Charles Stewart was born in Philadelphia, on the 22d of July, 1776. Both his parents were natives of Ireland. His father came to America at an early age, and followed the business of a mariner in the merchants’ service. Charles was the youngest of eight children, and before he was quite two years of age had the misfortune to lose his father; his mother was now left in the midst of the Revolution with four children to provide for, and with but limited means, but being a woman of great energy and perseverance, she performed the arduous task with the care and affection of a devoted parent. At the age of thirteen, Charles, having a strong propensity for a seafaring life, commenced that profession in the merchant service, in which he gradually rose, through the several grades, from a cabin boy to the commander of a merchant vessel, and was often entrusted with the sale and purchase of whole cargoes. In the early part of the year 1798, when there was a strong probability of a war with France, he was induced to offer his services to his country. They were accepted; and on the 13th of March, 1798, he was appointed a lieutenant in the navy of the United States, under the command of Commodore Barry. In this ship he remained until 1800, when he was promoted to the command of the United States schooner Experiment, of twelve guns, to cruise on the West India station. On the 1st of September, in the same year, he fell in with the French schooner Deux Amis, (Two Friends,) of eight guns, which the Experiment engaged and captured without any loss, after an action of ten minutes. The following patriotic act will ever be remembered by his country. “Being short of water, he proceeded to Prince Rupert’s Bay, in St. Domingo, and while there, his Britannic majesty’s ship Alert, Captain Nash, accompanied by his majesty’s ship Siam, Captain Matson, arrived and anchored; soon after Lieutenant Stewart received a letter from a citizen of the United States, named Amos Seeley, stating that he had been impressed on board the British ship Siam, and claiming an interference for his release. Although Lieutenant Stewart’s power was inadequate to enforce his demand for the surrender of Seeley, the two ships mounting twenty guns each, his patriotic heart could not withstand the appeal of his countryman, and, prompted by that chivalry and patriotism which were destined to blaze out in after life so gloriously, he resolved on opening a correspondence with the British captain for the release of Seeley. A polite note was addressed by Lieutenant Stewart to the senior officer, conveying the request that Amos Seeley might be transferred from his majesty’s ship Siam to the schooner under his command, that he might be restored to his family and his home. The British captain demurred, but in answer requested a personal interview, wherein he remarked to Lieutenant Stewart, that the war in which his majesty was engaged was arduous; that the difficulty of obtaining men for his numerous fleets and ships of war was great, and that he should encounter great hazard of being censured by his government should he lessen his force by yielding up his men; urging, moreover, that the example would be injurious to the service. Lieutenant Stewart replied, in substance, that the British officers had too long trampled on the rights and liberties of his countrymen, and it was high time they had learned to respect the rights and persons of an independent nation; that whatever power his majesty claimed over his own subjects, he had no right to exercise it over a people who had forced him to acknowledge their independence; that to resume this power was to belie his own solemn act, and practise a deception on the world. It was stated in answer, that Seeley was impressed in England as an Englishman; to which Lieutenant Stewart replied:—“Then prove him so and I have done; but if you cannot, I am prepared to prove him a citizen of the United States.” Seeley was at once transferred to the schooner. Shortly after, while cruising under the lee of the Island of Bermuda, the Experiment discovered two vessels, one a brig of war, the other a three-masted schooner, both standing for her under a press of sail, and displaying English colors. The Experiment hove to, and the British signal of the day was made, which not being answered by the strange vessels by the time they were within gun-shot, that signal was hauled down, and the Experiment stood away with all sail set. A chase was now commenced which lasted two hours, when, finding they were outsailed by the Experiment, they relinquished the pursuit, and bore away under easy sail, firing a gun to windward and hoisting French colors. Lieutenant Stewart now manoeuvred his schooner so as to bring her in the enemy’s wake, to windward, when a chase was made on his part. At eight o’clock at night the Experiment closed with the three-masted schooner, which was the sternmost of the hostile vessels; and having taken a position on her larboard quarter, opened a fire upon her from the great guns and small arms, which in about five minutes compelled her to strike. She was immediately taken possession of, and proved to be the French schooner-of-war Diana, of fourteen guns and sixty-five men, commanded by M. Perandeau, Lieutenant de Vaisseau. The detention occasioned by removing the prisoners, enabled the brig-of-war to escape. She mounted, as was afterwards learned, eighteen guns, and had a crew of one hundred and twenty men. The Experiment proceeded to St. Christopher’s with her prize. During this important cruise, the Experiment recaptured several American vessels, sometimes as many as two or three in a day, and thus rescued American property to an immense amount.

