1807 - Damn the Democrats
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2023 12:20 am
1807 – Damn the Democrats
USS Chesapeake, June 22, 1807
The True Sailormen were a breed apart, living in a world that their land-bound contemporaries could not understand for they lacked the shared experiences that made the True Sailormen what they were. Nowhere was the ignorance of the landsmen more apparent when they discussed the crews of the ships that were the world of the True Sailormen. They referred to officers and men assuming these were two distinct groups, differentiated by class, education, and status. Isolated by a barrier that separated those who were officers and gentlemen from those who were neither. In reality, the crew of every ship was a confused, diverse group where lines of authority were divided in untidy, ambiguous ways. The glue that held the company together was not the officers or the discipline they imposed, but a group of men who were more than ratings but less than officers. They were the Chiefs and the truth was they ran the ship. Every wise officer knew it, every True Sailorman knew it. The officers decided where the ship was to go but the Chiefs made sure she got there.
Chesapeake was moving. After four years laid up in ordinary, she had been recommissioned for a two-year assignment as the flagship of Commodore James Barron in the Mediterranean. The Senior Chief could feel the ship’s urgency, her joy at being back in her element radiating from every timber of her being. She wasn't the only one who felt that way, for the Senior Chief shared her delight for he was back where he belonged, in the wooden world of the fighting warship. He could hear the creak and groan of the timbers as they moved with the ageless pressures of the sea, hear the rush of the water as it passed along the hull. He could smell the wood, the tar, the ropes, and canvas up aloft, the stores of food and beer down below. And the sharp tang of the gunpowder that gave Chesapeake her teeth. He could see the wood that surrounded them all, the sturdy, comforting timbers that protected them against the elements and the ravages of war. Good, strong timbers that were tougher than those used by any other Navy in the world. Even the mighty Royal Navy didn't have timber like this. They had the numbers though, and the arrogance that went with being the undisputed Sovereign of the world's seas.
The Senior Chief was a happy man, not just from the sheer joy of being back at sea where he belonged. It was because he was on borrowed time, at his age a man should be losing his strength, his suppleness, his keen sense of balance and position that allowed a man to live in the dangerous environment of a warship. Hauling sail, and working the guns, all required a young man's strength. The British recruited their sailors young for just that reason, so rare in years that most of their ships carried a schoolmaster who would teach the youngsters their letters while the True Sailormen taught them their trade. Four years ago, when he stepped ashore from his last ship, the Senior Chief had guessed that he’d never sail again. That he'd end his career beached, too old to go to sea, too old to do anything else.
He had his money though, and it was enough to buy a small home in Jamestown and employ an amiable widow who'd kept house for him. And if they'd kept each other company in the cold of the winter, well, whose business was that but theirs? It was those quiet times that had first suggested that he had been privileged more than he knew. It wasn't as if he was a young man still but he still had his health and vigor. And he had something else, something he kept quiet about. He still had his teeth. Seamen lost theirs, from scurvy, from blows in a drunken brawl, from an accident, or just worn down by the hard food. He still had his and not by chance. Like everybody else, he'd lost teeth in his adult life, but unlike everybody else, they'd grown back. Just like his lost teeth had grown back when he had been a child. All his teeth were present and as perfect as they’d ever been. It was that, and the feeling he had perhaps one good cruise left in him that had caused him to leave his house and his widow in Jamestown and sign on for Chesapeake. The feeling had been right, despite his years, he still had what he needed to be a True Sailorman.
One more cruise and perhaps, dared he hope, one beyond that?
Still, the future held what the future held. He had this cruise to worry about and that was enough. Chesapeake wasn't just heading out for two years in the Mediterranean, loaded with all the supplies and goods needed for the lengthy spell on a foreign station. She was also carrying several important passengers and their belongings. In their eyes at least, their possessions and convenience took priority over the battle-readiness of American warships that were not sailing through hostile waters - and sometimes when they were. Looking around him, the Senior Chief could see the result of that convention. Her decks were littered with unstowed gear, chests of personal goods no doubt of great importance to their owners but a confounded nuisance to men trying to handle their ship in a seaway. Below decks, it was worse, much worse. Most of the stores had not been stowed away and still littered the gun decks. Chesapeake's teeth, her twenty-eight long 24 pounders, and her eighteen long 12 pounders were drawn, secured in the middle of the gun decks, here and below, surrounded by kegs of beer and beef, of pork and biscuits and pees, everything a ship needed to feed a hungry crew. To feed them, yes, but to fight?
