About the end of September, 1770, a British sloop-of-war, the Favorite, 16, arrived at Portsmouth, England, from the Falkland Islands. Her captain related that in June of that year his ship and the British settlement at Port Egmont had been attacked and forced to capitulate by a squadron of five Spanish frigates, carrying troops and artillery, which had come to take possession of the islands. One of the articles of capitulation was that the Favorite should be allowed to return home.
The attack, which was believed in England to be unprovoked, created great resentment. Fifteen sail of the line were immediately ordered into commission. Press warrants were issued and rendezvous for seamen opened. King George III proclaimed a bounty of thirty shillings to able seamen, while six English and Scottish seaports also offered bounties varying from a guinea to forty shillings.
It resulted, from the work of the press gangs, that a boy of fifteen, Thomas Truxtun, by name, born on Long Island, found himself in the British Navy, as a landsman, or boy, in H.M.S. Prudent, 64, commanded by Captain Alexander Schomberg, brother of Captain Isaac Schomberg, the naval historian.
Wyatt, author (1848) of historical sketches of “American Generals and Commodores,” tells us that Truxtun’s father, an eminent barrister, died in the boy’s early youth and he was placed under the guardianship of Troup, Esq., of Jamaica, Long Island. He soon showed a strong inclination for the sea and made his first voyage at the age of twelve to Bristol, England, in the ship Pitt, Captain Joseph Holmes.
It is not clear whether he made the return voyage to the Colonies, but if this were so, because of his love for the sea, he soon crossed again, and at his own request, was put under the care of Captain James Chambers, a noted shipmaster of that day, in the London trade.
And thus the lad from the Colonies on shore from his ship seeing the sights of London fell in with a press gang and, as related, became one of the crew of the Prudent. He touched the “King’s Shilling,” but whether he received King George’s bounty of thirty shillings or that offered by the city of London is not recorded. Probably not, as he was a pressed man and not a volunteer.
An apology from Spain was followed the next year, 1771, by the cession of the Falkland Islands to the British. The fleet consequently did not put to sea, and Truxtun, through the influence of his friends was released, although his appearance and intelligence had attracted the attention of Captain Schomberg who had promised to take care of the boy’s promotion if he would consent to stay in the British Navy.
It appears that young Truxtun’s inclination was to remain, but he felt himself bound to Captain Chambers and returned to his apprenticeship in the merchant service.
In 1775, at the age of twenty, he held a master’s certificate, and in the early part of that year he was captain of a vessel which succeeded in bringing considerable quantities of powder into the American Colonies. Later in the year, on a voyage to St. Eustatius, he with his ship and crew were seized off St. Kitts by the British frigate Argo, 44. The ship and cargo were condemned. Truxtun was half owner of both, but “what ill wind can wreck the buoyant mind of a sailor?” After this experience, he reached Philadelphia from St. Kitts, probably early in 1776, as a passenger on a small craft from St. Eustatius.
Two privateers, the Congress, a ship, number of guns not recorded, and the Chance, a sloop of four guns and ten swivels, were being equipped by the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania, respectively, to prey on British commerce. Truxtun entered as a lieutenant on the larger of these, the Congress.
The first we learn of the Congress, Captain Boucher, is that the two vessels, Congress and Chance sailed in company for the Gulf of Mexico, to lie in wait north of Havana for the British homeward bound trade through the straits of Florida. They captured several Jamaica ships. Truxtun took command of one of these and brought her into New Bedford.
The next year, 1777, he went into partnership with Mr. Isaac Sears to fit out the Independence, a 10-gun ship, with a crew of thirty. Though the Independence was fitted out in New York, she was commissioned by Pennsylvania. Howe was then blocking the entrance to New York via Sandy Hook. Truxtun, with his new command, however, got to sea through Hell Gate and Long Island Sound and “captured a ship with a cargo of sugar, armed with sixteen guns, also captured a brig and sloop with cargoes of rum, etc., and others not specified.” The 16-gun ship was part of a homeward bound convoy from the Windward Islands. Truxtun fell in with it off the Azores and cut out not only the armed sugar carrier, but two other vessels of the same convoy.
He made several other prizes on this cruise, and years afterwards to emphasize the importance of frequent changes of recognition signals during war, he wrote:
During our revolution, I myself was once for a whole day in a fleet near the banks of Newfoundland, and from having possession of the signals taken in a brig I had captured the day preceding, answered every one they made and finally cut off from its rear and carried away at night (about ten or eleven o’clock) a valuable ship.
In 1778, before our alliance with France, Truxtun commanded another Maryland privateer, the ship Mars, 24, in which he cruised in the English Channel, emulating Paul Jones, and made several captures which he sent into Quiberon. This caused a protest to be sent by England to France for allowing American ships and their prizes to enter French ports. Later, this proceeding was regularized by the alliance.
After this cruise Truxtun appears to have commanded the Andrew Caldwell, a Pennsylvania privateer of ten guns with a crew of forty men. No record other than the bare fact is available, and it may be an error of Emmons, who lists it as in 1779.
Truxtun evidently made a second cruise in the Independence for there is a letter written to him by Paul Jones from the Ariel at Lorient in 1780. It is plain there was no love lost between regular men-o’-war’s men and privateers of that day.
