Class Book _ COPYRlGHr DEPOSIT SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY Courtesy of New York Shipbuilding Corporati( THE MERCHANTMAN TUCKAHOE Launched practically completed as seen in the illustration in twenty-seven days from the laying of her keel in the yards of the New York Shipbuilding Corporation SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY THE INFLUENCE OF THE NAVY AND THE MERCHANT MARINE UPON AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT BY HERMAN F. KRAFFT AND ' WALTER B. NORRIS Associate Professors, United States Naval Academy WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY REAR-ADMIRAL WILLIAM S. BENSON, U.S.N. (retired) Chief of Naval Operations during the World War Chairman, United States Shipping Upard ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1920 Cc^yright, 1920,by The Centuey Co. DEC -I iS20 g)CU604393 '-»>v^ of Uiftkl) arc mfcribcD o? lap StDctS, tt)auUe3lmpo?tto o?b:ougt)t mto^tli« Courtesy of the New York Public Library FIRST PAGE OF A CONTEMPORARY COPY OF CROMWELL'S NAVIGATION ACT OF 1651 :^ ^^-.:^- ■/..y< ^/.^~^^^^' ^-^;<-y Courtesy of the Naval History Society COMMISSION OF PAUL JONES TO THE PROVIDENCE MEDAL AWARDED BY CONGRESS TO PAUL JONES FOR HIS VICTORY OVER THE SERAPIS The portrait on the reverse of the medal is from Houdon's bust of Jones BRITISH SEA POWER WINS AN EMPIRE 9 American carrying-trade. Accordingly Charles II, justi- fying his action by the discovery of the Atlantic coast by Cabot, but really simply coveting the rich fur trade which reached the Atlantic by way of the Mohawk and the Hud- son, granted New Amsterdam to his brother James, Duke of York, later James II, and a better naval officer than he was a king ; whereupon James, in 1664, sent a fleet to secure his rights, though England and Holland were then at peace. Indeed, in the Second Dutch War, which soon developed, the English came off second best, and could not prevent the disgraceful burning of their fleet at Chatham by the Dutch in 1667. The English, however, held on to New York and New Jersey, and thus consolidated their Northern and Southern colonies. Yet a third war was waged before the commercial su- premacy of the seas passed from the Dutch. In this Third Dutch War, 1672-74, England was allied with France, but with slight French assistance upon the seas she was barely able to make Southwold Bay and the Texel drawn battles with De Ruyter. Yet, when she withdrew from the war and left the continental powers that had been drawn into it to continue the struggle, she was able to absorb most of the American carrying-trade which had formerly been Holland's. Thus the Second Dutch War gave to England Holland 's most important American colony ; the Third gave England Holland's American trade. In the two wars of conquest of Louis XIV, the War of the League of Augsburg, 1688-97 (known in America as King William's War) and the War of the Spanish Suc- cession, 1701-14 (known in America as Queen Anne's War) , Louis XIV raised against himself coalitions of most of Europe. And he succeeded, as Napoleon and Wilhelm II later succeeded, in arraying sea power on the side of free peoples. In the first of these wars, in which the Eng- 10 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY lish won the sea fight off La Hogne, there were no results for America, except that William of Orange, now King of England, unconsciously helped further to neutralize the sea power of his native Holland by forcing her to con- tribute armies to the coalition, while England continued to concentrate her efforts on her navy. The War of the Spanish Succession, in which Louis XIV was trying to unite the Spanish crown to his own, was ended by the Treaty of Utrecht, which rearranged the map of Europe and incidentally gave England Hudson Bay Territory, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. But more far-reaching results of these wars, so exhaustive for France, were that England emerged with a greater commerce than ever, while French commerce had been all but driven from the seas; moreover, France, earlier in Louis's reign the money- lender of Europe, was now bankrupt. As Mahan so fre- quently points out, countries that have control of the seas can wage wars of exhaustion, because the revenues from their protected commerce furnish almost inexhaustible sup- port. Louis XIV, who in his earlier years had seen France and Holland running a close second to Britain on the seas, saw before his death in 1715 British sea power triumphant. In this he had himself to thank. In no small degree the loss of New France, half a century later, may justly be laid to the door of Louis the Magnificent. The question whether England or France was to possess an empire in America — and in India as well — depended on two more great wars, and the outcome of these turned on sea power. The first of these, the War of the Austrian Succession, begun by Frederick the Great's seizure of Silesia from Austria, started a general European con- flagration, and kindled a flame of hostility between the French and the English colonists in America, — King George's War, as it is sometimes called. In contraven- NORTH AMERICA BEFORE 1783 11 12 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY tion of Spanish Navigation Acts and the Treaty of Utrecht, England had been making such inroads upon the South American commerce of decadent Spain that the Spanish port authorities went too far in searches and seizures of British merchantmen. When a certain Captain Jenkins returned to England and appeared before Parliament, in his hand the ear which he alleged had been cut off by the Spaniards, the War of Jenkins's Ear began, and Admiral Vernon sailed away with a fleet — immortalized by Smollett in "Roderick Random" — to avenge the insult. With the admiral served Lawrence Washington, elder brother of George, and the one who gave to his estate on the Potomac the name of Mount Vernon. But the expedition was a horrible fiasco on account of disease and lack of coopera- tion between fleet and troops, and Vernon was defeated in his attempt to capture the Spanish cities of Cartagena and Santiago de Cuba in the Caribbean. When, in 1740, the general European war broke out, England threw in her sea power against France and Spain, the traditional allies. Though England's navy was in a decadent state, her trade, now increased by the trade of the American colonies, furnished many of the sinews of war to her allies on the Continent. America's contribu- tion was a force largely maritime and colonial which set out from Boston in 1745 under William Pepperell, Chief- Justice of Massachusetts, and captured against great odds the fortress of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island. This place, from its central position in relation to Eu- rope, Canada, the American colonies, and the West In- dies, was strategically the Gibraltar of America, as it was also called from the strength of its fortifications. Much to the disappointment of the American colonists, this stronghold, in the peace that ended the war (that of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748), was exchanged for Madras. Thus BRITISH SEA POWER WINS AN EMPIRE 13 colonial sea power had in America won for the mother country an empire in Asia, Every war and treaty so far had left the great issue of the possession of the North American continent unsettled. The irrepressible conflict was finally terminated a few years later by the great Seven Years' War, 1756-63, in American history often called the French and Indian War. In this contest, even more than in previous contests, Eng- land was supported by the resources of the American col- onies from their prosperous . trade and fisheries. They also sent their sons to fight under Washington at Pitts- burgh, and under Wolfe at Quebec. And in 1758, Admiral Boscawen with a powerful fleet and twelve thousand troops under Amherst and Wolfe captured Louisburg, on whose fortification the French in the intervening years since its former capture had spent ten million dollars. With the fall of Louisburg, Quebec, which was the Gibraltar of the St. Lawrence, was doomed, for Louisburg controlled its communications. After a siege memorable for the stub- born and heroic conduct of both sides Quebec fell the next year, and with it fell Canada, the prize of sea power. In the same year, French sea power met its real Trafal- gar of the war, — an event which had as much influence upon American events as on European. The battle was staged in Quiberon Bay, on the coast of France near Brest, in most dramatic environment, a strong northwest wind and heavy seas driving the contestants toward a rock-bound coast. Replying to the remonstrance of his pilot against entering the bay under such difficult conditions by merely saying, "You have done your duty in the remonstrance; now lay me alongside," the British commander, Hawke, destroyed a few of the enemy's twenty-three ships and forced the rest to scatter and run ashore or be captured. With the French fleet powerless, and the invasion of Eng- 14 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY land impossible, the British were free to raid the enemy's colonies, and Rodney and Pocock reduced Havana, Mar- tinique, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent. During the rest of the war, British sea power, pressing silently but relentlessly into all parts of the world, slowly strangled the commerce and strength of the French. While French privateers — another device of the weaker sea power — accomplished re- markable results, it is a fact, paradoxical as it is, that the more the French destroyed the faster British commerce in- creased. On the other hand, French commerce was anni- hilated by this war just as was Germany's in the World War. British sea power emerged triumphant from the Seven Years' War and laid on France the necessity for a humiliating peace. By this peace (the Peace of Paris, February 10, 1763) England got the whale of North America east of the Mississippi River. She restored to France Martinique and Guadeloupe and to Spain Havana, and granted to France some fishing rights on the New- foundland Banks, the sole memento of a once great empire in Canada. While the other belligerents, on both sides, came out of this war impoverished and with no more territory than when they entered, England's sea power, besides firmly entrenching her in the Mediterranean and in India, had added vastly to her riches, and had won America for the Anglo-Saxon race. Under the protection of a sea power such as England had thus exercised for nearly a century it is not strange that the English-speaking colonies of America had turned to the sea as a fruitful source of livelihood and prosperity. In the first seventy years of the eighteenth century their commerce on the sea increased tenfold and in 1772 equaled England's own at the beginning of the century. And in the fisheries and the whaling industry they had shown remarkable enterprise and spirit. Burke's en- BRITISH SEA POWER WINS AN EMPIRE 15 comium upon the whalemen, uttered during his great speech in favor of conciliation with America, may well represent the maritime spirit of the colonies as displayed in all the various occupations connected with the sea : Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the Whale Fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tmnbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hiidson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst "we are looking for them beneath the Arctic Circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Serpent of the South. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them, than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that while some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longi- tude, and pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by their fisheries. No climate but what is witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and finn sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people; a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. This eulogy is not mere rhetoric, for it was the aptitude of the colonists for maritime affairs that contributed so powerfully to England's success in the Seven Years' War. By the aid of the American colonies, the mother country, which entered the contest a kingdom, emerged an empire. CHAPTER II THE DEFEAT OF BRITISH SEA POWER GIVES AMERICA INDEPENDENCE THAT the British Empire, established at the height of its extent and predominance as it was in 1763 by the Peace of Paris, should in just twenty years give up the sections of the empire richest potentially, if not actually, would have been inconceivable to the victorious regiments of Wolfe and the proud seamen of Hawke. That this loss of three millions of Englishmen and a shipping almost equal to half of Britain's own should be brought about by the failure and inferiority of Britannia's bul- warks, her sea power, would have seemed the fantasy of a madman. Yet the event proved that in the struggle be- tween the American colonies and the mother country the navies, as Washington at the time asserted, had "the cast- ing vote";^ and, as Mahan states, "To Arnold on Lake Champlain, to De Grasse at Yorktown, fell the privilege of exercising that prerogative at the two great decisive moments of the war. ' ' ^ Most humiliating of all to the proud Briton of 1763 would have been the fact that the French Navy was to prove the final instrument in separat- ing the Americans from their English blood-brethren and 1 "Your Excellency will have observed, that, whatever efforts are made by the land armies, the navy must have the casting vote in the present contest." — Washington to De Grasse, October 28, 1781. {The Writings of Washington, edited by W. C. Ford, IX, 399.) 2 Mahan, Major Operations of the Navies in the Wa/r of American Independence, p. 4. 16 THE DEFEAT OF BRITISH SEA POWER 17 in thus reducing the predominant position of Great Britain in world affairs. It was De Grasse's "naval Waterloo" for the British sea forces off the Chesapeake in the sultry- days of September, 1781, that gave the French the com- mand of the Atlantic at a critical moment, and sentenced Cornwallis, shut up in the narrow acres of the York penin- sula, to an ignominious surrender. This importance of sea power in the American Revolu- tion would seem less strange, especially as to the role which America was to play, if the importance and extent of mari- time pursuits in the colonies were better known. The naval supremacy of the mother country had given opportunities for developing the natural bent of the people of the colonies for the sea. Roads were difficult, travel by sea easier ; the products of the colonies could not be sold or consumed within their borders, and thus had to be transported over- seas to England, the Continent, or the West Indies. New Englanders could build ships more cheaply on the Pisca- taqua, close by the virgin forests, than could the mother country on the Thames ; they also early found the catching of fish, first in Massachusetts Bay, then farther out to sea, and finally on the banks of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, exceedingly profitable. Thus at the outbreak of the Revo- lution there were, says a writer,^ "more people in the northern part of New England — Maine and New Hamp- shire — engaged in shipbuilding and navigation than there were in agriculture, and Massachusetts at the same time was estimated to have owned one vessel for every hundred of its inhabitants." It is not unnatural, therefore, that the causes of the Revolution were, especially in their more immediate aspects, chiefly maritime. The most profitable trade of the colonies was the triangular commerce between themselves, the coast 1 David A. Wells, Our Merchant Marine, p. 4. 18 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY of Africa, and the West Indies. For example, molasses was brought from the West Indies to the colonies, — New- port, Rhode Island, for instance, — there manufactured into rum (Newport had twenty-two still-houses for this pur- pose), transported to the west coast of Africa, and ex- changed for slaves, who were thereupon carried to the sugar plantations of the West India islands, or to the tobacco plantations of Virginia, and sold, each successive transaction yielding a large profit. Especially was the trade with the French and Spanish West Indies profitable, for fish caught on the Grand Banks and unsalable else- where could be sold to the West Indian slave-owners, and in exchange sugar and molasses could be bought at rates below those asked by planters on British islands. This trade could be carried on only by the well-nigh universal practice of smuggling in violation of restrictive acts which were passed by Parliament from 1651 onward, but which, such as the Sugar Act of 1733, were never really enforced. But with the coming into power of George III, who was determined to enforce these measures, the whole commer- cial and financial structure of colonial life seemed about to be shattered. Accustomed to manage their own affairs in virtual independence, relieved of the fear of French in- vasion after 1763, and convinced that the policy of the Grenville ministry meant ruin for them, the colonists quickly manifested their opposition to these restrictions on their maritime activity. But when the earlier peaceful and political opposition ended in actual hostilities, the Americans soon realized the difficulties they were under in conducting a war against British sea power. Though they had plenty of sailors and half as many bottoms as Great Britain, they possessed no vessels of war ;' and many seamen had to enlist in the land forces in order to avoid starvation. As the colonists THE DEFEAT OF BRITISH SEA POWER 19 had to import from Europe large quantities of clothing and munitions of war, they soon found the Atlantic and the paths to the Dutch, French, and Spanish West Indies closed by the ships of the Royal Navy. Even the coastwise trade between colony and colony was at the mercy of the British frigates and sloops that swarmed about the entire Atlantic coast, and farther out British privateers watched for American prey. In all respects in which sea power enters, Great Britain had superiority. Her military navy- was far superior to that of any other nation, and there was no cloud in the European firmament that threatened her with immediate disaster. Her trading fleets, whether to the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, or the East Indies, were so numerous that' she could suffer little from the loss of American trade and the depredations of Ameri- can cruisers and privateers. Canada and the other sections of her empire were loyal, and afforded in Quebec, Halifax, Bermuda, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and Barbados, plenty of bases for the operation of her fleets. But in the less apparent factors on which success would depend, George III found matter that disquieted him. To break American revolt, armies must be landed on Ameri- can shores and must be supplied and reenforced by con- stant streams of ships from the mother country and her colonial bases. Also, with the multitude of American ships idle at their berths, it would be natural for privateering to become almost a trade for stranded seamen, and the English supply-ships and peaceful English merchant ves- sels, especially those in the West Indian trade, which had to traverse almost the entire length of the American coast, would be in considerable danger of capture. Moreover, in Parliament, and to a certain extent in other circles in England, there was great opposition to the use of force on America, and half-hearted prosecution of the war was "i'WrAj^ ..^ ^^WWA^ 20 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY about all that could be guaranteed. British trade, which had begun to expand with the coming of peace in 1763, had not yet reached the prosperous state which the commercial classes felt was their due. As regards the international situation, France still smarted under the lash of the peace terms of the Seven Years' War, and European powers generally were jealous of the predominant position which Great Britain had wrung from her century-long contests with the France of Louis XIV and Louis XV. And, further, with the members of her empire scattered all over the globe she had to maintain absolute supremacy at sea to hold her connection with each of them. On the other hand, the French, though bowed down by the ruinous debts of previous wars, were strengthening their navy, introduc- ing efficiency, and might on any favorable chance decide to retrieve their previous disasters by another war. And, finally, if the French should decide to throw in their weight on the side of the colonies, British communications with America would at once be jeopardized. In accordance with these difficulties and contingencies, /■ therefore, British sea power had to arrange its lines of operation. It had to maintain the uninterrupted flow of British trade from the colonies to England and from there to foreign markets; it had, also, and next in importance, to maintain the communications of British armies in Amer- ica, for there they could expect nothing; moreover, it had to cooperate with the armies in the capture of American seaports, in the transportation of troops, and in the de- fense of Canada; and, lastly, it had to concentrate in the Channel, about Gibraltar, and also probably in the West and East Indies, fleets strong enough to meet the danger in these quarters of any hostile action by France. The problem of sea power for the colonies was likewise difficult. For the Continental Congress, sitting in Phila- THE DEFEAT OF BRITISH SEA POWER 21 delpliia, and pondering how victory should be won, the part of the navy seemed on the whole important but im- possible. In an attack on Canada, one of the earliest proj- ects, ships were to have no part. On the other hand, the hastily armed American merchant vessels could harass British commerce, seize British supply-ships on their way to Boston to the relief of Howe, and thus assist in driving the British regulars from American soil. Further, the colonies might maintain some trade with the West Indies, mostly by privateers, and from there and Europe itself the colonial vessels would have to bring the guns, muskets, powder, shot, and clothing which any army must have in order to fight. If French aid, secret or open, could be ob- tained, this latter problem would be somewhat simplified. The plans of both England and the colonies were therefore subject to many contingencies and to varied conditions. Keeping in mind these general conditions, let us see to what extent sea power entered the struggle ; how, as Wash- ington said, the navies had the casting vote; and how Ar- nold and De Grasse became decisive factors on Lake Cham- plain and off the Chesapeake capes, respectively. Naval activity began when reports reached General Washington at Boston and the Continental Congress at Philadelphia about the beginning of October, 1775, that two transports richly laden with military supplies were on their way to Boston for Howe's forces. Washington immediately sent out Captain John Manly in the Lee to cruise in IMassachu- setts Bay, and for the same purpose the Congress bought and fitted out two small vessels, the Lexington and the Re- prisal. By the end of November Manly had succeeded in capturing four British supply-ships and in bringing them safely into port. Early in 1776 Esek Hopkins, who had been placed in command of eight converted merchantmen, made a descent on the town of I^assau, in the Bahamas, and 22 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY seized there a considerable quantity of war material. The earlier cruises of John Paul Jones in the Providence and the Alfred along the Atlantic coast in the summer and autumn of 1776 were largely directed against British ports in Nova Scotia, where supplies were being obtained for the British armies; his capture of the Mellish, a large armed ship, brought to the dwindling and despairing Continental Army a thousand complete uniforms intended for the armies in Canada. The news that this important capture had been made cheered Washington in those darkest days just before the battle of Trenton. In the success of Washington in forcing the British out of Boston, the navy by cutting off supply-ships thus had its part. In the campaign which began with the battle of Long Island the sea forces of Great Britain necessarily had much to do, for as soon as the British fleet under Lord Howe was able to force its way up New York Bay and ap- proach the East River, Washington of necessity had to withdraw his army from its isolated position, cross the East River before his retreat could be cut off by British frigates, and then withdraw from Manhattan Island to comparative security farther inland. It is worth noting, however, that in Washington's daring ferrying of his army from Long Island to New York under the cover of fog and darkness, the Marblehead fishermen, who had upon the stoppage of all sea commerce enlisted- in the Continental Army in considerable numbers, played the leading role. Washing- ton with his genius for strategy quickly realized that New York without coast or naval defense was untenable against a combined military and naval force. The dark months of the autumn of 1776 were, however, to witness an engagement — unrealized as its importance was — which was to start a train of events destined to end only with complete independence for the struggling Con- THE DEFEAT OF BRITISH SEA POWER 23 tinentals. And the chief part in this providential outcome was to be played by the man who has gone down in Ameri- can history as its Judas Iscariot, the traitorous Benedict Arnold. With true appreciation of the strategic opportunities of the situation the British were planning an expedition from Canada by the waterways that lead south from the St. Law- rence, through the Richelieu River, Lake Champlain, and Lake George, to the upper courses of the Hudson, where forces from Howe's army at New York might easily con- nect with it and .establish a perfect barricade against any communication between New England and the rest of the colonies. As the Hudson could be largely controlled by naval forces and as so much of the rest was water, the scheme required comparatively few troops and promised great results. For such a project the control of Lake Champlain was a vital feature, and must be secured by ships operating on the lake and defeating any American naval units which might be there. To Benedict Arnold had been intrusted the command of the American forces, and by vigorous measures in build- ing vessels and in attacking the British post at St. John's above the northern end of Lake Champlain, he managed to control its waters till October, 1776. Then the British, drawing supplies and men from the shipyards of Quebec and the vessels of the Royal Navy in the St. Lawrence, con- structed and assembled a far superior force, the chief ves- sel of which was a fabricated ship with eighteen 12- pounders, easily able alone to sweep the entire lake of all the American schooners, galleys, gondolas, and other armed craft that infested it. But the season was already far ad- vanced, and winter was approaching with such speed that unless the British advance to the Hudson came very soon it must inevitably be postponed till the next spring. To BATTLE OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN SEPT II. 1814^ BATTLE OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN OCT. /I, 1776 BURLINCTQN VEFtOENNES '^NRY THE WATER ROUTE PROM MONTREAL TO NEW YORK Drawn by H. C. Washburn. 24 THE DEFEAT OF BRITISH SEA POWER 25 produce this delay was all Arnold could hope for. He hampered the British preparations as much as possible, and he determined to contest the control of the lake, even if he faced certain defeat. Thus, on October 11th, when the British squadron came sailing down the lake with a fair wind, he posted his forces under the shelter of Valcour Is- land, and awaited attack. The enemy, by the very situa- tion of the island, could reach him only from the south, and must then beat up against the breeze with all its un- certainties and the danger of being raked while approach- ing. All da}^ the desultory fighting continued, with con- siderable loss to both sides and greater and greater in- evitableness of defeat for Arnold as soon as all the British forces and guns could be brought to bear. But during the night Arnold steered his battered boats through the Brit- ish line, and retreated south toward the American forti- fications at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, burning his boats when they were pursued and on the eve of capture. By the time the British forces could be reconstituted and the forts taken, winter had set in, and their expedition was obliged to halt without completing the connection with the men and ships of Howe on the Hudson. The next year when Burgoyne, with stronger forces, assumed com- mand and advanced as far as the Hudson at Saratoga, Howe, at New York, had embarked his army on transports and diverted his energies to the campaign of the Brandy- wine against Philadelphia. Moreover, the Americans had, meanwhile, been strengthened for resistance by further enlistments and by the munitions of war which the secret aid of Louis XVI had sent through his agent, Beaumar- chais. If it had not been for Arnold's extemporized naval force on Lake Champlain, all the British delay during the summer of 1776 would have been avoided, and their forces would have advanced south of Lake Champlain at once 26 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY and easily have gained the Hudson before winter. It is because of this fact that the daring challenge of Arnold and his sailors to British naval power on the lake was so momentous and decisive. As Mahan remarks, "That the Americans were strong enough to impose the capitulation of Saratoga was due to the invaluable year of delay secured to them by their little navy on Lake Champlain." "It [the capitulation of Saratoga] was the cause that naval force from abroad, entering into the contest, transformed it from a local to a universal war, and assured the inde- pendence of the colonies." ^ With a few words concerning the activities of American privateers, we come to the end of naval operations which were organized and carried on bv the colonists without foreign, especially French, assistance. ^ With the extensive v shipping of the Americans forced into idleness by the opening of hostilities, it is not surprising that privateering soon attained large proportions. Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts reported in his diary that seventy thousand New Englanders were engaged in privateering at one time. Though Edward Everett Hale " regards this as an overesti- mate, he calculates that many more than this number took part in the warfare upon the sea at some time during the war. When we reflect that at the beginning of the war there were only eighteen thousand men in the British Navy it is easily possible, as he states, that in the Atlantic the British were outnumbered. Such was the gravity of the threat against British commerce and shipping. In 1776 alone three hundred British ships fell prizes to American privateer captains, and the profits of the service were so great that in some sections agriculture was almost aban- 1 Mahan, Major OperaUons of the Navies -in the War of American Independence, p. 7. 2 Winsor, Narrative and Critieal History of America, VI. 584. THE DEFEAT OF BRITISH SEA POWER 27 doned for it. As the entire proceeds of tlie prizes were dis- tributed among the captors, the privateers had no difficulty in securing men, — a sad contrast to the lack of seamen in the Continental naval vessels, — and the work became a busi- ness as profitable, if more precarious, than the old molasses- rum-slave voyages. While the goods which were seized, especially the manu- factured articles, often assisted the colonists in their mili- tary operations, and the sale of other articles in foreign ports helped to make credits for the purchase of supplies for America, the actual military results of privateering for the Continentals were few. In the first place, the British, who also sent out private vessels of war, made more captures than did the Americans. Moreover, the privateers monopolized sea warfare to such an extent that the Marine Committee of the Continental Congress found great difficulty in securing men and guns for its regular vessels of war. Lastly, if in place of this wasteful priva- teer system — carried on in single ships, for personal gain of the owners — a well-organized military navy, under a single head, had been instituted, it would have gone much farther with the ships and men available from the colonial merchant marine. It is sad to think of the glorious bene- fits lost to the cause of the colonists by the excessive in- dividualism of the American seamen of the Revolution. That the Americans could never have won their inde- pendence from the imperialism of George III without for- eign aid is well known, though not always sufficiently em- phasized by American historians. This is largely due to the neglect of the latter to recognize the influence of sea power in this struggle. This vital importance of sea power is established clearly by a study such as we are making. "While there was much sentiment favorable to American revolutionary ideals in France at this time, the real reason 28 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY for her entrance into the war was a desire to profit by the domestic troubles of the British Empire and a strong feel- ing that Britain's undisputed hegemony among European nations was dangerous to France and the rest of con- tinental Europe. This French aid, at first secret, began almost at the outset of the Revolutionary struggle. As early as 1774, on coming to the throne, Louis XVI gave the following advice to his ministers as a statement of his policy: "to meddle adroitly in the affairs of the British colonies: to give the insurgent colonists the means of ob- taining supplies of war, while maintaining the strictest neutrality. ' ' ^ One of the earliest advocates of French in- tervention in America was Beaumarchais, the popular dramatist of the day, who in the summer of 1776 obtained money from the French and Spanish governments with which to buy guns, munitions, and clothing for the Ameri- can armies, all of which were to be exchanged for tobacco, — as if it were a private business transaction. But the guns were to be bought from the French arsenals, clear evi- dence of French sympathy, roundabout and secret as the method was. These supplies, reaching America in the early autumn, helped to support the campaign against Burgoyne and Howe. From French ports, also, privateers, fitted out by American agents, harassed British commerce in the Channel and North Sea, and managed, though with much difficulty, which may have been French attempts at main- taining neutrality or mere diplomatic stage play, to sell their prizes in French ports and land their prisoners on the soil of France. In this dangerous and delicate busi- ness, Wickes, Conyngham, and Nicholson won fame at sea, and Deane and Franklin on land. Upon the formal signing of a commercial treaty between France and the United States on February 6, 1778, the 1 Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon Eistory, p. 337. THE DEFEAT OF BRITISH SEA POWER 29 situation underwent a complete transformation. While as a result of this treaty troops and supplies would now be sure to reach the colonies, the chief and predominant re- sult was that Great Britain's command of the sea was to be vigorously challenged, and not along the American coast but in her own waters. The French Navy was probably as efficient as the British at this moment, for it had learned much from defeat, and the British had greatly deteriorated since the days of 1763 when Pitt had insisted on efficiency. As soon as the treaty became known, George III was forced to treat the revolt in America as secondary to the threat across the Channel, and devote his chief energies to that quarter. In fact, British hostilities with France outlasted the American Revolution by two years, and Rodney won his great victory for Britain in the West Indies six months after Comwallis surrendered at Yorktown. America be- came the pawn of two great players three thousand miles away. France, who had lost America to Britain in 1763, was determined that Britain should not keep it. The decisive importance of the entrance of France into the war cannot be overestimated. Whether pleasing to American pride or not, the United States must acknowledge its debt to France, and, in less measure, even to Spain and Holland, who later entered the war. This debt is fairly well known, but the important fact that, after all, it was French sea power that was the decisive instrument in se- curing American independence, not the army of Rocham- beau, is far less widely appreciated. Washington, if sup- plied with men and munitions from France, could drive the British redcoats into the Atlantic, but it was only the French naval strength which could, in the absence of sea power in the colonists themselves, block the way of fresh British armies, or keep open the lanes of supply from France and the West Indies. 30 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY No sooner had the British naval chiefs learned of the entrance of France into the war than the influence of French sea power began to be felt in American affairs. ] Since control of the sea lines of communication between Philadelphia and New York was endangered by the possi- ble coming of a French fleet, which in fact had sailed in April, 1778, from Toulon under D'Estaing, Howe aban- doned Philadelphia and concentrated his forces at New York. As Howe had not been able to maintain connection overland between the two cities, he had depended on keep- ing in touch by sea; now these communications were also threatened, and safety lay only in retreat. In fact, had D'Estaing had an average passage and arrived only ten days sooner, he would, as Washington remarked at the time/ have captured all Howe's ships. Even as it was, the danger was not past, for, with a superior force, D'Estaing would probably have captured New York itself if he had been able to secure pilots to carry his huge ships over the bar at Sandy Hook or if he had shown real determination himself. In European waters, also, the intervention of France kept Great Britain on the defensive. The French had, on July 27, 1778, fought an indecisive action off Ushant with a British squadron under Keppel, and John Paul Jones, now free to use French ports and ships, was, as will be re- lated in the next chapter, harrying British commerce near its home ports. During the last half of 1778, the French were in com- mand of the sea along the Atlantic coast of North America, and effectually prevented British expeditions such as Howe's had been, or Cornwallis's was to be, from sailing from New York to other sections of the colonies. In 1779, 1 Mahan, Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence, p. 63. I THE DEFEAT OF BRITISH SEA POWER 31 when Spain entered the war, and the British Channel fleet of forty sail found itself opposed by a combined French and Spanish force of sixty-six ships, which was, moreover, between them and their home ports, the English squadrons in America were reduced, and the mere threat of D 'Estaing against Savannah caused the evacuation of Narragansett Bay by the British and their complete concentration at New York. But in the autumn of 1779 and the beginning of 1780, the British had a superior fleet in the western Atlantic, and Clinton decided, disastrously as it turned out, on a division of his forces, part to remain in New York and part to embark for South Carolina in an attempt to consolidate Royalist strength in the Southern colonies. Though he captured Charleston by naval attack, his whole success depended on retaining control of the waters be- tween New York and the South, and the presence of strong French fleets in the West Indies and in Newport consti- tuted a constant threat at his communications. On March 16, 1781, Des Touches with the French squadron from Newport defeated the British under Arbuthnot off the mouth of the Chesapeake, but did not follow up his advan- tage. Accordingly, when the French admiral returned to Newport, Clinton was able to send two thousand troops into Virginia to assist Benedict Arnold in his devastation of that section. As the autumn of 1781 approached, Cornwallis, who had command in the South, found his fortunes wavering, and finally realizing his dependence upon Clinton in New York and upon the British fleets in American waters, fell back into the peninsula between the York and James rivers. Here he intended to refresh-his troops and await reenforce- ments and supplies by sea. The final act in the influence of sea power upon American independence was now to come. As Washington shows 32 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY clearly and explicitly in his despatches, "naval superior- ity"^ was essential, and did indeed prove decisive. The "improper distribution" of the naval strength of the Brit- ish, on which Mahan partly blames their defeat, was strik- ingly illustrated by the events of 1781. With both British armies comparatively slender in numbers, — Clinton in New York with eleven thousand and Cornwallis in Virginia with seven thousand, — divided by over three hundred miles of sea, and to be kept in touch only by water, the coming of De Grasse's French fleet from the West Indies and its union with the Newport squadron would spell disaster. The threat could be met only with a fleet ; British ships from the West Indies must arrive, unite with those on the North American station, and defeat the French. When, however, Hood with these West Indian reenforcements reached the Chesapeake on August 25th and did not find there the British ships under Graves, he naturally proceeded to New York to join them. On August 31st, just as the combined British fleets left Sandy Hook to succor Cornwallis, De Grasse arrived in the Chesapeake and brought thirty-three hundred men to reenforce Lafayette. This made the latter equal, if not superior, to Cornwallis on land, and the fleet gave the French control at sea. On September 5th was fought the ultimately decisive sea fight known as the battle of Cape Henry. The British ships of Hood and Graves appeared off the Capes, and De Grasse, superior in the ratio of twenty-four to nineteen, went out to meet them. Although the French ships, especially the van, straggled out and became separated, Graves, instead of attacking these vigorously with his entire fleet, kept up a long-distance cannonade in" which the leading British ships suffered as much as the enemy. For the next four days, while he still kept the French in sight, he did nothing. 1 Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 397. THE DEFEAT OF BRITISH SEA POWER 33 At last De Grasse, who had been equally Laodicean about fighting a decisive action, disappeared. As it proved, he hastened back to the Chesapeake, where he found the squadron of De Barras from Newport with siege-guns for the Franco- American Army. Thus, when Graves later returned he found thirty-six enemy sail of the line prepared to meet him instead of twenty-four, and he was obliged to return to New York without hope of rendering any aid to the outnumbered and isolated army of Cornwallis. When "Washington and Rochambeau arrived on September 14th, the die was cast and there was only one result possible, — surrender. This final humiliation for British arms was thus essentially a product of sea power, and, however half- hearted De Grasse had been in the actual fighting, he, as the representative of sea power, is entitled to remembrance in American history for this fact. This debt Washing- ton himself acknowledged at the time, a further evidence of his insight into the importance of sea power in the Revo- lutionary struggle.^ Though Hood lived to take part the next year in Rod- ney's tremendous victory of the Saints' Passage and to be the man to whom, deservingly, De Grasse in that battle yielded up his sword in abject surrender, yet he could not change the far-reaching results of the contest off the Chesa- peake capes. Lord North, who had carried on the war as George Ill's prime minister, received the news of York- town, it is said, "as he would a cannon hall through his heart. ' ' Shortly after this the North ministry tell through general dissatisfaction, and the war in America stopped, though the British armies remained till the treaty of peace 1 "The surrender of York, from which so much glory and ad- vantage are derived to the allies, and the honour of which belongs to your Excellency, has greatly anticipated our most sanguine ex- pectations." — Washington to De Grasse, October 20, 1781. (The Writings of WasMngton, IX. 389.) 34 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY in 1783. Thus American independence was won on the sea. France had sought and secured her revenge for the humiliation of twenty years before. CHAPTER III PAUL JONES, THE GENIUS OP REVOLUTIONARY SEA POWER DESPITE the insignificance of the Americans' own navy and its effort to fight the Mistress of the Seas, and despite the merging of American naval effort in the French fleets which appeared on the American coast after the consummation of the French alliance, one American name emerged from the Revolutionary conflict with brighter luster than any Britisher or Frenchman. Lord Howe, Admiral Keppel, Rodney, D'Estaing, De Guichen, and De Grasse are not usually remembered for ^ their activities during these years, but John Paul Jones — or as he preferred to be called, Paul Jones — is. The extent to which he won recognition in his short ca- reer — for he was only twenty-eight when the Revolution broke out and only forty-five when he died — and the power of his name are unappreciated to-day, even by Americans w'ho think they know his achievements. From such com- petent observers as Robert Morris, George Washington, and John Adams he drew golden opinions, even though they were unable to give him tasks equal to his abilities as they saw them. As far as any one was entrusted with the com- mand of the Continental Navy, except for the ephemeral and undeserved incumbency of Esek Hopkins, that honor was assigned to Jones in a letter of February 1, 1777, from the Marine Board, when an extensive expedition in the Gulf of Mexico was contemplated. From the French of- ficers with whom he came in contact he received special at- 35 36 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY tention and consideration, and from Louis XVI a gold- hilted sword, and a decoration and title conferred only on those who perform "some brilliant action." From Catharine of Russia he received the rank of rear-admiral in her service, and from Englishmen, even statesmen as distinguished as Disraeli and naval essayists as well known as Thursfield, he has won admiration. This recognition in the case of Paul Jones was not due to any of the usual sources of advancement, — birth, family connection, naval experience, or powerful friends. No novelist could sketch the rise of a hero from more un- propitious and obscure circumstances than those from which Paul Jones rose to be the recognized naval genius of his time. He was born the son of a gardener in Scotland where it touches the Irish Sea; at twelve years of age he was apprenticed as a sailor; he enjoyed a brief career in the British Navy as a midshipman; he commanded mer- chant ships between the Irish Sea port of Whitehaven and the West Indies; he donned the actor's robes in Jamaica in a period of unemployment ; he engaged in the slave-trade, legitimate and illegitimate, — for the times made such a distinction. In 1773 at Tobago he killed a member of his crew in what was clearly self-defense, but on the advice of friends he left his ship and except for one appearance at Martha's Vineyard in the same year, where he touched as commander of a rather piratical crew, we do not again hear of him until he reaches Edenton, North Carolina, becomes the guest of Willie Jones, the chief planter of the section, and adds to his name, John Paul, the name of his host and ever afterward hides his identity as Paul Jones. Surely this was enough of adventure and vicissitude for a man who in 1775 was only in his twenty-eighth year! Yet this was he who in 1778 became the "sailor whom Eng- land feared" and the man who made Napoleon say after PAUL JONES 37 Trafalgar, "Had Jones lived to this day, France might have had an admiral." In the days of the American Revo- lution, before Nelson — who so strikingly resembled Jones in his insight, sensitiveness, and dash — came upon the stage, this Scotch-American was the veritable genius of naval warfare. Like Nelson's, Paul Jones's conceptions of naval policy and strategy bore the distinct marks of genius. Certainly no British or French officer of his time surpassed him, ' I Rodney, who at the Saints' Passage in 1782 introduced a new manoeuver, — that of concentrating one's forces upon a part of the enemy, — was almost an innocent blunderer in his discovery, while Jones saw the naval problems of the American Revolution as a whole and placed before the American Marine Board the correct course of action for them to follow. He wrote to Robert Morris in 1777: I agree with you that our infant nax'y cannot protect our own coasts, and therefore ought to be employed to draw of£ the enemy's attention by attacking their defenseless places. I am persuaded that even with a trifling force, it is practicable to lay some of the enemy's cities under contribution, and to do indefinite damage to their shipping. I know them to be subject to panic under the least surprise; and the business may be effected before they have time for recollection.^ His insight into the strategy of naval warfare was, how- ever, best displayed at the time when the French were pre- paring to enter the contest. Then Paul Jones proposed a plan which might have ended the war at once, and which even when tried too late almost succeeded in attaining that result. The plan can be no better explained than in the very words of Jones himself as recorded in his letter to the American Commissioners in France, a letter he later incorporated in the journal which he wrote in 1787 for 1 De Koven, Life and Letters of John Paul Jones, I. 212. 38 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY Louis XVI. The original letter was written from Nantes on February 10, 1778, soon after he had arrived in the Ranger with the news of Burgoyne's surrender, and just after he had received from a Nantucket privateer informa- tion that the British naval forces *on the American coast had been divided between New York and Philadelphia. In it he says: Were any Continental marine power in Europe disposed to avail [itself] of the present situation of affairs in America and willing to deserve our Friendship, a single Blow well directed would now do the needful. Ten or twelve sail of the line with Frigates well equipped and provided would give a good account of the Fleet under Lord Howe — for as that force would be Superior to any of Howe's divisions — the strongest being once taken — the Victorious Squadron might sail in quest of the next in strength and reach it before advice.^ He explains in his Journal : There never had been, and there was no prospect of there being again, so wonderful an opportunity of striking an over- whelming blow at the English Navy. If the plan of the expedi- tion had been adopted without delay, and a squadron despatched from Brest, Great Britain would have had no knowledge of this destructive project until after it had been carried out in America. Lord Howe would have been surprised and captured in the Delaware ; his squadron would have immediately been armed from the American forces, and separating in small detachments to left and right, the naval forces of England would have been completely destroyed before the arrival of Admiral Byron. The resulting enthusiasm of the Americans would have so supported General Washington that he would have taken New York, and captured or destroyed all the English regiments in the United States. . . . . . . Thus, in a single campaign, with little expense, France would have had an admirable opportunity of establishing the Independence of America, and with a single blow to bring Great Britain to her feet, thereafter to abandon her boast of being 1 DeKoven, Li/e and Letters of John Paul Jones, I, 257. PAUL JONES 39 "Mistress of the Seas." . . . What will be the opinion of posterity regarding France's long neglect of this unique opportunity? Will it not judge that this fault was only increased by the adoption of the project three months later, when the time had passed, by sending the squadron from Toulon instead of from Brest, and causing a delay of at least another month? It is useless to add to this narrative of these details the unhappy effects which were caused by this delay, the general result of which was a long, bloody and costly war in which France, Hol- land, Spain and the East Indies were afterwards embroiled.^ As we have seen, D'Estaing arrived only ten days too late to catch Howe's fleet on its way back to New York, when it was encumbered with supply-vessels and was without re- enforcements. The breadth of mind of this self-educated and foreign- bom American sailor is also well illustrated by his insist- ence on the need of thorough theoretical and cultural training for the officers of the infant navy. His emphasis of the ideal of "officer and gentleman" was far ahead of his time and remains one of the permanent heritages of his professional genius. But Jones's fame rests to-day not on his strategical ideas but on his execution in real ships and against real opponents of these very principles of warfare. In the attack on Nassau in the Bahamas, where the Continental fleet made its first raid, it was his knowledge of the island, its roads and anchorages, which made the expedition suc- cessful. His cruises in the Providence and the Alfred were directed largely against the British bases of supply in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, and here he accom- plished much damage to the enemy. It was here also that he captured the Mellish with its cargo of military sup- plies for the armies in Canada. In the Ranger, in which he carried to France the news of the surrender of Bur- 1 DeKoven, Life and Letters of John Paul Jones, I, 258. 