The Tall Frigates

By Frank Robert Donovan

The story of the tall frigates spans one of the most exciting eras of American history. As the first vessels of the United States Navy, these brave sailing ships defended the interests of the new nation on waters around the world. In dramatic duels against the French, the English, the North African corsairs, such men of war as The Constitution, Constellation, Essex, Philadelphia, United States, President and Congress, under the command of intrepid skippers like Truxton, Preble, Talbot, Dale, Lawrence, Bainbridge, Decatur, Barron, Rogers, Hull and Porter, challenged the great sea powers and showed that the rights of the infant country could not be abused.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Golden Springs Publishing
• Release date: Jan 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781786257802

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Text originally published in 1962 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2015, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE TALL FRIGATES

BY

FRANK DONOVAN

Illustrated

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

DEDICATION 5

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 6

ILLUSTRATIONS 7

NOTE CONCERNING THE APPENDIX 8

CHAPTER ONE—The End of the Navy 9

CHAPTER TWO—The Birth of the Frigates 21

CHAPTER THREE—Fighting Old Friends 29

CHAPTER FOUR—The Flaming Frigate 41

CHAPTER FIVE—...to the Shores of Tripoli 51

CHAPTER SIX—Fighting Old Enemies 57

CHAPTER SEVEN—The Great Frigate Duels 66

CHAPTER EIGHT—Death in the Pacific 94

CHAPTER NINE—...and See the World 110

CHAPTER TEN—The Odyssey of Herman Melville 117

CHAPTER ELEVEN—Iron, Shells and Steam 133

APPENDIX—How to Sail a Frigate 147

BIBLIOGRAPHY 157

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 162

DEDICATION

To

JOAN

who is also tall

and graceful and gallant

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to express his thanks to the staff of the Yale University Library for their help in the research that made this book possible, to Professors Vernon Tate and Wilson L. Heflin of the U. S. Naval Academy for suggestions and advice concerning it, and to Rear Admiral E. M. Eller, U. S. N. (Ret.), Director of Naval History, United States Navy.

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Constellation and the Vengeance

The Congress

The Constitution

The Philadelphia

The Philadelphia burns in Tripoli harbor

The Battle of Tripoli

The President and the Endymion

The Constitution and the Guerriére

The United States and the Macedonian

The Constitution and the Java

The Essex

The Essex, Cherub and Phoebe

The United States

The Macedonian

The Mississippi

The Merrimac

NOTE CONCERNING THE APPENDIX

This book has an appendix entitled How to Sail a Frigate.

It is there for those readers who like to know how things work, and many words and expressions peculiar to sailing ships are defined in it so that the narrative itself will not be slowed down by technical definitions.

The information it contains is probably of little practical value. It is very unlikely that you will ever get a job as captain of a frigate. But if you want to know how it was done, the appendix tells you. If you are interested in such things it might be well to read the appendix first.

CHAPTER ONE—The End of the Navy

Come, gentlemen, what am I bid for this fine vessel—this staunch, seaworthy craft, sound in every plank and timber?

Two thousand dollars.

Surely, sir, you’re joshing. This is the finest vessel in the Navy—a fast, roomy frigate. With the gun-ports covered over and some bulkheads knocked out, she’ll make a merchant ship second to none.

Three thousand dollars.

"Gentlemen, please be reasonable. This proud ship carried the American colors into battle against the Serapis..."

Yeh—and fired on the wrong ship.

This fine frigate cruised under John Paul Jones, under Commodore Barry...

And every time she left port there was a mutiny.

"Gentlemen, Congress has ruled that the Alliance is to be sold at auction, and I am trying to conduct this auction in an orderly and decent manner. Now, may I please have a serious bid?"

If she’s such a fine seaworthy ship, why is Congress selling her?

I wouldn’t know about that, sir. I’m only the auctioneer. Congress has decided that the country does not need warships, and I am offering her for sale. She may need a few repairs but—

Few repairs is right. She ran on a rock coming out of Providence. I heard that the whole bow’s stove in.

She is offered for sale as is. Now if you’ve finished heckling, may I have a serious bid?

Seven thousand dollars.

That’s more like it. Do I hear eight thousand?

Seventy-five hundred.

Seventy-five hundred is bid. Do I hear eight thousand? Going once...

