by Ian W. Toll
But when Truxtun read Barry’s praise of the United States, his competitive impulses came to the surface. He told Stoddert not to believe Barry’s “Bombastical Nonsense” about the Philadelphia-built frigate. The Constellation, Truxtun predicted, would prove faster than her sisters. “[I]n no Instance of Chase during our Cruize, was half our Canvass necessary, to overhawll the fastest sailing Vessel we met, some of which were termed before Flyers. Should we therefore meet the United States and Constitution, you need not be surprized if you hear that in going by or large, she outsails them both….[Constellation] is in every Situation the easiest Ship I ever was in.”
Though they were reluctant to admit it, the captains and officers had themselves to blame for the uneven performance of the frigates in their early cruises. They tended to favor very large masts and spars and very heavy, high-caliber cannon. Towering masts and spars, they reasoned, would allow a ship to spread more canvas, presumably giving her more speed. More and bigger guns would give her added hitting power in combat. But these advantages came at a cost to a vessel’s seaworthiness. In heavy weather, an overloaded frigate would ship big waves through her gunports and hawseholes. When pressed with sail, she would heel sickeningly to leeward, her deck sloping like the roof of a house, her mainchains burying themselves in the sea. British naval officers, with their hard-earned experience, tended to avoid overmasting and overarming their men-of-war. The Americans had not yet learned the lesson.
John Barry was the most culpable of the captains. He had been determined to outfit the United States with a huge rig, and the War Office had indulged him. After her shakedown cruise, Humphreys urged that the ship be brought back up the Delaware to be refitted with smaller masts. “It is the opinion of almost all the officers except Capt Barry that the United States is overmasted,” he told a colleague; “I am of opinion it will be best to reduce them.” Barry had even gone so far as to have a wheelhouse constructed on his ship’s quarterdeck, an addition that his colleagues judged superfluous.
Truxtun lectured the Baltimore Navy Agent, who was at work converting merchantmen into sloops of war, on the “great Folly” of overarming. Mounting excessively heavy guns, he warned, rendered a warship “labour-some and crank…and after all these Disadvantages, it has been often proved that much greater Execution is done by a few Pieces of Artillery well served, than by many….” Truxtun was not yet ready to admit that the Constellation, with her battery of 24-pounders—each gun was eight feet long and weighed 4,500 pounds—was herself too heavily armed.
AFTER A BRIEF INTERLUDE at Norfolk, Truxtun got the Constellation back to sea. His orders were to sail to Cuba in order to rescue a fleet of sixty to eighty stranded American merchantmen. Reports had indicated that Havana was blockaded by an armada of some thirty or forty French privateers, evidently preparing to seize the American vessels the moment they put to sea. When Constellation arrived in Cuban waters after an uneventful passage, however, there were no enemy vessels in sight. She brought home a large convoy of American vessels, weathered a fierce Atlantic gale, and anchored safely in Hampton Roads on October 27. Truxtun told Stoddert, with a shade of disappointment, that every vessel he had spoken off the North American coast had “neither seen or heard of any French Cruizers…. [T]hat they are therefore all to the Southward…you may depend.”
Stoddert had already reached the same conclusion: the French privateers that had posed such a menace in the spring had obviously withdrawn from the North American coast. Although the earliest naval patrols had captured less than half a dozen enemy privateers, they had secured the sea-lanes out of the major American seaports. Their success could be quantified in the falling premiums for marine insurance. For voyages departing to the West Indies, premiums had fallen from a peak of 30 percent to a range of 10 to 20 percent. As the year 1798 drew to a close, pro-navy Federalists could argue with some justification that the navy had already paid for itself.
