American Merchant Ships and Sailors Part 7

The vessels enumerated by Mr. Adams were by no means among the more famous of the privateers of the War of 1812; yet when we come to examine their records we find something notable or something romantic in the career of each--a fact full of suggestion of the excitement of the privateersman's life. The "Leo," for example, at this time was under command of Captain George Coggeshall, the foremost of all the privateers, and a man who so loved his calling that he wrote an excellent book about it. Under an earlier commander she made several most profitable cruises, and when purchased by Coggeshall's a.s.sociates was lying in a French port. France and England were then at peace, and it may be that the French remembered the way in which we had suppressed the Citizen Genet. At any rate, they refused to let Coggeshall take his s.h.i.+p out of the harbor with more than one gun--a Long Tom--aboard. Nothing daunted, he started out with this armament, to which some twenty muskets were added, on a privateering cruise in the channel, which was full of British cruisers. Even the Long Tom proved untrustworthy, so recourse was finally had to carrying the enemy by boarding; and in this way four valuable prizes were taken, of which three were sent home with prize crews. But a gale carried away the "Leo's" foremast, and she fell a prey to an English frigate which happened along untimely.

The "Mammoth" was emphatically a lucky s.h.i.+p. In seven weeks she took seventeen merchantmen, paying for herself several times over. Once she fought a lively battle with a British transport carrying four hundred men, but prudently drew off. True, the Government was paying a bonus of twenty-five dollars a head for prisoners; but cargoes were more valuable.

Few of the privateers troubled to send in their prisoners, if they could parole and release them. In all, the "Mammoth" captured twenty-one vessels, and released on parole three hundred prisoners.

Of all the foregoing vessels, the "Prince de Neufchatel" was the most famous. She was an hermaphrodite brig of 310 tons, mounting 17 guns. She was a "lucky" vessel, several times escaping a vastly superior force and bringing into port, for the profit of her owners, goods valued at $3,000,000, besides large quant.i.ties of specie. Her historic achievement, however, was beating off the British frigate "Endymion," off Nantucket, one dark night, after a battle concerning which a British naval historian, none too friendly to Americans, wrote: "So determined and effective a resistance did great credit to the American captain and his crew." The privateer had a prize in tow, by which, of course, her movements were much hampered, for her captain was not inclined to save himself at the expense of his booty. But, more than this, she had thirty-seven prisoners aboard, while her own crew was sorely reduced by manning prizes. The night being calm, the British attempted to take the s.h.i.+p by boarding from small boats, for what reason does not readily appear, since the vessels were within range of each other, and the frigate's superior metal could probably have reduced the Americans to subjection. Instead, however, of opening fire with his broadside, the enemy sent out boarding parties in five boats. Their approach was detected on the American vessel, and a rapid fire with small arms and cannon opened upon them, to which they paid no attention, but pressed doggedly on. In a moment the boats surrounded the privateer--one on each bow, one on each side, and one under the stern--and the boarders began to swarm up the sides like cats. It was a b.l.o.o.d.y hand-to-hand contest that followed, in which every weapon, from cutla.s.s and clubbed musket down to bare hands, was employed. Heavy shot, which had been piled up in readiness on deck, were thrown into the boats in an effort to sink them. Hundreds of loaded muskets were ranged along the rail, so that the firing was not interrupted to reload. Time and again the British renewed their efforts to board, but were hurled back by the American defenders. A few who succeeded in reaching the decks were cut down before they had time to profit by their brief advantage. Once only did it seem that the s.h.i.+p was in danger. Then the a.s.sailants, who outnumbered the Americans four to one, had reached the deck over the bows in such numbers that they were gradually driving the defenders aft. Every moment more men came swarming over the side; and as the Americans ran from all parts of the s.h.i.+p to meet and overpower those who had already reached the deck, new ways were opened for others to clamber aboard. The situation was critical; but was saved by Captain Ordronaux by a desperate expedient, and one which it is clear would have availed nothing had not his men known him for a man of fierce determination, ready to fulfil any desperate threat. Seizing a lighted match from one of the gunners, he ran to the hatch immediately over the magazine, and called out to his men that if they retreated farther he would blow up the s.h.i.+p, its defenders, and its a.s.sailants. The men rallied. They swung a cannon in board so that it commanded the deck, and swept away the invaders with a storm of grape. In a few minutes the remaining British were driven back to their boats. The battle had lasted less than half an hour when the British called for quarter, the smoke cleared away, the cries of combat ceased, and both parties were able to count their losses. The crew of the privateer had numbered thirty-seven, of whom seven were killed and twenty-four wounded.

