A very good dinner was served on board the Dolphin that day, and on leaving the table most of her passengers sought the deck again, for it was a lovely evening, warm and clear.

The captain and Violet were sitting side by side on a settee, when Elsie came to them with a wistful, inquiring look on her face that made her father think she wanted something.

“What is it, my little daughter?” he asked, drawing her to a seat upon his knee.

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you to tell me about the War of 1812, papa, I should be glad to learn more about it,” she said.

“It will be no trouble for me to give my dear little girl as much information as she may crave about it,” he answered, patting her cheek affectionately. “But if you think the other children will care to hear what I tell you, you may call them here before I begin.”

“Oh, yes, papa, I will,” she answered joyously, and hastened away in search of them.

Her summons was obeyed by one and all, as if in expectation of a great treat. They gathered about the captain and he began.

“We are now at peace with England; the two nations good friends, as I hope and trust they may be always. But between the wars of the Revolution and of 1812 this country was badly treated by that in more ways than one. To tell you all about it would make much too long a story for to-night. Lossing says of England in 1810 that she had seized and confiscated the commercial property of American citizens to an incalculable amount. She had contemptuously disregarded the neutrality of the American territory, and the jurisdiction of the American laws within the waters and harbors of the United States. She had at that time impressed from the crews of American merchant vessels peaceably navigating the high seas not less than six thousand mariners who claimed to be citizens of the United States, and who were denied all opportunity to verify their claims. I think it was in February, 1811, that a richly laden American vessel bound for France was captured by a British cruiser within thirty miles of New York City; and early in May a British frigate stopped an American brig only eighteen miles from New York and a young man, known to be a native of Maine, was taken from her and impressed into the British service. Other such instances had occurred, and often the men thus shamefully robbed of their freedom were most cruelly treated.”

“How, papa?” asked Ned. “What did they do to them?”

“For refusing to work for their captors, especially after hearing of the declaration of war in 1812; some American sailors were most cruelly used; three who had been impressed on board the British vessel Peacock refused to fight against their country and demanded to be treated as prisoners of war. They were ordered to the quarter-deck, put in irons for twenty-four hours, then taken to the gangway, stripped naked, tied and whipped, each one dozen and a half, and put to duty.

“When the Peacock went into action with the Hornet, they asked the captain to be sent below, that they might not fight against their countrymen. The captain called a midshipman and told him to do his duty, which was to hold a pistol to the head of Thompson and threaten to blow his brains out if he and his companions did not do service.”

“How glad they must have been when the Hornet took the Peacock!” exclaimed Eric.

“Yes, indeed! For they had certainly been very cruelly used by those who had stolen them from American vessels,” said the captain. “And there were others who received still more cruel treatment from them, the robbers of the American seamen. It was no wonder that America was roused to attempt a second war with Great Britain in order to stop these dreadful outrages upon her people.”

“The navy did a great deal in that war, didn’t it, uncle?” asked Edward.

“Yes,” replied the captain; “they were more successful than the land forces.”

“Oh, please tell us some of their doings!” cried several children’s voices.

The captain mused a moment, then began.

“I will tell you some of the doings of Commodore Rodgers in his favorite frigate, the President. After some unsuccessful efforts to intercept vessels trading between the West Indies and Halifax, St. Johns and Quebec, but finding none, he determined to try his fortune in the North Sea in search of British merchantmen. But he did not meet with a single vessel until he made the Shetland Islands, and there he found only Danish ships trading to England. His supplies began to fail and he went to North Bergen, in Norway, to replenish his stock. There he was disappointed, too, for there was a great scarcity of food all over the country and he could procure nothing but water.

“It seems he knew that a fleet of merchantmen were to sail from Archangel in the middle of July. But just as he expected to make some prizes from among them, he fell in with two British ships of war. Knowing that he was not strong enough to battle with both at once, Rodgers with his vessel fled, hotly pursued by the enemy. (At that season in that northern region the sun is several degrees above the horizon at midnight.) That enabled the vessels to keep up the chase more than eighty hours, during which time they were much nearer the President than was at all agreeable to her officers and men.”

