The Power and the Glory (22 page)

“Yes, sir,” Richard said. “The brig was finished. We had her as a prize and I saw no reason to damage her further.”

“Very sensible. Please send my compliments to the men.”

“I shall do that, Captain. Thank you.”

“Quite the day for us, eh, Mr. Cutler? “ Truxtun was clearly enjoying the moment. “Our first action, and our first prize.”

“Yes, sir. Congratulations, sir.” Richard touched his hat. He turned to go, and then turned around to ask, “What is the name of that brig, Captain?”

Truxtun glanced at John Rodgers, who said with a broad smile, “
L'Albatros
, Mr. Cutler
.
Quite fitting, isn't it. Our first prize, a big sea bird clipped of its wings?”

 

FOR A SQUARE-RIGGED SHIP, sailing eastward across the Caribbean Sea required a great deal more time than the other way around. Given the prevailing easterlies and a square-rigger's inability to lie closer to the wind than sixty-six degrees off it, a ship sailing upwind from the
Greater to the Lesser Antilles did well to shape a course for Curaçao, off the coast of Venezuela, before tacking due north. As she approached the Puerto Rican archipelago, she could then tack over a final time on a close haul to her destination. Such a zigzag sail plan could add as many as three weeks to the one week a square-rigger usually required to sail downwind from Saint Kitts to Jamaica.

By the time
Constellation
had Saint Kitts somewhere below the distant horizon,
L'Albatros
and
Louisa Spalding
had been sufficiently refitted to have towing lines cast off. The convoy had been joined the day before by the American naval brig
Baltimore
, fortuitously sighted as she emerged through the Leeward Passage east of San Juan. That evening, Thomas Truxtun invited his commissioned officers to dine with him and the brig's captain in his dining alcove.

It seemed at first as though the evening would provide more entertainment than information. Lt. Josiah Speake,
Baltimore‘
s captain, had little to report beyond what Admiral Hyde had related on board
Queen
in Port Royal, except for the electrifying news—music to any naval officer's ear—that two months earlier, in August, Horatio Nelson had orchestrated a momentous victory over the French at Aboukir Bay, near Alexandria at the mouth of the Nile. Nelson's force captured or destroyed the bulk of the French Mediterranean fleet—including its one-hundred-gun flagship,
L'Orient
—and stranded Napoleon and his grande armée among the pyramids. Details of the victory had spread rapidly. Speake had learned of them two days before weighing anchor. By now, he predicted, those details should have reached British naval bases throughout the Western Hemisphere.

“It would appear that Boney and his plan for world conquest have just been given a swift kick in the ass, if you'll pardon my French,” Speake gleefully concluded his account. Everyone at the table chuckled at his use of words.

“What of Admiral Nelson?” Richard asked in a serious tone after the mirth had quieted. However much he might admire Nelson's well-publicized resolve to position himself on his quarterdeck in full admiral's regalia during battle—to share the same risks as his officers and to serve as an inspiration to his crew—he could not approve of a commander making himself an easy target for enemy sharpshooters. Often in the privacy of his thoughts Richard had placed Horatio Nelson in Thomas Truxtun's position. If ever a sea officer embodied the principles of leadership and naval command espoused by Truxtun, that man was Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson. “How did he fare in the battle?”

“That's a story unto itself,” Speake replied, pleasantly aware that the entire company was hanging on his every word. “During the battle Nelson was grazed on the forehead by a round of grapeshot. His surgeon examined him and told him not to worry because the wound was superficial. But, for whatever reason, Nelson did not believe him. Perhaps he had lost a lot of blood. In any event, he was convinced the end was nigh. At the battle's conclusion he requested final rites from the ship's chaplain. Which, glory be, were not necessary. The surgeon was right after all. The wound
was
superficial, and England's hero lives to fight another day!”

“God be praised!” the entire company exclaimed.

Baltimore'
s captain had another piece of news to cheer the captain's table. Two additional naval vessels, he reported, were scheduled to depart Portsmouth for Saint Kitts. The sloops of war
Virginia
and
Richmond
would bolster what Navy Secretary Benjamin Stoddert now referred to grandly as the Guadeloupe Station because Saint Kitts was ideally positioned to keep close tabs on the last significant French naval base in the West Indies.

