CHAPTER XIV THE FIGHT OF CAPTAIN JACOB JONES The Lively Little "Wasp" and How She Stung the "Frolic" NO doubt most of my readers know very well what a wasp is and how nicely it can take care of itself. When I was a boy I found out more than once how long and sharp a sting it has, and I do not think many boys grow up without at some time waking up a wasp and wishing they had left it asleep.

The United States has had three Wasps and one Hornet in its navy, and the British boys who came fooling in their way found that all of them could sting. I will tell you about the time one of our Wasps met the British Frolic and fought it in a great gale, when the ships were tossing about like chips on the ocean billows.

Not long after the Constitution had her great fight with the Guerriere, a little sloop-of-war named the Wasp set sail from Philadelphia to see what she could find on the broad seas. This vessel, you should know, had three masts and square sails like a ship. But she was not much larger than one of the sloops we see on our rivers to-day, so it was right to call her a sloop. For captain she had a bold sailor named Jacob Jones.

The first thing the Wasp found at sea was a mighty gale of wind, that blew "great guns" for two days. The waves were so big and fierce that one of them carried away her bowsprit with two men on it. The next night, after the wind had gone down a little, lights shone out across the waves, and when daylight came Captain Jones saw over the heaving billows six large merchant ships. With them was a watch-dog in the shape of a fighting brig.

This brig was named the Frolic. It had been sent in charge of a fleet of fourteen merchantmen, but these had been scattered by the gale until only six were left. The Frolic was a good match for the Wasp, and seemed to want a fight quite as badly, for it sailed for the American ship as fast as the howling wind would let it. And you may be sure the Wasp did not fly away.

Captain Jones hoisted his country's flag like a man. He was not afraid to show his true colors. But the Frolic came up under the Spanish flag. When they got close together Captain Jones hailed,—

"What ship is that?"

The only answer of the British captain was to pull down the Spanish flag and run up his own standard, stamped with the red cross of St. George. And as the one flag went down and the other went up, the Frolic fired a broadside at the Wasp. But just then the British ship rolled over on the side of a wave, and its balls went whistling upward through the air. The Yankee gunners were more wide-awake than that. They waited until their vessel rolled down on the side of a great billow, and then they fired, their solid shot going low, and tearing into the Frolic's sides.

The fighting went that way all through the battle. The British gunners did not know their business and fired wild. The Yankees knew what they were about, and made every shot tell. They had sights on their guns and took aim; the British had no sights and took no aim. That is why the Americans were victors in so many fights.

But I think there was not often a sea-fight like this. The battle took place off Cape Hatteras, which is famous for its storms. The wind whistled and howled; the waves rose into foaming crests and sank into dark hollows; the fighting craft rolled and pitched. As they rolled upward the guns pointed at the clouds. As they rolled downward the muzzles of the guns often dipped into the foam. Great masses of spray came flying over the bulwarks, sweeping the decks. The weather and the sailors both had their blood up, and both were fighting for all they were worth. It was a question which would win, the wind or the men.

As fast as the smoke rose the wind swept it away, so that the gunners had a clear view of the ships. The roar of the gale was half drowned by the thunder of the guns, and the whistle of the wind mingled with the scream of the balls, while the sailors shouted as they ran out their guns and cheered as the iron hail swept across the waves.

In such frantic haste did the British handle their guns, that they fired three shots to the Yankees' two. The latter did not fire till they saw something to fire at. As a result, most of British balls went whistling overhead, and pitching over the Wasp into the sea, while most of the Yankee balls swept the decks or bored into the timbers of the Frolic.

But you must not think that the shots of the Frolic were all wasted, if they did go high. One of them hit the maintopmast of the Wasp and cut it square off. Another hit the mizzen-topgallantmast and toppled it into the waves. In twenty minutes from the start "every brace and most of the rigging of the Wasp were shot away." The Wasp had done little harm above, but a great deal below.

The Frolic could have run away now if she had wanted to. But her captain was not of the runaway kind. The fire of the Wasp had covered his deck with blood, but he fought boldly on.

As they fought the two ships drifted together and soon their sides met with a crash. Then, as they were swept apart by the waves, two of the Wasp's guns were fired into the bow-ports of the Frolic and swept her gun-deck from end to end. Terrible was the slaughter done by that raking fire.

The next minute the bowsprit of the Frolic caught in the rigging of the Wasp, and another torrent of balls was poured into the British ship. Then the Yankee sailors left their guns and sprang for the enemy's deck. The captain wanted them to keep firing, but he could not hold them back.

First of them all was a brawny Jerseyman named Jack Lang, who took his cutlass between his teeth and clambered like a cat along the bowsprit to the deck. Others followed, and when they reached the deck of the Frolic they found Jack Lang standing alone and looking along the blood-stained deck with staring eyes.