That would take a skilled crew, to clear the decks, run out the guns and take on an enemy. A skilled crew was just what Chesapeake did not have. Four years laid up in ordinary and that wasn’t unusual. It was the fault of President Jefferson and his Democrat party. Their belief in the virtues of an agrarian economy, strict constructionism, and a small and weak government led to the principle of keeping a small navy. That had been a disaster for the American merchant shipping fleet. For the first five years of the century, protected by the big frigates only fifty-nine American merchant ships had fallen captive to Britain. With the frigates gone, the last two years had seen four hundred and sixty-nine ships, or approximately half the merchant fleet, fell into British hands. And Jefferson's response? The construction of a fleet of small gunboats.
GUNBOATS! The Senior Chief almost spat the word out. One frigate had the gun power of forty gunboats, and with their thin planking and low decks exposed to gunfire, gunboats stood little chance of survival when faced with a real warship and the Good Lord knew that the British were not short of real warships. The gunboats couldn't even sail out of sight of land, let alone protect the straggling remnants of the merchant fleet. Only a fool, an imbecile, an amateur, believed that gunboats could fight a real naval war. If the British struck with all the fury they were capable of, the gunboats would be swept away like chaff. Real wars were fought by real warships and real warships were manned by real crews. True Sailormen who knew what a ship was and how she should be worked. That was the real fault of the gunboats, not that they were a useless expensive folly, but that they didn't train True Sailormen. Now, when the big ships were being recommissioned, the crews were not there to man them. Suddenly, the US Navy realized why the British ran an Impressment Service.
Impressment, now there was a problem. The British believed they had a God-given right to stop any ship they pleased and take off prime seamen for their crews. Some of those seamen were Americans and, of course, they'd deserted at the first opportunity. There were four of them on Chesapeake now. William Ware was one, a Marylander and an old Chesapeake hand. He'd served 18 months on her previous commission. Daniel Martin, a black Massachusetter, was another. He and Ware had been taken off the brig Neptune by the British frigate Melampus fifteen months before despite having their protections. John Strachan, another Marylander, had been taken by Melampus as well along with John Little. Finally, there was reputed to be a real Englishman aboard, under an assumed name of course. The problem was Chesapeake depended on those men, and others like them, for the hardcore experience to offset her shorthanded and untrained crew. The British equally depended on such men and they wanted them back. The issue had been raised earlier and there’d been a diplomatic settlement, but the Senior Chief was betting that wouldn't hold out of sight of land. The pricking of his thumbs told him that.
"You, MacDonald, Main gun deck now. On the double." The Senior Chief had picked his man with care. Robert MacDonald was a new recruit, still technically a landsman on his first cruise. But he had all the markings of a True Sailorman, he was learning his ropes and sails with uncanny skill and was as cat-footed as any up aloft. He had a presence as well, even more, skilled men instinctively looked to him as a leader, as a man whose judgment they could trust. He'd be a Senior Chief himself one day, and that day was not so very far off. The Senior Chief looked on MacDonald with a fondness for the young man was a child of the sea as well and, perhaps, the son that the Senior Chief had never had.
The gun deck was a shambles, even worse than the Senior Chief had feared. "MacDonald, get a working party together, clear the guns immediately. Starboard first, if they come after us, it'll be from the seaside, not the land. Make sure we can run out the guns that side if we have to." Around them, the crew took note, that MacDonald might be a landsman still but he had the Senior Chief's confidence and, in this matter, spoke with his voice. The working party would be assembled quickly and do their job fast.
Clearing the guns being well underway, the Senior Chief returned to deck only the difference this time was very noticeable. Instead of a crew, a green and untrained crew perhaps but still a crew, going about their duties, there was an air of tension, almost of expectancy, for off the Chesapeake’s starboard was another warship, one flying the White Ensign. The Senior Chief took in her configuration almost by instinct, a fourth rate, a 50-gun two-decker. An obsolete type by most reckonings, the big American frigates could outgun and outsail them. The Senior Chief also took in her lines and the features on her that made her unique. Some of them, he couldn’t name but they were there, nonetheless. The British fourth-rate was HMS Leopard. A station ship, what we she doing here? Then the Senior Chief looked again and he knew the answer. Leopard had her gun ports open. As if to confirm his thoughts, he heard the loud-hailer message from the British ship.
"The Captain of his Britannic Majesty's Ship Leopard has the honor to advise the Captain of the United States' frigate Chesapeake, an order from the Honorable Vice-Admiral Berkeley, Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's Ships on the North American station, respecting the recovery of some deserters from ships under his command, and supposed now to be serving as part of the crew of the Chesapeake.
The Senior Chief looked to the quarter deck. Commodore Barron had been in his quarters, sick. Now he was on deck and his reply rang across the water. "I know of no such men as you describe; the officers that were on the recruiting service for this ship were particularly instructed by the Government, through me, not to enter any Deserters from his Britannic Majesty's ships; nor do I know of any being here. I am also instructed, never to permit the crew of any ship that I command, to be mustered by any other but their officers."
