p
at once headed boldly for the English Channel, to carry the war to the
very doors of the enemy.

At that time the English fleets had destroyed the navies of every other
power of Europe, and had obtained such complete supremacy over the
French that the French fleets were kept in port. Off these ports lay the
great squadrons of the English ships of the line, never, in gale or
in calm, relaxing their watch upon the rival war-ships of the French
emperor. So close was the blockade of the French ports, and so hopeless
were the French of making headway in battle with their antagonists,
that not only the great French three-deckers and two-deckers, but their
frigates and sloops as well, lay harmless in their harbors, and the
English ships patroled the seas unchecked in every direction. A few
French privateers still slipped out now and then, and the far bolder and
more formidable American privateersmen drove hither and thither across
the ocean in their swift schooners and brigantines, and harried the
English commerce without mercy.

The Wasp proceeded at once to cruise in the English Channel and off
the coasts of England, France, and Spain. Here the water was traversed
continually by English fleets and squadrons and single ships of war,
which were sometimes covoying detachments of troops for Wellington's
Peninsular army, sometimes guarding fleets of merchant vessels bound
homeward, and sometimes merely cruising for foes. It was this spot,
right in the teeth of the British naval power, that the Wasp chose for
her cruising ground. Hither and thither she sailed through the narrow
seas, capturing and destroying the merchantmen, and by the seamanship
of her crew and the skill and vigilance of her commander, escaping the
pursuit of frigate and ship of the line. Before she had been long on the
ground, one June morning, while in chase of a couple of merchant ships,
she spied a sloop of war, the British brig Reindeer, of eighteen guns
and a hundred and twenty men. The Reindeer was a weaker ship than the
Wasp, her guns were lighter, and her men fewer; but her commander,
Captain Manners, was one of the most gallant men in the splendid British
navy, and he promptly took up the gage of battle which the Wasp threw
down.

The day was calm and nearly still; only a light wind stirred across the
sea. At one o'clock the Wasp's drum beat to quarters, and the sailors
and marines gathered at their appointed posts. The drum of the Reindeer
respon