John Randolph Spears

“ The British jailers would point to the well-kept renegades and offer to send any prisoner who would join them to enjoy the same comforts, but the love of home and of liberty was so strong in the hearts of these men that they chose death instead of such a release from prison—more than ten thousand Americans chose death by lingering torture on the British prison ships in New York rather than dishonor. ”

“ Men in a crowd numbering hundreds fell over each other to get out of range. A more amusing instance of the power of a resolute man over a mob will rarely be found in history.
For fifteen minutes John Paul Jones, single-handed, held at bay more than a thousand men. Then he entered his boat and rowed away, leaving the townsmen to fight the fire and shed tears of gratitude over the deserter who had saved them from destruction at the hands of fifteen men armed with cutlasses and flint-locked, single-barrelled, shoot-if-you-are-lucky pistols! ”

“ And yet so great was the American antipathy to another war, so great was the American desire to hold a neutral position as to the wars of Europe, that neither the one nor the other nor all together were sufficient to nerve them to strike the blow. Still another and a stronger incentive was needed, if war was to be declared—a grievance that would appeal to the heart of the whole people. ”

“ Not only did the outrages on American commerce increase as the years passed on; a still heavier blow was to fall on the face of American manhood. A British ship was to shoot an American ship to pieces in order to recapture four impressed Americans who had succeeded in escaping from the slavery they had endured—the British frigate Leopard was to assault the Chesapeake on the high seas in time of peace. ”

“ The forest spit flames and lead back at the Americans. Cry answered to cry and the yell of defiance to the war-whoop of the savage. Arnold himself, on the deck of the Congress, led in the thickest of the fight, cheering to the men as they worked at the guns, and at frequent intervals stooping over a gun to aim and fire it with his own hands. ”

“ But when he saw the condition of affairs below, Dale, instead of quailing, with ready wit told the prisoners that the Serapis was just sinking and their only hope of life was in keeping the Bonhomme Richard afloat. At this the whole mob of them went to the pumps and to fighting the fire. They worked in gangs till they dropped from sheer exhaustion, when other gangs took their places.
There was one of them—a captain of a captured ship—who did not believe the story. He climbed through the ports to the Serapis and told of the hopeless condition of the American crew. ”

“ From that glorious day before Boston when the hearts of the Continentals were fired by the long wagon-train, loaded with war material, captured by an American cruiser from the enemy, until the last service of the Alliance in bringing specie from Havana, there was never a time when the sea power did not render helpful and glorious service to the struggling patriots ashore. ”

“ No sooner was the war of the Revolution over and American merchant ships free to sail to British ports than the outrages began on the American seamen. It was literally true that the United States had no navy and could not wage war with England. We did not have even one ship-of-war left to carry the flag, and the party that ruled the nation then was utterly opposed to building one. ”

“ In actual practice the only judge of a man’s citizenship was the recruiting officer of the short-handed ship, and the lithe-limbed Yankee sailor was just the kind of a man the British press-gang was looking for. In fact, the British periodicals of that day continuously scoffed at these citizenship papers, and it was asserted in Parliament, as well as by the press, that the American naval officers, as well as naval officials stationed on shore, deliberately issued false papers at every opportunity—in short, that the Americans, as a nation, were liars, perjurers, and forgers. ”

“ The truth is that John Paul Jones entered the American navy in December, 1775, when every man in the service was a citizen of Great Britain. He became a citizen of the United States when the new nation was born. At the end of the war he could make the proud boast that “I have never borne arms under any but the American flag, nor have I ever borne or acted under any commission but that of the Congress of America.” ”

“ When the war ended but three naval ships, bearing eighty-four guns between them, remained. The American navy had almost perished, but, like Arnold’s fleet on Lake Champlain, it had given the Englishman an opportunity to see the face of the302 enemy. Even as in the fight which the Bonhomme Richard waged, it won victory even when it was so shattered as to all but disappear while yet the smoke of battle hung over the water. For without the aid of the sea power the war of the Revolution would have failed. ”

“ Meantime the Congress of the thirteen United Colonies had been in session at Philadelphia, resolving itself into a committee of the whole, from day to day, to consider “the state of trade in the colonies.” Patriots by the thousand had answered the cries of distress at Lexington by gathering with their muskets about Boston. The battle of Bunker Hill, the most glorious defeat recorded in the annals of American warfare, had been fought and lost, because the supplies of gunpowder, brought by the colonists in the old-fashioned cowhorns, had failed them. ”

“ For a time, of course, there was nothing distinguishable but the flash of the guns through the night, but after an hour the moon rose out of the sea, and then two ships, locked in the embrace of death, stood out in the midst of a cloud of smoke. That these spectators looked on confidently rejoicing in the prospect of a victory for their own ship, need not be doubted. How they rejoiced as they thought that their shores were now to be rid of the “pirates” is easily imagined ”

“ It was a conflict made necessary, as already explained, because, in the supposed interests of her trade, a civilized nation sicked on the Barbary whelps to tear the peaceful passer-by. Not only did the British agent negotiate a treaty by which the pirates would be turned loose into the Atlantic, especially to prey on American commerce; a British subject named Lisle was admiral of the Tripolitan fleet when the Bashaw of Tripoli, seeing the success of the Dey of Algiers in levying blackmail on the United States, declared war against us. ”

“ This work is to tell the story of the American navy from the time when the fathers of the nation first conceived the idea of sending warships to sea “at the expense of the Continent” down to this year of our Lord 1897. It seems to me that the memory of what the naval heroes of the nation have done is worth preserving if only as a mark of gratitude—gratitude to the men whose sole incentive was patriotism and whose only greed was for honor. It seems worth while to tell anew the story of these men who had a noble ambition. It may help to prevent their race becoming extinct. ”