Privateering vessels were forbidden by the Continental Congress to fly pennants like commissioned ships and Truxtun had sailed into Lorient flying a particularly large one, which he refused to haul down when so directed by Jones, to whom he wrote one or more fiery and defiant letters. This occasioned the latter to send Lieutenant Richard Dale, his first luff, with a boat’s crew, on board the Independence, to enforce his orders. He also sent Truxtun a rather long written communication, in which he said he would receive no more letters from the latter, and to be still more offensive he added: “I cannot answer your letter of this date more particularly, as there are in it several words I do not understand and cannot find in the dictionary.”
The ages of the actors in this episode were, Jones, thirty-three, Truxtun twenty-five, and Dale twenty-four.
In 1782, in the ship St. James, 20, commissioned by the state of Pennsylvania in 1781, Truxtun sailed for France, having on board our Consul General to Paris, Mr. T. Barclay. He had a drawn battle with a ship of about equal force, which Arbuthnot had sent out from New York to capture him. He was able to beat off his antagonist and proceed on his way. A passenger on this trip, in writing of the action says:
. . . a ball from the enemy had struck the side of the St. James and passed thence to the mainmast; its force had been so much impeded, that it only slightly wounded the mast. A fine forecastle man named Jack Sutton, perceiving the ball at the time it struck the mast, seized it, ran with it to the gunner and observed, “Here gunner, take this shot, write postpaid on it and send it back to the rascal!”
Truxtun returned from this voyage with what was said to be the most valuable cargo brought to our ports during the war.
In December of the same year, 1782, we find him in command of the ship Commerce, 14, with a crew of fifty men, with which he engaged an English brig of sixteen guns and seventy-five men and a schooner of fourteen guns and eighty men, for twenty minutes, when a frigate being sighted, he was obliged to haul off. His own loss was one killed and two wounded, as compared with his adversaries’ fourteen killed and twenty-four wounded.
This closes the available account of Truxton’s services during the Revolution, which ended when he was but twenty-eight. With a stirring record of eight successful years in command during a hard-fought war, he returned to the peaceful pursuits of of commerce and in the next decade made a reputation as a master of deep-sea sailing ships equal to his renown as a privteersman.
In 1794 he published a book on navigation, entitled,
Remarks, Instructions and Examples relating to Latitude and Longitude; also the Variation of the Compass, etc. To which is annexed a General Chart of the Globe, where the route made by the author in different ships under his command to the Cape of Good Hope, Batavia, Canton, China, the different ports of India, Europe, and the Cape de Verde Islands are marked for the purpose of showing the best Tracts of Sea to meet the most favorable winds, . . . with a short but General account of Variable Winds, Trade Winds, Monsoons, Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Tuffoons, Calms, Currents and particular weather met with in those Voyages, etc. etc. etc. By Thomas Truxtun, Philadelphia. Printed by T. Dobson at the Stone House, South Second Street, M, DCC, XCIV.
The date of publication is subsequent to August 31, 1794, because on August 9 of that year, Truxtun submitted his material to the Rev. Doctor Ewing, President of the University of Pennsylvania, referring to him as an astronomer for an opinion as to its value. In his reply, dated August 31, the President of the University said:
. . . having seen and perused your intended publication about the method of finding the longitude at sea, by observation of the sun and moon or stars, for the benefit of mariners, I cannot but heartily approve of the benevolence of the design, and the happy tendency that it may have to promote the important art of navigation. It is not to be expected, however, that the approbation of a theorist whose investigations are confined to his own chambers, without the benefit of practical experiment, should add anything to the observations and instructions of a gentleman, . . . who has justly acquired the character of the first navigator that has ever sailed from the ports of the United States. . . .
He thus bears witness to Truxtun’s reputation as a shipmaster. He compliments Truxtun especially on stressing the importance of careful adjustment of instruments, and how to use them.
The book includes examples of all then known methods of obtaining latitude and longitude at sea, with remarks and instructions on lunar observations. There are also tables of variations of the compass obtained in the years 1786-90 and 1792, in many localities, North and South Latitudes, East and West Longitudes.
Of Benjamin Franklin, one of his biographers says, that though he, as a tenth son, was destined by his father for the church, his early tastes were rather for the sea than the pulpit. This may explain his studies in later life of the “Gulph” stream and the laws of storms.
Truxtun was familiar with Franklin’s studies, and mentions experiments of his own, such as:
The direction of the Florida Gulph Stream may also be relied on, as I often tried its rate of going, by anchoring a boat in a calm (with a rope made fast to an iron pot, the rope from 150 to 200 fms. in length, and the pot from 18 to 25 inches in diameter, according to the size of the boat) and heaving the log, whereby the rate of going was ascertained, and found to be seldom less than one knot and never more than two and one-half knots, that is to the northward of Cape Hatteras . . . the width I have tried to fix also ... I have been attentive in ascertaining the temperature of the water and comparing it with that of the air, as recommended by that great philosopher, Dr. Franklin. ... it is of the utmost importance in making a passage to and from Europe to be acquainted with this gulph stream.
His track chart was bound with his treatise on navigation and showed: (a) and (b), his route from the Delaware to the Cape of Good Hope, Batavia, Canton, and return to the Delaware; (c) and (d), route from the Cape of Good Hope to the north end of Madagascar, thence to Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta and return to the Delaware; (e), route from the Delaware to London; (f) and (g), route from London to Madras and return; (h), route from the Downs to Hamburg and back to London and thence to the Delaware. He speaks of many other Asiatic and transatlantic voyages and of some to and from the West Indies.
