LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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C!)r dFriaatt Con0tittttion 
 
 iHrmovtal 
 
 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: — 
 
 The undersigned, the Council of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
 acting under its instructions, again memorialize your Honorable Bodies in regard 
 to the United States frigate Constitution^ and the disposition to be made of that 
 historic vessel: 
 
 A cop3' of a previous memorial on the same subject, heretofore submitted by 
 us under similar conditions, is hereto appended, and to it we respectfully call 
 your attention. 
 
 In the annual report of the Secretary of the Navy recently submitted, it is, 
 however, stated that the vessel now lying at Charlestown is, because of repeated 
 renewals, not the historic Constitution, or "the vessel with which Hull captured 
 the Guerrilre^'' and that to hold her forth as such is a case of "false pretences;" 
 that, if repaired and put in commission, "she would be absolutely useless;" 
 and, finally, that thus to restore her would be " a perfectly unjustifiable waste 
 of public money." She should, therefore, be broken up, or, as an alter- 
 native, knocked to pieces and sunk as something of no further practical use, — 
 what is designated as " a maritime end " being thus, " for purely sentimental 
 reasons," conceded her. 
 
 Your Memorialists do not propose to argue these several points; we confine 
 ourselves to protesting earnestly against them, and, one and all, denying them. 
 If the vessel now moored at the Charlestown dock is not the historic frigate Con- 
 stitution, then the Society for which we speak is not the Massachusetts His- 
 torical Society; for it was organized six years before the Constitution was 
 launched, and the last survivor of our original members died sixty-five years 
 ago; five times has the Society changed its habitation; it has hardly a thing in. 
 
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possession which belonged to it in 1792, or in 1812; its very name has under- 
 gone legal alteration. Yet we hold it needless to argue that, through constant 
 renewal and b}- unbroken succession, this Society is the Massachusetts His- 
 torical Society of 1791, and it is assuredly so regarded. We would look upon 
 a denial of our identity as, at least, ill considered. It is in no respect otherwise 
 in the case of the Constitutioii. 
 
 The assertion, officially made, that the present ship if rebuilt on her old lines 
 would, when completed, " be absolutely useless " is scarcel}' less matter of 
 surprise. Her sister frigate of exactly coeval build, the Constellation, has 
 recentl}' been repaired, and is now used as a training ship attached to the Naval 
 War College at Newport; while another similar ship, now called the Severn, 
 but until recently bearing the ill-omened name of Chesapeake, is in commission 
 and connected with the Naval Academ}- at Annapolis. Formerly the Consti- 
 ittiion was so attached to the Academy, and a distinguished admiral, still on the 
 active list, has recently testified to the "intense interest" she excited in him 
 when as a boy he for months lived aboard her. Wh}-, then, it is pertinent to ask, 
 should not the single symbolic "fighting frigate " of our earlier Navy, around 
 which associations cluster, be restored, put in commission and used to replace 
 the Constellation or the Severn, formerly the Chesapeake, to which vessels com- 
 paratively little historic interest, and, in the case of the last, less than no patriotic 
 sentiments attach ? Why should the}- be repaired and maintained, and the 
 
 Constitution utilized as a "target".^ 
 
 If to repair and maintain the Constitution would be an "unjustifiable waste" 
 of the public money of the United States, what can be said on behalf of the 
 
 Victory, and the outlay she entails on the British exchequer? That Nelson's 
 flao'ship, which so proudly broke the opposing line at Trafalgar seven years before 
 the Constitution called down the flag of the Guerriere, should now be towed to 
 sea and practised at as a target by modern ironclads would as a suggestion from 
 the Admiralty Board not only shock the public opinion of Great Britain but be 
 resented as an outrage, or at best an unseemly levit}'. Are Americans less sus- 
 ceptible to sentiment, patriotism and gratitude than their cousins across the sea? 
 Today, a century after Nelson died in her cockpit, the Victory, cherished by 
 Great Britain as one of the most precious relics of her sea glories, is annually 
 visited by scores of thousands of all nations. So, as the long record of those who 
 flock to see her bears witness, the Constitution is in no less degree an inspii-a- 
 tion to Americans. They feel towards her as to^vards a sentient being; for, in 
 
 Gift 
 
 "^ ^. 
 