Accounts now arrived of peace having been made with the French republic; the Experiment was thereupon sent from Martinique to the Island of St. Thomas, and from thence to Curacoa, to look for the United States brig Pickering and frigate Insurgent, but nothing could be heard of those vessels at that place; they had both foundered in the equinoxial gale, with a store-ship under their care, and all hands perished. On leaving Curacoa, the Experiment proceeded to Norfolk, Virginia, to be put out of commission.

On her passage thither, she discovered a vessel in distress, near the Island of Saona, at the east end of Hispaniola; and had the good fortune to rescue from the jaws of death, about sixty persons who were on board of her. They consisted chiefly of families of the most respectable inhabitants of St. Domingo, flying from the siege of that city by the blacks. The persons thus saved from destruction had remained two days without any nourishment, on a small part of the quarter-deck of their vessel, which had struck upon a rock that went through her bottom and fixed her to the reef; the greatest part of her being under water. They were placed in safety on board of the Experiment, with their plate and other valuables, which the sailors had recovered by diving into the hold of the wreck, notwithstanding the roughness of the sea. They were soon restored in safety to their friends in St. Domingo.

They, and the inhabitants of that city in general, expressed to the officers and crew of the Experiment their most grateful thanks, showed them every possible civility and attention, and furnished them with fruits and all kinds of stock which the island afforded in such profusion, that much of the supply was obliged to be returned. Soon after Lieutenant Stewart’s return to the United States, he was appointed to the command of, and to superintend the equipment of the brig Siren for the Mediterranean service; so much activity was employed in fitting her out that she was completely coppered in ten hours. After convoying some merchant-vessels, and conveying the naval consular presents to Algiers, she proceeded to Syracuse, in Sicily, the port appointed for the general rendezvous of the squadron. Here they heard of the capture of the frigate Philadelphia by the Tripolitans; and Lieutenant Stewart hastened with the brig Siren to aid the gallant Decatur in his victorious efforts against these savages; the particulars of which are given in the memoirs of those to which they belong; a victory which caused the pope to exclaim, “the Americans have done more for Christendom in one battle, than all Europe in a century.” On the 17th of May, 1804, Lieutenant Stewart was promoted to the rank of master and commander; and on the 22d of April, 1806, he was promoted to the rank of captain in the navy. The years of 1806 and 1807 he was employed in superintending the construction of gun-boats at New York, and was afterwards engaged in prosecuting mercantile enterprises to the East Indies, the Mediterranean and Adriatic. In 1812, on the prospect of a war with Great Britain, he was appointed to the command of the frigate Constellation; but as that ship required so much repairs, there was little hope of getting her to sea before the beginning of 1813. Captain Stewart, on the declaration of war, proceeded to Washington, and projected an expedition for the Argus and Hornet. The President and Secretary of the Navy approved of it and appointed Captain Stewart to undertake its direction. On his return to New York, he found that those vessels had sailed with the squadron under the command of Commodore Rodgers; the project of course was abandoned. He, therefore resumed the command of the Constellation, and on the 4th of February, 1813, was anchored in Hampton Roads. Having learned that the enemy were off the Chesapeake in great force, and presuming that they would soon be informed of her situation, Captain Stewart sent to Hampton, at midnight, for a Norfolk pilot, in order to be prepared for a retreat if it should become necessary. At seven o’clock the next morning, the enemy appeared with two ships of the line, three frigates, a brig and a schooner. No time was now to be lost. Captain Stewart got up his anchor, and there being no wind, and the ebb tide making, commenced kedging his ship towards Norfolk. He succeeded in getting her partly over the flats at Sewell’s Point, when the tide had fallen so much that she took the ground. By this time the enemy were within three miles, when they were obliged to anchor. Captain Stewart, apprehensive that they would kedge up one of their line-of-battle ships, pressed all the craft he could lay hold of, unloaded his frigate of every thing that could be removed, and made preparations for burning her, in the last extremity. He sent to Norfolk for the gun-boats to assist him, but such was their condition that none of them could be sent to him.