March 27, 1794, Congress passed “An act to provide a naval armament.” It authorized the President to provide by purchase, or otherwise, equip, and employ four ships to carry forty-four guns and two to carry thirty-six guns each.
Washington, then President, determined to have the forty-fours built, one each, at Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Portsmouth, Virginia, and the thirty-sixes at Baltimore and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. As is well known, that distinguished shipbuilder, Joshua Humphreys of Philadelphia, was selected to design the models for both classes, and on June 5, John Barry, Samuel Nicholson, Silas Talbot, Joshua Barney, Richard Dale, and Thomas Truxtun, then thirty-nine years of age and second youngest of the six, were given appointments as captains in the Navy, to rank in the order named. One of these, Barney, on account of his relative rank with Talbot refused to serve. The vacancy was filled July 18, by the appointment of James Sever to rank after Truxtun.
To Truxtun, as captain and superintendent, was assigned the frigate of 36 guns to be built in Baltimore.
His new undertaking caused Truxtun to meditate on the proper lines on which to organize and launch an infant navy, and although not mentioned in the title of his book on navigation, and therefore not known except to the few who have had occasion to consult that volume, he bound with it, as an appendix, his ideas of the dimensions, placing, and rake of the masts and yards of forty-four and thirty-six gun frigates, and “A short account of the several General Duties of Officers of Ships of War, from an Admiral down to the Most Inferior Officers.”
He began by noting that the act which specified numbers of officers and men for each class of ships and their rates, provided neither quartermasters, boatswains, yeomen, nor several other necessary classes of petty officers.
He then says:
In the establishment of our young navy . . . recourse for precedent and example to some martitime European nation, in very many points will be found highly necessary to secure a good organization of it.
Because of its similarity in sea customs and manners to our own, he selected the English system, with additions and alterations, for his outline of duties of officers, remarking that:
. . . notwithstanding the prejudice that exists in our nation against the British government, for their spoliations and many unprovoked cruelties exhibited on our citizens, yet I think none can be much so, as not to acknowledge them, at this time the first maritime power on the globe with respect to naval tactics, discipline and the general management of ships of war; they are therefore a proper example for us to imitate in our infancy. . . .
His thoughts on the rank and duties of an admiral are well worth reading, but too long to be quoted here. He continued with vice and rear admirals, commodores, captains, lieutenants, masters, captains, and leutenants of marines, and finally, midshipmen, to which last he devotes more space than to admirals.
Impressed with the necessity of bending the twig that the tree may be properly inclined, Truxtun asks to be excused for introducing moral reflections in his work, and then proceeds with advice to midshipmen, after thus defining them:
Midshipman, a sort of naval cadet, appointed to second of the orders of the superior officers and assist in the necessary business of the vessel, either aboard or on shore. . . . On his first entrance in a ship of war, every midshipman has several dis-advantageous circumstances to encounter. These are partly occasioned by the nature of the sea service. . . and the genus of sailors and their officers. . . if the dunces who are his officers or mess-mates are rattling the dice, roaring bad verses, hissing on the flute or scraping discord on the fiddle, his attention to more noble studies will sweeten the hours of relaxation.
Midshipmen not being part of the complement of privateers, Truxtun must have harked back to what he saw of the genus British midshipman, when he was a “boy” on board the Prudent.
He laid stress on the importance of having a knowledge of foreign languages, especially in the case of admirals, and he himself showed familiarity with French Spanish naval terms.
The act creating the Navy stated expressly that were a treaty of peace made with the Barbary Corsairs—on account of whose depredations it was passed—the authority to build, lapsed. Such a treaty was agreed upon with Algiers in September, 1795.
The President called the attention of Congress to the serious losses that would result from a sudden suspension of building (exactly as might happen today) and the discharge of the reliable corps of artificers and men.
In January, 1796, Congress asked for information concerning progress and costs. Four persons, among them, Truxtun and Humphreys, appointed for the purpose, reported that progress had been such that all six frigates could be completed during 1796 and that the average cost was $120 per ton, the estimated tonnage of all six, 9,518. Congress, in April authorized the President to continue work on two forty-fours and one thirty-six gun frigate (Truxtun’s, at Baltimore).
Work was stopped on the frigate building at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to which Sever had been appointed, and on the two forty-fours at New York and Norfolk, which had been assigned to Talbot and Dale, and these officers were informed that their pay and subsistence would cease on June 30, 1796. The letter from the Secretary of War stated that the President hoped “that should any future occasion require your services, they will be cheerfully given.”
Truxtun thus found himself, or believed himself, third on the list of officers of the Navy.
In preparation for active service at sea, in addition to superintending the work on his ship, he seems to have followed closely the naval occurrences of the great war, resulting from the French Revolution, in which the apostles of freedom fought the world, and almost subjugated it.
Despite the fact that all six frigates could have been completed in 1796, work on the three was allowed to lag until the depredations of the public and private armed ships of the Directory and the excesses of the French minister to the United States, forced further activity on Congress and the President. John Adams had succeeded Washington, March 4, 1797, up to which date none of the three ships had left the ways. Money scarcity was probably the reason, since it seems that our treaty with Algiers was in jeopardy at that time, because we had not paid the tribute we had promised, nor had we reimbursed the Dey for advancing the price of our treaty with Tripoli, neither given any evidence of our intention to send him the amount he had pledged to Tunis for the treaty we had purchased there.