 0. 
 
 vA^, xi.?\jL£jv^j 
 
 '06 
 
one short half hour, in a time of deepest gloom, her broadsides elevated the 
 United States from being an unconsidered people beyond the sea into respect as 
 a confessed world-power. She then did for us more than the Victory ever did 
 for England. 
 
 Therefore, in the name and on behalf of the Society we represent, we renew 
 the prayer embodied in the accompanying Memorial of 1903. We ask that im- 
 mediate action be taken to the end that the course pursued by the British Ad- 
 miralty as respects the line-of-battle ship Victory be pursued by the United 
 States Navy Department in the case of the frigate Constitutioti. Accordingly, 
 we pray your Honorable Bodies that the necessary steps forthwith be taken for 
 preserving the " Fighting Frigate'- ofi8i2; that she be repaired and renewed, 
 and once more put in commission to be used as a training-ship in connection with 
 our Naval Academies; and that, navigated as such by the students of the 
 Academies, she be made in future to visit at suitable seasons points along our 
 coast where she may be easily accessible to that large and ever-increasing 
 number of American citizens who, retaining a sense of affection, as well as of 
 deep gratitude, to her, feel also a patriotic and an abiding interest in the asso- 
 ciations she will never cease to recall. 
 
 And your Memorialists will ever pray, etc. 
 
 Charles Francis Adams, President, 
 
 Samuel A. Green, Vice-President, 
 
 James Ford Rhodes, Second Vice-President, 
 
 Edward Stanwood, Recording Secretary, 
 
 Henrv W. Haynes, Corresponding Secretary, 
 
 Charles C. Smith, Treasurer, 
 
 Granville Rowland Norcross, Cabinet Keeper, 
 
 James Frothingham Hunnewell, 
 
 James De Normandie, 
 
 Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 
 
 Albert Bushnell Hart, 
 
 Thomas Leonard Livermore, 
 
 Roger Bigelow Merriman, 
 
 Members constituting the Council of tlic Society. 
 Boston, January 11, 1906. 
 
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jHcmorial 
 
 To t/ie Senate and House of Represetitatives of the United States : — 
 
 Your Memorialists, the Council of the Massachusetts Historical 
 Society, acting under its instructions, would respectfully call the attention of 
 your Honorable Bodies to certain facts connected with the United States frigate 
 Constitution : — 
 
 That vessel is now lying at Charlestown, Massachusetts, in a dock also used 
 by the steamships of the so-called White Star Line ; she is dismantled, out of 
 repair, and liable at any time to injur}' from carelessness or accident, if not to 
 destruction. Your Memorialists further represent that in the American mind an 
 historical interest attaches to the Cotistitiition such as attaches to no other ship 
 in maritime annals, except possibly the Santa Mai'ia, the flagship of Columbus, 
 and the Mayflower, both of which disappeared centuries ago. The Constitu- 
 tion s{!i\\ remains; and it was the Constitution which, in the gloomiest hour of 
 the War of 1812-14, appeared " like a bright gleam in the darkness." On the 
 i6th of August of that year, Detroit, with all its garrisons, munitions, and 
 defences, was surrendered to the British forces ; on the same day Fort Dearborn, 
 at what is now Chicago, was in flames, and with it '• the last vestige of American 
 authority on the Western lakes disappeared." The discouragement was uni- 
 versal and the sense of national humiliation extreme; for it seemed doubtful if 
 even the interior line of the Wabash could be successfulh' held against an 
 enemy flushed with success. The prophet of yet other disasters immediately 
 impending was abroad, and, according to his wont, further depressed the already 
 disheartened land. It was in this hour of deepest gloom that, on the morning 
 of Sunday, August 30, the Sabbath silence of Boston was broken and the town 
 stirred to unwonted excitement " as the news passed through the quiet streets 
 that the Constitution was below, in the outer harbor, with Dacres," of the 
 Guerrih-e, " and his crew prisoners on board." Thus it so chanced that the 
 journal which, the next morning, informed Bostonians of the Detroit humiliation, 
 in another column of the same issue announced that naval action which '' how- 
 ever small the aflair might appear on the general scale of the world's battles, 
 