40 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY RAA^Ce/f, APRIL/0 —MAYB, 1778 OONHOMMe niCHARD, AUG. 14 — 3ef>T. 25", /779 ssRAP/s, sepr. 2S — ocr 3, 1779 ^^FA/^0£ IS. . ALLIANCE DEC.26, 1779 -F£0. lO, I780 ^^''^ \ ,•-> EUROPEAN CRUISES OP PAUL JONES Courses of ships adapted from the map by Mrs. A. H. Eastman in Avery's History of the United States, VI, 264. goyne, he first showed himself in European waters, secur- ing in Quiberon Bay in February, 1778, the first formal salute to the American flag from the French. But it was in his two celebrated cruises around the British Isles that Paul Jones best exemplified his ideas of PAUL JONES 41 naval warfare, — cruises which stirred England as violently as the German cruiser raids on their East Coast in the World War, but which were entirely free from German ruthlessness. Realizing as he did the value of a sudden attack on English commerce and the coast towns, where so far the war had not penetrated, he sailed out in the Ranger for the region of his boyhood, — ^the area between northeast Ireland and southwest Scotland, — determined by a bold dramatic stroke to shatter the peaceful dreams of complacent Britons and to destroy throughout Europe the invincibility of British sea power. After his attempted raid on the shipping at Whitehaven had failed and he had been unlucky enough not to find the Earl of Selkirk at home when he went to capture him as a hostage to secure the exchange of American prisoners then languishing in vile English prisons, he saw, off the northeast corner of Ireland, the British sloop of war, Drake, poorly manned and poorly prepared for battle, coming out to meet his "pirate ship." A few nights before he had boldly sailed into Belfast Lough and almost boarded the Drake in a night attack, but when the wind carried him too far ahead of his enemy he had, without detection, worked his ship back out of the bay. On April 24, 1778, when the Drake finally offered battle, Jones secured a raking position off her bows, and then ranged alongside, all the time pouring in effective broadsides. In an hour and five minutes the Drake lost most of her masts and rigging, as well as forty- two men killed or wounded out of about a hundred and seventy-five. Thereupon she surrendered, for her higher officers M^ere all wounded, and an American prize crew navigated her back to France, a visible token of American sea power in its fighting moods. As Mrs. DeKoven re- marks, "Jones was, in fact, the most formidable enemy which England then possessed upon the sea." To destroy 42 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY British prestige upon the very waters of the British Isles was the most effective method of securing continental opposition to British supremacy. Paul Jones, moreover, as soon as France was allied with the colonies, evolved still further plans for bringing the war home to Englishmen, especially to the commercial classes, in his proposed raids against the Baltic fleets, the Iceland fishery, the Hudson Bay ships, and the West Indian trade. As before, he felt that a few American raiders might alarm British trade sufficiently to stir the merchants and drive them into strong opposition to the war, for which the Tories — the landed gentry, who felt the effects of war least — were primarily responsible. Though at first Paul Jones hoped for a considerable force of French ships under his command, he was at last resigned to accept the old hulk Duras and to take the scrapped guns of the French arsenals. Thus equipped, and in like fashion furnished with a motley crew of French- men, Englishmen, Maltese, Portuguese, Malays, and some recently exchanged American prisoners, he sailed in nom- inal command of a force of five small ships, the best of which was the American-built Alliance commanded by Pierre Landais, an erratic and insubordinate Frenchman. Circling west and north around the British Isles, and then sailing down the eastern coast, on September 23, 1779, he found the Baltic convoy of merchantmen off Flamborough Head, and by sunset was engaged with the Serapis, a frigate of fifty guns and as new as his ship, now renamed the Bonhomme Richard, was old. Already deserted by all his ships except one which en- gaged a smaller British vessel, he waited for the Serapis to come upon his starboard quarter, and then poured in a broadside. The two frigates soon came together and were lashed side by side by Jones himself, for he saw hope of PAUL JONES 43 / / /^^^=^ \\aluance ~^-^-- THE CAPTURE OF THE SERAPIS BY THE BONHOMME RICHARD victory onl}- in a close action where the British superiority in sailing would be nullified. Even after his larger guns had burst or been abandoned for fear they would burst, and even after his lower deck had almost been shot out of his ship by the British fire, Paul Jones maintained fire with his three remaining guns on his spar-deck, and soon swept the British deck clear of all opposition. Meantime acting in the spirit of, if not actually uttering the words, "I have not yet begun to fight," he encouraged his men in the tops to clear the rigging of the Serapis and keep the enemy below. Soon a hand-grenade from this source was hurled through an open hatch down upon the gun-deck of the Serapis, the deck from which her chief fire was com- ing, ignited the powder lying there, and almost blew the ship up. Pearson, the British commander, who had seen 44 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY the Alliance circle around the two eonxbatants and fire broadsides which struck the British frigate, — and the Bon- homme Bichard also, as Jones proved afterward, — felt that he was in the presence of superior forces and surrendered in sight of the English coast to a man whose ship had been kept from sinking only by the forced labors at the pumps of British prisoners numerically superior to his entire crew when the battle began. Though Jones had to transfer his men to the Serapis the next day and see his own ship sink beneath the waters of the North Sea, — her colors still flying, — the capture reflected more glory on Paul Jones than did the affair of the Drake and aided materially in stimulating European efforts to curb the sea supremacy of Great Britain. When Jones, after taking the Serapis to the Texel, sailed through the English Channel, and himself appeared in Paris, he became the lion of the hour, the cynosure of eyes as distinguished as those of Marie Antoinette, and the favorite of all except the French officers who were chafing at the lack of French naval achievement thus far in the war. Welcomed to the presence of Louis XVI, at fre- quent intervals, he charmed every one by his grace and geniality. At this time Paul Jones was at the height of his reputa- tion, for never again in his lifetime did he have opportunity to achieve a striking success. In all the vicissitudes of his subsequent career, — his return to America, his mission to Europe regarding prize-money, his service in the Black Sea with the Russian Navy in its war against the Turks, and his last months in Paris, where he died in 1792, — he never again was given the chance to show his real ability, and passed away, doubtless, with disappointment in his heart, though, as we now know, he had been the spiritual, and largely the material, father of the American Navy. PAUL JONES 45 What were the secrets of character which enabled Paul Jones to rise from a miserable West Indian merchant sailor in the year 1768 to the most brilliant naval commander in Europe in 1779, and to leave behind him the name of Britain's most formidable enemy on the sea, creator of the American Navy, friend of Louis of France and Catharine of Russia, trusted adviser of Lafayette and Washington? One secret of his genius was that he possessed a passionate curiosity which drove him to master every matter and every accomplishment that presented itself. With an ever-active mind, he never felt content with his professional knowledge, and in 1775 and 1778 he asked to accompany the fleets of Hopkins and D'Orvilliers respectively to perfect himself in naval practice. And he did not rest until the principles of naval strategy were familiar to him, though there were no fleets for him to command or campaigns to direct. Con- spicuously among the sailors of his day he believed that victories are thought out before they are fought out. With this intellectual quality went ambition that never palled, a fierceness of desire to become great and be recog- nized as great which drove him on in every action of his career. Never ready for repose, but always greedy of honor, he was willing to pay the price in hardship and battle risk if only the path of glory opened before him. Thus animated, he could hardly lack pride, and fail to feel angry at every act of favoritism, and every form of political or sectional bias, which deprived him of oppor- tunities for distinguished conduct. It is true that his unfair subordination in rank to men from the Northern colonies at the beginning of the Revolution embittered his active career, as did similar favoritism during his months in the Russian Navy, but this was the penalty that had to be paid for Paul Jones's obsession for achievement. To such ambition the slightest detail in naval routine or 46 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY etiquette was of importance, and one need not wonder that Jones was most exacting in regard to the behavior of officers and men toward him and in all his relations with foreign naval officers. Only the perfect satisfied his professional conscience. In this stirring of soul and intensity of spirit, Carlyle, if he had studied Paul Jones, would have found those very qualities whose absence seemed to him to make Washington a personage of so little importance. Rankling in Jones's breast from the date of his earliest letters is the mystery of his birth, his feeling that he was the son of a gentleman, perhaps his later patron, the Earl of Selkirk himself. This pride he felt outraged when he was treated as though on any lower level. A partial factor in this resentment against society was his experience in the West Indies before 1775, when becoming involved in disputes with various crews he commanded, he was twace accused of murder. Though he was guiltless in both cases, was acquitted in the first, and in the second case had, it was clear, struck in self-defense, he felt that he was still branded as a murderer. Few letters la}^ bare a man's soul as does Jones's to Franklin in 1779, where in reply to a playful but innocent remark of Frank- lin's Jones, thinking Franklin has heard the story and be- lieves it, unbares his past and relates in detail what he calls ' ' the great misfortune of my life ' ' ^ — the killing at Tobago of a member of his crew who was leading a mutiny and was about to strike him down. Contributing to this same con- flict of personality was the consciousness that in England "he was regarded as a pirate, a renegade who came back to sack the home of his childhood. Yet Jones never killed a man on English soil, and when his sailors carried off the 1 Correspondence of Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia Philo- sophical Society, Letter 176. Also in DeKoven's Life and Letters of Paul Jones, II. Appendix B PAUL JONES 47 Selkirk silver plate lie bought it back from them and returned it with a courteous letter. In his political ideas he was not only filled with a sturdy love for his adopted country but was, like Jefferson, en- thusiastic over the new conceptions of freedom and democ- racy which America proclaimed to the world. "I have drawn my sword in the present generous struggle for the rights of men," and "I am ready to sacrifice my life also with cheerfulness, if that forfeiture could restore peace and good- will among mankind, " ^ he writes the Countess of Sel- kirk in 1778, assuming a tone of polite familiarity which offended Lady Selkirk, who did not understand the feelings of Jones toward her house. In his advanced attitude toward national ideals and democracy, Jones was in great contrast to Nelson, who could never think of a Frenchman except as a libertine and a blasphemer. The marks of genius, moreover, showed themselves not only in Jones's ideas and actions but in his very presence. On the quarter-deck, as commander of a ship, he stood peerless. Professor Laughton, who has charged Jones with piracy in his operations around Great Britain, and who cannot be regarded as a friendly critic, says, "It was Jones, and Jones alone, who won the battle of the Bon- homme Richard and the Serapis." ^ He was in all respects a real leader of men. Different as he was in temperament and mind from his raw crews, he yet radiated from his very presence obedience, discipline, and heroism. No man fought battles with crews more heterogeneous or with ele- ments so antagonistic and jealous. Yet he came off victor in the Ranger-Drake action, after his crew had virtually refused to fight an armed ship ; he won the Serapis when 1 Jones to Lady Selkirk, Brest, May 8, 1778, Memoirs of Paul Jones, I, 90-1. 2 Laughton, Studies in Naval History, p. 403. 48 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY his crew had lost heart and his petty officers even sug- gested surrender. Concealed somewhere in that slight body with its rather delicate features and romantic eyes, was a personal magnetism which with dynamic power repelled revolt and energized resistance on the decks of frail frig- ates, and enlisted in the support of liberty great ladies of the court of France and great leaders of nations which hated Englishmen. There was about this man an attrac- tiveness, a depth of feeling, a modesty, and a simplicity which drew to him strangers such as Willie Jones, the elegant Southern planter, Robert IMorris, the shrewd Phila- delphia business man, and Marie Antoinette, the frivolous queen. Paul Jones rests to-day in the mausoleum prepared for him at Annapolis, as the great example of naval genius surmounting all obstacles which even the most fertile imagi- nations might place in the path of the ambitious, and as a perpetual voice of encouragement to those youths who, as they muse upon him and his victories, may at least dimly realize the decisive part a man of genius may play in the work of the sea to which they have dedicated their lives. CHAPTER lY THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL. SEA POWER IN AMERICA DURING THE NAPOLEONIC WARS THOUGH the American Navy in the years of the Revolution had, assisted largely by France, acquitted itself well and produced from its ranks Paul Jones, the naval commander of the time most deserv- ing the name of genius, American sea power, in the com- mercial sense — meaning by that term the merchant marine and the commerce which depends on it — was destined in the years that succeeded the Revolution to achieve far more brilliant success. ' Just as before the Revolution the maritime interests of the colonies were almost their chief activity, so as soon as peace came with the mother country, American sea power as commercially constituted quickly assumed distinctly the first place in the national life. This merchant shipping, as soon as the wars between England and France began, saw its opportunity, and by 1803 was, with no exceptions, the great carrier of the world's goods. Despite the efforts of England to retain her commercial supremacy on the sea highways, the United States, through its inherent advantages for sea traffic, and despite vexatious restrictions and confiscations by both belligerents, achieved a power at sea that was, more than is usually appreciated, the real basis on which its later commercial prosperity, and especially the naval successes of the War of 1812, were established. It is safe to say that no merchant navy, from the days 49 50 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY of Carthage to the rise of German commercial sea power in the last years of the nineteenth century, ever overcame so many difficulties, or achieved such brilliant results in so short a period of time. Deprived of the preferential bene- fits of being part of the British Empire; belonging to a country composed of thirteen quarreling states, each of which was supreme in its control of commerce and shipping ; without naval forces to protect it; the prey of pirates in the entire seven seas ; the innocent third party in the wars that raged almost continually from the day when the French revolutionists, by the execution of Louis XVI, made an end of monarchy in France, until Napoleon saw the desolate shores of St. Helena, — it still flourished.^ Robbed of its ships and cargoes if it did not submit to search by British cruisers, and robbed of both ship and cargo by French vengeance if it did so submit; its best seamen plucked from it for the decks of British frigates before the highlands of New Jersey or the gleam of Boston Light faded from view; even — to cap a dismal climax — forced into idleness and starvation by the acts of the American Congress and President, — is it strange that the American merchant marine has seemed to some writers to have been characterized during this period by poltroonery and dis- aster of which every American should be ashamed if it had not been relieved by the glories of the "War of 1812 ? Yet it is but fair to say that a more careful view of the period, even with an appreciation of all these disadvantages and disasters, shows that it was a time of triumph and that not only did the naval forces of the nation do credit- able work but commercially the United States throve on just this sort of opposition; and in 1810, after having for much of the previous decade dominated the carrying-trade of the world, its merchant marine was actually greater in tonnage than in any year of the next thirty-seven. And THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL SEA POWER 51 from the enterprise of American merchant sailors arose the cloud — smaller than a man 's hand — which gave warning of the overthrow of Napoleon himself. The new conditions that the American merchant marine "faced when peace was declared in 1783 were far different from what they had been at the end of the Seven Years' War only twenty years earlier.. To be sure, Americans were assured of participation in the Newfoundland fish- eries, but their whole relation to Great Britain was other- wise reversed. 'The Navigation Acts, which they had violated in prerevolutionary days but which had at least protected them from foreign competition, now sheltered them no longer, and Britain herself became a formidable competitor, who had advantage in every market. The chief trade of the colonies had been the trade with the West Indies, and from this trade, so far as it concerned the British islands, they were now excluded./ Furthermore, the British Navy no longer protected them against the pirates who infested the West Indies, and especially the Mediterranean, and who now swarmed about the American merchant ship with confidence that no injury would be punished. Lastly, the British ministry that succeeded Pitt's in 1783 clapped prohibitive duties on American goods entering British ports in American vessels. At the same time British ships filled with British goods-!— for which there Mas a great demand as soon as the peace of 1783 came— thronged American harbors, and, as they could carry back American products without paying the English import duties imposed on American exports, effectually prevented any competition from Americans. And worst of all, the British allowed an American vessel to bring to England only the product of its own state, — a great hard- .ship where most of the ships were owned in New England and most of the exported products were found in the South. 52 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY This melancholy condition of America's chief activity, commerce, led directly to the formation of the Constitution itself J As each state was a law unto itself in regard to foreign and domestic commerce and might impose tonnage taxes not only on British ships but also on the ships of other states entering its ports, no common and effective retalia- tion could be offered to British sea power and its commercial avarice. The Annapolis Convention, which led directly to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, was therefore brought about partly by the restrictions on trade between the states but also by the inability of Virginia to control foreign ships loading on its side of the Potomac. Reenforc- ing this immediate need, came the recognition of the necessity for a common commercial policy for the whole United States. Since the Articles of Confederation were insufficient, the few delegates who met in Annapolis in September, 1786, adjourned after urging the calling of a Constitutional Convention. The Constitution finally framed cured the difficulties which produced the Annapolis Convention. The Federal Government was given power ''to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes. " The states were forbidden, with slight ex- ceptions, to "lay any impost or duties on imports or ex- ports"; nor were they without the consent to Congress to "lay any duty of tonnage." Thus was the field cleared for a growing merchant marine which should serve the interests of the whole country, rather than those of any particular state. Furthermore, the Congress in its first real legisla- tive act, provided for the protection and encouragement of American ships. It allowed a discount of ten per cent, of the tariff duties upon imports brought to this country in ships built and owned by American citizens. Taking a leaf out of the British practice. Congress also gave the American THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL SEA POWER 53 ships engaged in the tea trade with China and the East Indies the advantage of a considerable reduction in duties, especially if the tea came directly from these Eastern coun- tries. The results of these measures, especiall}^ the stabilizing influence of the Constitution and the preferential tariff, were soon felt. In the one year between December 31, 1789, and December 31, 1790, the American tonnage regis- tered for the foreign trade more than doubled. In 1789, England had nearly a hundred thousand tons of shipping in the American trade ; in 1796, only one fifth as much. As Mr. H. C. Adams says in his ''Taxation in the United States": "The growth of American shipping from 1789 to 1807 is without parallel in the history of the commercial world." It is not surprising, therefore, that new exploits were recorded to the credit of American ships and sailors, who, trained in the long traditions of colonial seafaring and hardened by the bitter experiences of the Revolution, sought new markets and new seas for the pursuit of gain and adventure. In the years 1787,-88,-89,-90, Captain Robert Gray of Boston in the ship Columbia won the honor of piloting the first American vessel around the world. Sailing from Boston to the west coast of North America, he discovered the Columbia River, thus establishing our claim to the Oregon territory, traded with the Indians for furs, sailed across the Pacific to China, where he disposed of his valuable cargo, and then returned home around the Cape of Good Hope. From just about this time, also, dates the beginning of the American East Indian trade, a trade where seamanship, fighting ability, commercial shrewdness, and an indomitable courage that could carry an enterprise through against innumerable odds, were necessary for suc- cess. The ship must be sound to stand the rapid inroads 54 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY of tropical insects ; the captain must be a skilful navigator, for many ships were so small that nowadays we should hesitate to leave sight of land in them; he must also be a shrewd business man who could sell and purchase three or four cargoes in the course of one voyage, keep the inter- ests of the o^\aiers always before him, and know how to deal with the European trader, the Chinese merchant, and the Malay chief. He must also be a commander able to retain the respect and obedience of vigorous young Americans who looked forward to lives, not before the mast, but as captains and traders themselves. In the long voyage that might consume years, he must decide everything himself without communication with the owners in America, and a turn of fortune or a failure of judgment might spell the difference between wealth and bankruptcy. N/ With the beginning of war between England and the French Republic in 1793, American sea power encountered all the opportunities and all the vicissitudes of the neutral nation in wartime. Its trade and its profits increased because of its neutral character, and because of the greater drain on the merchant marines of the warring forces to supply the needs of their navies. Each country tried to stamp out neutral trade with its enemy, but desisted after less than a year and then adopted a policy of using the neutral for its own advantage and preventing such advan- tages for the enemy. The chief blow which the American ship-owner and trader felt, however, was the revival by Great Britain of the old Rule of 1756. Before hostilities began, France prohibited the trade between the French West Indies and France to American vessels, in fact to all except the French marine. With the breaking out of war France opened this trade to the world, which meant to America, as the latter was the chief neutral with a mer- cantile fleet. But Great Britain thereupon revived the 56 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY Rule of 1756, which said that in war a neutral should not enjoy a carrying-trade which was prohibited it in time of peace. Some of these grievances were alleviated by Jay's treaty with England, which went into force in 1795, but England and the United States could not agree on the trade with the British West Indies, and commerce con- tinued to be carried on without legal authority and subject to frequent interruption. And the treaty negotiated by Jay roused the anger of the French Directory, and produced fresh assaults on Ameri- can ships in the West Indies from French privateers and cruisers. The result was the so-called Naval War with France, recounted in the next chapter, which, however, se- cured some added security for American commerce. The unsettled conditions in the Mediterranean due to the Euro- pean conflict also gave freer rein to the pirates of the North African states, with whom the United States concluded vari- ous treaties, generally paying heavily for slight immunity from their depredations. Finally in 1801-5 the United States fought Tripoli and destroyed this danger to Ameri- can trade. \/ So great, however, was the demand for maritime carriers during the French Revolutionary struggle, and so insuffi- cient the supply of European vessels, that the period from 1793 to 1805 saw the tonnage of the merchant fleets of the young republic increase every year with one slight exception, and more than double in the twelve years. The secret was the so-called "broken voyage." Al- though by the Rule of 1756, American vessels could no longer carry the sugar, molasses, and other products of the French, Spanish, and Dutch West Indies directly to European countries, yet, as was decided by the British Admiralty courts in the case of the American ship Polly in 1800, the cargo of sugar and cocoa which she was carry- THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL SEA POWER 57 ing from Cuba to Spain could not be seized by the British, because, after leaving Havana, she had landed her cargo in Marblehead, paid duty on it, repaired, re- loaded, secured a new clearance, and begun her voyage anew. Though this added to the cost of the goods to the consumer, there were no competing ships which could make the direct voyage, and American ship-owners and skippers grew rich on the profits of this trade. As a result of this device, when England and Napoleon once more went to war in 1803, the whole carrying-trade of Europe fell into American hands. McMaster says: The merchant flag of every belligerent, save England, disap- peared from the sea. France and Holland absolutely ceased to trade imder their flags. Spain for a while continued to transport her specie and her bullion in her own ships, protected by her men-of-war. But this, too, she soon gave up, and by 1806 the , dollars of Mexico and the ingots of Peru were brought to her shores in American bottoms. It was under our flag that the gum trade was carried on with Senegal; that the sugar trade was can'ied on with Cuba; that coffee was exported from Caracas; and hides and indigo from South America. From Vera Cruz, from Cartagena, from La Plata, from the French colonies in the Antilles, from Cayenne, from Dutch Guiana, from the Isles of France and Reunion, from Batavia and Manila, great fleets of American merchantmen sailed for the United States, there to neutralize the voyage and go on to Europe.^ With the entire commercial structure of the United States organized on the basis of the "broken voyage," it is not surprising that the decision in the case of the Essex, in 1805, produced panic in America and inflamed the country against England so thoroughly that Jeffer- son was enabled to embark upon the series of retaliatory measures of non-intercourse and embargo which ended only with the declaration of war in 1812. The Essex, 1 McMaster, History of the People of the United States, III, 224, 58 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY with a cargo which she had secured in Barcelona, was on her way to Havana. After having stopped at Salem, Massachusetts, in the regular way, landed her goods, and paid the duty, she underwent repairs, and cleared for Havana as in every case of "broken voyage." But, when seized and libeled by the British, she was condemned as a prize inasmuch as the cargo had never been intended for sale in the United States, but had been sent from Spain for the Cuban market. Thus intention was made a new element in construing an old precedent, and the voyage became one prohibited by the Rule of 1756. N^ This was the first of several measures adopted by Great Britain to strangle the influx of foreign and colonial prod- ucts into the countries controlled by Napoleon and to secure for herself as far as possible, and especially by acting as a middleman, the trade which the neutral American marine was now snatching- from her grasp. In 1806 she declared by an Order in Council a "paper blockade" of all the European coast from Hamburg to Brest, in so far — and this shows her commercial purpose — as vessels brought there anything not a product of their own lands, or goods that had not been manufactured in Great Britain. Again in 1807, another Order in Council forbade neutrals to trade between any two enemy ports, and, this not sufficing, in the same year, a third Order in Council excluded neutrals from all enemy ports unless their ships stopped first in a British port, paid certain duties, and secured a trading license from the British authorities. \ Remembering the Essex interpretation of a direct or "continuous" voyage, — as it was later called when the United States adopted it in the Civil War and used it against England, — a lesson England learned so well that she revived it most opportunely in the early years of the World War, when the United States again became the THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL SEA POWER 59 great neutral carrier and England was again fighting the land power of a continental despot, — we can easily see the handicaps under which the American merchant fleets oper- ated. Yet, as the exceptions indicate, England did not endeavor to prohibit all commerce with Napoleon's do- mains, but tried to make such trade pay toll in English ports on its way to and from the Continent. Since Eng- land, then, as now, perhaps more then than now, was chiefly dependent on her commerce and the interchange of products in the markets of Liverpool and London, — even more than on her manufacturing, for the Industrial Revolu- tion was only gaining impetus in these years, — she realized that she must have trade to live, and must trade even with the enemy to sustain her commercial life. As long, then, as she received her share she was willing to allow trade even in neutral bottoms, if only the products did not directly enrich the coffers of her enemies; she made no attempts to prohibit trade absolutel}'; her chief idea was to control such trade and secure her share in the profits. Her predominance at sea was therefore used toward this end rather than toward strict blockade such as she enforced against Germany in the World War. This also explains partly how American foreign commerce grew during the whole period of the Napoleonic Wars, for as long as Ameri- can ships fell in with her trade interests, England was willing to allow them to operate. Accordingly, in 1810 we find the total of American ships engaged in the foreign trade 981,019 gross tons, a figure not surpassed till 1847. | / In Napoleon the young and rising American commercial sea power had a very difiierent kind of enemy. When the emperor, having seen his last attempt against English sea power sink shattered by the onslaught of Nelson's fleet at Trafalgar, inaugurated his Continental System with the Berlin Decree of 1806, and tried to shut up England from 60 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY all profitable trade with the rest of the world, especially with the European continent, he struck a worse blow at neutrals than he did at England herself. Her commerce, which he recognized as vital to her, was largely dependent on neutral carriers, but her sea power was such as to put the neutral ship under her control, to force it to stop at her ports, and so contribute to her commercial prosperity. Since an American ship could hardly sail the Atlantic except at the pleasure of the British Navy, which meant stopping at a British port, the Berlin Decree and the later decrees made virtually all American vessels fair prey to French privateers or, according to the Milan Decree of 1807, subject to confiscation on reaching a port controlled by the emperor. Worse than that was the deliberate robbery of the American merchant marine in 1810 by the Ram- bouillet Decree, when, under a pretense that American ships entering a French port or a port in a French colony were there illegally according to American laws (Jefferson's Embargo and Non-Intercourse Act), Napoleon actually seized ten million dollars' worth of ships and cargoes in the ports of France, Spain, Holland, Prussia, Denmark, and Norway. It is not necessary here to go into the Continental Sys- tem itself, for with all its theory of isolating England from the trade of the world and starving her commercially, the plans of Napoleon, like England's own, were not rigid or consistent, and just as England sought to attract neutral ships to trade through her ports, so Napoleon by licenses and "certificates of origin," — which showed that the vessel had not touched a British port, — allowed considerable trade, even the export of grain to England. And the American neutral captain went on his way successfully, furnished with two complete sets of papers by the connivance of the British authorities, one showing that he had stopped at a THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL SEA POWER 61 British port and was thereby saved from seizure by British cruisers, and another stating that he was directly from a neutral or friendly port, which he could exhibit to prevent confiscation in the Napoleonic countries. By one of the ironies of history, Napoleon's confiscation of American ships in the Baltic in 1810 led to his over- throw, Alexander of Russia refused to grant Napoleon's request that he seize American vessels in Russian harbors, a difference which led in 1812 to Napoleon's fatal invasion of Russia in an effort to include her in the Continental System. As Henry Adams the historian says, this was "the rock on which Napoleon's destiny split; for the quarrels which in the summer of 1811 became violent between France and the two independent Baltic Powers — Russia and Sweden — were chiefly due to those omnipresent Ameri- can ships, which throve under pillage and challenged con- fiscation," ^ The strongest proof, however, of the inherent vitality of American commercial sea power was given not by its re- action to the insidious regulations of the British or the brutal blows of Napoleon, but by its successful survival of the acts of its own government, acts which threatened the entire extinction of American commerce on the sea and the ruin of the country's chief basis of prosperity. This was the policy of embargo and non-intercourse which Jefferson inaugurated in 1807, just after the British Orders in Coun- cil of May, 1806, and Napoleon's counter-decree from Berlin of November. Public opinion in this country was strongly stirred against Great Britain by the Chesapeake-Leopard affair, when a British man-of-war fired upon an American frigate, subdued her, and took from her decks four mem- bers of her crew who were alleged to be British deserters. This made easy the enactment of Jefferson's Embargo Act, 1 Henry Adams, History of the United States, V, 408. 62 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY Tinder which, from December, 1807, to March, 1809, Ameri- can foreign commerce ceased to exist. No ship under any flag could sail to a foreign port, American ports were full of idle ships, American importers and exporters went into bankruptcy by the scores, and thirty thousand out of forty thousand American sailors were thrown out of employment. In New York alone the act cast twelve hundred men into prison for debt. It is no wonder that the shipping states, New England and New York, virtually defied the law, and that heavy bonds were required of every captain who sailed for a voyage between domestic ports. That the act did not forever ruin American shipping is due to the fact that American vessels in foreign waters at the passage of the act remained away from American ports and traded abroad until its repeal, and also to the fact that the British, by formal order, allowed embargo-breakers, who necessarily sailed without legal papers, to pursue their voyages un- molested. The Non-Intercourse Act differed from its predecessor, the Embargo Act, simply in that it prohibited trade only with Great Britain, France, and their colonies, and pro- vided that in case either nation removed the restrictions upon American trade, commercial relations might be re- newed with that nation. When this also failed to effect the repeal of a single one of the British Orders or French Decrees, commerce was again made free in 1810, except that the President might forbid intercourse with either France or England in case the other country repealed its obnoxious restrictions before May 4, 1811. Owing to Napoleon's skilful manceuvering in claiming that he had repealed his decrees, Madison, when the time came, brought on non-intercourse with Great Britain, and — as she did not yield — recommended a declaration of war, which went into effect on June 19, 1812. With that act, American sea THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL SEA POWER 63 power ceased to have commercial aspects and became purely naval. The news that on June 23d the British Government had revoked the Orders in Council did not reach the United States in time to avert the conflict. The reasons which had induced Jefferson to recommend and Congress to adopt measures as ruinous to American shipping as the Embargo Act are clear ; they are, however, as unsatisfactory and invalid as they seemed to the Ameri- can merchants and sailors of the time, for against the embargo New England rose almost as one man. The idea of an embargo or non-importation or non-intercourse act was not, however, a new one, having been adopted early in the Revolutionary struggle, and non-intercourse having been defeated in 1793 only by the casting vote of the Vice- President, John Adams. But without a naval force ade- quate to command the respect of Great Britain's over- whelming armadas, Jefferson, naturally of a pacific tem- perament, saw no method of retaliating except by economic warfare. Realizing the importance of American shipping to the belligerent nations, he thought that by mere stoppage of this trade the United States could force from England and Napoleon whatever measures of relief it wished. As a matter of fact, the restrictions did not seriously embarrass either country, as many American ships remained at sea, and England especially could adapt herself by easing the Orders in Council to the entrance of other neutrals to her carrying-trade. No more than Napoleon by his Con- tinental System, could Jefferson with his embargo stifle the operation of economic laws, or completely isolate England. Just as the German submarine blockade of the British Isles in the World War embarrassed but could not defeat England, so Jefferson harmed only his own country- men by his ill-advised interference. The extent of British sea power, commercial as well as naval, was entirely too UNITED STATES 204.426 DiW.T« 724,124 DW.T^ 951.609 D.W.T-*. 1383.739 aWX— 2.137.174 D.W.T--^ 1.920.251 D.W.T-^ 1.787.663 DW.T.-« 3.271.147 DW.T.„^ 5.303.180 D.W.Tm4 8.030,807 DW.T. 6.369.761 D.WT. 6.102052 DW.T 6.636.746 D.W.T. 7.747258 D.WT. 11,262.123 D.W.T IW93.437D.W.T 14,886.776 CkWT. 24.386.278 D.WT. GREAT BRITAIN 4586.069 D.WT. 5.454599 DW.T 5.959.334 DW.T 5.696.592 D.WT 7/J50.960 D.WT 9.524.164 D.WT. 12^9.678 DW.T 16.085.551 D.WT 19.006.135 DW.T 21.798,198 D.W.T 24.190.632 D.WT. 30.064.473 QWT 32516,955 O.WT. 25.200.585 D.W.T 33;i 26,426 D.W.T THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MERCHANT MARINE (Report of U. S. Shipping Board, 1919, p. 59) Gross tonnage is calculated by taking the entire closed-in cubical capacity of a ship and regarding each 100 cubic feet as a ton. Deadweight tonnage is calculated as the weight of cargo in long tons which a cargo ship can actually carry. It is generally about fifty per cent, greater than the gross tonnage. 64 THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL SEA POWER 65 great to be absolutely dependent on foreign bottoms or one country's trade. Although the extent of the American merchant fleet engaged in foreign trade decreased little in the years from 1807 to 1812, despite embargoes, Orders in Council, and Napoleonic Decrees, the year 1807 stands as the real height of the American merchant marine for the first naif of the nineteenth century. The tonnage then was but slightly less than in 1810, when the high-water mark was reached for the years before 1847, but in 1807 the value of American foreign commerce was $246,843,150, 92,7% of which was carried in American vessels, an amount greater than Ameri- can ships carried during any of the years in the rest of the half-century. Just as the years of the World War have seen a rebirth of American merchant marine in the foreign trade, so the years of the Napoleonic Wars saw develop in America a mercantile sea power which, favored as it may have been by the existence of war between great sea powers, had to surmount obstacles, imposed by the absence of an armed force to protect it and by arbitrary acts of foreign governments, which no other merchant marine, it may safely be said, has ever met and surmounted. In the annals of sea power in American history, the creation of this immense maritime force certainly deserves notice. Glorious as were the exploits of American war-ships and sailors in the War of 1812, it is well to remember that the skill, courage, aggressiveness, and enthusiasm there displayed were the fruit of a generation of peaceful but not easy achievement on every sea, in every port, and in every dif- ficulty of the merchant mariners of America. The impressment of seamen from American ships by the British stands in a somewhat different category from these trade restrictions. Although it began as early as 1790, 66 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY when Great Britain prepared for war with Spain, and continued till the outbreak of the War of 1812, — ^indeed never was settled formally, for it was not mentioned in the treaty which closed the war, — its importance is not in its effect on American commercial progress but rather as one of the chief causes of the actual outbreak of hostilities with England in 1812, Its weight in producing the explosion of war was that it contributed that human factor which is almost always necessary to bring on the actual break between two nations. Just as the interference with Ameri- can commerce with Germany by England in the early years of the World War did not produce hostilities, while the sinking of the Lusiiania and of American ships, with the consequent loss of American lives, did bring on war with Germany in 1917, so, impressment by its human factor excited popular feeling as no interference with ships or property could do. And even then the war would not have come when it did if the popular irritation against Great Britain, caused by impressment, had not been powerfully reenforced, perhaps even utilized, by Henry Clay's Western war party, which came into power in Congress. The West was anxious for war in order to safeguard the Northwest Territory from British-Indian machinations and even to conquer Canada itself for the United States. \J Impressment arose directly from the needs of the British Navy in wartime. When, at the outbreak of a war such as her war with France in 1793, she tried to fill the comple- ments of her naval vessels, she used the press-gang as her regular instrument. This meant sending out parties to go the rounds of the sailors' resorts in all the ports and seize Englishmen who were already trained seamen. At the same time British merchant ships entering port were boarded and their best seamen taken for the naval service. As the British pointed out, it was very difficult to dis- THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL SEA POWER 67 tinguisli a native-bom American from a Britisher, and mistakes would necessarily be made. This difficulty would probably have been easily surmounted, however, if two other factors had not entered into the problem. [ One was the circumstance that in wartime neutral vessels would pay higher wages than British skippers, and by the increase in their opportunities would thus attract many a British seaman. If this neutral happened to be an American ship, as was usually the case, the British sailor could obtain additional protection from forced service in the British ships-of-war under cruel discipline and miserable wages, if at his first American port he took out naturalization papers and thus declared himself an American citizen. But, as the right to expatriate oneself — especially in time of war — was not recognized by the British authorities, and could not be if the navy was to be efficiently manned, this natural- ization at once became the cause of disagreement and dis- pute between the two countries. It was not surprising, therefore, that we find British cruisers lying in wait off American ports such as New York and overhauling every American ship that came out. Only in that fashion could the fleets of Howe, Jervis, Hood, Nelson, and Collingwood ever be supplied with fighting personnel. In the second place, the man so impressed into the British Navy either in the British port or from the deck of an American ship often deserted in the first American port he could reach, for there he could not be rearrested and could obtain naturalization papers that ought to pro- tect him from punishment the next time he went to sea. Of course, the British Government, supreme at sea as it was, could not endure such a transparent flouting of its authority, and it is not surprising that in 1807 when the British had been informed that deserters from their ships of war were actually enrolled in the crew of the American 68 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY frigate Chesapeake, they decided to board even American men-of-war to reclaim their lost seamen. Accordingly, when the Chesapeake left Norfolk and headed for the Mediterranean, the British 50-gun ship Leopard hailed her, demanded the deserters, and when the demand was refused, fired upon the American until she surrendered and allowed the British to take four men. As a matter of fact, only one of the four taken was a deserter ; the other three sought for had deserted the Chesapeake before she sailed. This humiliating of the American flag stirred the country to indignation and enabled Jefferson to carry through the Embargo Act in retaliation. It is difficult to discover just how many really native-born Americans suffered impress- ment, though there is a tradition that Nelson's barge crew at Trafalgar was composed of American sailors. But the number of British-bom sailors with American naturaliza- tion papers' must have been very great, and the embarrass- ments and suffering inflicted on the American merchant marine were exasperating and hard to bear. Nevertheless, the people of the shipping states did not wish to fight for "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," as the slogan went in 1812, for war would destroj^, not secure, the profitable commerce which had made them prosperous for so many years. They were, however, in favor of increasing the navy to a point where the worst injuries of British sea power might be countered, but curiously enough, the West- ern War Democrats, hot for the conquest of Canada, were opposed to enlarging the navy, and the only considerable increase to the navy were the two hundred and fifty open gunboats of Jefferson, which, though intended to defend American harbors with their one gun per ship, were about as useful against a British cruiser or 74 as an Indian canoe. CHAPTER V AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN THE commercial fleets of the United States were conspicuous in the eyes of Europe and the rest of the world during all the years of the neutrality of the United States in the great war in Europe. But the naval forces of the new nation were so insignificant in comparison that though they brilliantly redeemed every opportunity for action they filled but a small place in the thought of the nation. In truth, for ten long years the United States actually had no navy. In 1785 the three ships remaining of the Revolutionary navy were sold, and for a decade the United States possessed not a single armed national vessel. These ten years were an open invitation to piracy, not only in the West Indies but also in the ^Mediterranean, In the very year 1785 Barbary pirates began their depredations on the young, growing, unpro- tected trade of America. It was as if police protection had suddenly been withdrawn from some great mart, leav- ing the shops with their costly wares exposed to robbers, who could henceforth pl}'^ their trade in daj'light. By 1793 Algiers alone had taken thirteen American merchant- men and held their crews for ransom until some of them died in captivity. A democratic people that looked upon armaments in peace times as instruments of tyranny was forced to arm, and ^n March 27, 1794, the United States Navy was reborn, never, let us hope, however near it may at times approach zero, again to reach that limit. 69 70 SEA POWER IN AMETlICAN HISTORY To meet the threat of piracy, by the law of March 21, ^ 1794, a date memorable in American naval annals, Con- ' gress made provision for the building of six frigates, for | the commissioning of six captains and twenty-two lieuten- i ants, and for the training of two thousand sailors and ; ) marines. But the law had the proviso— characteristic of i a pacific and over-confident young democracy — that if peace i were made with Algiers, work on the six frigates was to j cease. \ In imitation of the methods of European nations in dealing with the Barbary states, the United States bought a treaty of peace from Algiers, a method that is prolific of future trouble ; the buying of immunity from a bandit gives other bandits a contempt for the purchaser and stirs up their cupidity to make similar demands on every traveler. Congress, however, under the wise guid- ance of Washington, so far modified its earlier decision as to make possible the launching of at least three of the six frigates. Moreover, the President had commissioned as captains in the navy, in accordance with the law of March 27th, John Barry, Samuel Nicholson, Silas Talbot, Joshua Barney, Richard Dale, and Thomas Truxtun. One of these, Talbot, had been an army officer in the Revolution, a circumstance rather galling to real sea dogs iike Barney, who, therefore, refused to accept a commission which would make him the former's junior. But in m'itlgation of such offensive intrusion of army officers, we must remember that the navy was reborn under the War Department, — there was as yet no Navy Department, — hence the navy owes a bit of gratitude to the army, its foster-mother at a time when no one eared to acknowledge the poor little waif. To make the plans and supervise the construction of these six frigates, Joshua Humphreys was selected, a naval constructor who builded better even than he knew, for some of these famous six, in our days of great steel super- AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN 71 dreadnaughts scrapped after a score of years, are still afloat to tell the tale of the bygone glory of the sail. Humphreys carried out his ideal, which was to create frig- ates with finer lines, heavier timbers, taller masts, greater spread of sail, and heavier armament, — in a word, with greater power and speed, — than any ships of that class afloat. As he explained in one of his reports, he intended to build cruisers so that their commanders "will have it in their power to engage, or not, any ship, as they may think proper; and no ship, under sixty-four, now afloat, but what must submit to them. ' ' They were to be built of live-oak, and red cedar, estimated at five times the durability of white oak, and to have 24-pounder guns instead of the usual 18-pounders. The frigates were of two sizes, rated according to gun power as 44 's or 36 's, but this rating was merely for classification. The}^ always carried more guns than their ratings ; the enterprising captains of these first six cniisers, who themselves had a hand in supervising their construction, were limited only by the size of the gun-decks and the unwieldiness of the early types of guns and carriages. The policy of our government was opposed to building ships of the line, so called because they were intended for the line of battle, the dreadnaughts of the day, the t3'pe with which Nelson fought his great battles. Humphreys' creations were frigates, — that is, cruisers in- tended for convoy and scout work, for commerce-raiding and commerce-protection, units that could overmatch any- thing of their class, and run from the big unwieldy ships of the line, and so live to fight another day. IOf these six frigates, the first three, the United States, the Constitution, and the Constellation, were launched in 1797. As a result of the threatening state of affairs with France ^ they were equipped and commissioned, and Con- 1 See above, p. 56. 72 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY gress appropriated the money for completing the other three. ; Washington kept urging his Congress to prepare, and the new President, Adams, in a last hope for isolation while still extending the hand of friendship to the French Republicans, urged his new Congress to prepare for war. While waiting for the Directory's reply to the Pinckney Mission, Congress passed still stricter laws to maintain neutrality. When in those days of slow com- munications, the insolent answer of the Directory finally arrived. Congress, in the summer of 1798, acted with unusual vigor and passed in quick succession a score of defensive acts. Among other things, it created the Navy Department, provided — in addition to the six frigates above mentioned — for the purchase or building of twenty-four smaller war-ships, and for the arming of American mer- chantmen; moveover, it empowered the President, without a formal declaration of war, to capture French armed ships, and it repealed all existing treaties with France. ' These measures gave the President the power to begin a strange war, — a war in which there was never a declaration, in which both sides disavowed hostile intentions. The Directory, with all its intrigue and insolence to our ambas- sadors, when it came to the test, was afraid that war with a country that had been so friendly to France would throw that country into the arms of its worst enemy, England. In accordance with the enactments of Congress, Adams appointed Benjamin Stoddert the first Secretary of the Na^y. Stoddert proved to be a wise and far-seeing cabinet officer, whose suggestions, if they had been carried out, would probably have prevented the War of 1812.^ The new Navy Department took over the completing of the frig- ates, the purchase of the twenty-four minor war-vessels, the 1 Allen, Our Naval War with France, pp. 54, 55. See also Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, I. 296. Pi o o < T3 « 2 V o Q :S ^ i M 5 I DONTGIVEUFi THESHIF' PERRY'S FLAG AT THE BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE "Just before the American Fleet moved to attack the enemy, distant at 10 o'clock about four or five miles, Commodore Perry produced the burgee or fighting flag hitherto concealed in the ship. It was inscribed with large white letters on a blue ground that could be read throughout the fleet, 'DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP,' the last words of the inspiring Lawrence and now to be hoisted at the masthead of the flagship bearing his name. A spirited appeal was made to the crew assembled on the quarter-deck, who returned three hearty cheers that were repeated along the whole line of our vessels and up went the flag to the top of the fore-royal. When Perry was rowed from his sinking flagship to the Niagara, making his way through the hail of broadsides of the British vessels, he flung this flag over his arm and under it on the Niagara he entered again into the battle and in short order vanquished the British Fleet." — Usher Parsons, Assistant Surgeon on the Lawrence. This famous old flag, made of homespun, the work of Samuel Hambleton, is perhaps the most important relic in the collection of battle flags at the United States Naval Academy. AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN 73 enlistment and training of the personnel, and the arming of three hundred and sixty-five merchantmen. President Adams also recalled from retirement George Washington to act as Commander-in-Chief of the new army. This army, however, was never mobilized, because the new-bom navy finished the job before there was any need of an army. It is a strange illustration of sea power that the decisive military- factor in bringing both the powerful revolutionary France and the petty Barbary states to terms was not an army, but the small naval armament, created in 1794-98, the nucleus of which consisted of the six frigates: United States, Con- stitution, Constellation, President, Congress, and Chesa- peake. When the first of this little squadron made its appearance in the West Indies, it became an object of hilarious ridicule in the ward-rooms of British and French men-of-war on the station, a ridicule which some of this sextet were destined to change to profound respect. These frigates brought about a revolution in construction and armament in foreign navies, just as the 74-gun ship of the line did after Trafalgar, or as the Monitor blazed the way for the modem battle-ship. The ships of the new navy quickly got to sea. The French privateers operated mostly in the West Indies, though they at times had been so bold as to carry on their depredations close to shore along the Atlantic seaboard. Accordingly, the small United States fleet, divided in three squadrons, each assigned to a definite cruising ground, con- centrated on the protection of the West Indian trade. These squadrons kept up an active patrol against French cruisers and acted as convoys for merchantmen to and from the islands. The chief officer in command of any of these squadrons to distinguish himself was Captain Truxtun, who in the Constellation defeated near St. Kitts the French frigate I 74 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY Insurgente, February 9, 1799. In this duel, which lasted more than an hour, the Constellation proved a far better sailer than ''this celebrated French frigate Insurgente, esteemed one of the fastest sailing ships in the French Navy." ^ The Constellation secured during the manoeuver- ing two positions from which she raked the Frenchman so effectively that he was forced to strike his colors. In accu- racy of fire, too, the new American frigate surpassed an enemy that had had much longer experience at the guns. During the action the quick wit of Midshipman David Porter saved the Constellation from disaster, for by cutting the slings and lowering the yard from the wounded fore- topmast, he prevented the pressure of the wind from carry- ing away the mast. As the French captain, Barreaut, came aboard the Constellation and handed his sword to Truxtun, he exclaimed: "Why have you fired on the national flag? Our two nations are at peace." Truxtun'- merely looked at him and replied, ' ' You are my prisoner. ' ' He knew, and Barreaut knew, that the American Navy had gotten one of the most flagrant offenders against Ameri- can merchantmen. There was a sort of poetic justice in Truxtun 's victory, for the Insurgente had the previous year retaken the Retaliation, which, under its original French name Croy- ahle, Stephen Decatur, Sr., famous father of a more famous son, had caught early in the war in piratical acts off the American coast. William Bainbridge, the unlucky com- mander of the Retaliation at the time of her recapture by the Insurgente, was now, and was to remain many months, in the dungeons of Guadeloupe, Truxtun 's victory was therefore hailed by the American people as a sharp revenge for old scores. 