The Secretary of the Treasury was concerned about the strain on the nation’s finances that would be occasioned by suddenly borrowing from the Bank of the United States, and exporting such a considerable amount in specie as $525,000 to pay the Dey what we owed under the treaty of 1795 and additional sums for the annual tribute of naval stores.
Washington had referred to these sums in one of his last messages to Congress and urged the creation of a navy. Adams, in one of his early messages (May 16, 1797), ably seconded Washington’s advice, convened Congress, and presented the need for a naval service.
The frigate United States, a few days previous to Adams’ message, had been launched in the Delaware, close by, the first ship of the regular navy to take the water.
Congress before it adjourned, put an embargo on the exportation of arms, laid new taxes, authorized a loan of $800,000 and appropriated $200,000 to complete the three frigates, $100,000 for increasing the strength of the revenue cutters, and $100,000 for the pay and subsistence of the officers and men of the frigates.
We are told that Captains Barry, Nicholson, and Truxtun were permitted to select their own officers, in the first instance, subject of course to the President’s approval. Barry’s first selection became the senior lieutenant, Nicholson’s, the second senior, Truxtun’s the third. Then Barry’s turn came to select the fourth, and so on.
Truxtun’s ship, the Constellation, “kissed the water,” September 7. The Constitution was ready for launching the same month, but the first trial failed, and she did not float in Boston harbor until October 21.
Feeling seems to have been running high against the French, and, to a lesser extent, against the British assumption of over-lordship.
It is said that the Constellation was coppered in ten hours, that she was launched with the greater part of her guns and equipment on board and that she was ready for sea seven days after she slid into the water. However that may be, President Adams and the Congress were not yet ready to resist the French by force of arms.
Truxtun was also forehanded in other respects. He wrote and published—presumably at his own expense—a complete tactical signal-book, containing colored designs for all necessary numerals and other flags—a unique volume, of which, as far as yet ascertained, but one copy exists, and that in the library of the Navy Department, though the Congressional Library is seeking others.
Its title page reads, “Instructions, Signals, and Explanations Offered for the United States Fleet by Thomas Truxtun, a Captain in the Navy, Baltimore, printed by John Hayes in Public Alley, 1797.”
It will be noted that it was offered, but there has appeared no evidence to show that it was adopted, although it carries on the last page a printed line, reading, “Given from under my hand on board the Unite States ship United States." The words United States are blotted out and Constellation substituted, written in long hand and followed, also in long hand by, “this (a date blotted out) 3rd day of April, 1797, Thomas Truxton.” The writing is apparently Truxtun’s own. The date blotted out cannot be determined. It seems to have been issued by Truxtun to one of his officers, or possibly signed by him, previous to submitting it to the Secretary of War, there being as yet no navy department.
That Truxtun had access to British signal-books and was a keen follower of the naval events of the European war, is shown by the fact that his book contains signals for all of the British accepted methods of attack included in Lord Howe’s final signal-book, in use during the “Glorious First of June,” and approved by the Admiralty. The wording is Truxtun’s.
Each of the 255 signals and the 32 blanks has between the number and its signification the colored flags, or rather pennants, for he used pennants instead of flags for the numerals which compose the signal. A few may be quoted:
191. To speak the Commodore a-wheft, which is to be repeated by the other ships till answered.
188. Mutiny quelled and ring leaders secured.
226. Execute the condemned criminal.
The last two signals bring to mind the widespread mutinies in the British Navy at that time. The two that follow show the grim business of war and disease.
224. Are your dead buried and ship well washed?
239. Burn devils below, or wash with hot vinegar, the apartments being previously cleared.
245. To go to a regular meal before an evolution or battle.
255. On ships being taken to destroy signals.
This signal-book was written primarily for the conduct of a squadron of eight frigates and two sloops. The names of all are printed in the text preceding the signals and in the signals themselves, as for instance; “Signal 244. I mean to lead into action with the United States.” The names of the ships and sloops are printed with their distinguishing pennants in colors and they are arranged in an order of sailing in one column, and in two columns for convoy. Under the order in two columns, the United States is ahead of, and between the columns, the Constitution in rear of, and between the columns and a convoy of twenty-eight ships represented, also between the columns. Truxtun writes:
This is a fleet for example, supposed to consist of eight frigates and two sloops of war, which sloops are placed abreast of each wing of the fleet, and to act as whippers-in and repeating ships, etc. etc., having a number of unarmed merchantmen or transports under convoy.
The order of sailing in one column was as below, when on the port tack. The order was reversed for the starboard tack.
Constellation 40 guns and 350 men.
Warren 40 guns and 350 men.
Constitution 44 guns and 400 men.
United States 44 guns and 400 men.
Broad pennant (blue)
Congress 44 guns and 400 men.
President 44 guns and 400 men.
Washington 40 guns and 350 men.
Mercer 40 guns and 350men.
Spy sloop of 16 guns and 90 men on weather bow at the distance of three-fourths of a mile. To repeat signals, etc.
Viper sloop of 14 guns and 80 men on weather quarter at the distance of three-fourths of a mile.
Truxtun seems to have used these names for illustration only, because, at that time, of the six frigates authorized, work on three had been suspended, and one author states that even the material had been sold. Moreover, there never appears a ship by the name of Mercer on the navy list. The names Spy and Viper were those borne by two small craft among the public and private armed vessels of the Revolutionary War.