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raised the United States in one-half hour to the rank of a tirst-class power in 
 the world." The jealousy of the Navy, which had until then characterized the 
 more recent national policy, vanished forever " in the flash of Hull's first broad- 
 side." The victor}-, moreover, was most dramatic — a naval duel. The adver- 
 saries — not only commanders but ship's companies to a man — had sought each 
 other out for a test of seamanship, discipline, and gunnery — arrogance and the 
 confidence of prestige on the one side, a passionate sense of wrong on the other. 
 They met in mid-Atlantic, — frigate to frigate. It was on the afternoon of 
 August 19, the wind blowing fresh, the sea running high. For about an hour 
 the two ships manoeuvred for position, but at last, a few minutes before six 
 o'clock, " they came together side-by-side, within pistol-shot, the wind almost 
 astern, and running before it the}^ pounded each other with all their strength. 
 As rapidly as the guns could be worked, the Constitution poured in broadside 
 after broadside, double-shotted with round and grape, — and, without exaggera- 
 tion, the echo of those guns startled the world." Of her first broadside in that 
 action, the master of an American brig, then a captive on board the British ship, 
 afterwards wrote: "About six o'clock I heard a tremendous explosion from the 
 opposing frigate. The effect of her shot seemed to make the Guerritre reel, 
 and tremble as though she had received the shock of an earthquake." In less 
 than thirty minutes from the time we got alongside of the enemy," reported 
 Captain Hull to the Secretary of the Navy, " she was left without a spar stand- 
 ing, and the hull cut to pieces in such a manner as to make it difficult to keep 
 her above water." 
 
 The historian has truly said of that conflict: "Isaac Hull was nephew to 
 the unhappy General [who, three days before the Constitution overcame the 
 Guerriere, had capitulated at Detroit], and perhaps the shattered hulk oi the 
 Guerrikre, which the nephew left at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, eight 
 hundred miles east of Boston, was worth for the moment the whole province 
 which the uncle had lost, eight hundred miles to the Westward. . . . No 
 experience of history ever went to the heart of New England more directly than 
 this victory, so peculiarly its own; but the delight was not confined to New 
 England, and extreme though it seemed it was still not extravagant." 
 
 Therefore it is that the Massachusetts Historical Society, already, in 
 1812, an organization more than twenty years in existence, now directs this Memo- 
 rial to be submitted — she, the oldest among them, speaking through her Coun- 
 cil for all other similar societies throughout New England. In so doing it is 
 
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needless to enter into the earlier and later history of what was essentially the 
 " Fighting Frigate " of the first American Navy; for, in the memory of the peo- 
 ple of the United States, the Constitution is, throughout her long record, insep- 
 arably associated with feats of daring and seamanship — devotion and dash — 
 than which none in all naval history are more skilful, more stirring, or more 
 deserving of commemoration. How can they be so eflectively commemorated 
 as by the pious and lasting preservation of the ancient ship, now slowh- rotting 
 at the wharf opposite to which she was launched six years more than a century 
 ago? 
 
 And while the name of the Constitution is thus not only synonymous with 
 courage, seamanship, patriotism, and unbroken triumph, tlie ship herself is typical 
 of a maritime architecture as e.xtinct as the galley or the trireme. She slid from 
 the ways at what is still known in her honor as Constitution Wharf in Boston 
 harbor ten months before Nelson won the Battle of the Nile, and eight years to a 
 day before his famous flagship, the Victory, bore his broad pennant in triumph 
 through the Franco-Spanish line at Trafalgar; and your Memorialists hold that, in 
 the eyes and minds of the people of the United States, no less an interest and 
 sentiment attach to the Constitution than in Great Britain attach to the Victory. 
 The Constitution in the days of our deep tribulation did more for us than ever 
 even the flagship of Nelson did for England; and, thenceforth, she has been to 
 Americans as a sentient being, to whom gratitude is due. 
 