The Senior Chief nodded, that was the spirit, the British might think themselves the Masters of the Ocean, but the seas were free to all and no man should step on the Flag. As he watched, Leopard surged ahead, her sails billowing then backed a topsail and waited until the Chesapeake came down upon her. As the two ships closed, a boom and a cloud of smoke issued from the British rear, a splash in front of Chesapeake’s bows. An unambiguous signal to halt and be boarded. The Senior Chief looked hard, marveling that his years hadn't dimmed his sight, and saw the lines down Leopard's side. She'd run out her guns, all of them. Almost without thinking, the Senior Chief ran for the quarter-deck.
"Captain, Sir, we're clearing the main gundeck now, we should have our starboard broadside serviceable soon. Permission to open our gunports, Sir?" The Senior Chief guessed that would make the British hang back, buy a little more time for MacDonald's working parties to clear the deck, to ready Chesapeake’s powder flasks and loggerheads for the fight.
"Denied. President Jefferson’s orders and policies are quite clear. We shall not provoke the British. We shall maintain course and speed."
Another crash, another spout of water afore Chesapeake's bows. Still using the stern guns, the British fourth-rate was saving her broadside for deadlier work. Barron looked around as if seeking guidance or instruction from his invisible masters in Washington. It was well-known he had this post because of his good odor with Jeffersons Democrat party administration and this was but a step towards greater power - and more profitable office. Across the way, Leopard was slowing further and Chesapeake was drawing level with her. Knowing what was coming, the Senior Chief closed his eyes and muttered a brief prayer, even as he opened them, Leopard's buff-and-black side vanished behind a belching cloud of smoke. The Senior Chief expected his world to dissolve in a crazed hail of smoke, splinters, screams, and blood but there was none of that. The broadside was aimed high, taking down masts and sail but leaving the men on decks unharmed. A grim thought, the first time in many years that a British broadside had not inflicted a butcher’s bill to sicken the devil himself. Leopard's Captain might be a ruthless and arrogant man but he was also humane in his fashion. He'd doubtless seen the chaos on the decks of his opponent and taken the chance of firing high, wishing to inflict the least blood possible.
A second broadside, also aimed high and now there were the screams of wounded men but few. "Sir, do we now have permission to provoke the British?" The Senior Chief's voice was angry and desperate, it was his ship that was being pummeled.
"You forget yourself, Sir. Be silent." Barron's voice was cut off by a dull crash from the gun deck. One of Chesapeake's Long 24s had been fired, somehow, and Leopard staggered under the blow. The response was immediate, Leopard's third broadside smashed into Chesapeake's hull.
Chaos or not, if Chesapeake could get her guns fighting, the fourth rate would be in desperate straits. Yet would she get the chance? Not, the Senior Chief thought, if Leopard, her Captain knew how much the American long 24s outshot his short 18s and how much extra protection was provided by the Chesapeake's hull. Mercy was over, now the British would do what they were good at. They would pour broadsides into Chesapeake, as fast as Leopard could serve her guns, then back up and pull across the American frigate's stern. As she did so, her previously unengaged broadside, double-charged and double-shotted with ball and grape would smash into Chesapeake's stern. That broadside would rake Chesapeake, turning her gun deck into a charnel house of shattered remnants, unrecognizable as anything that had once been human. There was a French prayer, From the scheming of the devil and the gunnery of the British, may the Good Lord preserve us. And that was what was waiting for Chesapeake
The Senior Chief could see the same thought had occurred to Barron. Yet his order still came as a body blow. "We've fired, no man can say we struck without firing a shot. Strike the flag. Our orders are not to give provocation." He picked up a loud hailer and the words echoed over the sea. "Sir, I consider the Frigate Chesapeake as your prize, and am ready to deliver her to an Officer authorized to receive her."
"Sir, we cannot..." A Lieutenants voice was horrified, shocked, stunned.
"Hold your tongue, Sir. We have taken seven broadsides, and we cannot make a fight. There is nothing left but to save the lives of our men."
Between the two ships, now stationary in the water, crossed two long-boats, loaded with British sailors and Marines. The Senior Chief had a whimsical thought, what would the British do if both boatloads set foot upon Chesapeake and promptly deserted? It wouldn't happen of course. The two boats shipped their oars and the boarding party invaded Chesapeake their skills showed the long practice gained by years at sea. Another old saying ran through the Senior Chiefs’ mind as he watched. Why does Britannia rule the waves? Because her sailors drink rum while the French stick to port. Three figures left the group of boarders and made their way to the quarter deck.
"Lieutenants Gordon Thomas Falcon, George Martin Guise, and John Meade at your service Commodore. We will get this distasteful business over with as soon as possible." Each man saluted as his name was mentioned.
