fancy, if any of you had been living at that time, you would have
wanted to fight the British as badly as the Americans then did. For the
British had for years been taking sailors from American ships and making
them serve in their own men-of-war. Then, too, they had often insulted
our officers upon the seas, and acted in a very insolent and overbearing
way whenever they had the opportunity. This made the Americans very
angry and was the main cause of the war.

I must tell you some things that took place before the war. In 1811 a
British frigate named the _Guerriere_ was busy at this kind of work,
sailing up and down our coast and carrying off American sailors on
pretence that they were British. Just remember the name of the
"_Guerriere_." You will soon learn how the _Constitution_ paid her for
this shabby work.

I have also a story to tell about the _Constitution_ in 1811. She had to
cross the Atlantic in that year, and stopped on some business in the
harbor of Portsmouth, an English seaport.

One night a British officer came on board and said there was an American
deserter on his ship, the _Havana_, and that the Americans could have
him if they sent for him.

Captain Hull, of the _Constitution_, was then in London, so Lieutenant
Morris, who had charge of the ship, sent for the man; but when his
messenger came, he was told that the man said he was a British subject,
and therefore he should not be given up. They were very sorry, and all
that, but they had to take the man's word for it. Morris thought this
very shabby treatment but he soon had his revenge. For that very night a
British sailor came on board the _Constitution_, who said he was a
deserter from the _Havana_.

"Of what nation are you?" he was asked.

"I'm an American, sor," said the man, with a strong Irish accent.

Lieutenant Morris sent word to the _Havana_ that a deserter from his
ship was on the _Constitution_. But when an officer from the _Havana_
came to get the deserter, Morris politely told him that the man said he
was an American, and therefore he could not give him up. He was very
sorry, he said, but really the man ought to know to what country he
belonged. You may be interested to learn that Lieutenant Morris was the
man who had been first to board the _Philadelphia_ in the harbor of
Tripoli.

This was paying John Bull in his own coin. The officers in the harbor
were very angry when they received this answer. Next, they tried to play
a tr