“ The one sea-fight of the American struggle for liberty that is of unfailing interest was that in which John Paul Jones, in the Bonhomme Richard, whipped the British frigate Serapis. And the student need not go far to seek the reason for this interest, because it is found in the fact that it was the man that won, and neither the ship nor the crew. It was won in spite of such obstacles as no other man has ever been obliged to face at sea. ”

“ By this time the Serapis, having the wind of the Bonhomme Richard, drew ahead, intending to lie across the latter’s bows and rake her. But the captain miscalculated his distance, got too far down in front, yawed off, and then putting his helm alee, came to the wind fair in front of the Bonhomme Richard. A minute later the Bonhomme Richard ran her jibboom over the stern of the Serapis, and then, because no great gun would bear on either side, the fire, save for an occasional musket shot, ceased. ”

“ Captain Jones at once ran up the Stars and Stripes.
“What ship is that?” said a voice on the Drake.
“It is the American continental ship Ranger. We are waiting for you. The sun is but little more than an hour from setting. It is therefore time to begin,” replied Captain Jones. Then turning to the man at the wheel, Captain Jones ordered the helm hard up. The Ranger wore slowly around, and the Drake followed her motion until they were drifting broadside to broadside and yardarm to yardarm fair before the wind. ”

“ The commander of the haymakers, elected in good American fashion after they were afloat, was Jeremiah O’Brien. Having secured the Margaretta and his prisoners, Captain O’Brien shifted the cannon and swivels, with the ammunition and small arms, from the captured schooner over to his fleeter sloop, and set forth in search of more prizes and glory. Straightway the efforts of the British naval authorities to punish him for his assault on the Margaretta gave him the opportunity to acquire both. ”

“ But at last a majority of two was found for a resolution of the Congress declaring that a seaside nation ought to have a navy, and so a navy was built—a navy so small in numbers as to be absolutely insignificant when compared with that whose “supremacy is in fact a part of the law of nations.” It was built of American oak, manned by American seamen, and sent afloat with the American flag flying from every mast. It did good—it did the best kind of work—but when the Barbary pirates were cowed it was reduced “to a peace footing.” ”

“ The American seamen were left to face death by shipwreck, as they were disciplined to death on the decks of British naval warships. And because they were lithe and quick-witted—because they more readily devised means for escape from this slavery than others—they were transferred to the ships doing duty on the coasts of Africa and in the East Indies, just as American prisoners captured during the war of the Revolution were sent to and compelled to serve on those stations. ”

“ It was the liberty-loving party that did at last declare war. The opposition preferred to trust in “the humanity” and “sense of justice” which the offending nation was supposed to possess.
So the press-gangs worked on merrily. Not only was the American walking in the street of a foreign city in immediate danger; the American ships on the high seas were stopped and stripped of their crews. The British ships even lay to off New York, Boston, and other American ports to intercept American merchantmen, from which seamen were taken until they were so short-handed that they were lost. ”

“ At that time the ablest shipbuilder in the United States was Joshua Humphreys, a Quaker, who for thirty years had been laying down keels at Philadelphia. Going to General Knox, the Secretary of War, he made a notable statement. The number of ships which the United States could support, he said, would always be less than the number in any of the large European navies. It was therefore necessary that such ships as we did have should be fast-sailing enough to either fight or run at will, and when they chose to fight they must be equal, ship for ship, to anything afloat. ”

“ In the 800 ships that were captured from the enemy were found the materials that succored the life of the nation. Not one American cruiser was captured by English privateers, while sixteen English cruisers were taken by American privateers, which were manned in many cases for the most part by boys and haymakers, while in many an American victory the odds in weight of metal and number of men were greatly in the favor of the British. By their daring and persistence the Yankee cruisers made Yankee prowess known throughout Europe and even to the yeomanry of England. ”

“ But while the politicians wrangled over the chaotic conglomeration that, at the time, was called the general government, the business men made haste to retrieve the losses brought upon them by the war, and as there had been but two sources of income worth mention before the war—the commerce of the seas and agriculture—it was to them that the energies of the people were applied. ”

“ For a time it looked as if the audacious Americans would really be hanged as pirates by the infuriated Englishmen.
But in those days much time was required for completing matters of diplomacy, and the American commissioners, with their agents, were working day and night not only to save Captain Connyngham, but to send him once more on a cruise against the enemy. Another swift cutter was procured and secretly armed with fourteen six-pounders and twenty swivels, while a crew of 106 men was shipped. ”

“ The cow represents British commerce; while the American cuts off her horns, a Hollander milks her, the Frenchman and Spaniard help themselves to the milk, the British merchant wrings his hands in despair, and the British Lion sleeps through it all. ”

“ The Trumbull sailed in August, 1781, as an escort for a fleet of twenty-eight merchantmen. If her crew was inefficient when she fought the privateer Watt, it was now well-nigh the worst conceivable for the occasion; for in numbers she lacked 200 men of a full complement—she had less than half the number needed to work and fight the ship—while of the hundred and odd men she did carry, many were landsmen, and a lot more were Englishmen, who, on learning that she was certain to go to sea short-handed, shipped in her in the hope of finding opportunity for a mutiny. ”

“ The best all-around fighter under George Washington was Benedict Arnold. As a leader in actual combat he was simply unequalled. Words cannot now be found to adequately express the pity of it when it is remembered that injustice and disappointment at the last drove him mad.
Although this fight on Lake Champlain was ordered on the American side by an army officer, and the crews were chiefly landsmen, it was unquestionably an exhibit of the early sea power of the United States, for the ships were built at the national expense and the crews were in the national service. ”