that the Navy be increased by four ships-of-the-line (rating at seventy-four guns), six frigates to rate with the _Constitution_, and six sloops to rate with the _Hornet_, that eventually thrashed the _Peacock_ so effectually. Tremendous, comparatively speaking, as was this addition to the naval strength of the nation, the real significance of the act was found in the change of spirit in the national administration and legislature. For it was but five months to the day since Captain Hull had sailed from Boston _contrary to orders_ that were en route--had sailed on the cruise that ended with the destruction of the boastful _Guerrière_. It was on August 2, 1812, that the _Constitution_ sailed, and at that time the Administration at Washington fully believed that to allow an American frigate to go to sea was to insure that she would be captured and added to the British Navy, and so, like the pusillanimous French Government of the day, it preferred seeing the ships rot to taking the chances of battle. But the magnificent courage and skill of the American naval seaman, in spite of the pusillanimity of the politicians in power--in spite of the fact that they received but half-hearted support from the nation as a whole--had, in five months, shot under water the porcupine policy in naval affairs and replaced the eagle on the American coat-of-arms. And there the eagle remains to this day, albeit he lowers his head with a tinge of shame when he looks for the gridiron flag among the merchant fleets of the world.
As the reader will remember, the _United States_ sailed on the cruise during which she captured the _Macedonian_ with Commodore John Rodgers of the _President_, the _Congress_ and the _Argus_ being also of the squadron. The _President_ proved unlucky on that voyage, for she got nothing. Her hard luck continued in the cruise that followed. In company with the _Congress_, Captain John Smith, the _President_ sailed from Boston on April 30, 1813. Two days later the little British sloop-of-war _Curlew_, Captain Michael Head, was seen, but after a protracted chase the _Curlew_ escaped. A little later the two frigates separated and the _Congress_ cruised in the South Atlantic all the summer and part of the fall, and finally returned to Portsmouth, New Haven, having been at sea two hundred and nineteen days and taken four merchant-ships. The _President_ cruised first on the Grand Banks, then near the Azores, and from there sailed to the north and around the Shetland Islands to the port of Bergen, where she stopped for supplies. Sailing thence she eventually got back to the Nantucket Shoals on September 23d. There she fell in with the British schooner _Highflyer_, and by posing as a British frigate and sending a lieutenant dressed in a British uniform on board of her, succeeded in getting the book of private signals and instructions.
Meantime, while off North Cape in company with the American privateer _Scourge_, Rodgers was chased by two British ships. He said in his journal that the two were “a line-of-battle ship and a frigate.” The British say that the two were the thirty-two-gun frigate _Alexandria_ (she carried long twelves for her main battery) and the sloop _Spitfire_, of about twenty guns. There seems to be no reason for doubting that Rodgers did make the mistake attributed to him. Others made mistakes like that, as will appear farther on.
The book captured from the _Highfiyer_ proved valuable in a variety of ways, but chiefly because it gave the numbers and stations of British war-ships on the American coast, and so enabled American commanders to avoid the British squadrons. A private circular from the British Admiralty ordered the captains of all British war-ships to make special efforts to capture the _President_.
Just why the British Navy should have felt such great animosity toward this ship is hard to understand in this day. Certainly she was not the most formidable of the American ships. In fact she had been so overloaded with guns that she proved a poor sailer (witness the escape of the _Belvidera_ and the _Curlew_), and eventually, she was hogged so that she was captured (as will be told farther on) in a race where the _Constitution_ would have escaped easily. Nevertheless, the Admiralty, as said, were especially anxious to capture her, and the animosity of the British nation against her was so great that even thirty years after the war was over, the “British Naval Chronicle” still spoke of her as “the waggon”--a term, by the way, that suggests the naval tar’s contempt for hay-makers, and recalls the deeds of the Yankee hay-makers when afloat in the war of the Revolution.
Quite different was the luck of the sloop _Argus_, the smallest of the ships that sailed with Rodgers in that first Yankee squadron cruise of the War of 1812. When she returned from that cruise, William H. Allen, who had gained fame for his part in the capture of the _Macedonian_, was placed in command of her. The reader will remember that it was Allen who fired on the _Leopard_ when she attacked the _Chesapeake_ in time of peace to re-impress some American seamen, carrying a coal from the galley fire in his naked hand for the purpose for lack of matches. With this incident in mind to indicate his character, the uninformed reader will be prepared for the story of his fate which follows.
[Illustration: The _Argus_ Burning British Vessels.