1 Truxtun's report of the battle. See Barreaut's interesting report, Maclay, History of the Navy, I. 183 flf. AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN 75 Truxtun's victory was followed early the next year by an indecisive engagement between the Constellation and an- other frigate, the Vengeance, but the American squadrons had b}'- this time greatly decreased French depredations on commerce. With the capture of the French Berceau by the Boston, the bold exploit of Isaac Hull in cutting out a privateer in the harbor of Puerto Plata, and the work of the smaller American cruisers against privateers, the steady pressure of American sea power in the West Indies was bringing the French people to terms. France, powerful in her desperation, like Russia after the World War, had in a mad orgy of blood at once been killing her own citizens and facing a hostile world. After ten years of radicalism, she fell into the power of a great military dictator, Napoleon, who had superseded the Directory and who, on September 30, 1800, made peace with the United States. By the terms of the treaty, France recovered the captured war- ships but lost seventy privateers taken by the American naval forces. The treaty with France was hardly ratified before the Barbary states began to make new demands for more tribute. These North African peoples had since ancient times fostered piracy. Especially after the conquest of Granada in 1492, when the Moriscos left Spain, religious hate added fuel to commercial rivalry and brought on con- tinual wars of all sea powers in succession against the Barbary states, — wars that were to be terminated once for all by a new sea power across the Atlantic. Spain, England, Holland, and France, under such great leaders as Charles V, Cromwell, De Ruyter, and Duquesne, had sent huge fleets to attack the pirate nests, had made treaties only to have them broken when vigilance was relaxed, and had ended by buying immunity from the corsairs with ransom and tribute and blackmail. The United States, 76 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY following the lead of these great European powers, like- wise found it expedient for a time to buy such immunity and had accordingly made treaties with Morocco (1785), Algiers (1795), Tripoli (1796), and Tunis (1797). The J gist of all these treaties was tribute. During the great! European war, raging for the last decade of the eighteenth century, and yet to rage for another decade, the belligerents swept one another's trade off the Mediterranean, and American enterprise was active in this sea to supply the deficiency. The Barbary states, taking advantage of the general disorder of civilization, became more extortionate toward any possible victims. The larger European nations in their own selfish interests, now as in earlier times, con- nived at these depredations on the commerce of a rival, or bought their own immunity by winking at piracy against others. Indeed, this century-old extortion by bandits was largely fostered by the mutual jealousies and lack of co- operation of the Christian powers. William Eaton, fire- eating ex-Revolutionary American soldier, who was sent with the tribute of naval stores to Algiers in 1797, sum- marizes the whole Barbary business in these vivid words, descriptive of his audience with the Dey of Algiers: Here [in the palace] we took off our shoes and, entering the cave (for so it seemed), with small apertures of light from iron grates, we were shown to a huge, shaggy beast, sitting on his rump upon a low bench, covered with a cushion of embroidered velvet, with his hind legs gathered up like a bear. On our approach to him, he reached out his forepaw, as if to receive something to eat. Our guide exclaimed, "Kiss the Dey's hand!" The consul general bowed very elegantly and kissed it; and we followed his example. . . . Can any man believe that this elevated brute has seven kings of Europe, two republics, and a continent tributary to him, when his whole naval force is not equal to two Hne-of- battle ships ? It is so ! ^ 1 Allen, Our Navy and the Barbary Corsairs, p. 63. AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN 77 And the worst of this whole system of tribute was that the pirate lust for money was insatiable. A new treaty granting more gifts to one Barbary state aroused immedi- ately the cupidity of another. Such America found to be the case now. She had given more to Algiers and Tunis than to Tripoli. The latter, therefore, declared war upon the United States, February, 1801. But before going on with this war with Tripoli, we must pause to tell of an incident that occurred the previous year, an incident that would be highly amusing if it were not one of the most humiliating events in the annals of the American Navy. William Bainbridge, after his long im- prisonment at Guadeloupe, at the age of twenty-six years was promoted to a captaincy in the navy and was given command of the George Washington, of twenty-four guns, one of the ships purchased by the Government during the ** French War." In this he carried the annual tribute to Algiers in the autumn of 1800. The Dey ^ of Algiers was at this time having trouble with his suzerain, the Sultan of Turkey, because the dey had made peace with Napoleon without consulting the sultan. The dey accordingly or- dered Bainbridge to carry gifts as a solace to his sultanic majesty. Bainbridge, who had shown in his career up to this time great spirit, refused point-blank. The dey answered that he had been accustomed to receive similar services from the great nations of Europe and could easily get a British ship to carry his gifts, and added: "You pay me tribute by which you become my slaves. I have therefore a right to order you as I think proper." The George Washington was anchored right under the Algerian guns and a persistence in refusal probably meant deten- 1 The North African rulers were known h\ a variety of names, such aa dey, hey, hashaw, pasha, sultan, and even emperor, as in the case of Morocco. 78 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY tdon of the ship, imprisonment and slavery for the crew, and war between the United States and Algiers. This was the reasoning of the American consul-general, O'Brien, at Algiers, who advised Bainbridge to acquiesce in the dey's demand. An experience of ten years of slavery in Barbary may have had some influence on O'Brien's decision, which called do'WTL upon him and Bainbridge the bitter denuncia- tion of Eaton. Bainbridge, under coercion and deeply humiliated, took the dey's mission to the sultan. Besides his own crew of one hundred and thirty, he had on board ''the ambassador, and suite, one hundred in number; also one hundred negro women and children, one hundred and fifty sheep, twenty-five cattle, four lions, four tigers, four antelopes, twelve parrots, and funds and regalia amounting to nearly a million dollars." The United States Navy during the last century has had varied experiences rang- ing all the way from great fights to Arctic explorations and relief to earthquake-shattered towns and starving peoples, but Bainbridge 's expedition in 1800 stands in a class by itself. The Tripolitan War, 1801-5, is a period in history in which Americans can find small cause for pride except in this remarkable fact that the insignificant naval arma- ment of a new nation three thousand miles from its base accomplished, largely as a result of this war, what the great sea powers of Europe had not been able to accomplish in three hundred years, — ^the ending of all tribute forever to the Barbary states. The main reason that the war with Tripoli was spread out over five years was that the Ameri- can Navy was handicapped by government red-tape, inter- departmental friction, and by a system of annual enlist- ments, owing to which American squadrons had to return to the United States every year. Of the five squadrons so sent out, under Commodores Dale, Morris, Preble, Samuel AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN 79 Barron, and Rodgers respectively, the third and smallest, under Preble, was the most decisive factor and presents the most illuminating lessons for our consideration. Preble was recalled a little bit too soon to finish the job because an officer senior to him had by departmental rules a prior claim to his command, but Preble's splendid work was destined to have a decisive effect on the treaty nego- tiations. Preble took command in the summer of 1803, and after extensive repairs to his flag-ship, the Constitutio?!, in Bos- ton, he sailed in August, with the new consul-general to the Barbary states, Tobias Lear, aboard, for Gibraltar. Preble's squadron, the units of which had sailed singly as each was ready for sea, consisted of the frigates Constitu- tion and Philadelphia, the brigs Argus and Siren, and the schooners Vixen, Nautilus, and Enterprise. Preble, like his two predecessors, was a veteran of the Revolution. A stern disciplinarian and hot-tempered, he was at first very unpopular with his subordinates, whom, on account of their youthfulness, he sarcastically called school-boys. But under his brusque manner Preble had a big heart and an intense spirit of justice, qualities which, coupled with his energy and decision of character in dealing with the corsairs, quickly inspired in his "boys" a warm admiration, which became mutual. Under Preble the squadron achieved a very high degree of efficiency, and officers and men showed a devotion to service and country that has few parallels in history. On his arrival at Gibraltar, Preble found plenty to oc- cupy his energetic spirit. He met, at the straits, bound for home. Commodore John Rodgers, who had during the summer captured the Meshuda, a Tripolitan corsair claimed under a fictitious sale by the Emperor of Morocco. Captain Bainbridge in the Philadelphia, en route to his 80 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY station, caught red-handed another Moroccan cruiser, the Mirhoka, which in contravention of the treaty had just captured an American merchantman, the Celia. With Morocco thus committing depredations at the very en- trance to the Mediterranean, Preble realized that opera- tions at Tripoli must be secondary to this new menace. He persuaded Commodore Rodgers, with the latter 's homeward-bound squadron consisting of the New York and the John Adams, to join him in a determined naval demon- stration before Tangier. This quick action of Preble and Rodgers brought quick returns. The Emperor of Mo- rocco, after pretending that he had not authorized his sub- ordinate to capture American merchantmen, and after feigning anger at the seizure of the Meshuda, confirmed anew the treaty of 1785 and gave up all prisoners without ransom. Preble's conduct in this matter was a revelation to the young officers in the fleet; they saw the dawn of a new day in a campaign that had lagged until the boldest were losing heart. Meanwhile Bainbridge had preceded Preble to his duty, the Tripolitan blockade, which had been proclaimed to the world by Consul Eaton during the second year of the war. Now happened a third misfortune to Bainbridge, which with its cumulative force would have broken a less resolute heart. The whole coast of Barbary is unusually dangerous for blockade duty, especially from September to April, when there are frequent and violent gales. Be- sides these storms, Tripoli in particular has many reefs, uncharted in those days, and dangerous even for the best Mediterranean pilots. On October 31, 1803, Bainbridge in the Philadelphia, noticing a strange sail standing before the wind toward the harbor, gave chase, firing at her as he drew nearer. The vessel, which displayed Tripolitan colors, ran close in shore. Bainbridge, finding his fire in- AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN 81 effectual, gave up the chase and was bearing off shore when the Philadelphia suddenly ran aground in twelve feet of water. Bainbridge immediately took careful soundings, and finding plenty of water astern, ''laid all sails aback and set a heavy press of sail in the ship to blow her off; cast three anchors away from the bows, started the water in the hold, hove overboard the guns excepting some abaft to defend the ship against the gunboats then firing on us. I found all this ineffectual. I then made the last resort of lightening her forward by cutting away the foremast. But labor and enterprise were in vain, for our fate was direfuUy fijted. ' ' ^ "Without means of defense and sur- rounded by gunboats, Bainbridge submitted to capture, and three hundred and seven officers and men were doomed to a long imprisonment. The officers were treated fairly well, but the men were ill fed, abused, and driven by the lash and torture to labor like slaves. The Danish consul, Nissen, did much to alleviate conditions for the prisoners. Through his unremitting efforts, Bainbridge was able to obtain money and supplies from the squadron and carry on a correspondence in code with Preble, which was of much service to the commodore in condoicting the block- ade of Tripoli. A few days after the accident the Tripoli- tans succeeded in dragging the Philadelphia off the reef, salvaged the anchors and guns, and towed her into the harbor amidst a jubilation whose echoes were heard by the mortified American prisoners. The court of inquiry that followed entirely exonerated Bainbridge, but he felt the loss terribly. And Preble, who had first learned of the accident a month later from the Amazon, one of Nelson's cruisers, also felt the loss terribly, though he wrote letters full of heartfelt sympathy to Bainbridge in an effort to cheer him 1 Bainbridge's report to the Secretary of the Navy, Nov. 1, 1803. 82 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY and his men. "Without the Philadelphia Preble's squad- ron, small from the start, lost one third of its force. Despite the handicap, however, Preble made all plans for a vigorous offensive. He kept the smaller units of his squadron busy convoying American merchantmen and as scouts watching with vigilant eye the movements of all Mediterranean corsairs. He was also in constant com- munication with the various United States consuls in the Barbary states. As Gibraltar was at this time too much occupied with Nelson's fleet, Preble changed the base of his squadron to Malta and Syracuse, where he cultivated friendly relations with the authorities. During these in- teresting times in the Mediterranean, when Nelson was bringing to a climax a splendid career by his relentless vigil for two years before Toulon in the memorable cam- paign that ended with Trafalgar, Preble came in contact with that greatest sailor of all times. Nelson had inter- vened to make desertions from the American to the Brit- ish naval forces less possible, and Sir Alexander Ball, friend of Nelson and Governor of Malta, and also the King of Naples, another friend of the great British admiral, lent much assistance to Preble from time to time. This contact of the young American Navy with a service which at that time was creating the greatest tradition in all sea annals must have had a marked influence upon Preble and his boys, who were also making an immortal memory for themselves. Unwittingly, long before the days of naval academies, Preble was conducting a very practical naval school, with harsh experiences as preceptor and illustrious examples as inspiration. It was well that the youthful American Navy, like the American people, drew for its traditions upon England, autocratic in form and democratic in spirit, rather than upon France, republican in appearance, but reactionary AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN 83 and autocratic in essence. The Americans, co-heirs with England of the same language, the same Shakspere, the same common law, and the same fundamentals of constitu- tional liberty and government, chose, through Congres- sional enactment during the "French "War," the Regula- tions of the British Navy as basic law of their new navy. The two navies, therefore, like the two great English- speaking peoples, sprang by tradition and legal sanctions from the same sources. Almost immediately after the loss of the Philadelphia, the strenuous Preble made plans to neutralize the handi- cap of his small force by aggressive measures in midwinter. Bainbridge, also, was using his time in prison not only in conducting an improvised naval school for his fellow officers, but also in devising plans for the cutting out of the Philadelphia and for the gunboat attacks on Tripoli, — plans which he communicated secretly to Preble. But Preble and his young fellows out in the squadron were likewise devising means of cutting out or destroying the frigate. Foremost among these venturesome spirits was Stephen Decatur, who had volunteered to make a night at- tack in midwinter on the Philadelphia. The Enterprise on a cruise recently with the Constitution had captured a Turkish ketch, the Mastico, running the blockade. She had formerly been a French gunboat and had taken part in the attack on the grounded and helpless frigate. This Mediterranean-rigged ketch, which Preble renamed In- trepid and added to his force, was to take part in another attack on the Philadelphia. Preble and Decatur were per- fecting, at Syracuse toward the end of January, the most careful plans for a feat that takes rank with Nelson 's bold exploit at Corsica, with Cushing's destruction of the Albemarle, and with Carpenter's blocking of the channel at Zeebrugge in the World War. 84 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY According to these plans, early in February, 1804, Decatur, accompanied by Stewart in the Siren, crossed to Tripoli, but was prevented by heavy gales from entering the harbor. After tossing about for ten days in the close and uncomfortable quarters of the ketch, Decatur was as?ain making for the entrance of the harbor on February 16th. A faint moon helped him thread his way in, but also made him visible from shore. AVith drags out to slacken her speed the Intrepid stood slowly for the Phila- delphia. When she had gotten within thirty yards of the frigate, she was hailed and ordered to keep off. Catalano, Decatur's resourceful Sicilian pilot, who knew the lan- guage, answered the hail, and, coached by Decatur at his side, kept up an easy fire of replies to the numerous ques- tions hurled at him from the deck of the frigate. He ex- plained that the ketch had lost her anchors in the gale off shore and requested permission to lie alongside for the night ; that they were in bad straits for water and food ; that the brig outside (the Siren) was the Transfer, re- cently bought by the Tripolitans at Malta and now waiting to make her way into the harbor. During this conversa- tion, the dozen American sailors, disguised in Maltese cos- tume, the sole ones visible on deck, were quietly but very efficiently making lines fast to the bow and stern of the Philadelphia, while hidden forces below were pulling in the hawsers and working the ketch alongside. Suddenly a suspicion ran through the crowd overhead and some one yelled "Americanos!" Decatur, giving the word to board, with Morris sprang on the Philadelphia's deck. For a brief instant they were alone, but only for an instant. The Americans swarmed over the sides and found the Tripolitans huddled together, utterly dazed, in the fore- castle. The struggle was short and decisive. "Those who resisted were cut down and the rest jumped overboard pre- AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN 85 cipitately. ' ' ^ The boarders, according to details very care- fully prearranged, separated; some swept the gun-deck while others, laden with combustibles, started fires in various parts of the ship. The whole thing went like clockwork .and was over in a few minutes, — minutes during which Stephen Decatur was in command of that fine frigate, whose first commander, as she left the ways, had been his father, Stephen Decatur senior. The job done, the Americans scrambled back to the Intrepid' s deck. Decatur, the last to leave, sprang into the rigging of the ketch as she shoved off. But the Americans were none too soon. They now got a rousing send-off. As the sailors manned the sweeps to help the light breeze in getting them away from these warm surroundings, they gave three cheers, — cheers that were quickly drowned by the belching of a hundred and more cannon of the forts, which had just awakened from surprised stupor. Three Tripolitan cruisers and a few galleys, moored near the Philadelphia, also fired at the re- treating ketch, but their aim was wild and the ketch re- ceived a hole in one sail as the sole token of the pirates' rage. The Philadelphia, with ports brightly illuminated from the intense fire within, the flames licking with great tongues the tall masts and spars, lighted the harbor and town. The fast-falling shot cast up jets of fire-lit spray and the tall minarets of the town sent back a weird re- flection. The Philadelphia, as her loaded gims became heated, gave the Tripolitans a broadside and fired a last salute for her retreating countrymen. Her hawsers burnt off, she drifted on shore near the dey's palace, where she blew up. For this daring piece of work Decatur became the popular idol of the American people, was promoted to the rank of captain at twenty-five, the youngest man ever ^ Soley, Operations under Preble, U. S. Naval Institute, V, 67. 86 AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN 87 to receive such rank. The venture quickly got to the ears of Nelson off Toulon, who called it "the most bold and daring act of the age." After the destruction of the Philadelphia Preble made his plans for the following summer. In May he secured from the King of Naples, who was also at war with Tripoli, a friendly loan of six 25-ton gunboats, two 30-ton mortar- boats, and twelve Neapolitan gunners for each of these eight vessels. The gunboats were flat-bottomed, unwieldly affairs, intended for harbor defense, mounted one 24- pounder in the bow, and carried a complement of thirty- five men. The loan of twelve gunners for each vessel helped Preble greatly, for his squadron was short-handed. While equipping these boats at Syracuse and making his plans for the bombardment of Tripoli, he kept a vessel or two alwaj^s off Tripoli on blockade duty and he himself was constantly on the move between Malta, Syracuse, Tripoli, Naples, and Tunis. As at this latter place the bey was showing a hostile attitude, Preble appeared in force before the town in June and brought the bey back to the strait and narrow path of treaty obligations. By July 25th, Preble arrived, gunboats and all, before Tripoli, and from now until his relief, September 10th, he kept up a harassing offensive. During this time he made five carefully planned attacks on the defenses, in the course of which he sent some thousands of shells into the towns and forts, destroyed half a dozen of their gunboats, and reduced the demands of the pasha for ransom from half a million to a hundred thou- sand dollars. By departmental red-tape Preble was re- called at the very moment when he was forcing the pasha to his knees. Of these five bombardments we will dwell for a moment upon the first and most interesting. The larger units of Preble's squadron on all of these occasions had to remain 88 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY a safe distance from the treacherous reefs, and also were hampered by northerly gales. The enemy gunboats, num- bering three times as many as Preble's, generally kept be- hind the long line of reefs, but on August 3d the eastern or van division ventured outside the rocks. On this day the enemy's center division, of seven boats, lay behind the reefs and the rear, of five, under the western batteries. Preble, thinking it a favorable opportunity, gave the order to his gunboats to cast loose, and began a bombardment from the heavier ships to cover the attack. Somers, in command of the first division, in a poor sailer, was driven too far to leeward, where he encountered the enemy's rear single-handed, and inflicted severe losses in driving them shoreward. Captain Stephen Decatur, with that dash so characteristic of him*, captured an enemy gunboat by boarding. Lieutenant James Decatur, his brother, had also just made a capture but was treacherously shot at the moment of boarding the prize. Maddened by this, Cap- tain Decatur left his first prize and boarded another cor- sair. In the ensuing encounter Decatur fought with such fury that he outstripped the corsairs in a manner of fight- ing in which they were masters, but at the imminent risk of his life. In his two hand-to-hand encounters Decatur and his crew of thirty had slain thirty-three out of sixty and made the rest prisoners. Lieutenant Trippe in Gunboat Number 6, of Decatur's division, boarded an enemy with ten men, but before the rest could get aboard, his vessel drifted away, leaving the eleven alone against thirty-six. With the fury of madness these plucky eleven killed four- teen of the enemy, received the surrender of the remaining twenty-two, and sailed back in their prize. Trippe came out of this action with eleven saber wounds. Surely these ' 'boys ' ' could fight a bit ! The daredevil spirit that actuated these young ofiScers AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN 89 is perhaps best illustrated by an incident of the blockade of Tripoli, known as the Intrepid Disaster. After his num- erous bombardments Preble on the fourth of September tried to force a decision on the pasha by sending a fire-ship into the inner harbor. He found eager volunteers again for this dangerous undertaking and chose Lieutenants Richard Somers, Henry Wadsvvorth, and Joseph Israel, to command the Intrepid. She had on board a hundred bar- rels of gunpowder and a fuse timed to burn fifteen minutes. Her officers intended to take her into the midst of the enemy gunboats, light the fuse, and get back in a cutter. She entered the harbor on a dark night and must have gotten \evy near her objective when she blew up prema- turely. Her consorts waited many hours outside for the lads' return but no survivors ever appeared. The In- trepid's fate to this day is a matter of conjecture. It was known that Somers had vowed not to be taken alive, and it is generally supposed that he, surrounded by overwhelm- ing odds, deliberately blew up himself and his enemies. Thirteen bodies drifted ashore next day, but they were so disfigured that they could not be recognized by Bainbridge, who was taken to see them. A week after this incident Commodore Barron arrived and took command. But Barron, a sick man, was in turn relieved the following spring by Commodore John Rodgers, who had an overwhelming force, the nucleus of which was six frigates. Meanwhile the indefatigable and patriotic Consul Eaton, bitter critic of earlier naval fiascos, had gone to the United States to get authority to back Hamet, an elder brother of the pasha, in the former's claim for the throne. With an energy that matched Preble's, Eaton gathered a motley Falstaffian army in Egypt, captured Deme, a town of Tripoli, and was marching on Tripoli from the rear, when peace was suddenly made by a bitter 90 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY enemy of Eaton, Consul-General Lear, on June 3, 1805. By the terms of this treaty the Americans paid sixty thou- sand dollars ransom, and Bainbridge and his men were at once released. But the decisive factor in this result was the little squadron under Preble.^ Ten years later Deca- tur in command of a big force again entered the Mediter- ranean and ended by quick and decisive action all tribute- paying by the American Government to these pirate states forever. The next year, 1816, England, the mistress of the seas, that had submitted to the insolence and extortion of Barbary for two and a half centuries, sent a powerful fleet under Lord Exmouth and forced Algiers to end white slavery and tribute. The rest of Europe soon followed suit, but Preble and his boys had blazed the trail. The officers who were with Preble and Decatur in the year 1803-4 include the whole list, except Perry alone, of those who were to win fame in the coming War of 1812. In Preble's squadron were Macdonough, Hull, Lawrence, the elder and the younger Bainbridge, Stewart, Blakeley, Chauncey, Charles Morris, David Porter, Jacob Jones, and Biddle, — a famous company, whose names loom large in the traditions of the American Navy. We have now seen that the sea power of America, re- bom in 1794 with the first six frigates, stopped the depre- dations of France and Barbary upon America's commerce, which constituted at this time a great element of sea power. The American naval armament, which in 1801 comprised some forty-five war-ships and six thousand officers and men, was estimated to have cost the country about $6,000,- 000 during the "French War." This force protected a commerce valued at $200,000,000. After the "French War" the navy kept growing to protect against the Bar- 1 MacKenzie, Life of Decalur, p. 127. Soley, Operations Under Preble, U. S. Naval Institute, V. 80. AMERICAN NAVAL POWER REBORN 91 bary pirates a commerce which at the end of the Tripolitan War amounted to $250,000,000 annually. A navy so founded on a thriving commerce and in proper ratio to such commerce is not an instrument of tyranny but rather a bulwark of liberty to a great and free people. CHAPTER VI SEA POWER DOMINATES THE WAR OF 1812 w E have seen that during the great upheaval in Europe — an upheaval which was to cover in all a quarter of a century — the United States had already been drawn into two wars, one of which was a maritime contest with one of the two great belligerents, France ; the other of these two belligerents, England, was now, on the same isvsue of freedom of the seas, to draw the United States into war a second time. We have seen that in the European war, during the decade after the "French War," both European belligerents, by act after act of reprisal which in turn produced further restrictions, ruthlessly and effectively made neutral commerce more and more difficult. As in 1914 to 1917, England with her mighty sea power — her navalism, as her opponents called it — was engaged in a death-grapple with militarism, a yet more ruthless power lusting for world conquest. In this contest peace-loving, isolation-loving America, after ten years of patience and note-writing, was finally again forced to take sides. Blinded by the old slogans of the War of Independence, — navigation acts and a tyranny that threat- ened again to reduce the new country to the status of colonial dependence, — the American people fought Eng- land rather than their traditional friend, France. Blinded, too, the Americans were by the clever phrases of that wonderful man Napoleon, who posed as the gi'eat op- ponent of autocracy, and who, while reducing to poverty 92 I I THE WAR OF 1812 93 millions of people in Europe by stealing private property on land, pretended to the most scrupulous regard for pri- vate property at sea. Despite the fact that America in 1812 chose as a virtual ally one whom she should have chosen as an enemy, the vast sea power of Britain domi- nated the world in 1812 as it did a century later. And well it was for America that Britain's sea power did dominate the world, for taken all in all, Britain, against the radical- ism and militarism of France, was the bulwark of the world's liberty.^ Napoleon's weapon on the sea, after Trafalgar in 1805, was the Continental System, a vast scheme to destroy the life-blood of British sea power, her commerce upon the seas, bj^ shutting it out from the whole of Europe. This Continental System, whose mere enforcement, ranging from the Baltic to the Atlantic and Mediterranean, was an enor- mous drain on Napoleon's resources, wasted his revenues, his credits, and his enforced contributions from subject peoples, and gave him in their stead the hatred of these peoples. At the same time British trade, despite the sys- tem, continued to flourish and powerfully sustained the revenues of Britain, giving her the ready money for war- making by which she kept alive and vigorous those suc- cessive coalitions against the despot of Europe. The Con- tinental System, intended to break Britain, broke its cre- ator, Napoleon. For, to enforce his vast system, he, the great apostle of concentration in military strategy, made enemies at the two ends of Europe, — Spain and Ru.ssia. The Russian disaster to his army was the beginning of the end. The entry of the United States at the moment when the contest in Europe was most critical, 1812, forced the sea power of Britain, already greatly dispersed, to a 1 Mahan, Influence of Sea Power on the French Revolution, II. 242, 408, 409. 94 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY greater dispersion in protecting her trade routes and mar- kets.^ A friendly Atlantic seaboard in America with its convenient harbors, as in the Seven Years ' War, was a great asset to any sea power. Deprived of these American ports for food, ships' stores, shelter from storms, and especially for the interchange of commerce, Britain would be com- pelled greatly to increase her naval force to protect the avenues of trade to her home ports and thence to her greatest market, — ^the Continent of Europe, from which Napoleon, in his last desperate effort to starve Britain into submission, was trying to exclude British goods. On the other hand, France, virtually an ally of America in 1812, might at any time use these American ports and the great resources of food and raw products in America. She might have availed herself of American products, but she did not, and for the same reason that Germany in the World War could not. Napoleon had constructed ships industriously enough after Trafalgar; but his fleets, by the relentless vigilance of the British Navy, were kept, like the German Navy at Kiel, locked up in their home ports; and France had lost the assistance of her colonies by rea- son of that same dominating sea power, as Germany lost her colonies in the World War. Such being the maritime power of Britain, whose mainstay was six hundred dread- naughts and first-class cruisers,^ what was the governing principle for the United States in this War of 1812 to adopt, a country without a single sliip of the line and with a total of twenty-one frigates and sloops of war ? This governing principle, the plan of a great campaign of war by which all military factors, the harmonized co- operation of army and navy, are to operate is called strategy. The story is well known of Napoleon, sprawled 1 Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, pp. 280, 281. 2 James, Naval History of Britain, VI. Appendix 21. THE WAR OF 1812 95 on the floor of his office over a map of Europe into which he was sticking various-colored pins. He explained to his amazed secretary, "We shall be here [sticking a pin] on such a day, the Austrians there [another pin]." Weeks afterward, the secretary, yet more surprised, rode with his great chief into each of these pin-pricked spots on schedule time. Strategy is simply such a comprehensive, unified plan, thought out on paper with mathematical pre- cision. Like mathematics, it is true for all ages and for all places. Tactics, on the other hand, is the plan of operations of armies and navies after they come in con- tact, and varies with the introduction of new inventions and weapons, — steam, gunpowder, the rifle, the submarine, bar- rage fire, etc. In addition to strategy and tactics, tech- nical writers apply the term logistics to communications, to the getting of fleets and armies to the battle-ground, and to their maintenance. Strategy then is the head that plans, tactics the fist that strikes, and logistics the nerves that continue to keep in communication the plans of the head and the power of the fist. To a strategical plan the situation of the United States — and especially its numerous harbors with the St. Law- rence and the Great Lakes separating it from Canada, a great colony of a distant enemy — offered many advantages which compensated somewhat for the scantiness of Ameri- can military forces. Nature itself had determined the strategy most advantageous for the United States. Ac- cording to these natural conditions, the strategy of the war had two phases, — a defensive phase for the navy on the Atlantic seaboard against British commerce and com- munications and an offensive phase for the army and navy on the Canadian border. The New England coast with its wide harbors and violent storms of winter made blockading difficult and the slip- 96 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY ping out of raiders easy. Of course, if America had had even one respectable fleet of a dozen ships of the line, as Robert Morris and Stoddert had often urged, the enemy's fleets might have been forced to remain concentrated at their bases, Halifax and Bermuda. During the decade before 1812, when the war was plainly approaching, Congress ap- propriated money for two new brigs and two sloops of war to protect a commerce as great as England's, — as if a city, growing from one hundred thousand to two hundred thou- sand added four policemen to its force. Owing to the paucity of American men-of-war, the British were able gradually to eliminate or blockade the few American frig- ates. To the British strategy of commercial blockade of the Atlantic coast, America's only reply could be commerce- raiding and threats on the enemy's Canadian communica- tions. Aggressive and remarkable as were the achieve- ments of the handful of American cruisers and of the five hundred privateers, they were doomed in the long run to be driven to cover. Mahan aptly contrasts the efficiency of England's blockade and America's reply in these words: "To cut oft' access to a city is much more certainly ac- complished by holding the gates than by scouring the country in search of persons seeking to enter it. " ^ The British blockade became gradually so rigorous that it gave England an opportunity to occupy the Chesapeake, bum the American capital, seize eastern Maine and Mo- bile, and attempt by the battle of New Orleans the con- quest of Louisiana and the Mississippi, In the face of this blockade and of the military occupation of the American seaboard, the strategy of the Americans could only be de- fensive; it should have been at least an offensive-defensive to prevent British throttling of their ports. As it was, however, the American strategy of the Atlantic seaboard 1 Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, I. 288. THE WAR OF 1812 97 was — if we consider the great odds — remarkably aggres- sive. On the other hand, the second phase of the strategy of the United States should properly have been an offensive Canadian campaign. Quite irrespective of the fact that the people of the West, led by Henry Clay, then a War Democrat, called for the conquest of Canada, an attempt to overrun the Dominion was entirely correct from the military point of view as an important factor leading to a quick decision. The United States, having no means of invading England, or of capturing her West Indian pos- sessions, had in Canada a vast property belonging to the enemy, which, if captured, would force a humiliating peace. For this conquest, nature again, as on the Atlantic sea- board, favored the Americans. The geographical situation gave the United States the interior lines, that is, the short- est and quickest routes, by water, to the enemy's bases. These routes began at New York, the source of supplies, and led via the Hudson and Mohawk rivers to Ontario, or via Lakes George and Champlain to Montreal. From Albany the Americans therefore could m,ove to either Sackett's Harbor on Ontario, or to Montreal on the St. Lawrence, and so could keep the enemy in doubt as to their objective and thus prevent his concentration at either spot. More- over, the Great Lakes afforded splendid support to the armies of the nation whose naval forces controlled them. In those days of poor but passable roads on the American side, and all but impassable roads in Canada, these water- routes by rivers and lakes to and along the Canadian border outlined what should have been the American strategy of the war. Montreal should have been the great objective. Lying at the apex of an angle, one of whose legs runs south through waterways to New York, the other west through the Great Lakes, Montreal, if occupied by 98 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY American forces, would have stopped the long reach of British sea power right there, and with the American oc- cupation of Montreal, Canada would have been doomed.^ But instead, the British got the start on the Americans. With only forty-five hundred troops in all Canada, two thirds of which were in Montreal and Quebec, the British under an efficient young general. Brock — helped greatly by the "amazing incompetence" of the American generals — early in the war captured Detroit and Mackinac. The fall of these two places on connecting links of the Great Lakes secured the British right wing in Canada and gave the conquerors the help of Tecumseh's Indians, who, anxious only for food and plunder, readily joined the win- ning side. The Canadian border now assumed the usual military front, right, center, and left, — i. e.. Lakes Erie, Ontario, and the St. Lawrence, respectively, with centers at Detroit, Kingston, and Montreal. The American front had as its right, center, and left. Lakes Champlain, On- tario, and Erie, centering respectively at Plattsburg, Sackett's Harbor, and Presqu'isle (Erie). The American strategy should have concentrated on the British left, which was in direct contact with the British Navy; if this flank fell, the rest of the line would crumble. The tree should have been cut here at the roots at Montreal; the later lopping of its two great branches at Erie and Cham- plain was too late to allow a vigorous offensive campaign. The American military strategy by reason of superannu- ated and incompetent commanders and misdirected energy during the years 1812 and 1813 lost its great opportunity to conquer Canada. By the year 1814 it was too late; Napoleon had abdicated and more British troops could now be spared for the Canadian border. But the American Navy under Perry on Lake Erie and under Mac- 1 Mahan, 8ea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, I. 308. THE WAR OF 1812 99 donough on Chainplain prevented the threatened disaster to American arms on the northern frontier; the decisive victories of these two won back the offensive on the Ca- nadian border for the Americans. We may therefore say, in conclusion, that the sea power of Britain, while it dominated the world and broke a great tyrant, was itself checked by sea power in the War of 1812. The young sea power of America, despite its handicaps, prevented the conquest of any part of American soil ; in this sense it gave America the victory in this second war for American independence. CHAPTER VII COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE AND COMMERCE-RAIDING AS WEAPONS OP SEA POWER WE have seen that the strategy of the "War of 1812 presented two main aspects, the defensive on the seaboard and the offensive on the Canadian border. It will be the object of this chapter to consider in more detail the former of these aspects, the war on the Atlantic Ocean. This phase was characterized during the three summers of 1812, 1813, and 1814, by the blockade of United States commerce by Great Britain, which gradually tightened until, in the last year, it amounted to the strangle hold of a wrestler upon his opponent. During the first season (1812) England, to foster her trade — the sinews of her war with Napoleon — and also to foster disunion and disloyalty in the United States, left the New England ports unmolested. New England was opposed to the war, and by a conciliatory attitude in this quarter, England hoped to destroy the unity of effort in her enemy, and, by her system of licensing neutral and American vessels ^ and by fostering contraband trade with Canada, she could finance with her great West Indian commerce the vast coalition armies in Europe and leave something to spare for her small Canadian army. Halifax, at the intersection of the three lines to England, the West Indies, and the Great Lakes, became not only an important point of strategy for 1 MaJbian, Sea Power in Its Relations to the Wa/r of 1812, I. 409-41 1. 100 COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE 101 her navy but a still more important focal point of trade. The next year (1813) Admiral Warren, in chief command in the western Atlantic, declared all ports south of New- London in blockade; with increased naval forces he now instituted a more vigorous throttling of American ports, especially Chesapeake and Delaware bays. And during the last year (1814), under "Warren's successor. Vice- Ad- miral Cochrane, England sealed up the whole Atlantic coast so tightly that the smallest coastwise traffic found itself endangered. Even starvation in some isolated spots, and terrorism, like the German U-boat menace, followed in the wake of British sea power. In considering, there- fore, the war on the seaboard, we must remember this progressive change of policy of Great Britain during the three years 1812, 1813, and 1814, — a policy due to her gradual release from the great pressure of Napoleon, a virtual but rather incongruous ally of the American re- public. Also, the change of policy was due to the determina- tion of Great Britain to coordinate military effort on the seaboard and on the Canadian border and by sharper meth- ods to force America to terms. The war that began by opposition in some parts of the United States to fighting **our brothers" in Canada and England, gradually roused the old intense bitter hatred in both belligerents, a hatred that in extreme cases manifested itself in outrages on non- combatants such as the burning of peaceful villages on the Chesapeake. According to these three periods in Britain's policy, we find somewhat similar changes in the American counters to her thrusts. To the commercial blockade, America's answer, her only answer, was commerce-destruction on the high seas. For this her powerful 44-gun frigates were admirably adapted, especially during the first year, when England had not as yet an overwhelming force off United 102 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY States ports. Later, as these few frigates were locked up by more powerful squadrons, the smaller national sloops of war and the great number of American privateers, handier and speedier, kept up incessant raids at the pivotal points of British trade. The frigates could meet and destroy the cruisers of their class acting as blockaders and convoys, as watch-dogs of the avenues of trade. The smaller units, national and privateer, preyed more on the trade itself; and these, as the war progressed and as the cumulative forces of more powerful British squadrons barred the ports of the Atlantic seaboard, went farther afield to the pivotal points, the cross-roads, the beginnings and endings, of British trade, — i. e., to British home waters, to the African coast and its adjacent islands, and to the Caribbean. Of the American forces so used in commerce-destruction there were 21 national ships of all classes against 1000 in the British service. Against the 21 American war-ships, of which only 14 were in commission, and of which the largest were the 3 fine 44 's. President, Constitution and United States, England had 236 ships of the line (dreadnaughts), and 659 frigates and smaller cruisers.^ The United States had further some 250 gunboats, a hobby of Jefferson's that proved of no military value. In addition the United States developed rapidly during the war that readily improvised force of a country without a navy, privateers. These, which numbered in the aggregate 526, contributed con- siderably in this war of attrition to win a less harsh peace. But a couple of dozen ships of the line, or even frigates, would have been a far cheaper and far more efficient means of combating England's strangulation of American com- merce. 1 For a complete list of the twenty-one American national ships, see Soley, Naval Campaign of 1812, U. S. Naval Institute, VII. 302, 303. COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE 103 This force of fourteen national ships seemed so insignifi- cant to the Washington government that it would have dismantled them or used them as harbor defense during the war, if it had not been for the energetic and patriotic remonstrances of such officers as Bainbridge and Stewart, who saw even in this puny force some possibility for harass- ing the great commerce of the enemy. The event amply bore out these officers' opinions. But how could such a force be best utilized? Commodore Rodgers was in favor of sending one squadron to the British Isles and the rest to the West Indies. Bainbridge and Decatur, on the other hand, believed in scattering the fourteen over the seas in individual cruises. This latter course would leave less trace than a big squadron, would avoid the danger of hav- ing all one 's eggs in one basket and so losing the whole, and would tend to scatter the enemy's cruisers in running the raiders to cover. Both plans were adopted, but the whole force was so insignificant that a squadron could amount to hardly more than two units at any one time. But they were nothwithstanding dignified with the name squadron. Commodore Rodgers made a cruise in the first weeks of the war to the British Isles and home via Madeira, and suc- ceeded in demonstrating his theory of forcing thie enemy, short of ships in the Atlantic at this period, to remain con- centrated. The first attempt at deconcentration, in the case of the Guerricre, as we shall see, proved fatal. Three American squadrons, in October, 1812, set out along the triangular trade route, — to the African coast. West In- dies, and home. But the glory of this war for Americans was won, not by squadron actions except on the Great Lakes, but by single ships cruising alone, — according to the bolder suggestions of Decatur and Bainbridge. The most famous of these single-ship duels were the Constitu- tion-Guerricre, the United States-Macedonian, and the Con- 104 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY stitiition-Java, all frigate actions and all American victories and all won during the first year of the war, when Britain 's vigilance in the western Atlantic was necessarily limited. As this vigilance increased, the American frigates were gradually locked up by overwhelming blockading forces in ports, whence they sailed, if at all, at great peril. But the nimbler, handier, and smaller American cruisers, especially the sloops of war of the class of the Wasp and the Hornet, added throughout the war to the remarkable achievements of this seemingly contemptible little navy of the United States. It is the purpose of this chapter to study the more im- portant duels of these few national American ships and to take a glance at the work of the American privateers in their attempts to break the ever-tightening cordon of Brit- ish blockaders of American commerce, — to trace, in a word, the effect of commerce-raiding as a weapon against the com- mercial blockade. The cruise of Rodgers's squadron, while failing to en- counter a big enemy merchant fleet, was indirectly the cause of the first disaster to a British frigate. Rodgers's unknown whereabouts forced the British squadron, under Captain Broke, to remain united, to sail far out to sea to convoy a merchant fleet bound for England, and, after sending the Guerriere back to Halifax to refit, to return to their station near the Atlantic seaports. Meanwhile, Hull, early in July, in the Constitution was hurrying from the Chesapeake, a bay easily shut up so tightly that he might never again have the opportunity to get to sea. En route to New York he sighted, a dozen miles off the Jersey coast, a sail which he hoped was one of Rodgers's squadron but which at daylight of July 18th turned out to be from Broke 's squadron. Then ensued a chase remarkable for the duration, sixty hours, and for the COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE 105 skill of Hull in eluding capture against great odds. Dur- ing most of the pursuit he was on soundings and was handi- capped by lack of wind. In such circumstances he used his boats for towing, dropped anchors far ahead, and warped his ship along, and on occasion set all sails, even studdingsails, whenever a breeze sprang up. Toward the end of the long pursuit, Hull, seeing a squall of wind and rain ahead, ''let everything go by the run apparently in the utmost confusion, as if unable to show a yard of can- vas. . . . The enemy, perceiving this, hastened to get every- thing snug, before the gust should reach them; but no sooner had they got their sails furled than Captain Hull had his courses and topsails set and the Constitution darted forward with great rapidity."^ During this ruse, which gave Hull a long lead, he skilfully picked up his launches, in spite of his speed of ten knots, while the British, who had on the approach of the squall cut all their boats adrift, spent several days in securing theirs. It must be noted that the pursuers had many advan- tages ; one of their fleetest units might have gotten within gunshot and winged the chase, so destroying the latter 's speed, a circumstance that nearly bore fruit at one stage ; moreover, the British had a whole squadron to draw from for towing-launches, an advantage of which they made every use. On the other hand, these towing-boats were peculiarly vulnerable for the stern-chasers of the pursued. But the honors remained with Hull. With masterly sea- manship and inventive skill, he had taken advantage of every device; his success was due to a careful use of such details, each small in itself, but decisive in the aggregate. Finding New York closely blockaded, he took refuge in Boston. 1 Naval Monument, pp. 8, 9. See also an interesting account of the chase in The Autohiography of Commodore Morris, pp. 51-55. ^s^V BAM I A 'f -^CJ TRISTAN DA Ct/MHA ACTIONS ON THE HIGH SEAS IN THE WAR OF 1812 AP = Argus vs. Pelican CB =: Chase of the Constitution CO = Constitution vs. Cya/ne and Levant CG ^ Constitution vs. Guerriere CJ ==: Constitution vs. Java CL = Chesapeake vs. Leopard CS = Chesapeake vs. Shannon EB := Enterprise vs. Boxer EC = Essex vs. Cherub and Phoebe EP = Peacock vs. Epervier HP = Hornet vs. Peacock PE ^ President vs. Endymion PLB = President vs. LittJe BeW PH = Hornet vs. Penguin. USM = United States vs. Macedonian WA = Wtwjo vs. Avon WP = TFa^iO vs. Frolic WR = Tfasp vs. Reindeer 106 COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE 107 On August 2d, Hull, bent on commerce-raiding and fear- ing blockade, slipped out of Boston Harbor. For, while the British showed leniency toward Boston merchantmen in this first year, they, of course, did not extend this im- munity to raiders like the Constitution. Hull cruised to the vicinity of Halifax, a great supply point, and was on his way toward Britain's second cis- Atlantic base, Ber- muda, when on August 19th, some seven hundred and fifty miles east of Boston, he fell in with the Guerriere, Captain Dacres, on her way to Halifax, as above noted. Both cap- tains immediately made ready for action and manceuvered for position, like two wary fencers trying to give or avoid the deadly thrust. The most deadly thrust was in those days called a raking fire, — that is, a broadside do\^Ti the length of an enemy ship, where well- aimed shots would do the most damage in sweeping the crowded decks of guns and men. In manoeuvering for a raking position the frigate captain also tried to keep to windward of his antagonist, — to retain the weather-gage fts it was called, — a position that gave him speed and manoeuvering control. In the action between the Consti- tution and the Guerriere, Hull, with the weather-gage, to avoid being raked approached in a zig-zag course, or yawed, as it was called, while Dacres with the similar object of giv- ing or avoiding thrusts turned in semicircles, i. e., wore ship, back and forth several times across the path of the oncom- ing Constitution (a, b).^ After three-quarters of an hour of such manceuvers Hull with his greater sail power drew up alongside of Dacres, and both frigates now sailed on parallel courses before the wind and at close range (c). Under the close and accurate fire of the Constitution, the Guerriere lost her mizzenmast, which falling over the star- 1 Letters a, b, c, etc., refer to synchronous positions in the accom- panying diagram, Frigate Actions of the War of 1812, page HI. 108 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY board (right) side acted like a rudder and crippled her manoeuvering power. Hull took instant advantage by run- ning across the Guerriere's bows and pouring in two raking broadsides (d). Then Dacres with similar purpose to cross Hull's path and rake him succeeded only in fouling his bowsprit in the Constitution's rigging (e). In these critical moments both sides tried to board and to repel boarders, and sent heavy musketry fire from aloft that in- flicted the severest losses on both crews. After the two frigates drifted apart, the Guerriere's foremast, owing to the loss of stays and shrouds, toppled overboard, also carry- ing away in the crash the mainmast, and she pitched in the heavy sea a helpless and beaten hulk. Hull now hauled off to make hasty repairs ; it was a custom of the American raiders to make such repairs after an action so as to be ready instantly in case another British cruiser appeared on the horizon. On his return Hull received the surrender of Dacres. During the night he transferred the wounded and prisoners to the Constitution and the next day, finding the Guerriere too badly damaged to bring to port, blew her up. In this first round between what we may call commerce- raiding and the commercial blockade Hull had won a vic- tory that caused a warm glow of pride in America, a grow- ing pride that helped to supplant the indifference to the war in New England, and which caused a corresponding gloom among the British, who referred sarcastically to the American frigates as disguised ships of the line. Of course, the American frigates of the class of the Constitution were in gun power and crew superior, about 30 per cent., to the British frigates, but this fact and the superior marksman- ship are, as Roosevelt in his ''Naval War of 1812" points out, to the credit of the Americans. Hull had broken the spell of British invincibility at sea. In Roosevelt's words, COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE 109 Hull's skill in his evasion of Broke 's squadron and in his defeat shortly afterwards of Dacres, "places him above any single-ship captain of the war." Hull's victory, coming three days after the disastrous defeat of his uncle, General Hull, on the Canadian border, acted as a solace for the loss of Michigan. Sea power against great odds had won where land power with great odds in its favor had lost. The superior gunnery of the American raiders was demonstrated more clearly in the next action between the United States sloop of war Wasp, Captain Jacob Jones, and the British brig Frolic, Captain "Whinyates, five hundred miles east of the Chesapeake, October 18, 1812. The Wasp in a commerce-raid was following the track of merchant- men from the Gulf of Mexico to Europe and the Frolic was on convoy duty for homeward-bound traders. Both cruisers, which were of the smaller types, and with a slight preponderance (275 pounds to 250) in broadside in favor of the British brig, had suffered damage in the gales of the preceding days. The sea was still running high. The two antagonists attempted little manoeuvering and began the action at fifty yards' distance on parallel courses that gradually converged until they fell aboard of each other. The British here, as in the case of the Giierriere, claimed a "superior fire," by which they meant in both actions quicker fire. But the hits were entirely in favor of the Americans. The Frolic's shots flew high, hitting the rig- ging of the Wasp, while the latter 's hulled the Frolic, causing great damage to masts, ship, and crew, so much so that when the Wasp's men boarded, they found only four men alive on deck, — three officers, all wounded, and a seaman. Unfortunately for Captain Jones, at the mo- ment of victory a British 74, the Poictiers, appeared on the scene and took both victor and vanquished in tow to Bermuda. Captain Whinyates had fought with British 110 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY tenacity and thus had prolonged the action long enough to retrieve the disaster of capture by recapture. But this action, like the previous one, showed the British that they could not let up in their vigilance in convoying their merchant fleets. The challenge of the small American Navy as raiders was a real menace in spite of overwhelm- ing odds and the stringent blockade. A few days before the Wasp left the Delaware capes for her eventful cruise, Rodgers, on October 8th, had set sail from Boston with two small squadrons, which parted com- pany on October 11th. The President and the Congress under Rodgers 's own command constituted a first squad- ron, which sailed to the Cape Verde Islands, back along latitude 18 degrees north, and home, in all eleven thou- sand miles. During this cruise, in which Rodgers touched at the great cross-roads of trade from the East Indies, Africa, South America, and the West Indies, he en- countered just five enemy merchantmen, of which he cap- tured two. This failure in results was due to the rigid enforcement of the British convoy system now in opera- tion. The second American squadron, made up of the United States and the Argus, under Decatur, and a third squadron, consisting of the Constitution, the Hornet, and the Essex, under Bainbridge, who set sail from New York on October 26th, were more prolific in results. For, in addition to their merchant prizes, Decatur and Bain- bridge were each to bag a British frigate, Lawrence in the Uornet was to destroy the brig Peacock, and Porter in the Essex was destined to make a cruise that placed him in the forefront of commerce-raiders. Shortly after parting company with Rodgers, Decatur, in the United States, separated also from the Argus, pre- ferring, in accordance with his earlier expressed sugges- tions, to cruise alone. 