There are some other noteworthy features of Truxtun’s signal-book, found on the last pages, 33-38, the contents of which are made up of explanation of the day, night, and fog signals and other orders, and continued with what seems to be an address to the President or War Department, setting forth his ideas on a number of subjects. He again refers to “the organization of a Navy in an infant country,” stresses tactics, “simple and efficient signals,” and offers, if his book is approved, to undertake a treatise on naval evolutions, to be selected and compiled from the best authors. He comments on the battle of Cape St. Vincent, which took place less than two months before his book was given out on the Constellation, and on some other famous engagements.
On page 37, we find:
Naval Tactics being a science, and not so easily attained as may be imagined, a marine academy ought, under the protection of our government, to be established, otherwise we shall find that well informed and capable officers will always be scarce, and insufficient for the purpose of conducting the various business of a fleet; and a society to improve Naval Architecture would be no less laudable in our government to promote. . . .
Shipbuilding, as well as midshipmen, was one of his hobbies, as he ends (page 38) by saying:
By way of conclusion to this short epistle, I beg leave to recommend to all those who wish to promote the science of naval architecture, etc. to form a society, and invite occasionally others to their meetings, where a good library should be provided and kept, of all books on the subject of shipbuilding and equipment, etc. etc., be the authors who they may, or language what it will. For my own part, I would readily subscribe handsomely to such an institution, and have frequently had conversations on the subject with gentlemen of my acquaintance.
The last three lines on page 35 have been carefully inked over, but not so completely that they cannot be made out. They read:
To Monsieur La Bordonnays whose genius it is said always prompted him to write out useful inventions and whose naval tactics I have long studied with the strictest attention and labour and reflection, I am principally indebted for the ground work of these sheets.
Truxtun cannot be described as a politic man, but he may have considered it in bad form to give so much credit to a Frenchman, in a signal-book, when war with France seemed imminent.
He might well have been proud, however, of his debt to Labourdonnais, whom English and French alike admired and eulogized, and to whom the navies of the world owed, and still owe, an inspiring example of great results, achieved with forces of his own creation, from what to any other man would have been hopeless material, both in men and ships. Moreover, by replacing single flag hoists with his numerals, he practically gave us our modern flag signal system.
Mahé Labourdonnais was one of the few men in history who was permitted to add to his own name the name of the place where he had signally distinguished himself. He died two years before Truxtun was born, at the age of fifty-four, after three years of imprisonment in the Bastille on false charges.
Truxtun may have been attracted to the career of this sailor, soldier, administrator, naval officer, and leader of men, through having himself traded and perhaps “country-wallahed” on the Coromandel Coast and at Bombay and Goa, where Labourdonnais had made a name for himself in the service of the Portuguese, the French East India Company, and the French Navy. Another similarity in the lives of the two men lay in the fact that both had gone to sea in very early youth, Labourdonnais having made his first voyage to the East Indies at the age of ten. He learned navigation from a Jesuit priest who was a passenger on one of the ships on which Labourdonnais, as a seaman, voyaged from France to Manila. His character as the benevolent governor of Mauritius (Ile de France), Bernardin de Saint-Pierre has made familiar to the entire reading world in the romance of Paul and Virginia, which before Truxtun wrote had been translated into all European languages.
Labourdonnais’ Memoire, defending himself and finally confuting his enemies, and his Naval Tactics, to which Truxtun was so much indebted, are not available for this sketch.
To return to the ships of our young Navy, and their personnel, under the law, a 36-gun ship was allowed eight midshipmen—as many as a forty-four—but one less lieutenant, one less surgeon’s mate, and no chaplain.
A few years earlier, the Dey of Algiers had set the ransom value of a captain or shipmaster, such as Truxtun, at $6,000 per head. Our government valued his services at $75 per month and six rations per day. A midshipman’s relative pay was higher then than now, and was set by the President instead of by law. It was $20 or $25 per month and a ration.
The Constellation’s complement of officers, in addition to the captain, consisted of three lieutenants, one lieutenant of marines, one surgeon, one sailing master, one purser, and one surgeon’s mate, so that the midshipmen were equal in numbers to all officers junior to the captain, and if Truxtun’s solicitude for them, as expressed in his signal-book, is any indication, they were the objects of his particular attention.
When Congress reconvened in November, 1797, President Adams again recommended proceeding with the building of a navy, after reporting that, despite persistent efforts, he had been unable to come to any agreement with France.
In the following February Congress was aroused by a French privateer entering the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, burning a British vessel lying there and capturing two of our own ships off the port. In March the President again reported that his further efforts to make a treaty with France had failed. Congress then appropriated $115,832, to complete and equip for sea, with all convenient speed, the frigates United States, Constitution, and Constellation. Other sums for pay, ammunition, etc., were appropriated.
There must have been much chafing and restlessness on board the frigates during the winter of 1797-98.
In April the Secretary of War recommended building or buying two ships of twenty-two guns each, eight of twenty, and ten of sixteen, and six galleys, each to carry one or two twenty-four pounders.
Congress acted April 27, by authorizing twelve vessels of not more than twenty-two guns each to be built, purchased, or hired. Three days later a Navy Department was established and Benjamin Stoddert was appointed Secretary of the Navy, taking office in June.