The British had advanced to the attack with a force of one hundred and twenty-eight, in five boats. Three of the boats drifted away empty, one was sunk, and one was captured. Of the attacking force not one escaped; thirty were made prisoners, many of them sorely wounded, and the rest were either killed or swept away by the tide and drowned. The privateers actually had more prisoners than they had men of their own. Some of the prisoners were kept towing in a launch at the stern, and, by way of strategy, Captain Ordronaux set two boys to playing a fife and drum and stamping about in a sequestered part of his decks as though he had a heavy force aboard. Only by sending the prisoners ash.o.r.e under parole was the danger of an uprising among the captives averted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IF THEY RETREATED FARTHER HE WOULD BLOW UP THE s.h.i.+P]

In the end the "Prince de Neufchatel" was captured by a British squadron, but only after a sudden squall had carried away several of her spars and made her helpless.

As the war progressed it became the custom of British merchants to send out their s.h.i.+ps only in fleets, convoyed by one or two men-of-war, a system that, of course, could be adopted only by nations very rich in war-s.h.i.+ps. The privateers' method of meeting this was to cruise in couples, a pair of swift, light schooners, hunting the prize together.

When the convoy was encountered, both would attack, picking out each its prey. The convoys were usually made up with a man-of-war at the head of the column, and as this vessel would make sail after one of the privateers, the other would rush in at some point out of range, and cut out its prize. When the British began sending out two s.h.i.+ps of war with each convoy, the privateers cruised in threes, and the same tactics were observed.

But the richest prizes won by the privateer were the single going s.h.i.+ps, called "running s.h.i.+ps," that were prepared to defend themselves, and scorned to wait for convoy. These were generally great packets trading to the Indies, whose cargoes were too valuable to be delayed until some man-of-war could be found for their protection. They were heavily armed, often, indeed, equaling a frigate in their batteries and the size of their crews. But, although to attack one of these meant a desperate fight, the Yankee privateer always welcomed the chance, for besides a valuable cargo, they were apt to carry a considerable sum in specie. The capture of one of these vessels, too, was the cause of annoyance to the enemy disproportionate to even their great value to their captors, for they not only carried the Royal Mail, but were usually the agencies by which the dispatches of the British general were forwarded. Mail and dispatches, alike, were promptly thrown overboard by their captors.

In the diary of a privateersman of Revolutionary days is to be found the story of the capture of an Indiaman which may well be reprinted as typical.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I THINK SHE IS A HEAVY s.h.i.+P."]

"As the fog cleared up, we perceived her to be a large s.h.i.+p under English colors, to the windward, standing athwart our starboard bow. As she came down upon us, she appeared as large as a seventy-four; and we were not deceived respecting her size, for it afterwards proved that she was an old East Indiaman, of 1100 tons burden, fitted out as a letter of marque for the West India trade, mounted with thirty-two guns, and furnished with a complement of one hundred and fifty men. She was called the 'Admiral Duff,' commanded by Richard Strange, from St. Christopher and St.

Eustachia, laden with sugar and tobacco, and bound to London. I was standing near our first lieutenant, Mr. Little, who was calmly examining the enemy as she approached, with his spy-gla.s.s, when Captain Williams stepped up and asked his opinion of her. The lieutenant applied the gla.s.s to his eye again and took a deliberate look in silence, and replied: 'I think she is a heavy s.h.i.+p, and that we shall have some hard fighting, but of one thing I am certain, she is not a frigate; if she were, she would not keep yawing and showing her broadsides as she does; she would show nothing but her head and stern; we shall have the advantage of her, and the quicker we get alongside the better.' Our captain ordered English colors to be hoisted, and the s.h.i.+p to be cleared for action.

"The enemy approached 'till within musket-shot of us. The two s.h.i.+ps were so near to each other that we could distinguish the officers from the men; and I particularly noticed the captain on the gangway, a n.o.ble-looking man, having a large gold-laced c.o.c.ked hat on his head, and a speaking-trumpet in his hand. Lieutenant Little possessed a powerful voice, and he was directed to hail the enemy; at the same time the quartermaster was ordered to stand ready to haul down the English flag and to hoist up the American. Our lieutenant took his station on the after part of the starboard gangway, and elevating his trumpet, exclaimed: 'Hullo. Whence come you?'

