USS Wasp

“ Of course, I supposed that such vessels came in unexpectedly, after indefinite years of absence,—suddenly as falling stones; and that the great guns roared in their astonishment and delight at the sight of the old warship splitting the bay with her cutwater. Now, the sloop-of-war the Wasp, Captain Blakely, after gloriously capturing the Reindeer and the Avon, had disappeared from the face of the ocean, and was supposed to be lost. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV THE FIGHT OF CAPTAIN JACOB JONES The Lively Little "Wasp" and How She Stung the "Frolic"
NO doubt most of my readers know very well what a wasp is and how nicely it can take care of itself. When I was a boy I found out more than once how long and sharp a sting it has, and I do not think many boys grow up without at some time waking up a wasp and wishing they had left it asleep.
The United States has had three Wasps and one Hornet in its navy, and the British boys who came fooling in their way found that all of them could sting. ”

“ And another weak point was that the sea in its tempests recognizes no order of seniority, but destroys in the same breath of storm ships just beginning their lives upon it and ships which have withstood its ragings for a hundred years: so that I very well might find—as I actually did find in the case of the Wasp—a comparatively modern-built vessel lying hemmed in by ancient craft, survivals of obsolete types, which had lingered so long upon the ocean that in their lives as in their deaths they merged and blended the present and the past. ”

“ The smoke rose up in huge volumes above the loftiest sails and rolled away in bulging clouds on every side, but the men at the great guns of the Wasp, peering through the sulphurous fog, hurled their shot with unerring accuracy, while those that were perched in the tops used their muskets to pick off the officers of the enemy, first of all. ”

“ Wishing to get rid of his prisoners as soon as possible, Captain Blakeley overhauled a Portuguese brig, placed them on board of her, and sent them to England.
No doubt the Wasp was one of the finest sailing craft of her day. Her lines are spoken of as being remarkably fine; and one of her officers writes, in a private letter, as follows:
“The Wasp is a beautiful ship, and the finest sea boat, I believe, in the world. Our officers and crew are young and ambitious. They fight with more cheerfulness than they do any other duty. ”

“ Before she had been long on the ground, one June morning, while in chase of a couple of merchant ships, she spied a sloop of war, the British brig Reindeer, of eighteen guns and a hundred and twenty men. The Reindeer was a weaker ship than the Wasp, her guns were lighter, and her men fewer; but her commander, Captain Manners, was one of the most gallant men in the splendid British navy, and he promptly took up the gage of battle which the Wasp threw down. ”

“ But few of the Wasp's crew had been in actual combat before. Soon there were deep red spots on the deck; there were groans and curses, and much sulphur smoke. Occasionally the muzzles of the guns would dip deep into the water as the Wasp hove down into the hollow of the surge. A sharp crack aloft, and down came the main topmast, and with it fell the topsail yard. It tangled in the braces, and rendered the headsails useless. The Englishman was playing havoc with the rigging, braces, and running-gear of the Wasp. Grape and round shot were mangling everything aloft. ”

“ This was the new sloop of war "Wasp," named after the gallant little craft that had been taken by the British after her capture of the "Frolic." She was a stanch three-master, carrying eleven guns to a broadside. Her crew was purely American, not a foreigner among them; but all trained seamen from the seaboard villages and towns of New England,—the homes at that time of probably the hardiest seafaring population in the world. ”

“ We manoeuvred the Wasp in such a manner as to close with the stranger, as nearly as possible without incurring the risk of being run into and sunk by her in one of her wild sheers, and at the proper moment the schooner was hove-to, the quarter-boat lowered, and with four hands in her, armed with pistols and cutlasses, I jumped in and pulled away for the other craft. ”

“ The Wasp Fights the Pirate Schooner.
The pirate schooner—a craft of apparently two hundred tons or more, very long and low on the water, painted dead black, with immensely tall, wand-like masts, and an enormous spread of canvas—was now slipping along fast through the water, heading to the northward, and some six miles dead to windward of us. It was a long start, and I foresaw that, fast as the little Wasp undoubtedly was, unless something quite unforeseen occurred, a good many things might happen before we could get alongside the enemy. ”

“ A gun gone loose in the hold of The Wasp, created a panic during the heavy seas of the Upper Narrows in the straits—the huge implement [243] of terror rolling from side to side of the dark hold with each wash of the billows in a way that threatened to capsize the vessel—not a man daring to risk his life to stop the cannon’s roll; and several gunners were crushed to death before The Wasp could come to anchor in a quiet harbor to mend the damage. On The Pelican, Iberville’s ship, forty men lay in their berths ill of scurvy. ”

“ The gun deck was strewn with bodies, and the waves which broke over the ship swirled them to and fro, the dead and the wounded together. Not an officer had escaped death or injury. The Wasp was more or less of a tangle aloft but her hull was sound and only five of her men had been killed and five wounded. No sailors could have fought more bravely than Captain Whinyates and his British crew, but they had been overwhelmed in three-quarters of an hour by greater skill, coolness, and judgment. ”

“ About half past eleven o'clock the Wasp came up close on the starboard side of the Frolic, and broadsides were exchanged at 074the distance of only sixty yards. The fire of the Englishman was the more rapid, but that of the American was the more deliberate and effective. In a little over four minutes the Wasp's maintopmast was shot off and with the maintopsail-yard fell across the braces, rendering the head-yards unmanageable. A few minutes later her gaff and mizzen-topgallant-mast were shot down; and before the action was over, every brace and most of the rigging was carried away. ”

