e engagement
lasted two hours and a half, the Essex finally surrendering when reduced
to a helpless wreck. On the Essex at the time was a midshipman aged
twelve years, who got his first taste of fighting there, and whose name
was destined to become, after that of Paul Jones, the most famous in
American naval history--David Glasgow Farragut.

Less than a week after Porter's victory over the Alert, another and much
more important one was won by Captain Isaac Hull in the frigate
Constitution--"Old Ironsides"--the most famous ship-of-war the navy has
ever possessed. Isaac Hull was a nephew of General William Hull, who, on
August 16, 1812, surrendered Detroit and his entire army to the British
without striking a blow. Three days later, Isaac Hull, having sailed
from Boston without orders, in his anxiety to meet the enemy and for
fear the command of the Constitution would be given to some one else--a
breach of discipline for which he would probably have been
court-martialled and shot, had the cruise ended disastrously--fell in
with the powerful British frigate Guerriere. Inscribed across the
Guerriere's mainsail in huge red letters were the words:

All who meet me have a care,
I am England's Guerriere.

She was a powerful vessel, but neither the vessel nor the menace
frightened Hull, and he sailed straight for her, holding his fire until
he was within fifty yards, when he let fly a broadside and then another,
which sent two of her masts by the board, and the third soon followed,
leaving her unmanageable. Within a very few minutes, under Hull's raking
fire, she was reduced to a "perfect wreck"--so perfect, in fact, that
she had to be blown up and sunk, as there was no chance of getting her
back to port. The Constitution was practically uninjured, and Hull
sailed back to Boston, with his ship crowded with British prisoners. He
was welcomed with the wildest enthusiasm, banquets were given in his
honor, swords voted him by state legislatures, New York ordered a
portrait painted of him, and Congress gave him a gold medal. The War
Department discreetly permitted his disobedience of orders to drop out
of sight.

Hull's victory was not the result of accident, but of long and careful
training. He had begun his sea career in the merchant service at the age
of fourteen, was a captain at the age of twenty, and entered the navy in
1798. He soon gained a high reputation for seamanship, and his genius
for handling a ship under