“Oh, I hope they didn’t catch her!” exclaimed Elsie.

“No,” said her father, “she escaped from them. Her stock of provisions had been replenished from two vessels that had been taken before the war vessels had appeared, and now she turned westward to intercept vessels coming out of and going into the Irish Channel.

“In the next six or seven days he (Rodgers) captured three vessels; then he thought it best to change his course, as the enemy was in that vicinity with a superior force. He made a complete circuit of Ireland, then steered for the banks of Newfoundland, near which he made two more captures. From these he learned that two British vessels, the Bellerophon and Hyperion frigate, were only a few miles from him. However, he did not fall in with them, and soon stood for the coast of the United States.

“Toward evening on the 23d of September the President fell in with the British armed schooner Highflyer, tender to Admiral Warren’s flagship St. Domingo; she was commanded by Lieutenant Hutchinson; was a fine vessel of her class—a fast sailer. When discovered she was six or seven miles distant, but by a stratagem Commodore Rodgers decoyed her alongside and captured her without firing a gun. She did not even discover that the President was her enemy until the stratagem had succeeded.

“Before starting upon this cruise Rodgers had placed in his possession some of the British signals. He had had some made on board his ship, and now he resolved to try their efficacy. He hoisted an English ensign over the President. The Highflyer answered by displaying another, and at the same time a signal from a mast-head.

“To Rodgers’s delight, he discovered that he possessed its complement. He then signalled that his vessel was the Sea Horse, one of the largest of its class known to be then on the American coast. The Highflyer at once bore down, hove to under the stern of the President and received one of Rodgers’s lieutenants on board, who was dressed in British uniform. He bore an order from Rodgers for the commander of the Highflyer to send his signal books on board to be altered, as some of the Yankees, it was alleged, had obtained possession of some of them.

“The unsuspecting lieutenant obeyed, and Rodgers was put in possession of the key to the whole correspondence of the British navy.

“Pretty soon the commander of the Highflyer followed his signal books. He was pleased with everything he saw on board what he believed was the English vessel Sea Horse, and admired even the scarlet uniform of Rodgers’s marines, whom he took for British soldiers. Invited into the cabin, he placed in the commodore’s hands a bundle of dispatches for Admiral Warren, and informed his supposed friend that the main object of the British commander on the American station at that time was the capture or destruction of the President, which had been greatly annoying and destroying British commerce and spreading alarm throughout British waters.

“The commodore asked what kind of a man Rodgers was. ‘An odd fish and hard to catch,’ replied the lieutenant.

“‘Sir,’ said Rodgers most emphatically, ‘do you know what vessel you are on board of?’

“‘Why, yes,’ he replied; ‘on board His Majesty’s ship Sea Horse.’

“‘Then, sir, you labor under a mistake,’ said Rodgers. ‘You are on board the United States frigate President, and I am Commodore Rodgers, at your service.’”

“Oh, how frightened that British man must have been!” exclaimed Elsie. “Wasn’t he, papa?”

“I suppose that at first he thought all the commodore had been saying was merely a joke,” replied her father. “He seemed astounded, and it was difficult to make him believe that he was really on an American vessel. But the band on the President’s quarterdeck was playing ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and over it the American ensign was displayed, while the uniforms of the marines were suddenly changed from red to blue.

“It would seem that Hutchinson might well feel alarmed at finding himself in the hands of Rodgers, for he had been one of Cockburn’s subalterns when that marauder plundered and burned Havre de Grace a few months before; and it is said that Lieutenant Hutchinson had now in his possession a sword which he carried away from Commodore Rodgers’s house on that occasion.

