The Shining Sea (6 page)

On February 9, 1799, the
Constellation
became embroiled in the most famous fight of the Quasi-War. She was cruising off the Island of Nevis, two hundred miles south of Puerto Rico, when she fell in with the 40-gun French
frigate
L'Insurgente
, one of France's finest warships. Midshipman Porter was in command of the foretop. In the ensuing battle an eighteen-pound ball smashed the foretopmast just above the cap. It threatened to break free and fall to the deck or go over the side with its yards and sails, damaging the ship and impeding Truxtun's ability to maneuver. With the smoke and din on the weather deck making it impossible to communicate the danger to the captain, Porter went aloft at great risk to himself, cut the slings holding the yards to the mast, and lowered the yards to the deck. In saving the mast, Porter allowed Truxtun to carry on and win a stunning victory.

After
L'Insurgente
surrendered, Truxtun ordered Lieutenant Rodgers, Midshipman Porter, and eleven men to take possession of the prize and transfer its 332 prisoners to the
Constellation
. When that dicey business was completed, and enough repairs were made on the damaged ships to get them to port, they crawled in company to St. Kitts, arriving three days later at Basseterre roadstead. There the British authorities gave them a warm reception (Britain was at war with France during that time, but not with the United States).

As the Quasi-War progressed, Porter continued to perform exceptionally well. On October 8, 1799, when he was only nineteen, the navy promoted him to lieutenant, and assigned him to the 20-gun schooner
Experiment
as her second officer. Unfortunately, the skipper, Lieutenant William Maley, was an incompetent coward—totally unlike Truxtun or Rodgers. His character soon became evident. On January 1, 1800, the
Experiment
was convoying four merchantmen, when she was becalmed in the Gulf of Gonaïves. Local pirates known as picaroons suddenly appeared in ten oar-propelled barges, sweeping out from dens on shore to attack the convoy.

The
Experiment
was disguised as a merchantman, and thinking she was one, the heavily armed pirates went after her. Maley saw that he was badly outnumbered and decided to surrender, but his officers, led by Porter, refused. First Lieutenant Joshua Blake supported Porter, and seeing this, Maley turned the ship over to Porter, who fought a bloody battle with the pirates for seven hours and eventually beat them off. Many of the picaroons were killed, but only two of the
Experiment
's crew were wounded. Porter was one of them, receiving a musket ball in the shoulder. Unfortunately, while the fight raged on the
Experiment
, pirates captured two of the other merchantmen. For his disgraceful conduct, Maley was dismissed from the navy.

Porter's next ship was the Constitution. Her skipper was Silas
Talbot, of Revolutionary War fame and one of the finest fighting captains ever to serve the United States. Aware of Porter's ability, Talbot gave him command of the armed tender
Amphitheatre
, a vessel the
Experiment
had captured. A short time later, Porter was back on the
Experiment
as first lieutenant under Lieutenant Charles Stewart, an officer with a brilliant future ahead of him. He and Porter formed a close friendship.

On September 1, 1800, the
Experiment
captured the eight-gun French privateer
Deux Amis
. Stewart ordered Porter and four seamen to take command of the prize. When Porter climbed aboard the
Deux Amis
he found forty Frenchmen. They would be problem enough, but soon Stewart and the
Experiment
disappeared—chasing another prize. Porter was left alone in a dangerous situation. The closest port was St. Kitts, at least three days away. Undaunted, he herded the prisoners below, kept cannon loaded with canister shot pointed at the hatches, and sailed to St. Kitts, where he arrived four days later.

The Quasi-War with France ended on March 3, 1801, the last day of John Adams's presidency. The country began demobilizing. President Adams, who had been defeated for reelection by Thomas Jefferson, drastically reduced the navy in the hopes that Jefferson would not do away with it entirely. The Peace Establishment Act, which Adams signed on his last day in office, was very much in tune with Jefferson's thinking. Under it, the navy's officer corps was cut: to nine captains, thirty-six lieutenants, and 150 midshipmen. Porter survived.

The new president wanted the navy to be as small as possible, but a new war restrained him. Just as Jefferson came into office, Tripoli declared war on the United States. He was forced to use what was left of the fleet to fight the pirate state. Nonetheless, Jefferson made sure the navy remained small.

The war with Tripoli, which lasted for four long years, proved to be a seminal event in the life of David Porter. In the early stages he performed remarkably well, as he had in the past, serving in a variety of ships under different commanders. In 1801, now twenty-one, he was first lieutenant aboard the 12-gun armed schooner
Enterprise
(the
Experiment
's sister ship). Lieutenant Andrew Sterrett was the
Enterprise
's skipper.

Sterrett and Porter had served together under Truxtun on the
Constellation
. Sterrett was well known in the navy for an extraordinary incident
that had happened on that ship. During the
Constellation
's battle with
L'Insurgente,
amid heavy fighting, seaman Neale Harvey became terrified and abandoned his cannon. The twenty-one-year-old Sterrett flew into a rage and ran his sword through him. Harvey was one of only two men killed aboard the
Constellation
during the fight.

Captain Truxtun did not reprimand Sterrett, nor did the navy. The young lieutenant's execution of a man under his command during combat was let stand. Sterrett suffered no punishment, not even to his career, which proceeded apace. His action never became a precedent, but it was never condemned either.