“ Seldom had an Englishman been known to deliver such rapid broadsides. In five minutes the (p. 157) main topmast of the Wasp fell amid the rigging—in two minutes more the gaft and mizen top-gallant mast followed. Thus, in eight minutes from the time the vessels closed, the Wasp was so disabled that her destruction seemed almost certain. But while cut up herself so terribly aloft, she had struck with every broadside the heart of her antagonist. As she rolled on the heavy seas her guns were frequently under water, and the sailors staggered around their pieces like drunken men. ”

“ It was my opinion—founded upon our experiences during the recent fight—that if the pirate schooner was to be tackled successfully, it would have to be by a bigger craft than the Wasp, or, at all events, that if the Wasp was to be again employed against the pirates, she would certainly have to be equipped with a very much heavier armament; her insignificant little array of six 9-pounders could never be expected to cope successfully with the other craft’s fourteen 12-pounders and her long 32. ”

“ The Frolic, as the enemy was named, was also damaged, but not so badly as the Wasp, but, unfortunately for the Frolic, the heavy sea and the twisting about of the hull threw her into position to be raked by the Wasp, and Captain Jones was quick to seize the advantage, the vessels being so close that the ramrods were pushed against each other's sides while the gunners were loading. The sea was so heavy that the guns of the Wasp frequently dipped under water. ”

“ The capture of the Frolic by the Wasp, not only broke the charm of British naval superiority, but showed a decided superiority in favor of America. The capture of the Penguin was not less decisive; and if, at the commencement of the war, the British navy was surprised, from habits of security and contempt for their enemies, they had, before the victory of the Hornet, learned their error and corrected their conduct. ”

“ The Wasp was a ship of 434 tons, mounting sixteen 32-pounder carronades and 2 long twelves, with 138 persons on board at the commencement of the battle; the whole, with only one exception, young, healthy, and able-bodied men. The Frolic mounted 16 carronades of the same calibre as the Wasp’s, and 2 long sixes ”

“ A more decisive single combat could not have been arranged, if the sole purpose of it had been to test the seamanship and real practical superiority of the American navy, for the Penguin had been fitted up and sent out for the sole purpose of encountering and capturing the Wasp, a heavier and newer vessel than the Hornet. ”

“ Well, well, it cannot be helped; these things happen sometimes, in spite of all that we can do. But there is generally a lesson to be learned from every mishap, if we will but look for it, and the lesson conveyed in this case is that we made a mistake in the arming of the Wasp. Instead of fitting her with those six long 9-pounders, we ought to have mounted a long 18 and a long 32 upon her deck, then you would have been able to play a game of long bowls with the pirates and fight them upon practically equal terms. ”

“ At each port on the way we had shown the Wasp's papers, and used the name of Carlingford; and at Lisbon we read in an English newspaper about the supposed capsizing of the Queen of Sheba. Still, we had not only to persuade the officials at the various ports that our boat was the Wasp. We knew that our enemies were harder to delude, and our next step was to make her as unlike the Wasp or the Queen of Sheba as possible. This we did by lengthening her and altering her rig. ”

“ Jay Dee brought no advocate. His silvery hair floated about his head. His pale eyes gazed in mild terror at Ballister. He said it must have been a wasp stung Albion.
“A wasp, sir! Your Honor, does a wasp carry for penetration, for puncture, for malignant attack or justifiable defence, for any purpose whatsoever, a brass pin of palpable human manufacture, drawn, headed and pointed by machinery, such as was inserted in my client's person? Does the defendant wish your Honor to infer that wasps carry papers of brass pins in their anatomies? ”

“ Firing a shot over the Frolic, she passed her, and soon overhauled the Wasp, which, in her crippled state, was unable to escape. Both vessels were thus captured, and carried into Bermuda. After a few weeks, a cartel was proposed by which the officers and crew of the Wasp were conveyed to New York. On the return of Captain Jones to the United States, he was everywhere received with demonstrations of respect for the skill and gallantry displayed in his combat with the enemy. ”

“ Ship for ship, the American navy was better than the British. This is a truth which was demonstrated with sensational emphasis by one engagement after another. During the first eight months of the war there were five such duels, and in every instance the enemy was compelled to strike his colors. In tavern and banquet hall revelers were still drinking the health of Captain Isaac Hull when the thrilling word came that the Wasp, an eighteen-gun ship or sloop, as the type was called in naval parlance, had beaten the Frolic in a rare fight. ”

“ The Wasp now sent down top-gallant yards, close reefed her top-sails, and bore down under short fighting canvas. The Frolic lashed her damaged yard on deck, and hauled by the wind, under her boom main-sail and close reefed fore-top-sail, hoisting Spanish colors to decoy [II-46] the stranger down, and permit her convoy to escape. By half-past eleven the ships were close together, and running on the starboard tack, parallel, and not more than sixty yards apart. They then commenced firing, the Wasp her port, and the Frolic her starboard battery. ”

“ At eight o'clock the "Wasp" had gained so rapidly upon the chase, that the latter began firing with her stern chaser, and soon after opened with one of her lee guns. All the time the enemy kept up a vigorous signalling with rockets, lanterns, and guns. ”

“ The first thing the Wasp found at sea was a mighty gale of wind, that blew "great guns" for two days. The waves were so big and fierce that one of them carried away her bowsprit with two men on it. The next night, after the wind had gone down a little, lights shone out across the waves, and when daylight came Captain Jones saw over the heaving billows six large merchant ships. With them was a watch-dog in the shape of a fighting brig.
This brig was named the Frolic. It had been sent in charge of a fleet of fourteen merchantmen, but these had been scattered by the gale until only six were left. ”