"'From Jamaica, bound to London,' was the answer.

"'What is the s.h.i.+p's name?' inquired the lieutenant.

"'The "Admiral Duff",' was the reply.

"The English captain then thought it his turn to interrogate, and asked the name of our s.h.i.+p. Lieutenant Little, in order to gain time, put the trumpet to his ear, pretending not to hear the question. During the short interval thus gained, Captain Williams called upon the gunner to ascertain how many guns could be brought to bear upon the enemy. 'Five,'

was the answer. 'Then fire, and s.h.i.+ft the colors,' were the orders. The cannons poured forth their deadly contents, and, with the first flash, the American flag took the place of the British ensign at our masthead.

"The compliment was returned in the form of a full broadside, and the action commenced. I was stationed on the edge of the quarter-deck, to sponge and load a six-pounder; this position gave me a fine opportunity to see the whole action. Broadsides were exchanged with great rapidity for nearly an hour; our fire, as we afterward ascertained, produced a terrible slaughter among the enemy, while our loss was as yet trifling. I happened to be looking for a moment toward the main deck, when a large shot came through our s.h.i.+p's side and killed a mids.h.i.+pman. At this moment a shot from one of our marines killed the man at the wheel of the enemy's s.h.i.+p, and, his place not being immediately supplied, she was brought alongside of us in such a manner as to bring her bowsprit directly across our forecastle. Not knowing the cause of this movement, we supposed it to be the intention of the enemy to board us. Our boarders were ordered to be ready with their pikes to resist any such attempt, while our guns on the main deck were sending death and destruction among the crew of the enemy.

Their princ.i.p.al object now seemed to be to get liberated from us, and by cutting away some of their rigging, they were soon clear, and at the distance of a pistol shot.

"The action was then renewed, with additional fury; broadside for broadside continued with unabated vigor; at times, so near to each other that the muzzles of our guns came almost in contact, then again at such a distance as to allow of taking deliberate aim. The contest was obstinately continued by the enemy, although we could perceive that great havoc was made among them, and that it was with much difficulty that their men were compelled to remain at their quarters. A charge of grape-shot came in at one of our portholes, which dangerously wounded four or five of our men, among whom was our third lieutenant, Mr. Little, brother to the first.

"The action had now lasted about an hour and a half, and the fire from the enemy began to slacken, when we suddenly discovered that all the sails on her mainmast were enveloped in a blaze. Fire spread with amazing rapidity, and, running down the after rigging, it soon communicated with her magazine, when her whole stern was blown off, and her valuable cargo emptied into the sea. Our enemy's s.h.i.+p was now a complete wreck, though she still floated, and the survivors were endeavoring to save themselves in the only boat that had escaped the general destruction. The humanity of our captain urged him to make all possible exertions to save the miserable wounded and burned wretches, who were struggling for their lives in the water. The s.h.i.+p of the enemy was greatly our superior in size, and lay much higher out of the water. Our boats had been exposed to his fire, as they were placed on spars between the fore and mainmasts during the action, and had suffered considerable damage. The carpenters were ordered to repair them with the utmost expedition, and we got them out in season to take up fifty-five men, the greater part of whom had been wounded by our shot, or burned when the powder-magazine exploded. Their limbs were mutilated by all manner of wounds, while some were burned to such a degree that the skin was nearly flayed from their bodies. Our surgeon and his a.s.sistants had just completed the task of dressing the wounds of our own crew, and then they directed their attention to the wounded of the enemy.

Several of them suffered the amputation of their limbs, five of them died of their wounds, and were committed to their watery graves. From the survivors we learned that the British commander had frequently expressed a desire to come in contact with a 'Yankee frigate' during his voyage, that he might have a prize to carry to London. Poor fellow. He little thought of losing his s.h.i.+p and his life in an engagement with a s.h.i.+p so much inferior to his own--with an enemy upon whom he looked with so much contempt."