"My ship is your prize. I will assume you will take us in custody?"
"No Sir. We will not. Your ship is not taken Prize. On behalf of Captain Humphries, I am instructed to advise you that, having fulfilled the instructions of our Commander in Chief, we must proceed to join the remainder of the Squadron. I am also asked to make plain that we are ready to give you every assistance in our power, and do most sincerely deplore, that any lives should have been lost in the execution of a service, which might have been adjusted more amicably, not only concerning ourselves but to the Nations to which we respectively belong."
The muster went smoothly, and the four men who had deserted Melampus were arrested. Several of the boarding party were looking strongly at the fifth who lost his nerve and made a run for it. He didn't get far, he was tackled and brought down before he'd made more than a few paces. As he made his break, a Senior from the boarding party came up from below where he’d been inspecting the wounded.
"Jenkins Ratford." He spoke quietly to the Senior Chief. "Believe me, you are better off without that one. His neck is due to be stretched unless a court-martial says otherwise. The King’s bad bargain if ever there was and a curse to the ship that carries him. Nothing worse than a mess deck thief. Are you the Senior Chief here?"
The Senior Chief nodded, both in acknowledgment of his identity and with the content of the other’s words. Being the victim of an unjust act did not make that victim a good man.
"There is a seaman below, asking for you. Grievously injured, I fear his wounds are mortal. One Robert MacDonald.” The British Warrant Officer looked at the scene on Chesapeake "This is not right, I wish it were not so."
The gun deck was a shambles, the supplies that had so disrupted its working being shattered and cast across the deck. Leopard's broadside had done little damage of itself, Chesapeake's stout timbers had kept the balls out but splinters from the inside had spalled across the deck, wreaking havoc in their path. Splinters, how could they be named such? A splinter was a tiny thing that a man might dig out himself with a pin, shamed even to acknowledge its discomfort. A lady might use one as an excuse to seek the attention of a suitor she favored. Such were splinters. What had swept across the gun deck were spears of timber, a man's arm in length and his hand in thickness, that sliced off limbs, tore out eyes, and impaled man’s vitals. Three silent bodies lay on the deck, already covered, the victims of such splinters.
"Senior Chief, MacDonald is asking for you." The surgeon’s eyes were sad, he had seventeen men to care for and the Commodore was also wounded but refused to leave his post. "He has a few hours, a day or two at most. No more. I have eased his pain with laudanum but there is no more any man can do."
"Senior, please do something. The Chiefs can do anything." MacDonald’s voice was desperate. There was a debate about the dying, some said they should be kept in ignorance of their condition, others that they had a right to know and prepare themselves. The Senior Chief believed the latter, he held it an insult to a man's dignity that he should be denied knowledge of his fate. MacDonald had been ripped open by a splinter, he was done.
"Forgive me, for I can do nothing Robert. You have a few hours to make your peace with God and to prepare yourself. That is something many miss. For whatever it is worth, be grateful for it. If you have words for your family, we will make sure they hear them."
"Why did we not fight? Senior, we had the guns clear. We could have run them out. We had no matches, but Lieutenant Allen fired one with live coal. To fight would have cost us dear but would have been better than this, to go for nothing. Please, Senior, do something for me."
The Senior Chief looked at the boy who had so much promise unfulfilled. Chesapeake had been ill-prepared for action because the politicians in Washington had put the fleet in mothballs, let the Navy rot, and then demanded it does things beyond its power. Jefferson's Democrats. They were to blame for this. "There is only one thing I can do lad. I can make a promise. If 'tis humanly possible, I will make sure you are remembered when the name of Democrat is forgotten."
Robert MacDonald eased into a laudanum-aided sleep. The Senior Chief left him there among the carnage, the rage building in his head. By the time he got back on deck, it consumed him. He stood at the rail, with wrath and hatred boiling in him, staring over the sea. Not at Leopard now making her way, for she and hers had been doing their job, tools of the Admirals and politicians. He stared at land, at Washington where Jefferson's Democrats had starved the fleet, had left fine ships to rot, and built gunboats in their place. Who had put their supporters and clients in well-paid posts never caring they were unfit to hold them. Whose followers had slavishly obeyed their patron’s demands, who had put to sea in ships unfit for service rather than demand the extra time needed to make them ready. Who had curried favor by catering to the whims of the rich and influential, seeking preferment and privilege. And whose acts had led to the pointless deaths of fine young men who would otherwise have served the Navy and their country well.
The rage boiled and surged within him, and he crashed his fist on the guard rail. "DAMN YOU, DEMOCRATS!" The explosion of words seemed to release the fury, no, not release it but change it into something else, something cold and deadly. In a hiss, his voice resumed. "While there is breath left in my body, I will hound you. While my heart still beats, I will not give you peace. Damn the Democrats!"
