The widespread outbreak of revolutions in Europe led to the recommissioning of the USS Constitution in 1848. Beginning in France with the deposition of King Louis Philippe, rebellion fever caught on in Austria, Germany, Hungary, and farther south in Italy, which then was a collection of kingdoms and Papal States. Heavy U.S. commercial interests in the Mediterranean basin made it incumbent upon the Navy to take what steps it could to protect American citizens and trade in the unsettled region.
The ship made the transit to the Mediterranean in the good time of 23 days, but rather than break the voyage at Gibraltar, Captain John Gwinn headed directly for his first port of call, Tripoli, where he arrived shortly after noon on 19 January 1849. For the next two days, the crew was busy loading the personal goods and household effects of Consul Daniel Smith McCauley, who was being transferred to Alexandria with his pregnant wife, six children, and a servant. Captain Gwinn set sail on the 22nd for Malta, where he remained for a little more than two weeks before heading east. Moderate gales made life uncomfortable for the travelers for two days, but the voyage was otherwise without event until, as the ship was entering the harbor on 24 February, the Consul’s wife gave birth to a son, who received the name of Constitution Stewart. The poor lad came by his name rightly; he was the grand-nephew of Captain Charles Stewart, victor in the Constitution over HMS Cyane and HMS Levant in 1815. And the new babe’s older brother, Edward Yorke McCauley, was serving at the time as a passed midshipman in the ship.
The Constitution idled for more than a month in the Egyptian port as Captain Gwinn and his officers took advantage of the opportunity to visit the famed pyramids. The captain himself spent 11 days as a sightseer. He re turned aboard on 23 March and learned from mail awaiting him that Commodore William Bolton had died nearly a month earlier and he now was acting squadron commander. The winds came fair on the 27th.
After calls in the embattled north of Italy at La Spezia, Leghorn, and La Spezia again, the Constitution sailed south to Naples, arriving late on 7 June. There, in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, lay more political turmoil, for King Ferdinand II was contending not only with unrest in Sicily itself, but attempting to support Pope Pius IX in his confrontation with the liberal revolution that had caused him to flee Rome. The big frigate spent the rest of June and all of July there as a potent reminder that U.S. neutrals would be protected.
On 25 July, Commodore Charles W. Morgan arrived in the sidewheel steam frigate Mississippi, ten guns, to assume command of the squadron. Anxious to go on to Tunis with the least possible delay, and therefore wishing to avoid the required quarantine, Morgan was briefed by Gwinn as the former sat in his barge alongside the frigate, anchored in the harbor. Gwinn reported a proposal that had been received from the U.S. charge d’affaires in Naples and Rome that the Constitution proceed to Gaeta and there be visited by Pope Pius and King Ferdinand. Morgan adamantly opposed it verbally, and later in writing, on the grounds that both were then contesting their thrones against revolutionaries in a conflict in which the United States had avoided taking sides. Instead, Commodore Morgan ordered Captain Gwinn to proceed “with as little delay as possible” to Messina,, then to Sardinia and northern Italy to safeguard U.S. interests in those places. Morgan sailed for Tunis later that afternoon.
On 30 July, Charge John Rowan paid a call at the palace to congratulate the monarch and his queen on the birth of a princess. Accompanying him as interpreter was Surgeon Charles Guillou of the Constitution, then still in the harbor. When King Ferdinand expressed an interest in visiting their frigate, Rowan felt he had to issue an invitation. After paying their respects to the King, the Americans went to call upon the Queen, whom they found talking to Pope Pius IX, her spiritual advisor. The next day, Rowan took Guillou with him to Rome to call upon the Pope in the Vatican, and there invited him to visit the ship.
Captain Gwinn got the Constitution under way on the afternoon of the 31st with Charge d’Affaires Rowan on hoard, and proceeded to Gaeta, arriving early on the morning of 1 August. Near noon that day, the King and the Pope were rowed through the harbor in an ornate galley, passed Spanish, French, and British warships with their yards manned, and were received on board with yards manned and a 21- gun salute for each. Whether Morgan’s orders were ignored by Gwinn or overridden by the diplomat is not known, hut the occasion was the first time a pope set foot on U.S. territory. (A commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy has the same legal status as a piece of U.S. soil, in the same way any of its embassies around the world does.)
The King and the Pope visited every part of the ship. At the request of the Catholics in the crew, they were lined up on the gun deck and received the Pope’s benediction as the Pontiff walked among them, escorted by the linguistically talented Surgeon Guillou. That done, the guests were led to the captain’s cabin for refreshment, where it became apparent that Pius IX was seasick! The surgeon prescribed for him and soon had him feeling better. When the dignitaries departed, after nearly three hours on hoard, yards again were manned and two 21-gun salutes fired. The Constitution got underway late that afternoon and returned briefly to Naples to drop off Rowan (and fire a 21-gun salute in honor of the “accouchement of the Queen of Naples”) before proceeding southwest to Messina, in accordance with Commodore Morgan's orders.
The Pope subsequently sent 150 rosaries for the 80 Catholics in the Constitution's crew, together with a silver medal hearing his image and coat of arms to Captain Gwinn. Commodore Morgan, on the other hand, was outraged by what he viewed as an outright violation of U.S. neutrality and flagrant disobedience of orders. As a mark of his disapprobation, he recommended to Secretary of the Navy William B. Preston that the offending frigate and her captain be ordered “to the Brazil Station, or some other station” and another unit sent to the Mediterranean.
As it turned out, no action was necessary: Captain Gwinn died at Messina on 4 September 1849, possibly of a slow cerebral hemorrhage. Pope Pius IX lived to become the longest-serving pope in history, and is remembered as the promulgator of the dogma of papal infallibility.