When Sterrett arrived in the Mediterranean with Porter, he was looking for a fight, and on August 1, 1801, he found one. The
Enterprise
was off Malta when she fell in with the 14-gun
Tripoli
, a polacre-rigged warship under Rais Mahomet Rous, commander of the Tripolitan navy. As soon as Sterrett recognized the flag, he closed to within pistol shot and blasted away, commencing a savage battle that lasted for three hours. The Tripolitans tried three times to board the
Enterprise
, but each time Sterrett, Porter, and their men beat them off. The
Tripoli
's deck became an ugly sight; mangled bodies were strewn everywhere. With no hope remaining, Rous finally gave up and struck his colors. Porter led a boarding party to take the surrender, and he was appalled at the slaughter on the
Tripoli
's decks. The
Enterprise
had no dead and no wounded. It was a complete rout.

The following year, Porter was assigned to the 36-gun
Chesapeake
, and then transferred in April 1803 to the 36-gun frigate
New York
as her second lieutenant. The
New York
was Commodore Richard Morris's flagship. Morris was commander of the Mediterranean fleet at the time, tasked by President Jefferson with protecting American commerce and defeating Tripoli. Porter was not pleased with the transfer; he had little respect for Morris, who appeared to have no appetite for fighting. Porter's unhappiness was relieved somewhat by his association with the
New York
's first lieutenant, Isaac Chauncey, with whom he formed a close relationship. The two lieutenants had the same low opinion of Morris. During the first week of June 1803 Porter did get into some action, leading a night raid against Tripolitan vessels. His party was beaten off, however, and he was wounded. Midshipman John Downes participated in the raid, impressing Porter with his daring and courage.

By the summer of 1803, Morris's poor performance, combined with his unwillingness to communicate with Washington, had so frustrated Jefferson that he replaced him with Commodore Edward Preble. The president expected his new commander to end the war before his reelection campaign in 1804. Preble had fallen ill in Batavia (later Jakarta, Indonesia), and he had not fully recovered. In spite of his fragile health, he was far more aggressive than his lackluster predecessor. Even so, the economy-minded Jefferson—in spite of his looming reelection contest—still did not give Preble enough firepower to accomplish his mission. This did not stop Preble, of course; he did his best with what he had. His fleet consisted of the 44-gun
Constitution
(his flagship), the 36-gun
Philadelphia
(Captain William Bainbridge), the 16-gun
Argus
(Lieutenant Isaac Hull), the 12-gun
Enterprise
(Lieutenant Stephen Decatur Jr.), the 12-gun
Nautilus
(Lieutenant Richard Somers), the 12-gun
Vixen
(Lieutenant John Smith), and the 16-gun
Syren
, under Lieutenant Charles Stewart.

Preble may have had less firepower than he would have liked, but his captains were a superb group of young stars, which he soon realized. They had their doubts about him, however. He had a reputation for having a quick temper and a willingness to discipline subordinates with a heavy hand. In spite of this, he soon won their respect when he proved to be also brave, smart, decisive, willing to listen to men who had proven themselves, and above all, committed to winning. As time went by, a bond formed between the commodore and his young lions that allowed Preble to get the most out of the meager force assigned to him.

The
Constitution
arrived at Gibraltar on September 12, 1803. Preble was anxious to resupply and move on to Tripoli. He was delayed, however, when he discovered that the King of Morocco was secretly cooperating with the bashaw, of Tripoli, Yusuf Karamanli, seizing American vessels whenever he could. There were four Barbary States—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli—and Preble wanted to avoid fighting more than one of them at a time. So he adjusted his plans, sailing first to Tangiers, where he thought it would be relatively easy to convince the Moroccan king that peace with the United States, under the old treaty of 1786, was preferable to being attacked.

Preble realized he did not need the entire American squadron to bring the Moroccan king to heel. So he sent Captain Bainbridge ahead to Tripoli
with the
Philadelphia
and the
Vixen
to begin a blockade. Preble expected to deal quickly with Morocco and then join Bainbridge for an attack on Tripoli. To strengthen Bainbridge's crew, Preble appointed David Porter, now twenty-three, as first officer on the
Philadelphia
. Preble had a high regard for Porter's fighting record. Needless to say, Porter was delighted with the prospect of finally taking decisive action against Tripoli.

The
Philadelphia
was a powerful frigate. She was one of the subscription warships built by the city of Philadelphia and given to the government in the wave of patriotic fervor that swept the country in the spring and summer of 1798 at the start of the Quasi-War with France.
Together with the shallow draught
Vixen
, she could wreak havoc on Tripoli's commerce. The
Vixen
could patrol in areas that the larger
Philadelphia
could not, while the frigate could command the deeper waters outside the port.

Bainbridge and Porter worked well together. They trusted each other. Bainbridge recognized Porter's leadership ability, and gave him broad authority to run the ship. That was fine with the lower deck. Bainbridge, was a hard skipper, who never had good relations with a crew and never sought them. Sensitive and moody, he had a low opinion of seamen. He respected officers as gentlemen and had reasonably good relations with them, but ordinary sailors were another matter. His attitude would have been a significant handicap in getting the
Philadelphia
to perform at her best had it not been for Porter, who acted as an intermediary between a difficult captain and a wary crew.

Porter ran a tight ship, but he respected the men, and they were happy to serve under him. He had been brought up in the strict, but humane school of Thomas Truxtun and his first lieutenant, John Rodgers. Like them, Porter had high standards and was a disciplinarian, demanding attention to duty from everyone, and strict obedience. At the same time, he was fair. He did not play favorites, and he never hesitated to bend the rules when the situation required. Like Truxtun, he seldom resorted to physical punishment, as Bainbridge and Preble often did. Porter believed in leading by the force of his personality, rather than by terror, and he encouraged other officers to do the same. The result was a diverse crew that functioned as a cohesive unit ready for combat. As the
Philadelphia
plowed toward Tripoli, Porter was confident that she would make an important contribution to ending the war.

CHAPTER

3

D
ISASTER IN
T
RIPOLI