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On the 25th the United States, of forty-four guns, captured the Macedonian, of thirty-eight, after three hours' fighting, and on December 29 the British thirty-eight-gun frigate Java, with a very inexperienced crew, was captured by the Constitution after a running fight of three hours and a half.
A fortnight of monotony was ended by a strange sail which proved to be the British thirty-eight-gun frigate Macedonian, newly built. Her commander, Captain Carden, had the highest opinion of his ship and crew, and one of his officers testified that "the state of discipline on board was excellent; in no British ship was more attention paid to gunnery.
At two o’clock on the 18th the Ethalion was joined by the Amelia, a thirty-eight-gun frigate, and at daylight the French directed their course as if for the West Indies. At eight o’clock they bore up, and five of their frigates chased the English ships. Presently, however, finding that they did not gain, they rejoined the squadron, which bore away to the south-west.
No trace of the swashbuckler in this Captain Samuel Reid, who had been a thrifty, respected merchant skipper until offered the command of a privateer. Touching at the Azores for water and provisions in September, 1814, he was trapped in port by the great seventy-four-gun ship of the line Plantagenet, the thirty-eight-gun frigate Rota, and the warbrig Carnation.
Two or three days earlier the Ethalion and the eighteen-gun brig Sylph had joined the thirty-eight-gun frigate Boadicea, which was watching Brest. At daybreak a light breeze sprang up, and the French made sail. Leaving the Ethalion to watch the French fleet, the Boadicea sailed to carry the news of the start of the expedition to Lord Bridport.
We, however, took possession of a fine thirty-eight-gun frigate, called the `Minerve, which the Frenchmen had sunk, but which we soon raised and carried off with us. She was then added to the British navy, and called the `San Fiorenzo, and was the ship on board which King George the Third used often to sail when he was living down at Weymouth.
In the spring of 1813 the harbor of Boston was blockaded by the thirty-eight-gun British frigate Shannon, Captain Philip Vere Broke, who had been in this ship for seven years. In the opinion of Captain Mahan, "his was one of those cases where singular merit as an officer and an attention to duty altogether exceptional had not yet obtained opportunity for distinction.
She was twenty feet longer and about five feet broader than the far-famed thirty-eight-gun British frigates. In comparison with a modern war ship, she was less than one half as long as the armed cruiser New York, and not far from the size of one of our gunboats.
This difference of opinion between the heads of the forces led to a protracted and vexatious delay, during which we of the fleet busied ourselves successfully in raising the French thirty-eight-gun frigate, "Minerve," which her crew had sunk in San Fiorenzo harbour. This ship was afterwards added to our navy under the name of the "San Fiorenzo."
The breeze now increased, and the stranger in the offing approached. "Hurrah!" cried Paul Pringle, "another broadside, lads, and the Monsieurs will haul down their flag." Paul's assertion proved correct. Down came the Frenchman's colours, after an action which lasted two hours and ten minutes. She proved to be the thirty-eight-gun frigate Reunion, Captain Francois Adenian.
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