“He had been warned by Captain Oliver, when receiving instructions as commander of the Highflyer, to take care not to be outwitted by the Yankees. ‘Especially be careful,’ said Oliver, ‘not to fall into the hands of Commodore Rodgers, for if he comes across you he will hoist you upon his jib-boom and carry you into Boston.’”

“And did he do it, now he’d got him?” asked Ned.

“No,” said Captain Raymond. “Well was it for him that the enemy into whose hands he had fallen was an American. Rodgers treated him with courtesy such as is due to a prisoner of war, and soon allowed him to go at large on parole.”

“And did Commodore Rodgers get back to his own country, papa?” asked Elsie.

“Yes; three days after the capture of the Highflyer he sailed into Newport harbor, having his prize with him, her commander and fifty-five other prisoners. He said his cruise had not added much lustre to the American navy, but he had rendered his country signal service by harassing the enemy’s commerce, and keeping more than twenty vessels in search of him for several weeks. He had captured eleven merchant vessels and two hundred and seventy-one prisoners.”

“What could he do with so many prisoners, uncle?” asked Eric. “I should hardly think he’d have room for them in his ship.”

“All but those he carried into Newport had been paroled and sent home in the captured vessels,” replied the captain.

“Did he go out catching British ships again, uncle?” asked Edward.

“Yes; on the 5th of December, 1813, he sailed from Newport on another cruise in the President. He expected to fall in with the British squadron, but with a stiff breeze from the north-northwest he got well to sea without falling in with them. The next day he captured the Cornet, which British cruisers had taken from the Americans; then he sailed southward. In the vicinity of the Barbadoes he took, one after another, three British merchantmen. He ran down into the Caribbean Sea and cruised there unsuccessfully for awhile, but finally captured and sunk a British merchantman, then sailed for the coast of Florida.

“Going northward, he was off Charleston Bar on the 11th of February. He did not enter it, however, but continued on up the coast, chasing and being chased, dashing through a vigilant British blockading squadron off Sandy Hook, and sailed into New York harbor on the evening of the eighteenth.”

“Then New York did him honor, didn’t she, father?” said Grace, sitting near, listening to his story.

“Yes,” replied the captain; “many of the citizens did so, and a dinner was given in compliment to him at Tammany Hall. At that dinner, where most of the notables of the city were present, Rodgers gave this toast: ‘Peace, if it can be obtained without the sacrifice of national honor or the abandonment of maritime rights; otherwise, war until peace shall be secured without the sacrifice of either.’”

“A good toast. I like the sentiment expressed,” said Grace. “I think I have read that a good many gentlemen were present there at the dinner.”

“Yes, more than three hundred; many of them shipmasters,” said the captain. “A toast was given to the commodore, followed by eighteen cheers, and a song that some one had written in his honor that morning was sung.”

“Papa,” said Elsie, “was it right for him to put the name of a British vessel on his, and British uniform on his marines, to deceive the British on the Highflyer so that they would come to him and be taken prisoners?”

“No, daughter, I do not think it was,” replied the captain, “though, no doubt, the motive of all of them was good—to defend their country and countrymen from robbery and oppression. But it is never right to do evil that good may come. My good mother’s teaching was, ‘You should die rather than tell a lie, though it were no more than to deny that two and two make four.’ But, no doubt, Rodgers thought his manoeuvres all right and fair; and they certainly inflicted no wrong upon the enemy.”

“Is that all the story about him, papa?” asked Ned.

“Just about,” replied his father. “His good ship, the President, now needed a thorough overhauling, and the Secretary of the Navy offered Commodore Rodgers the command of the Guerriere, the ship which Hull took from Dacres, and which might be made ready for sea much sooner than the President. The commodore went to Philadelphia, where the Guerriere was being put in order, and, finding that she was not so nearly ready as he had supposed, he informed the Secretary that he preferred to retain command of the President. But in the meantime the President had been offered to Decatur. Rodgers courteously allowed that commander to take his choice of vessels, and he chose the President. Now, my dears, I think we may consider our naval studies ended for to-night.”