alongside, the _President_ began firing at a distance and was hulling
the enemy's stern when a gun on the forecastle burst, and killed or
wounded sixteen American sailors. Commodore Rodgers was picked up with a
broken leg. Meanwhile the _Belvidera_ cast overboard her boats and
anchors, emptied the fresh water barrels to better her sailing trim,
and, crowding on every stitch of canvas, drew away and was lost to view.
Rodgers then forgot his orders to return to New York and went off in
search of the great convoy of British merchant vessels homeward bound
from Jamaica, which was called the plate fleet. He sailed as far as the
English Channel before quitting the chase and then cruised back to
Boston.

Meanwhile Captain Isaac Hull of the _Constitution_ had taken on a crew
and stores at Annapolis and was bound up the coast to New York. Hull's
luck appeared to be no better than Rodgers's. Off Barnegat he sailed
almost into a strong British squadron, which had been sent from Halifax.
The escape from this grave predicament was an exploit of seamanship
which is among the treasured memories of the service. It was the
beginning of the career of the _Constitution_, whose name is still the
most illustrious on the American naval list and whose commanders, Hull
and Bainbridge, are numbered among the great captains. It is a privilege
to behold today, in the Boston Navy Yard, this gallant frigate preserved
as a heritage, her tall masts and graceful yards soaring above the grim,
gray citadels that we call battleships. True it is that a single modern
shell would destroy this obsolete, archaic frigate which once swept the
seas like a meteor, but the very image of her is still potent to thrill
the hearts and animate the courage of an American seaman.

On that luckless July morning, at break of day, off the New Jersey
coast, it seemed as though the _Constitution_ would be flying British
colors ere she had a chance to fight. On her leeward side stood two
English frigates, the _Guerriere_ and the _Belvidera_, with the
_Shannon_ only five miles astern, and the rest of the hostile fleet
lifting topsails above the southern horizon.

Not a breath of wind stirred. Captain Hull called away his boats, and
the sailors tugged at the oars, towing the _Constitution_ very slowly
ahead. Captain Broke of the _Shannon_ promptly followed suit and
signaled for all the boats of the squadron. In a long column they
trailed at the end of the hawser; and the _Sha