“And, sir?” Speake said, smiling, “I am informed that
Constitution
is scheduled to sail from Boston within the fortnight. Her destination is also the Indies.”

“Is that a fact?” Truxtun said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “I must say, Lieutenant, you do possess a flair for the dramatic. Exactly
where
in the Indies, might I inquire?”

Speake reached into his left inside coat pocket. “I believe you'll find the answer in here, sir. I've saved the best for last.” He passed down the table a small sachet with the name “Captain Thomas Truxtun, USS
Constellation”
written in bold script upon it. “Secretary Stoddert told me to hand this to you personally—and perhaps gave me a clue of what's inside.” He said those last few words rather mysteriously, and his eyes twinkled with delight as he met the inquiring gaze of the assembled officers.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Truxtun said dryly. He broke the official wax seal and unfolded the flaps. “Gentlemen, if you will excuse me for a moment.”

His officers watched in silence as Truxtun began reading. He nodded now and again as his eyes followed the script down the page. At its conclusion he arched his eyebrows.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, keeping his eyes transfixed on the letter, “it appears that
Constitution
is bound for the Royal Navy base at
Prince Rupert Bay in Dominica. And she is to be joined there by
United States
.”

Each officer at the table recognized the significance of that news. Dominica was as close to Guadeloupe to the south as Saint Kitts was to the north. With the American frigates
Constitution
and
United States
stationed off the island of Dominica, the United States and Great Britain would have the French navy in a vise. Stoddert's widely publicized theory—that the best way to protect American shipping on the eastern seaboard was to take the war to the Indies—was about to be put into practice.

Truxtun waited until the excited chatter subsided and he again commanded his officers' attention. “And,” he said, as though what he had to say was nothing out of the ordinary, “it appears that the Navy Department has seen fit to promote me to the rank of commodore.” With that, he folded the letter, tucked it into a coat pocket, picked up his knife and fork, and resumed eating.

John Rodgers jumped up. “Congratulations, sir! Congratulations indeed!” He raised his glass. “Gentlemen, I give you Thomas Truxtun, the first commodore of our United States Navy.”

The other officers scraped back chairs and rose to their feet.

“Hear! Hear!” they shouted. And for one of the few times in anyone's recollection, Thomas Truxtun did not deflect praise directed at him.

 

THE TWO LOOKOUTS had been told to search for, and had apparently spotted across twenty miles of open sea, a four-thousand-foot-tall dormant volcano. That was the landmark that charts and sea lore and Mother Nature identified as the island of Saint Kitts. After their initial cries of tentative discovery had drawn all eyes aloft, both lookouts remained mute, as though not yet convinced that the image in the circular lens of their long glasses was not a mirage. Convinced at last, able-rated seaman Toby Higgins cupped his hands to his mouth.

“Deck, there! Land ho! Two points to loo'ard.”

“Saint Kitts?” shouted up Robert Simms, a boatswain's mate stationed directly below him at the base of the foremast.

“Aye, sir. Saint Kitts.”

“Very good, Higgins. I shall inform the captain.”

As
Constellation
and her convoy approached the sixty-eight-square-mile island, its contours began to assume discernible forms. Closer in, it was not Mount Liamuiga that commanded everyone's attention, the volcano's impressive height notwithstanding. Rather, it was the fortress
erected upon Brimstone Hill on the island's western shore. Fort George emerged from the distance as a colossal structure of black volcanic rock towering eight hundred feet above sea level. At the bastion's peak, atop its highest tower, fluttered the red cross of Saint George. In 1782, as British forces took leave of America and fought on in the West Indies against France, Britain's ancient enemy, Admiral de Grasse had achieved what many had considered impossible: he had blown open a breach in the seven-foot-thick walls after a long and savage naval bombardment, and he had ordered French Marines inside to overpower the small British army garrison. A year later, with Saint Kitts restored to British hegemony by the Treaty of Paris, British military engineers went to work to ensure that Fort George would never again suffer the humiliation of surrender. By 1798 its massive embrasures and parapets and blockhouses had earned Fort George the nickname “Gibraltar of the West Indies.” Like its counterpart on the southern tip of Spain, Fort George stood as proof positive that henceforth it would take an act of God, not man, to wrest Saint Kitts and its sister island of Nevis from the grip of the British Empire.