 Yet by Great Britain the Victory ever has been and now is tenderly cared 
 for, and jealously preserved among the most precious of national memorials. As 
 such, it is yearly visited by thousands,* among whom Americans are not least in 
 number. The same care has not been extended over the Constitution; and yet 
 your Memorialists would not for a moment suggest, nor do they believe, that the 
 people, the Parliament, or the government of Great Britain are more grateful, 
 more patriotic, or endowed with a keener sense of pride than the people, the 
 Congress, or the Administration of the United States. As for the people, the 
 contrary is, in the case of the Constitution., incontrovertibly proven by the names 
 of the thousands of pilgrims from all sections of the countr}' annuall}^ inscribed 
 on her register.f So far as the Government is concerned, its failure to take meas- 
 ures for the lasting preservation of the old ship has been due, in the opinion of 
 
 ♦"During the summer as many as five thousand persons have visited the ship in one day." — Report of 
 Capt. C. H. Stockton to Chief of Bureau of Navigation, Jan. 27, 1904. 
 
 \ It is stated that nearly one hundred thousand persons have visited the Constitution during the last three 
 
 years. 
 
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3'our Memorialists, neither to indifference nor to an unworthy spirit of thrift, but 
 to the fact that, amid the multifarious matters calling for immediate action, the 
 preserving of an old-time frigate, even though freighted vi^ith glorious memories, 
 has been somewhat unduly, though not perhaps unnaturally, deferred to a more 
 opportune occasion. 
 
 None the less, the Constitution '" is the yet living monument, not alone of 
 her own victories, but of the men behind the guns who won them. She speaks 
 to us of patriotism and courage, of the devotion to an idea, and to a sentiment 
 for which men laid down their lives." Therefore, your Memorialists would 
 respectfully ask that immediate provision be made to the end that the course pur- 
 sued by the British Admiralty in the case of the Victory may be pursued by our 
 Navy Department in the case of the Constitution. We accordingly pray your 
 Honorable Bodies that the necessary steps forthwith be taken for preserving the 
 " Fighting Frigate " of 1812; that she be renewed, put in commission as a train- 
 ing-ship, and at suitable seasons be in future stationed at points along our coast 
 where she may be easily accessible to that large and ever-increasing number of 
 American citizens who, retaining a sense of affection, as well as deep gratitude, 
 to her, feel also a patriotic and an abiding interest in the associations which the 
 frigate Constitution will never cease to recall. 
 
 And your Memorialists will ever pray, etc. 
 
 Boston, December 31, 1903. 
 
 The engagement between the Constitution and the Guerriere took place 
 on the afternoon of August 19, 181 2. The ship made Boston harbor during 
 the night of Saturday, August 29. The next day news of the combat circulated 
 in Boston. The subjoined article, prepared at its suggestion by a member of 
 the Massachusetts Historical Society in furtherance of the foregoing 
 Memorial, appeared in the editorial columns of the " Boston Herald " in its issue 
 of Tuesday, August 30, 1904. 
 
 SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 1812. 
 
 In 1S12 — ninety-two years ago — -the thirtieth of August fell on a Sunday; a Sunday of 
 great, though suppressed, excitement in what was still the town of Boston. For during the early 
 hours of that Sabbath morning a rumor suddenly ran through Boston streets, and pervaded its homes, 
 that tlie frigate " Constitution " was lying below, in the outer harbor- — that in ship-to-ship fight 
 
 C7) 
 
she had sunk the " Gueniere," and that she had on board the EngHsh captain and his crew, pris- 
 oners of war. The Puritan traditions, as respects Sunday observance, still held sway ; but on that 
 particular Sabbath the meeting-house porches were alive with whispered excitement, and all day 
 long silent, well-dressed groups lined the southern wharves, or from the summit of house or hill 
 peered seaward, straining their eyes for a glimpse of the hull and spars of the now fiimous ship of 
 war. All day she lay quietly at her anchorage in the roads. 
 
