Thomas Benton - Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

The frigate having escaped, the Commodore, regardless of his broken leg, hauled up to its course in pursuit of the Jamaica fleet, and soon got information that it consisted of eighty-five sail, and was under convoy of four men-of-war; one of them a two-decker, another a frigate; and that he was on its track. Passing Newfoundland and finding the sea well sprinkled with the signs of West India fruit – orange peels, cocoanut shells, pine-apple rinds, &c. – the Commodore knew himself to be in the wake of the fleet, and made every exertion to come up with it before it could reach the chops of the channel: but in vain. When almost in sight of the English coast, and no glimpse obtained of the fleet, he was compelled to tack, run south: and, after an extended cruise, return to the United States.

The Commodore had missed the two great objects of his ambition – the fleet and the frigate; but the cruise was not barren either in material or moral results. Seven British merchantmen were captured – one American recaptured – the English coast had been approached. With impunity an American frigate – one of those insultingly styled "fir-built, with a bit of striped bunting at her mast-head," – had almost looked into that narrow channel which is considered the sanctum of a British ship. An alarm had been spread, and a squadron of seven men-of-war (four of them frigates and one a sixty-four gun ship) were assembled to capture him; one of them the Belvidera, which had escaped at the bursting of the President's gun, and spread the news of her being at sea.

It was a great honor to Commodore Rodgers to send such a squadron to look after him; and became still greater to Captain Hull, in the Constitution, who escaped from it after having been almost surrounded by it. It was evening when this captain began to fall in with that squadron, and at daylight found himself almost encompassed by it – three ahead and four astern. Then began that chase which continued seventy-two hours, in which seven pursued one, and seemed often on the point of closing on their prize; in which every means of progress, from reefed topsails to kedging and towing, was put into requisition by either party – the one to escape, the other to overtake; in which the stern-chasers of one were often replying to the bow-chasers of the other; and the greatest precision of manœuvring required to avoid falling under the guns of some while avoiding those of others; and which ended with putting an escape on a level with a great victory. Captain Hull brought his vessel safe into port, and without the sacrifice of her equipment – not an anchor having been cut away, boat stove, or gun thrown overboard to gain speed by lightening the vessel. It was a brilliant result, with all the moral effects of victory, and a splendid vindication of the policy of cruising – showing that we had seamanship to escape the force which we could not fight.

Commodore Rodgers made another extended cruise during this war, a circuit of eight thousand miles, traversing the high seas, coasting the shores of both continents, searching wherever the cruisers or merchantmen of the enemy were expected to be found; capturing what was within his means, avoiding the rest. A British government packet, with nearly $300,000 in specie, was taken; many merchantmen were taken; and, though an opportunity did not offer to engage a frigate of equal or nearly equal force, and to gain one of those electrifying victories for which our cruisers were so remarkable, yet the moral effect was great – demonstrating the ample capacity of an American frigate to go where she pleased in spite of the "thousand ships of war" of the assumed mistress of the seas; carrying damage and alarm to the foe, and avoiding misfortune to itself.

At the attempt of the British upon Baltimore Commodore Rodgers was in command of the maritime defences of that city, and, having no means of contending with the British fleet in the bay, he assembled all the seamen of the ships-of-war and of the flotilla, and entered judiciously into the combinations for the land defence.

Humane feeling was a characteristic of this brave officer, and was verified in all the relations of his life, and in his constant conduct. Standing on the bank of the Susquehanna river, at Havre de Grace, one cold winter day, the river flooded and filled with floating ice, he saw (with others), at a long distance, a living object – discerned to be a human being – carried down the stream. He ventured in, against all remonstrance, and brought the object safe to shore. It was a colored woman – to him a human being, doomed to a frightful death unless relieved; and heroically relieved at the peril of his own life. He was humane in battle. That was shown in the affair of the Little Belt – chased, hailed, fought (the year before the war), and compelled to answer the hail, and tell who she was, with expense of blood, and largely; but still the smallest possible quantity that would accomplish the purpose. The encounter took place in the night, and because the British captain would not answer the American hail. Judging from the inferiority of her fire that he was engaged with an unequal antagonist, the American Commodore suspended his own fire, while still receiving broadsides from his arrogant little adversary; and only resumed it when indispensable to his own safety, and the enforcement of the question which he had put. An answer was obtained after thirty-one had been killed or wounded on board the British vessel; and this at six leagues from the American coast: and, the doctrine of no right to stop a vessel on the high seas to ascertain her character not having been then invented, no political consequence followed this bloody enforcement of maritime police – exasperated against each other as the two nations were at the time.