USS Chesapeake, June 22, 1807
The True Sailormen were a breed apart, living in a world that their land-bound contemporaries could not understand for they lacked the shared experiences that made the True Sailormen what they were. Nowhere was the ignorance of the landsmen more apparent when they discussed the crews of the ships that were the world of the True Sailormen. They referred to officers and men assuming these were two distinct groups, differentiated by class, education, and status. Isolated by a barrier that separated those who were officers and gentlemen from those who were neither. In reality, the crew of every ship was a confused, diverse group where lines of authority were divided in untidy, ambiguous ways. The glue that held the company together was not the officers or the discipline they imposed, but a group of men who were more than ratings but less than officers. They were the Chiefs and the truth was they ran the ship. Every wise officer knew it, every True Sailorman knew it. The officers decided where the ship was to go but the Chiefs made sure she got there.
Chesapeake was moving. After four years laid up in ordinary, she had been recommissioned for a two-year assignment as the flagship of Commodore James Barron in the Mediterranean. The Senior Chief could feel the ship’s urgency, her joy at being back in her element radiating from every timber of her being. She wasn't the only one who felt that way, for the Senior Chief shared her delight for he was back where he belonged, in the wooden world of the fighting warship. He could hear the creak and groan of the timbers as they moved with the ageless pressures of the sea, hear the rush of the water as it passed along the hull. He could smell the wood, the tar, the ropes, and canvas up aloft, the stores of food and beer down below. And the sharp tang of the gunpowder that gave Chesapeake her teeth. He could see the wood that surrounded them all, the sturdy, comforting timbers that protected them against the elements and the ravages of war. Good, strong timbers that were tougher than those used by any other Navy in the world. Even the mighty Royal Navy didn't have timber like this. They had the numbers though, and the arrogance that went with being the undisputed Sovereign of the world's seas.
The Senior Chief was a happy man, not just from the sheer joy of being back at sea where he belonged. It was because he was on borrowed time, at his age a man should be losing his strength, his suppleness, his keen sense of balance and position that allowed a man to live in the dangerous environment of a warship. Hauling sail, and working the guns, all required a young man's strength. The British recruited their sailors young for just that reason, so rare in years that most of their ships carried a schoolmaster who would teach the youngsters their letters while the True Sailormen taught them their trade. Four years ago, when he stepped ashore from his last ship, the Senior Chief had guessed that he’d never sail again. That he'd end his career beached, too old to go to sea, too old to do anything else.
He had his money though, and it was enough to buy a small home in Jamestown and employ an amiable widow who'd kept house for him. And if they'd kept each other company in the cold of the winter, well, whose business was that but theirs? It was those quiet times that had first suggested that he had been privileged more than he knew. It wasn't as if he was a young man still but he still had his health and vigor. And he had something else, something he kept quiet about. He still had his teeth. Seamen lost theirs, from scurvy, from blows in a drunken brawl, from an accident, or just worn down by the hard food. He still had his and not by chance. Like everybody else, he'd lost teeth in his adult life, but unlike everybody else, they'd grown back. Just like his lost teeth had grown back when he had been a child. All his teeth were present and as perfect as they’d ever been. It was that, and the feeling he had perhaps one good cruise left in him that had caused him to leave his house and his widow in Jamestown and sign on for Chesapeake. The feeling had been right, despite his years, he still had what he needed to be a True Sailorman.
One more cruise and perhaps, dared he hope, one beyond that?
Still, the future held what the future held. He had this cruise to worry about and that was enough. Chesapeake wasn't just heading out for two years in the Mediterranean, loaded with all the supplies and goods needed for the lengthy spell on a foreign station. She was also carrying several important passengers and their belongings. In their eyes at least, their possessions and convenience took priority over the battle-readiness of American warships that were not sailing through hostile waters - and sometimes when they were. Looking around him, the Senior Chief could see the result of that convention. Her decks were littered with unstowed gear, chests of personal goods no doubt of great importance to their owners but a confounded nuisance to men trying to handle their ship in a seaway. Below decks, it was worse, much worse. Most of the stores had not been stowed away and still littered the gun decks. Chesapeake's teeth, her twenty-eight long 24 pounders, and her eighteen long 12 pounders were drawn, secured in the middle of the gun decks, here and below, surrounded by kegs of beer and beef, of pork and biscuits and pees, everything a ship needed to feed a hungry crew. To feed them, yes, but to fight?