As the enemy lay quiet for the want of wind, until the flood-tide made, Captain Stewart continued lightening the ship. At the first quarter she floated. He then sent off the boats with a pilot to station them on the different shoals with lights; and with these precautions he was enabled to get the ship up to Norfolk in the night, through a difficult channel. Her safe retreat diffused universal joy among the inhabitants of that city, to whose protection she afterwards greatly contributed. A division of gun-boats was put in condition for service, and manned from her crew. By this means the communication with James’ river and Hampton was kept open, and every facility afforded to the transportation of the troops to their different stations. Captain Stewart seeing that there was hardly a possibility of getting the Constellation to sea, applied for and obtained in June, 1813, the command of the frigate Constitution, then vacant by the appointment of Commodore Bainbridge to the superintendence of the navy yard at Boston. On the 30th of December, in the same year, the Constitution proceeded to sea from Boston harbor, although it was then blockaded by seven ships-of-war. During this cruise she captured the British schooner-of-war Picton, of sixteen guns, together with a letter-of-marque ship under her convoy; the brig Catharine and schooner Phoenix, and chased a British frigate, supposed to be the La Pique, in the Mona passage. On the 4th of April, 1814, she returned to Boston Bay, and was chased into Marblehead by two of the enemy’s heavy frigates, La Nymphe and Junon. In December, 1814, she proceeded on her second cruise under the command of Captain Stewart; and on the 24th of the same month, she captured and destroyed the brig Lord Nelson. She cruised off Cape Finisterre, the rock of Lisbon, and the Madeiras, without meeting with anything except a merchant ship from the river Platte; but on the 20th of February, 1815, at two o’clock in the afternoon, two ships were discovered to leeward. Chase was given immediately to one of those vessels, which was several miles to windward of the other, for the purpose of cutting her off from her consort, but without effect; for at sunset they formed a junction and prepared to receive the Constitution.

She soon got alongside of them, and commenced the action, which was kept up with considerable vivacity on the part of the enemy, for about forty minutes, when the headmost ship bore away, and the sternmost struck her flag. The latter, which proved to be his Britannic Majesty’s ship Cyane, rated at twenty and mounting thirty-four guns, was taken possession of, and her consort was pursued without delay. She too, the Levant of twenty-one guns, was compelled to surrender, after exchanging broadsides. In these actions, the Constitution had three men killed and thirteen wounded. The British ships having in all thirty-five killed and forty-two wounded. Captain Stewart proceeded with these prizes to the Island of St. Jago, one of the Cape de Verd islands, with a view to divest his ship of the numerous prisoners, consisting of officers, seamen, and marines of both ships of the enemy, amounting to nearly four hundred. While making arrangements for dispatching them at Port Praya, for Barbadoes, the British squadron, consisting of the ships-of-war the Acasta, of fifty guns, the Newcastle of sixty-four guns, and the Leander of sixty-four guns, under the command of Sir George Collier, reached his position under the cover of a thick fog. Notwithstanding their near approach, Captain Stewart determined to retreat, and immediately the Constitution and her prizes cut their cables and crowded sail to escape. He was fortunate in being able, by his skillful management and manoeuvres, to save from their grasp his favorite frigate Constitution, and the Cyane. The Levant was captured by the squadron and sent to Barbadoes.

After this escape, he proceeded with the Constitution to Maranam, in the Brazils, and landed the prisoners, refreshed his crews, refitted his vessel, and returned to Boston, where he and his officers were received with the usual courtesies by their fellow citizens. On his way through New York, the common council honored Captain Stewart with the freedom of the city in a gold box, and extended towards him and his officers the courteous hospitalities of that great city, by a public dinner. The legislature of Pennsylvania voted him their thanks, and directed a gold-hilted sword to be presented to him.

On the meeting of Congress, the assembled representatives of the nation passed a vote of thanks to Captain Stewart, his officers, and crew; and resolved that a suitable gold medal (See Plate XIV.) commemorative of that brilliant event, the capture of the two British ships-of-war, the Cyane and Levant, by the Constitution, should be presented to Captain Stewart, in testimony of the sense they entertained of his gallantry and that of his officers, seamen, and marines, under his command on that occasion. The war with Great Britain having terminated, the Constitution was put out of commission, and laid up in ordinary.

In 1816, Captain Stewart took command of the Franklin ship of the line, of seventy-four guns, and in 1817, she was fitted out at Philadelphia as a flag ship and directed to sail for England, to convey the Hon. Richard Rush as minister to the court of Great Britain, after which the Franklin proceeded to the Mediterranean, and Captain Stewart took command of the forces of the United States in that sea. Since our country has been at peace, he has been alternately employed either in command of squadrons abroad, or in superintending the navy at home. Such is the brief outline of the life of this gallant officer, one of Pennsylvania’s cherished sons, who has contributed his services and his counsels for half a century, for the protection of our commerce and for the glory of the navy.

Long may he live to serve his country and wear the laurels which victory and fame have enwreathed for his brow.

DESCRIPTION OF THE MEDAL.

Occasion.—Capture of the Cyane and Levant.

Device.—A bust of Captain Stewart.

Legend.—Carolus Stewart navis Ameri. Constitution dux.

Reverse.—Two ships closely engaged; a third at a little distance.

Legend.—Una victoriam eripiut ratibus binis.

Exergue.—Inter Constitu. nav. Ameri. et Levant et Cyane nav. Ang. die 20th Feb. 1815.