Seventy-six hundred.

Do I hear seventy-seven?

Seventy-seven hundred.

Do I hear seventy-eight? Going once at seventy-seven hundred. Going twice. Sold to Coburn and Whitehead for seventy-seven hundred dollars.

That happened on August 1, 1785. It marked the end of the American Navy. The frigate Alliance was the last of ninety-seven vessels that made up the Continental Navy of the Revolution.

The auctioneer was right when he said that she was the finest vessel of them all. But that wasn’t saying much because most of the Continental frigates were not very good ships. And she was never a happy ship. But in the Continental Navy that was not unusual—no ship was.

The heckler who said that there was a mutiny every time she sailed was not right. There was only one mutiny, and that was nipped in the bud when the ringleaders were discovered, strung up by their thumbs on the quarterdeck and flogged until they disclosed their accomplices. On two other occasions her officers refused to take her out—once because they didn’t like the captain and once because they hadn’t been paid. It was that kind of a Navy.

There are many opinions of when and where the Navy started. The first naval battle between the American colonists and a British armed ship took place in 1772, three years before Lexington and Concord. A British revenue cutter, the Gaspee, was chasing a smuggler into Providence and ran aground. The smuggler continued into town and laughingly told that the Gaspee was hanging on a shoal out in the harbor. This was good news. The colonists didn’t like revenuers.

The town crier marched through the street behind his drum. The Minute Men turned out. A boy galloped to nearby Bristol. At nightfall, seven rowboats loaded with musket-bearing Minute Men set off down the river and were joined by an eighth boat from Bristol. As they approached the grounded cutter, the English lieutenant warned them off, then fired his little swivels as the Minute Men ducked below the gunwales. Before the English could reload, the colonists swarmed aboard, there was a brief fist fight, and the cutter surrendered. Nobody was hurt—much. The Americans looted the boat, burned it, and ended the first pre-Revolution naval engagement.

But eight rowboats could hardly be called a Navy. The first fight between seagoing ships took place about a month after Lexington and Concord off the coast of the settlement of Machias in what is now Maine and was then Massachusetts.

Machias, a little lumbering settlement, grew no food. For provisions the inhabitants relied on coastal trading ships from Boston. In May, 1775, a man named Ichabod Jones brought two boatloads of food into Machias. Wisely, knowing the temper and politics of the Machias people, he brought a British warship along with him for protection—the sloop Margaretta. He offered to trade the food for lumber to build barracks for the British troops in Boston.

The people held a town meeting. In Maine nothing could be decided without a town meeting—in many places it still cannot. All the Machias people were patriots who wanted no part of providing housing for the hated Lobster Backs. They were also hungry and they needed the food on Ichabod’s sloops. The meeting voted for the trade. Then Jones made a mistake. He would give credit only to those who had voted for him. The townspeople held another meeting. Led by a man named Benjamin Foster and the six stalwart sons of Morris O’Brien, they decided to capture Jones and the warship’s officers at church the next morning and take the food.

The plan misfired. A Negro saw the armed colonists approaching the church, let out a shout, and dived through the window—followed by Jones and the British officers. The officers returned to their ship, dropped down the river, and anchored.

The people turned to and unloaded the two trading sloops. Foster and the O’Briens called for volunteers to man them. About forty men stepped forward. Half were armed with muskets, for which they had only three rounds of ammunition. The other had handmade pitchforks and axes—not the best weapons for a naval engagement. They set out after the Margaretta. Jeremiah O’Brien was elected captain of one sloop, the Unity—he had five brothers aboard to vote for him. Foster commanded the other, ran it aground and out of action.

Captain Moore of the Margaretta, armed with sixteen swivels and four four-pounders, could probably have wrecked the Unity before it came within musket range, but he had no authority to fire on the colonists. There was no war on—yet. He pulled up his anchor and tried to get away.

The Unity rapidly overhauled the Margaretta a short distance off the coast. Moore warned O’Brien off and threatened to fire. O’Brien shouted a demand for surrender and kept coming. Moore fired a ragged volley which killed one man on the Unity. Before the British could reload, the Yankee sloop came within musket range and used up their scanty ammunition, mortally wounding Moore and killing the helmsman. The Margaretta broached, and the Unity’s bowsprit went through her sail.