But most notable of all the battles fought by privateersmen in the War of 1812, was the defense of the brig "General Armstrong," in the harbor of Fayal, in September, 1814. This famous combat has pa.s.sed into history, not only because of the gallant fight made by the privateer, but because the three British men-of-war to whom she gave battle, were on their way to cooperate with Packenham at New Orleans, and the delay due to the injuries they received, made them too late to aid in that expedition, and may have thus contributed to General Jackson's success.

The "General Armstrong" had always been a lucky craft, and her exploits in the capture of merchantmen, no less than the daring of her commander in giving battle to s.h.i.+ps-of-war which he encountered, had won her the peculiar hate of the British navy. At the very beginning of her career, when in command of Captain Guy R. Champlin, she fought a British frigate for more than an hour, and inflicted such grave damage that the enemy was happy enough to let her slip away when the wind freshened. On another occasion she engaged a British armed s.h.i.+p of vastly superior strength, off the Surinam River, and forced her to run ash.o.r.e. Probably the most valuable prize taken in the war fell to her guns--the s.h.i.+p "Queen," with a cargo invoiced at 90,000. Indeed, such had been her audacity, and so many her successes, that the British were eager for her capture or destruction, above that of any other privateer.

In September, 1814, the "General Armstrong," now under command of Captain Samuel G. Reid, was at anchor in the harbor at Fayal, a port of Portugal, when her commander saw a British war-brig come nosing her way into the harbor. Soon after another vessel appeared, and then a third, larger than the first two, and all flying the British ensign. Captain Reid immediately began to fear for his safety. It was true that he was in a neutral port, and under the law of nations exempt from attack, but the British had never manifested that extreme respect for neutrality that they exacted of President Was.h.i.+ngton when France tried to fit out privateers in our ports.

More than once they had attacked and destroyed our vessels in neutral ports, and, indeed, it seemed that the British test of neutrality was whether the nation whose flag was thus affronted, was able or likely to resent it. Portugal was not such a nation.

All this was clear to Captain Reid, and when he saw a rapid signaling begun between the three vessels of the enemy, he felt confident that he was to be attacked. He had already discovered that the strangers were the 74-gun s.h.i.+p of the line "Plantagenet," the 38-gun frigate "Rota," and the 18-gun war-brig "Carnation," comprising a force against which he could not hope to win a victory. The night came on clear, with a bright moon, and as the American captain saw boats from the two smaller vessels rallying about the larger one, he got out his sweeps and began moving his vessel insh.o.r.e, so as to get under the guns of the decrepit fort, with which Portugal guarded her harbor. At this, four boats crowded with men, put out from the side of the British s.h.i.+p, and made for the privateer, seeing which, Reid dropped anchor and put springs on his cables, so as to keep his broadside to bear on the enemy as they approached. Then he shouted to the British, warning them to keep off, or he would fire. They paid no attention to the warning, but pressed on, when he opened a brisk fire upon them. For a time there was a lively interchange of shots, but the superior marksmans.h.i.+p of the Americans soon drove the enemy out of range with heavy casualties. The British retreated to their s.h.i.+ps with a hatred for the Yankee privateer even more bitter than that which had impelled them to the lawless attack, and a fiercer determination for her destruction.

It is proper to note, that after the battle was fought, and the British commander had calmly considered the possible consequences of his violation of the neutrality laws, he attempted to make it appear that the Americans themselves were the aggressors. His plea, as made in a formal report to the admiralty, was that he had sent four boats to discover the character of the American vessel; that they, upon hailing her, had been fired upon and suffered severe loss, and that accordingly he felt that the affront to the British flag could only be expiated by the destruction of the vessel.

The explanation was not even plausible, for the British commander, elsewhere in his report, acknowledged that he was perfectly informed as to the ident.i.ty of the vessel, and even had this not been the case, it is not customary to send four boats heavily laden with armed men, merely to discover the character of a s.h.i.+p in a friendly port.

The withdrawal of the British boats gave Captain Reid time to complete the removal of his vessel to a point underneath the guns of the Portuguese battery. This gave him a position better fitted for defense, although his hope that the Portuguese would defend the neutrality of their port, was destined to disappointment, for not a shot was fired from the battery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "STRIVING TO REACH HER DECKS AT EVERY POINT"]

Toward midnight the attack was resumed, and by this time the firing within the harbor had awakened the people of the town, who crowded down to the sh.o.r.e to see the battle. The British, in explanation of the reverse which they suffered, declared that all the Americans in Fayal armed themselves, and from the sh.o.r.e supplemented the fire from the "General Armstrong."