Only four living men were to be seen, and three of these were wounded. One was the quartermaster at the wheel and the others were officers. Not another man stood on his feet, but the deck was strewn with the dead, whose bodies rolled about at every heave of the waves.

When the men came running aft the three officers flung down their swords to show that they had surrendered, and one of them covered his face with his hands. It hurt him to give up the good ship. Lieutenant Biddle, of the Wasp, had to haul down the British flag.

Never had there been more terrible slaughter. Of the 110 men on the Frolic there were not twenty alive and unhurt, while on the Wasp only five were dead and five wounded. The hull of the Frolic was full of holes and its masts were so cut away that in a few minutes they both fell.

Thus ended one of the most famous of American sea-fights. It was another lesson that helped to stop the English from singing

But the little Wasp and her gallant crew did not get the good of their famous victory. While they were busy repairing damages a sail appeared above the far horizon. It came on, growing larger and larger, and soon it was seen to be a big man-of-war.

The game was up with the Wasp and her prize, for the new ship was the Poictiers, a great seventy-four ship-of-the-line. She snapped up the Wasp and the Frolic and carried them off to the British isle of Bermuda, where the victors found themselves prisoners.

A few words will finish the story of the Wasp. She was taken into the British navy; but she did not have to fight for her foes, for she went down at sea without doing anything. So she was saved from the disgrace of fighting against her country.

Captain Jones and his men were soon exchanged, and Congress voted them a reward of $25,000 for their gallant fight, while the brave captain was given the command of the frigate Macedonian, which had been captured from the British. It was Captain Stephen Decatur, the hero of Tripoli, that captured her, in the good ship United States.

Would you like to hear about the other Wasps? There were two more of them, you know. They were good ships, but ill luck came to them all. The first Wasp did her work in the Revolution, and had to be burned at Philadelphia to keep her from the British when they took that city. The second one, as I have just told you, was lost at sea, and so was the third. You may see that bad luck came to them all.

The third Wasp was, like the second, a sloop-of-war, but she was a large and heavy one. And though in the end she was lost at sea and followed the other Wasp to the bottom, she did not do so without sending some British messengers there in advance.

I will tell you the story of this Wasp, and how she used her sting, but it must be done in few words.

She was built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and sailed on May 1, 1814, her captain being Johnston Blakeley; her crew a set of young countrymen who were so unused to the sea that most of them were seasick for a week. Their average age was only twenty-three years, so they were little more than boys. Yet the most of them could hit a deer with a rifle, and they soon showed they could hit a Reindeer with a cannon. For near the end of June they came across a British brig named the Reindeer, and in less than twenty minutes had battered her in so lively a fashion that her flag came down and she was a prize.

The crew of the Reindeer were trained seamen, but they did not know how to shoot. The Americans were Yankee farmer-lads, yet they shot like veteran gunners. I am sure you will think so when I tell you that the British could hardly hit the Wasp at all, though she was less than sixty yards away. But the Yankees hit the Reindeer so often that she was cut to pieces and her masts ready to fall. In fact, after she was captured, she could not be taken into port, but had to be set on fire and blown to pieces.

But I must say a good word for the gallant captain of the Reindeer. First, a musket ball hit him and went through the calves of both legs, but he kept on his feet. Then a grape-shot—an iron ball two inches thick—went through both his thighs. The brave seaman fell, but he rose to his feet again, drew his sword, and called his men to board the Wasp. He was trying to climb on board when a musket ball went through his head. "O God!" he cried, and fell dead.

This fight was in the English Channel, where Blakeley was doing what John Paul Jones had done years before. Two months after the sinking of the Reindeer the Wasp had another fight. This time there were three British vessels, the Avon, the Castilian, and the Tartarus, all of them brig-sloops like the Reindeer. These vessels were scattered, chasing a privateer, and about nine o'clock at night the Wasp came up with the Avon alone. They hailed each other as ships do when they meet at sea. Then, when sure they were enemies, they began firing, as ships do also in time of war. For forty minutes the fight kept up, and then the Avon had enough. She was riddled as the Reindeer had been. But the Wasp did not take possession; for before a boat could be sent on board, the two comrades of the Avon came in sight.

The Wasp, after her battle with the Avon, could not fight two more, so she sailed away and left them to attend to their consort. They could not save her. The Wasp had stung too deeply for that. The water poured in faster than the men of all three ships could pump it out, and at one o'clock in the morning down plunged the Avon's bow in the water, up went her stern in the air, and with a mighty surge she sank to rise no more. But the gallant Wasp had ended her work. She took some more prizes, but the sea, to whose depths she had sent the Reindeer and Avon, took her also. She was seen in October, and that was the last that human eyes ever saw of her.

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