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Defeat of HMS Guerriere11367 Reads
![]() ![]() I have the honour to inform you, that on the 19th instant, at 2 PM being in latitude 41, 42, longitude 55, 48, with the CONSTITUTION under my command, a sail was discovered from the mast-head bearing E. by S. or E.S.E. but at such a distance we could not tell what she was. All sail was instantly made in chase, and soon found we came up with her. At 3 PM could plainly see that she was a ship on the starboard tack, under easy sail, close on a wind; at half past 3 PM made her out to be a frigate; continued the chase until we were within about three miles, when I ordered the light sails taken in, the courses hauled up, and the ship cleared for action. At this time the chase had backed his main top-sail, waiting for us to come down. As soon as the CONSTITUTION was ready for action, I bore down with an intention to bring him to close action immediately; but on our coming within gun-shot she gave us a broadside and filled away, and were, giving us a broadside on the other tack, but without effect; her shot falling short. She continued wearing and manoeuvreing for about three quarters of an hour, to get a raking position, but finding she could not, she bore up, and run under top-sails and gib, with the wind on the quarter. Immediately made sail to bring the ship up with her, and 5 minutes before 6 PM being along side within half pistol shot, we commenced a heavy fire from all our guns, double shotted with round and grape, and so well directed were they, and so warmly kept up, that in 15 minutes his mizen-mast went by the board, and his main-yard in the slings, and the hull, rigging and sails very much torn to pieces. The fire was kept up with equal warmth for 15 minutes longer, when his main-mast and fore-mast went, taking with them every spar, excepting the bowsprit; on seeing this we ceased firing, so that in 30 minutes after we got fairly along side the enemy she surrendered, and had not a spar standing, and her hull below and above water so shattered, that a few more broadsides must have carried her down. Note: by Captain Isaac Hull, USN
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1759: The French relinquish Fort Ticonderoga in New York to the British under General Jeffrey Amherst. 1790: An attempt at a counter-revolution in France is put down by the National Guard at Lyons. 1794: The French defeat an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus, France. 1848: The French army suppresses the Paris uprising. 1861: George McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac after the disaster at Bull Run five days prior. 1863: Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his men are captured at Salineville, Ohio, during a spectacular raid on the North. 1912: The first airborne radio communications from naval aircraft to ship is conducted. 1917: Repeated German attacks north of the Aisne and at Mont Haut are repulsed. 1941: President Franklin Roosevelt seizes all Japanese assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China. |
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