_From an old wood-cut._]
The sailing orders which Allen, who now had the rank of master-commandant, received, directed him to carry to France Mr. William H. Crawford, the newly appointed American Minister to that nation. The _Argus_ sailed on this errand from New York on June 18, 1813, and reached L’Orient twenty-three days later. Having refitted his ship, Captain Allen emulated the famous deeds of John Paul Jones and other Revolutionary heroes by sailing boldly into the English Channel and thence around Land’s End into the Irish Sea. It was a short but a brilliant cruise. The _Argus_ sailed on July 14, 1813. Ship after ship was taken, some of them right under the cliffs of the British coast. Some were sunk and some were burned. A few of the more valuable were manned and sent to French ports. Indeed, so many prizes were taken that the crew became worn out with the work. The _Argus_ was at sea but one month and yet twenty ships, valued at $2,500,000, were taken in that time. Of course all hands had to be on deck, and at work during every chase, and while each prize was disposed of. They were far too successful for their own personal welfare. As in the days when the _Reprisal_, under Captain Lambert Wickes, and the _Surprise_, under Captain Gustavus Connyngham, so now the British ship-merchants were filled with dismay and the insurance companies put up the rate on war-risks to a fabulous per cent. Cruisers were sent hurriedly to sea in search of the bold Yankee, and the _Argus_ must needs fight or run very soon. Just one month from the day she sailed, the hour for a choice between these two courses had arrived.
At 5 o’clock on August 14, 1813, the lookout saw a big British brig coming down the wind under a full press of canvas. It was the _Pelican_, Captain John Fordyce Maples. Maples had put into Cork three days before, and had learned that a Yankee cruiser, of no great force, was destroying the British coastwise trade, and he at once sailed in search of the bold offender.
He was enabled to find the _Argus_ by what had seemed to the Americans a continuance of their good-luck. The _Pelican_ came into view at 5 o’clock in the morning after the crew of the _Argus_ had been up about all night chasing and destroying a vessel loaded with wine from Oporto, Portugal. They had destroyed her by setting fire to her, and the light of the flames had served as a beacon to guide the _Pelican_ to the scene.
Very soon it became apparent that the enemy was one of the largest of the British war-brigs and therefore more than a match in force for the American sloop. Captain Allen, in consideration of his position and the condition of his crew--especially the condition of his crew--would have been justified in crowding sail and leaving the slower Englishman. But Allen was not that kind of a man.
The _Argus_ was promptly cleared for action, and the men, though in many cases drunk with the wine of the captured wine-ship, and in all cases weary from lack of sleep, took their stations. For an hour the _Argus_ tacked and filled, trying to get up to windward of the enemy, but without avail, and so shortened sail and at 6 o’clock wore around before the wind with her port-guns bearing on the enemy, and at that moment opened fire at a range of perhaps two hundred yards.
The _Pelican_ replied with a full broadside and at 6.04 A.M. a ball struck Captain Allen, hurling him across the deck and tore off one leg. It was a mortal wound, but Allen struggled up till he rested his weight on his elbow and then continued to direct the battle until, after four minutes, he fainted from loss of blood and was carried below. Lieutenant William H. Watson then took command, but four minutes later he, too, was cut down. A grape-shot struck his head and he was carried below unconscious. Then came William Howard Allen to take command of the quarter-deck and carry on the battle.
It had been a losing fight, thus far, and so it continued for the reason that the British guns were served better than the American. The rigging of the _Argus_ was already badly cut up. Nevertheless, when the _Pelican_ strove to wear across the stern of the _Argus_, Lieutenant Allen luffed up across the bows of the _Pelican_, where at short range he was able to deliver a raking broadside. But the Yankee crew, instead of cutting the life out of the enemy, merely fired into the air.
[Illustration: The _Argus_ Captured by the _Pelican_, _August 14, 1813_.
_From an engraving by Sutherland of the painting by Whitcombe._]
Then the after-sails of the unfortunate _Argus_ became unmanageable because the braces were all shot away, and she swung around before the wind so that the _Pelican_ was able to pass astern of her at 6.18 P.M. and rake her aft and fore. Holding this position by a skilful use of her sails, the _Pelican_ fired broadside after broadside into the helpless Yankee, for fifteen minutes, cutting the stern, the rudder, and wheel-ropes to pieces, while the Americans could scarcely make a reply. Then the _Pelican_ filled away and, running ahead, took a position off the starboard bow of the _Argus_, and there raked her with a fresh battery for ten minutes more, while the wind drifted the _Argus_ down until she fell aboard the _Pelican_.
At that the British prepared to board, but the American flag was hauled down and the fighting ceased.
Looking at the details of the fight from the present time, the most remarkable fact in connection with it seems to be that the _Argus_ endured the raking fire of her antagonist from 6.18 P.M. until 6.45 P.M., although scarcely able to fire a gun in return. With men who were either worn out, or drunk, or both, Lieutenant Allen stubbornly endured the sulphurous and iron storm. That an American crew would do this after the loss of the captain, and of the executive officer as well, was a fact that did not escape the notice of the enemy at the time. However much the report of the affair was exaggerated by the British writers, the British authorities knew the real facts. It was a defeat, but the Americans compelled respect even in this, that was, all things considered, one of the most unfortunate defeats suffered at sea during the war.