Captain Reid, however, makes no reference to this a.s.sistance. In all, some four hundred men joined in the second attack. Twelve boats were in line, most of them with a howitzer mounted in the bow. The Americans used their artillery on these craft as they approached, and inflicted great damage before the enemy were in a position to board. The British vessels, though within easy gun-fire, dared not use their heavy cannon, lest they should injure their own men, and furthermore, for fear that the shot would fall into the town. The midnight struggle was a desperate one, the enemy fairly surrounding the "General Armstrong," and striving to reach her decks at every point. But though greatly outnumbered, the defenders were able to maintain their position, and not a boarder succeeded in reaching the decks. The struggle continued for nearly three-quarters of an hour, after which the British again drew off. Two boats filled with dead and dying men, were captured by the Americans, the unhurt survivors leaping overboard and swimming ash.o.r.e. The British report showed, that in these two attacks there were about one hundred and forty of the enemy killed, and one hundred and thirty wounded. The Americans had lost only two killed and seven wounded, but the s.h.i.+p was left in no condition for future defense. Many of the guns were dismounted, and the Long Tom, which had been the mainstay of the defense, was capsized. Captain Reid and his officers worked with the utmost energy through the night, trying to fit the vessel for a renewal of the combat in the morning, but at three o'clock he was called ash.o.r.e by a note from the American consul. Here he was informed that the Portuguese Governor had made a personal appeal to the British commander for a cessation of the attack, but that it had been refused, with the statement that the vessel would be destroyed by cannon-fire from the British s.h.i.+ps in the morning. Against an attack of this sort it was, of course, futile for the "General Armstrong" to attempt to offer defense, and accordingly Captain Reid landed his men with their personal effects, and soon after the British began fire in the morning, scuttled the s.h.i.+p and abandoned her. He led his men into the interior, seized on an abandoned convent, and fortifying it, prepared to resist capture. No attempt, however, was made to pursue him, the British commander contenting himself with the destruction of the privateer. For nearly a week the British s.h.i.+ps were delayed in the harbor, burying their dead and making repairs. When they reached New Orleans, the army which they had been sent to reenforce, had met Jackson on the plains of Chalmette, and had been defeated. The price paid for the "General Armstrong" was, perhaps, the heaviest of the war. The British commander seemed to appreciate this fact, for every effort was made to keep the news of the battle from becoming known in England, and when complete concealment was no longer possible, an official report was given out that minimized the British loss, magnified the number of the Americans, and totally mis-stated the facts bearing on the violation of the neutrality of the Portuguese port. Captain Reid, however, was made a hero by his countrymen. A Portuguese s.h.i.+p took him and his crew to Amelia Island, whence they made their way to New York. Poughkeepsie voted him a sword.

Richmond citizens gave him a complimentary dinner, at which were drunk such toasts as: "The private cruisers of the United States--whose intrepidity has pierced the enemy's channels and bearded the lion in his den"; "Neutral Ports--whenever the tyrants of the ocean dare to invade these sanctuaries, may they meet with an 'Ess.e.x' and an 'Armstrong'"; and "Captain Reid--his valor has shed a blaze of renown upon the character of our seamen, and won for himself a laurel of eternal bloom." The newspapers of the times rang with eulogies of Reid, and anecdotes of his seafaring experiences. But after all, as McMaster finely says in his history: "The finest compliment of all was the effort made in England to keep the details of the battle from the public, and the false report of the British commander."

In finally estimating the effect upon the American fortunes in the War of 1812, of the privateers and their work, many factors must be taken into consideration. At first sight it would seem that a system which gave the services of five hundred s.h.i.+ps and their crews to the task of annoying the British, and inflicting damage upon their commerce without cost to the American Government, must be wholly advantageous. We have already seen the losses inflicted upon British commerce by our privateers reflected in the rapidly increasing cost of marine insurance. While the statistics in the possession of the Government are not complete, they show that twenty-five hundred vessels at least were captured during the War of 1812 by these privately-owned cruisers, and there can be no shadow of a doubt that the loss inflicted upon British merchants, and the constant state of apprehension for the safety of their vessels in which they were kept, very materially aided in extending among them a willingness to see peace made on almost any terms.