 Monday morning she was still there; but early that day the frigate had occasion, in the 
 famous figure of speech of George Canning, to "assume the likeness of an animated thing, instinct 
 with life and motion ; " to ruffle its swelling plumage ; to put forth its beauty and its bravery, and 
 collecting its scattered elements of strength, to prepare again to " awaken its dormant thunder." 
 Fatigued beyond endurance by the strain and anxiety of the last fourteen days, believing himself 
 and his ship at last in safety, Capt. Isaac Hull had been suddenly roused from a deep sleep by the 
 startling report that an armed squadron was at the harbor's mouth and bearing in upon him. 
 Simultaneouslv weighing anchor and clearing decks for action, he boldl}' moved out to meet the 
 danger; but, as the "Constitution " approached the leader of the advancing squadron, signals in- 
 stead of shots were exchanged, and to Hull's great relief he saluted the broad pennon of Commo- 
 dore Rodgers, unexpectedly making port from a fruitless cruise. 
 
 Not until Tuesday, the first of September, did tiie " Constitution" find her way up above 
 the Castle to an anchorage in the inner harbor. Hull tlien landed, and as he made a progress up 
 State street to the Exchange Coffee House — then Boston's chief hostelry — the town went wild. 
 Innumerable flags waved, a procession was formed, salutes were exchanged between the shore and 
 the ships of war, and the intense feeling found utterance in every form of sound and motion. 
 There was, too, sufficing occasion for it all. Its sense of self-respect had suddenly been restored to 
 a people. 
 
 Almost the last of three generations have since passed away, and with them the memory of 
 the conditions at that time prevailing. The event celebrated was but a fight between two frigates, 
 and the victor greatly predominated in every element of strength ; but a spell was broken, an insult 
 had been avenged. Boston probably had never given w.ay to such an outburst before ; it has 
 certainly given way to none such since. To understand its significance and realize its justification 
 it is now necessary to recall a forgotten past. 
 
 In iS[2 the United States, deemed a third-class power in the world — less than Portugal, 
 hardly more than Algiers — had for a score of years been the unresenting football of antagonists as 
 overbearing as thev were powerful. Hamlet long before had said: 
 
 " 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes 
 Between the pass and fell-incensed points 
 Of mighty opposites," 
 
 and of this the Uniteil States had long aflbrded proof. With Napoleon and the country of Nelson 
 and Wellington locked in a long death grapple, the young American nation had thought to traffic 
 on their fields of battle. It had done so systematically and as matter of policy, regardless of in- 
 sults and buflets. A people cannot pursue this course in a pure spirit of gain, preserving its man- 
 hood ; and it must be admitted as historical truth that between 1S07 and 181 2 the people of the 
 United States in general, and those of New England more especially, had lost all sense of pride. 
 
 f8) 
 
Not without a consciousness that it was true, they read of themselves in the cokunns of the English 
 press as " spaniel-like in character," a people who " the more they were chastised the more obse- 
 quious they became;" and one, moreover, which " could not be kicked into a war." The very 
 frigate they had built and launched and manned, now lying at their harbor's mouth, had been con- 
 temptuously referred to as " a bundle of pine boards sailing under a bit of striped bunting." Sub- 
 mitting to it all their confidence in themselves was wholly gone. Suddenly it had been restored ; 
 once more they held up their heads, victors over their bully in a square yard-arm fight — 
 small wonder they went wild 1 Had they failed to do so they would have been more or less than 
 men. 
 
