< *t* %■ 3^: \3 - . » * <\ \V ^ .** ^. '^ i; *♦ o " o V , •> o « ° * >* >K P ^ ** ^ „4 9* ^ V \<> «V OM lV> .4°* » ; ■> % ,♦♦ .-aterv %.^* .-isa&k v>* -•*«»• *. «* h W «5^ * .-ater-, %.,^* .-^#a% v.** * *^ ■H- o, -c\ » * A <^ o > 4 v • o. "V,/'.-^&/ "DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP." Delving in the dust of ten decades. by GEORGE SHELDON. >l Paper read at the forty-fifth annual meeting of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield, February 24th, 1914. DEERFIELD, 1914. B l(j>t> l^k_-fc%^_ " Don't Give Up the Ship." Delving in the dust of ten decades. By GEORGE SHELDON. There has been a wide notice the past year of the events of the War of 1812 — '11. Centennial anniversaries have been cel- ebrated, and the newspapers have been filled with reports. My field of investigation has been somewhat limited, but every ar- ticle 1 have seen, and nearly every person I have talked with on the subject, has been imbued with a mistaken idea, regarding the origin of the famous words, "Don't Give up the Ship." Throughout my small area of information it has been al- most uniformly asserted that these words were originally spoken by Oliver Hazard Perry, on the occasion of his great victory on Lake Erie, Sept. 10, 1813. This is an error. This apparent condition of the public mind has moved me to write this paper. I wish to do justice to an honored name. The words were uttered by Capt, James Lawrence on the first of June, 1813. Lawrence was a man with a career. As a youth of twenty- three, while serving as lieutenant under Stephen Decatur, he was one of the party who earned lasting fame in the capture and destruction of the ship Philadelphia, in that nest of pirates, the harbor of Tripoli, Feb. 15, 1804. Why the licensed piracy of the Algerines had been allowed to dominate the naval world for three hundred years, and dic- tate terms of tribute to every naval power, is utterly past com- prehension r but such was the fact. I have never met a single line in which any one has ever attempted to give an explana- tion of this condition of affairs. Even our own country had so far degraded itself as to build and present a war-ship, the Crescent, to the Dey of Algiers, on demand. But be it .stated to the credit of our young country — only thirty-two years acknowledged to be a nation — that she made the first move in the world-wide rebellion against this infamous practice, as will soon appear. War with Great Britian was declared June 18, 1812. Law- rence had been continued in active service, and was now in command of the sloop-of-war, Hornet. Feb. 24, 1813, the Hor- net fell in with the British sloop-of-war, Peacock, and after a short but fierce contest the British bird sank, carrying down thirteen of her own crew, and also three of the Hornet's men who were engaged in a mission of rescue. This was one of those splendid victories that set the world agape and threw Great Britian into a terrible panic which was intensified as the months sped on. To the brilliant achievement of the Hornet and Peacock may be added the capture of the Guerriere by the Constitution, (.'apt. Isaac Hull. This was peculiarly humbling to Great Britain for the Guerriere was a particularly fine ship which she had captured from the French, as its name would indicate, and exhibited as a token of her prowess. In less than half an hour after the first gun, the British colors lay at the feet of Capt. Hull. The Guerriere had been dismasted, and was in a sink- ing condition. She was, in fact, such a wreck that Capt. Hull thought she was not worth the attempt of taking her into port, and therefore she was blown up ; her crew was carried into Boston, where Hull received "such an ovation as few men have ever earned in so short a time." The capture, soon after, of the British war-ship. Frolic, by Capt. Jones of the Wasp, was another of those brilliant ex- ploits so widely celebrated in story and song. The consternation in England was still further increased by another victory, when Capt. Stephen Decatur of the United Slates captured the British war-ship, Macedonia/ft. In his of- ficial report to the Secretary of the Navy, Decatur says, the Macedonian mounting 49 guns "is a frigate of the largest class two years old, four months out of dock, and reputed one of the best sailors in the British service." Decatur continues, speaking of his own crew, "the enthusiasm of every officer, sea- man and marine on board this ship, on discovering the enemy — their steady conduct in battle, and precision of their fire, could not be surpassed." Had the wireless existed in the closing days of the year the nerves of Great Britian must have been again shocked by the news on Dec. 29, 1812, of the fate of another favorite frigate, the Java, which was captured and destroyed by Capt. Bainbridge of our Constitution; and once more when Bainbridge, in the Enter- prise, repeated this exploit by capturing the brig Boxer. My allotted time will not allow of the specific mention of other remarkable victories by our invincible tars. It will no doubt be a cause of general surprise to learn the real condition of public opinion on naval matters in England at this period. To reveal this condition a few extracts from reliable au- thorities will be given. It will appear that England was under- going a genuine scare on the question of naval supremacy. The following is from a French newspaper: — "The British who had triumphed in so many naval combats, previously to the prevailing American War, have long relin- guished the practice of rejoicing for victories obtained over a single frigate. If an achievement of that sort took place against any of the European powers, the detail of the action was merely inserted in the London Gazette, the papers of the me- tropolis echoed the narrative, paid a passing compliment to the officer, and the affair went off being recorded, pro memoria, in the Naval Chronicle, as a thing of course. * * * In the Americans the British have found an enemy that has obstructed the agree- able train of their maritime ideas. The citizens of the United States are the best seamen in the world. Their officers are men of nautical science, of great experience, and generally in the prime of life. The first naval combat of the war, marked, not a single equality of skill and courage in the men of the two countries, but a decided superiority in favour of the Americans. If the English pride was mortified in the sudden reverse by the capture of the Guerriere, the whole British government was thrown into consternation at the capture of the Macedonian, the Java, the Frolic and the Peacock. Such rapid and succes- sive defeats made the cabinet of St. James bristle again; it seemed as if all the English captains were doomed to pass, one .it'ter the other, under the Yankee yoke, or to the regions of the dead !" O'Connor in his History of the War, published in 1817, endorses the above statement. An English newspaper of this period says, "It will not do for our vessels to fight theirs single handed." John Quincy Adams, then Minister at St. Petersburg, writes under date of Jan. 31, 1813, — "I have been reading a multitude of speculations in the English Newspapers, about the capture of their two Frigates, Guerriere and Macedonian. They have settled it that the American forty-fours are line of battleships in disguise, and that henceforth all the frigates in the British Navy are to have the privilege of running away from them! Tli is of itself is no despicable result of the first half year of War. Let it be once understood as a matter of course that every single frigate in the British Xavy is to shrink from a con- test with the American frigates, and even this will have its ef- fect upon the Spirits of the Tars on both sides. 'It differs a little from the time when the Guerriere went out with her name painted in Capitals on her fore top sail, in search of our disguised line of battleship President. 'But the English Admiralty have further ordered the im- mediate construction of seventeen new frigates, to be disguised line of Battleships, too. Their particular destination is to be to tight the Americans. Their numbers will be six to one against us. unless we too, taking the hint from our success, can ho il ~V *4 V*£ V *•"•>* I ' ; .*• vV- -■' &. ^ ;- V *2> 7o° •••a? ^ "^ *V °^. . x"&' ► ' vl>9" . * m * A& c " ,* v % o 1 o I « o 0» o. ," A,