How it was particularly unfortunate appears from a consideration first of the losses. The _Argus_ sailed with one hundred and thirty-seven men, but had manned enough prizes to reduce her crew to one hundred and four. The _Pelican_ carried one hundred and sixteen men, but since the _Argus_ had enough men to handle her guns the superiority of numbers on the _Pelican_ was a matter of no importance. But the _Argus_ had ten killed and fourteen wounded, while the _Pelican_ lost but two killed and five wounded. The _Argus_ was a much smaller vessel--she measured but two hundred and sixty-eight tons to the _Pelican’s_ four hundred and sixty-seven, and she could fight with but ten guns, throwing two hundred and ten pounds of metal at a broadside, to the _Pelican’s_ eleven guns throwing two hundred and eighty pounds of metal. Nevertheless, the difference in losses was much greater than the difference in forces. It has been asserted that the American fire proved ineffective because the powder used after the first few rounds was from a lot taken from a prize that was bound to South America, loaded with what is known in commercial circles as “export powder”--a very inferior quality. If Captain Allen permitted this it shows he was not well posted in the tricks of the British export trade of his day. It is not denied that the _Pelican’s_ sides were full of dents where the Yankee’s shot struck but did not penetrate. Still the most reasonable explanation of the inferiority of the Americans’ fire is in the fact that they had captured a wine-ship. By the modern standard of morals it would be disgraceful to allow a ship’s crew to drink of a captured cargo of wine. In that day the standard of morals was different. Then, and for many years afterward, grog was served to all hands at least once every day in every naval ship afloat in the world. The men of the _Argus_ had been working as never before in their lives for a month. It was entirely natural that some extra grog should be allowed them when the wine was captured, and it was entirely natural for the men to take too much.
A writer who lived at the time of the battle said of the result of it:
“We admit that the _Argus_ was taken by a British sloop-of-war whose force was not materially greater than hers. It is one of those rare accidents which sometimes occur in the course of worldly events, and which, defying all calculation, and being in direct contradiction, not only to the usual course of events, but to the ordinary effects of known and acknowledged causes, are set down by the worldly as resulting from chance; by the orthodox as the effect of a miracle. _We will not stain the memory of gallant but unsuccessful men by stating in extenuation of defeat that they were unskilful, negligent and physically inferior to their opponents._” And that is a very proper view to take of the whole matter. Even the British historian Allen says “no disgrace attached to the vanquished.”
For the consolation of the American patriot, however, it is worth comparing this fight with that between the _Hornet_ and the _Peacock_. In the _Hornet-Peacock_ fight the American forces were just about as much superior to the British as was the _Pelican_ to the _Argus_, for the _Argus_ carried short twenty-fours as did the British _Peacock_. But the _Hornet_ sank the _Peacock_ in fourteen minutes, while the _Pelican_ was not able to subdue the _Argus_ until after forty-five minutes. Worse yet, although firing at the closest range, the crew of the _Pelican_ scarcely hurt the hull of the _Argus_--although she drifted practically as an idle target for almost twice fourteen minutes, the British gunners made so little impression on her hull that no writer of the time thought it worth while to tell just what they really did accomplish on her hull. And if the victories which the second American _Wasp_ won over the _Frolic_, and the third American _Wasp_ won over the British _Avon_, and the American _Peacock_ won over the British _Epervier_ be considered, it is found that they, too, outweighed the victory of the _Pelican_ as did that of the _Hornet_.
But if this fails to console the extreme American patriot--the “jingo” of these days--he has only to consider the effect of this victory of the British, together with that over the _Chesapeake_, upon the British themselves. That the announcement of the victory of the _Shannon_ should have been cheered vociferously in Parliament; that the guns of London Tower should have been fired to express the national jubilation; that Broke should have been made a baronet; that the victory over the little _Argus_ should have filled the nation anew with joy--where can one find as flattering an acknowledgment of the prowess of the American Navy as all this? The people whose “maritime supremacy had become a part of the law of nations” were not now fighting either Frenchmen or Spaniards.
The _Argus_ was at once taken by a prize-crew to Plymouth. Captain Allen had had his leg amputated by his own surgeon when carried below. On arrival at Plymouth, he was taken to the Mill Prison hospital, where he died on August 18th. He was buried on August 21st, with the highest military honors, because in his treatment of both the passengers and the crews of all the ships he had captured, he had shown that he was a typical American gentleman. His name was given to a street in New York City to remind the wayfarer of his deeds.
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