In the meantime, a number of small vessels were authorized to be equipped as galleys.
On May 28 the final step was taken for sanctioning the capture of the armed vessels of France, and on that day, John Adams, President, issued the first
Instructions to the commanders of the armed vessels of the United States, given at Philadelphia, the 28th day of May 1798 and in the 22nd year of the Independence of the United States.
In June Congress, in lieu of payment, authorized the President to accept not more than twelve ships, and to give certificates of indebtedness therefor, bearing interest at not more than 6 per cent. Under this act a number of ships were built by states and communities and added to the navy.
In the same month Congress strengthened the revenue cutter service and authorized its employment in conjunction with the navy.
By the middle of July, our potential navy consisted of twelve ships of not less than thirty-two guns, twelve of not less than twenty guns nor more than twenty-four guns and six not to exceed eighteen guns. Also there were revenue cutters and galleys.
On July 11 an act for establishing and organizing a Marine Corps was passed, and the pay of the major commanding was set at $50 per month and four rations per day. Captains of marines, of which there were four, were to get the same pay as lieutenants of the navy, $40 per month and three rations per day.
Our navy thus became an entity in all essentials, as at present.
Under the authorization of April 27, a merchant ship, the Ganges, an Indiaman, was purchased into the navy. She carried twenty-four guns instead of the twenty-two permitted by Congress, and a crew of 220 men. She was commanded by Captain Richard Dale, who thus came back to the service.
The Secretary of War, accompanied by Captain Barry, delivered Dale’s orders to him on board the Ganges, at Philadelphia, May 24. His instructions were only to cruise for the protection of waters within the jurisdiction of the United States, between Long Island and the Virginia capes. After the act of May 28, a pilot boat was sent to him, with President Adams’ orders, the preamble of which has been already quoted. Its substance was to seize, take, and bring into port . . . armed vessels of the Republic of France, hovering on the coast of the United States, etc.
Barry, in the United States, did not get to sea until July. He was preceded by Truxtun, in June, and by Stephen Decatur, the elder, with the Delaware, 20, from Philadelphia.
Decatur made the first prize of the naval war with France, Le Croyable, 16, a few days after getting clear of Cape Henlopen, July 6.
Truxtun made his first cruise along the coast, and his second, (both uneventful) to Havana, to convoy a merchant fleet of sixty ships home, having with him the Baltimore, 20.
Some time during 1798, President Adams submitted the names of Talbot and Dale to the Senate as captains, although they had not actually been discharged when their services were terminated in 1796. On confirmation, he restored them to their previous places on the navy list, as numbers three and four.
When Truxtun learned that Talbot and Dale were restored to their former numbers, he protested. Dale, while the protest was under consideration, went to the Far East, commanding a letter of marque, having had an uneventful cruise in the Ganges. Talbot seems to have marked time, and Truxtun, with the title of commodore, was sent for a winter’s cruise to the West Indies, with a small squadron, consisting of the Constellation, 36, Baltimore, 20, Richmond, 18, Norfolk, 18, and the cutter Virginia, 14.
During this cruise Truxtun distinguished himself by the capture, February 7, 1799, of Insurgente, 40, Citizen Captain Barreaut, in a rough sea, after an eight-hour chase. The story of the engagement has been told too often and too well to be repeated here except to refer to the conduct of Midshipman David Porter. The topmast had been struck by a shot from an 18-pounder and was about to fall, when Porter who was stationed in the fore top climbed to the topmast head and, by cutting the slings of the fore-topsail yard which slid down to the cap, saved the topmast and topgallant mast.
In this action Insurgente had seventy men killed or wounded, while the Constellation had two badly wounded. One of these was Midshipman McDonough, lost a foot. The only man killed was one who, in attempting to desert his quarters, was run through by the sword of the third lieutenant, Andrew Sterrett.
Lieutenant John Rodgers, first lieutenant of the Constellation, with Midshipman Porter and eleven men, was put in charge of the prize, which that night, due to the rough sea, became separated from the Constellation. One hundred and seventy of the French were still on board, but these two resolute and resourceful officers kept the prisoners below, and succeeded in rejoining the Constellation three days afterward at St. Kitts.
Young Porter had once complained to Truxtun of his and also Rodgers’ harsh treatment of the midshipmen, of whom there were ten on board the Constellation, and had announced his determination to resign. Truxtun said to him,
My boy, you shall never leave the Navy if I can help it. Why you young dog, every time I swear at you, you go up a round in the ladder of promotion, and when Mr. Rodgers blows you up, it is because he loves you and doesn’t want you to become too conceited.
Turnbull remarks that David Porter, his father before him and each of his sons, had what might be called a “fighting nose.”
Gardner Allen gives an extract from an address of Truxtun’s to his midshipmen, which is in the same vein as his advice of 1794. He said, in part,
Learn to be seamen of the first order . . . prepare yourselves to be admirals and to command the American fleet. . . . Do not fail to pay the closest attention to Naval Tactics. ... I shall always have pleasure in giving encouragement and instruction to you, or such of you, as I see merit it, and such as do not, I shall have equal pleasure in getting rid of as speedily as possible.
When he returned from this cruise, Truxton received congratulatory addresses from all quarters and “the Merchants of Lloyd’s Coffee House sent him a present of plate, worth upward of six hundred guineas, with the action between the frigates elegantly engraved on it.”