But this is the other side of the story: The prime purpose of the privateer was to make money for its owners, its officers, and its crew.

The whole design and spirit of the calling was mercenary. It inflicted damage on the enemy, but only incidentally to earning dividends for its partic.i.p.ants. If Government cruisers had captured twenty-five hundred British vessels, those vessels would have been lost to the enemy forever.

But the privateer, seeking gains, tried to send them into port, however dangerous such a voyage might be, and accordingly, rather more than a third of them were recaptured by the enemy. We may note here in pa.s.sing, that one reason why the so-called Confederate privateers during our own Civil War, did an amount of damage so disproportionate to their numbers, was that they were not, in fact, privateers at all. They were commissioned by the Confederate Government to inflict the greatest possible amount of injury upon northern commerce, and accordingly, when Semmes or Maffitt captured a United States vessel, he burned it on the spot. There was no question of profit involved in the service of the "Alabama," the "Florida," or the "Shenandoah," and they have been called privateers in our histories, mainly because Northern writers have been loath to concede, to what they called a rebel government, the right to equip and commission regular men-of-war.

But to return to the American privateers of 1812. While, as I have pointed out, there were many instances of enormous gains being made, it is probable that the business as a whole, like all gambling businesses as a whole, was not profitable. Some s.h.i.+ps made lucky voyages, but there is on record in the Navy Department a list of three hundred vessels that took not one single prize in the whole year of 1813. The records of Congress show that, as a whole, the business was not remunerative, because there were constant appeals from people interested. In response to this importunity, Congress at one time paid a bounty of twenty-five dollars a head for all prisoners taken. At other times it reduced the import duties on cargoes captured and landed by privateers. Indeed, it is estimated by a careful student, that the losses to the Government in the way of direct expenditures and remission of revenues through the privateering system, amounted to a sum sufficient to have kept twenty sloops of war on the sea throughout the period of hostilities, and there is little doubt that such vessels could have actually accomplished more in the direction of hara.s.sing the enemy than the privateers. A very grave objection to the privateering system, however, was the fact that the promise of profit to sailors engaged in it was so great, that all adventurous men flocked into the service, so that it became almost impossible to maintain our army or to man our s.h.i.+ps. I have already quoted George Was.h.i.+ngton's objections to the practise during the Revolution. During the War of 1812, some of our best frigates were compelled to sail half manned, while it is even declared that the loss of the "Chesapeake" to the "Shannon" was largely due to the fact that her crew were discontented and preparing, as their time of service was nearly up, to quit the Government service for privateering. In a history of Marblehead, one of the famous old seafaring towns of Ma.s.sachusetts, it is declared that of nine hundred men of that town who took part in the war, fifty-seven served in the army, one hundred and twenty entered the navy, while seven hundred and twenty-six s.h.i.+pped on the privateers. These figures afford a fair indication of the way in which the regular branches of the service suffered by the compet.i.tion of the system of legalized piracy.

**Transcriber's Notes: Page 180: Punctuation in diary normalized.

Page 184: change Was.h.i.+ngon to Was.h.i.+ngton Page 185: changed dicover to discover Page 186: changed Portugese to Portuguese

CHAPTER VI.

THE ARCTIC TRAGEDY--AMERICAN SAILORS IN THE FROZEN DEEP--THE SEARCH FOR SIR JOHN FRANKLIN--REASONS FOR SEEKING THE NORTH POLE--TESTIMONY OF SCIENTISTS AND EXPLORERS--PERTINACITY OF POLAR VOYAGERS--DR. KANE AND DR.

HAYES--CHARLES F. HALL, JOURNALIST AND EXPLORER--MIRACULOUS ESCAPE OF His PARTY--THE ILL-FATED "JEANNETTE" EXPEDITION--SUFFERING AND DEATH OF DE LONG AND HIS COMPANIONS--A PITIFUL DIARY--THE GREELY EXPEDITION--ITS CAREFUL PLAN AND COMPLETE DISASTER--RESCUE OF THE GREELY SURVIVORS--PEARY, WELLMAN, AND BALDWIN.