'He was making his way toward the CONSTITUTION i^\ AND GUERRIERE AUGUST 19, I8lg. UNITED 5TATES AND MACEDONIAN OCTOBER 25. 1812 . CONSTITUTION AND JAVA DECEMBER £9. ie,\Z CHESAPEAKE AND SHANNON JUNE I 1815 FRIGATE ACTIONS in ihe WAR Of 1812. C0UI?5E OF AMERICAN FRIGATES COURSE Of BRITISH FfflGATES a, tic. etc, SYNCHRONOUS FOS|TIPf''S. Ill 112 SEA POWER IN A'MERICAN HISTORY Madeiras when at daybreak, October 25th, the outlook in his masthead made out a sail some twelve miles to the south-southwest. This sail later turned out to be the Brit- ish frigate Macedonian, Captain Garden, who was evi- dently approaching on a line that would eventually cross Decatur's course at a wide obtuse angle (a). The two frigates were therefore sailing on opposite tacks, with the wind south-southeast giving Garden the weather-gage. From the court-martial proceedings of Garden's trial it appears that Garden, during the approach determined, against the advice of his first lieutenant, Hope, to retain the weather-gage rather than come to close quarters at once. As the United States had superior gun power, 24- pounders to 18-pounders, this decision played directly into the hands of Decatur, whose game it was to cripple or destroy his opponent with his longer-range guns before the latter 's guns could reach him. Decatur, who in his earlier career showed plenty of headlong dash, played in the ensuing duel an unusually wary fence. At 8 :30 A. M. he wore, i.e., turned around as if to cross Garden's course and so seize the weather-gage. Garden therefore hauled closer to the wind, so as to foil Decatur's move. Decatur then wore again, thus returning to his original course, and on passing his opponent on opposite tacks opened with a broadside at a mile's range (b). Garden after passing him! also wore and gave chase, fairly well astern of Decatur, who had much the slower ship in his "Old Wagoner," as the sailors called the United States. As Garden was evidently attempting to come to close quarters so that his smaller guns could bear, Decatur turned first to starboard then back to port (c). Then, by hauling out the spanker and letting fly the jib-sheet, Decatur came up to the wind, and by backing the mizzen topsail, he retarded "his speed and had his ship in such a position that COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE 113 he could pour from his heavier guns a deadly, almost raking, fire upon his appi;oaching opponent (d). Such an approach was disastrous for the Macedonian, — especially as she was coming nearly bows on, a position from which she could make little reply. Before the Macedonian got within close range she was a beaten ship ; only her lower masts were standing ; her carronades, the main reliance for close fighting, were disabled, and she had many killed and wounded. On the other hand, the United States was virtu- ally ' ' in perfect condition, ' ' a result of the cautious tactics of Decatur, who was evidently anxious to keep the United States intact to make sure of getting back to his distant base. With characteristic chivalry, Decatur now crossed his beaten foe's bows without giving the raking broad- side, the coup de grace, so surely expected that, as he passed in silence, the Macedonians gave a cheer in the apparent belief that he was fleeing from the fight. When he returned an hour later, the Macedonian hauled down her colors, Decatur refused to receive the sword of Garden. The two men had been friends and some years before had had an argument as to the relative merits of 24-pounders and 18-pouuders, — an argument which they tested out in this action. The power of the United States to the Maeedoivian was as three to two, but the compara- tive losses were in the ratio of one to nine in the Ameri- can's favor. Notwithstanding hints from the British Admiralty to Admiral Warren that his blockade should be tighter and despite Warren's greatly increasing force in the Atlantic, Decatur succeeded in getting both frigates safely to he United States. Decatur had added another to America's scant force of raiders, which was destined, however, against the cumulative blockade to be as harm- less as if it were at the bottom of the sea, except for the fact that every raider in a port required a squadron 114 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY cruising before that port winter and summer to watcli it. Two months after the United States-Macedonian fight, Commodore Bainbridge in the Constitution and Lawrence in the Hornet were blockading the sloop of war Bonne Citoyenne in a neutral port, Bahia, Brazil. In the hope of luring out the sloop to single combat, Bainbridge had left Lawrence alone on blockade and was standing out to sea when on December 29, 1812, at 9 :00 a. m., he sighted two strange sail, which turned out to be the British frigate Java, Captain Lambert, and an American prize. As the Brazilian authorities had shown considerable irritation at various breaches of neutrality by belligerents, Bainbridge proceeded farther off shore. The Java, an excellent sailer under a skilful seaman, followed at the unusual speed of ten knots an hour. Now ensued a battle, lasting over two hours, which, unlike the two previous frigate actions, was a combination of both gunnery and ship evolutions, — evolutions so serpentine that it is difficult to determine the synchronous positions from the reports of the two cap- tains. These combatants were too nimble, their manoeuv- ers too quick, for observers of that day without stop- watches and cameras to catch the movements in this spar- ring contest. Indeed, the two accounts vary so hopelessly that one writer suggests that "someone's watch was adrift." But with the aid of the diagram on page 111 we hope to make clear the salient features. At approximately two in the afternoon the two ships were in contact, firing the first shot at half a mile range (a). They now wore several times to avoid each other's attempts at raking. At 2:30 p. M., the Constitution had her wheel shot away, an accident that forced upon Bainbridge the awkward makeshift of steering by relieving tackles (b). To offset this handicap, however, the Constitution's superior marks- COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE 115 manship shot away the Java's bowsprit and cut her rig- ging to pieces so that at three o'clock the Java, heading up into the "wind, gave the Constitution two opportunities to rake her (c and c'). Later Bainb ridge, after foiling Lambert's attempt to board, crossed the Englishman's bows twice in quick succession (d and d'). This double manoeuver with its accompanying fire from all angles at close quarters was the knock-out blow. A little after four o'clock the Java, a shattered hulk, with all spars except the lower mainmast gone, her decks a shambles, and her captain mortally wounded, gave up all resistance. As in the other two actions, the American captain now with- drew for temporary repairs and on his return received the surrender of the Java. After transferring her crew and passengers, Bainbridge blew her up. Some days later, as the dying Lambert was being taken ashore from the Constitution, Captain Bainbridge — him- self suffering from two severe wounds, and supported by two officers — came on deck to bid Captain Lambert fare- well and to return his sword. Of this incident a writer says, "The contrast between the dignified, magnanimous bearing of the participants in this action and the tone of the writers who subsequently described them is very strik- ing. ' ' ^ This stately and chivalrous courtesy among naval officers of the times had other interesting phases as seen in the challenges to combat that reflected the dueling customs of the period. On blockading the Bonne Citoy- enne earlier, Bainbridge had given his word of honor to her captain that he would not interfere if the latter came out to answer the challenge of Captain Lawrence in the Hornet. The British captain quite properly declined to win any "fighting-cock glory"; so long as he was holding I HoUis, Frigate Constitution, p. 187, 116 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY •two American raiders on blockade duty, he was, from a military point of *view, winning a more important battle.^ Lawrence, after waiting in vain for bis challenger, later, off the Demerara River, met and sank a war-ship of his own class, the Peacock. With his sloop full of prisoners and short of provisions and water, Lawrence made for the United States, where he was to take p'art in his last combat, a combat which showed that British sea power was win- ning the race against the American commerce-raider. Two months after his arrival in the United States, Lawrence was given the Chesapeake, then refitting at Bos- ton. He was to take her to the vicinity of Halifax to act against the communications of the British Army in Can- ada. Outside of Boston Harbor lay the Shannon, under Broke, a man skilful alike with pen or sword. The British captain sent a most courteously worded challenge to Law- rence, — which the latter never got, — in which he under- lined the words " even combat " in veiled allusion to the previous frigate actions, the sting of which defeats the British captains felt keenly. But the chivalrous Law- rence needed no written challenge ; the presence of an equal opponent off shore was sufficient provocation for his high mettle. In spite of a crew largely new to one another and to the officers and therefore not a fighting unit, Lawrence stood out under a fair wind on June 1, 1813, to meet a rival who for seven years had commanded the Shannon, of which Mahan says, "there was no more thoroughly efficient ship of her class . . . during the twenty years' war with France." At a time when most British captains stiU had the idea of Nelson — to get so close to your opponent that your guns can't miss — Broke had adopted new ideas such as gun-sights and frequent 1 Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, II. 3. COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE 117 practice with sliot, not blanks, at real targets, and had by these means made his command the crack ship of the service. As Lawrence came out, Broke chivalrously yielded to his opponent every advantage, such as the weather-gage and the opportunity for raking positions. Lawrence, evi- dently believing that his raw crew could do better work at the guns at point-blank range than at the more difficult task of handling the sails, kept the simple manceuver of a parallel course to Broke 's. The artillery duel that en- sued was sharp and short. To make matters worse for the Chesapeake, she had come into the action with too much headway (a) ; ^ therefore, despite Lawrence's attempt to luff closer to the wind, she forged ahead (b).^ At this junc- ture, by reason of loss of head-sails and a disabled wheel under the accurate and destructive fire of the Shannon, the Chesapeake pointed up into the wind (c), gathered stern-board, exposed herself to the diagonal or raking fire at close range of her antagonist, and finally ran aboard of the latter (d, d'). It was in vain for the wounded Lawrence to call for boarders. Broke and his men in- stantly boarded the Chesapeake, whose remnants of a crew, without leaders, offered, to borrow Broke 's words, "a desperate but disorderly resistance." The battle was all over in fifteen minutes. All things considered, the Chesapeake's crew behaved well; they forced the victorious crew to pay dearly for victory. They lost forty-eight killed to the Shannon's twenty-six. Doubtless, from the standpoint of Lawrence's major duty, commerce-destruc- tion, it would have been wiser if he had waited for a more favorable opportunity to slip out of Boston Harbor and so to elude the blockaders and get away to his station off Halifax, but whether he was inspired by a rash over- 1 See diagram on p. 111. 118 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY confidence in offering battle to the Shannon, as Mahan intimates/ is of no great moment now. A raiding cruise to Halifax, li,ow;ever successful;, would have had little weight against the overwhelming pressure of British sea power. The American people have forgotten Lawrence's lack of judgment or his over-confidence, but they can never forget his dying words, ' ' Don 't give up the ship, ' ' a watch- word of the navy ever since, a clarion call ringing as true to-day as a century ago. These frigate actions, though "indecisive of general re- sults,"^ formed for the sea power of a young nation a glorious tradition, which was augmented by the smaller national sloops upon which devolved more and more the duty of comuLerce-destroying, as the larger frigates were being hopelessly shut up in ports by the gradual tighten- ing of the blockade. To the duels of these sloops belong the Wasp-Frolic and Hornet-Peacock encounters described above. Owing to the blockade the sloops were forced farther afield. The most famous of the later sloops, the Argus, the Peacock (2d), and the Wasp (2d), — the latter two new built and named after the victories of the Hornet and the Wasp, — won distinction by daring raids, like Paul Jones's in British waters. As in Paul Jones's day, too, these raiders could rely somewhat on friendly French ports for disposal of prisoners and prizes, and for repairs, if they could get by the powerful cordon of British block- aders. They sometimes, however, like the German sub- marines a hundred years later, had to burn or destroj'- their prizes at sea, first taking off specie and other valuable cargo. But unlike the Germans they sent their prisoners ashore in cartel-ships. These raiders of the American regular navy, while in- 1 Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, II. 145. 2 Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, I. 289. COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE 119 tended for commerce-destroying, did not avoid conflict with equal opponents of the British Navj^ On the other hand, the American privateers, which aggregated 526, con- fined their operations to the enemy's commerce. Like the national ships, they operated at the cross-roads and focal points of commerce. Of these privateers perhaps the most famous and certainly the most successful were the Yankee and the Chasseur. The former made forty prizes during the war, of which thirty-four were ships or brigs, valued with their cargoes at three million dollars. The Chasseur, with thirty prizes to her credit, at the end of the war captured a ''camouflaged" merchantman, the armed schooner St. Lawrence. The Chasseur's captain later apologized for capturing a war-ship unawares. Though privateering was a business venture, a matter of personal gain rather than patriotism; though by its big rewards it took men much needed by the regular navy ; though it was on the whole a costly substitute for a regular navy, these privateers, the people's navy as it were, dealt the pride and commerce of Great Britain a weighty blow.^ They captured all told 1,340 prizes during the war. Such losses, however, were a small fraction of Britain's vast commerce. On the other hand, her blockade of the American coast, progressively increasing in rigor toward the end of the war, was bringing in its wake widespread distress and deep humiliation to the United States. For example, that great estuary the Chesapeake became to all intents and purposes a British lake. As around it lay the chief sections on which the country depended for its meat and grain, the British by frequent attacks endeavored to destroy the flour-mills and stores of wheat on its shores and thus starve out the American armies. They even de- stroyed private property and entire villages, such as 1 Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1S12, I. 2G5. 120 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY Georgetown and Frederickstown at the head of the Chesa- peake, as punishment for local resistance. Meanwhile they carried on a bold licensed trade through neutrals, real and pretended, and furnished the British fleets with fresh Amer- ican beef "supplied from American ports, by American dealers, in American vessels."^ — a trade later stopped by the American Government under another embargo. But despite all these minor achievements on the Chesapeake Ad- miral Warren failed to cut out the Constellation lying at Norfolk, a raider whose destruction was of first military importance. Warren's measures were too mild for the British Gov- ernment and he was therefore succeeded by Vice-Admiral Cochrane, who arrived in the Chesapeake in April, 1814, and inaugurated the last phase of the war on the Atlantic seaboard, a phase intended to bring home the war to Ameri- cans by a species of punitive terrorism. With a fleet of twenty sail, four of which were ships of the line, and with four thousand of Wellington's veterans, the British now inaugurated some major operations in Chesapeake Bay and in Maine, operations intended to act as diversions to help Prevost's plan of invading New York, To fur- ther the first of these purposes Cochrane sent a mixed naval and military force under General Ross up the Patux- ent to destroy Commodore Barney's flotilla of barges and gunboats and to veil the real objective, Washington; and in support he also sent a division of frigates up the Poto- mac, Ross forced Barney to burn his boats and drove him to Bladensburg, where Barney and his four hundred seamen opposed, virtually unsupported, the march of Ross toward "Washington, The uudrilled American militia, the "citizen soldiery," upon which the Washington govern- ment had relied so strongly, broke and fled. The British 1 Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of IS 12, IT. 172. COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE 121 proceeded to Washington, where they bnmed the Capitol and the White House, but fearing for their communica- tions, hastily retreated, getting back to their fleet within four days from the day of departure. The British frig- ates in the Potomac, acting as a support of Ross, destroyed some shipping and levied a contribution on Alexandria. But owing to a little better American organization some time later, a similar attempt to levy a contribution on Baltimore failed. Not content to hold the Atlantic sea- board in a grip so tight that hardly an oyster boat could put out from shore without getting caught, the British by this attack on the national capital in a most humiliating way brought home the war to the American Government and people. During this last year, though the harassment was severest in the Chesapeake, the British adopted also more offensive measures in New England and especially in Maine. Besides such operations as the destruction of twenty sea-going ships up the Connecticut and sixteen at Wareham, Massachusetts, they now planned to occupy Maine to "rectify the frontier." In upper Maine their communications between the two great bases, Quebec and Halifax, were endangered by American occupation. Governor Sherbrooke of Nova Scotia, therefore, in the sum- mer of 1814 sent a combined naval and military force up the Penobscot, burned the shipping, and forced the de- struction of the John Adams by her crew. After this, Sher- brooke, who assumed a conciliatory attitude toward the inhabitants, proclaimed the territory under the British flag. Thus by possession, which is said to be nine tenths of the law. Great Britain hoped to pave the way at the peace table for the permanent annexation of Maine. In conclusion, we may repeat that the British commercial blockade had driven American commerce from the high 122 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY seas. Even small coasters carrying necessities made their runs from headland to headland at imminent risk of cap- ture. In Boston alone, in September, 1813, 245 sea-going vessels, not counting coasters, were lying idle; and insur- ance on American bottoms had risen to 50 per cent. A commerce, once second to England's alone, fell from forty- five millions in 1811, to twenty-five millions in 1813, and to seven millions for the year ending September 30, 1814.^ Interstate trade in the common essentials of life was car- ried on under circumstances so difficult that it made their cost prohibitive. Wagons of dry-goods, for example, took forty-six days from Philadelphia to South Carolina. Robert Fulton, who died during the war, estimated that enough money had been spent on wagon hire for this inter- state trade to construct a complete system of inland water- ways from Maine to Georgia. The general stagnation was reflected, too, in prices; a glut at the point of production caused the bottom to drop out of prices while distant com- munities were in isolated cases near starvation. For in- stance, flour worth about $4.00 a barrel in Baltimore, the wheat center, brought $25.00 at New Orleans ; and inversely, sugar worth $9.00 a hundredweight in New Orleans brought $26.50 in Baltimore. After the blockade was lifted, sugar dropped overnight in New York from $26.00 to $12.50 per hundredweight. In the midst of plenty, a country that had helped feed the world was in want. ^The commercial blockade was the Continental System in America; it had the American seaboard by the throat. 1 Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, II. 201. CHAPTER VIII SEA POWER ON THE GREAT LAKES WHILE the naval operations on the Atlantic seaboard, logically by reason of American un- preparedness, defensive, became in reality an aggressive defensive, the Canadian border on the other hand, logically the theater of the American offensive, as- sumed the character of a desperate defensive. In the early days of the war leaders in Congress like Calhoun and Clay were cock-sure of success in Canada. "So far from being unprepared, sir," declared Calhoun in a speech in March, 1812, "I believe that in four weeks from, the time a declaration of war is heard on our frontier, the whole of Upper Canada . . . and a part of Lower Canada will be in our power." Yet such words, despite the gross neglect of military preparation during the decade before the war, were not altogether vainglorious boasting. England, handicapped by a huge European war that had been sapping her energies for twenty years, could spare only a paltry three or four thousand men for the whole border. On the other hand, the merest glance at the map will convince the reader of the great advantages of the United States for an aggressive campaign, especially if directed early at Montreal, situated at the apex of water- ways to the westward and southward. The United States had the short direct routes — the interior lines, as they are called in strategy — to the eneni}- 's country ; and the Great Lakes, if under American control, would afford the quick- 123 124 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY est and safest communications. But these natural ad- vantages were thrown away by the "broken-down" army leaders like Dearborn and Hull. These men, veterans of the War of Independence and not without distinction in their earlier days, formed a striking contrast to a vigorous aggressive young general like Brock. The latter had been with Nelson at Copenhagen and demonstrated Nelson 's idea, "Boldest methods are safest," in his quick decisive blow on August 16, 1812, in forcing General Hull, who had a much superior force, to surrender Detroit. This was a disaster to American arms, for with Detroit fell Michigan and the offensive on the Amierican left wing. In lieu of Calhoun's predicted invasion of Canada, the United States had now the threat of being itself invaded. Moreover, the Northwest Indians became allies of the victors as a result of Brock's stroke. This disaster showed a lesson often forgotten in peace time, that war is a young man's game. What the army under its old leaders lost the navy with its young leaders regained. These youthful naval leaders, Chauncey, Perry, and Macdonough, were to re- establish in part at least the offensive on the Canadian border. But even Chauncey saw too late the great oppor- tunity and advantage of Montreal. In 1814 he declared the tree ought to have been felled at its base at Montreal instead of lopping off great branches like Lakes Erie,' Ontario, and Champlain. If he had seen this in 1812, it would quickly have brought about Calhoun's prophecy. But Perry by lopping off Lake Erie, and Macdonough by lopping off Champlain, prevented England from getting a lasting grip on the Northwest and on New York. Though the season of 1812 therefore ended in disaster to American arms on the border, the chance to retrieve misfortune by a vigorous American offensive in 1813 still remained. They say Opportunity knocks at every man's SEA POWER ON THE GREAT LAKES 125 door, and al every nation's, at least once. Such oppor- tunity came to the American naval commanders on Lakes Erie and Ontario and to the American nation in the sum- mer of 1813. During this year England with her hands still tied by the great European conflict could send but smlall reenforcements to Canada and then only long after the ice broke up. The opportunity so presented was seized by Oliver Hazard Perry, the American commander on Lake Erie, and lost by Isaac Chauncey, Perry's superior, on Lake Ontario. The two British naval commanders, Barclay and Yeo, were also trying to seize the opportunity for control of these two lakes. To attain this control all four naval com- manders were busy in two ship-building races, which culmi- nated in a decision on Erie and a drawn battle on Ontario. Such decision on Erie would help the American cause considerably, but Ontario, nearer the heart of British sea power, was the more important; the artery of British com- munications, if severed at Lake Ontario, would have cut otf the life's blood of all British military operations west of Montreal and thus insured the crushing of the British right wing. But both Commodore Chauncey and Sir James Yeo on Ontario played an over-cautious game. War is a game of risks whose stakes the over-cautious seldom win. The able fighter makes careful preparations, takes his chance, and wins victory by his boldness, if his boldness stops short of rashness. At the respective American and British naval bases on Ontario — Sackett's Harbor and Kingston — Chaun- cey and Yeo built ships with all the energy and speed their limited resources allowed. As one won a temporary pre- ponderance in tonnage he ranged the lake and protected military communications, only to take refuge in his base as soon as his opponent got a slight mathematical superiority. During this ship-building race, in the critical year 1813, Chauncey on April 27th, captured York (Toronto), a sec- 126 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY ondary British base, and seized the 22-gun Duke of Glou- cester and destroyed a 30-gun ship on the stocks; while the British made a similar raid on Saekett's Harbor a month later and burned the Duke of Gloucester and a large quan- tity of military stores. For a month the British had con- trol of the lake and recaptured York. Then on July 20th Chauneey completed his heaviest ship, the General Pike. During the summer the two over-wary contestants came to blows just three times. Of these actions the first was near Fort Niagara, August 10th, the second off the Genesee River, September 11th, and the last off York, on September 28th. All three actions w^re fought so warily, for fear either side should lose a unit, that the season ended with neither side in control of the lake. Opportunity never knocked again for Chauneey; the next year, 1814, England, free in Europe, could with the great reach of her released sea power hand over guns and men to Yeo. The latter soon had an overwhelming superiority, his strongest unit being a ship of the line of a hundred and two guns. From these three actions fought by Chauneey and Yeo on Lake Ontario we may draw one important lesson, as true to-day as then : A battle-ship with its unity of organization and mounting ten guns is superior to five cruisers under different commanders and mounting alto- gether ten guns. On Lake Ontario, Chauneey had three larger ships, of which the 800-ton Pike was the most im- portant unit, and ten schooners, — the whole flotilla so heterogeneous that they were like three warriors entering battle with ten children in tow. On the other hand, Yeo had six units of various rigs and sizes but fairly homo- geneous in manoeuvering ability. The Americans had long guns in the ratio of four to one, but in carronades the Brit- ish had a superiority of two to one. Chauneey, therefore, would prefer long-range battle, while Yeo would prefer to SEA POAVER ON THE GREAT LAKES 127 come to close grips where his carronades with their heavy, smashing charge would be effective. But Yeo would have to have plenty of wind to approach quickly or be sunk by the long guns of his enemy before he could get close enough to strike a blow. If, therefore, Chauncey had left his use- less smaller vessels at his base, his three larger units with their more homogeneous speed would have been more than a match for Yeo's flotilla; and indeed the General Pike alone under favorable conditions — i.e., with the weather-gage — would have been equal to the whole of Yeo 's f orce.^ To this naval campaign on Ontario the campaign on Erie was a striking contrast. In the midst of his indecisive work, Commodore Chauncey wrote this advice to his subor- dinate. Perry, on Lake Erie: "The first object will be to destroy or cripple the enemy's fleet, but in all attempts upon the fleet you ought to use great caution, for the loss of a single vessel may decide the fate of the campaign." By a strange irony of fate. Perry, not heeding too narrowly the "great caution" of his superior, was destined to win by this very means — "the loss of a single vessel" — a decisive battle ; this too, at the very time that Chauncey was fighting his long-drawn-out second action. The foundation for Perry's victory was laid during the fall of 1812 by Lieutenant Jesse D. Elliott, who took charge of the work on Lake Erie on September 7th of that year. With great energy but poor judgment he established a tem- porary navy-yard at Black Rock near Buffalo. Besides acquiring some schooners by purchase, he cut out the armed British brigs Detroit and Caledonia. The latter with its valuable .cargo of furs he brought to his base, but the De- /roiY^which, by the way, had formerly been the U. S. S. Adams, captured from the Americans and renamed Detroit in honor of their victory — Elliott burned to prevent recap- 1 Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, II. 54-56. 128 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY ture. The British, though still possessing a superior JEoree on Lake Erie, felt these losses keenly. By his quick and decisive action Elliott was in a fair way to dispute the con- trol of this lake with the British commander, Barclay. Of course, he regretted the loss of the Detroit, with which he might have gained full control before winter, but his small force restricted the freedom of the lake to the British ; it was a real threat to British communications. Both sides realized the vital importance of these communications, — ■ these short interior lines by water along which to transport food and troops, — and both sides worked feverishly to get a superior force with which to gain the undisputed control on which the fate of the military campaign in the Northwest depended. With the arrival on March 27, 1813, of Commander Oliver Hazard Perry, who now superseded Elliott in command on Erie, the ship-building race between him and Captain Robert H. Barclay was on in earnest. Both, like their immediate superiors, Chauneey and Yeo, on Lake Ontario, were young and full of energy; both, again like their superiors, despite youthful years were veterans in the service of the Tripolitan War and Nelson's great battle respectively, but both had more dash and initiative than their superiors, and both were left largely to their fate by these superiors, who were indeed in this summer of 1813 too much occupied with each other to spare men and guns for their subordinates. Both commanders worked under great handicaps to create their forces. If Perry had to bring everything except timber — iron, guns, ammunition, sails, cordage, provisions — a distance of five hundred miles from, Philadelphia, Barclay had on his side to contend against severer weather conditions, impassable roads, and less-developed industries of the Canadian side. If Perry was handicapped by lack of skilled artisans and by insubor- SEA POWER ON THE GREAT LAKES 129 dinate militia, Barclay longed for regulars instead of Indians and for real salt-water tars in place of his Canadian lake sailors. But despite all these handicaps each commander achieved wonders in the construction and equipment of his flotilla. Perry had by midsummer a force headed by the 500-ton brigs Lawrence and Niagara, armed largely with carronades and constituting the important units of his squadron. Besides these two he had captured the brig Caledonia and half a dozen schooners. Barclay, on the other hand, had completed the new ships Detroit and Queen Charlotte, armed with long guns, the nucleus of his squadron; and besides he had the brig Hunter and three schooners. Their force in ships was therefore as nine is to six in favor of the Americans, with a preponderance of long guns on the British side. Both flotillas were short- handed; Perry for example had only 490 of the estimated complement of 740 required to man the squadron properly. He had remonstrated about the inferior lot of blacks, soldiers, and boys sent him by Chauncey in a recent detach- ment, which made up his 490, to which Chauncey replied, "I have yet to learn that the color of the skin, or the cut and trimmings of the coat, can affect a man's qualifications or usefulness"; and he added, ''There will be a great deal expected of you from your country. ' ' This rebuke, uttered by one whose inaction presented such a contrast to Perry's later achievement, nearly caused the quick-tempered Perry to resign, a loss that would have been disastrous, for Perry was the American Navy on Lake Erie. In the earlier campaign on Erie Barclay made two seri- ous strategical mistakes — mistakes either of which if avoided would have made the battle and its crushing defeat impossible. The first of these was his failure to prevent Perry from transferring his ship-building base from Black 130 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY Rock to Erie (Presqu'isle). Perry found Black Rock a poor location because it was within point-blank range of the enemy's guns across the Niagara, and also because the cur- rent was so strong there that he could have taken his schooners into the lake only by warping them with great labor against the rapid current. Under these difficulties Perry had watched for a favorable opportunity, eluded Barclay by skirting under cover of a fog along the shore to Erie, where he established his new base in a good harbor, protected by a sand-bar across its entrance. This very sand-bar led to Barclay's second strategical error in the Erie campaign. Chauncey and Perry had decided on Erie as a base during the previous winter, not because of this bar, but in spite of it. To Erie the much needed cordage, sail-cloth, guns, and ammunition could be brought the long distance from Philadelphia and Pitts- burgh by water all the way except the last fifteen miles. By midsummer Barclay anticipated Perry in completing some of his units and with these at once set up a blockade of Perry, which lasted from July 20th to August 2d. Then he left without apparent reason. He had evidently not learned the lesson of his former great commander. Lord Nelson, who during his last campaign, Trafalgar, blockaded his enemy at Toulon night and day for nearly two years with such relentless vigilance that he himself did not leave the deck of his flag-ship, the Victory, for twenty-one months. With probably much less effort than Nelson's at Toulon, Barclay, powerfully aided by nature, should have sealed up Perry hermetically and so rendered him harmless. But the moment Barclay 's vigilance was relaxed, on August 2d, Perry, whose flotilla was by now complete, took instant advantage. He lifted his schooners across the bar and stationed them off the entrance. He also mounted tempo- rary cannon on shore in case Barclay should return and SEA POWER ON THE GREAT LAKES 131 catch him in the act of getting the large new ships, Law- rence and Niagara, out of the inner harbor. With only- four to six feet of water over this bar, which extended completely across the harbor, he found it necessary to take off the Laivrence's guns and sink floats alongside, which on being pumped out acted as pontoons ("camels") and carried their burdens safely across. By several days' hard work Perry got his flotilla out not a moment too soon, for Barclay reappeared almost immediately, August 5th. Bar- clay seeing that Perry was now in much superior force to himself, retired at once to his base, Maiden, there to await the completion of his largest ship, the Detroit. He had missed his second great opportunity to make Erie a British lake. Perry, who could after getting across the bar range the lake at will, took up his position at Put-in-Bay, in the Bass Islands, whence he could readily intercept Barclay in case the latter made a dash for Long Point, the British sup- ply base. As a matter of fact Barclay was in straits in early September; his men were on half-rations and the Indian allies had wantonly killed cattle earlier and were now get- ting restive for lack of British supplies. Finally, with only one day's flour on hand, and nagged into premature action by Prevost, Governor-General of Canada, Barclay was forced to act. Perry's watchful waiting at Put-in-Bay was rewarded on September 10, 1813, for at sunrise his lookouts caught sight of Barclay's flotilla standing out of Maiden under a southwest wind. Perry got under way at once to meet it. Shortly after, the wind shifted to the southeast, thus giving Perry the windward position, or weather-gage, a great advantage for fleet manoeuvers in the days before steam. Both commanders were sailing into action in single column, — i. e., all units in line, one in the wake of the other, — a time-honored formation coming down from the early 132 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY days of the sail and still the great battle line to-day, for it is the most flexible formation, since the flag-officer may readily change course, and oppose the maximum broadside and the minimum vulnerability to his opponent. In their columns both commanders had their strongest ships and brigs in the center to give the lines cohesive strength. As Perry drew nearer, he rearranged his three center units to correspond with Barclay's center, so that his flagship, the Laivrence, should be opposed to Barclay's Detroit, his Cale- donia to the Hunter, and his Niagara to the Queen Char- lotte. Elliott, Perry's second in command, had the Niagara, and Captain Finnis in the Queen Charlotte ably seconded Barcla3^ Thus the two flotillas joined battle, sailing in southerly parallel courses with Perry to windward of his enemy. The action, which lasted from noon till three o'clock, was fought in two distinct phases, in each of which by an unfor- tunate accident Perry with half of his squadron was matched against virtually the whole of the enemy, a cir- cumstance that neutralized to a large extent that superiority in number of ships which Perry had labored so successfully to achieve. As the Lawrence and the Niagara possessed chiefly batteries of heavy carronades, effective only at close range, Perry himself early in the action set the example for close fighting by steering, with the Lawrence and the two leading schooners, Ariel and Scorpion, a course oblique to the enemy, called bow and quarter line. At the moment of changing course, he signaled to Elliott and the rear ships, straggling behind in the light wind, to close up. By reason of Elliott's misunderstanding of orders or by his lack of judgment and initiative, an ever widening gap now grew between Perry's van and rear ships. There- fore, for two and a half hours the Lawrence and the two van schooners bore the brunt of the battle unsupported. SEA POWER ON THE GREAT LAKES 133 NIAGAAA ^^^.r ^ cmff>ewA _>^,..f.v^SOMtrV CMAHLOTTT IS 1 ocTfton ^^ ^f *^wr,^ //(/AfTTi* \ \ \ CV.I-OONIA MtlKL ^v ■*, ■»- c: J ^^ Scom.i>tOM \ ; rmt^^g- - "4 Fl C 3 1 5s 1 I ^, . c » 1 S 5 • » ^ 1 1 1 y« « :5 "5 ^ § P! 5 b S ^ »< t>i' ri +■ >o ; 1 (kifl 1 ; ; s >^ ; c3 To- ; ^- :; (^ ""• - ^ « *** 1 1 ■jT'^^si ; ^ "» ^ a. ■to- 1 1 «^ *^:=***="^ ; ^ c3 >;i •S § 1 ; ^ s=- <^ i ^ 5 5 y ^ 11 (R^ s R 1 §3 (W] ^ j = • ' « II |- • 1 i M 5 152 DECATUR THE IDOL OF SEA POWER 153 the order to fire and both men missed. Their honor was sat- isfied, but Decatur had saved the young midshipman 's life. The Englishman happened to be the private secretary of Sir Alexander Ball, the Governor of Malta and an intimate friend of Nelson. This contact between Nelson's and Preble's officers left its impression upon Decatur. Con- sciously or unconsciously, Decatur patterned himself after Nelson, whose officers in a very literal sense worshiped their commander as the genius of British sea power. Like Nelson, too, Decatur was in the appeal of his per- sonality, his chivalrous bearing, and his romantic charm for women. Decatur's slender and athletic figure, his military bearing, his striking features, and his fine eyes marked him as unusual- in any company. After his de- tachment from the Mediterranean squadron, he landed at Norfolk, where he met in an official capacity the Mayor of Norfolk and the latter 's beautiful daughter, Susan Wheeler. She and her girl friends had been previously admiring in the cabin of the war-ship a miniature by an Italian artist of the handsome hero. Decatur's marriage to Miss Wheeler, which took place on March 8, 1806, when he was twenty-seven years of age, was destined to be unusually happy. Though his bent was naturally rather toward ac- tion than books, he took a deep and sympathetic interest in Mrs. Decatur's love of music, poetry, and especially Italian art, for which his Mediterranean experiences had given him a taste. Henceforth, in his victories as in the crises of his life, Decatur's first and last thought was for his wife. With fine chivalry he attempted to shield her from the pain of the frequent separations and sorrows that were to befall them. On October 30, 1812, the same day that he wrote his official report to the Secretary of the Navy on the capture of the Macedonian, he wrote another letter, in very different tone, to his wife. This letter, in- 154 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY tended only for Mrs. Decatur, was published many years later with her permission. As an intimate glimpse of Decatur's character it is quoted here in full: Frigate, United States, At Sea, October 30, 1812. My Beloved Susan, I have bad tbe good fortune to capture H. B. M.'s frigate Macedonian, Captain Carden, by which I have gained a small sprig of laurel, which I shall hasten to lay at your feet. I tried burning [the Philadelphia] on a former occasion, which might do for a very young man; but now that I have a precious little wife, I wish to have something more substantial to offer, in case she should become weary of love and glory. One half of the satisfaction arising from this victory is de- stroyed in seeing the distress of poor Carden, who deserved suc- cess as much as we did, who had the good fortune to obtain it. I do all I can to console him. Do not be anxious about me, my beloved. I shall soon press you to my heart. Your devoted, S. Decatur.^ A severe test for Decatur as the popular hero of the sea came with his loss of the frigate President to the British blockading squadron off New York in January, 1815. After the battle, Decatur, wounded and exhausted by a thirty- hour chase in a violent northwester, went below to the cock- pit to have his wounds dressed. Here he insisted on wait- ing his turn on the surgeon 's table, as Nelson after the bat- tle of the Nile on a similar errand had remarked, "I will take my turn with my brave lads. ' ' Then Decatur donned his full uniform preparatory to repairing at three o'clock in the morning in wintry seas to the British flag-ship to give up his sword to the British squadron commander. A cap- tive of war now, he was taken to Bermuda but was later 1 Mackenzie, Life of Decatur, p. 371. DECATUR THE IDOL OF SEA POWER 155 brought back to New London, where he arrived on February 21, 1815, a few days after the ratification of the treaty of peace by the United States Senate. The next morning the enthusiastic inhabitants came down to the landing and drew Decatur's carriage to his house, celebrating at once the re- turn of peace and of the popular idol. As his biographer says, Decatur, "conquered, yet conquering, was still tri- umphant in the hearts of his countrymen." Nor was Decatur, despite his defeat, less of a hero in the eyes of the Government than of the people. For two weeks after the promulgation of peace, the Government declared war against Algiers and chose Decatur to command a squadron. As we have seen, Decatur brought the corsairs to terms within forty days after leaving the United States. This service was a fitting climax to his earlier work in the Medi- terranean. If Nelson by sea power defeated Napoleon, Decatur achieved in the Mediterranean what even the sea power of Great Britain had not been able to achieve in two hundred and fifty years, — the end of piracy in that sea which had been so peculiarly the theater of great Brit- ish naval victories. On his return to New York, November 18, 1815, Decatur received at once new laurels from his countrymen as their idol of the sea. President Madison on the assembling of Congress in December highly complimented Decatur on his speedy termination of his mission. Congress later voted him and his crew $100*,000 prize money for the capture of Algerine ships. He and Commodores Rodgers and Porter were chosen the three Commissioners of the Navy, who in those days under the Secretary of the Navy managed the whole business of naval supply and opera- tion. En route to his new post in January, 1816, and on his later trips to navy-yards, Decatur was everywhere toasted and hailed by admiring countrymen for his 156 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY achievements. On one such occasion in Baltimore he re- plied to a toast in these words, ' ' The citizens of Baltimore : Their patriotism and valor defeated the veteran forces of the enemy, who came, saw, and fled." And it was in Norfolk in answer to the toast, "The Mediterranean, the sea not more of Greek and Roman than of American glory, ' ' that he gave the famous response, ' ' Our Country ! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right ; but our country, right or wrong. ' ' The toast may be said to strike the key-note of De- catur's character, — his intense love of country. Herein again he is like Nelson, with whom patriotism was a pas- sion. Nelson in the great crises of his life asked him- self, What is England's need at this moment? What would my country have me do? It was at these crises that Nelson, in his zeal for the nation, disobeyed the orders of his commanding officers; as for example at Copenhagen, when he deliberately put the glass to his blind eye to take a look at the signal for retreat and quietly remarked, "I don't see the signal." With a zeal no less than Nelson's, Decatur subordinated every other interest to his country's. It is said that he remarked to his wife that only one other love would take precedence of his love for her, — that for his country. Decatur in a very real sense sacrificed himself to his high ideal of patriotic duty. In his work as naval commissioner, Decatur had to settle many important questions of organization and policy of the young navy. It was in connection with this duty that a minor question came up for Decatur's decision, a question fraught with tragic fate for him personally. Much against his will, Decatur had been assigned a dozen years before to one of the unpleasantest duties that a naval officer must undergo, — the court martial of a brother of- STEPHEN DECATUR From the portrait by Chapppl DAVID PORTER From the portrait by Chappel DECATUR THE IDOL OF SEA POWER 157 ficer. Court martials have, like our jury system, much in their favor; yet in practice they seem at times to cause many hardships. As against his comrades, duty on a court martial is extremely unpleasant to the conscientious officer. Decatur found it so in the court on which he sat against James Barron, the officer who allowed his frigate, the Chesapeake, to be boarded by the British Leopard in 1807 for purposes of impressment. The court found Bar- ron guilty of negligence in going to sea unprepared and sentenced him to suspension from duty for five years. Barron, who never forgave Decatur for the latter 's part in the decision, applied to the naval commissioners for re- instatement. Decatur objected to such reinstatement on the ground that Barron had not offered his services to his country during the war of 1812. As Barron's period of suspension was up in 1813, his continued residence abroad was regarded by Decatur as desertion in time of war. His application for reinstatement now on a par with those who had endured all the dangers of an unequal contest seemed brazen. It was as if a slacker and deserter asked for a share of the glory. As a result of disappointment Commodore Barron now began a lengthy correspondence with Decatur. In a re- markably and almost brutally frank letter in this corre- spondence, Decatur, while abjuring all personal feelings of animosity, explained at length his reasons for his de- cision. From this correspondence it is plain that Decatur was actuated by none but the highest motives of interest in service and country. Barron, however, was determined on settling the matter on "the field of honor," — that is by a duel, to which Decatur's reply was: "If we fight, it must be of your seeking ; and you must take all the risk and all the inconvenience, which usually attend the challenger in such cases." Decatur reminded Barron, in reply to the 158 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY latter's reiterated comments about his (Barron's) eyesight, that his own eyes had not improved with the years. But Decatur from a delicate sense of honor allowed, without pro- test, Jesse D. Elliott of Lake Erie fame, Barron's second, to dictate to Bainbridge, Decatur's second, the important condition that the fight should be at twelve paces. Decatur had told his intimates that he was not going to shoot to kill; he had no desire to injure Barron except in self-de- fense. On the morning of March 22, 1820, after a happy breakfast with Mrs. Decatur, to whom from motives of tender feeling he had given no inkling of the affair, he drove to the rendezvous near Bladensburg. Immediately after the command to fire, the pistols flashed and both men fell wounded to the ground, Decatur mortally, as the event proved. We must remember in explanation of Decatur's action that dueling was, especially among men in public life, not yet under a ban, but quite the contrary. In England men like Wellington, Castlereagh, Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, Canning, Hastings, and 'Connell, and in America, Charles Lee, Burr, Hamilton, Clay, John Randolph, and DeWitt Clinton had fought or were to fight duels. In the American Navy the "honor code" was virtually unescapable. As we have seen, it was applied even to ship combats. The gallant Richard Somers — with Decatur at Tripoli — is said to have fought three duels in one day. Decatur had himself been ' principal or second in a number of affairs ; in fact, he acted , as second for Commodore Perry, of Lake Erie, in the latter 's 1 duel with Heath, in which Perry deliberately refused to fire his pistol. With this example in his mind, Decatur had intended not to return Barron's fire and he would not have done so, if Barron had not insisted on the short- est distance allowed by the "code of honor." As it was, Decatur aimed low, to wound without killing Barron. DECATUR THE IDOL OF SEA POWER 159 It is a sad reflection that the glorious work of the navy during the War of 1812 was spoiled by much hard feeling after the war, of which the controversy between Perry and Elliott and the Barron-Decatur duel were striking illustrations. As Decatur was carried off the field at Bladensburg, he remarked, '*I am mortally wounded; at least, I believe so, and wish I had fallen in defense of my country." He was taken to his home in Washington, where he soon after died, a victim to his high sense of honor and duty. From the President, the Cabinet, and Congress, who attended the funeral, to the humblest citi- zen, the nation mourned its hero of two wars, "the Bayard of the Sea." CHAPTER XI DAVID PORTER — THE PERSONIFICATION OP AMERICANISM AT SEA THE stirring events which marked the history of England and America from 1763 to 1815, from the close of the Seven Years ' War to the downfall of Napoleon at Waterloo, produced no greater changes in the political complexion of the American colonies than they did in the social and intellectual life of the inhabi- tants. The typical Colonial of 1763, of the days even of the Stamp Act, was a totally different person from the American of the end of the War of 1812, The purely English bent toward conventionality and conservatism of even so great a man as Washington was in utter contrast with the nervous, uncouth, boastful, individualistic Ameri- canism of Andrew Jackson. Yet the latter was almost as representative of the dominating forces in American life in the second and third decades of the nineteenth century as Washington was of the previous century in its last quarter. The American had been transformed and re- created; he had been reborn from aristocracy into de- mocracy. When we seek the causes of this remarkable metamor- phosis in American character, a metamorphosis which has, despite many economic and intellectual changes, persisted in the typical American, we find the usual view to be that the influence of the West was the greatest factor. In the words of Professor Turner, perhaps the best exponent of 160 DAVID PORTER 161 this theory, "American democracy is fundamentally the outcome of the experiences of the American people in deal- ing with the West. "^ Without excluding this influence, and without forgetting the tremendous effect of the whole movement toward man's political and intellectual eman- cipation which we call the French Revolution, it is per- tinent to inquire whether in American life the influence of American experience on the sea, especially in the stirring years of the Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812, did not play a significant part in forming in Americans a new spirit of nationality and democracy. Simply recall the spirit and achievements of the colonial American whaler, as portrayed so vividly by Edmund Burke; add only the fact that during the Revolution and the War of 1812 privateering absorbed the energy of a very considerable part of American manhood. Then one realizes that there were in existence factors which could turn the American type from the steady colonial landsman into the aggressive Western pioneer. When one realizes that during all this period the sea was more unsafe than the Western wilderness, unsafe always because of the un- certainty and wildness of Nature herself, and unsafe more- over because of the frequent wars, the privateers, the pi- rates, the jealousy of England, and the greed of Napoleon, one has to acknowledge that here were elements which needed only to be utilized to produce the sturdy, self-re- liant, independent, masterful, and, it must be admitted, boastful, violent, and impetuous individual that came to represent America in European thought in the first half of the last century. Indeed, when one compares a typical seaman of the time with a typical Western pioneer the likenesses in tempera- ment and character are startling. Two such men were 1 Atlomtic Monthly, January, 1903, p. 94. 