Captain Barreau wrote him a letter of thanks for his treatment of himself and his crew saying, “You have united all the qualities which characterize a man of honor, courage, and humanity.”
When Truxtun learned that the question of relative rank with Talbot and Dale had been decided against him, he sent in his resignation and Barron was ordered to command the Constellation. Dale was a year younger than Truxtun, and it is not likely that the latter had forgotten the contretemps at Lorient in 1780.
President Adams’s arguments, after having submitted the names of Dale and Talbot to the Senate for confirmation, in maintaining that they had never been out of the Navy, seem rather weak. His decision stood, however. He refused to accept Truxtun’s resignation, writing, “I respect, I esteem, I love the man . . . and I confidently hope he will not think of a resignation.”
The Naval Chronicle says:
Having acquired fame, and as the world thought, wealth (though in this the world erred) in the service, he felt that in a time of active hostilities he could not quit it without subjecting himself to unmerited imputation.
Mr. Stoddert, and others, were said to have been influential in persuading Truxtun not to insist. Truxtun wrote, August 15, 1799:
You no doubt know that I have resigned my commission in the Navy and the cause of my having done so. The secretary, has however, returned it to me with the request that I will proceed after the French 44-gun frigate seen by the Norfolk in the event of Captain Barron not arriving before the ship is ready for sea, for no personal injury which I feel will ever make me less zealous in punishing the insults and wrongs done to my country, whenever an opportunity of this sort presents itself.
As it happened Barron did arrive before the Constellation was ready, and went to sea after the French 44 but failed to find her. On his return to Hampton Roads, Truxtun took over his old command and sailed for the West Indies, this time at the head of a squadron as large as that of Barry, the year before, and destined for the same station, Guadeloupe.
The squadron consisted of the Constellation, 36; Adams, 32; John Adams, 32; Connecticut, 24; Delaware, 20; Baltimore, 20; Eagle, 14; Pickering, 14; Enterprise, 12.
It was during this cruise of Truxtun’s that his celebrated action with the Vengeance, 54, took place to the southward and westward of Basse Terre, Guadeloupe, after a chase of two days. The action lasted from 8 p.m. until 1 a.m., during which time the Constellation fired the equivalent of sixty-six complete broadsides. Several times during the night the French tried to surrender, but the noise and smoke of the cannonading prevented them from being either heard or seen. Finally, just as Truxtun was sure of his prize, his mainmast went over the side, carrying with it the topmen and Midshipman Jarvis, and rendering the ship helpless. This action has been told in song, verse, and story.
The French captain, Pitot, got away to Curaçao, with the French gold and forty-five American prisoners on board, but with 160 of his crew killed or wounded. His mainmast and his fore and mizzen topmasts were gone and his pumps were going night and day. Truxtun thought the Vengeance must have sunk. He, himself, reached Port Royal, Jamaica, with the Constellation convoyed by the Insurgente, six days after the battle and arrived in Norfolk about the end of March. Alexander Sterrett, third lieutenant in the action with the Insurgente, was now first luff of the Constellation, which had at this time eleven midshipmen on board four of whom had participated in the taking of the Insurgente.
Congress voted Truxtun a gold medal, which is reproduced on page 540, and commended the gallantry and good conduct of the officers, sailors, and marines. It resolved that:
The conduct of James Jarvis, a midshipman in said frigate, who gloriously preferred certain death to the abandonment of his post, is deserving of the highest praise, and that the loss of so promising an officer is a subject of national regret.
When refitted the Constellation went to sea in the spring of 1800 in command of Captain Alexander Murray, who hoped to meet the Vengeance, supposed to be on her way to France, after refitting at Curaçao. At this time, however, she had not left port and it was her fate to be captured later in August by the British, on which occasion her casualties were 162 killed, wounded, and missing. She was launched under an unlucky star.
Truxtun took command of the President, 44, in July, and resumed command of the Guadeloupe station where by April the fleet had been increased to thirteen vessels. He remained on this duty about five months, when he was relieved by Commodore Barry in the United States.
While at St. Kitts he had on board for a time the notorious General Rigaud who had been taken by Stewart, commanding the Experiment, from an armed cruiser bound for France, and who had been in rebellion against Toussaint L’Ouverture. In a letter Stewart says of him:
This is the man, sir, that has wrested millions from my countrymen. The depredations, the piracies, the plunder and murders he has committed on my fellow-citizens are but too well known.
Truxtun’s prize, the Insurgente, had rendered good service since her capture, but was not fated to remain long on our navy list. She sailed from the Chesapeake, under Captain Fletcher, the latter part of July with orders to make an eight-weeks’ cruise and then return to Annapolis. She never returned, but was lost with all on board in a September hurricane of that year. The brig Pickering, Captain Miller, met with the same fate.
The war that was never declared now nearly over. President Adams, in November, reported progress in a treaty that he was making with Napoleon, and said in a public address:
The present Navy of the United States, called suddenly into existence by a great national exigency, has raised us in our own esteem and by the protection of our commerce has effected to the extent of our expectations the object for which it was created.
The President proclaimed the treaty of peace, February 18, 1801. On March 3, Congress reduced the Navy to a peace establishment. On March 4, Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated in Washington, as our third President. Robert Smith succeeded Benjamin Stoddert as Secretary of the Navy.
Truxtun in the President arrived home from m his last cruise a few days later and was succeeded in command by Dale.