 Recalled through the vista of years, the situation was, withal, in every respect dramatic. 
 England, in the years which followed Trafalgar, was fairly drunk with a consciousness of sea 
 power. She ruled the wave. None questioned her absolute supremacy. Hers, almost immemo- 
 rialiy, had been a record of unbroken victory — victory on a scale both large and small. During 
 twenty years of incessant conflict, numbering in them more than two hundred sliip-to-ship en- 
 counters of approximately equal force, the cross of St. George had averaged but one defeat in every 
 forty fights. Contemptuously ignoring all international rules of courtesy or conduct, she had made 
 the United States gulp down the very dregs in the cup of humiliation ; for, on the twenty-second of 
 June, 1S07, in sight of the American coast, the unlucky frigate " Chesapeake" had been compelled 
 to drag her way, a battered, helpless hulk, back to the port from which she had the day before 
 sailed, disgraced and degraded, with officers and crew smarting under a humiliation never either 
 forgotten or forgiven. Unresistingly pounded into abject submission, her company had been mus- 
 tered on her own deck by a British subaltern, and those whom he saw fit to designate had been 
 taken forcibly from her. Five years later had occurred the affair of the "• President " and the " Little 
 Belt." Numerically the armed ships of the United States were to those of Great Britain as one to a 
 hundred ; morally they were as nothing. As was said at the time: " No one act of the little navy 
 had been at all calculated to gain the respect of the British. First was seen the 'Chesapeake' 
 allowing herself to be beaten with impunity by a British ship only nominally superior to her. 
 Then the huge frigate ' President ' attacks and fights for nearly three-quarters of an hour the 
 British sloop ' Little Belt,' of only eighteen guns, and it was claimed, had been beaten oft" by her." 
 It was asserted also that those in command of the "President" had mistaken the sloop " Little 
 Belt" for the frigate " Guerriere ; " and because of that. Captain Dacres of the " Guerriere " and his 
 crew felt the full passion and duty of revenge. In future there was to be no possibility of mistake, 
 and so the " Guerriere " wore her name writ large on her mainsail. She hungered for a meeting- 
 witii the " President." 
 
 And the day came when the " Constitution " took upon herself the quarrel of her sister 
 shi]5, and in her turn hungered for a meeting with the " Guerriere." On the nineteenth of August, 
 1S12 — fifteen months after the affair of the "Little Belt" — that hunger was appeased. The 
 story of wiiat then occurred, and where it occurred, is familiar. It will not bear repetition. 
 Suffice it to say that war had at last been declared with Great Britain on the eighteenth of June, 
 i8i2. Then followed an unbroken series of military disasters, culminating, in August, with the 
 disgraceful surrender of Detroit, and the destruction of Fort Dearborn, where Chicago now stands. 
 The entire Northwest was either in possession of the enemy or at his mercy. The cup of humil- 
 
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iation was full; it apparently only remained to drain it. The collapse was complete; and, where 
 open panic did not rule, utter discouragement prevailed. In the midst of it all the " Constitution " 
 sailed on the fifth of July out of the Chesapeake, and into the midst of a British squadron. She 
 eluded and outfooted them, her escape a marvel of skill and endurance. During a part of that 
 three-day ordeal the " Guerriere" was at the front and pitted against her. On the twenty-sixth of 
 July Hull reached Boston. He then had reason to believe he was about to be called upon to turn 
 his command over to another, but first he was in search of a fight. He knew his ship; he had 
 tested his crew; he craved the square issue of battle. So, reporting his arrival, he did not wait for 
 orders, but, on the second of August, turned the " Constitution's " prow seaward. The very next 
 day the anticipated order came. He was relieved of his command ; but, with that command, he 
 was out of the way, headed for mid-Atlantic, hunting for an opponent. His ship's company shared 
 his eagerness ; from the youngest powder monkey to the executive officer they were in the hunt, 
 and when, at last, on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 19, the grim order to clear away for 
 action came, it was met with a joyous cheer. This was at 4 p.m. Two hours and a half later the 
 " Guerriere " was rolling in the trough of the sea, a battered, sparless, foundering hulk. The next 
 day she sank. She is there in mid-ocean now. 
 
 The details of that memorable conflict are in every American history, and there is neither 
 reason nor space here to recount them. One incident is, however, less well known, ami, in these 
 days of race feeling and burnings at the stake, may well be recalled. The African race is. fortu- 
 nately, not as a rule resentfid, but it so chanced that of the four men forcibly taken by the 
 " Leopard" from the "Chesapeake" in June, 1S07, two were negroes. Shipped at Annapolis the 
 "Constitution" numbered in its crew others of the same blood — black men, with woolly hair. 
 Referring afterward to this fact and the conduct of those men, Hull, a rough seafaring sailor of the 
 period, remarked : " I never had any better fighters than those niggers. They stripped to the waist 
 and fought like devils, sir, seeming to be utterly insensible to danger, and to be possessed with a 
 determination to outfight the white sailors." The cry was not then, " Remember the ' Maine ' ! " 
 but "Remember the ' Chesapeake'! " and perhaps the negroes had it on their lips as well as in 
 their hearts. 
 
