by the close of the year 1813.
The frigates _Constellation_, _United States_, and _Macedonian_ were
hemmed in port by the British blockade; the _Adams_ and the
_Constitution_ were laid up for repairs; and the only formidable ships
of war which roamed at large were the _President_, the _Essex_, and the
_Congress_. The smaller vessels which had managed to slip seaward and
which were of such immense value in destroying British commerce found
that the system of convoying merchantmen in fleets of one hundred or two
hundred sail had left the ocean almost bare of prizes. It was the habit
of these convoys, however, to scatter as they neared their home ports,
every skipper cracking on sail and the devil take the hindmost--a
failing which has survived unto this day, and many a wrathful officer of
an American cruiser or destroyer in the war against Germany could
heartily echo the complaint of Nelson when he was a captain, "behaving
as all convoys that ever I saw did, shamefully ill, and parting company
every day."

This was the reason why American naval vessels and privateers left their
own coasts and dared to rove in the English Channel, as Paul Jones had
done in the _Ranger_ a generation earlier. It was discovered that enemy
merchantmen could be snapped up more easily within sight of their own
shores than thousands of miles away. First to emphasize this fact in the
War of 1812 was the naval brig _Argus_, Captain William H. Allen, which
made a summer crossing and cruised for a month on end in the Irish Sea
and in the chops of the Channel with a gorgeous recompense for her
shameless audacity. England scolded herself red in the face while the
saucy _Argus_ captured twenty-seven ships and took her pick of their
valuable cargoes. Her course could be traced by the blazing hulls that
she left in her wake and this was how the British gun brig _Pelican_
finally caught up with her.

Although the advantage of size and armament was with the _Pelican_, it
was to be expected that the _Argus_ would prove more than a match for
her. The American commander, Captain Allen, had played a distinguished
part in several of the most famous episodes of the navy. As third
lieutenant of the _Chesapeake_, in 1807, he had picked up a live coal in
the cook's galley, held it in his fingers, and so fired the only gun
discharged against the _Leopard_ in that inglorious surprise and
surrender. As first officer of the frigate _United States_ he received
credit