By the act of March 3, the Navy was to consist of thirteen frigates. Six were to remain in commission with two-thirds of their crews and full complements of officers. Seven were to be in reserve, with a sailing master in command and a complement of three warrant officers, nine marines, a cook and, and ten or twelve seamen. The President was directed to retain in the service 9 captains, 36 lieutenants, and 150 midshipmen and was authorized to discharge all others. Actually, for the thirteen ships, Jefferson retained thirteen captains. Truxton stood fourth on this list, Barry, Nicholson, and Dale being his seniors, as before. Talbot was not retained.
Trouble with the Barbary states again broke out and Tripoli soon declared war. Dale, flying a broad pennant for the first time, was sent to the Mediterranean at the end of May, in command of a “squadron of observation,” consisting of his own ship the President, the Philadelphia, and the Essex, frigates, and the schooner Enterprise. The last named commanded by Sterrett, Truxton’s former first lieutenant on the Constellation, soon to be presented with a sword by Congress for his achievements which his command.
By February, 1802, Congress was again aroused to declare—not a state of war—but to authorize the President to fully man such vessels as he saw fit and to “subdue, seize, and make prizes of all vessles, etc., of the Bashaw of Tripoli or his subjects. . .and to commission privateers.
Enlistments then were for a year only. The relief of Dale’s squadron being necessary, Truxton was selected as his successor, and was ordered to the Chesapeake early in the spring of 1802. His squadron was to consist of the Chesapeake, Constellation, Adams, New York, and John Adams.
He proceeded to Norfolk, where the Chesapeake was lying, and made preparations to carry on his new duties. These promised to be so arduous that he asked the Secretary of the Navy to assign a captain to the Chesapeake, that he might have full time to devote to them. The request led to some correspondence. Truxtun wrote: ". . . the task for the intended service would be too severe without some aid, and if that aid could not be rendered, he must beg leave to quit the service.” Secretary Smith construed this as a resignation from the Navy, instead of a wish to decline this particular duty, and in spite of Truxton’s efforts and those of his friends he was forced out of the naval service.
One of his biographers says:
. . . the Administration of that day sacrificed at one blow, the man who had shed lustre upon the infant navy of our country, but who had the misfortune to belong to a different political school. . . . Thus, at the early age of forty-seven years, in the prime of manhood, when his former life gave promise of much future usefulness, after many years devotion to the navy, in which he fondly hoped to close his existence, was the subject of this memoir suddently cut short in that career, in which he had won unfading laurels, both for his country and himself.
Jefferson is reported to have said that to allow flag captains to commanders of squadrons would be a step toward introducing aristocratic conditions in the Navy. However that may be, the command of the squadron was given to Captain R. V. Morris.
Dale returned home in April, after a cruise of ten months. In the fall, being ordered to hold himself in readiness to resume the Mediterranean command, he, too, declined to serve without a flag captain on the ship that was to carry his broad pennant. His request being refused, he resigned from the service, and having an ample fortune, retired at the age of forty-six, to live in Philadelphia. Thus did Jefferson’s extreme ideas of democracy—although eventually he was forced to yield—deprive his country of the services of its two most distinguished naval officers, both in the prime of life.
Truxtun retired to his farm in New Jersey, and later resumed residence in Philadelphia, where he, Dale, and Barry were honored citizens. In 1816 he was elected high sheriff of the city and county. He died in 1822.
He continued his keen interest in naval matters and published, early in 1806, about five months after the battle of Trafalgar, some observations on that event, and also on the scarcity of writers on naval tactics, especially among Englishmen, who could only show one, Clerk of Eldin, while France had no less than four, Hoste, Morogues, Villehuet, and Grenier, with all of whose works he was familiar.
He advocated a modification of Villeneuve’s (accidental) battle line at Trafalgar; discussed the advantages of windward and leeward positions, etc. He speaks of writing his book with a view of causing “emulation among our excellent young navy men and to render them some benefit.”
One of Truxtun’s distinguished descendants lives near Annapolis, and a tract of land has been recently presented by him to that city to be known as Truxtun Park.
Two naval vessels have borne Truxtun’s name, the first being a brig of ten guns, built in Norfolk in 1842. She made her first cruise in 1843 in the Mediterranean under Commander George P. Upshur. She was the appropriate bearer, from Constantinople to the United States, of the body of Commodore David Porter, who had been charge d’affaires and minister to Turkey for twelve years, and who had started on the road to fame as a midshipman with Truxtun; the beginning of a lifelong friendship between the two.
The Truxtun grounded on Tuxpan bar in 1846, during the Mexican War. Her crew and officers were taken prisoners by the Mexicans. The hull of the ship was burned by Commodore Connor’s orders.
The second Truxtun was one of our earliest torpedo-boat destroyers. A staunch craft, built with her sister-ships, the Worden and Whipple in Baltimore in 1903.
This sketch may be fittingly ended with a reference to Truxtun’s signal-book. Whatever its travels it evidently came back to him; for on the fly leaf is a note in long hand signed with his initials, which he probably would not have submitted to the Secretary of War, although it shows that he was a true sailor man.
The rights of America we will maintain
and then return to you, Sweet girl again.
T.T.
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THE MORE a general is in the habit of demanding from his troops, the surer he will be that his demands will be answered. The soldier is as proud of overcoming toil, as he is of surmountimg danger.—Clausewitz.