Captain Stewart

“ The Frolic came boiling up to the float at a rate calculated to smash things to smithereens if she did not slow down at short order, everybody yelling, everybody shouting like bedlamites.
"Best ever! Best ever! The Siren started it and the Four N. did the trick!" shouted Captain Stewart, while all the others cheered and congratulated in chorus.
"Give 'em again. Give 'em again. By Jove, I'm going to get up a race of my own and all you fellows will have to come to yell for us," cried Captain Boynton, and again the Navy Yell sent a thrill through those weary bodies upon the float. ”

“ Captain Stewart was afterwards successively appointed to the Dart ship-sloop, and the Snap and Epervier brigs, stationed at the Leeward islands: his commission as a commander, bears date Feb. 15, 1808. We next find him commanding the Sheldrake of 10 guns, and proceeding, in company with the Tartar frigate, to the relief of Anholt, an island in the Cattegat, forming a very important point of communication between Great Britain and the continent,and then threatened with an attack by a formidable Danish force under the orders of Major Melsteat. ”

“ Stewart looked up to him with a sort of peevish resentment at the man's confidence and cool poise. It was an odd reversal of their ordinary relations. For the hour the duller villain, the man who was wont to take orders and to refrain from overmuch thought or question, seemed to have become master. Sheer physical exhaustion and the constant maddening pain had had their will of Captain Stewart. ”

“ Captain Stewart coldly excused himself, and, at length, the gentleman seeing something was wrong, took him aside, and pressed for an explanation; whereupon Captain Stewart, without entering into particulars, said he had been made the victim of a sort of practical joking that he thought quite unwarrantable with a stranger. ”

“ The battle was, and is, famous not for its gunnery, but for the magnificent manner in which Captain Stewart handled his ship. Other captains—Hull and Bainbridge, for instance—had handled her when a single enemy turned and twisted and fore-reached, but Stewart backed and filled and reached and wore to meet the manœuvres of two ships that, commanded by the ablest of British seamen, strove to cross and rake him. And not only did he meet their movements—not only did he avoid a raking himself, but he260 raked each of them repeatedly. No better seamanship was ever displayed. ”

“ Stewart rallied his remaining strength, and conquering the importunate demands of sleep, he took his station with ten men on the foredeck, whilst the captain, with eight soldiers, kept watch at the stern. The rain poured down in streams, squalls of wind and angry waves caused the good ship to reel and turn like one drunk, and to add to the horrors of their situation, the night was so dark they could not see half the length of the ship before them, and the fog enshrouded them in its oppressive vapor. ”

“ On the 6th Oct. following, one of the Dictator’s boats, under the command of Lieutenant Duell, captured a Danish lugger, manned with 13 men (including a commissioned officer) , 2 of whom were slain and 3 wounded. The British had not a man hurt.
Captain Stewart’s next appointment was May 5, 1813, to the Amphion frigate, on the North Sea station. ”

“ His ship, that he had fought bravely, mounted thirty-four guns. He was so overcome with emotion at having to surrender, that he could scarcely return Captain Stewart's greeting when he came on board, for he had entered the fight declaring that he was going to receive the Yankee's sword. As soon as he had placed a prize crew on board the Cyane, Stewart headed the Constitution for the other sloop of war, who was doing her best to get away. So fast did he overhaul her that the Levant—for that was her name—turned back to meet her big opponent, and bravely prepared to fight it out. ”

“ Captain Stewart decided at once that he would run over to the coast of Sardinia, where pussy was landed with every proper respect and attention, and a prize soon after set the question at rest. The Captain was [347] a wise man, he took the only method of restoring good humour to his people, and was rewarded for it. ”

“ To feel the blood beat strong and eager. Never to be tired. Eh, to be like one of you youngsters! You, Ste. Marie, or you, Hartley. There's so little left for people when youth is gone." He bent his head again, staring down upon the glass before him, and for a while there was a silence which neither of the younger men cared to break.
"Don't refuse a helping hand!" said Captain Stewart, looking up once more. ”