162 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY David Porter, commander of the Essex in its brilliant cruise against the British whaling-fleet in the South Pacific, and Andrew Jackson, the hero of New Orleans and the first Westerner to seat himself in the Presidential chair. Force- fulness of character was the central trait in both, and this trait manifested itself early in both men, and independence of action marked their respective careers, naval and mili- tary, independence so great that it carried both beyond the instructions of their governments and even beyond the letter of international law. In both appeared that direct- ness of action which went straight to the heart of a diffi- culty and accomplished the result desired. Both were violent in disposition and frequently engaged in personal quarrels with their associates and opponents. They were alike in their uncompromising hatred of all foreign ene- mies of their country; both were jealously watchful not only of the material interests of the nation but still more of her honor as a sovereign power. Porter, Boston-born and Baltimore-bred, was early at sea, undergoing in 1796 as a mere lad of sixteen a baptism of blood in repelling a British press-gang from his father's ship. In later voyages as a merchant sailor he showed his spirit by refusing to obey British orders when he was him- self taken on board a British frigate for impressment. When, just before the naval war with France, he became, according to his own claims, the first midshipman to be enrolled in the regular navy, he soon distinguished himself in the engagement between the Constellation and the In- surgente. Afterward, as first lieutenant of a smaller vessel, he forced his faint-hearted captain to keep on fighting in- stead of surrendering to a swarm of pirates. In his social life he showed the same forcefulness. The story is that when he won the hand of the lady who after- ward became his wife it was after only a very brief court- DAVID PORTER 163 ship. Soon he traveled to Chester, Pennsylvania, to secure her father's consent. When he arrived he was received by her brother and informed in an icy tone that he could not see the father and had come on a fool's errand any- way if he hoped to marry the daughter. Porter replied: **I came here about marrj'ing your sister; I didn't come to marry you, and, d — n you, if you don't leave the room I '11 throw you out of the window. " ^ So effective was the threat that he married the lady presently and received an attractive house at Chester as a wedding-present from her father. Against the British, with whom he had many scores to settle, he was equally violent, and his feelings during the vexatious years of the Napoleonic Wars, with their trade restrictions, embargoes, and impressments, are seen in the following, written to an intimate friend in 1810 : There are some things dearer to a nation than the wealth of its citizens on shore or on the ocean, and that is its honor, and when we fail to esteem that in advance of all else, we will stand poor indeed in the world's estimation.^ Soon afterward he offered his resignation from the navy, but fortunately the Secretary of the Navy prevailed on him to withdraw it and remain in the service. When Porter sailed for the South Atlantic in 1812 in command of the small frigate Essex, there came the de- cisive moment of his life. Prevented from making the prearranged junction with Commodore Bainbridge oft' the coast of Brazil, and seeing little chance of effective service in those waters, he boldly decided to carry out a plan which he had previously discussed with his superior, namely, to cut loose from all bases, round the Horn, sweep down upon 1 D. D. Porter, Memoir of Commodore David Porter, p. 71. 2 D D. Porter, Memoir of Commodore David Porter, p. 82. 164 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY >\ AZORES ( * X HADCIHA IS.\ y ,/efiDei3Y' J WASHINGTON IS. •. * -nAfiQueaAi is. CALAPAOOS l^.f^^ \/ y '■Ji*-iLri/Msez 1 >. ^V» ^ NOftONNA ,' ■*.-c--"" TAHITI ^-.^ *\\ PSTCAIHN o "^ ^ * EAsren i. ^-*_^ >| J 1 ^ STHtLeNAI. j^ ^1 rum/OAOi Jc,'srcAniuu>iM^ A JU/WFIUUIIBEZI.* " •'%*MI30^ 'O' l\caf/C£t>Tmr) / MOO/A l.^f CT / TKISTOM at CIMM 1. , ^. ] ( iFALKUUIOIS. v^ ^>r]V,} SOurnctOACtA PORTER'S CRUISE IN THE ESSEX the British whaling-fleets off the South American coast, especially in the vicinity of the Galapagos Islands, and ex- ist as best he could on the supplies of his captures. No man who had not self-reliance and an utter contempt for the chance of disaster to his reputation in thus departing from his official orders, would have done as Porter did. But he acted in full accord with the note of independence and individualism which sounded through his whole ca- reer. Putting his men on short rations. Porter beat his labor- ious way around the desolate Horn in almost the worst weather of the year. Refitting in the friendly port of Val- DAVID PORTER 165 paraiso, he quickly sailed to the north, and like a bolt from a clear sky fell upon the British whaling-fleets, capturing vessel after vessel, and delivering blows which for decades all but annihilated British enterprise in that section. As he needed to make extensive repairs to his ship, he sailed with his fleet of prizes to the Marquesas Islands, where, in the romantic and Eden-like environment of the South Seas, he refitted his vessels and even annexed the islands to the United States. In justification of this act he issued a proclamation which breathes the very spirit of the Declara- tion of Independence. The document announces, after making the formal proclamation of annexation : Our rights to tliis island, being founded on priority of discovery, conquest and possession, cannot be disputed. But the natives, to secure to themselves that friendly protection which their defense- less situation so much required, have requested to be admitted into the great American family, whose pure republican policy approaches so near their own. And in order to encourage these views to their own interest and happiness, as well as to render secure our claim to an island valuable on many considerations, I have taken on myself to promise them that they shall be so adopted; that our chief shall be their chief; and they have given assurances that such of their brethren as may hereafter visit them from the United States, shall enjoy a welcome and hospitable reception among them, and be furnished with whatever refresh- ments and supplies the island may afford, and that they will protect them against all their enemies, and, as far as lies in their power, prevent the subjects of Great Britain (knowing them to be such) from coming among them until peace shall take place between the two nations.^ In his disastrous engagement with the British ships Phoehe and Cheruh on his return to Valparaiso in 1814, Porter showed the typically American qualities of inde- pendence, aggressiveness, and pluck. When the Phaehe, 1 Porter's Journal, II. 79. 166 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY a frigate fully the equal of the Essex and superior in long- range guns, entered the harbor and came sailing down on the Essex as if to come alongside and attack, even in a neutral port. Porter shouted to Hillyar, the British com- mander, "If you touch a rope yarn of this ship, I shall board instantly."^ He later challenged the Phoehe to a duel outside the harbor. But the British with their two ships waited their chance, and found it when the Essex, having slipped outside to draw the Phoehe out, became dis- abled by the loss of a topmast and put back into neutral waters. Here Porter was attacked by both Britishers and obliged to surrender. But he did this only after a heroic resistance in which he lost nearly two hundred men. Though the Essex had her sails partly disabled, and though the British vessels took positions where they could rake him with impunity. Porter several times made enough sail, or turned his ship by cables, so that he could bring his car- ronades to bear and inflict injur}' on the enemy. By taking risks and assuming responsibility, even though he must have foreseen the inevitable, fatal outcome. Porter dealt Great Britain a blow which did much to put her in a receptive mood for peace. The damage to the whaling industry was about six million dollars, — and the expenses to the American Government were only the loss of the Essex herself, originally built for the French war by the citizens of Salem at their own cost. Porter's independence of action and impatience of re- straint, as well as his strong hatred of British arrogance on the sea, were further shown on his return to America under a cartel signed with Captain Hillyar. By this the men of the Essex were to be free to return to the United States but were not to take part in the war 1 Loyall Farragut, Life of David Glasgow Farragut, p. 33 (quoted from Farragut's Journal). DAVID PORTER 167 again. Stopped off New York by a British blockading frigate, whose captain refused to recognize Hillyar's ar- rangement, Porter, impatient at such obstruction, decided he had a right to escape. He first wrote a letter to the British comm'ander, in which he stated that most British naval officers were not only destitute of honor themselves but regardless of the honor of those of their fellow of- ficers who possessed it. Then, getting into one of the ship's boats, manned by some of his men, he sailed off in the friendly fog for Long Island, sixty miles away. "When he managed to land safely and establish his identity, he was enthusiastically welcomed in New York and Phila- delphia. Soon afterward he assisted in energizing the defense of Baltimore and Washington when they were at- tacked by Admiral Cockburn. Thus he vindicated his honor and illustrated the sentiment he expressed at the beginning of the war, when, referring to enemies in the Navy Department, he wrote to an intimate friend, "I intend that no one shall treat me badly with impu- nity." The strange parallel between Porter and Andrew Jack- son appeared most prominently when Porter was sent to the West Indies in 1823 to command an expedition against the pirates who infested the waters of Cuba, Haiti, and Porto Rico and despoiled American merchantmen in the extensive trade they carried on there. The revolutionary movements against Spain that marked that decade among Tier American colonies gave admirable opportunities for piratical enterprise, and the weakness and corruption of the Spanish officials made suppression of such piracy a difficult task. Porter went at it with such directness that when a subordinate officer of his squadron was insulted and imprisoned for a few hours by the Spanish mayor at Fox- ardo, Porto Rico, he sailed into the harbor of the town, 168 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY landed a few men, spiked the guns of the Spanish forti- fications, and quickly secured an abject apology. But as he had committed a hostile act against a nation with which the United States was at peace, he was peremptorily re- called from the West Indies, deprived of his command, and tried by court martial for disobedience of orders. Spain never protested against the slight to her sover- eignty; political and personal reasons were probably at the bottom of the affair. Porter was so incensed that early in the sessions of the court he could not contain him- self and made his feelings so evident in his written com- munications that the court ordered that all letters should first be submitted to the judge-advocate. This roused Porter's temper to such a point that he quitted the tri- bunal and let the trial proceed without him. The result was six months' suspension from duty. Porter, however, refused to resume his place in the navy and resigned his commission. He had done only what Jackson had done when he had invaded Florida, captured Spanish towns, and hanged Englishmen without authority from his Government or right in international law. In the latter case the Government, while disavowing the act, did not punish the culprit, and took full advantage of the results obtained, which were, as in Porter's case, emi- nently beneficial. Curiously enough, John Quincy Adams, the man who as Secretary of State defended Jackson, was President when Porter was cashiered for similar in- dependence of action. After resigning his commission Porter accepted a place as admiral in the Mexican Navy, and with inadequate forces at his disposal harassed Spanish commerce in the Gulf of Mexico. But he soon grew impatient of the demoralized conditions in Mexico, the political corruption and the material and other deficiencies of the service, and DAVID PORTER 169 returned to the United States as soon as Jackson entered the White House. Though Porter had been insulted by President Adams on the very steps of the White House and in the presence of Lafayette himself, he was now received by Jackson in the most friendly fashion and was offered his old position in the navy. But he replied, "I would rather dig than associate with the men who sentenced me for upholding the honor of the flag." "Right," said Jackson; "by the Eternal, you shall not either if I can help it; I wouldn't associate with them myself."^ This attitude Porter maintained consistently to his dy- ing day, although his brother officers of the court martial had tried to soften their sentence with the statement that they ascribed the conduct of the accused "to an anxious disposition, on his part, to maintain the honor and advance the interest of the nation and of the service." His feeling seems to have been directed chiefly against two men, the president of the court, Captain James Barron, who had himself been suspended from the navy for five years for his failure to defend the Chesapeake against the Leopard in 1807 — a court martial of which Porter had been a member — and Captain Jesse D. Elliott, Perry's second in command at Lake Erie. As for Elliott, Porter, in his outspoken man- ner, had expressed uncomplimentary views of his conduct in the duel between Barron and Decatur. Such was Por- ter's bitterness toward Elliott that it persisted even when Porter had been appointed charge d'affaires to Turkey, — a post created for him by President Jackson. When El- liott visited Constantinople in the Constitution Porter re- fused to have an3^hing more than official intercourse with him. And he so notified Elliott in writing. 1 D. D. Porter, Memoir of Commodore David Porter, p. 391. 170 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY Perhaps the sturdy Americanism of the hero of 1812 is more happily illustrated by his conduct on first reaching Turkey in 1831. Although the Turks required foreign war-vessels to dismount their guns before passing up the straits to Constantinople, Porter insisted that they should exempt the John Adams, in which he was being carried to his post, from such humiliation, and he gained his point, — an act that must have warmed the heart of Andrew Jackson, In Porter's care and training of David Glasgow Farra- gut — whom he virtually adopted and who accompanied him in the Essex on her historic cruise, though the lat- ter was but eleven years of age — is seen a tenderer ele- ment. That it persisted to the very end is seen by the fol- lowing letter, written only eight years before his death: St. Stepbano de Constantinople, June 20, 1835, My dear Glasgow : My country has thus far taken care of me, and I hope by good conduct to merit what sbe has done, endeavoring to serve her to tbe utmost of my power. There was a time when there was nothing that I thought too. daring to be attempted for her; but those times are past, and appear only as a confused and painful dream. A retrospect of the history of my life seems a highly colored romance, which I should be very loath to Hve over again ; and it would not be beheved if it were written. My sufferings in Mexico, the trials of fortitude I underwent, exceed belief; but now I am enjoying Elysium, compared to what I then suffered in body and mind. But let it pass. They have left an impression on my mind that can never be effaced. I have been taught to admire a bold struggle with adversity as one of the most noble moral spectacles, and pride myself on acquitting myself with honor. I could not serve that base, unprincipled nation; but they woidd not let me. But I left them without a stain on my char- acter, which was not what others, under the same circumstances, would have done. DAVID PORTER 171 But where am I running Aol It is time that I should stop. But before I finish my letter, my dear Glasgow, I must say that the next thing to be admired is a grateful heart; and I am svire that I have found in yours ^hat treasure which should be so much prized. I have always endeavored to do good, solely for the sake of good. I have never looked for any other return than what my feelings gave me, and to find such sentiments of gratitude from you, after all others had forgotten that they had received any benefits from me, is truly refreshing to the feelings. Accept, my dear Glasgow, my best wishes for your health and happiness, and believe me to be your sincere friend. David Porter. Lieutenant-Commandant D. Glasgow Farragut, U. S. Navy.i Though Porter spent the remainder of his life on the shores of the Bosphorus, only once revisiting the United States, and had little need to exhibit forcefulness of char- acter, he can well be remembered not only as the gallant midshipman of the French war, the Tripolitan prisoner of 1803-5, the intrepid and successful raider of the second war of independence, and the American who did most to suppress maritime anarchy in the West Indies, but also as a brilliant example of the new Americanism. Through- out his career he exhibits that sturdy, independent, and unrestrained American spirit which in the years following the Revolution gradually developed within the American breast both from the unceasing struggle with the wilder- ness and the Indian and from the equally unceasing strug- gle with the perils of the sea and the selfish pressure of European sea power. 1 Loyall Farragut, Life of David Glasgow Farragut, p. 121. CHAPTER XII SEA POWER AIDS NATIONAL EXPANSION IT has already been suggested that the spirit with which the American seamen participated in the second war of independence was at heart the same as that which actuated the Western pioneer. But during the period from the War of 1812 to the Civil War, when the coun- try was chiefly occupied with expansion toward the West and the sudden burst of American enterprise which fol- lowed the discovery of gold in California, the part played by sea power has generally been dismissed in a few words. Yet the activities of the American seaman were many and constant, and he played, if not the major, at least an im- portant, part in making the United States a continental nation with one arm along the Atlantic and another reach- ing to the Pacific. Though the Americans had vindicated their sovereignty by their resistance to the pressure of European powers, they were in the years after 1815, as they had been before 1812, inferior in armed strength at sea. At the outbreak of the war there had been only fourteen serviceable war- vessels in the navy, and no ships of over fifty-five guns. In 1823 the Secretary of the Navy reported sixteen men-of- war in commission, but only one a ship of the line. Six others and three frigates were available in case war came, and five ships of the line and five frigates were on the stocks, — a total of thirty-five vessels of at least twelve guns. In 1843 forty-seven vessels might be mustered, only 172 AIDS NATIONAL EXPANSION 173 ten of which were ships of the line. In 1850 the numbers were only slightly greater, the chief addition being five steam frigates. By the outbreak of the Civil War, the ten ships of the line were unserviceable, and only forty-two vessels were in commission, with twenty-seven more avail- able for emergencies. For the work which was set before the American Navy this was meager indeed, especially if it meant any determined opposition to Great Britain, whose navy was during the whole period overwhelming in com- parison with that of other powers, and which was politically unhampered by alliances or understandings with other na- tions. It was fortunate, therefore, that in respect to the most momentous issue of this period, the expansion of the United States and development of independent governments in the Central and South American countries, Great Britain aligned herself beside the United States. As a commer- cial power, England saw that her interests in the colonies of Spain which revolted in the first quarter of the nine- teenth century lay not in their territory but in their trade. That trade — secured for her during the Napoleonic Wars by her supremacy at sea and by the break-up of the Spanish rule in Europe — needed to be guarded not so much against the United States as against Europe. It was for England's interest that no European government should seize infant South American republics, and close their ports to English trade and manufactures. When her foreign minister. Can- ning, in 1823 saw the members of the Holy Alliance — Russia, Austria, and especially France — considering send- ing an army to the New World to assist the Spanish king to subdue his revolted provinces, she not only announced her opposition but secured the assistance of the United States. The latter, fearing, naturally, that a foreign army in America would mean the acquisition of territory by 174 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY France and Russia, and thus the beginning of new em- pires, felt its own safety threatened, and in Monroe's message to Congress, declared "that the American Con- tinents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be con- sidered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." But such an attitude could be made effective only by superiority at sea, a condition not true of the United States. If it had not been, therefore, that the United States had behind it the force of British sea power, it would hardly have been able to maintain the Monroe Doctrine as the leading principle of American policy. On this fundamental fact all the expansion of the United States before the Civil War is based. Just as the failure of Napoleon's sea power led him to sell Louisiana to Jef- ferson, so only because the United States was free from European interference was it able to carry forward its march westward across the plains and the Rocky Moun- tains to the shores of the Pacific. In this development sea power played a real part. It furnished in the steam- boat, first operated by Fulton on the Hudson in 1807 and soon introduced on the Ohio (1811), the Mississippi (1812), and the Great Lakes (1819), the cheapest and quickest means of migration and travel. The very volume of the westward movement was also greatly dependent on the state of the shipping industry. "The migration westward declined during the good times of the Napoleonic Wars, rose in a huge wave which settled Ohio at the Peace of Amiens, and the Embargo Act and the War of 1812 sent many settlers west."^ The disturbed condition of com- merce just after the war diverted men from seafaring and sent them over the Alleghanies and down the Ohio toward 1 Bogart, Economic History of the United States, p. 190. AIDS NATIONAL EXPANSION 175 the free land of the Mississippi Valley. The westward movement did not attain its full tide till the maritime in- terests of the country lost their amazing prosperity as neu- tral carriers in a time of European war, or until the pre- eminence of foreign trade and shipping declined in Ameri- can life. But the influence of sea power on American expansion was not generally so negative and suicidal. The claims of the United States to the Oregon territory were, as has been noted, largely due to the discovery of the mouth of the Columbia by Captain Gray in 1792. In the events which preceded the acquisition of California and the South- west, the navy played an important part. Indeed, Ameri- can sea power was so ready in its help that in 1842, when Captain Catesby Jones, while cruising off the coast of Peru, heard a rumor that Great Britain had secured California from Mexico and was soon to take possession, he hastened north to the California coast, landed at Monterey, seized the city, and declared the whole region the property of the United States, For one day he maintained possession. Then, convinced that the reports he had received were false, he gave back the place to the Mexican officials. As he had acted absolutely without orders, the Government dis- avowed the act and made profuse apologies, but naturally could not entirely appease the anger of the Mexicans. When war was actually declared in 1846, the American squadron in the Pacific, under Commodore Sloat, im- mediately proceeded to the scene and seized Monterey, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. American sailors and marines also assisted the army in maintaining the Ameri- can occupation. On the Gulf coast of Mexico the navy did disagreeable blockading duty and assisted in the attack and capture of Vera Cruz before General Scott and his troops landed on their expedition to Mexico City. 176 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY It was during this period, also, that the naval connec- tion with the Isthmus of Panama began. In 1848, when Europe was in the throes of the revolutions which sprang up over Europe upon the overthrow of Louis Philippe in France, the United States had made a treaty with New Granada (now the United States of Colombia) by which it was granted the right of transit across the Isthmus of Panama. In return it guaranteed to Colombia the posses- sion of the Isthmus against all enemies. Across this strip was built the Panama Railroad, and over its rails crawled the trains of gold-seekers for California and a never-ending line of supplies. The uninterrupted operation of such a railway could be secured only by force, and the navy was the means by which this was secured. Thus in America during the first half of the nineteenth century sea power, whether British or American, became in the last analysis the foundation upon which American independence and American expansion across the continent really rested. The most conspicuous triumphs of American sea power, however, were displayed in the Far East. The frigate Congress in 1819 was the first American ship of war to visit Chinese waters; the second was the Vincennes in 1830, — the first American naval vessel, by the way, to cir- cumnavigate the globe. Every visit secured new respect for American ships and new privileges from the rather arrogant Chinese, who restricted foreign trade to Canton, and hedged in the conduct of business with hiuniliating and vexatious regulations, not even allowing foreign ships of war to remain in Chinese waters. But in 1840, at the close of the Opium War, Commodore Kearney of the Constitution, who was in Chinese waters, secured, largely by well-timed insistence and especially by dealing fairly with the Chinese authorities regarding American smug- gling of opium, a promise that whatever commercial priv- AIDS NATIONAL EXPANSION 177 ileges were granted to the British at the conclusion of the war should be also granted to other nations, — the inaug- uration of our "open door" policy in the Far East. Five ports in China having been opened to foreign trade, the eyes of all nations were directed toward Japan, where the policy of isolation still continued. Only at Nagasaki, and there only through the Dutch, was any foreign trade allowed. The American flag had first been seen off Japan just after the American Revolution. During the Napo- leonic Wars, American vessels were hired by the Dutch to carry their cargoes to Europe; such vessels flew the Dutch flag in Japanese waters, but the Stars and Stripes elsewhere. About 1820, however, American vessels pene- trated to the whaling grounds east and north of Japan. But if ships were wrecked on the Japanese coast, the men who landed on those shores were treated with great harsh- ness by the Japanese authorities and imprisoned indefi- nitely. With the introduction of steam vessels it also became necessary to establish coaling-stations in the Far East. And, above all, the vigorous expansion of world trade which characterized the years about the middle of the century made all the leading nations ambitious to be first to enjoy the products of Japan and first to introduce their wares and goods. After Commodore Bid die, who was authorized through the American envoy to China to make the attempt, had visited Japan in 1846 but had found the Japanese authori- ties opposed to concluding any treaty, the matter was en- trusted in 1852 to Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who was furnished with a letter from President Fillmore, writ- ten by the Secretary of State, Daniel Webster. His in- structions were to secure, by persuasion if possible, humane treatment of all Americans who were shipwrecked on the Japanese coast, also the opening of several ports for the 178 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY obtaining of supplies, and perhaps for regular trade. If the first of these objects could not be secured otherwise, he was to use threats, but not force except in self-defense. It was in this skilful mixture of friendliness, threats, and absolute insistence upon what he wished that Perry achieved his success. In their treatment of foreigners the Japanese had been accustomed to use every kind of trickery and in- sult at their disposal. They tried the same methods on Perry, but soon found that he would not brook insult, and was easily their equal in diplomacy. Perry's squadron of two side-wheel frigates and two sail- ing sloops of war had no sooner reached the Bay of Yedo below Tokio than it was surrounded by a cordon of Japanese police-boats. But when they attempted to make fast to the American ships, they were roughly pushed off, and no Japanese was allowed to come aboard. When an inferior official approached and ordered the ships to leave, the Amer- icans replied that they had a letter from the President of the United States and that they would deliver it nowhere else, and only to officials of the highest rank. Finally, the vice-governor of the province arrived and was allowed to come aboard. Perry, however, would not permit him to enter his cabin but deputed a mere lieutenant to talk with him. Not only was the vice-governor's request that the squadron go to Nagasaki refused, but threats were made that unless the police-boats were ordered away they would be fired on. The astonished Japanese official hastened to comply, and, when he left, promised that a higher official would come the next morning. The next morning he arrived, the governor himself, at- tired in full uniform with lacquered helmet held in place by a ferocious chin-strap. His formidable appearance was lost on Perry, for the American commander refused to see such an inferior official and appointed three of his cap- AIDS NATIONAL EXPANSION 179 tains to treat with him. The governor insisted that the Americans should go to Nagasaki, but they again refused, and as they noticed that he used different titles for the President and the emperor, they at once protested and de- manded that both should be treated alike. Not till the authorities at Tokio, the Shogunate, who were the military rulers and the only authorities with whom Perry carried on any negotiations, had, on Perry's threat to move up the bay and deliver the letter in Tokio in person, agreed that two princes should receive the letter in a house to be erected on the shore near by, did Perry him- self appear. Then, on July 14, 1853, he landed in full uni- form, amid thundering salutes, and accompanied by a con- siderable bod}^ of sailors and marines. Guarded on each side by a gigantic negro, he proceeded to the meeting-place and delivered the letter, which was engrossed on vellum and contained in a gold box richly decorated. Not insist- ing upon an immediate reply, he gave notice that he would return in the spring, and soon afterward sailed for China, In the meantime the political factions in Japan were al- most evenly divided as to abandoning the policy of isola- tion and inaugurating intercourse with foreign nations. When, however, Perry returned in midwinter in order to forestall the French and Russians, both of whom were planning missions to Japan, he found the government favor- able, and on March 13, 1854, concluded a treaty which se- cured substantially the objects he sought. As has been well said, "the opening of Japan was a memorable achievement, whether viewed as an international spectacle, a difficult task, or an historical event. Its spec- tacular features arrested the attention, and kindled the imagination, of the whole civilized world. The surmount- ing of its difficulties might well have challenged the ablest statesmen of the century. Perry's success was in no small 180 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY measure the result of a rare combination of strong quali- ties of character, — ^firmness, sagacity, tact, dignity, pa- tience, and determination. His achievement was one of the great historical events of the last century, the far-reaching effects of which are still but partially revealed. ' ' ^ This episode and the opening of Korea to American trade through similar methods by Commodore Shufeldt in 1882 are two of the greatest diplomatic achievements of naval officers in American history. Both reveal in clear outline that side of sea power in its naval sense which is little ap- preciated by the ordinary citizen. As the expansion of commerce has proceeded and the United States has come into touch with every people and every tribe which has a sea-coast, the navy has found much of its mission to lie in the protection of American lives and property and the maintenance of the prestige of the nation. In this activity, neither purely peaceful nor purely belligerent, but a deli- cate blending of the two, the naval forces of the country have contributed in no small degree to the expansion of the nation and done much to advance the cause of civilization. 1 Paullin, Diplomatic Negotiations of Naval Officers, p. 281. CHAPTER XIII THE CLIMAX OF AMERICAN ACHIEVEMENT WITH WOOD AND SAIL. TO present simply the influence of sea power in a purely naval sense as the most important feature of American maritime activity between the War of 1812 and the "irrepressible conflict" over slavery and States' Rights, which rumbles like the premonition of an earthquake during all the period, would be to disregard the much more prominent place which the commercial fleets of the United States occupied in the thought of the world in the half-century of comparative peace which settled upon Eu- rope after the defeat and exile of Napoleon. Then it was that America acquired again in peace much of the import- ance as a maritime nation which she had achieved during the stormy period of the Revolution and the Napoleonic strug- gle. Toward the end of this half-century she not only reached new heights for her maritime industry but saw the climax of her achievement with wood and sail. During this period the American clipper-ship, with her clouds of canvas, her lofty spars, her yacht-like lines, fought bril- liantly to perpetuate the wooden sailing-ship. In the struggle against the slow but inevitable victory of steam and iron she reached heights of achievement the world had never before witnessed. When this important epoch ended and civil war came, came also the end of an American merchant marine of any great importance in foreign trade and the eclipse 181 182 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY of shipping as a distinctly American industry. For causes which will be stated and which are not connected with the Civil "War to any great extent, the American commercial fleets dwindled to insignificance, and the ports of China, Australia, India, South America, the Mediter- ranean, and western Europe ceased to see as a familiar sight the Stars and Stripes and the American sea-captain with his air of conquest and command. With the coming of peace conditions in 1815 it was natural that the United States, already firmly established as a maritime power with an abundance of ships and an increasing population and industry, should see its hope for success on the sea in freedom of trade, the slogan which had been inscribed on its banners during the war. But as other nations might not wish to adopt a similar policy, the American people decided on the policy of reciprocity ; that is, that no restrictions on foreign vessels of any nation trading with United States ports should be continued, if that nation allowed America similarly free commerce. By this means, and later by the imposition of heavy duties on nations not reciprocating, the United States gradually se- cured participation in the whole trade of the world. In 1830 Great Britain opened her trade with the West Indies to American ships, and in 1849, under the influence of Richard Cobden and the other statesmen of the Manchester free-trade school of thought, she repealed the remaining provisions of the Navigation Acts, and even admitted for- eign ships to her coastwise trade. The safety of navigation had also been greatly increased by such campaigns as De- catur's and Lord Exmouth's against the Barbary pirates, and by Commodore Porter's measures against the pirates and irregular privateers of the West Indian seas. More than in any preceding period, the whaling industry, which shared with the fisheries inclusion in "coastwise ACHIEVEMENT WITH WOOD AND SAIL 183 trade," to which after 1817 only American vessels were admitted, and on which no import or other duties were levied, had become almost an American monopoly. Though such whaling centers as Nantucket had lost half their fleets during the war and Nantucket had only twenty-three vessels left, American whaling later increased in impor- tance, and in 1849, according to an English writer, the United States possessed 596 whale-ships to Great Britain's fourteen. With the increase of this industry went the enterprise of its captains and seamen. In 1818 they in- vaded the off-shore ground of the Pacific to the east of the Marquesas Islands; in 1821 a few American vessels sought the whales off the Japanese coast, which increased in 1822 to thirty ships. In 1835, the Kodiak ground off the north- west coast of North America saw its first Yankee whale- ship, and the pursuit of the leviathan of the sea was soon extended to the Kamchatkan coast and the waters of Bering Sea and the Arctic. Similar was the history of the American fisheries. Al- though trouble ensued after the War of 1812 and at fre- quent intervals later regarding American fishing-rights off the British provinces of northeast Canada, Congress in- creased the bounties paid fishing-vessels constructed in the United States, and thus maintained the fishing-fleets, which supplied American merchantmen with cheap food to carry to the slave plantations of the Southern States and the West Indies, and also to the Roman Catholic countries of southern Europe. The difficulties about fishing near the coasts of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland drove the daring American fishermen to Labrador, — where in 1820, 530 American sails were seen, — and to the banks of Newfound- land which lie so far to sea that they had previously been shunned by fishermen. But in 1821 three Gloucestermen tried the St. George's Bank, and despite rough weather 184 ACHIEVEMENT WITH WOOD AND SAIL 185 secured large hauls. Such fleets were the nursery of Ameri- can sailors in the foreign trade, and in the navy that sprang up so suddenly with the outbreak of the Civil War. The increase of American activity on the world's high- ways on the seas was also greatly helped by the natural development of trade throughout the world during the first half of the nineteenth century. In all the new fields thus opened up, American seamen and merchants were not behind other nations in their efforts to secure a share. In 1816 began the regular crossing of the Atlantic, the Black Ball line of packet-ships between New York and Liverpool. Built on sturdy lines which could resist the North Atlantic gales, and crowded with enough sail to sink a ship under any other than their eager, skilful American skippers, these vessels sailed as regularly as the day of the week came around, and traveled laden with emigrants from Europe or the products of the Western world. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 soon made New York the great export center of the country, and from its wharves left most of the sailing-packets, for example, the Red Star Line, and the Dramatic Line, whose ships made the trip to Europe in from sixteen days upward. Other regular lines sailed also between Boston and Liverpool, New York and Havre, and New York and New Orleans. With the Far East, the chief trade under the Stars and Stripes was still maintained with the merchants of Canton, Hither in 1821 as many as 126 ships sailed from Salem alone. About the same date the Salem navigators turned their prows to Madagascar and Zanzibar, where gum opal for varnishes was obtained, and to Manila for hemp, which was far superior to the old materials for cordage. The extension of American shipping w^as soon evident ; in 1826 American ships carried 92.5 per cent, of their country's foreign trade, import and export; by 1831 the coastwise 186 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY tonnage surpassed the foreign tonnage ; in 1838 the former reached a million tons. It was not till 1847 that this fignre was reached in the foreign trade, and that American ship- ping with other countries surpassed the tonnage fibres of the years of the Napoleonic Wars. Before this high-water mark was reached, as early as 1840, it was estimated that two hundred thousand Americans were connected with maritime industries and commerce, and that the capital in- vested reached $430,000,000. That the American sailor still merited the admiration of Europeans, as much in 1835 as in 1775, when Burke spoke so highly of her whalemen, is shown by the words of De Tocqueville in his "Democracy in America," a work pub- lished the former year : The European sailor navigates with prudence; he only sets sail when the weather is favorable; if an unfortunate accident befalls him, he puts into port; at night he furls a portion of his canvas; and when the whitening billows intimate the vicinity of land, he cheeks his way and takes an observation of the sun. But the American neglects these precautions and braves these dangers. He weighs anchor in the midst of tempestuous gales; by night and day he spreads his sheets to the winds; he repairs as he goes along such damage as his vessel may have sustained from the storm; and when he at last ajoproaches the term of his voyage, he darts onward to the shore as if he already descried a port. The Americans are often shipwrecked, but no trader crosses the seas so rapidly. And as they perform the same dis- tance in shorter time, they can perform it at a cheaper rate. . . . I cannot better explain my meaning than by saying that the Americans affect a sort of heroism in their manner of trading. But the European merchant will always find it very difficult to imitate his American competitor; who, in adopting the system I have just described, follows not only a calculation of his gain, but an impulse of his nature. But the supreme test of American maritime efficiency had arrived. In 1840 an Englishmian, Samuel Cunard, received ACHIEVEMENT WITH WOOD AND SAIL 187 a subsidy from the British Government and began the famous Cunard Line with four side-wheel wooden steamers, first to Halifax and Boston, then to New York, which soon became the main terminus. Meanwhile the Opium War between Great Britain and China was throwing consider- able trade into the hands of American shippers and cap- tains, and the years of peace in Europe between the revolu- tionary movements of 1830 and those of 1848, gave a de- cided impetus to American trade expansion. The export of American products, especially cotton, had also grown to tremendous size, and it was simply a question whether this expanding trade should fall to Britain, with her steamers, or to America, the home of cheap sailing-craft. With the recurring spasms of anti-British sentiment which were stirred by the fishery question, the northeastern boundary, the dispute over Oregon, and the remarks of English travel- ers, such as Dickens, whose "American Notes" appeared in 1842, it became almost a matter of patriotism for America to meet the challenge and show that sail could beat steam. The skill of American seamen could hardly be improved, but the ships they sailed could always be made faster and more efficient. It was this latter development that made the American merchant marine of wood and canvas aston- ish the world for the two decades after 1840. The clipper ship seems to have sprung from the French luggers which brought supplies to America during the Revolution. These were the prototypes of the so-called Baltimore clippers, really schooners, of world-wide reputation for speed as privateers in the War of 1812, and later much sought for as slave-smugglers on the African coast. In the years just after 1840, the opium trade with China attracted many Americans because of its great profits and because fast vessels such as the Baltimore clippers were needed. But all these vessels were small schooners, far different from 188 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY the huge clipper ships which were to be the climax of wood and sail in the "clipper ship era" from 1843 to 1860. The first large ship on clipper lines was the Ann McKim of Baltimore, built in 1832. But the real movement be- gan in 1841 when John W. Griffeths of New York ex- hibited a model of a proposed clipper which would change thje full-beamed, solid lines of the old cargo vessels, where capacity seemed the only object, to the more slender lines of the new type, where the greatest breadth was farther aft. With this new model before them, American ship-builders soon produced the fastest and most economical cargo ves- sels of their generation. From the yards of Donald McKay, at East Boston, and William H. Webb, at New York, to mention only two of the foremost, came creations of wood and canvas that quickly established the supremacy of American shipwrights and riggers. Instead of the insig- nificant 493 tons of the Ann McKim, Donald McKay turned out such ships as the Flying Fish, 1600 tons, the Sovereign of the Seas, 2400 tons, and the Great Bepublic, 4555 tons. The latter was 325 feet long, four-masted, and with a main- yard 120 feet in length. In the coastwise trade the adop- tion of the schooner rig on larger vessels helped to lower the cost of transportation and meet the menace of the steam- boat, for on a schooner only two-thirds as large a crew was required to work the sails. In all the fields of ocean commerce the American ship now won fresh victories. In the transatlantic trade, the steamers, virtually all British until 1850, were obliged to carry so much coal that they had room for little else, and were besides frequently passed by Yankee sailers. In 1852 the Sovereign of the Seas, during a fast fourteen-day trip between the two continents, made 340 miles one day by sail alone, while the Cunarder Canada was covering only 200. ACHIEVEMENT WITH WOOD AND SAIL 189 The best American liner was the Dreadnought, built in 1853, and commanded by Samuel Samuels. On her first trip from Liverpool westward, she left a day later than the Cunard Liner Canada, and arrived in New York just as the latter made Boston, a shorter distance. Passages of thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen days were not uncom- mon. In the extensive China trade, sometimes via the Cape of Good Hope, then later, after the California trade be- gan, by way of the Horn, American clippers threatened to take the East India trade from the very mouths of British ship couynanders. This was especially after 1849, when the British Navigation Acts were repealed and American ships were free to carry tea and 'other products from India to the very docks of London and Liverpool. During the years 1840-60, many a British or Dutch bark with upper yards bare, making slow headway across the Pacific or Indian oceans, saw astern a pyramid of snow- white canvas appear over the horizon and sweep by in the course of a few hours, — a Yankee clipper from New York to Hongkong, or Batavia, flying unreefed royals and with topgallant studdingsails out to catch every bit of breeze. Such was the American habit of carrying every inch of sail the yards would bear and forcing the ship day and night toward her destination. One of the most famous clipper commanders. Captain Bob Waterman, is said to have put padlocks on the topsail sheets and halliards to prevent timid seamen from lowering sail in every little blow. Many a ship's log had records like that of the Florence on her trip of ninety-two days from Shanghai to England. For nine days in succession she carried royal studdingsails. From December 26th to March 20th she never reefed her topstails. On another voyage out to 190 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY Penang the Florence for the entire trip of eighty-one days never started her topsail halliards, except once to take in a single reef for a few hours. Another factor which helped to establish the superiority of the American sailing-ship was the earlier adoption of scientific methods in navigation. In 1842 Lieutenant Mat- thew Fontaine Maury, just placed in charge of what later became the Naval Observatory and Hydrographic Office in Washington, began the compilation of data for charts which -would show the winds, currents, and other phe- nomena encountered in the waters traversed by ships. Through these charts, and the sailing-directions furnished with them, American skippers were able to cut days, and sometimes weeks, from their passages. By these methods alone Maury is estimated to have saved the American mer- chant marine at least $2,250,000 per annum. But probably the greatest influence in American mari- time history of this period was exerted by the discovery of gold in California in 1848. All trade between the Atlan- tic coast of the United States and the Califomian gold- fields of the Sacramento Valley was coastwise traffic, from which foreign ships were excluded. It did not, therefore, feel the competition of the British steamship lines, nor have many rivals between New York and Aspinwall (now Colon) and between Panama, western end of the Panama Railroad, and San Francisco. Especially in the route around Cape Horn the clippers had the field to themselves, and the rivalry between ship-builder and ship-builder, and between captain and captain was intense, for in this coast-to-coast trade were made the great fortunes of the day, both ashore and at sea. As mails and passengers filled the Panama route to ex- haustion, the clippers around the Horn could charge what they pleased for freight, and a ship could in one voyage to ACHIEVEMENT WITH WOOD AND SAIL 191 the west coast earn profit enough to pay for its building and operation. If the swift clipper returned by way of China and cir- cumnavigated the globe, its profits were much increased. Here again American seamanship was a vital factor. In 1851 the Surprise, Captain Dumaresq, entered the Golden Gate, ninety-six days out from New York, having during the 16,308 miles from Sandy Hook, reefed topsails but twice. On August 31, 1851, the Flying Cloud, Captain Creesy, arrived after a voyaage of eighty-nine days, making 374 miles in one day. This surpassed the best day's run of any Atlantic steamer of that time, and meant an average of 227 miles a day, or 91/2 miles per hour throughout the voyage. On her return from California via Honolulu in 1853, the Sovereign of the Seas made 424 miles in twenty- four hours, and at times attained a speed of 19 to 20 knots. A similar impetus to clipper-ship sea power came with the discovery of gold in Australia in 1851. As the voyage was long and there were few possible coaling-stations, steamers could not be used, and the American-built clip- per-ship, whether owned by Americans or foreigners, found itself supreme. Furthermore, Maury's calculations disclosed a new route which did not touch at the Cape of Good Hope, as had been the custom, and which cut the time of the voyage jn two. By taking a course far south of the cape ships fell in with steady westerly winds which carried them east with great speed, and on the return the ship sailed east from Melbourne around Cape Horn, thus circumnavigating the globe. In this trade American- built ships, such as Donald McKay's Sovereign of the Seas, Red Jacket, Chariot of Fame, Lightning, Champion of the Seas, and James Baines, made passages which were not surpassed by any other vessels. It may well be maintained that the years from 1854 to 192 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY 1862 marked the heyday, the climax, of American merchant ships of the sail and wood period. In the United States ship-building was carried on more profitably than any- where else in the world; here was the native genius in design of a people bred to the sea for generations; here were cheap timber and skilful workmen; here was an increasing demand for more ocean carriers to provide for the expanding transoceanic trade. The commerce with the half -opened East of China and Japan and the tremendous demands of territories like California and Australia, where in a night thousands of eager settlers appeared and de- manded supplies and equipment, opened new avenues for shipping. The revolutionary movements in Europe in 1848 resulted in vast emigration from the European continent, and, as explained before, the repeal of the Navigation Acts by England also gave fresh impetus. "With the breaking out of the Crimean War in 1854 and the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, came a still greater call for shipping, and during these years, 1854—62, American tonnage in the foreign trade amounted each year to two million gross tons or more, a figure never surpassed before or since. In 1861 came the highest figure, 2,496,894 tons ; 1858 saw the peak of tonnage in the whale fishery, 198,594 tons; in 1862 the deep-sea fiisheries reached their climax with 193,459 tons of shipping. When, therefore, the Civil War began, American sea power in a commercial sense was, including coastwise, one third that of the entire world, and virtually equal to Great Britain's. On every sea the American flag was seen, in every port American ships were found, and the hold of America on the carrying-trade of the world seemed firmly established. The rich men of the day, the captains of industry of their time, were almost entirely the merchants and ship-owners. The United States from its earliest set- tlement, — through its colonial period with its West Indian ACHIEVEMENT WITH WOOD AND SAIL 193 trade, through the Revolutionary epoch, whose financial straits were so often relieved by the chief maritime mer- chant of the day, Robert Morris, through the period of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, and through the later expansion of foreign trade in the clipper-ship era, — through these periods the United States was distinctly a maritime nation. Like the Scotch poet America could have sung, "Our heritage the sea." What were the conditions which caused the United States to decline as a shipping power? There were many, includ- ing the Civil "War and the destruction of Northern ships by the Confederate cruisers, but the chief cause was the inevitable victory of the steamship built of iron. Against the power of steam the argosies of sail were in the long run powerless, though the genius of American ship-builders and navigators prolonged the struggle for many years. Sail and wood had reached their zenith, and could rise no higher ; steam and iron were in their infancy and had their hands upon the future. The changes in domestic affairs also gradually turned against American shipping interests ; the North, especially New England, built factories and wished protection against foreign products; the grow- ing sectional feeling alienated Southern support of bounties and subsidies, which had been granted fishermen and trans- atlantic liners, both sail and steam. There was therefore little encouragement for the few ship-builders in the North who realized that American ships must quickly change from wood and sail to steam and iron, and they accordingly received no governmental assistance and had to fight the natural conservatism of the builder of clipper-ships, with his yard and workmen organized by the old methods. But the story of the skill and enterprise which displayed the American flag in every port of the world, and which origi- nated new types of ships, strikingly superior to the old lum- 194 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY bering cargo-carriers of the early decades of the century, constitutes one of the chapters in the history of American sea power which ought not to be forgotten. With the gradual exhaustion of iron and coal, it may be that men will some day again fall back on the cheaper wind and wood for at least some share in transportation by sea. CHAPTER XIV FULTON AND ERICSSON IN AMERICA REVOLUTIONIZE THE SEA POWER OP THE WORLD THE Latin poet sang : * ' His heart was cased in oak and triple brass who first put forth upon the treacherous sea. ' ' Yet the beginning of navigation was not a greater change than the transformation which occurred in merchant marine and navy in the first half of the nineteenth century. Sail and wood had been since the dawn of history the very essentials and fundamentals of all seafaring ; yet before the triumphal march of human invention and the undaunted enterprise of two Americans the ships of the time lost the need of sails and found wood almost useless, and, abandoning both, entered on a new age of maritime achievement. It is difficult for the present-day reader to realize the wide gap which lies between Nelson's ships in the blockade of Napoleonic France and the fleets of battle-ships and merchantmen that plowed the seas a half century later. The very essence of navigation by sail was the wind; yet to-day it hardly enters the thought of the voyager. That the ship should carry within her the power which would propel her over the seas, as a horse has within him the power of locomotion, was hardly conceivable; also for the wooden walls of the ship of the line to be entirely dis- carded, and the very masts and bulkheads to be of a mate- rial that would sink if placed in water, would have seemed to earlier generations a mere vagary of an abnormal imagi- 195 196 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY nation. Accordingly the two men who were the real leaders in this transformation, and the steps by which it occurred, are well worth consideration in any history of sea power. It was inevitable, as soon as James Watt in 1765 had made his great improvement on the crnde steam-engines of his day, the separate condenser, that steam should some day become the motive power of ships, and until one realizes the revolution in navigation