That would take a skilled crew, to clear the decks, run out the guns and take on an enemy. A skilled crew was just what Chesapeake did not have. Four years laid up in ordinary and that wasn’t unusual. It was the fault of President Jefferson and his Democrat party. Their belief in the virtues of an agrarian economy, strict constructionism, and a small and weak government led to the principle of keeping a small navy. That had been a disaster for the American merchant shipping fleet. For the first five years of the century, protected by the big frigates only fifty-nine American merchant ships had fallen captive to Britain. With the frigates gone, the last two years had seen four hundred and sixty-nine ships, or approximately half the merchant fleet, fell into British hands. And Jefferson's response? The construction of a fleet of small gunboats.
GUNBOATS! The Senior Chief almost spat the word out. One frigate had the gun power of forty gunboats, and with their thin planking and low decks exposed to gunfire, gunboats stood little chance of survival when faced with a real warship and the Good Lord knew that the British were not short of real warships. The gunboats couldn't even sail out of sight of land, let alone protect the straggling remnants of the merchant fleet. Only a fool, an imbecile, an amateur, believed that gunboats could fight a real naval war. If the British struck with all the fury they were capable of, the gunboats would be swept away like chaff. Real wars were fought by real warships and real warships were manned by real crews. True Sailormen who knew what a ship was and how she should be worked. That was the real fault of the gunboats, not that they were a useless expensive folly, but that they didn't train True Sailormen. Now, when the big ships were being recommissioned, the crews were not there to man them. Suddenly, the US Navy realized why the British ran an Impressment Service.
Impressment, now there was a problem. The British believed they had a God-given right to stop any ship they pleased and take off prime seamen for their crews. Some of those seamen were Americans and, of course, they'd deserted at the first opportunity. There were four of them on Chesapeake now. William Ware was one, a Marylander and an old Chesapeake hand. He'd served 18 months on her previous commission. Daniel Martin, a black Massachusetter, was another. He and Ware had been taken off the brig Neptune by the British frigate Melampus fifteen months before despite having their protections. John Strachan, another Marylander, had been taken by Melampus as well along with John Little. Finally, there was reputed to be a real Englishman aboard, under an assumed name of course. The problem was Chesapeake depended on those men, and others like them, for the hardcore experience to offset her shorthanded and untrained crew. The British equally depended on such men and they wanted them back. The issue had been raised earlier and there’d been a diplomatic settlement, but the Senior Chief was betting that wouldn't hold out of sight of land. The pricking of his thumbs told him that.
"You, MacDonald, Main gun deck now. On the double." The Senior Chief had picked his man with care. Robert MacDonald was a new recruit, still technically a landsman on his first cruise. But he had all the markings of a True Sailorman, he was learning his ropes and sails with uncanny skill and was as cat-footed as any up aloft. He had a presence as well, even more, skilled men instinctively looked to him as a leader, as a man whose judgment they could trust. He'd be a Senior Chief himself one day, and that day was not so very far off. The Senior Chief looked on MacDonald with a fondness for the young man was a child of the sea as well and, perhaps, the son that the Senior Chief had never had.
The gun deck was a shambles, even worse than the Senior Chief had feared. "MacDonald, get a working party together, clear the guns immediately. Starboard first, if they come after us, it'll be from the seaside, not the land. Make sure we can run out the guns that side if we have to." Around them, the crew took note, that MacDonald might be a landsman still but he had the Senior Chief's confidence and, in this matter, spoke with his voice. The working party would be assembled quickly and do their job fast.
Clearing the guns being well underway, the Senior Chief returned to deck only the difference this time was very noticeable. Instead of a crew, a green and untrained crew perhaps but still a crew, going about their duties, there was an air of tension, almost of expectancy, for off the Chesapeake’s starboard was another warship, one flying the White Ensign. The Senior Chief took in her configuration almost by instinct, a fourth rate, a 50-gun two-decker. An obsolete type by most reckonings, the big American frigates could outgun and outsail them. The Senior Chief also took in her lines and the features on her that made her unique. Some of them, he couldn’t name but they were there, nonetheless. The British fourth-rate was HMS Leopard. A station ship, what we she doing here? Then the Senior Chief looked again and he knew the answer. Leopard had her gun ports open. As if to confirm his thoughts, he heard the loud-hailer message from the British ship.
"The Captain of his Britannic Majesty's Ship Leopard has the honor to advise the Captain of the United States' frigate Chesapeake, an order from the Honorable Vice-Admiral Berkeley, Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's Ships on the North American station, respecting the recovery of some deserters from ships under his command, and supposed now to be serving as part of the crew of the Chesapeake.
The Senior Chief looked to the quarter deck. Commodore Barron had been in his quarters, sick. Now he was on deck and his reply rang across the water. "I know of no such men as you describe; the officers that were on the recruiting service for this ship were particularly instructed by the Government, through me, not to enter any Deserters from his Britannic Majesty's ships; nor do I know of any being here. I am also instructed, never to permit the crew of any ship that I command, to be mustered by any other but their officers."