“ That tall thin chap's name was O'Hara, by Jove! It wasn't Powers at all." He laughed a little as he remembered how very positive Captain Stewart had been. And then he frowned, thinking that the mistake was an odd one since Stewart had evidently known a good deal about this adventurer. Captain Stewart though, Ste. Marie reflected, was exactly the sort to be very sure he was right about things. He had just the neat and precise and semi-scholarly personality of the man who always knows. So Ste. Marie dismissed the matter with another brief laugh, but a cognate matter was less easy to dismiss. ”

“ Captain Stewart’s first impulse was to turn back in order to pick up any survivors, but in view of the fact that German submarines were at this time usually hunting in couples he thought it wiser to continue his voyage, and brought his ship safely back into Liverpool. For this successful action, both Captain Stewart and the crew received special awards from the Admiralty, the Cunard Company, and other111 Associations, the destruction of the German submarine being later verified by Admiralty trawlers. ”

“ The enemy is therein stated to have been defeated with the loss of four gun-vessels, each mounting one long 24-pounder and 4 howitzers. On the 8th of the same month, Captain Stewart addressed an official letter to Captain Pater, of which the following is a copy:–
“I beg leave to inform you, that H.M. sloop under my command came up with the rear of the enemy’s gun-boats about six o’clock this morning, which we immediately brought to close action, and I am happy to say No. 2 and No. 5 struck to us: they each mount one long 24-pounder and one 32-pounder canonade, and are manned with 35 men each. ”

“ A right curious story of this passage is told by Richard Watson Gilder in “Hours at Home.” He says that, on February 19th, while a group of lieutenants were standing on the quarter-deck of the Constitution talking about the fact that they had met no enemy of equal force during the cruise, and calling it ill-luck, they were approached by Captain Stewart, who had overheard their talk. He said:
“I assure you, gentlemen, that before the sun again rises and sets, you will be engaged in battle with the enemy, and it will not be with a single ship.”
Captain Stewart was a man subject to presentiments. ”

“ We'll have to run, get out, disappear. Hang it, man, d'you understand? We're not safe here for an hour."
Captain Stewart's hands shook a little as he gripped them together behind him, and a dew of perspiration stood out suddenly upon his forehead and cheek bones, but his voice when he spoke was well under control.
"It's an odd thing," said he, "another miracle, if you like; but I believe we are safe—reasonably safe. I—have reason to think that this fellow learnt about La Lierre only last evening, from some one who left Paris to-day to be gone a long time. ”

“ She told him also that the motor was waiting for him, outside the wall, and that Richard Hartley had sent a message by the chauffeur, to say that he was very busy in Paris making arrangements about Stewart, who had come out of his strange state of half insensibility only to rave in a delirium.
"So," she said, "you can go now whenever you are ready. Arthur is with his family, Captain Stewart is under guard, and your work is done. You ought to be glad—even though you are suffering pain."
Ste. Marie looked up at her. ”

“ It is impossible to express in an adequate manner the undaunted spirit displayed by Captain Stewart, and all the officers and men under his orders, in this arduous enterprise, which, I am assured, will be duly appreciated by their Lordships. Captain Stewart speaks in the strongest terms of the gallantry and zeal of Captain Robilliard, of the Podargus; Captain Weir, of the Calypso; and Lieut. Thomas England, of the Flamer gun-brig; he also recommends Lieut. Buchanan, first of the Dictator, to their Lordships' favourable notice. ”

“ Captain Stewart seeing that there was hardly a possibility of getting the Constellation to sea, applied for and obtained in June, 1813, the command of the frigate Constitution, then vacant by the appointment of Commodore Bainbridge to the superintendence of the navy yard at Boston. On the 30th of December, in the same year, the Constitution proceeded to sea from Boston harbor, although it was then blockaded by seven ships-of-war. During this cruise she captured the British schooner-of-war Picton, of sixteen guns, together with a letter-of-marque ship under her convoy ”