The American convoy sailed past Fort George, southeastward toward Basseterre Roads on the southwestern tip of the island. As they approached the colonial capital, it occurred to Richard that while Saint Kitts had much to offer Great Britain's army, it had less to offer the Royal Navy. Set within a slight indentation of coastline on an otherwise featureless shore, Basse-Terre's principal claim to safe harbor was its location on the leeward side of the island. Dockage there was rudimentary, unlike anything Richard had experienced at other British naval bases. The few wooden quays were designed to oblige not British warships, but rather the small, single-masted island packets that hauled cargo back and forth between Nevis, Montserrat, Saba, Saint Martin's, and Anguilla. For sailors serving in larger vessels such as
Constellation
, a ship's boat provided the best means of getting ashore.

Clustered within an array of small fishing and transport vessels in the tiny harbor were four Royal Navy vessels: a light frigate, a brig, and two sloops of war. Not much of a squadron, Richard mused, although one perfectly suited to give chase to the brigands and pirates who lurked in the secluded coves and shallow waters of the Lesser Antilles. One also suited to extend military honors. As
Constellation
coasted to her anchorage, the starboard side of the British frigate
Concorde
erupted in salute, an honor immediately answered by the larboard side of the American frigate.

“Anchor's secure, Captain,” John Rodgers reported after the anchor line had been paid out ten fathoms and the anchor watch had confirmed that the great iron hook held firm in the sandy bottom. At his captain's insistence, Rodgers used the lower-rank address. Truxtun might be commodore of the squadron, he had told his officers, but he remained captain of this vessel.

“Very well, Mr. Rodgers. Once you have seen to the disposition of
L'Albatros
and her prisoners, you may inform the boatswain that the men are granted shore leave in rotation. However, my word of warning stands that every man be reminded before going ashore that I will not tolerate misconduct or impropriety of any kind. We are guests of the British. We are representatives of our country. And we must act accordingly. I loathe using the lash, but if I hear so much as a rumor of public drunkenness or debauchery, I shall not hesitate to use it. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly, sir,” Rodgers said. Nothing in his voice indicated that he had already passed on that warning, in no uncertain terms, to the entire ship's complement. “I quite agree that use of the cat is sometimes necessary to enforce discipline.”

“Indeed, Mr. Rodgers,” Truxtun said. “But only in extreme circumstances.”

Within the hour
Constellation
piped on board Sir Robert Thomson, the regally clad governor of the island, and David Clarkson, a white-goateed, deeply tanned man from Philadelphia who several years ago had settled on the island with his family. Today, Clarkson served as provisioner of British warships, a profession he had learned during the war as purser in the Continental frigate
Trumbull
. Joining them under an eight-foot-tall white canvas awning stretched across the aft half of the frigate was the captain of the British frigate
Concorde
, in full-dress uniform.

“I am honored, Captain Sweeney,” Truxtun greeted him once the side party had piped him on board. However gracious and reassuring Thomson and Clarkson had been in welcoming the Americans to Saint Kitts, Edward Sweeney was the man to whom Truxtun most wanted to talk. At the first appropriate pause in the conversation he turned his full attention to the British frigate commander. “Captain, if I may, do you have intelligence from Guadeloupe?”

Edward Sweeney bowed slightly, his diminutive, almost sickly form reminding Richard of Horatio Nelson when they had met years ago in
Antigua. His olive-green eyes shone bright nevertheless, and his face held the hard stamp of a commander in war.

“First, Captain Truxtun, may I say how delighted I am to make your acquaintance. Your reputation precedes you, sir. To answer your question, yes, I do have intelligence from Guadeloupe; though I fear it is not the sort of intelligence you had hoped to hear. Your naval schooner
Retaliation
has been captured by the French.”