Stoddert had a more ambitious operation in mind for the next stage of what would come to be called the Quasi War. He planned to establish a permanent American naval presence in the Leeward Islands. This would convert the conflict from a defensive operation on the American coast into a war of aggression against the bases of French privateering. It would also demonstrate that the navy was something more than a private marine police force whose deployments could be dictated by merchant interests in Salem, Philadelphia, and New York. Inundated with requests for convoys to more distant regions of the world, such as the Mediterranean and the Baltic, Stoddert refused them all. His priority was to suppress privateering in the Caribbean, and substantially all his forces would be concentrated there. “It seems in vain to guard our Merchants’ vessels on our own Coasts, if we suffer them to be taken about the Islands,” Stoddert wrote Adams, who was summering in Quincy. “By keeping up incessant attacks upon the French Cruisers on their own ground, they will in a degree at least be prevented from coming on ours.”
The main focus of a southern deployment, Stoddert said, should be the French island colony of Guadaloupe. “From information which cannot be doubted, the French have from 60 to 80 Privateers out of the little Island of Guadaloupe. That Island is plentifully supplied with Provisions by means of the Captures they make.” Several nearby islands remained in English hands, and could serve as bases from which American warships could provide southbound and northbound convoys for American merchantmen.
The big American frigates were too heavy to chase small privateers into shoal water, and would therefore have to be supported by smaller armed vessels. Truxtun proposed outfitting a fleet of shallow-draft schooners that could pursue a fleeing privateer close inshore, and could be propelled with sweeps (oars) in a calm. A few such vessels dispatched to cruise between Matanzas and Havana, he wrote, would have “ten Times the Chance of a Frigate, or any other large Ship in making Captures…it will knock up the Privateering System altogether.”
Stoddert had overseen the conversion of several small merchantmen and sloops of war, and there would be an adequate number of smaller vessels to suit the purpose. But the frigates would fulfill a vital purpose in the West Indies as well. Only the frigates could demonstrate to the privateers that the American force was a real navy, akin to that of Great Britain or France itself. Moreover, there were persistent rumors of French frigates operating in the Leewards. Two were said to be outfitting in one of the harbors of Guadaloupe. If Truxtun could confirm these reports, Stoddert said, he should attempt to bring an enemy frigate to action, for “it would be glorious if you could devise a plan for capturing these frigates.”
Truxtun would take command of a small squadron comprising the Constellation and three smaller warships. He would set up a base of operations on the island of St. Christopher’s (better known by the nickname the English had given it: “St. Kitts”), and cruise “as far Leeward as Porto Rico, paying attention to St. Martins and that Group of Islands called the Virgin Gorda; and wherever else between St Christophers & Porto Rico your judgment shall direct you.” Truxtun was ordered to coordinate with John Barry, who would command a larger squadron consisting of the United States, the Constitution, and “several ships of considerable force” to be based further south, in the Windward Islands, at Prince Rupert’s Bay in the island of Dominica.
Captured French privateersmen were entitled to all the same rights as prisoners of war. In the West Indies, however, the distinction between a privateer and a pirate was sometimes doubtful. Any crew of an armed vessel unable to produce a privateering commission would be considered as pirates, and the penalty for piracy was known throughout the seafaring world. “Nothing is said in your instructions respecting pirates,” Truxtun’s orders read. “You know how to treat them.”
TRUXTUN WAS NOT SURPRISED when a delegation of Norfolk merchants asked for permission to attach their vessels, like barnacles, to the outbound Constellation. In the six months since her shakedown cruise, the ship had never once sailed from any port without a convoy of merchantmen in her wake. This was t
he heart of winter, however, and only a few hardy merchantmen were sailing—the convoy would number four vessels. The frigate and her little fleet put to sea late in the afternoon on the last day of the year 1798. “We bade farewell to the United States with three hearty cheers, [and] resolved to conquer the French, or die,” wrote ship’s cooper Elijah Shaw. As the New Year dawned, with fresh breezes and a head sea, Constellation swayed up her topgallant masts, unbent her cables, stowed her anchors, housed her guns, and signaled the convoy to sail in close order.
The weather was uncharacteristically mild for the season, with variable winds and “smooth water.” Truxtun grew frustrated with the sluggish merchantmen in the Constellation’s wake. On January 10, 1799, reaching the end of his patience with the incompetent maneuvers of the schooner Little John, he “gave Directions to the Officer of the Watch to inform him, if he did not make more Sail, and pay Attention to our Motions, I would fire into him.”