which it involved, it is hard to understand why sail power continued to hold the mastery of the seas for nearly three quarters of a century longer. As we have seen, the climax of sail was in the forties of the next century, and not till after the Civil War do we fairly find ourselves in the steam era on the sea. The delay was due, however, to perfectly natural con- ditions, which also explain why — despite the mechanical supremacy of Great Britain in the early years of the last century — practical and actual steam-navigation first ap- peared not in England but in America. The conservatism of the older countries was simply the usual tendency of society, the willingness to carry on the affairs of the world in the well-worn, well-practised ways which had proved their worth through the centuries. Usually during time of war there is considerable chance for experiments, for the weaker sea power seeks by ingenuity to overcome the handi- cap of inferior forces. But, singularly enough, when it came to new ideas of naval warfare, Napoleon, who repre- sented the weaker sea power, happened to be not one who sought for revolutionary changes in method but one who used more brilliantly than his opponents the methods and materials already in existence. Accordingly, though France as the weaker naval power would be expected to overcome superior forces by some new idea in warfare, she did nothing of the sort. Great Britain, moreover, confi- dent in the strength of her sailing-ships of war and her FULTON AND ERICSSON 197 wooden walls, which had protected her ever since the Armada, did not feel the need — though she was on the highroad of mechanical invention — to deviate from the sure path of experience. Besides, her inventors found full occu- pation in the improvement of manufacturing. But in America the conditions were quite different. The new nation was expanding inland toward the "West, where rivers abounded but roads did not exist. Though, like England, she started building canals, her imperative need was some method of navigation of the deep rivers that flowed into the Atlantic and some means of transportation up and down the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Great Lakes. On the rivers the old methods of sail were virtually impos- sible; there were narrow channels, sharp turns, swift cur- rents, and sudden squalls from the bluffs that lined their banks. In the United States some other method than sail- ing had to be devised to furnish the quick and reliable transportation so much needed. With the natural progressiveness and freedom from tradi- tion of a new country the United States turned toward the untried power of the steam-engine. It is needless to men- tion the various devices projected, or actually tried, for navigation by steam. Robert Fulton, therefore, though he deserves his title of the inventor of the steamboat, did not anticipate every one else in all the adaptation of the steam-engine to marine navigation; his claim rests rather on his being the first to demonstrate in a definite way that the steam-engine could be applied to navigation success- fully enough to overthrow sail as the commonest method of propulsion. It was, therefore, with Fulton, who had a real genius for invention, that the first steamboat originated. Though he did not receive much education in his boyhood days near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, his mind was active and his con- 198 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY fidenee great. In 1782 at the age of seventeen he removed to Philadelphia, where he became by 1785 a miniature- painter of some ability, and may have seen before he went abroad in the next year, or perhaps, in 1787, John Fitch's steamboat on the Delaware, a craft with several paddles placed parallel to one another and made to strike the water on each side of the boat like the paddles of an Indian canoe. After pursuing art, especially portraiture, in London for several years, Fulton suddenly abandoned an apparently successful career and ever after devoted himself to inven- tion. His earliest sketch of a steamboat dates from 1793, but during the first few years he was chiefly occupied in in- venting a machine for cutting marble, another for lifting canal-boats to a higher level with the use of a lock, and a machine for digging canals. Passing over to France in 1797, he apparently kept working on the steamboat, con- ducting as early as 1798 experiments with the screw pro- peller. But he was chiefly engaged here with a submarine tor- pedo-boat, which in 1800 he actually constructed and in which he made trips on the Seine near Paris and at Havre and Brest. He even made a voyage of seventy miles on the high seas in his cockle-shell, looking for English brigs to torpedo, but the news of the existence of his dastardly war engine, as it was then considered, had reached the British fleets, and they avoided him. Although Fulton 's invention did not accomplish anything, it contained the essential characteristic of the modem submarine, — ability to sub- merge and navigate underwater. Its motive power, how- ever, was so deficient, being only a screw turned by hand, that it could not overtake any vessel or travel any con- siderable distance. Furthermore, its success depended — like that of its predecessor, Bushnell's submarine of 1777, which made an unsuccessful attack on the British 64-gun FULTON AND ERICSSON 199 Eagle in the Hudson River — on reaching the bottom of the vessel and there placing the torpedo, or mine, as we should call it to-day. The arrival of Robert R. Livingston as American Minister to France in 1801 really marks the beginning of Fulton's definite efforts to solve the problem of steam-navigation, for Livingston was much interested in the matter, was con- versant with all the various experimenters then working in America, especially Morey, Roosevelt, and Stevens, and he had already secured an act from the New York Legislature giving him a monopoly of steam-navigation in the state. In 1802 Fulton and Livingston signed a partnership agree- ment whereby Fulton was furnished funds for constructing a small boat for trial on the Seine. This steamboat made a successful trip on August 9, 1803, and attained a speed of about three miles an hour. Fulton did not lay claim to having invented any constituent part of the craft; the boiler was of French make and of well-known design and the paddle-wheels had been used by others before him. He claimed only a more successful arrangement and combina- tion of these parts. Accordingly, safely buttressed by a possible monopoly of the Hudson and its tributaries, he sought no patent, but with Livingston prepared to set up in America a steamboat which would have commercial possibilities. As England was admittedly the leading nation in the manufacture of machinery, Fulton ordered an engine from Boulton & Watt, of Soho, near Birmingham, asking for some special features but in the main using the standard type of engine of the day. The boiler was made in London, and the whole shipped to America. But meanwhile Napoleon had assembled at Boulogne an army with which he intended to invade England. Fulton, whose activities in France in the previous war were known and apparently 200 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY respected by the British, supervised an attempt to sink some of the French flotillas at Boulogne and Calais by means of submarine bombs, similar to those he had used in France. In this case, however, he was using no sub- marine but a sort of raft on which a man lay and towed a quantity of explosive against the side of the intended victim. Although Fulton again personally directed these expeditions and received considerable money for his serv- ices, the results were negligible. When Napoleon just be- fore Trafalgar gave up hope of securing command of the Channel and packed his army off to the Danube, Fulton gave over the attempt and in October, 1806, started for New York to resume his efforts to introduce steam-naviga- tion in his own country. In the construction of a suitable hull and in the placing of the engine in the most advantageous position, Fulton displayed a scientific attitude which was in advance of his time. Hitherto naval architects had decided such matters as shape of hull, displacement, and speed, by rule of thumb and experience, but Fulton utilized the results of the latest investigators, especially Beaufoy's experiments regarding the resistance of variously shaped solids moving through water. The technical details are clearly seen in the speci- fications given in the patent applications filed by Fulton in 1809 and 1810, illustrated as they are by drawings which show his skill as an artist and his preeminence as an engineer. It is not, therefore, in the improvement of the engine that Fulton contributed most, but in the scientific calculation of details of the hull, and in fitting hull and engine to each other. On August 17, 1807, almost four years to a day after the successful trial on the Seine, The Steamboat, as it was first known, or the Clermont as it was later called when others of its kind appeared on the Hudson, started from FULTON AND ERICSSON 201 New York for Albany, and arrived at the latter place in thirty-two hours, a speed of a little less than five miles per hour. The craft which thus inaugurated the era of steam was 150 feet long, and 13 feet beam, and drew 2 feet of water. Its displacement was 100 tons. So successful did it prove that Livingston secured an extension of his monopoly until 1833, and the line thus established has con- tinued to run to the present day. The revolutionary change from sail power to steam was soon evident. Steamboats appeared and multiplied on all the principal rivers of the United States. Only a month after the Clermont made her maiden trip, John C. Stevens of Hoboken, who as early as 1803 had constructed a small twin-screw steam vessel which actually worked, launched a rival ship equipped with paddle-wheels. In 1809, this ves- sel, debarred from the Hudson by Livingston's monopoly, steamed from New York to Philadelphia, the first steamboat to accomplish an open-sea voyage. As has been mentioned, the first steamer appeared on the Ohio in 1811, on the Mississippi in 1812, and on the Great Lakes in 1819, and the steamboat thus had an important influence in develop- ing the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. In 1825 when the Supreme Court declared Livingston's state monopoly unconstitutional as a control of interstate com- merce, in the famous case of Gibbons vs. Ogden, a new stimulus was given to steamer lines between the principal cities. In England the Comet, built in 1811, seems to have been the first steamboat to deserve mention, but not till 1820 was steam-navigation at all common there. It was certainly the example of Fulton that led to the use of steam in England, and he was directly responsible for its intro- duction into Russia. As late as 1824 the French Govern- ment sent a commissioner to the United States to report on the advisability of establishing steam-navigation in France. 202 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY Fulton, however, did not rest on his well-earned claim as the father of steam-navigation. In 1811 he introduced the steam ferry-boat, constructed with bow and stem exactly alike and rounded at each end like the ferry-boats of to-day. In 1813, he designed and constructed the first steam war- ship, the Demologos, i. e., the Voice of the People, — a name that recalls Fulton's enthusiasm for democracy, one of his real inspirations as an inventor. The vessel was designed primarily for harbor defense. The plans were different from any vessel ever built before or after. To protect the machinery, which utilized the paddle-wheel principle, a single wheel was placed in a well in the very center of the hull and protected above by a deck. The hull had a bow and stem like a ferry-boat, with two rudders at each end. Thirty 32-pounders were on board, and were to fire red-hot shot. The main deck was protected by solid wooden armor, four feet, ten inches thick. The Demologos was not completed till after the War of 1812, but made actual trips outside of Sandy Hook without difficulty. After Fulton's death in 1815 she was named the Fulton in honor of her inventor, and remained at the Brooklyn Navy Yard till 1829, when she blew up. So revolutionary was her design that in England any exagger- ation about her passed as truth. One writer even stated that her sides were thirteen feet thick and that she could, by a mechanical device, brandish three hundred cutlasses with the utmost regularity over her gunwales and could also thrust out an equal number of heavy iron pikes which darted back and forth every fifteen seconds. Although the paddle-wheel has now been discarded for the screw propeller, except for shallow waters, it is well to remember that the early triumphs of steam-navigation were all won by this means of propulsion. In 1810 the American side-wheeler Savaiinah crossed the Atlantic and FULTON AND ERICSSON 203 went on as far as St. Petersburg, though chiefly by means of sail. In 1838 the British steamer Sirius, also a side-wheeler, arrived in New York after a voyage made wholly by steam. She was followed a day later by another steamer of the same type, the Great Western. Transatlantic steamship travel had begun. The early ships of the Cunard Line, established in 1838, were all side-wheelers, and those of the first American line, not established till 1847, were of the same type. In fact, there were some side-wheel Cunarders plowing the Atlantic as late as 1870. Screw steamers did not become common until after the Civil War. After its introduction into the merchant marine, steam was gradually adopted by the navies of the world, at first in the form of the side-wheeler, England began building steam towing-vessels for her fleets in 1820, but the first real steam war-ship did not appear till 1832. After Ful- ton's Demologos, the first steam vessel in the American Navy was the Fulton, not built till 1837, although its con- struction had been authorized by Congress in 1815. Of the early side-wheel steamers in the American service, the best known was the Mississippi, built in 1842 and prominent in Perry's expedition to Japan and in the operations in the Mississippi till her burning at Port Hudson in 1863. With all the progress in the use of steam in navigation, it is nevertheless true that previous to 1843 the steamer had many points of inferiority to the sailing-vessel. In the transatlantic service, the clean, fast-sailing American packets with their snowy canvas frequently beat the sooty, cranky Cunarders with their clumsy paddle-wheels. On inland waters the side-wheel steamer was supreme, but on the high seas she was never a success, even in the com- mercial fleets. Her huge paddle-boxes were hit by every wave and made a storm a time of misery and danger. Be- sides, if heavily laden, she had her wheels too deeply im- 204 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY mersed to work effectively and, therefore, when she most needed power, had it least. For naval purposes the side- wheel steamer was almost useless, for her wheels were in exposed positions, and her machinery had to be placed well above the water-line, where it. was very vulnerable. It is not strange, therefore, that the use of steam on the oceans and in war had not progressed greatly in 1843, when John Ericsson by the invention of the screw propeller in ia practical form for large ships obviated all these difficulties and started another revolution in ship design — one which was to establish firmly the right of steam to the trident of the seas. But Ericsson's services to sea power did not stop here, for by his later invention of his ''Monitor" type, an iron-armored vessel which was virtually in\'iilnerable and could with one gun do the work of a whole broadside, he revolutionized sea power in its military sense. If, there- fore, Fulton was the father of the modern steamship, Erics- son was the father of the modern dreadnought. Unlike Fulton, who changed in his twenties from art to engineering, John Ericsson had only one ambition all his days. He was reared in the atmosphere of the great me- chanical and engineering epoch which began in England with the perfection of the steam-engine by James Watt, and which is concisely described as the Industrial Revolution, — the great transition period for all Europe from medieval life to modem civilization. Born in Sweden in 1803, his father being connected with canal construction, Ericsson became a draftsman of some ability by his fourteenth year, when he entered the Mechan- ical Corps of the Swedish Navy. He later served as subal- ] tern in the army and became familiar with ordnance. In ' 1826 he emigrated to England and immediately started his career as an engineer and inventor. In 1828 he began the use of compressed air for transmitting power, and invented FULTON AND ERICSSON 205 the first practical steam-engine for extinguishing fires and pumping. By this time he was beginning to give his atten- tion to marine engineering and had invented an improved condenser. In 1828 in remodeling the Victory, a ship then fitting out for Arctic exploration, he placed the engines below the water-line, an important matter in a war-ship — as Ericsson regarded the Victory, for the commander con- cealed the real use of the vessel. For the next ten years invention after invention came forth from the ingenious brain of Ericsson — a locomotive that was a dangerous rival of Stephenson 's ; a sea lead that measured depth by the compression of air; in fact, over thirty distinct devices which Ericsson in 1863 listed among the best hundred he had made. As we have seen, the screw propeller was not a new idea, but had been discussed and experimented with by Fulton in his submarine in 1798, by Stevens in 1803, and by Eng- lish inventors of the thirties, such as Shorter and Smith. But, as in the case of steam, one man established the idea as a practical commercial and naval method of propulsion. That man was not Stevens or Shorter or Smith, but John Ericsson. And it is interesting to note that again it was in the United States that the new idea, though perfected and exhibited in Europe, was first demonstrated and adopted. The two men whose names should be associated with Ericsson's in this epoch-making event are both Americans, — Francis B. Ogden and Robert F. Stockton. The former was the American Consul at Liverpool, and had in 1831 become a partner of Ericsson in a patent for a steam drum, owing to the fact that as an American citizen he could take out the patent in the United States. As Fulton had in Paris demonstrated his steamboat, so in 1837 Ericsson demonstrated the advantages of the propeller on the Thames 206 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY in the Francis B. Ogden, a miniature steamer, only forty- five feet long. It towed the American packet-ship Toronto against the tide at four and a half knots an hour, and on a later trip propelled the Admiralty barge up the Thames to the discomfiture of the skeptical naval officers aboard. The second American associated with Ericsson was Robert F. Stockton, of New Jersey, a naval officer who saw Erics- son's small screw steamer and became enthusiastic over this new method of propulsion. He immediately had a larger steamer of iron built on the Mersey, This small craft, the Robert F. Stockton, crossed the Atlantic under sail and was used for years as a tow-boat on the New Jersey canals. It was, with the exception of Stevens's screw-launch of 1803, the first propeller steamer in America, and the first to be used commercially. So conservative were English ship-builders and engineers and so enthusiastic his American friends that in 1839 Erics- son left England and proceeded to New York to adopt America as his country for the rest of his days. He came with plans prepared for a steam-frigate with a screw pro- peller, as Stockton believed he could secure the authoriza- tion of Congress for such a vessel. While the deal with the Government was under way, Ericsson fitted out several vessels with his new machinery, among them the Clarion, the first screw steamer between New York and Havana, and the Vandalia, the first on the Great Lakes. All told, before 1844 (when the Princeton, the first naval vessel to be equipped with an Ericsson propeller, was commissioned), he had introduced his invention into twenty-four merchant- men. From 1841 to 1843 Ericsson was almost entirely engrossed in the building of the Princeton. Though Stockton was the one in charge, Ericsson was called upon for one hundred and twenty-four working-drawings, and the fact that the FULTON AND ERICSSON 207 ship embodied his ideas, and virtually his alone, seems to have been well known. The vessel was indeed crowded with inventions of Ericsson's. Besides the screw propeller, he had on her a new hooped gun — the principle of which was adopted later in the Parrott — an improved gun- carriage, a friction-gear for controlling the recoil of guns, a range-finder, a self-acting gun-lock, a telescopic smoke- stack, and a system of blowers which made the draft of the furnaces independent of the riddling of the funnel by shot. The engines, much less bulky and much lighter than those of side-wheel steamers, were placed below the water- line, where they were not exposed, like the old paddle- wheels, to every shot that the enemy fired. From an engineering point of view, therefore, the Prince- ton was the first modern war-ship, for its essential principle still survives and is to-day being applied even to submarine and aerial warfare. The success of the Princeton, even before she was tested in the Mexican War, and before she appeared in European waters, started the navies of the world to building screw vessels. In 1843 Ericsson, through his representative abroad, received an order for a propeller for the French 44-gun frigate Pomona, and in 1844 in New York he drew the designs for a propeller and an engine of 300-horse-power to be placed in the British frigate Amphion. Commercially, the advantages of the screw were also soon recognized. In 1852 it was calculated that whereas the cost of transporting four hundred tons of mer- chandise five hundred miles with paddle-wheels was virtu- ally a thousand dollars, the screw vessel with auxiliary sail power could do the work for less than a third the amount. The services of Ericsson to sea power were not, however, ended. Without giving here an account of the dramatic encounter between his iron-clad Monitor and the Confed- erate battery Merrimac in the dark days of the Civil War, 208 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY it is important to indicate how seven years before that conflict, into which the North entered without one iron-clad vessel, Ericsson was fully prepared so to change the whole course of naval construction and warfare that within a year of the beginning of the Civil War the United States by the adoption of Ericsson's idea, should be overwhelmingly the strongest sea power in the world. The introduction of iron into ship-building, which began in Great Britain in 1838, was inevitably to supersede the wooden walls of the navies, and the adoption of guns throwing explosive shells which would smash wood and set it on fire made the wooden steamer, whether side-wheel or screw, a defenseless hulk. But this was not realized till the Crimean War, when the armored batteries of the French withstood the fire of the Russian forts at Kinburn without receiving any appreciable damage themselves. And it was this war rather than the Civil War that produced the monitor type, Ericsson 's chief contribution to sea power. Russia was Sweden 's hereditary enemy; Russia represented autocracy, Sweden democracy; Ericsson, intense in his loves and hates, was stirred at the attempts of the Russian Czar to extend his power in the Black Sea. He therefore sent to Napoleon III, through the Swedish Minister in Paris, detailed plans for, and a model of, a new type of ship in which were embodied all the fruits of his inventive genius, and which possessed stability, great gun power such as would destroy land forts, ease of manceuver in shallow waters, economy of armament, and invulnerability, — in other words, the essential points of his later Monitor. The following description of it was sent by Ericsson to Napoleon : The vessel [is] to be composed entirely of iron. The midship section is triangular, with a broad hollow keel, loaded with about two hundred tons of cast iron blocks to balance the heavy upper works. The ends of the vessel are moderately sharp. The deck, FULTON AND ERICSSON 209 THE IRONCLAD MONITOR PROPOSED TO NAPOLEON III BY JOHN ERICSSON IN 1854 Prom Ericsson's own drawings in his "Contributions to the Centennial Ex- hibition." Plate XLII. made of plate iron, is curved both longitudinally and trans- versely, the curvature being five feet; it is made to project eight feet over the rudder and propeller. The entire deck is covered with a lining of sheet iron three inches thick, with an opening in the center sixteen feet in diameter. Over this opening is placed a semi-globular turret of plate iron six inches thick revolving on a vertical column by means of steam power and appropriate gear-work. The vessel is propelled by a powerful steam engine and screw propeller. Air for the combustion in the (boilers and for ventilation within the vessel is supplied by a large self-acting centrifugal blower, the fresh air being drawn in through numer- ous small holes in the turret. The products of combustion in the boilers and the impure air from the vessel are forced out through conductors leading to a cluster of small holes in the deck and turret. Surrounding objects are viewed through small perfora- tions at appropriate places. Reflecting telescopes, capable of being protruded or withdrawn at pleasure, also afford a distinct view of surrounding objects. The rudder-stock passes through a water-tight stuffing box, so as to admit of the helm being 210 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY worked within the vessel. Shot striking the deck are deflected, whilst shell exploding on it will prove harmless.^ As Ericsson himself stated, the plans he used for the later Monitor were not essentially different from those of this submerged armored steam battery with its one gun in a revolving turret shaped like a hemisphere. Unfortunately for Ericsson, by the time the model was received, the armored batteries had finished their work and the Crimean War was over. Consequently Ericsson received only a formal acknowledgment of the receipt and rejection of his scheme. But he kept both plans and model, and appar- ently revealed to no one the real secret of his ship. Thus seven years before the Civil War, a Swedish-Ameri- can had in his desk the plans for that ship which was to save the Union and revolutionize the navies of the world. Though the Princeton had been a successful war-ship, the naval authorities of the day seemed to think that Ericsson, with his wealth of ideas far beyond their ken, was on the whole visionary and impractical. Wlien the occasion came, as Ericsson and many others felt it would soon, the time, when "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide," would they, these worshipers of naval tradi- tion, have insight and greatness enough to subordinate the force of habit and tradition and listen to the greatest marine engineer the world had ever seen? On the answer hinged the issue of the Civil War and the fate of freedom and democracy. 1 Ericsson, Contributions to the Centennial Exhibition, p. 412. CHAPTER Xy THE BLOCKADE A DECISIVE INSTRUMENT OF SEA POWER IN THE CIVIL WAR HISTORY never repeats itself, some would have us believe, but one of the chief pleasures of those interested in historical questions is to find resem- blances and parallels for matters far separated in time and place and not usually associated in thought. It is interesting, therefore, to discover that the Civil War, par- ticularly from the point of view of the South, was strik- ingly like the American Revolution, in regard to sea power. As has been made clear in this volume, the sea power of France, by breaking the command of the At- lantic by the British for a short time in the year 1781, won for the American colonists their freedom from the mother country. No such result ended the South 's efforts at revolution and independence, but Southern success de- pended, — and it is to the credit of Southern statesmen that they recognized this fact, — upon breaking Union control of the sea by inducing European intervention by naval powers stronger than the North. This would give them access to the materials of war in Europe, just as it gave the colonists access to French stores of guns and munitions. More than has generally been conceded by Southerners since that day, was European participation against the Union the only stone on which the ultimate success of the secession movement could be based. The fact that such intervention was recognized as neces- 211 212 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY sary proves the preponderant influence of sea power in the Civil "War. It was the blockade of the Southern coast by the sea forces of the Federal Union that was the decisive instrument in throttling the Confederacy and giving final success to the armies of Sherman and Grant. As long as the government at Richmond had no sea power of any size comparable to the Union strength, and as long as it could not add to its resources the navies of England and of France, there was no real hope that the eleven seceding states could make permanent headway against the industrial resources of the North and its far greater population. But as Mahan so often states and reiterates, "communica- tions dominate war," and sea power with its ability to maintain its own communications and destroy those of its opponents generally holds the "casting vote." As it was, therefore, in the Revolution, as it was even in the Napoleonic Wars and in the latter part of the "War of 1812, so in the years between 1861 and 1865 on the coasts of the Southern Confederacy and in the open reaches of the Atlantic and the other oceans, sea power exerted a decisive influence. The uses to which Northern sea power could be applied were chiefly in the blockade of the South and in all the incidental operations of isolating the South absolutely from the rest of the world, such as the capture of Southern ports and cooperation with the army in expeditions on Southern rivers. Secondly, the sea power of the Union must be ready for the entrance of a European nation or nations into the conflict, and, thirdly, it must scour the seas in search of Confederate commerce-destroyers, privateers, and foreign-built vessels, which, like the ships of Conyngham and Wiekes in the Revolution, might try to hinder the free- dom of maritime commerce and destroy the commercial prosperity of their enemies. THE BLOCKADE IN THE CIVIL WAR 213 But the blockade was the preponderating strategy of the Union, to which all other movements were secondary. In- deed, it was the concentration on this object which is per- haps the most striking evidence of the military insight of such men as President Lincoln, Gideon Welles, his Secretary of the Navy, and Gustavus V. Fos, the latter 's professional adviser. To this object was sacrificed, whenever necessary, the risk of European interference, the demands of army leaders insistent on making the navy merely a slave to land operations, and the need of Northern commerce for ships in which to carry on its trade. A brief review of conditions in North and South will show clearly that no better plan could have been devised. The South was in no sense independent economically, even in the things which it needed for land warfare. Sur- rounded on every side by loyal states or the open sea, except for the remote and desolate plains where Texas and Mexico are separated by the Rio Grande, the Confederacy was well situated to be cut off from the essentials of warfare and national life by a vigorous blockade. There was little manufacturing in the seceded area, only five iron-works, and the raw material for these had always come entirely from Northern mines. There were, accordingly, no fac- tories ready for turning out such necessary articles as guns, bayonets, cannon, or shells. Even the cotton, on whose cultivation the Southern people had concentrated their efforts, was not made into cloth on home soil but was ex- ported to England, France, and the North to be manu- factured into calico and cloth for the elegant Southern matron as well as for the rude negro slave. While the South was an agricultural region and raised food enough for its wants, the meat-raising sections were chiefly beyond the Mississippi, far from the battle-fields of Virginia, and 214 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY connected only by a few feeble railway lines and no navi- gable rivers. Furthermore, the export of cotton was the very life- blood of Southern financial existence. More than a billion bales went to England every year, a large amount to France, and much to the mills of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In volume of export, in number of persons engaged in its cultivation, and in importance in determining the pros- perity of the entire section, ''Cotton was King." As it was a bulky article for export, it was all the easier for Northern blockading ships to interfere seriously with the most essential and influential factor in Southern pros- perity. Cotton could not be consumed in the South, it was not an article of food, and only by exportation could it become of any value. Its use in the manufacture of ex- plosives, which made is such a necessary article for Germany in the World War, had not yet been introduced. From a more purely naval point of view the blockade was adapted to conditions in North and South, The Union Navy was small, utterly incapable by itself of closing more than a few ports, but the extent of maritime industry in the Northern States was so great that the deficiencies of the military navy could be quickly supplied. There were plenty of seamen in the North, shipyards were ready for constructing new vessels, and the coastwise steamers and ferry-boats were so plentiful in Northern waters that a very considerable force could quickly be collected and thrown around the Southern coast. Feeble as such con- verted merchant vessels would be in real battle, against unarmed ships and for the purpose of giving legality to a measure which simply required a ship of some sort every few miles, they were entirely adequate. Furthermore, in Southern harbors were few vessels which could be armed and sent out to attack this nondescript fleet with any real THE BLOCKADE IN THE CIVIL WAR 215 THE SOUTHERN STATES SHOWING RAILROADS EXISTING IN 1860 AND ROUTES FOR BLOCKADE RUNNING chance of success. The lack of shipping owned in the South left it entirely dependent on foreign assistance either in creating a navy or in exporting its products and in secur- ing munitions and manufactures abroad. Yet it was with almost unbelievable audacity that on April 19, 1861, President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the entire sea-coast of the Confederacy from the southern boundary of North Carolina to the extremest limits of Texas, "in pursuance of the laws of the United States and of the law of nations in such case provided." According to the figures given in Secretary Welles 's report for 1861, on April 19 there were only eleven vessels at all available for blockade duty. Yet on April 27, 1861, the blockade was extended to include North Carolina and Virginia, and, on paper at least, the Confederacy along all its nearly three 216 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY thousand miles of sea-coast was cut off from communication with the outside world. Not till May 12th, however, was the first blockade-runner captured off Charleston, not till May 30th off the mouth of the Mississippi, not till June 5th . off Mobile, and not till July 4th off Galveston. Indeed, the strict blockade of the Atlantic coast seems to have come last, for not till August 3d was any capture made off Wilmington, or till August 6th off the St. Mary's River, Florida. Furthermore, up to November 15, 1861, only one steamer had been caught running the blockade, and only one other steam vessel, a tug, taken from the Confederates.^ By October, 1861, however, the Union Navy had received reinforcements sufScient to produce a real influence upon SoufRern commerce. The war-ships laid up in navy-yards, except those at Norfolk, were fitted out and sent to sea. The various cruisers of the navy in the East Indies, on the coast of Africa, and in the Mediterranean were recalled, and soon placed on blockade duty. Merchantmen were chartered and purchased, mostly side-wheel steamers and propellers, and even city ferry-boats with their double ends and their unwieldy hulls and paddle-wheels were sent to patrol the inshore waters of the Confederacy and to do duty in Hampton Roads or the sounds of North Carolina. About fifty wooden sloops and gunboats, steam-powered and mostly with screw propellers, were ordered constructed. Over sixty old sailing-vessels were purchased, loaded with stone, and sent out to be sunk as block-ships in the entrances to Confederate ports. To strengthen the blockade further, — "a primary ob- ject," as Welles wrote to Stringham, the commander of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron in May, 1861, the Union authorities planned joint military and naval expeditions to capture Southern ports and thus prevent such harbors 1 Report of the Secretary of the Navy, 1861, pp. 145-151. THE BLOCKADE IN THE CIVIL WAR 217 from being centers for contraband trade. Instead, these ports would afford bases for the blockading fleets, where supplies could be obtained and crews and ships restored to efficiency after the dull, incessant patrol. Hatteras Inlet, at the entrance to Pamlico Sound, was first captured, and soon afterward, on November 7, 1861, Port Royal, south of Charleston, fell before the skilful manceuvering and enfilading fire of a fleet under DuPont. This neglected harbor became the chief base for the Atlantic squadrons, and Pensacola, which was early recovered, became the base for the Gulf Squadron. In 1862 Beaufort Inlet and all the entrances to Pamlico and Albemarle sounds had been captured, St. Augustine occupied, and Fort Pulaski, which controlled the principal access to Savannah, made a Union stronghold. Thus on the Atlantic coast nothing remained to the Confederates except Charleston and Wilmington. On the Gulf coast, the mouths of the Mississippi, with the city of New Orleans, and several smaller harbors, had come into the possession of the Federal navy. Mobile and Gal- veston held out till 1864 and 1865 respectively. By 1863 the only places where supplies could be re- ceived and sent on to the Southern armies were, thus, Wilmington and Charleston, and Mobile and Galveston. Before these ports, however, the Union forces seemed un- able to produce results. During the first year of the war sailing-vessels and merchant steamers of ordinary speed had been the blockade-runners and had for all the diligence of the Union Navy managed to carry away a considerable amount of cotton. The statistics show that in 1861 816,000,000 pounds of cotton reached England from the United States; in 1862 13,500,000 pounds, and in 1863 only 6,000,000. Parts of these amounts doubtless came from the North, but they show that blockade-running ex- isted at all times. 218 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY By 1863, however, the increasing effectiveness of the Federal blockade and the higher prices paid for cotton brought about the construction of specially designed blockade-runners. They were generally long, narrow ves- sels with paddle-wheels, with their deck only seven or eight feet above the water-line. The funnels were tele- scopic, and there were no lofty masts, as everything possible was done to make the ships indistinguishable. Painted gray and burning smokeless anthracite coal, they were able, with their great speed (twelve to seventeen knots), to out- distance any Union ships which discovered them, and they often slipped into Charleston, Wilmington, or Mobile with- out even being sighted. Their other termdnus was generally Nassau, Bermuda, or Havana. It cannot be said that the blockading fleets ever suppressed these agile sea hounds, and they stopped their voyages only when they captured the sea-coast cities and so left them without ports. It is said that so difficult to capture were these special-service vessels that one passed into Mobile Bay while Farragut's fleet was preparing to make its memorable attack, and in the bombardment of Fort Fisher, at the entrance to Wil- mington, another actually joined the Union fleet, and under cover of their smoke passed in safely. English shipping firms engaged in blockade-running as a regular business. British naval officers, many of whom later distinguished themselves in their profession, commanded the vessels, and the highest qualities of courage, seamanship, quick action, and engineering skill were called into play. The blockade-runner operated on the most exact schedule, as it was necessary to arrive off the blockaded port at night, then pass round the end of the patrol squadron and proceed close alongshore where its outline would blend with the shadows of the land, and then on reaching the actual en- trance to the port make a quick dash by the Union vessels THE BLOCKADE IN THE CIVIL WAR 219 watching there, trusting to invisibility and speed for suc- cessful escape. The voyage out was generally more easily managed, as it could be timed for a dark period of the night, and after the positions of the Union ships in the offing had been accurately plotted- So superior to the nondescript blockading squadrons, which had to keep the sea for weeks without a chance for repairs, were these ships, that in one case mentioned in Taylor's "Running the Block- ade" a blockade-runner passed by sixty-four Union vessels without being sunk or captured. The United States, however, made the blockade effective by stiffening its interpretations of international law and holding that articles obviously destined to be carried into the Confederacy in violation of the blockade could be cap- tured at any point on their journey. In pursuance of this policy, Federal naval officers boarded vessels bound for Matamoras, Mexico, as for instance the Peterhoff — which was captured at St. Thomas — and seized the cargo as contraband and in violation of the blockade, because Matamoras was just opposite Brownsville, Texas, across the Rio Grande, and afforded an easy entrance to the Con- federacy from Mexico. Furthermore, they boarded neutral vessels bound for Bermuda and Nassau, places which before 1861 had little trade with Southern ports but which became flourishing centers of commerce as soon as the blockade was declared. In other controversies as to ultimate destination of com- modities the United States also extended the reach of its blockading force. In 1862 the Bermuda, a British steamer, sailed from Liverpool, stopped at Bermuda, and sailed from there for Nassau, where, according to the state- ments of her agents, a return cargo to Europe had been provided. Just before reaching Nassau, however, she was stopped by the Union steamer Mercedita, a prize-crew was 220 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY put on board, and the ship was sent into Philadelphia. The Federal attorneys, when the case came before the prize- court, maintained that the cargo was clearly intended to enter the Confederacy in violation of the blockade. Fur- thermore, they insisted that the stop at Nassau was only a pretext and that the ship was intended for running through the blockade as it had done the year before. In the end both ship and cargo were condemned. It is little to be wondered at that Great Britain protested against such action, but the North held its ground, and the doctrine of ultimate destination became a fairly well-established article of international law. Similar was the case of the Springbok, a neutral vessel bound from London to Nassau and of too g^eat draft to enter any Southern port. When one hundred and fifty- six miles from her destination in February, 1863, she was boarded by the Union cruiser Sonoma and sent in as a prize. While she carried only a little contraband, it was evident that her cargo had the Confederacy as its ultimate destina- tion. It was impossible to prove this in a legal way ; never- theless the Northern prize-court, although it released the steamer, condemned the cargo. Other measures against which the British Government protested, but without shaking the determination of the North to institute a real blockade and bring about the ex- haustion of Confederate necessaries of war and trade, were to refuse all vessels clearance from New York to Nassau, to open mail-bags on British steamers, and to seize virtually every steamer in West Indian waters that might be in any way assisting in supplying, directly or indirectly, the armies of Lee and the economic life of the seceded states. Although Great Britain filed claims for the illegal seizure of 478 vessels, 181 of which were allowed by the arbitrators after the war, the object sought was attained, and the THE BLOCKADE IN THE CIVIL WAR 221 blockade was made absolute, — the only condition on which it could be of decisive benefit to the blockading power. The stubborn determination of the Federal Government to stamp out every attempt to break the blockade and defeat every step toward securing recognition or inter- vention by European governments is seen in many incidents in which war with England was risked, sometimes un- wisely. The ease of the Trent is perhaps the best known. Captain Wilkes of the Federal steamer San Jacinto stopped the British mail steamer Trent off the northern coast of Cuba in November, 1861, and took off two Confederates, ]\Iason and Slidell, who were proceeding from Havana to Europe to secure the assistance of the English and French governments. Wilkes, who was the well-known discoverer of the Antarctic continent, regarded these gentlemen as contraband, which shows how wide a gamut the word ran in the minds of Northern sympathizers, since the term had never been applied to persons except by General B. F. Butler, who had shrewdly started the term contraband as describing the legal status of the negroes who entered the Union lines. The arrest of Slidell and Mason was uni- versally applauded in the North, but Seward and Lincoln saw the danger of reviving the issue of impressment, on which England and America had taken opposite sides in 1812. The cominissioners were accordingly released and sent to England, but several of the European powers, already stirred by the way the blockade was interfering with their commerce, and inspired partly by unfriendly feel- ings which had remained from the numerous disagreements of the past, were almost ready for at least the recognition of the Confederacy, and perhaps for a declaration of war. The British Navy was mobilized, and troops were sent to Canada, some of whom were unluckily forced into Port- land, Maine, by the freezing of the Canadian ports and 222 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY had to request permission to pass through the United States. This request was smilingly granted. But the fact that American restrictions upon neutrals affected commerce, not lives, and the deep and almost uni- versal feeling in England that the cause of the South was the cause of slavery, prevented any final move for inter- vention. Palmerston, also, expressed what was after all a prophecy when he said that the restrictions the United States imposed on neutral trade might be of great ad- vantage to England in some future war. Thus England by accepting the practice of the North and not intervening profited in 1914, — when the United States, not England, was the neutral, — by all the precedents of the Civil War to justify her limitations on commerce with Germany through the neutral countries of Holland, Italy, and Scandi- navia. The Federal Government staked its all on the blockade. Incessantly, remorselessly, the cordon tightened. For example, salt cost $1700.00 in the Confederacy when it could be purchased in Nassau for $7.50; while cotton in Liverpool was worth ten times as much as it was on the wharves of Charleston. As the Union forces about Chatta- nooga gradually cut all the railway lines from the West, the armies in Virginia had to be supplied with food by the blockade-runners, and much beef came in by way of Wil- mington, which had direct railroad connection with Rich- mond. When Wilmington fell in January, 1865, the doom of Lee's dauntless band of fighters was sealed. W^ithout supplies, and with Grant 's ever-increasing hordes battering them steadily backward, there was no alternative except surrender. The blockade had won its objective. It had throttled the Confederacy and choked secession. It had proved to be the decisive instrument of Federal sea power in its operations during the war. As Admiral Mahan de- clared, ''Never did sea power play a greater or a more THE BLOCKADE IN THE CIVIL WAR 223 decisive part than iu the contest which determined that the course of the world's history would be modified by the existence of one great nation, instead of several rival States in the North American continent. ' ' ^ The blockade was, to quote again from the same author, "the paramount func- tion of the United States Navy during the Civil War, dealing probably the most decisive blow inflicted upon the Confederacy. " ^ 1 Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 44. 2 Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, I. 287. CHAPTER XVI THE MONITOR ESTABLISHES UNION CONTEOL. OP THE SEA THE importance of the naval operations of the Union in winning the war against the seceding states is probably too little appreciated by Ameri- cans of the present generation. They accept, without real- izing the significance, the fact that the blockade was de- clared and maintained through four long years of unceasing naval effort. They do not realize that during all that time the Union Navy suffered no defeat of any seriousness, and they fail to contrast this with the serious reverses suffered by the Union land forces before Lee surrendered at Appo- mattox. And it is hard to realize the damaging effects even one such defeat at sea would have had. The breaking of the blockade at any one point might have negatived the effec- tiveness of the whole ; its success depended on the absolute exclusion of the Confederacy from outside intercourse. Two dangers to the blockade existed, both interrelated, — the danger of intervention by European governments, espe- cially England and France, and the danger that the sea power of the Confederacy, created in Southern harbors by the enterprise and ingenuity of ex-Federal naval officers or supplied by the construction of ships in English and French shipyards, would break through the cordon and nullify the blockade or threaten Northern comtaerce and Northern cities. Especially was there a possibility that Southern ironclads might be built either in the Confederacy or in ^ 224 UNION CONTROL OF THE SEA 225 European shipyards and become decisive factors in break- ing the supremacy of the North at sea. As has been seen, the first of these dangers was much more real than many Americans of the time realized. But it was from France much more than from England that it came. Louis Napoleon, with his constant ambition to be the arbiter of international affairs, as witness his interfer- ence in Italy in 1859 and his disastrous strokes in 1870, was anxious to involve France in the changing movements of New World politics, and while he preserved an official and formal neutrality, he constantly suggested interven- tion, and in 1861 actually did intervene in the affairs of Mexico, sending a military expedition in which he per- suaded England and Spain to join, though the latter two soon withdrew their support. As early as May, 1861, the French Minister at Washington advised his government to intervene by raising the blockade, and in the summer of 1861 Louis Napoleon officially asked England to co- operate with him in recognizing the South and opening the Southern cities to trade. Napoleon even went so far as to state that he was ready, in cooperation with England, to send a fleet to the mouth of the Mississippi and demand free egress and ingress for merchant vessels. As late as July, 1862, Napoleon stated to Slidell that Europe should have recognized the Confederacy in the summer of 1861 when Washington .was threatened with capture and the Southern ports not yet all closed. It was in opposing just such projects, disastrous as they would have been to the Union cause, that Federal sea power found one of its great values. Only a fleet able to threaten the destruction of European naval forces, many of which were already in the Gulf of Mexico in connection with Napoleonic intervention in Mexico, would prevent the success of such an undertaking once it had been started. 226 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY It was in fulfilling this mission as well as in defending the Union from assault from within the Confederate lines that the Monitor and the other vessels of that type played a decisive part in the Civil War. Just as the increasing number of blockading ships which a maritime nation like the North could supply by intensified efforts stopped the danger of intervention by England and made her recognize the blockade as legal, so the ironclads of Ericsson in the later years of the war were the strongest factors in cutting off from the Confederates their final hope of succor, the intervention of Louis Napoleon. At the beginning of 1862, almost a year after the firing on Fort Sumter, the Federal Government was unprepared for any real opposition to European intervention. Though the use of iron in ship-building was then at least thirty years old, and an iron screw steamer, the Great Britmn, had crossed the Atlantic in 1845, there was not, except for a small gunboat on the Great Lakes, a single iron ship in the United States Navy. And despite the fact that in 1861 France had three armor-plated steam frigates on the sea, two more launched, and twelve building, and Great Britain five armor-clads in commission, five launched, and eleven under way, there had not yet been even an attempt to apply iron as armor to any American ship. The Union Navy would therefore have been essentially powerless against either of those nations in any conflict such as had seemed probable during all the first two years of the war. While the legality of the blockade was still an issue, the Trent Affair stirred up European animosity, and the scar- city of cotton in the mills of Birmingham and Rouen was creating hunger among the working classes and tension among the diplomats. The Confederates, however, partly because several of UNION CONTROL OF THE SEA 227 their leading men were progressive, and partly because they had no ships of war and needed to gain victory not by slow preparation but by brilliant and rapid action, early adopted the plan of utilizing the advantages of iron-armored ships, so thoroughly demonstrated as successful in the Crimean War. Mr. Mallory, the Secretary of the Con- federate ^SiYy, had been chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee before the war, and had been a firm advocate of the new ideas of steam and iron for naval construction. Less than a month after war broke out, he had urged the great advantage of an iron-armored ship and had stated, with truth, "Such a vessel at this time could traverse the entire coast of the United States, prevent the blockade, and encounter, with a fair prospect of success, their [the Union] navy." In June several Confederate officers were directed to design an armored ship, but finding that the industrial resources of the Confederacy would be unable to furnish it quickly, they decided to convert the partly burned hulk of the screw frigate Merrimac, then lying in the Norfolk Navy Yard. Her hull was sound, her engine workable, except for rust due to standing in water for some weeks, and, as they aimed to construct a battery like the French and English ironclads, a regular ship with the sides protected with iron, the conversion of the Merrimac fell in with their ideas. The upper works were not restored, but, instead, a casemate of wood reinforced with iron was placed on the hull with sloping sides extending beneath the water-line. On the top of this was stretched an iron grating to allow venti- lation and protect the gun-deck from falling projectiles. The armament was of ten guns, far fewer than the usual frigate. The use of the heavy hull of the old Merrimac made the draft too great for manceuvering in the shallow 228 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY waters of Southern bays and rivers. Her draft of twenty- two feet and her inefficient engines cut down her speed to only five miles an hour. The essential feature of the Merrimac was her armor. Following apparently the practices of the French and Brit- ish, and verifying these by experiments of their own, the officers in charge placed four inches of iron on the sloping sides of the Merrimac, the same thickness which had been used on the floating batteries 'at Kinburn and which up to this time had not been pierced by any of the ordnance then in use. As a matter of fact a gun which Ericsson placed on the Princeton in 1842 had pierced four and a half inches of iron, but had been removed from the vessel when another gun, the famous Peacemaker, burst. But so far as the Union Navy in 1862 was concerned, there was no weapon likely to be used which could seriously threaten the invulner- ability of the Confederate armor-clad. Perhaps the Confederate officials, who were not entirely conversant with the defects of construction and lack of manceuvering-power, speed, and seaworthiness of the vessel, had too rosy hopes, but the fact that she was undeniably the only ironclad on the coast made them look forward to ending the war at once by a master stroke. Thus Mal- lory, on February 24, 1862, addressed orders to Franklin Buchanan, who had been appointed her commander, — orders which had in mind an attack on Washington : Could you pass Old Point and make a dashing cruise on the Potomac as far as Washington, its effect upon the public mind would be important to the cause. The condition of our country and the fearful reverses we have just suffered demand our utmost exertions, and convinced as I am that the opportunity and the means of striking a decided blow for our navy are now for the first time presented, I congratulate you upon it, and know that your judgment and gallantry will meet all just expectations. UNION CONTROL OF THE SEA 229 And on the day before the first encounter, Mallory men- tioned to Buchanan the project of steaming to New York and attacking and burning that city : Such an event would eclipse all the glories of all the combats of the sea, would place every man in it preeminently high, and would strike a blow from which the enemy could never recover. Nevertheless, when on March 8, 1862, the Merrimac came slowly out from Norfolk into Hampton Roads, accompanied by five small steamers (one of which, the Patrick Henry, had some side armor), the Union forces in the Roads, con- sisting of some twenty different ships with nearly three thousand guns, felt no anxiety about the outcome. But as a matter of fact, they were all wooden vessels, had no armor, and only one, the Minnesota, was able to use steam for manceuvering. Furthermore, the Merrimac had been fitted with a ram, — a new and terrible weapon in naval warfare for some years afterward, which added to the terror of her invulnerability. Proof as to the power of the new ironclad was not de- layed for long. With cool deliberation she proceeded down upon the Cumberland and the Congress, good-sized sailing vessels each armed with more guns than the Merrimuc could boast, and received their entire broadsides without the slightest damage. Then she rammed the Cumber- land, and set fire to the Congress with her shells. The day ended when she retired to Sewell's Point for the night with the Cumberland sunk off Newport News, only her flags showing from her mastheads, and the Congress burning fiercely where she had run ashore and surrendered. Cer- tainly iron had won a spectacular success over wood and, with the explosive shell, made the wooden ship or the side- wheel steamer as unsafe as a house of paper. But just when the Union cause seemed lost, the long- 230 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY delayed counter-stroke of the Federal Government bore in- stant fruit. Althougli iron-clad vessels were well known, and the destructive effect of shell-fire on wooden vessels well recognized, for some time after the beginning of the war there had been no movement toward supplying the deficiency. Not till August 3, 1861, did anything really happen. Then authority was given by Congress for a board of naval officers to recommend some policy about constructing ironclads. Three officers of high rank were appointed, none of whom was familiar with the construction of iron ships, and none of whom knew much about engines. On August 29, 1861, Ericsson wrote to Lincoln, offering to build a vessel which would be able, ten weeks after the keel was laid, to "take up position under the rebel guns at Norfolk, and . . . within a few hours the stolen ship [the Merrimac] would be sunk and the harbor purged of traitors." And he said what at that time was certainly true: Steel clad vessels cannot be arrested in their course by land batteries, and hence our great city is quite at the mercy of such intruders, and may at any moment be laid in ruins. ... It is not for me, sir, to remind you of the immense moral effect that will result from your discomfiting' the rebels at Norfolk, and show- ing that batteries can no longer protect vessels robbed from the nation, nor need I allude to the effect in Europe if you demon- strate that you can effectively keep hostile fleets away from our shores.