 This was on the nineteenth of August, eight hundred miles east of Boston, about south of 
 Cape Race, on the present route to Southampton. Ten days later the anchor of the " Constitution " 
 again gripped bottom ofi" Rainsford's in Boston harbor. It was a case of David returning from his 
 combat with Goliath. Probably in their day David's astonisheti compatriots cheered to the echo 
 their champion. The Bostonians certainly did so now, for, yesterday cowering, to-day they stood 
 erect. A deathly spell was dispelled. They, too, could fight. The thirtieth of August was the 
 awakening day. 
 
 Yet, strangely enough, by some unaccountable chain of circumstance, that frigate, which 
 then restored to the nation its sense of self-respect, is to-day rotting at a dock in Charlestown — 
 directly in the face of the wharf from which she was launched, and which still, a hundred and 
 seven years later, bears her name — rotting there, a useless, disappearing hulk, while, in flagrant 
 violation of international ethics, we have given the name of " Chesapeake " — a name we lost in 
 fair fight — to a new vessel, and that new vessel, perpetuating the memory of disgrace and defeat, 
 is used, of all possible purposes, as a training ship for our naval cadets! The mere mention of the 
 
 (10) 
 
fact suggests an inquiry into the mental condition of a Congress and department wliich for a 
 moment permit such a disgraceful anomaly. Perpetrated in the name of economy it is a case of 
 monumental ingratitude. Would it have cost more to rehabilitate the " Constitution" than to build 
 a new " Chesapeake " ? This question is one very opportune in Boston on this thirtieth of August ; 
 following hard on Guerriere-day it is a question not easy to answer. And, again, the old 
 wooden frigate " Constellation," long in use at Newport, has just been put out of commission and 
 now lies in dry dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in process of renewal. From the day on which 
 the "Constellation" was launched, Sept. 'j, i797 — scarcely six short weeks before the launching 
 of the "Constitution" — her history has been mainly one of mishaps. Always well fought, her 
 flag, unlike that of the " Chesapeake," never came down to an antagonist ; but, the direct opposite 
 in this respect of the " Constitution," her unluckiness was uniform — some trick of fate always in- 
 tervened to make her victories valueless or turn them against her. During the entire War of 1S12- 
 14 she was blockaded in the Chesapeake; and, while the name of the "Constitution," as she went 
 from battle to battle, became synonymous with victory, that of the " Constellation" was suggestive 
 only of hope deferred, and final disappointment. Never once during the struggle did her pennon fly 
 in mid-ocean. 
 
 During the last session of Congress, at the instance of a new England senator, an item was 
 inserted in the naval appropriation bill, as framed and passed by the House of Representatives, 
 providing for the repair of the " Constitution " — " Old Ironsides." It met with no opposition in 
 the Senate. Later the bill, as amended, went into the hands of a conference committee, and when 
 it emerged therefrom the "Constitution's" item was no longer there. It had been stricken out at 
 the instance of the conferrees on tlie part of the House — on grounds of economy! Provision was 
 made for the repair and maintenance of the "Chesapeake," a sailing ship commemorative of the 
 deepest disgrace and most mortifying defeat this nation ever was called upon to endure, and use is 
 found for her ; but the frigate which, in the hour of deepest discouragement, restored self-respect 
 and hope to the United States, was, for considerations of thrift, doomed to rot at a wharf. The 
 " Constellation " — unluck}' sister of the lucky " Ironsides" — could be sent to Brooklyn to be re- 
 stored, but the old " Fighting Frigate of i8r3 " was pronounced not worth preserving ! 
 
 On this thirtieth of August, of all days in the year, is it not timely, as well as appropriate, 
 for Bostonians to inquire of Congress and the Navy Department: Why is this thus? 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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