the bottom went the hull. Only the
broken masts and a few shattered timbers remained afloat.

Such is war: a thing of ruin and desolation. Of that gallant ship, which
two days before had been proudly afloat, only some smoke-stained
fragments were left to tell that she had ever been on the seas, and
death and wounds had come to many of her men.

After her fight with the _Java_ the _Constitution_ had a long, weary
rest. You will remember the _Bon Homme Richard_, a rotten old hulk not
fit for fighting, though she made a very good show when the time for
fighting came. The _Constitution_ was much like her; so rotten in her
timbers that she had to be brought home and rebuilt.

Then she went a-sailing again, under Captain Charles Stewart, as good an
officer as Hull and Bainbridge; but it was more than two years after her
last battle before she had another chance to show what sort of a fighter
she was.

It is a curious fact that some of the hardest fights of this war with
England took place after the war was at an end. The treaty of peace was
signed on Christmas eve, 1814, but the great battle at New Orleans was
fought two weeks afterward. There were no ocean cable then to send word
to the armies that all their killing was no longer needed, since there
was nothing to fight about.

It was worse still for the ships at sea. Nobody then had ever dreamed of
a telegraph without wires to send word out over the waste of waters, or
even of a telegraph with wires. Thus it was that the last battle of the
old _Constitution_ was fought nearly two months after the war was over.

The good old ship was then on the other side of the ocean, and was
sailing along near the island of Madeira, which lies off the coast of
Africa. For a year she had done nothing except to take a few small
prizes, and her stalwart crew were tired of that sort of work. They
wanted a real, big fight, with plenty of glory.

One evening Captain Stewart heard some of the officers talking about
their bad luck, and wishing they could only meet with a fellow of their
own size. They were tired of fishing for minnows when there were whales
to be caught.

"I can tell you this, gentlemen," said the captain, "you will soon get
what you want. Before the sun rises and sets again you will have a good
old-fashioned fight, and it will not be with a single ship, either."

I do not know what the officers said after the captain turned away. Very
likely some of them wondered how h