Note 11 — Chapter XII

Before daylight, next morning, he discovered a sail ahead, and two hours later two more, and when daylight made more distant objects visible, four vessels were seen, crowding all sail in chase. The President was heavily laden for a long voyage, which with the damage she had received on the bar, impeded very much her sailing. Still, with a stiff breeze, she might have distanced her pursuers, for with the wind light and baffling, the nearest vessel, the Majestic, a razee, was thrown astern. But the Endymion, forty, the next nearest vessel, evidently outsailed her, and was fast closing. Decatur then called all hands to lighten the ship. The anchors were cut away, provisions, cables, spars, boats, and every thing on which hands could be laid were thrown overboard, and the sails kept wet from the royals down, to hold the tantalizing wind. It was impossible in such hasty unloading to keep the vessel trim, and while it was being done she very probably sailed slower than before. The wind, however, was so light, that both frigates made slow headway, and it was not till the middle of the afternoon that the Endymion closed sufficiently to open her fire. The President answered with stern guns, and a running fight was kept up till five o'clock, when the former was within half gun-shot and on the quarter of the latter, which, of course, could not bring a gun to bear. Decatur, in this position, bore the fire of the frigate for half an hour, when he resolved to carry her by boarding, and escape. But the Endymion kept her advantageous position, so that he could not carry his bold and gallant resolution into effect, and as a last resort he determined at dusk to close, and so cripple her before the rest of the vessels arrived, that she must abandon the pursuit. Coming up abeam he poured in his broadsides, and for two hours and a half, running free all the time, the two vessels kept up a close and heavy cannonade. At half-past eight the Endymion was completely dismantled, while the President was under royal studding sails, and able to choose her own position. Twenty minutes more would have finished the English frigate, for she was too much cut up to be manageable; but the other vessels were now close at hand, and the President hauled up to resume her course. In doing this the vessel was exposed to a raking broadside, but not a gun was fired. She then crowded all sail, but at eleven o'clock was overhauled by the Pomone and Tenedos and Majestic, the former of which poured in a broadside within musket shot. Resistance, in the President's crippled state was hopeless, and the flag was struck. Decatur surrendered his sword to the commander of the Majestic, nearly four hours before the Endymion came up, and yet the captain of the latter claimed the victory, and to this day the arrogant assertion finds endorsers in England. One vessel goes out of an action with royal studding sails set and surrenders to a superior force, so far from the spot where it took place that it requires nearly four hours steady sailing for the other to get up, and yet the latter is declared the victor![11]