^ The board of naval officers did not share the confidence of Mallory and Ericsson in ironclads and made a very faint- hearted report. They mentioned the adoption of iron armor by European nations, but they were afraid it was unsafe for ocean-going vessels, although they conceded it might be a formidable assistance in coast and harbor de- 1 Church, Life of John Ericsson, I. 246. UNION CONTROL OF THE SEA 231 fense. The enormous weight of the iron depressed them ; the power needed to propel the vessel when fully loaded with coal seemed to them too great for engines of their day to attain. They unequivocally contradicted Ericsson's statement that an armored ship could cope with a land fort of masonry, though they must have known the story of Kinburn. Then, assuming that four and a half inches of iron was the heaviest armor a sea-going vessel could safely carry, they finally recommended experimenting with three different types of armored ships. Besides Ericsson's, there was to be the Galena and the Ironsides. The Galena was to be plated with iron placed at a slight angle, just enough, it proved, for the enemy's fire from a bluff to hit it at right angles and do the most damage ! The Ironsides, to be built in Philadelphia, was to be a wooden vessel with iron plates. The latter stood some of the fiercest fighting of the war, being hit more times than any other ship in the navy. She was to cost twice as much as either of the other two. Finally, they recommended building a float- ing battery, designed on a novel plan, but one which they thought would render it shot-and-shell-proof. They were very apprehensive of its seaworthiness, but as they desired especially light-draft ships that could manoeuver in shallow water, the plan appealed to them. So they urged that the builders be forced to guarantee success or lose all their investment.'^' The chances, of disaster, to the Union cause were never perhaps so great as during the days of the deliberation of this board. Ericsson had not been popular with the naval service since his building of the Princeton. His mind was too fertile, his thoughts too bold for the severely practical and generally conservative temperaments of the officers then in authority. They had been born and trained 1 Report of the Secretary of the Navy, 1861, pp. 152-6. 232 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY in the epoch of sail and wood ; he was of another era en- tirely and had for their cherished beliefs and inclinations only ridicule and scorn. It is said that Ericsson was per- suaded to offer a design to the board only by the subterfuge of a friend, so convinced was he that anything he proposed would be rejected. But when he arrived in Washington and exhibited his pasteboard model, especially designed for showing the principle of the revolving turret, opinion was favorable and was well expressed by Lincoln, in his humorous way, at one of the conferences: "All I can say is what the girl said when she stuck her foot into the stock- ing, 'It strikes me there 's something in it.' " When later the Government exacted a guarantee of success, one of Ericsson's partners became disgusted and almost prevented the contract from being consummated. Indeed, if Ericsson had followed the advice or the orders of the Navy Department, the Monitor would never have met the Merrimac on March 9, 1862. Although he went ahead and started the manufacture of the plates for the ship before the contract was signed, there were numerous delays. Even the dilatoriness of the Government in meet- ing the payments it promised delayed the vessel, because otherwise more men could have been put to work at night. When her trial trip came off, the rudder was found to be overbalanced. If the naval authorities had had their way, she would have been put in dry-dock and fitted with a new rudder, thereby losing a month of time. But Ericsson, asserting his ownership of the vessel, made a change in the steering-gear which remedied the fault sufficiently. The Monitor, like the Princeton, but to a greater degree, was solely the product of Ericsson's brain. The hull, tur- ret, engines, and all other parts were designed by the great inventor. As he wrote to General McClellan in 1877, ' ' The entire labor of preparing the original working plans was ^^^^.^w^aufc" ^./^^^'^-^s^ '^ t^ ^4^ c/lf^A^ <2,.ks on international law and legal precedents, generally ended with the laconic phrase, "Cargo condemned." After a cruise of n-early two years and the capture of over sixty-nine vessels, incluKiing the Ariel, ransomed, and the Hatteras, sunk, the career of the Alahama ended just outside the harbor of Cherbourg, France, on July 19, 1864. Semmes had a ship inferior to the Kearsa/rge, his antagonist, and, as it proved, his ammunition had deteriorated through long exposure to heat, but he came within an ace of ending his career by a more brillian/ r\LUZOH , ,',37 HAWAII -,'■»-. *Sss- J oA YAP "n // > ^^ "^^ FAf/NluefyK)' ,' "^ ^^ /^ ''SYDNEY i^' ',^o' r^TUILA (u. s.) / t? /]'N£W ZEALAND THE PACIFIC OCEAN and to take a hand in Far-Eastern questions. This new American interest crystallized in John Hay's Open-Door policy for China, — a policy which like that other great American policy, the Monroe Doctrine, depends for its sanction in the last analysis on sea power. The underlying causes of the Spanish-American War were misrule and insurrections in Cuba, covering intermit- tently half a century- As a concomitant of these revolu- tions, filibustering expeditions, like that of the Virginius in 1873, sent by American sympathizers in aid of the Cubans, often brought on diplomatic complications between Spain 310 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY and the United States. Like the Mexican revolutions of later date, these disturbed conditions continued to cause serious losses in property and lives to American residents. During the last revolt of the Cubans, 1895 to 1898, the bat- tleship Maine, which had been sent to Havana to safeguard the lives of Americans, was on February 15, 1898, blown up in the harbor of Havana by some outside agency, — a fact brought out by the official investigation that followed. In the interval between the blowing up of the Maine and April 21, 1898, when war began, the American Government was preparing for the conflict. Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, with his firm belief in preparedness for war and with his dynamic energy, had been getting the navy ready for the war which he saw approaching, and which he realized would be dependent for its decision on sea power. Of Eoosevelt's energy, John D, Long, the Secretary of the Navy, wrote: He was heart and soul in his Work. His typewriters had no rest. . , . He was especially stimulating to the younger officers who gathered about him and made his office as busy as a hive. He was especially helpful in the purchasing of ships and in every line where he could push on the work of preparation for war. As Fox had discovered in Farragut the man for the New Orleans attack, Roosevelt saw in Commodore George Dewey the man for the important station in the Far East, where a serious situation, calling for a man of action and tact, might arise at any moment. Against departmental red-tape, bureaucracy, and political favoritism, Roosevelt put through the selection of Dewey as commander of the Asiatic Squadron. George Dewey was bom at Montpelier, Vermont, De- cember 26, 1837. He entered the Naval Academy in 1854, the year that Perry opened Japan to the trade and civiliza- SEA POWER IN THE PACIFIC 311 •tion of the world. It was Perry's flag-ship, the side-wheeler Mississippi, in which Dewey at the age of twenty-four re- ceived his baptism of fire as he piloted her by Forts Jackson and St. Philip on that memorable night in April, 1862. In her he saw service in the Mississippi campaign until under the batteries of Port Hudson she was set on fire and drifted to her watery grave in the great river whose name she bore. He served, also, as second officer, in the attack on Fort Fisher in the steam frigate Colorado, which had previously been under a martinet who had made her a most unhappy ship. Young Dewey by his just and firm attitude toward the men stamped out the spirit of insubordination, yet not without experiences such as Farragut, in his early youth, had had. After the Civil War Dewey's professional career was the uneventful succession of duties ashore and afloat of peace times, — duties so carefully and conscientiously per- formed that his record brought him to Roosevelt's notice. At the age of sixty, like Farragut, Commodore Dewey was to fight the great battle of his career, — a battle in some respects strikingly like that of New Orleans, where Dewey had learned under his great leader the art of attacking fleets protected by forts. Of his debt to Farragut Dewey says : Farragut has always been my ideal of the naval oflfleer, urbane, decisive, indomitable. Whenever I have been in a difficult situa- tion, or in the midst of such a confusion of details that the simple and right thing to do seemed hazy, I have often asked myself, "What would Farragut do?" In the course of the preparations for Manila Bay I often asked myself this question, and I confess that I was thinking of him the night that we entered the bay, and with tlie conviction that I was doing precisely what he would have done. Valuable as the training at Annapolis was, it was poor schooling beside that of serving under Farragut in time of war.^ This conscious imitation of Farragut is borne out in 1 Autobiography of George Dewey, p. 50. 312 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY Commodore Dewey's careful study and preparation for his new duties. The interval before his departure for Japan, December 7, 1897, he employed in the study of international law and in the scrutiny of charts and descriptions of the Philippine Islands, — which were at that time so little visited by American merchantmen and naval vessels that the most recent report in the Bureau of Naval Intelligence was out of date by more than a score of years. Although few of- ficials in Washington at the time of Dewey's departure be- lieved war with Spain was a probability, Commodore Dewey thought the situation grave and foresaw that the objective in case of war was, not an attack on Spain, but rather the seizure of her colonies, especially Cuba and the Philippines. Before leaving he arranged for a supply of ammunition to be sent out in the Concord and the Baltimore from the navy yard at San Francisco, the nearest base, though seven thou- sand miles away. On January 3, 1898, in the harbor of Nagasaki, he hoisted his broad pennant on the Olympia, pro- ceeded to Yokohama to pay his respects to the Emperor of Japan — a tactful and diplomatic move — and then started for Hongkong, where he received news of the destruction of the Maine and got his first instructions from the Navy De- partment, through the assistant secretary, "to keep full of coal" in the event of an offensive against the Spanish squad- ron in the Philippines. Feeling greatly the need of a base, Dewey on his own initiative had to arrange for the purchase of coal and colliers and select an out-of-the-way port wherein to keep his supply-vessels in caae of war and the resulting declara- tions of neutrality by the great powers, which would neces- sitate his withdrawal within twenty-four hours from Hong- kong, a British possession. Meanwhile he kept in constant touch with the American consul at Manila, from whom he got much valuable information regarding the state of the SEA POWER IN THE PACIFIC 313 Spanish fleet under Admiral Montojo and of the defenses of Manila Bay. During this time he also overhauled his engines, removed the woodwork from his ships, gave them a coat of war-paint, and kept his crews up to the mark by constant drills. Despite the stream of rumors that reached Hongkong of mines and large rifles protecting the entrance to Manila, the morale of Dewey's officers and men was splendid. The British officers at Hongkong summed up their opinion of Dewey 's men and their task in these words : "A fine set of fellows, but unhappily we shall never see them again." These rumors, a subtle form of Spanish propaganda, Dewey did not give much credence to, but he continued his careful preparation on the assumption that he had a well- prepared enemy and a task not very different from Far- ragut's at New Orleans. On April 23d, Dewey received notice from the Governor of Hongkong to leave the port within forty-eight hours. The same day, in the nick of time, the Baltimore arrived with its badly needed second instalment of ammunition, which filled Dewey's squadron a little over half of its full capacity, and there was no more within seven thousand miles. Had he and Roosevelt not insisted on the despatch of the Conaord and the Baltimore and had Dewey not by a personal visit to Mare Island hur- ried up the repairs and loading of the vessels, he would probably in the present emergency have been without these two important cruisers and their more important cargoes. On April 25th Dewey was informed by the Secretary of the Navy of the outbreak of hostilities and was ordered to capture or destroy the Spanish squadron in the Philippines. After leaving Hongkong on April 25th, Commodore Dewey spent two days at Mirs Bay, a Chinese port near Hongkong, to take on board his last supplies of coal and to await final intelligence from Washington, and especially to meet the 314 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY American consul on the latter 's arrival from Manila, from ■whom he got reliable information that the Spaniards had some very powerful rifles in their shore batteries and some more rumors that the entrance had recently been mined. On April 27th Dewey's squadron, consisting of the Olympia, flag-ship, the Baltimore, the Boston, the Raleigh, the Concord, the Petrel, and the McCidloch, left Mirs Bay for Manila, six hundred miles away. This city is located twenty-six miles from the high headlands which guard the entrance of Manila Bay. The entrance is divided into two channels by the islands of El Fraile, Corregidor, and Ca- ballo. Beyond these the bay opens out to a width of twenty- five miles, with Cavite, the Spanish naval arsenal, on its right and Manila five miles beyond. During the trip across from China, Dewey gave his cruisers, which were all un- armored, some protection by layers of heavy chain cables along the most vulnerable parts. He also held frequent conferences with his captains, with whom he planned to slip into Manila Bay in column formation under cover of darkness, and once inside, on signal from the flag-ship, to engage the enemy's fleet. Commodore Dewey sighted the Philippines on April 30th, and after a vain search at Subig Bay — where he had been informed by the American consul that Admiral Mon- tojo intended to make his stand — Dewey that night with all lights out silently made his way into the enemy's lair. He had rightly diagnosed the Spanish morale (or, rather, lack of morale) ; he believed that the Spaniards' attitude would be passive and defensive, and that a quick, aggres- sive attack would demoralize them. He had discounted the yarns about submarine mines, for he reasoned that none but the most expert engineers could plant mines in the deep waters of Boca Grande, the channel he intended to take, and in that second place the mines, even if planted, SEA POWER IN THE PACIFIC 315 would rapidly deteriorate in the tropical salt water. At all events, mines or no mines, he had determined to enter the bay. As Dewey's squadron in the pitch-black dark- ness silently felt its way in, the alert lookouts could dis- cover no scout or torpedo-boat on guard. The Americans gpt well beyond the first island before the Spaniards, who must have been informed of Dewey's departure from Mirs Bay, finally opened fire. Three shots from El Fraile went wide of their mark, were answered by a few shots from the squadron, and then all was still again. It was now mid- night; Dewey's cruisers on approaching the bay itself slowed down to four knots in order not to reach Manila and the enemy's squadron before daybreak of this memorable first of May. Thinking the enemy's squadron was under the Manila batteries, Dewey swung in a semicircle by the city and as he did so got his first glimpse in the early dawn of Mon- tojo's fleet of seven units anchored abreast of the Sangley Point battery at the end of the peninsula of Cavite. The batteries at the city had been firing at the American squad- ron but without hitting anything, and now at 5 :15 a, m., the Spanish fleet and Sangley Point battery opened on Dewey's approaching cruisers. The American commodore at 5 :40 A. M., turning to the captain of the Olympia, quietly said, "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." The Olympia' s salvo was the signal for the rest of the American squadron to open fire on Montojo's fleet. Dewey passed and repassed the enemy, all told, five times, chang- ing his range from 4500 to 2000 yards, thus spoiling the enemy's aim, and also bringing into play alternately his port and starboard batteries. Two of Montojo's cruisers, the Do7i Juan and the Beina Cristina,'his flag-ship, made brave attempts at charging Dewey's flag-ship, but were stopped in mid-career by the devastating fire of the Ameri- 316 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY cans. At 7 :35 a. m., after the fifth run, Dewey, informed erroneously that his ammunition was nearly gone, deter- mined to retire for a time to take stock of his supply. Under cover of the smoke — both sides used brown powder — Dewey was of the opinion up to this time that the enemy fleet was still intact, as his own was, but just as he turned away, he saw through the smoke the plight of the Spaniards. All but one of their cruisers were in flames or drifting aim- lessly shoreward. Finding he had ample ammunition, after his men had had breakfast and a rest, Dewey, at 11 :16 a. m., returned to the scene of battle. In a few minutes the Sangley Point battery was silenced, and the Don Antonio de TJlloa, the last Spanish ship in line, her flag nailed to the mast and her guns still roaring defiance, sank at her moor- ings. The results of this action, both immediate and remote, were remarkable. Dewey found to his amazement that no one had been killed in his squadron and that only 8 were wounded. On the other hand, the enemy's casualties amounted to 381. The Spanish squadron, consisting, like Dewey's, of unarmored units, had been annihilated by the volume of fire from the smaller-caliber quick-firers of the Americans. Dewey had again proved Farragut's axiom: "The best defense against the enemy's guns is a well directed fire from your own guns. ' ' The wounded Admiral Montojo surrendered himself and the remnants of his crews to the American commander. The forts at the entrance, their communications cut, also surrendered later. Dewey was master of a great bay and had its city cut off from the world. He now had a base. Last and most important, the victory destroyed Spanish sea power in the Philippines and gave the world the first definite intimation that a new naval power of great possibilities had appeared in the Far East to be reckoned with in international affairs in that quarter. SEA POWER IN THE PACIFIC 317 J CAN/KCAG ^^1 li' THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY C = Costilla A = Don Juan de Austria U = Don Antonio de Ulloa M = Manila RC = Reina Cristinn MD = Marques del Duero 10 = /«ia rfc Cuba IL = i«ia rfe Luzon Only movements before 11 a. m. are shown. From a diagram of the battle by H. O. Washburn in the Department of English, U. S. Naval Academy. During the three months between Dewey's victory and the fall of the city on August 13th under a combined at- tack by General Merritt and Commodore Dewey, events occurred in Manila Bay that showed how critically impor- 318 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY tant the sea power of America, consisting of a small navy and a smaller ocean merchant marine, was. Of this period Captain Sir Edward Chichester, in eommand of three Brit- ish cruisers that arrived in the bay shortly after Dewey promulgated his blockade, declared to John Barrett : * ' Your Admiral [Dewey] accomplished by tact, firmness and good judgment in Manila Bay what many naval men would have thought only possible by war. Dewey is a natural fighter, but true fighter that he is, he prefers to win a peaceful victory. He is a great man. ' ' ^ After Dewey's victory and the ensuing blockade, war- ships of England, Japan, Germany, and other nations ar- rived on the scene. Of these the Germans, who had one commercial house in Manila and a handful of nationals to protect, quickly gathered in the bay a squadron of five war-ships, besides colliers and a transport full of sailors, all under Admiral von Diedrichs, — a force more powerful than that of the American commander in control of the port. While the British with overwhelmingly greater interests in the Philippines were scrupulously careful in complying with the law of nations as applying to blockade and neutral- ity, the German admiral continually disregarded Dewey's blockade regulations, made reconnaissances in and about the harbor, landed sailors under pretense of drills, held friendly and secret conferences with the Spanish authorities, and in- terfered with the operations of the insurgents, who after the victory became the informal allies of the Americans. All this time American naval power was hanging in the balance, for Sampson had not yet destroyed Cervera's cruisers at Santiago and another Spanish squadron under Admiral Camara, more powerful than Dewey 's, was on its way, via the Mediterranean, to the Philippines. It was therefore vitally important for Dewey to prevent intervention on 1 Barrett, Life of Dewey, p. 115. SEA POWER IN THE PACIFIC 319 behalf of Spain by any third belligerent. His attitude to- ward Von Diedrichs was a remarkable combination of tact and firmness, in which he was powerfully backed by the British, who, in the person of their commander on the spot, Captain Chichester, stood for a strict regard for interna- tional law. The climax came when Admiral von Diedrichs tried to get all the naval commanders present to protest against the bombardment of the Manila defenses on August 13th. Of this incident Captain Chichester says : When the German admiral sent me word that he was coming aboard my ship to get me to join in a protest against Dewey's action, I looked up international law and spread the books out on my cabin table with the pages open and marked — all in a row — and when he came I said : "What can I do ? This American admiral is so deadly right in all that he has done and all he proposes to do that if we protest we will surely show that we do not understand the law." Of course, there was nothing to be done and I did it. During the bombardment Chichester placed his cruisers be- tween the German squadron and Dewey's. The real crux of the matter is that America with her weak sea power had by a masterly stroke during legitimate naval operations anticipated the German Emperor in the acquisi- tion of the rich Philippine group. Until Dewey had put these islands on the map, the Germans hardly had given them a thought. The defenseless condition of the Philip- pines with the constant insurrections against the tyranny and mismanagement of a decadent nation would have made the way easy for their conquest by a covetous power. It was, in fact, an intimation from the British Government that Germany would take over the islands if America with- drew from them, which brought President McKinley to his final decision to insist upon their purchase from Spain as a part of the treaty of peace. 320 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY As Germany's attitude was hostile to the United States during the war, Great Britain's was friendly. The friend- ship of the British was fostered by the tactful and able diplomacy of John Hay, at that time American Ambassador at London. Owing to England's strict observance of the duties of neutrality, she refused to grant more coal to Admiral Camara at Suez than enough to carry him back to Spain and she rigidly enforced the twenty-four hour rule against him. Spain was therefore compelled, especially after the destruction of Cervera's ships, to abandon her attempt to send a new naval force to the Philippines. John Hay, who had thus helped to remove some of Dewey's worries, was an old friend of the commodore and had sent him after his victory a congratulatory letter in which he spoke of the ''mingled wisdom and daring" of the victor of Manila Bay. The far-reaching effects of Dewey's victory were seen in the subsequent negotiations regarding the integrity of China conducted with the great powers after the war by John Hay, now Secretary of State. On September 6, 1899, Hay announced his famous Open-Door policy, intended to stop exploitation of China, to keep her trade free for all nations, and to promote respect for her rights as a sovereign nation. This great American doctrine, which takes rank second only to that other great American state paper, the Monroe Doe- trine, was supported by England and Japan. Hay's ideas, which, of course, required the assent of the American Senate, encountered much opposition not only from Russia and Germany but from his own people. Russia and Ger- many, while pretending to agree with the Open-Door privileges for all without special discrimination for any, continued their cynical policy of exploitation, which led to the Boxer movement in China against "foreign devils," and to the Russo-Japanese War, which with all its conse- SEA POWER IN THE PACIFIC 321 quences of later Japanese antagonism to the United States might have been prevented by following Hay's suggestions for an understanding between the United States, England, and Japan. From John Hay's letters, since published, we now realize the opposition his ideas encountered in his own country. He says, for instance, in a confidential letter of date of September 20, 1900 : About China, it is the devil's own mess. We cannot possibly publish all the facts without breaking off relations with several Powers. We shall have to do the best we can. and take the con- sequences, which will be pretty serious, I do not doubt. "Give and take" — the axiom of diplomacy to the rest of the world — is positively forbidden to us, by both the Senate and public opinion. We must take what we can and give nothing — which greatly narrows our possibilities.^ And in a similar confidential tone in a letter to Henry Adams of November 21, 1900, John Hay says : What a business this has been in China ! So far we have got on by being honest and naif. I do nofe clearly see where we are to come the delayed cropper. But it will come. At least we are spared the infamy of an alliance with Germany. I would rather, I think, be the dupe of China, than the chum of the Kaiser. Have you noticed how the world will take anything nowadays from a German? Biilow said yesterday in substance — "We have demanded of China everything we can think of. If we think of anything else we will demand that, and be d d to you" — and not a man in the world kicks.^ It is quite within the range of possibility that there would never have been a World War in 1914 — the delayed cropper which Hay seemed to predict would come — if the American people had listened more attentively in 1900 to their great statesman and diplomat. As England with her vast sea 1 Thayer, Life amd Letters of John Bay, II. 247. 2 Thayer, Life and Letters of John Hay, II. 248. 322 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY power in 1823 backed the new doctrine of Monroe, so slie was ready in 1900 to back tbe new American Open-door policy in China. If, therefore, the sea power of the United States received a new impetus from Dewey's victory at Manila Bay and made possible a new interest in the Orient, culminating in Hay's Open-Door policy, it also acquired bases in the Pa- cific, strategically located, for the defense and protection of the future commercial and military sea power of the United States. England, the nation that has defined and developed sea power more than any other, has in past ages wisely made secure her sea routes by the acquisition of great naval bases. These should have, as Mahan points out, three requisites : position, strength, and resources ; but it ia rarely possible to secure all three of these advantages in one and the same base. Generally a strategic position, the most important of the three, is provided by nature; the other two qualities — strength and resources — must ordi- narily be provided artificially by fortifications, mines, and submarines, and by supplies of food, coal, fuel-oil, dock- yards, etc. Such bases England has in Gibraltar at the gateway of the Mediterranean, Malta at the very door of past and possible future enemies, and Hongkong, her ad- vance post for a war against an Oriental nation. The victory of Dewey — who was given the rank of ad- miral by a special law of Congress for his unique achieve- ments — acquired for the United States similarly stra- tegic positions in the Philippines and Guam, situated as they are at the doorway of the Orient. A few months after Dewey's victory, by a resolution of Congress of July 7, 1898, the way was cleared for the acquisition by the United States of the Hawaiian Islands, situated at the strategical center of the Pacific and at the cross-roads from Alaska, California, and the Isthmus of Panama, and from SEA POWER IN THE PACIFIC 323 Australia, Guam, the Philippines, China, and Japan.^ The naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands has been, since its occuption, greatly developed and played an important part in the World War. Furthermore, by the American acquisition in 1899 of Tutuila in the Samoan group the United States got another potential base, making, like Guam relatively to Pearl Harbor, an advance base for operations in the Far East. Such bases are a vital ele- ment of sea power. They make a place of refuge from storms for merchantman and war-ship, a place for their repairs, docking, and refueling, and a resting-place for a retreating or crippled fleet. Had Dewey's ships been de- feated at Manila Bay or suffered severe damages requiring spare parts, more ammunition, and hospitals for wounded ships and men, or had they been forced to retreat before the approach of Camara or at the threats of Von Diedrichs, Dewey's lack of a base would have been disastrous. In conclusion we maj^ say that American sea power, as represented by Dewey's insignificant force and his great victory, paved the way for vast commercial and naval expansion in the Pacific and for the western gateway to the Pacific from the future Panama Canal, whose eastern gateway and its approaches by way of the Caribbean were to be secured by another victory of American sea power in the same Spanish- American war. 1 See map, p. 309. CHAPTER XXIII SEA POWER MAKES THE PANAMA CANAL POSSIBLE AS in 1898 — in Roosevelt's words "the most impor- tant year in this Republic since Lincoln died" — American sea power backing American diplom- acy won the stepping-stones from America across the Pacific to the Orient, so in this same year American sea power entrenched itself on the Caribbean and paved the way for the linking of the two great oceans by the future Pamana Canal. Before 1898, with not a single base in the Caribbean, the United States had no control over that great pathway of commerce to the isthmus. After 1898, owing in very large measure to the naval victory of July 3, 1898, at Santiago, the United States had such control. The American strategy of the Spanish War was con- ducted by the Naval War Board of three members, on which Admiral Mahan was the leading authority. The main fea- ture of this strategy in the Atlantic was the isolation of Cuba, the cause of the war, and located at the very door of the United States, one hundred miles from its base at Key West. This isolation of the island was the object of Presi- dent McKinley's proclamation of a blockade of a definite and limited portion of the coast of western Cuba, an order promulgated immediately on the breaking of diplomatic negotiations on April 21st. To make the blockade effective required a- force that finally aggregated 124 units.^ Admiral Sampson, an of&eer 1 Sampson, Century Magazine, Vol. .57, 887. 324 THE PANAMA CANAL POSSIBLE 325 with a good record in the Civil War and later, who had been selected over the heads of his seniors to command the North Atlantic Squadron based on Key West, was in favor of im- mediate offensive naval operations against Havana with a view to its capture, but owing to the lack of troops and the vital need of keeping the limited American naval forces intact — a need all the more serious because of possible European intervention in behalf of Spain — the administra- tion in Washington was in favor simply of the blockade. This would attain the same results without risking the ships. As Mahan so frequently points out, a blockade, by draining a nation of its dollars rather than of its blood, achieves results just as effectively and often more effec- tively than attacks on coast defenses. This is also in keep- ing with Mahan 's humane plea in his writings and at the later Hague Conference against the exemption of private property from capture at sea. To deprive a belligerent of his resources for war-making wears out his power of re- sistance; a blockade with its consequent seizure of food and supplies destined for the civil and military population takes a belligerent by the throat and forces submission with far less loss of human life than actual fighting- Accordingly, the objects of the Cuban blockade were threefold. The first object was to starve out the Spanish troops concentrated largely around Havana and Cien- fuegos, where the only Cuban railways were. This object was so effectively attained that in less than two months the Spanish Governor-General of Cuba wrote that his soldiers and sailors in Havana had to exist on rice and hardtack. The population had previously been near starvation, for the Spanish policy of concentrating the rural population in the cities had destroyed virtually all agriculture. A second object was the destruction of Spanish commerce, which consisted of a few merchantmen connecting the island with 326 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY the mother country. And a third object was to force Spain to send naval and military relief the long journey of four thousand miles, a distance which would endanger the communications of any such expedition and be a great drain on Spain's limited resources. This last purpose of the American Government was realized in the Spanish naval force under Admiral Cervera, mobilized before the war at the Cape Verde Islands, from which it was to sail, a week after the war began, to its fate. Cervera, who had for several years foreseen the pos- sibility of a clash with the United States, had vainly urged a corrupt and dilatory government to prepare for war. In January, 1898, he wrote to a relative : About two years ago I wrote you a letter concerning our con- dition to go to war with the United States. I requested you to keep that letter in case some day it should be necessary to bring it to light in defense of my memory or myself when we had experienced the sad disappointment prepared for us by the stupidity of some, the cupidity of others, and the incapability of all, even of those with the best of intentions. After mentioning specific instances of Spanish adminis- trative inefficiency, such as the war-ship Catalurm, begun eight years before and with her hull in 1898 still unfinished, and the three cruisers Vizcaya, Oquendo, and Maria Teresa finally completed at Bilboa only by the efforts of an Eng- lish naval constructor, he continues: But my purpose is not to accuse, but to explain why we may and must expect disaster. ... As it would be a crime to say all this publicly to-day, I hold my tongue, and go forth resignedly to face the trials which God may be pleased to send me. I am sure that we will do our duty, for the spirit of the navy is excellent. Such was the unpreparedness of Spain for war with the United States that Cervera had urged his government to THE PANAMA CANAL POSSIBLE 327 grant independence to Cuba to end the constant friction with America that he saw must culminate in armed conflict and in disaster to Spain. But though the strategists in Washington suspected that Spain was unprepared, they made their plans to meet an equal on the seas. On paper, and from all available of- ficial sources, the two navies were equal. So nearly was this supposed to be the case that Mahan says one American officer of excellent judgment asserted that the loss of the Maine had tipped the scales in favor of Spain in the At- lantic, and as if to favor this view the American naval authorities ordered the Oregon, one of the best ships in the navy, to make the long journey from the West Coast to re- enforce the Atlantic fleet, — a hazardous undertaking in the face of Cervera's supposedly swift and powerful cruisers at Cape Verde. The British authority Admiral Colomb in his ''Naval Warfare," in contrasting American naval preparedness and mobilization before April 21st with Spain's inactivity, says, "The one navy was very much alive, and the other was to all intents and purposes a dead one before the war opened." Colomb calculated the strength of the two navies in the ratio of three to two in favor of the United States. He shows that at the outbreak of war America had 69 war-ships of all types, among them the four 10,000-ton first-class battleships of the Oregon class, to Spain's 49, the largest of which was 9,900 tons. Its initial force the United States increased during the next three months by 67 more, making 136 in all. The incre- ments were for the most part extemporized types, such as yachts, coasters, and some fine scouts like the Harvard, the Yale, and the 8i. Louis, acquired from the only transatlantic line under American registry in the period before the war, when the American merchant marine on the high seas was conspicuous by its absence. 328 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY The lack of an ocean merchant marine on the part of both belligerents made the war anomalous in this respect as it was in other respects. Though neither belligerent had been a signatory to the Declaration of Paris of 1856, which prohibited privateering, neither party sent out privateers and neither made any prizes worth speaking of. United States war-ships captured all told half a dozen merchant- men, while the Spaniards took only three prizes of any size. The war was also unusual in that neither belligerent made any serious attempt to gain or dispute control of the seas. This control of the seas Cervera's forces of four cruisers and three torpedo-boat destroyers — a type of which the United States had none — might, if properly equipped and handled, have gained. Such a supposedly fast and homo- geneous squadron naval strategists speak of as a "fleet in being." This is a force not in itself in command of the sea, but one whose very existence is a continual menace to the enemy, preventing the latter from concentrating on any definite line of operations. Until the "fleet in being" is destroyed, the enemy cannot tell when or where a blow may fall. He must, therefore, divide or deconcentrate his forces until he has destroyed the "fleet in being," which is continually threatening his flank and his lines of com- munication. Like the wary fox, such a fleet may cause its pursuers to scatter to all the four points of the compass before it is run to cover. But like the fox, too, it is gen- erally caught sooner or later. It is one of the few resources of the weaker sea power, Cervera's fleet, before it was cornered, not only postponed the sailing of American troops under Shafter, but threw the whole Atlantic coast into a state verging on panic. This panic and the popular clamor of the coast towns for protection caused the failure for a time of America's sea power to concentrate on the important phase of the THE PANAMA CANAL POSSIBLE 329 war, the blockade of Cuba and the patrol of the Gulf and the Caribbean. While Sampson retained the backbone of the Atlantic fleet at Key West, Commodore Schley was detailed with his "Flying Squadron" to take his station at Hampton Roads, a position on the coast, where with his speedy cruisers he could ward off an attack on Baltimore or New York, or could quickly join Sampson at Key West. Another smaller force, the Northern Patrol Squadron under Commodore Howell, was stationed off the New England coast, in case Cervera should decide to waste his valuable powder in shooting at summer resorts on the coast of Maine. Admiral Colomb is rather sarcastic re- garding this panic in American coast towns in 1898. He remarks that Englishmen do not think their fleet is doing its duty in time of war unless it is continually out of sight of British shores, while Americans want their fleet hugging close to their shores in war time. Colomb and Mahan both regard this point of view of Americans as due to a miscon- ception of the functions of navies. Coast towns, in the opinion of naval strategists, should be defended by forts, batteries, mines at harbor entrances, and submarines. The function of such harbor protection is defensive ; the proper function of fleets is offensive. Their work is on the high seas to seek and destroy the enemy's fleet. They are wasted and demoralized by being required to do service which a proper system of coast defense can do so much more economical!}^ and effectively. On April 29th, as before noted, Cervera left the Cape Verde Islands with his four cruisers, the Cristobal Colon, the Vizcaya, the Maria Teresa, and the Oquendo, and his three torpedo-boat destroyers Pluton, Terror, and Furor. He had to sail finally with poor ammunition and defective breech-blocks for his guns, and lacking turret guns in one of his cruisers. Owing to trouble with his engines and un- 330 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY scraped bottoms, he averaged only eight knots in crossing the Atlantic. He did not arrive in the Caribbean until long after he had been expected. To get into touch with Spain, he dropped the Terror at Martinique on May 11th, and later, on May 14th, he coaled at Curacao, — a fact which was quickly cabled to Washington. Sampson, off Havana, had received word on May 1st from the Navy Deparment of Cervera's departure from Cape Verde. He at once proceeded to Porto Rico. As this was the colony nearest to Spain's shores, and as it had ample coal supplies, Sampson believed San Juan would be Cervera's first objective. As soon as the news of the sight- ing of Cervera's squadron at Martinique was received, Sampson from Porto Rico and Schley from Hampton Roads concentrated at Key West, whence, after coaling, Sampson returned on IVIay 21st to block Havana against Cervera and Schley proceeded to the second port of Cuba, Cienfuegos, on May 22d. Meanwhile, on the 19th, Cervera had slipped into Santiago. Though the United States Signal Corps immediately telegraphed information of Cervera's arrival at Santiago, Schley, deceived by a false report from a mer- chantman and by smoke rising behind the forts at the entrance to Cienfuegos, was sure he had Cervera bottled up there. And Sampson did not dare leave the blockade of Havana before the various rumors of Cervera's where- abouts were confirmed. Not until the latter had been ten days at Santiago did the two American commanders con- centrate their forces before this port. All this shows how difficult it was to run the fox to cover. Admiral Cervera regretted ever afterAvard that he had, of all ports in Cuba, chosen Santiago, for the fox's hole turned out to be a trap. Schley on his arrival off Santiago instituted a blockade of the port at a distance of twenty-five miles, which Samp- son on June 2d decreased by maintaining a cordon of ships THE PANAMA CANAL POSSIBLE 331 ? ■" ^ < a 1 If 1 z k I. is t1 QO I ^' 5 < <» t • o \ ^a 4.> ^^;f, > V, r^'Vv ^ i <5 « 2 '^ SB 8Q fl w fl M tt t» 13 a 332 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY in a semicircle with a radius of from six to four miles in the daytime and three at night. He kept some smaller vessels and steam-launches on patrol within this semicircle. At night Sampson, after experimenting with many search- lights, finally kept one battle-ship stationary at a distance of two miles, focusing its powerful search-light all night on the entrance, with a supporting battle-ship broadside to the land batteries to protect it against any fire from the shore. The question has often been asked why Cervera did not make his sortie at night. He answered this question later by stating that such a sortie in the very narrow channel in the face of this glaring light, as dazzling as the sun, would have resulted in piling up his cruisers on top of one an- other. Still, it remains true that between June 1st and July 3d, the day of Cervera 's sortie, there were several very dark, rainy, and squally nights, which would have favored a bold dash; but Admiral Cervera, brave officer that he was, was lacking in this quality of dash. Besides this close blockade of the harbor exit the Ameri- can commander made other dispositions to make Santiago Harbor a trap to Cervera 's squadron. He had ordered Lieutenant Hobson on June 3d to sink the collier Merrimao across the narrow channel, a bold exploit, which, however, failed to block the passage. The deed called forth the admiration of Admiral Cervera, who sent a special mes- sage to Sampson that Hobson and his crew were safe. This message illustrated the lack of animus, a characteristic of the war on both sides. On June 6th Sampson enfiladed the batteries at the entrance to test their strength. On June 7th he detailed the Marhlehead, the Yankee, and the St. Louis to seize Guantanamo Bay, forty miles east of San- tiago, as a coaling-station and base of operations. This force cut two telegraphic cables to Guantanamo and Santi- ago, operations like the earlier and later cable-cuttings that THE PANAMA CANAL POSSIBLE 333 helped to isolate Cuban cities from one another and from foreign communications. On June 10th this same force landed some marines, the first American troops on Cuban soil, who henceforth stood guard over Guantanamo Bay. Later in the month Sampson held conferences with the Cuban General Garcia and his insurgents, who held the coast east and west of Santiago. Furthermore, on General Shaf- ter's arrival with his transports Sampson's fleet protected the landing on June 22d to 24th at Daiquiri and Siboney, half-way between Santiago and Guantanamo, of the Ameri- can troops, which later cooperated with the fleet, attacked Santiago from the rear, and helped to make Cervera's posi- tion in the harbor untenable. Lastly, on July 1st Sampson hurled 106 8-inch shells at a range of 8500 yards at invisible targets in the bay and the city of Santiago, a novel achieve- ment in its day. On this same day, July 1st, and the fol- lowing day, the army made its drive, which ended in the desperate fighting at El Caney and San Juan Hill. At the latter place Colonel Roosevelt's "Rough Riders" made their dramatic dash, — a dash that helped powerfully to land the Colonel in the governor's chair of the Empire State the same autumn. Cut off from communications, in great need of coal and the most necessary supplies, and under con- tinual bombardment from land and sea, Cervera was forced to make his desperate attempt to gain the open sea. A little before nine o'clock on the bright Sunday morn- ing of July 3d, Cervera with his four cruisers and two de- stroyers made his long-expected dash. As he came out, he turned sharp to the westward and hugged the shore. Sampson, in his flag-ship, the Neiv York, was at the moment four miles to the eastward, having left the line to confer with General Shafter. He at once flew the signal "Close in toward harbor entrance and attack vessels," an order which the rest of his squadron had anticipated. Despite 334 O a ■O -fl) » ^ I-] M goo H H o w ^!> o 335 336 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN' HISTORY the advantage of a running start, two of the Spanish cruisers, the Maria Teresa and the Oquendo, were quickly overtaken, and under the withering fire of the Americans forced ashore in flames. Schley's flag-ship, the Brooklyn, leading the chase, had circled to starboard to avoid a des- perate threat of ramming from the Teresa just before the latter was beached. By making this loop the Brooklyn nearly rammed the Texas. At eleven o'clock the Vizcaya, also in flames, was forced to beach herself. The Colon, the fastest of the four cruisers, was now six miles ahead of the leading Americans, the Brooklyti and the Oregon. At one o'clock the Oregon succeeded in placing a shell across the Colon's bows. A quarter of an hour later the Colon, vir- tually uninjured, lowered her colors and ran toward shore, where she was scuttled by her crew. The little American Gloucester, a converted yacht in command of Wainwright, and the nearest ship to the entrance, had, despite her small guns and vulnerability, headed straight for the escaping squadron and, though greatly outclassed, forced the de- stroyer Pluton ashore and then pursued the Furor, which was finally sunk by a shot from the New York, at this mo- ment hastening at seventeen knots speed in pursuit of the bigger game. It was extremely hard luck for Admiral Sampson — who had been so vigilant in his efforts to bottle up Cervera's squadron — that he had to be absent when the battle began and arrived just too late to receive the sur- render of the Colon. The battle of Santiago may be said to have ended the war. Though the American markmanship was good, it was not remarkable when we consider the close range at which the battle was fought. At Santiago — where smoke- less powder was given its first practical test — the large- caliber guns of the Americans, which used the old powder, made only two hits and the two shots struck the same spot. THE PANAMA CANAL POSSIBLE 337 On the other han I, the Spaniards made virtually no hits at all, as was pro>'»\i by the American casualties. Samp- son's fleet had oi«e man killed and one man seriously wounded, while the Spaniards lost 600 in killed alone. In addition, the Ajnericans took 1300 prisoners, including Admiral Cervera. The preliminary terms of peace were agreed upon by the protocol of August 12th, the day that Porto Rico fell and the day before the city of Manila surrendered. By the articles of the resulting peace, concluded at Paris on De- cember 10, 1898, Spain gave up her sovereignty over Cuba and ceded to the United States Porto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands. In the two battles of Manila and Santiago American sea power had won a quick, sharp de- cision. Here was surely glory enough for all hands in the Ameri- can Navy. But as in the War of 1812, the glory was clouded by a later controversy over the question as to who was in command, and therefore who won, at the battle of Santiago, — Sampson or Schley. After the victory news- paper men and cartoonists conducted a campaign that gradually assumed much bitterness and brought on naval and congressional inquiries. In allusion to early news- paper statements, Schley in a despatch to the Navy De- partment, dated July 10, 1898, said: Feel some mortification that the newspaper accounts of July 6th have attributed the victory on July 3d almost entirely to me. Victory was secured by the force under the command [of the] Commander-in-Chief, North Atlantic Squadron, and to him the honor is due. The action had been fought on the general plans given by Sampson to his captains a month before; in the crisis every captain, using his own initiative, carried out the 338 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY spirit of Sampson's battle order to clear ship and close in on the enemy. While Schley "did his duty on board the Brooklyn . . . his ship thereafter rendering magnificent and most creditable service," ^ he acted as a captain of his own ship, not as a commander of the fleet. On the day of the battle, as Secretary Long later wrote, "the result would have been the same if both Sampson and Schley had been ten thousand miles away." And as Presi- dent Roosevelt, who later reviewed the unanimous decision in Sampson's favor of the naval court of inquiry, wrote, "After the battle was joined not a helm was shifted, not a pound of steam was put on in the engine-room aboard any ship actively engaged, in obedience to the order of either Sampson or Schley, save on their own two vessels. It was a captains' fight." It is only just to add, however, that Admiral Dewey, the presiding officer of the court of inquiry, while joining in the censure of the court for Schley's dilatoriness in making the blockade of Cervera effective and for the loop incident of the Brooklyn, ex- pressed the opinion that Schley was in command at the time of the victory of Santiago. As a result of this con- troversy, Sampson, broken in health by the strain of his responsibility before the battle and deeply disappointed by the later events, went to his death without promotion and without the thanks of Congress or of his country for his great achievement in having his fleet so thoroughly pre- pared when the test came that the resulting annihilation of the enemy with the loss of only one life in his own force closely parallels Dewey's victory. But above and beyond' the immediate results of the battle of Santiago, the more remote results were far-reach- ing. Before the victory the United States had no control over the Caribbean Sea, the approach to the Isthmus of 1 Long, The American Navy, II. 48. THE PANAMA CANAL POSSIBLE 339 Panama. To-day, due to the victory of American sea power in Cuba, it has. After the war the United States Army continued to occupy Cuba until the inhabitants could set up a constitution, elect a president, and take over the reins of government. On March 2, 1901, the United States Congress added to the Army Appropriation Bill for that year the so-called Piatt Amendment. By this the new government of Cuba was to agree not to enter into any treaty with a foreign power to impair its independence, not to contract any public debts that could not be paid by the ordinary revenues of the island, to permit the United States to intervene in the interest of maintaining Cuban independence, and to sell or lease lands to the United States for coaling-stations and naval bases. These provisions, which were intended to uphold the Monroe Doctrine by insuring the independence of Cuba and by intrenching the sea power of the United States in the Gulf and the Carib- bean, were agreed to by the constituent assembly of Cuba. Accordingly, on May 20, 1902, the United States turned over the government of the island to a Cuban president, duly elected in accordance with its new constitution. The United States had now acquired Guantanamo Bay and Porto Rico as potential bases for its future sea power in the Caribbean. It remained only to give protection and resources to these by fortifications, dry-docks, coal-, ammu- nition-, and supply-depots to make them powerful bases. It is often said by English writers that Jamaica is their key to the Caribbean. But Porto Rico and Guantanamo, situated on the communications of Jamaica with the mother country, and near the vast resources of the United States, give the sea power of America the grip on that key. The Virgin Islands, more recently acquired by the United States, and lying on the eastern extremity of the Carib- bean farthest toward Europe, make a possible advance base 340 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY relatively to Guantanamo. These two, Guantanamo and the Virgin Islands, are to the Caribbean what Pearl Harbor and Guam are to the Pacific. As the great British bases, Gibraltar and Malta, are to the sea control by England of the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, so are Guantanamo and the Virgin Islands to the sea control of the Caribbean and the Panama Canal. By means of the latter, American naval fleets will make secure the great route of American merchant fleets to the Orient. During the Spanish-American War, the long trip of the Oregon (fifteen thousand miles via Cape Horn), at a critical time when her presence in the Atlantic might mean the difference between victory and defeat, called the atten- tion of statesmen in America to the need of a canal across the Isthmus. The old Clayton-Bulwer Treaty between Eng- land and the United States contained a self-denying clause, by which each agreed not to gain exclusive control over any future canal. As soon as John Hay became Secretary of State in the autumn of 1898, he gave the matter of the abrogation of the old treaty serious attention. Accord- ingly, Henry White, the American Ambassador to Great Britain, got a promise from Lord Salisbury to substitute a new agreement, with the proviso that tolls for the ships of all nations passing through should be the same. In due course the Secretary of State engineered the first Hay- Pauncefote Treaty, which provided for the complete neu- tralization of the canal, and which would prevent the United States from fortifying it, or closing it to its ene- mies. On this first treaty, the Governor of New York, Theodore Eoosevelt, the man destined by fate to push through the building of the future canal, wrote Hay the following friendly but illuminating criticism: If the proposed canal had been in existence in '98 the Oregon could have come more quickly through to the Atlantic; but this THE PANAMA CANAL POSSIBLE 341 fact would have been far outweighed by the fact that Cervera's fleet would have had open to it the chance of itself going through the canal, and thence sailing to attack Dewey or to menace our stripped Pacific Coast. If that canal is open to the warships of an enemy, it is a menace to us in time of war; it is an added burden, an additional strategic point to be guarded by our fleet. If fortified by us, it becomes one of the most potent sources of our sea strength. Unless so fortified it strengthens against us every nation whose fleet is larger than ours. One prime reason for fortifying our great seaports is to unfetter our fleet, to release it for offensive purposes; and the proposed canal would fetter it again, for our fleet would have to watch it, and therefore do the work which a fort should do; and what it could do much better.