The colonists swarmed aboard. Pitchforks and axes in capable hands were excellent boarding weapons. A British midshipman who had succeeded to command took one look at the long sharp tines and flashing axe blades and promptly went below. The crew fired one volley, threw down their empty muskets and pistols, and surrendered.

The people of Machias call this action the Lexington of the sea, the first naval battle of the Revolution. It was not much of a battle, but it was an incredible feat. A few men who had never fought before—virtually unarmed—attacked and captured a vessel of twenty guns manned by a crew of trained sailors and Marines who must have outnumbered them at least two to one.

When news of the fight reached the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, they authorized Jeremiah O’Brien to switch the Margaretta’s armament to the Unity, which was a much better sailer, to rename her the Machias Liberty, and to cruise the coast to harass British shipping.

This was the beginning of a Navy—but not the United States Navy. The Machias Liberty was in the Massachusetts Navy. Throughout the Revolution, each of the colonies maintained its own Navy for protection and profit. These private Navies did some harm to the British shipping. They probably did more harm to the Continental Navy by diverting men, money, guns and ships that could have been used to better purpose.

The independent Navies of the colonies were one of four separate American naval forces of the Revolution. At the beginning of the war, the Army also had a Navy. When Washington took command of the Army around Boston in July, 1775, he quickly realized that the best way to get arms, ammunition and clothing for his ragged force was to take them from the British ships. He wrote to Congress about it, but got no answer. On his own authority he outfitted six small ships and manned them with soldiers from the New England seacoast regiments, men who had been sailors or fishermen in civilian life.

This little fleet remained under the command of the Army for a year and a half, until Congress broke it up. Considering what it had to work with, it rendered good service. It captured more than enough military supplies to justify its existence, came out on top in a few engagements with small British warships and captured a few transports bringing British reinforcements.

Washington, however, was less than completely satisfied with it. He wrote to Congress "The plague, trouble and vexation I have had with the crews of the armed vessels is inexpressible. I do believe there is not on earth a more disorderly set. Every time they come into port we hear nothing but mutinous complaints. The crews of the Washington and Harrison have actually deserted them."

The third type of naval force was the privateers—privately owned armed vessels that were commissioned by Congress and the legislatures of the several Colonies to capture British merchant ships. During the Revolution there were over two thousand of these. They did much damage to British shipping, none to the British Navy. They made it impossible for the United States to put an effective Navy to sea.

While the State Navies, the Army’s Navy and the privateers were getting under way, the Continental Congress was wrangling about whether the United States should have a Navy. One delegate said it was the maddest idea in the world to think of building an American fleet. Another said it was the most wild, visionary, mad project that ever had been imagined. More sensible heads prevailed and Congress gradually eased into having a Naval force. First, they rented a couple of ships from Rhode Island. Then they bought some merchant ships and fitted them out as warships. Finally, on December 13, 1775, they authorized the construction of thirteen frigates.

The Continental Navy had two strikes against it from the start. It was impossible to build good ships. All the seasoned timber, the sound cordage, the good canvas, was going into privateers. Privateering offered exciting opportunities for profit. Most of the members of Congress owned shares in privateers, as did many of the agents who were authorized to supervise the construction of Navy vessels. Whenever they found any good material, it ended up in a privateer, not in the Navy.

But the big problem throughout the war was getting crews. Some ships never went to sea because they could not be manned. Most ships spent three months, six months, or a year in port between cruises, trying to get a new crew. Any sailor who was worth his salt could get a job on a privateer—and most of them did, for very good reasons.

Privateers paid better—the Navy paid $8 a month, privateers $12 to $ 16. The food on privateers was much better and the discipline less strict. Service on a privateer was less dangerous—it was out to capture merchant ships, not fight warships, and it was usually fast enough to escape from any warship. Most important, the prize money on a privateer was far better.

Prize money was the main reason for shipping out on any naval vessel. Long after looting of private property had been outlawed in land warfare, sailors were paid a share of the value of anything their ship captured. Enlisted men got a small share, officers and captains got more. The owners of privateers usually received half.