Thirteen days out of Norfolk, the Constellation’s lookout raised the island of Antigua. Truxtun hailed the British man-of-war Concorde and learned from her captain that two French frigates had been seen in the harbor at Guadaloupe. On January 17, having parted ways with the convoy and struggled against adverse winds, the Constellation arrived at Basseterre Roads, St. Kitts. She dropped her anchor in ten fathoms of water, about half a mile from the town.
Basseterre was a typical Caribbean landscape. Windswept palm trees leaned over beaches littered with coconuts. A brilliant sapphire bay met an almost blinding expanse of white sand. The town was a low cluster of stone buildings just beyond the beach, backed by a patchwork of cane fields and plantation houses further up the hill. A tropical forest, inhabited by a noisy army of monkeys, rose steeply up to the 3,792-foot peak of Mount Liamuiga, a dormant volcano. St. Kitts was one of Horatio Nelson’s old haunts. As a young captain commanding the Royal Navy’s Leeward Islands Squadron in 1787 he had rendezvoused in this very harbor, and he had married his wife, Fanny, on the adjacent island of Nevis.
Basseterre Roads was not a good natural harbor. It was little more than a dent in the otherwise smooth coastline that ran along the western side of the island. There was no pier—visitors were obliged to run their boats directly onto the beach, sometimes surfing in on waves that broke heavily as they reached the shore. Basseterre had been chosen as Truxtun’s rendezvous because of its proximity to the privateering hub at Guadaloupe. Were it not for the strategic location of St. Kitts, the commodore would certainly have preferred English Harbour in neighboring Antigua.
At some point shortly before or after his arrival, Truxtun learned of the capture of the U.S. naval schooner Retaliation. The Retaliation had been commanded by Lieutenant William Bainbridge, a twenty-four-year-old native of Princeton, New Jersey. She had been cruising just to the east of Guadaloupe at dawn on November 20 when her lookout sighted three sails in the east southeast. By their towering pyramids of canvas it was obvious that two of the strangers were frigates. Bainbridge mistakenly assumed them to be English ships that were known to be operating in the Leewards. He did not take evasive maneuvers until the Retaliation was directly under their guns. They were the French frigates Le Volontaire, 40 guns, and L’Insurgente, 36 guns. When L’Insurgente fired into the much lighter Retaliation, Bainbridge realized he was hopelessly outgunned, and hauled down the colors. It was the first time since the end of the Revolutionary War that an American man-of-war had surrendered to an enemy. Her officers were held as prisoners on board the French frigates and her crew thrown into a “loathsome prison” in Guadaloupe.
From the British governor, who invited him to dine, Truxtun learned that Le Volontaire was still at Guadaloupe, and that L’Insurgente had sailed. L’Insurgente was thought to have set out for France with the deposed governor of Guadaloupe, Victor Hughes, but this report would soon prove false.
TRUXTUN SPENT HIS FIRST WEEKS in the Leeward Islands arranging the details of the convoy system. Barry’s squadron would provide convoys to American merchantmen from the Windward Islands to a safe anchorage in St. Kitts. From there, Truxtun’s squadron would assume responsibility to convoy them to the relatively safe waters north of the Bahamas. All of the warships under Truxtun’s command would be deployed in convoy duty, but whenever left idle they would cruise the Leeward passages and hunt enemy privateers.
Within three weeks of his arrival on the station, Truxtun had dispatched three convoys to the north. Although the convoys were effective in securing the sea-lanes, Truxtun was impatient for action, and was not content to keep his frigate at anchor. Constellation cruised north for a few days, to the waters around Antigua, St. Eustatius, St. Bartholomew, and St. Martin; and then to the south of Montserrat. She circumnavigated the island of Guadeloupe, flying her colors, keeping carefully out of range of the enemy guns, but close enough to tempt them.
