he
cutter and returned to the _Vincennes_.

Since these natives needed a lesson, Lieutenant Wilkes landed a force
and burned the native village. A few days later an exploring party was
again attacked while trying to trade with the natives. The men were
forced to retreat to their boats, under a hot fire, many of the savages
using muskets with no little skill. Reinforcements were landed and the
savages put to flight, but in the fighting Midshipman Underwood and
Henry Wilkes were mortally hurt and a seaman dangerously wounded.

Matters had now assumed so serious a shape that a detachment of seventy
officers and men landed at another point on the island and marched upon
the nearest village, laying waste the crops as they advanced. When the
village was reached it was found to be defended by a strong stockade,
with a trench inside, from which the crouching natives could fire
through loopholes, while outside of the stockade was a deep ditch of
water. Feeling their position impregnable, the savages flourished their
weapons and uttered tantalizing whoops at the white men. The whoops
quickly changed when the cabins within the stockade were set on fire by
a rocket. The natives fled, leaving the village to be burned to ashes.
The Americans pushed hostilities so aggressively that on the following
day the islanders sued for peace.

The squadron next sailed to the Hawaiian Islands, where several months
were spent in exploration. Then the coast of Oregon was visited and the
_Peacock_ suffered wreck at the mouth of the Columbia. Doubling the Cape
of Good Hope, the expedition reached New York in June, 1842, having been
gone nearly four years and having sailed more than 30,000 miles.

THE WAR FOR THE UNION.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A New Era for the United States Navy--Opening of the Great Civil
War--John Lorimer Worden--Battle Between the _Monitor_ and
_Merrimac_--Death of Worden.

The War for the Union ushered in a new era for the American navy. Steam
navigation had been fully established some years before. As all my
readers no doubt know, the first successful steamboat in this country
was the _Clermont_, made by Robert Fulton, which ascended the Hudson in
the summer of 1807. The average speed of the pioneer boat was about five
miles an hour, so that the trip occupied more than thirty hours. This
great invention was a novelty, and, like many others of a similar
nature, it required considerable time for it to come into use. The f