The Senior Chief nodded, that was the spirit, the British might think themselves the Masters of the Ocean, but the seas were free to all and no man should step on the Flag. As he watched, Leopard surged ahead, her sails billowing then backed a topsail and waited until the Chesapeake came down upon her. As the two ships closed, a boom and a cloud of smoke issued from the British rear, a splash in front of Chesapeake’s bows. An unambiguous signal to halt and be boarded. The Senior Chief looked hard, marveling that his years hadn't dimmed his sight, and saw the lines down Leopard's side. She'd run out her guns, all of them. Almost without thinking, the Senior Chief ran for the quarter-deck.
"Captain, Sir, we're clearing the main gundeck now, we should have our starboard broadside serviceable soon. Permission to open our gunports, Sir?" The Senior Chief guessed that would make the British hang back, buy a little more time for MacDonald's working parties to clear the deck, to ready Chesapeake’s powder flasks and loggerheads for the fight.
"Denied. President Jefferson’s orders and policies are quite clear. We shall not provoke the British. We shall maintain course and speed."
Another crash, another spout of water afore Chesapeake's bows. Still using the stern guns, the British fourth-rate was saving her broadside for deadlier work. Barron looked around as if seeking guidance or instruction from his invisible masters in Washington. It was well-known he had this post because of his good odor with Jeffersons Democrat party administration and this was but a step towards greater power - and more profitable office. Across the way, Leopard was slowing further and Chesapeake was drawing level with her. Knowing what was coming, the Senior Chief closed his eyes and muttered a brief prayer, even as he opened them, Leopard's buff-and-black side vanished behind a belching cloud of smoke. The Senior Chief expected his world to dissolve in a crazed hail of smoke, splinters, screams, and blood but there was none of that. The broadside was aimed high, taking down masts and sail but leaving the men on decks unharmed. A grim thought, the first time in many years that a British broadside had not inflicted a butcher’s bill to sicken the devil himself. Leopard's Captain might be a ruthless and arrogant man but he was also humane in his fashion. He'd doubtless seen the chaos on the decks of his opponent and taken the chance of firing high, wishing to inflict the least blood possible.
A second broadside, also aimed high and now there were the screams of wounded men but few. "Sir, do we now have permission to provoke the British?" The Senior Chief's voice was angry and desperate, it was his ship that was being pummeled.
"You forget yourself, Sir. Be silent." Barron's voice was cut off by a dull crash from the gun deck. One of Chesapeake's Long 24s had been fired, somehow, and Leopard staggered under the blow. The response was immediate, Leopard's third broadside smashed into Chesapeake's hull.
Chaos or not, if Chesapeake could get her guns fighting, the fourth rate would be in desperate straits. Yet would she get the chance? Not, the Senior Chief thought, if Leopard, her Captain knew how much the American long 24s outshot his short 18s and how much extra protection was provided by the Chesapeake's hull. Mercy was over, now the British would do what they were good at. They would pour broadsides into Chesapeake, as fast as Leopard could serve her guns, then back up and pull across the American frigate's stern. As she did so, her previously unengaged broadside, double-charged and double-shotted with ball and grape would smash into Chesapeake's stern. That broadside would rake Chesapeake, turning her gun deck into a charnel house of shattered remnants, unrecognizable as anything that had once been human. There was a French prayer, From the scheming of the devil and the gunnery of the British, may the Good Lord preserve us. And that was what was waiting for Chesapeake
The Senior Chief could see the same thought had occurred to Barron. Yet his order still came as a body blow. "We've fired, no man can say we struck without firing a shot. Strike the flag. Our orders are not to give provocation." He picked up a loud hailer and the words echoed over the sea. "Sir, I consider the Frigate Chesapeake as your prize, and am ready to deliver her to an Officer authorized to receive her."
"Sir, we cannot..." A Lieutenants voice was horrified, shocked, stunned.
"Hold your tongue, Sir. We have taken seven broadsides, and we cannot make a fight. There is nothing left but to save the lives of our men."
Between the two ships, now stationary in the water, crossed two long-boats, loaded with British sailors and Marines. The Senior Chief had a whimsical thought, what would the British do if both boatloads set foot upon Chesapeake and promptly deserted? It wouldn't happen of course. The two boats shipped their oars and the boarding party invaded Chesapeake their skills showed the long practice gained by years at sea. Another old saying ran through the Senior Chiefs’ mind as he watched. Why does Britannia rule the waves? Because her sailors drink rum while the French stick to port. Three figures left the group of boarders and made their way to the quarter deck.
"Lieutenants Gordon Thomas Falcon, George Martin Guise, and John Meade at your service Commodore. We will get this distasteful business over with as soon as possible." Each man saluted as his name was mentioned.
"My ship is your prize. I will assume you will take us in custody?"