With a few exceptions, Constellation’s lieutenants and midshipmen had been serving under Truxtun since the frigate’s maiden cruise the previous summer. In the commodore’s view, there should no longer be any confusion about what was expected of each officer. Now, when an officer disappointed Truxtun, he was rebuked in strong personal terms. A young midshipman named John Dent received this jolt from Truxtun as the Constellation was patrolling off the coast of Guadaloupe:
You have paid so little Attention to the Rules and Regulations of the Navy, and to the general Duty assigned you in your Station, on Board this Ship as a Midshipman, that I have almost been induced to send you Home…you have been so very inattentive to Orders, and your own Improvement, and even Careless in your Person, that I have been ashamed to see you on the Quarter Deck.
Was my own Son…to act as you have done, contrary to Example, and the most wholesome Advice, I should not only dismiss him from the Service, but I believe I should disinherit [him], and let him shift for himself.
Midshipman Dent remained on the ship, however, and his performance must have improved, because he was soon promoted to lieutenant, and would eventually rise to the rank of captain.
On February 2, with the winds “baffling and light,” Constellation tacked into St. Pine Harbor on Guadaloupe, hugging the southern shore so as to remain out of range of the French harbor guns. The battery opened fire, lobbing a few heavy iron balls into the sea, all of which splashed short of the target. Truxtun counted the shot and waited for the battery to fall silent. Then the Constellation answered with exactly twice the number of guns, her shot also falling short. While this ineffectual exchange was taking place, the lookout hailed the deck to report a convoy of seven sail away to the south southwest, and Truxtun ordered the Constellation to make sail in chase. The first ship in the convoy proved to be a British man-of-war, the Elliot, bound for Liverpool; she was very kindly convoying a number of Americans out of hostile waters. Constellation had been diligent in running down every sail on the horizon, but all were American or British, none French. Her run of bad luck seemed relentless. She returned to St. Kitts for water and provisions.
The United States was in the passage from Barbados to Martinique with a convoy of ten sail in her wake. That morning at eight, she bore off to chase a schooner sighted to leeward, and by three in the afternoon had almost overtaken her. The chase proved to be a 6-gun privateer, L’Amour de la Patrie, which made a reckless attempt to escape by hauling her wind and sailing directly under the frigate’s guns at pistol-shot range. The United States fired three 24-pound balls at the fleeing schooner. The third passed “through and through,” blasting holes through both of the schooner’s sides. L’Amour de la Patrie rapidly filled with water and began to sink. One of the officers aboard the United States recalled that the privateersmen “set up the most lamentable howl I ever heard; and though it’s said [the French] have abolished all religion, they have not forgot the old way of imploring the protection of the omnipotent, with gestures, professions, and protestations.” Boats were lowered and all sixty of the crew were saved.
The Constellation returned to sea on February 6. On the eighth, Tr
uxtun noted in his journal: “Very squally disagreeable Weather all these twenty four Hours, with Rain and a Head Sea.” The crew was set to knotting and splicing as the frigate stood on her tacks between Barbuda and St. Bartholomew’s, with no vessels in sight. For two days the horizon was strangely clear of any sails; but at midday on February 9, about five or six leagues northeast of the island of Nevis—Alexander Hamilton’s birthplace—the lookout hailed the deck to report that he could see a single ship in the south, hull down and standing to westward. The Constellation immediately hauled her wind and gave chase. Scrutinizing the stranger through his long glass, Truxtun could see that she was a very large ship, with a soaring pyramid of canvas. In his journal he noted: “I take her for a ship of war.”
At half past twelve, just minutes after she was sighted, the stranger altered course, bringing the wind onto her quarter and standing to the northwest. She soon passed under the Constellation’s lee, at a distant of about five leagues. With aggressive maneuvering it was within Truxtun’s power to bring her into action. He did not know what ship she was—she could be English or even one of the Constellation’s sister frigates—but he was determined to close to signaling distance, if not closer.
Although Truxtun did not yet know it, the chase was the French 36-gun frigate L’Insurgente, the ship that had fired into and captured the American naval schooner Retaliation in November. She was reputed to be one of the fastest ships in the French navy. Rather than sailing for Europe as Truxtun had been led to believe, she had sailed north into the Bahamas to hunt British merchantmen. Three weeks earlier, she had been chased by the Constitution, but managed to escape.