At the death of Decatur, killed in that lamentable duel, I have heard Mr. Randolph tell, and he alone could tell it, of the agony of Rodgers as he stood over his dying friend, in bodily contention with his own grief – convulsed within, calm without; and keeping down the struggling anguish of the soul by dint of muscular power.

That feeling heart was doomed to suffer a great agony in the untimely death of a heroic son, emulating the generous devotion of the father, and perishing in the waves, in vain efforts to save comrades more exhausted than himself; and to whom he nobly relinquished the means of his own safety. It was spared another grief of a kindred nature (not having lived to see it), in the death of another heroic son, lost in the sloop-of-war Albany, in one of those calamitous founderings at sea in which the mystery of an unseen fate deepens the shades of death, and darkens the depths of sorrow – leaving the hearts of far distant friends a prey to a long agony of hope and fear – only to be solved in an agony still deeper.

Commodore Rodgers died at the head of the American navy, without having seen the rank of Admiral established in our naval service, for which I voted when senator, and hoped to have seen conferred on him, and on others who have done so much to exalt the name of their country; and which rank I deem essential to the good of the service, even in the cruising system I deem alone suitable to us.

The death of Mr. Jonathan Cilley, a representative in Congress from the State of Maine, killed in a duel with rifles, with Mr. Graves of Kentucky, led to the passage of an act with severe penalties against duelling, in the District of Columbia, or out of it upon agreement within the District. The penalties were – death to all the survivors, when any one was killed: a five years imprisonment in the penitentiary for giving or accepting a challenge. Like all acts passed under a sudden excitement, this act was defective, and more the result of good intentions than of knowledge of human nature. Passions of the mind, like diseases of the body, are liable to break out in a different form when suppressed in the one they had assumed. No physician suppresses an eruption without considering what is to become of the virus which is escaping, if stopped and confined to the body: no legislator should suppress an evil without considering whether a worse one is at the same time planted. I was a young member of the general assembly of Tennessee (1809), when a most worthy member (Mr. Robert C. Foster), took credit to himself for having put down billiard tables in Nashville. Another most worthy member (General Joseph Dixon) asked him how many card tables he had put up in their place? This was a side of the account to which the suppressor of billiard tables had not looked: and which opened up a view of serious consideration to every person intrusted with the responsible business of legislation – a business requiring so much knowledge of human nature, and so seldom invoking the little we possess. It has been on my mind ever since; and I have had constant occasions to witness its disregard – and seldom more lamentably than in the case of this anti-duelling act. It looked to one evil, and saw nothing else. It did not look to the assassinations, under the pretext of self-defence, which were to rise up in place of the regular duel. Certainly it is deplorable to see a young man, the hope of his father and mother – a ripe man, the head of a family – an eminent man, necessary to his country – struck down in the duel; and should be prevented if possible. Still this deplorable practice is not so bad as the bowie knife, and the revolver, and their pretext of self-defence – thirsting for blood. In the duel, there is at least consent on both sides, with a preliminary opportunity for settlement, with a chance for the law to arrest them, and room for the interposition of friends as the affair goes on. There is usually equality of terms; and it would not be called an affair of honor, if honor was not to prevail all round; and if the satisfying a point of honor, and not vengeance, was the end to be attained. Finally, in the regular duel, the principals are in the hands of the seconds (for no man can be made a second without his consent); and as both these are required by the duelling code (for the sake of fairness and humanity), to be free from ill will or grudge towards the adversary principal, they are expected to terminate the affair as soon as the point of honor is satisfied – and, the less the injury, so much the better. The only exception to these rules is, where the principals are in such relations to each other as to admit of no accommodation, and the injury such as to admit of no compromise. In the knife and revolver business, all this is different. There is no preliminary interval for settlement – no chance for officers of justice to intervene – no room for friends to interpose. Instead of equality of terms, every advantage is sought. Instead of consent, the victim is set upon at the most unguarded moment. Instead of satisfying a point of honor, it is vengeance to be glutted. Nor does the difference stop with death. In the duel, the unhurt principal scorns to continue the combat upon his disabled adversary: in the knife and revolver case, the hero of these weapons continues firing and stabbing while the prostrate body of the dying man gives a sign of life. In the duel the survivor never assails the character of the fallen: in the knife and revolver case, the first movement of the victor is to attack the character of his victim – to accuse him of an intent to murder; and to make out a case of self-defence, by making out a case of premeditated attack against the other. And in such false accusation, the French proverb is usually verified – the dead and the absent are always in the wrong .