"No Sir. We will not. Your ship is not taken Prize. On behalf of Captain Humphries, I am instructed to advise you that, having fulfilled the instructions of our Commander in Chief, we must proceed to join the remainder of the Squadron. I am also asked to make plain that we are ready to give you every assistance in our power, and do most sincerely deplore, that any lives should have been lost in the execution of a service, which might have been adjusted more amicably, not only concerning ourselves but to the Nations to which we respectively belong."
The muster went smoothly, and the four men who had deserted Melampus were arrested. Several of the boarding party were looking strongly at the fifth who lost his nerve and made a run for it. He didn't get far, he was tackled and brought down before he'd made more than a few paces. As he made his break, a Senior from the boarding party came up from below where he’d been inspecting the wounded.
"Jenkins Ratford." He spoke quietly to the Senior Chief. "Believe me, you are better off without that one. His neck is due to be stretched unless a court-martial says otherwise. The King’s bad bargain if ever there was and a curse to the ship that carries him. Nothing worse than a mess deck thief. Are you the Senior Chief here?"
The Senior Chief nodded, both in acknowledgment of his identity and with the content of the other’s words. Being the victim of an unjust act did not make that victim a good man.
"There is a seaman below, asking for you. Grievously injured, I fear his wounds are mortal. One Robert MacDonald.” The British Warrant Officer looked at the scene on Chesapeake "This is not right, I wish it were not so."
The gun deck was a shambles, the supplies that had so disrupted its working being shattered and cast across the deck. Leopard's broadside had done little damage of itself, Chesapeake's stout timbers had kept the balls out but splinters from the inside had spalled across the deck, wreaking havoc in their path. Splinters, how could they be named such? A splinter was a tiny thing that a man might dig out himself with a pin, shamed even to acknowledge its discomfort. A lady might use one as an excuse to seek the attention of a suitor she favored. Such were splinters. What had swept across the gun deck were spears of timber, a man's arm in length and his hand in thickness, that sliced off limbs, tore out eyes, and impaled man’s vitals. Three silent bodies lay on the deck, already covered, the victims of such splinters.
"Senior Chief, MacDonald is asking for you." The surgeon’s eyes were sad, he had seventeen men to care for and the Commodore was also wounded but refused to leave his post. "He has a few hours, a day or two at most. No more. I have eased his pain with laudanum but there is no more any man can do."
"Senior, please do something. The Chiefs can do anything." MacDonald’s voice was desperate. There was a debate about the dying, some said they should be kept in ignorance of their condition, others that they had a right to know and prepare themselves. The Senior Chief believed the latter, he held it an insult to a man's dignity that he should be denied knowledge of his fate. MacDonald had been ripped open by a splinter, he was done.
"Forgive me, for I can do nothing Robert. You have a few hours to make your peace with God and to prepare yourself. That is something many miss. For whatever it is worth, be grateful for it. If you have words for your family, we will make sure they hear them."
"Why did we not fight? Senior, we had the guns clear. We could have run them out. We had no matches, but Lieutenant Allen fired one with live coal. To fight would have cost us dear but would have been better than this, to go for nothing. Please, Senior, do something for me."
The Senior Chief looked at the boy who had so much promise unfulfilled. Chesapeake had been ill-prepared for action because the politicians in Washington had put the fleet in mothballs, let the Navy rot, and then demanded it does things beyond its power. Jefferson's Democrats. They were to blame for this. "There is only one thing I can do lad. I can make a promise. If 'tis humanly possible, I will make sure you are remembered when the name of Democrat is forgotten."
Robert MacDonald eased into a laudanum-aided sleep. The Senior Chief left him there among the carnage, the rage building in his head. By the time he got back on deck, it consumed him. He stood at the rail, with wrath and hatred boiling in him, staring over the sea. Not at Leopard now making her way, for she and hers had been doing their job, tools of the Admirals and politicians. He stared at land, at Washington where Jefferson's Democrats had starved the fleet, had left fine ships to rot, and built gunboats in their place. Who had put their supporters and clients in well-paid posts never caring they were unfit to hold them. Whose followers had slavishly obeyed their patron’s demands, who had put to sea in ships unfit for service rather than demand the extra time needed to make them ready. Who had curried favor by catering to the whims of the rich and influential, seeking preferment and privilege. And whose acts had led to the pointless deaths of fine young men who would otherwise have served the Navy and their country well.
The rage boiled and surged within him, and he crashed his fist on the guard rail. "DAMN YOU, DEMOCRATS!" The explosion of words seemed to release the fury, no, not release it but change it into something else, something cold and deadly. In a hiss, his voice resumed. "While there is breath left in my body, I will hound you. While my heart still beats, I will not give you peace. Damn the Democrats!"