\[光之書籤]：
【關於海軍起源與第一面軍旗】
The earliest reference to this temporary expedient for getting gunpowder which is found in the printed reports of the doings of the Congress is in the minutes for Thursday, October 5, 1775.
It was then resolved to inform General Washington that the Congress had “received certain intelligence of the sailing of two north country built brigs, of no force, from England on the 11th of August last, loaded with arms, powder and other stores for Quebec without convoy, which it being of importance to intercept, ” Washington was requested to “apply to the Council of Massachusetts-Bay for the two armed vessels in their service, ” and send them “at the expense of the continent” after the brigs.
Moreover, he was informed that “the Rhode Island and Connecticut vessels of force will be sent directly to their assistance.” Further still, it was resolved that “the general be directed to employ the said vessels and others, if he judge necessary.” That was a very important set of resolutions in connection with the history of the navy.
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The resolutions of the Congress shall be given in full, because it was upon this legal warrant that the American navy was founded. They were as follows:
“The committee appointed to fit out armed vessels, laid before congress a list of the officers by them appointed agreeable to the powers to them given by Congress, viz:
Esek Hopkins, esq. comander in chief of the fleet—
Dudley Saltonstall, Captain of the Alfred.
Abraham Whipple, Captain of the Columbus.
\[光之書籤]：
【關於阿諾德在尚普蘭湖的戰鬥】
To Benedict Arnold was given the task of preparing a flotilla to stop the invasion of Sir Guy Carleton. Benedict Arnold was an army officer and in command, under Gates, of militia who were, as said, for the most part farmers. But Arnold was a man of infinite resource, energy, and courage. Some shipwrights and sailmakers were brought from the American coast, and with such materials as were at hand he set to work to build a navy for the defence of the lake.
He had, fortunately, seen service at sea, and the task was not wholly beyond his experience.
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On the whole, the American fleet mounted eighty-eight guns to the eighty-nine of the British fleet, but they were inferior in weight of metal thrown, the largest being eighteen-pounders to the British twenty-four-pounders, while they needed 811 men for a full complement, but had only 700.
It was not that they lacked good will or bravery; it was that they were landsmen and untrained in the work before them.
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At daybreak on the morning of Wednesday, October 11, 1776, Benedict Arnold’s little fleet lay at anchor in a line across the north end of the strait between Valcour Island and the mainland. It was a clear, cold morning. A strong northerly wind was sweeping through this narrow valley between the Green Mountains and the ever-beautiful Adirondacks.
It was just the kind of a day that Sir Guy Carleton wanted for his passage over the lake, and, soon after sunrise, his fleet came snoring along under full sail past Cumberland Head.
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In the meantime Arnold had taken the gondola Congress as his flagship—no doubt because she was furnished with oars, and, as a double-ender, could be easily handled—and with two other gondolas and the schooner Royal Savage, went down wind to meet the enemy.
The fleet of the enemy, though manned by picked men—by men known not only for their bravery, but for their skill in handling the guns—was obliged to draw off to get beyond the range of the smaller guns on the American fleet.
The Congress, Arnold’s flagship, was hulled by the British round shot no less than twelve times during the afternoon, and seven of these projectiles passed through her at the water-line. But the crew, farmers though they were, plugged her up and fought on as before.
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By Arnold’s order the small galleys were run ashore in a creek near by and there fired, Arnold, in the Congress, covering their retreat until their crews were safe on shore, when he ran the Congress ashore also, and then stood guard while his crew fired her, “remaining on board of her until she was in flames, lest the enemy should get possession and strike his flag, which was kept flying to the last.”
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Having looked upon “the countenance of the enemy,” Sir Guy Carleton changed his mind.
When one recalls how much superior the power of England was to that of all these pirates combined, it seems astounding that even she should have contributed to the blackmail, but the reason for her doing so may be found in the debates of Parliament of that day. Said Lord Sheffield in 1784:
“It is not probable that the American States will have a very free trade in the Mediterranean. It will not be to the interest of any of the great maritime powers to protect them from the Barbary States.
The only nation that had been protected by Portuguese men-of-war was the American. This truce, which was arranged by the British consul-general at Algiers, Mr. Charles Logie, was deliberately planned to turn the pirates against American ships.
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But out of the national humiliation sprang a new navy.
The people who had called every legislator that spoke for the honor of the flag a blatant demagogue; the people who had feared naval tyrants, who had feared taxation, and who had argued that a small navy was worse than none—the peace-at-any-price men had been in a great majority. Now the publication of these facts opened the eyes of enough to make a majority the other way.
Nevertheless, so little regard had the members of Congress for the honor of the nation that “the resolution of the House of Representatives, that a naval force adequate to the protection of the commerce of the United States ought to be provided, passed by a majority of two votes only.”
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At that time the ablest shipbuilder in the United States was Joshua Humphreys, a Quaker, who for thirty years had been laying down keels at Philadelphia.
It was therefore necessary that such ships as we did have should be fast-sailing enough to either fight or run at will, and when they chose to fight they must be equal, ship for ship, to anything afloat. To accomplish this they must be longer and broader than the existing type and yet not so high out of water.
On this model they would carry, he said, as many guns on one deck as the others carried on two; could fight them there to better advantage; and, what was more, the improved model would give much more stability—would allow so much more canvas to be spread aloft that, blow high or blow low, the Yankee could show her teeth or her heels, as occasion demanded.
