The Americans displayed remarkable skill in their gunnery, as it may be said they have always done.  The main yard of the enemy was shot away in the slings, and hull, rigging and sails were badly mangled.  A shot passing through the mizzenmast close to the deck, added to the stress from the sails, caused it to break in two and fall over the quarter.  One curious effect of this dragging in the water was to make the wreckage act like a rudder, bringing her up to the wind in spite of the opposition of the helm.  While the damage on the Constitution was less, it clogged her action, but she secured a position from which she delivered two raking broadsides.  Then as the vessel see-sawed, the jibboom of the Guerriere crossed the Constitution’s quarter deck.  Both crews made ready to board, but each found the other so fully prepared that neither attempted it.  Meanwhile the riflemen in the rigging were working with destructive energy.  In each of the Constitution’s tops were seven marines, six loading for the seventh, who was the best marksman.  A good many officers were wounded and killed on both sides.

[Illustration:  THE “CONSTITUTION” AND THE “GUERRIERE.”]

Although the vessels had been lashed together, their lurching broke them apart, and the Englishman gained a chance to use his broadsides.  A fire broke out on the Constitution, but it was quickly extinguished, and the shot of the American soon made a complete wreck of the enemy.  When it became clear that the Guerriere could make no further resistance, Captain Hull drew off to repair the damages to his own ship.  Another English frigate was likely to appear at any moment, and she would make short work of the Constitution in her crippled condition.  It took but a short time to complete the work, when she returned to her former position beside the wallowing Guerriere.  A lieutenant was sent on board to receive the surrender, which Dacres gave with painful reluctance.  When brought to the side of the Constitution, Hull assisted him up the rope ladder.  Dacres extended his sword.

“No” replied Hull, “I will not take it from one who knows so well how to use it, but I must trouble you to pay me that hat I have won.”

CHAPTER XII.

Jacob Jones—­The Wasp and the Frolic—­James Biddle—­The Hornet and the Penguin—­A Narrow Escape.

I must now tell you something about another gallant young officer who entered the American navy at the close of the century, when he was hardly thirty years old.  He was Jacob Jones, who lived until 1850.  He was a lieutenant on the Philadelphia for two years, and was with that frigate when she ran on the rocks in the harbor of Tripoli.  He was given command of the 18-gun sloop of war Wasp, which sailed from the Delaware in October, 1812, and headed eastward, with the intention of intercepting some of the enemy’s merchantmen plying between Great Britain and the West Indies.