^ Owing to these objections, the first draft of the treaty failed of ratification in the United States Senate. But the later draft, the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of November 18, 1901, giving the United States the sole right to con- struct, maintain, police, and fortify the canal, cleared the way for the great undertaking. As Colombia haggled over the price — .$10,000,000 — for the strip through the Isthmus, President Roosevelt, with his characteristic '* big-stick" policy, immediately recognized the revolutionists in the new republic of Panama, and made a treaty with them, which was ratified by the Senate on February 23, 1904. This treaty provided for the payment to Panama of $10,- 000,000 for a strip five miles on each side of the axis of the canal, with an annual rental of $250,000 to begin nine years thereafter. On May 4, 1904, the work began. Under the forceful methods of Roosevelt, who put Colonel Goethals of the Engineer Corps of the United States Army in charge, rapid progress was made. The canal was completed in ten years and was opened to traffic on August 15, 1914, in time to render important service to the Allied and American navies 1 Thayer, Life and Letters of John Hay, II. 340. 342 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY in the World War. It is forty-three miles long and cost $375,000,000 to build. In addition to this, the United States Government has spent $30,000,000 for fortifications, and has constructed, besides repair-shops, terminal facili- \ ties, etc., five huge steel piers, and a thousand-foot dry- dock. During the first year of operation, 4,500,000 tons of shipping passed through the canal, an amount that has rapidly increased, reaching a total of 9,371,339 tons in 1918. The tolls, which after a controversy in Congress were finally made the same for all nations, have averaged five to six mil- lions dollars a year. On August 5, 1914, the American Government in order to forestall any foreign attempt to construct a rival water- way in Nicaragua and also further to intrench American sea power on the Pacific side of the new canal, concluded a treaty with Nicaragua, in which ratifications were ex- changed, June 22, 1916. This treaty, in consideration of the payment of $3,000,000, granted to the United States the sole right to construct a canal by the Nicaraguan route and also leased to the United States a naval base on the Pacific coast in the Gulf of Fonseca and coaling-stations on Great Corn and Little Corn islands. The three million dollars were to be applied to the public debt of Nicaragua to European countries. This was in keeping with a policy inaugurated by President Roosevelt — ^the most far-reaching extension of the Monroe Doctrine that has ever been made — by which the United States Government constituted it- self the receiver or trustee for Latin-American countries, like the Dominican Republic, to prevent the seizure of their custom-houses or territory for debts incurred to Euro- pean countries. Germany, especially, had shown a marked tendency to regard the Monroe Doctrine as a scrap of paper, while England more and more tacitly recognized this great American policy. Roosevelt's rather sharp ac- THE PANAMA CANAL POSSIBLE 343 tion in virtually depriving Colombia of the Canal Zone and in supervising the finances of the Dominican Republic marked a great change in regard to the Monroe Doctrine. Once feared by Europe and tacitly accepted by Latin America as a benevolent protectorship by the great north- em nation, it came to be an object of fear and suspicion by Spanish America. This fear of America's intentions President Wilson tried to still by his Pan-American policy, as expressed in his Mobile speech : ' ' The United States will never again seek one additional foot of territory by con- quest. ' ' But the United States will never again need to make new conquests, for its sea power in the Spanish "War in 1898 not only gave it great bases on the Pacific and on the Caribbean but, still more important, it made possible the Panama Canal, the realization of a dream of the human race since the days of Balboa, the most strategic fifty miles in the world, an achievement that has cut nature's long and dangerous sea route via the Horn by ten thousand miles. CHAPTER XXIV AMERICAN SEA POWER IN THE WORLD WAR FOR America the World War was as essentially a maritime struggle as the American Revolution or the conflict with Napoleon and the War of 1812. Though an army of two million men fought in France un- der the Stars and Stripes, the causes of the war, and the arrival of those millions on the battle-field, were closely re- lated to the sea and maritime supremacy. In both 1812 and 1917 the American people were finally drawn into the maelstrom of war after a long diplomatic struggle over the freedom of the seas. In each case they fought against the belligerent which endangered not American property — though this also suffered — Ifut the lives of American citi- zens. The results of both wars had predominantly mari- time aspects. As in the days of Jefferson, so in Wilson's time, the hostilities in Europe created almost automatically a merchant marine that took its place next to Great Brit- ain's and threatened her commercial supremacy at sea. With these facts in mind it ought to be easier to under- stand the part American sea power played in the recent conflict. Although the trend of international agreement had been for some years in the direction of greater freedom of the seas in war time, as expressed by the Declaration of London of 1909, the provisions of the latter document had not been fully accepted by all the powers at the outbreak of the war. Although it did not make absolute contraband of cotton, 344 AMERICAN SEA POWER IN WORLD WAR 345 copper, rubber, and wool, it could hardly be expected that these indispensable materials for modern warfare would be allowed to pass freely to the fighting nations, and, accord- ingly, neutral trade was thrown back upon the general prin- ciples enunciated by the Declaration of Paris of 1856, or to the almost chaotic conditions of the last great war, the Na- poleonic struggle. In fact, the same mooted questions arose : What is a blockade ? What is contraband ? Do free ships make free goods ? Shall ultimate destination of com- modities be the governing principle? And is it right to change the letter of international law because the advance of invention has changed methods of warfare ? All these ques- tions, and the age-old discussion as to whether or not a viola- tion of international law by one belligerent justifies viola- tion in retaliation by the other belligerent, appeared in the diplomatic contest between the United States, as the chief neutral, and both Great Britain and Germany ; they are the same questions which Europe and America discussed in 1805 and in 1861 to 1865. As a neutral, the first difficulties encountered by the United States were with Great Britain, the power in com- mand of the sea. Early in the war Great Britain vir- tually abolished the distinction between absolute and con- ditional contraband, the latter including articles, such as food-stult's and copper, which could not be seized if they were to be used by the civilian activities of the belligerent but would be contraband if proved to be intended for the military forces. As all articles were contraband, no trade with German ports was open to neutrals, but it was possible for the United States to ship into Holland, Denmark, Nor- way, Sweden, and Italy every sort of article which might be used in those countries. A few hours would suffice to carry these materials into Germany, and it became evident that unless the Allies prohibited such commerce they could 346 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY impose no real economic boycott on Germany, They ac- cordingly fell back upon the American doctrine of con- tinuous voyage, or ultimate destination, as it is sometimes called, the crux of the decisions in the Polly and the Essex cases in the Napoleonic Wars, and the subject of such diplomatic manoeuvering as preceded the settlement of the cases of the Springbok and the Bermuda during the Civil War. But the situation of the Allies was worse than that of Great Britain in the earlier period. Modern trans- portation had so developed that the neutral countries ad- jacent to Germany were economically a part of the empire, and even if the materials imported were actually consumed in neutral territory, such articles as food-stuffs, and such metals as were produced by the neutrals themselves, would be released for export to Germany. If allowed to import food from America, Denmark and Holland could without stint pour their milk, their cheese, their beef, and even their wheat and forage into the Rhineland, and as the German Navy, strategically placed at Kiel, where it could strike either into the Baltic or the North Sea, controlled the Baltic absolutely, the meat and the minerals of Scandinavia could quickly pass across its narrow waters to the German ports of Liibeck, Stettin, Danzig, and Konigsberg. Under the strict letter of international law it is clear that the United States was right in its contention that such articles as food-stuffs and cotton were not necessarily con- traband and could not be proved by Great Britain to be actually destined to the military forces of Germany. As, however, the Allies regarded their vital interests as involved in the decision, it was natural for sea power to rule. It was clear that, as in its protests against English and Na- poleonic restrictions on free trade, the United States did not regard its vital interests as jeopardized, — for to go to war would destroy this very trade, — and that it was AMERICAN SEA POWER IN WORLD WAR 347 unlikely to go to extremes. The naval supremacy of the Allies continued therefore to exert pressure on neutral trade, and when the United States entered the war it did not scruple to join its associates in compelling such neutrals as Holland and Norway not only to forbid the exportation of articles imported from the United States but also to prevent the export to Germany of articles produced in the country which might be substituted for them. On the question of blockade the British were curiously enough forced back to their position in the Napoleonic Wars. The development of submarine mines, of submarines, and of aircraft made any close watch of the German coast impracticable. The British patrols were therefore shifted to the stretch of water between Scotland and Iceland. As the Straits of Dover were dominated by British destroyers, there was no chance for vessels to enter the North Sea from the Atlantic without being discovered and searched. Fur- thermore, by the Order in Council of IMarch 15, 1915, — in which, however, the word blockade was not used, — all merchant vessels which might be carrying goods to Ger- many directly or indirectly were to be brought into a Brit- ish port and their status decided by the British authorities. Only such cargoes as received a pass from the Admiralty could proceed to their destinations. Such a revival of the principle "No trade except through England," was pro- tested against by the United States on the ground that it amounted to a blockade of neutral ports, even though the United States was willing to concede the legality of the distant blockade of Germany. Notwithstanding these protests British sea power exercised the decisive influence, and the restrictions continued, as they had in the days of Napoleon. Even under these difficulties American ton- nage in the foreign trade, as in 1793. and 1803, increased with rapid strides, and signs of the revival of a respectable 348 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY merchant marine in the foreign trade appeared on the horizon. As Great Britain's superiority at sea thus caused in- vasion of neutral rights during the first two years of the war, so Germany's naval inferiority to the Allies, as that of France in 1798, brought the Teutonic empire to the use of methods of warfare at sea which had not been con- templated in international law. First, she protected her North Sea coast with submarine mines; next, she scattered mines in various places in the North Sea to sink British naval vessels patrolling in that area; thirdly, she sent out her submarines to sink Allied ships of war and to capture and destroy Allied merchantmen bearing supplies or troops to the British Isles or the channel ports of France. Moreover, on February 4, 1915, Germany announced that her submarines would sink Allied vessels without warn- ing and without visit and search. The United States at once vigorously protested against such a practice, which would involve great danger to Americans traveling on British and French vessels, but not till March 28th, when the British steamship Falaha was sunk in St. George's Channel and one American lost his life, did a real case arise. Then, on May 7th, off the southern coast of Ireland, the Lusitania, of the British Cunard Line, was hit by two torpedoes and went down in eighteen minutes. As the cliief transatlantic passenger steamer at the time, she carried many passengers, 1267 in all, and a crew of 702. There were a large number of Americans on board, 114 of whom were lost. This outrage roused great indignation in the United States, and many persons demanded an im- mediate declaration of war. The Lusitania was unarmed, and carried no munitions. Its only contraband was a quantity of empty shell cases, some army saddles, and a AMERICAN SEA POWER IN WORLD WAR 349 large amount of food-stuffs. The sinking could not be justified by any of the rules of international law recognized by the United States, for by these the safety of all persons on board a vessel must be assured before it could be de- stroyed. The sinking was, however, in such entire accord with the announced policy of the Germans that the kaiser could not disavow the act. The flame of indignation which this outrage produced in the United States, however, and the protests of the American Government, so influenced the German authori- ties that on June 5th a secret order came from the emperor that passenger vessels, even of the enemy, should not be sunk.^ But when in March of the following year this order was violated and the Sussex, a British steamer plying between Dover and Calais, was torpedoed and several Americans lost, President Wilson on May 4, 1916, secured from the Germans a promise that the practice of sinking ships without warning or without attempt to save life should be abandoned, unless the ship attempted to escape or offered resistance. This situation remained until January 31, 1917, when Von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador to the United States, notified the American Government that on the fol- lowing day Germany would rescind her promise of May 4, 1916, and that hereafter within a specified war zone that surrounded the Allied coasts of Western Europe and in- cluded virtually all the Mediteranean, she would sink with- out warning, and without attempt to save life, all ships, neutral and belligerent alike, which were found in those waters. The exceptions, by which one ship a week was allowed to pass from the United States to England by a prescribed route, if painted in a peculiar manner, and if it 1 Von Tirpitz, My Memoirs, II. 157. 350 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY carried a certificate from the American Government that no contraband was on board, only increased the insult to our maritime rights. Upon receipt of this notice President Wilson broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, and began arming merchant ships with navy ^ns operated by naval gun crews, although Congress, because of a filibuster, failed to give him specific authority to do so. As Germany did not recede from her position, and as several American steam- ships were sunk on March 16th, 17th, 21st, and April 1st, the President went before Congress on April 2d, and in a speech which has become the classic expression of the issues of the World War, recommended a declaration that war existed between the two nations. Already 226 American citizens had lost their lives from German ruthlessness. It was this issue of humanity rather than trade, as in the days preceding the War of 1812, that formed the immediate justification for war. The President said: I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German submarine war- fare against commerce is a warfare against mankind. Accordingly, on April 6, 1917, Congress passed a declara- tion.of war, which was approved by the President and went into immediate effect. The reasons for the entrance of the United States into the World War were thus, as has been indicated, almost wholly maritime. Likewise, the participation of the United States, while not wholly maritime, was to be dependent largely upon maritime factors. A brief consideration of AMERICAN SEA POWER IN WORLD WAR 351 the situation of the Entente Allies in April, 1917, will, it is believed, make clear the importance of these factors, and justify the lines of activitj^ which the sea power of the United States took to bring about a decisive victory for democracy and civilization. By the beginning of 1917, it had become apparent that a decisive victory for either side was not probable on the western front, the strategical center of military opera- tions. The Allies were, furthermore, sustained very largely in their war of attrition by their superior resources, due to the fact that being in command of the sea, they could draw on America and most of the world for the munitions and food w^hich their fighting armies demanded. But the menace of the submarine had not been conquered, and unless overcome might at any moment threaten the whole success of the military movements. Up to April, 1917, nearly 7,000,000 tons of shipping had been lost through submarine attack and the usual accidents of navi- gation. To replace this loss only about 4,500,000 tons had been constructed, and the Germans believed that six weeks of unrestricted submarine warfare would so decrease the available tonnage that Great Britain would see starva- tion facing her and sue for peace. Although the rate at which sinkings had been going on during 1916 had been much greater than ever before, about 200,000 tons per month, it is probably true that even at such a rate the ac- tual objective of the Germans could not have been attained. But with the later inauguration of unrestricted warfare, not only did neutral vessels hesitate to take the sea, but the actual sinkings increased to such a figure that they threatened the security of the Allied cause and the possi- bility of bringing American troops to Europe and supply- ing them there with food and munitions. In the latter part of 1916 submarines were sinking from 300,000 to 400,- 352 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY 000 tons each month; in the second quarter of 1917, they sank over 2,000,000 tons, and in October of that year sent over 500,000 tons to the bottom. Almost as much shipping was lost during the nine months of 1917 which followed the entrance of the United States into the war as had been sunk in all the period from the outbreak of the war to that date. The objectives before America which concerned her naval and maritime activity were therefore clearly twofold : first, to assist in the anti-submarine campaign, reduce the losses to shipping, and prevent attacks on transports laden with American troops; second, to furnish such an increase of ships to the Allies as would be adequate to maintain their supplies and to throw upon the western front enough men and munitions to bring decisive victory. In the operations of the navy under the first head the most important elements were destroyers, submarine- chasers, the convoy system, and the Northern Mine Bar- rage. In 1916, when the unprepared condition of the United States began to be appreciated, and a three-year building-program for the navy was authorized, the most important feature was the construction of fifty destroyers during the first year. Experience had demonstrated that these powerful vessels were the most successful, weapon against the submarine, because of their speed, their cruis- ing-radius, and their armament of torpedoes and guns. When war came the number of destroyers to be built was increased, and by the end of 1917 orders for from two hundred to three hundred were placed, all to be com- pleted by 1919. One was even turned out in fifty days. The destroyers were the first American naval units to arrive in the war zone, six of them reaching Queenstown on May 4th to increase the forces operating in the English Channel. The destroyers were also the first to capture a jj 0; Oh .n i^i ic Q Z < « fa .5J O ft AMERICAN SEA POWER IN WORLD WAR 353 U-boat for the Americans. It was the TJ-58, which was discovered off the entrance to Queenstown on November 17, 1917, by the Fanning and the Nichol&on. Though the periscope of the submarine was raised only about a foot above the water, and only for an instant, an American lookout noticed it. The destroyers at once dropped depth charges set to explode beneath the surface, and these wrecked the motors of the submarine, blew off the rudder, and forced the enemy to shoot down to a depth of fully two hundred feet. When the stricken boat came shooting back it leaped out of the water and then went hurtling down again. As it disappeared the Yankee gunners sent several shells whizzing by the conning-tower, and more depth charges were released. But in a moment the U-boat came to the surface again, the hatch on the conning-tower flew up, and the crew streamed out upon the slippery deck and surrendered. The sea-cocks had, however, been opened, and in a few moments the submarine sank beneath the waters. The second important force for anti-submarine work proved to be the 447 submarine-chasers which were author- ized and built from the latter part of March, 1917, to March, 1918. These were wooden boats, 110 feet long, with a maximum speed of eighteen knots, and were intended to scout for submarines, drop depth bombs, and gain informa- tion through their delicate listening-devices, which had been perfected by American physicists during the early da^^s of the war. These ubiquitous craft were so seaworthy that they crossed the Atlantic without difficulty, and kept the sea with any ship in the naval service. In the bom- bardment of Durazzo on the Albanian coast, the sub- chasers, as they were usually called, made a record unsur- passed by any other type of war-ship in the American Navy. While protecting the Allied squadron which was 354 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY bombarding the town on October 2, 1918, the twelve Ameri- can sub-chasers sank two Austrian submarines that came out to attack the larger vessels. Also, in the English Chan- /"AKoe 'S."^" 3H£rLANO 'S^Sy^ MINED AREAS AROUND THE BRITISH ISLES Showing how submarine operations were difficult during the latter part of the World War. The southern part of the North Sea was not systematically mined but was dangerous to navigation. From a British Admiralty Chart. nel about Plymouth the presence of these tiny vessels stopped entirely German mine-laying and submarine at- tack in that vicinity; the very day they were withdrawn AMERICAN SEA POWER IN WORLD WAR 355 the mine-laying began again. Though they had few spec- tacular encounters, the submarine-chasers contributed in no small measure to the safety of the seas. Not only did they possess an uncanny ability to discover the location of the submarine marauder, but their excessive generosity with depth bombs, their chief weapon, prevented enemy operations and shook the nerves of the stoutest German submarine sailors and commanders. Though a few German submarines appeared on the American coast in May, 1918, and destroyed a number of small vessels during the next three months, the adoption of the convoy system in June, 1917, prevented any interfer- ence with the movement of troops and supplies overseas. This convoy system must also be credited to American par- ticipation in the war. It was in accord with the chief policy of the United States for the conduct of the war, viz., unity of action. Until the United States entered the war, the organization and despatch of from fifty to a hundred merchant ships of various nationalities and speeds from a prearranged rendezvous off the coast would have been im- possible. But after America ceased to be neutral and be- came a belligerent the work could be directed from Ameri- can ports, and the naval forces of the United States — yachts, converted coastwise steamers, and regular naval vessels — were immediately available for the convoy service. The protection afforded by this system both in the western Atlantic and in the submarine-infested waters of the war zone was so perfect that not a life was lost of the 1,720,360 men thus escorted by the American Navy. The final and decisive effort of America to throttle the submarine was the laying of the Northern Mine Barrage. The project of a mine barrier across the North Sea from Scotland to Norway was advanced by American naval of- ficials in April, 1917, but the barrage was not completed 356 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY and the first submarine trapped till September, 1918. The mines were an American invention, of an improved type for deep water, and were exploded by electrical action even when the submarine was not in actual contact. One hun- dred thousand of these mines were manufactured, 85,000 were shipped abroad, and 56,000 were planted in an area extending for 230 miles in length and 20 in breadth, with only narrow channels along the Scottish and Norwegian coasts. The mines were manufactured in America, and assembled on the eastern coast of Scotland at Inverness and Invergordon by American sailors, and 80 per cent of them were laid by the American Navy. As the Straits of Dover were protected by a similar barrier, submarines found it almost impessible to reach the steamer lanes between Eng- land or France and the United States. Although only ten submarines are known to have been sunk by this stupendous enterprise it spelled the end of German ruthlessness at sea. As has been said, "The Germans pinned their faith to U-boats as the decisive factor. As the last and greatest instrumentality of ending the U-boat campaign, the mine barrage across the North Sea may be regarded as among the outstanding effective contributions to Allied success. ' ' ^ That this concentration of American naval effort on the submarine menace was justified is shown by the fkct that though a squadron of American battle-ships joined the British Grand Fleet in December, 1917, and took full part in its sweeps through the North Sea and in escorting mer- chant ships between Scotland and Norway, — a duty in- tended as a bait to tempt the Germans to come out and seek to cut off a few unsupported ships, — these battle-ships par- ticipated in no action with ships of their class. Another division of American battle-ships, stationed in Bantry Bay, Ireland, also did some escort duty, but its intended service 1 Report of the Secretary of the Navy, 1919, p. 47. AMERICAN SEA POWER IN WORLD WAR 357 as an attacking force upon German battle-cruiser raiders through the English Channel was never called for. The second principal need of the Allies and of the United States were merchant ships in which to transport American troops and to carry^ across the Atlantic the food and muni- tions which only countries not used as battle-fields and with man-power undepleted by the strain of three years of war could furnish. One untapped source of shipping lay ready at hand, — a fact that the wily German Secretary of State for the Navy, Von Tirpitz, realized,— the 600,000 tons of German steamships which sought refuge in Ameri- can harbors in the days after August 1, 1914. If Von Tirpitz had had his way, the captains of these vessels, in the weeks preceding the declaration of war by America, would have sailed to sea and sunk their ships to prevent their appropriation by the enemy. Instead, the command- ers caused their engines to be more or less damaged but not to such an extent that the navy, with its electric weld- ing-gangs, could not repair them and quickly put them into service as transports. In addition, 500,000 tons of Dutch shipping, which had been laid up in various harbors to avoid destruction at sea, also were seized later by "right of angary, ' ' ^ and were thus by one sweep of the pen law- fully secured for the imperative military needs of the United States. It was, however, in the actual construction of ships in numbers unparalleled in maritime history that the indus- trial and engineering genius of the American people most strikingly increased the nation's sea power. The shipyards of the country had been since the begin- ning of the submarine sinkings fully occupied in turning out new cargo vessels for the Allies and for the expanding 1 In maritime law, a forced service imposed on a vessel for public purpose, an impressment of a vessel. 358 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY American trade. Even before the declaration of war the need of America for ships was recognized by Congress, and the United States Shipping Board was created to regulate shipping and promote the development of an American merchant marine. When war came its powers were greatly extended, the Shipping Board itself was given authority to acquire and operate any vessels in the country, while to the Emergency Fleet Corporation, its subordinate agency, was delegated the work of constructing new vessels. Suf- ficient funds for both these purposes were provided. Shipping authorities estimated that a tonnage of from 6,000,000 to 10,000,000 a year must be built to allow a safe margin over sinkings and to meet the increased demand produced by sending so many fighting-men to Europe. Yet in 1916, the country's best recent ship-building year, less than 300,000 tons of ships had been constructed. The story of how, in the year ending June 30, 1918, American yards turned out over a million gross tons of ships and how by August the United States had become the chief shipbuilding nation in the world, recalls to memory the achievement of an earlier period of American history. It was only because the American people poured their wealth into the Treasury in exchange for Liberty Bonds that the Government was enabled to supply the funds for this intensified national effort that took second place only to the military operations themselves. The total amount authorized to be spent by the Shipping Board was more than three and a half billion dollars, the actual amount ex- pended up to June 30, 1919, only a billion dollars less. Before such sums the three hundred and fifty millions spent on the Panama Canal pale into insignificance. And the re- sults were also striking. In place of the 300,000 gross tons of shipping constructed in the year ending June 30, 1916, AMERICAN SEA POWER IN WORLD WAR 359 the next year saw 664,479 tons built, 1918 recorded 1,300,868 tons, and the following year made still more startling prog- ress with 3,326,621 tons. In May, 1919, the production of ships amounted to enough, if continued for a year, to in- crease the American commercial fleets over 5,000,000 tons. The secret of much of this magnitude and rapidity ol construction was the "fabricated" ship, one whose parts are prepared according to standardized patterns in steel- mills distant from the shipyards, and then sent to the coast to be assembled. These vessels were necessarily designed along simple lines, with flat decks, and with few curves which require special heating and bending in the yards. Such an assembling plant was the Hog Island Ship Yard, on the Delaware, south of Philadelphia, where one after an- other along the river extended for a mile and a quarter fifty ways for the construction of steel ships. While fifty were being built in these ways, twenty-eight others could be fitted out at the piers. When one realizes that in September, 1917, Hog Island was an uninhabitable and malarial marsh, and that five months later the first keel was laid, in eleven months the first hull launched, and the first complete ship delivered on December 3, 1918, we can appreciate something of the rapidity of American enter- prise in reestablishing an American merchant marine. The armistice which was agreed to by Germany on No- vember 11, 1918, effected changes in the sea power of the United States almost as epochal as those achieved by its own efforts at construction. On November 21, 1918, virtually the whole German navy sailed into the Firth of Forth in the presence of the British-American Grand Fleet in ig- nominious surrender, and the United States became the second naval power in the world. German submarines were turned over to the Allies and no more were to be built. 360 SEA POWER IN AMERICAN HISTORY German mercliant tonnage was to be handed over to the Allies to compensate as far as possible for the inroads of the U-boats. The victorious ending of the World War was thus in most manifest fashion a performance in which American sea power had a full share. Although the armies of the Central Powers were not starved into surrender by sea power, — for the resources of Russia and Rumania prevented this, — the naval and maritime superiority of the United States and the other Allies did keep the Allied lines of communication from being severed by the German sub- marines, and, as Mahan says, communications dominate war. If the submarine menace had not been gradually eliminated, and if the ship tonnage which the United States had at hand and could construct had not been thrown into the balance, it is hard to see how the purely military move- ments on land could have proved effective. In this sense American sea power was decisive in the World War. Lastly, it is well worth recalling that in the struggles in which sea power has been a factor since American his- tory began its decisive influence has. always been on the side of liberty. It wrested from Spain her brutal domina- tion of the Atlantic seas; it safeguarded the free develop- ment of the English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard of North America; it won for the colonists their struggle for independence, and achieved for the young republic those traditions of independence, democracy, and enterprise which have come to be thought the qualities of the typical American. In the later years of the nineteenth century it showed the flag of America on every sea; it throttled the monster of slavery and disunion, and substituted for the deadening touch of Spanish colonial degeneracy upon the islands of the Caribbean and the Pacific the open hand of education and progress. Finally, in the struggle of de- AMERICAN SEA POWER IN WORLD WAR 361 mocracy against imperialism sea power proved a decisive element which gave to the aspiring free peoples of Europe and America their chance to crush forever, let us hope, the arrogance of militarism and autocracy. INDEX Adams, C. F., 247. Adams, J. Q., 168-9. Alabama, 243, 244, 248-9, 250-2. Albemarle, 279. Algiers, see Barbary States. Alliance, 42, 44. Ann McKim, 188. Annapolis Convention, 52. Argus, 110, 118. Arkansas, 267. Armor-clads, 226, 227, 228. Arnold, Benedict, 16, 23-6. Atlanta, 237. Austrian Succession, War of, 10- 13. Bainbridge, Joseph, 151. Bainbridge, William, 75, 77, 103, 114-115, 136, 158, 163. Baltimore, 121, 122. Baltimore, 312, 313, 314. Baltimore clippers, 187. Banks, N. P., 249, 270-271. Barbary States : attack American ships, 69; treaties made, 69- 70; fresh demands, 75; au- dience with Dey of Algiers, 76-7; George Washington af- fair, 77-78; Tripoli declares war, 78; Preble sent in 1803, 79; capture of Meshuda, 79; Tangier demonstration, 80; loss of Philadelphia, 80-81; burn- ing of Philadelphia, 83-87 ; bombardment of Tripoli, 87- 88; Intrepid disaster, 89; cap- ture of Derne, 89-90; treaty of peace, 89-90; Decatur's expe- dition in 1815, 90; final sup- pression, 90, 155. Barclay, R. H., 125, 127-136, 141. Barron, James, 67-8, 116-118, 155-159, 169. Barron, Samuel, 89. Bases, naval, 322-3. Beaumarchais, Caron de, 25, 28. Bermuda, 219, 346. Biddle, James, 177. Black Ball Line, 185. Blockade, 96, 100-1, 104, 119-22, 212, 214, 215, 216, 218, 221, 222-4, 324-5, 345-48. Blockade runners, first capture of, 216; success of, 217, 219, 220; principal ports of, 217-8; type of, 218. Bonhomme Richard, 43-44. Boston (1801), 75. Boston (1898), 314. Boxer Rebellion, 320. Bremerton Navy Yard, 300. Brock, Isaac, 124. Broke, P. B. V., 104, 116-118. Broken voyage, 56-58. Brooklyn, cruiser, 336, 338. Brooklyn, steam frigate, 247, 265, 273, 276, 285. Buchanan, F., 228, 271 flF. Buffalo, 127-128. Bullock, J. D., 241-7. Burke, Edmund, 15, 162. Bushnell, David, 198. Caledonia, 127, 129-135. Calhoun, J. C, 123. 363 364 INDEX California, 172, 175. Camara, Admiral, 318, 320, 323. Canada, 188-9. Caribbean, 324, 338-9, 343. Carondelet, 258, 259. Cartagena, 12. Carthage, 3. Cassin, Stephen, 146. Cayuga, 265. Cervera, Admiral, 320, 326, 328, 329-537. Champion of the Seas, 191. Champlain, Lake, Battle of, 22-6, 137-149. Chariot of Fame, 191. Chasseur, 119. Chauncey, Isaac, 90, 124, 125- 126, 137, 286. Cherub, 166-7. Chesapeake, 67-68, 73, 116-118, 157. Chichester, E., 318, 319. Chickasaw, 273, 278. China, 53, 176-7, 185, 187, 189, 308, 309, 320-1. Civil War, strategy of, 211-212; blockade, 212 ff.; strength of Union navy, 215-6, 237; Mer- rimac-Monitor, 234 ff. ; priva- teering in, 240; commerce de- struction, 241 ff.; Mississippi campaign, 255 ff. ; Mobile Bay, 270 ff. ; sea power in, 222-224, 274, 280; referred to, 58. Clay, Henry, 97, 123, 158. Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 340. Clermont, 200. Clipper-ships, American, origin of, 187; Baltimore clippers, 187; era, 188; first large types, 188; some famous ones, 191; advantages over steam- ers, 203. Cobden, Richard, 182. Cochrane, Alexander (Vice Ad- miral), 101, 119-21. Cockbum, George^ 119-121, 167. Colomb, Admiral, 327, 329. Colombia (Nevp Granada), 176, 341, 342-3. Comet, 201. Commerce, in colonies, 17; after Revolution, 51, 53; during Na- poleonic War, 54-65, 69, 71; during War of 1812, 100-101, 118-19, 121-2, 104-6; with Far East, 176-8; routes of Ameri- can, 184, 185, 187; restrictions on, 182; statistics, 185-6, 192- 3, 240; influence of clipper- ship, 189; California trade, 190; with Australia, 191; de- cline in Civil War, 193, 251, 253-4; during Spanish Amer- ican War, 327 ; in World War, 345-8. Commerce raiders. Confederate, 242 ff. Concord, 312, 313, 314. Confederacy, need of manufac- tured articles, 213; importance of cotton to, 214; adopte iron- clads, 227. Confiance, 140. Congress, 73, 110, 176, 229. Constellation, 71, 73-5, 120, 162. Constitution, maritime origin, 52-3. Constitution, 70-72, 104-9, 110, 114-15, 148, 169. Continental System, 60-61, 93- 94, 302. Cooper, J. F., 137. Cotton, 214, 217, 226, 255. Crimean War, 208, 210, 228, 237, 288. Cristobal Colon, 329, 336. Cuba, 309-310, 312, 324, 337, 339. Cumberland, 229. Cunard, Samuel, 186-7, 203. Gushing, W. B., 279. INDEX 365 Davis, C. N., 259, 267. Decatur, Stephen, 83-88, 103, 110-114, 136, 137, 150-159, 169, 182. De Grasse, Count, 16-17, 32-34. Democracy, indebted to sea iwwer, 3. Dcmologos, 202. D'Estaing, Count, 30, 31, 38, 39. Destroyers, 328, 352-3. De Tocqueville, 186. Detroit, 124. Detroit (British), 127, 129-135. Dewey, G., 299, 310-11, 312 ff., 338. Don Antonio de XJlloa, 316. Don't Give Up the Ship, 118, 134. Downie, George, 140-146. Drake, 41. Drake, Francis, 6, 7. Dramatic Line, 185. Drayton, P., 276, 277, 291, 293. Dreacbwught, 189. Dulles, J. H., 138. Du Pont, S., 217. Durazzo, 353-4. Eads, J. B., 258. Eag}«, 139, 142-6. Eaton, William, 76, 89-90. Ellet, Charles, 258. Elliott, Jesse D., 127-136, 158, 169. Emergency Fleet Corporation, 358^; Ericsson, J., 204-210, 230-232, 234, 236. Erie, 129-130. Erie Canal, 185. Erie, Lake, Battle of, 131-134. Essex, 284. Essex, case of the, 57-9, 346. Essex, frigate, 110, 162-167. Everard, Captain, 139. Exmouth, Lord, 182. FaJaba, 348. t'anni/ng, 353. Farragut, D. G., 137, 166, 170- 71, 256, 260-278, 280-81, 283- 290, 297, 303-4, 311. Farragut, Loyall, 287. Fillmore, Millard, 177. Finnis, Lt., 132. Fisheries, 18, 183. Fitch, John, 198. Fleet in being, 328. Florence, 189, 190. Florida, 242, 252-3. Flying Cloud, 191. Flying Fish, 188. Fonseca, Gulf of, 342. Foote, A. H., 256, 258-9. Fort Donelson, 259, 260. Fort Fisher, 237, 311. Fort Henry, 258. Fort Jackson, 262, 264. Fort Morgan, 272, 273, 278. Fort St. Philip, 262, 265. Fox, G. v., 213, 256, 260. Foxardo, 167-8. France, contests with England for America, 9-14; naval con- ditions in 1775, 20; importance of aid to colonists, 27-8; al- liance with colonies, 28-9; sends squadron under D'Es- taing, 30; battle of Ushant, 30; superior at sea, 30-1; Des Touches defeats British, 31; De Grasse arrives in Chesa- peake, 32; battle of Cape Henry, 32-3; defeated at Saints' Passage, 3.3-4; action in West Indies, 56, 73-75; ac- tion of Directory, 72-3 ; in Far East, 179; rejects Ericsson's monitor, 208-10; sympathy with South, 225; intervention prevented by the monitors, 238; World War parallel, 348. Franklin, 295. 366 INDEX Free-trade, 182. French War (1798-1801), 71-75. Fulton, R., 122, 140, 174, 197- 204. Fulton (1st), 202; (2d), 203. Furor, 329, 336. Galena, 231. General Pike, 126, 127. George Wasfimgton, 77-78. Germany, 50, 66, 94, 118, 318- 320, 321, 342, 348-361. <5hent, Treaty of, 138, 148, 155. Gloucester, 336. Goethals, G., 341. Grant, U. S., 258-9, 267, 271, 280, 283. Gray, Robert, 53. Great Britain: defeats Armada, 6-7; defeats Holland, 8-9; defeats France, 9-15; War of Austrian Succession, 10-11; War of Jenkin's Ear, 12; Seven Years' War, 13-14; situation in 1775, 19; attempt to in- vade by Champlain, 23; sends out privateers, 27; navy de- teriorated, 29; strategy against France, 29, 30; Keppel at Ushant, 30; defeated by Des Touches, 31; Cornvsrallis in South, 31; battle of Cape Henry, 31-34; battle of Saints' Passage, 33^; excludes Am. ships, 51; Rule of 1756, 54-6; Polly case, 56-7; Essex case, 57-8; Orders in Council, 58- 69; impressment, 65-8; Chesa- peake-Leopard affair, 67-8; contact of British and Am. navies in Mediterranean, 87; suppresses Barbary pirates, 90; naval policy in 1812-14, 100; how affected by Am. op- erations, 119; blockade of Chesapeake, 119-121; opera- tions in Maine, 120-122; effec- tiveness of blockade, 121-122; shipbuilding race on Lake On- tario, 125-6; York (Toronto) captured, 126; Barclay's mis- takes on Lake Erie, 129-130; battle of Lake Erie, 131-4; Northwest lost, 135-6; at- tempts mission by Lake Cham- plain, 138-9; forces, 139-140; shipbuilding race, 139-141; battle of Lake Champlain, 137-149; capture of Essex, 165-6; interests in S. A., 173-4; Opium War, 176; re- peals trade restrictions, 182; Trent Affair, 221; accepts Union blockade, 222; allows building of Confederate raid- ers, 241-5; stops departure of rams, 245-7; supports Dewey at Manila, 318-19; blockades Germany, 345-6; interprets in- ternational law, 345-8; part in World War, 356, 359. Great Britain, 226. Great Republic, 188. Greece, 3. Griffiths, John W., 188. Growler, 139. Guam, 322, 337, 340. Guantanamo, 332-3, 339-340. Guerriere, 104, 107-9. Hague Peace Conference, First, 300, 325. Hannibal, 3. Hartford, 262, 265, 276, 277, 286, 290, 291. Harvard, 327. Hatteras, 249. Hatteras Inlet, Capture of, 217. Hawaiian Islands, 322-3, 340. Hawkins, John, 7. Hay, John, 320, 321, 340. Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 340-1. INDEX 367 Heligoland, 306. Hilyar, James, 166-8. Hog Island Ship Yard, 359. Holland, 7-9, 29, 44, 177, 357. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, quoted, 260. Hopkins, Esek, 21. Hornet, 110, 115, 116. Howard, of Effingham, 7. Howe, Richard (Adm.), 283. Howe, William (Gen.), 21, 25, 30, 39. Howpll, J. A., 329. Hull, Isaac, 75, 104-109, 136. Hull, William, 124. Hydrographic Office, 190. Impressment, 61, 65-68, 149, 162. Intrepid, 83-7, 89. Island Number 10, 259. Izard, George, 141, 147. Jackson, Andrew, 160, 162-171. James II., 9. James, Reuben, 151. James, W^illiam, 140. Japan, 177-180, 305, 320. Jay's Treaty, 56. Jefferson, Thomas, 61-65, 102. Jenkins's Ear, War of, 12. Jervis, J. (St. Vincent) , 283, 288, 292. John Adams, 170. Jones, Catesby, 175, 234. Jones, Jacob, 90. Jones, John Paul, 22, 35-48, 118. Jones, Willie, 36. Kearney, Philip, 176-7. Kearsarge, 250. Korea, 180. Lackawanna, 277, 280. Lafayette, Marquis de, 169, 284. La Rogue, 10. Lavyremce, 129-135. Lawrence, James, 110, 114, 1 IS- IS, 137. Lee, 21. Lexington, 21. Lightning, 191. Lincoln, A., 230, 232. Linnet, 140, 143-6. Livingston, R. R., 199, 201. Long, J. D., 310. London, Declaration of, 344-5. Louis XIV, 3, 9-14. Louisburg, 12, 13. Luce, S. B., 300. Lusitania, 66, 348-49. McCulloch, 314. McKay, Donald, 188, McKinley, W., 319, 324. McMaster, J. B., quoted, 57. Macdonough, James, 124, 137- 149, 150. Mackenzie, A. S., quoted, 150. Macomb, Alexander, 141, 142. Macedondan, 83-88, 110-14, 153- 4. Madison, James, 155. Mahan, A. T., 3, 10, 16, 26, 212, 222-3, 259, 267, 269, 283, 294, 295, 297 ff., 324, 325, 327, 329. Maine, 310, 327. Mallory, S. R., 227, 228-9. Manassas, 265. Manila Bay, battle of, 315-316; results of, 316-320. Manila, fall of, 317, 337. Manly, John, 21. Mare Island Navy Yard, 295. Maria Teresa, 326, 329, 336. Marquesas Islands, 165, 183. Mason, J. M., 221, 269. Maury, M. F., 190, 191. Mellish, 22. Merchant Marine, a part of sea power, 3-4; whaling in col- onies, 15; important, in col- onies, 17; extent, 18; crews 368 INDEX forced to enlist in army, 22; sudden growth after Revolu- tion, 49-50; disadvantages, 50-51; origin of Constitution, 52; position in 1803, 53; dis- covery of Columbia River, 53; beginning of China trade, 53- 4; Rule of 1756, 54-56; Jay's Treaty, 56 ; troubles ■with France and Barbary, 56; in- crease in tonnage, 56-7 ; U. S. chief carrier of world's trade, 57; "broken" voyage, 56-8; Polly case, 56-7; Essex case, 57-8; Orders in Council, 58; real purpose and effect, 58- 60; Napoleonic Decrees, 59-61; Am. ships start Napoleon's overthrow, 61 ; Jefferson's Em- bargo Act, 61-65; tonnage sta- tistics, 64; growth 1805-1812, 65 ; impressment, 65-68 ; ef- fect of British blockade, 1812- 14, 100, 119-20, 121-22; trade in China, 176-7; Japan opened, 177-180; Korea opened, 180; in Civil War, 214, 216; in Spanish American War, 327- 28; rise during World War, 344, 347; difficulties, 345-8; armed, 350; part in the World War, 357-360; rapid growth, 358-360. Merrimac, reconstruction of, 227- 8; attack on Union fleet, 229 ff. ; battle with Monitor, 234 ff. ; use of, ram, 238. Mexico, invasion of, 225, 238. Mines, submarine, 272, 278-280, 314-15, 354-6. Minnesota, 229. Mississippi, 203, 265, 311. Mobile Bay, 270 ff., 286, 289, 290, 294. Monitor, invented by Ericsson, 204, 208-9; decisive role in Civil War, 226, 236, 238; de- cision to construct, 231 ; ideas of Ericsson on, 234; trip to Hampton Roads, 234; battle with Merrimac, 234 ff. Monitors, 236, 237, 273-4. Monroe Doctrine, 173-4, 238, 300, 320, 321, 339, 342-3. Montauk, 236. Montojo, Admiral, 313, 315, 316. Morocco, see Barbary States. Morris, Robert, 37, 48. Napoleon I, 36-7, 59-61, 93-5, 148, 174, 196. Napoleon III, 225, 238, 268, 270- 1, 280. Nassau, 21. Naval War Board, 300. Naval War College, 300, 301. Navigation Acts, 8-9, 17-18, 51, 182. Navy, U. S.; strength in 1785, 69; in 1805, 90; in 1812, 94; in 1823-60, 172-3; in 1861-5, 215-6, 237; in 1898, 327; in 1918, 359. Nelson, Horatio, 37, 47, 82, 87, 116, 124, 130, 135, 136, 143, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156, 283, 284, 293-4, 295-6, 303-4. 'New Ironsides, 231. New Orleans, 122, 148, 255, 264- 266, 268, 289, 292. Neto York, 333, 336. Niagara, 129-135. Niagara, Fort, 126. Nicaragua, treaty with, 342. Nicholson, 353. Northern Mine Barrage, 352. Ogden, F. B., 205, 206. Olympia, 312, 314, 315. Ontario, Lake, 125-7. Open-Door Policy, 309, 320, 321. Opium War, 176, 187. INDEX 369 Oquendo, 326, 329, 336. Orders in Council, 58-9, 347. Oregon, 53. 175, 187. Oregon, 327 330, 340. Pamlico Sound, 217. Panama, 176, 190. Panama Canal, 323, 324, 338, 343, 358. Paris, Declaration of, 241, 328, 345. Patrick Henry, 229. Peacock (I), 115, 116, 118. Peacock (II), 118. Pensacola, base of Gulf Squad- ron, 217. Pensacola, 263, 265. Perkins, G. H., 266, 278. Perry, M. C, 177, 180. Perry, O. H., 124, 125-136, 137, 148, 158. Peterhoff, 219. Petrel, 314. Philadelphia, 79, 80, 87. Philippines, 312, 314, 319, 322, 337. Phoehe, 106-7. Piatt Amendment, 339. Pluton, 329, 336. Poictiers, 109. Polly, Case of the, 56-7, 346. Porter, David, 74, 90, 155, 160- 171, 182, 284. Porter, D. D., 163, 169, 261, 263, 264, 260, 267. Port Hudson, 268, 289. Port Koyal, 217. Porto Rico, 330, 337, 339. Portsmouth Navy Yard, 295. Preble, William, 79, 89, 137, 153. Preble, 139, 143. President, 73, 110, 148, 154-5. Prevost, George, 131, 140, 141, 142, 146, 147. Princeton, 206, 207, 210, 228, 231. Pring, Daniel, 139. Privateering, 7, 14, 26-7, 118, 119, 101, 239, 240, 253, 328. Propeller, experiments of Fulton, 198; experiments of Ericsson, 204 ; other experiments in, 205. Putin-Bay, 131, 135. Quebec, 13. Queen Charlotte, 129, 135. Quiberon Bay, 13. Raleigh, 314. Ram, 229, 238, 265, 271-2. Ranger, 39, 41, 42. Red Jacket, 191. Red Star Line, 185. Reina Cristina, 315. Reprisal, 21. Revolution, American, sea power decisive in, 10; causes mari- time, 17-18; naval forces com- pared, 19; situation of bellig- erent nations, 19; British strategy, 20; policy of colo- nists, 20-21 ; British supply ships captured, 21-3; evacua- tion of Boston, 22 ; Long Island, 22; Lake Champlain, 22-0; privateering, 26-7; im- portance of French aid, 27-29; French alliance, 28-9; French squadron arrives, 30; battle of Ushant, 30; Spain enters, 31; capture of Cornwallis, 31- 33; battle of Cape Henry, 32- 33. Revolution, Industrial, 204. River Defense Fleet, 258, 260. Roanoke, 234. Roanoke Island, 8. Robertson, John, 144-5. Rodgers, John, 79, 80, 89, 103, 104, 110, 155. 370 INDEX Rodney, George, 33, 37, 135, 235. Rome, 3. Roosevelt, Theodore, 108-9, 140, 146, 148, 310, 333, 338, 340-1, 342. Rule of 1756, 54-6. Russia, 81, 148, 173, 179, 360, 201. Sackett's Harbor, 125-6. Sailing vessels replaced by steam, 195 ff.; see clipper ships. Salem, 185. Samoan Islands, 323. Sampson, W. T., 299, 324, 329, 337. /S'aw Jacinto, 221, 249. Santiago, battle of, 324, 333, 338. Santiago de Cuba, 12. Saratoga, 139, 142, 146. Savannah, 202. Schley, W. S., 299, 329, 337. Sea Powder, Malian its interpre- ter, 3 ; aids democracy, 3, 5 ; definition, 3-5; includes mer- chant marine, 4; influences America, 5; in Revolution, 16- 17; dominates land power, 147; decisive in 1812, 150; maintains Monroe Doctrine, 173^; services in opening trade, 180; in Civil War, 212, 222-4; Mahan on decisiveness during Civil War, 301 ff.; in Spanish-Am. War, 323, 337-8, 343; rules in World War, 346, 348; decisive in World War, 360. Semmes, R., 247-252. Serapis, 43-44. Seven Years' War, 13-14. Shell, explosive, early use of, 229, 230, 235, 288. Shenandoah, 246, 253. Sherman, W. T., 267, 271, 280, 281, 283 Ship-building, 17. Shufeldt, R. W., 180. Side-wheel steamers, 187, 202-3, 203-4, 207. Silborne, 6. Slave Trade, 7, 18, 36. Slidell, J., 221, 269. Sloat, J. D., 175. Somers, Richard, 89, 158. Sovereign of the Seas, 188, 191. Spain, 5, 6, 29, 167, 168, 309- 339. Spanish-American War, causes, 310-10; battle of Manila Bay, 312 ff.; German and British attitude in, 318-32; strategy of, 324; blockade of Cuba, 324- 325; comparison of forces, 327; battle of Santiago, 333- 337 ; peace, 337 ; sea power in, 323, 337-9, 343. Spanish Armada, 7. Springbok, 230, 346. Steam boats, competition with sail, 188. Steam navigation, 174, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201, 205, 206. Stevens, J. C, 198, 201, 205. Stewart, Charles, 84, 103. Stockton, R. F., 206. Stoddert, Benj., 72. Strategy, definition, 94-5. Stringham, S. H., 216. Submarine, 198, 200, 280, 347, 348, 356. Sumter, 247, 248. Surprise, 191. Sussex, 349. :recumseh, 135, 273, 273-5, 293. Tennessee, 270-278. Texas, 330. Thames, battle of, 135. Ticonderoga, 139, 142, 146. Torpedoes, 278-280, 348. Trent affair, 221, 226. INDEX 371 Tripoli, see Barbary States. Truxtun, Thomas, 70, 37-5. Tunis, see Barbary States. Turner, F. J., quoted, 160. Turret, principle of, 204, 208-9, 237-8, 246. Ultimate destination, doctrine of, 219, 220. U. S. Shipping Board, 359, 361. 17-58, 353. Vane, Sir Harry, 8. Varuna, 265. Vernon, Admiral, 12. Vicksburg, capture of, 267. Vincennes, 176. Virgin Islands, 339, 340. Vizcaya, 326, 329. Von Bernstorff, Count, 349. Von Diedrichs, Admiral, 318-19, 323. Von Tirpitz, Admiral, 349, 357. Wachusett, 252, 300. War of 1812, causes, 58, 59, 65-8, 92-3; strategic facts, 93flf.; British blockade, 96-7; American offensive, 97-9; work of American frigates, 101 fif.; extent of American Navy, 102; reasons for commerce raiding, 103; cruise of Rodgers, 104, 110; chase of Constitution, 104-5 ; Constitution-Guerriere, 107-9; Wasp-Frolic, 109-10; United States-M acedonian, 1 10- 113; Constitution-Java, 114- 116; Hornet- Peacock, 116; Chesapeake-Shawnon, 116-118; sloop raiders, 118-119; priva- teers, 118-120; destructive ef- fects of British blockade, 119- 122; British operations in Chesapeake, 119-125; in Maine, 121; effects of British blockade, 121-122; Americans expect easy conquest of Can- ada, 123; advantages in inva- sion, 123-4; loss of Detroit, 124; importance of Lakes Erie and Ontario, 125; shipbuilding race on Lake Ontario, 125-6; capture of York (Toronto), 126; value of large ships, 126- 7; Elliott's work on Lake Erie, 127-8; Perry succeeds Elliott, 128; Perry's ship- building, 128-9; Barclay's mis- takes, 129-130; Perry's ships leave Erie, 130-131; Barclay forced to fight, 131; battle of Lake Erie, 131-134; contro- versy between Perry and Elli- ott, 134-5; results of battle, 135-6; battle of Lake Cham- plain, 137-149; importance of Lake Champlain, 138-9; forces compared, 139-140; shipbuild- ing race, 139-141 ; land opera- tions, 141-142; plan of battle, 142-143; Macdonough winds Saratoga, 144-5; losses, 146; results, 146-9; cruise of Essex, 163-7; World War parallels with 1812, 344-48; interpreta- tions of international law, 345-8; referred to, 303. Warren, Adm., 101, 113, 119-20. Washington, burnt in 1814, 120- 21. Washington, George, navy in Revolution, 16, note; sends out Lee, 21; forces British out of Boston, 22; at battle of Long Island, 22; captures Corn- wallis, 32-3; realizes import- ance of navy, 32, 33; referred to, 137, 160. Washington, Lawrence, 12. Wasp (I), 109-110, 118. Wasp (II), 118. 372 INDEX Watt, James, 196, 198, 204. Webb, 188. Webster, Daniel, 177. Weehawken, 237. Welles, G., 213, 356. Wellington, Duke of, 141, 146-7, 158. West, influence of, 160-61; de- velopment of, 174-5. West Indies, 17-18. Whaling, 15, 183. Wilkes, C, 221. William II, 3, 305-6, 321. Wilmington, importance to Lee, 222. Wilson, Woodrow, 344, 349. Worden, J. L., 234. World War, a maritime strug- gle, 344; similarity to 1812, 344; changes in international law in 1914, 344-5; difficulties of U. S. as a neutral, 345- 350; with Great Britain, 345- 348; with Germany, 348-350; sinking of Falaia, 348 ; of Lusitama, 348-9; Sussex, 349; imrestricted submarine war- fare, 349-50; U. S. breaks off diplomatic relations with Ger- many, 350; arms merchant- men, 350; declares war, 350; maritime causes, 350-1 ; mari- time situation in 1917, 351-2; submarine sinkings, 351-2; American objectives, 352; work of destroyers, 352-3; of sub- marine chasers, 353^; subma- rines on American coast, 355; convoy system, 355 ; Northern Mine Barrage, 355-6; ship- building in U. S., 357-9; armistice, 359-60; surrender of German Navy, 359; American sea power decisive, 360; re- ferred to, 3, 58, 66, 92, 321, 342. Wyoming, 250'. Xerxes, 3. Yeo, James, 125, 137, 146. York (Toronto), 125-6. 'y^'^^'v^ii/^AA