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The Constitution was built by Cloghorne & Hartly, of Boston, and she floated on October 21, 1797—just 100 years ago.
He was so pleased over it that on a festival day that followed the accident, he brought the officers before him where his court was assembled in gala attire and, after a proper greeting, the Americans were liberally sprinkled with ottar of roses and other perfumes and were served with coffee and sherbet. Later, however, they were confined in filthy dungeons and otherwise ill treated. But, in spite of dungeons, through the aid of Mr. N. C.
Nissen, the Danish consul at Tripoli, who was unremitting in kind attentions to the Americans, Bainbridge was able to communicate with the American fleet, and on December 5, 1803, he sent a letter, written with lime juice (which becomes legible when heated), in which he proposed that the Philadelphia be destroyed as she lay at anchor by the Americans, who might come into the harbor at night in a schooner, and, after firing her, get away again.
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At Syracuse the project of destroying the Philadelphia by means of a small vessel well manned was mentioned to Decatur. He eagerly asked to be allowed to undertake the work with his schooner, the Enterprise, but the matter was not at once decided on. Later Lieut.
Charles Stewart, who commanded the brig Siren, asked for the place, but Preble had decided meantime that Decatur should do it and that the captured ketch Mastico should be employed because she was of a rig that could more easily enter the harbor of Tripoli without attracting attention.
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When night drew on, the men were divided into five crews, of which three were to fire as many different parts of the ship, one was to hold her upper deck, and one to remain in and guard the ketch.
When night had fully come the little ketch parted from the brig, and at 9 o’clock was sailing into the harbor by the channel in which the Philadelphia had been lost.
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The moment for action had come. Springing to their feet, the Americans ran away with the line.
A Tripolitan climbed over the Philadelphia’s bows and cut the line loose, but the momentum already gained was great enough to land the ketch fair in place, where grapnels were thrown out, and with that Decatur cried, “Boarders away!” and sprang for the rail of the Philadelphia.
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So swift and thorough was the work of the American boarders that in ten minutes the last show of resistance was ended.
And then a single rocket drew its line of flame high in air to tell the anxious friends without the bar that the Philadelphia was captured.
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Decatur himself being the last to leave the burning ship. Indeed, the ketch was then drifting clear, and he had to jump to reach her. He had been on board but twenty-five minutes, all told.
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That was the decisive moment of the battle.
Failing to find a resource in the sailors’ boarding-houses, they knocked down any able-bodied man encountered in the street, and he was then carried instantly to the ship. Failing in getting enough men in this fashion—as, for instance, when the ship was in a foreign port or on the high seas—it was the custom, the every-day custom, to send the press-gang, on board any ship where it was supposed that English-speaking sailors might be found, and there take and carry off all such sailors.
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It was in the matter of preserving what the officers called discipline—in keeping these unfortunate slaves in subjugation—that the real brutality of the British naval officers appeared. For the officers, who depended on clubs and manacles to recruit their crews, made no appeal to them save through their fears—used nothing to enforce an order but the cat-o’-ninetails.
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As the Edinburgh Review for November, 1812, admitted, “they were dispersed in the remotest quarter of the globe, and not only exposed to the perils of service, but shut out, by their situation, from all hope of ever being reclaimed.” They were doomed to slavery for life.
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Not only was the American walking in the street of a foreign city in immediate danger; the American ships on the high seas were stopped and stripped of their crews.
At 3 o’clock in the afternoon the Leopard brought to near the Chesapeake and hailed her, saying that the officers and crew wished to send letters by her to friends in Europe. It was a common practice for warships as well as merchantmen to carry letters in that fashion, and the Chesapeake backed her mainyards and waited for the boat from the Leopard.
Instead of answering the hail, Captain Jones in a low voice passed the word to fire, and the next instant the spurting flames from the American guns were answered, as it were, in the same breath by those of the British, and the night battle was begun. It was then exactly seven o’clock.
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Being wholly unprepared for action, the Chesapeake could make no reply, and for twelve minutes (some accounts say fifteen) she lay there helpless while the British seamen worked their guns.
Her masts, rigging, and sails were shot to pieces. Three men were killed and eighteen wounded, Captain Barron being among the wounded.
It was deliberate, cold-blooded murder, done to compel three American citizens to return to the slavery on a British ship into which they had been kidnapped. And it succeeded in its object.
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And all that the American government did in the matter was to dismiss the unfortunate Phillips from the service—dismiss him as a scapegoat for the scurvy sins of those really responsible for the disgrace that had fallen upon the navy.
\[書婭]：
先生，您在書中描繪了許多英雄人物，像是約翰·保羅·瓊斯船長，特別是他在邦霍姆·理查號（Bonhomme Richard）與塞拉皮斯號（Serapis）的戰鬥，被您形容為「純粹憑藉勇氣和毅力贏得的勝利」。您認為約翰·保羅·瓊斯身上，有哪些特質最能代表美國早期海軍的精神？您又是如何評價他在海軍史上的地位？
\[史比爾斯先生]：
啊，約翰·保羅·瓊斯！他是美國早期海軍英雄中的璀璨之星，他的故事簡直就是傳奇。