When the Navy started, Congress thought that they could help pay for the war out of prize money and ordered that two-thirds of the value of all merchant ships captured, and one-half the value of warships, was to be paid to the treasury. This left practically nothing for the seamen’s shares in captured merchant ships. The privateer took more prizes because it did not spend time on convoy duty or fighting, and the men got a bigger share of the prize. Reading the records of the Naval Committee during the Revolution gives the impression that many naval captains spent more time bickering about prize money than they did fighting the English.

But the Continental Navy did some fighting. While Jeremiah O’Brien was capturing a warship for Massachusetts and Congress was reluctantly setting up an infant fleet, there was a twenty-eight year old Scotsman down in Virginia who was to become America’s greatest naval hero. At the time he called himself John Jones. His right name was John Paul. He had changed his name and was hiding out in Virginia, because he was wanted for murder on the island of Tobago in the West Indies.

John Paul had been a sailor since he was thirteen. He had made several voyages to Virginia where his brother was a tailor. Later, when he captained a merchant ship, he traded in the island of Tobago. Here, in 1774, there was some trouble aboard his ship which ended with Paul running his sword through one of the troublemakers. He later claimed that he was justified—that the man was mutinous. At the time, he apparently thought that he had better not stand trial. He left his ship and a good deal of money that he was owed in Tobago, came to Virginia, and changed his name.

He had been there for about eighteen months when he heard that Congress was looking for officers for their new Navy. He went to Philadelphia to get a job. He did not claim to be an American patriot but said that he was a citizen of the world who drew his sword for liberty. There were many John Joneses in Philadelphia. To distinguish himself from them he changed his name again and combined his real one with his alias to become John Paul Jones.

The career of John Paul Jones was a stormy one, both in the American Navy and later in the Russian Navy where he was a rear admiral. He was a great egotist. He quarreled with Congress and the Naval Committee about rank—with some justice. Because he was a foreigner with no political support in Congress, he was placed far down the captains’ list. He made few friends and many enemies in high places.

He ran a tight ship. At a time when American Navy discipline was not well defined, he agreed with England’s Lord Nelson—I believe in free speech—but not on a man-of-war. If a lieutenant did not move fast enough to suit Jones, he might be helped down a companionway with a kick in the pants. It was Jones’s officers who refused to take the Alliance out until the captain was changed.

But there is no question that the little Scotsman (he is variously reported as being 5’5 and 5’7) was a great man at handling a ship and one of the toughest and most skillful sea fighters in naval history. Much of his trouble with subordinates and fellow captains was based on the fact that he was a pioneer in naval strategy. He never fought by the book. There was much disobedience and lack of cooperation because people did not understand what he was trying to do—and Jones was too impatient to explain.

Jones’s great moment came when he conquered one of England’s best frigates with an old crock of a converted merchant ship—one of the great epics of American naval history. He had been plaguing Congress for a decent ship to command. His earlier successes entitled him to the command of a good ship, but Congress had none to give him. To get rid of him they sent him to France and told him that Benjamin Franklin would get him a ship from the French.

Franklin was one of the few highly placed patriots who liked Jones. He did his best to get him a ship. But his best was an old merchant ship called Le Due de Duras. She was slow, she was unhandy, her timbers were rotten, but she was big, and Jones labored mightily to turn her into a warship.

He wanted eighteen-pound guns for the main battery but could get only six of them, and these old, condemned French guns. He put them in the junior officers’ mess room, low in the stern. He settled for twenty-eight twelve-pounders for a main battery and put six nine-pounders on the bow and stern of the upper deck.

He renamed the ship. Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac was then very popular in France where it was called Les Maximes du Bonhomme Richard. In honor of Franklin, Jones christened his ship the Bonhomme Richard.

When he sailed from France he commanded not only the Richard, but also was commodore of a squadron of five ships. There were the American frigate Alliance, the strongest ship in the fleet, commanded by a crazy Frenchman named Landais; the smaller French frigate Pallas; the French brig Vengeance; and the French cutter Cerf.

This squadron was put together and financed by France to carry out a plan that Jones and the Marquis de LaFayette had conceived for the invasion of England. Jones had even built a deck house on the Richard which was to be LaFayette’s quarters when he commanded the invasion army. The King of France vetoed the scheme, which is most unfortunate. These two aggressive characters, Jones and LaFayette, working together, could have made interesting history.

The makeup of the crew of the Richard gives a picture of how the American