defiance of the Americans.

[Illustration: Commodore Macdonough.]

Such a state of affairs could not long continue. Each party was ready
and waiting to fight, and it was not hard to find an excuse. How the
fighting began, no one ever knew; but one night the streets of the
little city resounded with cries of rage and groans of agony. Soon
crowds began to gather; and sailors rushed up and down the streets,
crying that the French desperadoes had killed three Americans. The
rage of the populace, and particularly of the seafaring community, had
no bounds. "Arm! arm! and take bloody vengeance upon the murderers,"
was the cry in all quarters. The mob blocked all the roadways
leading to the water-front. With cutlasses and guns they attacked the
sailors on "L'Agile," which lay at a wharf, and drove them overboard.
Once in possession of the ship, the enraged rioters vented their fury
by cutting away the masts and rigging, tearing to pieces the woodwork
of the cabin, and finally putting the torch to the battered bulk, and
sending her drifting helplessly down the river. This summary vengeance
did not satisfy their anger. They looked about them for the other
vessel, "La Vengeance," and discovered that she had been towed away
from the shore, and was being warped up stream to a place of safety.
Boats were secured, and the irresistible mob set out in mad pursuit. A
militia company, hastily sent to the scene of action by the
authorities of the town, failed to check the riot; and, after a futile
struggle on the part of her crew, "La Vengeance" shared the fate of
her consort. Sympathy for France was well rooted out of Savannah then,
and the cry of the city was for war.

Before the news of the uprising at Savannah was known in New England,
the navy had struck the first blow against French oppression, and the
victory had rested with the sailors of the United States. Congress had
at last been aroused to a sense of the situation, and had issued
orders to captains of American war-vessels, directing them to capture
French cruisers wherever found. A number of large merchant-vessels and
Indiamen had been armed hastily, and sent out; and at last the country
had a navy on the seas. One of the first vessels to get away was the
"Delaware," a twenty-gun ship, commanded by Stephen Decatur the elder.
Decatur had been out but a few days when a merchantman, the "Alexander
Hamilton," was sighted, from the halliards of which a flag of distress
was flying