“ Hartley said. "He's very low and he suffers a great deal, but he's quite conscious all the time. If we can fetch the boy to him it may give him a turn for the better. Where is Captain Stewart? I had spies on his trail for some time but he has disappeared within the past three or four days. Once I followed him in his motor out past here, but I lost him beyond Clamart."
"He's here, I think," said Ste. Marie. "I saw him a few days ago."
The man on the wall had found two notes of a hundred francs each, and he dropped them down to Ste. Marie's hands. ”

“ He raised his head and looked about him. He was lying under a clump of trees not far from the bank of a little stream, along which a company of Belgian soldiers were busy throwing up intrenchments.
"Ah, so you are better!" said the captain, in his clipped French, his eyes beaming with satisfaction. "That is good! A little more of that smoke, and it would have been all over with you!" and he gestured toward the eastern horizon, above which hung a black and threatening cloud.
Stewart pulled himself to a sitting posture and stared for a moment at the cloud as it billowed in the wind. ”

“ Then for fifteen minutes the three ships hurled their iron balls as fast as the men could load and fire. By that time the smoke was so thick that they had to stop firing to find out where [148] the two fighting ships were. The Constitution now found herself opposite the Levant and poured a broadside into her hull. Then she sailed backward—a queer thing to do, but Captain Stewart knew how to move his ship stern foremost—and poured her iron hail into the Cyane. Next she pushed ahead again and pounded the Levant till that lively little craft turned and ran. ”

“ Captain Stewart at once saw that his opponents were far too heavy for a fair fight, and, knowing that the neutrality of the port would not be the slightest protection to him, he at once signalled to the prizes to follow, cut his cable, and, in less than ten minutes from the time the first frigate was seen, was standing out of the roads, followed by Hoffmann and Ballard. Certainly a more satisfactory proof of the excellent training of both officers and men could hardly be given than the rapidity, skill, and perfect order with which every thing was done. ”

“ But in the morning he began to be alarmed. He questioned the concierge very closely as to Ste. Marie's movements on the day previous, but she could tell him little (save to mention the brief visit of a man with an accent of Toulouse or Marseille) , and there seemed to be no one else to whom he could go. He spent the entire morning in the flat and returned there after a hasty lunch. But at mid-afternoon he took a fiacre at the corner of the Gardens and drove to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré.
Captain Stewart was at home. He was in a dressing-gown and still looked fagged and unwell. ”

“ Marie. "What do you mean by that?"
"In three months," said Captain Stewart, "Arthur will be of age, and he can demand the money left him by his father. If he is alive he will turn up for that. I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding somewhere until this time should be past. He—you must know that he went away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather. My father is not a patient man. ”

“ Two weeks later the practice ships weighed anchor for Newport, and the party at Navy Bungalow was broken up. Mrs. Howland, Constance, Gail and Snap returned to Montgentian. Captain Stewart and Captain Harold were obliged to rejoin their ships, Mrs. Harold, with Polly and Peggy, going on to Newport, thence along the coast, following the practice squadron until its return to Annapolis the last day of August when all midshipmen go on a month's leave and the Academy is deserted. ”

“ Captain Stewart was subsequently left as senior officer in the Archipelago, where he took three prizes, one of which was a xebec mounting six guns, and destroyed many small vessels; “but,” says he, in a letter from Malta, dated April 11th, 1808, “it seems labour in vain: we have a new way with the Turks. Our officers are ordered in every way to destroy and annoy their trade, but the Admiralty Courts are not directed to condemn ”

“ The Lieutenant, when he had given his first order, had thrown overboard one of the boat's gratings, and this had been followed by one of the chicken coops on the forecastle. With the squall coming down upon her, and the stiff wind increasing every minute, the Macedonian lurched up and down, almost burying her nose in the roaring, tumbling sea. Every one was on deck.
"'Tis no use trying to lower away a boat now, Mr. Edwards," observed Captain Stewart. "'Twould be only risking the lives of brave men. Stand by for a few minutes and keep sharp lookout." ”