A chapter in the story of the American sailor, which, though begun full an hundred years ago, is not yet complete, is that which tells the narrative of the search for the North Pole. It is a story of calm daring, of indomitable pertinacity, of patient endurance of the most cruel suffering, of heroic invitation to and acceptance of death. The story will be completed only when the goal is won. Even as these words are being written, American sailors are beleaguered in the frozen North, and others are preparing to follow them thither, so that the narrative here set forth must be accepted as only a partial story of a quest still being prosecuted.

In the private office of the President of the United States at Was.h.i.+ngton, stands a ma.s.sive oaken desk. It has been a pa.s.sive factor in the making of history, for at it have eight presidents sat, and papers involving almost the life of the nation, have received the executive signature upon its smooth surface. The very timbers of which it is built were concerned in the making of history of another sort, for they were part of the frame of the stout British s.h.i.+p "Resolute," which, after a long search in the Polar regions for the hapless Sir John Franklin--of whom more hereafter--was deserted by her crew in the Arctic pack, drifted twelve hundred miles in the ice, and was then discovered and brought back home as good as new by Captain Buddington of the stanch American whaler, "George and Henry." The sympathies of all civilized peoples, and particularly of English-speaking races, were at that time strongly stirred by the fate of Franklin and his brave companions, and so Congress appropriated $40,000 for the purchase of the vessel from the salvors, and her repair. Refitted throughout, she was sent to England and presented to the Queen in 1856. Years later, when broken up, the desk was made from her timbers and presented by order of Victoria to the President of the United States, who at that time was Rutherford B. Hayes. It stands now in the executive mansion, an enduring memorial of one of the romances of a long quest full of romance--the search for the North Pole.

In all ages, the minds of men of the exploring and colonizing nations, have turned toward the tropics as the region of fabulous wealth, the field for profitable adventure. "The wealth of the Ind," has pa.s.sed into proverb. Though exploration has shown that, it is the flinty North that hides beneath its granite bosom the richest stores of mineral wealth, almost four centuries of failure and disappointment were needed to rid men's minds of the notion that the jungles and the tropical forests were the most abundant hiding-places of gold and precious stones. The wild beauty of the tropics, the cloudless skies, the tangled thickets, ever green and rustling with a restless animal life, the content and amiability of the natives, combined in a picture irresistibly attractive to the adventurer. Surely where there was so much beauty, so much of innocent joy in life, there must be the fountain of perpetual youth, there must be gold, and diamonds, and sapphires--all those gewgaws, the wors.h.i.+p of which shows the lingering taint of barbarism in the civilized man, and for which the English, Spanish, and Portuguese adventurers of three centuries ago, were ready to sacrifice home and family, manhood, honor, and life.

So it happened that in the early days of maritime adventure the course of the hardy voyagers was toward the tropics, and they made of the Spanish Main a sea of blood, while Pizzarro and Cortez, and after them the dreaded buccaneers, sacked towns, betrayed, murdered, and outraged, destroyed an ancient civilization and fairly blotted out a people, all in the mad search for gold. Men only could have been guilty of such crimes, for man along, among animals endowed with life, kills for the mere l.u.s.t of slaughter.

And yet, man alone stands ready to risk his life for an idea, to brave the most direful perils, to endure the most poignant suffering that the world's store of knowledge may be increased, that science may be advanced, that just one more fact may be added to the things actually known. If the record of man in the tropics has been stained by theft, rapine, and murder, the story of his long struggle with the Arctic ice, offers for his redemption a series of pictures of self-sacrifice, tenderness, honor, courage, and piety. No hope of profit drew the seamen of all maritime nations into the dismal and desolate ice-floes that guard the frozen North. No l.u.s.t for gold impelled them to brave the darkness, the cold, and the terrifying silence of the six-months Arctic night. The men who have--thus far unsuccessfully--fought with ice-bound nature for access to the Pole, were impelled only by honorable emulation and scientific zeal.

The earlier Arctic explorers were not, it is true, searchers for the North Pole. That quest--which has written in its history as many tales of heroism, self-sacrifice, and patient resignation to adversity, as the poets have woven about the story of chivalry and the search for the Holy Grail--was begun only in the middle of the last century, and by an American. But for three hundred years English, Dutch, and Portuguese explorers, and the stout-hearted American whalemen, had been pus.h.i.+ng further and further into the frozen deep. The explorers sought the "Northwest Pa.s.sage," or a water route around the northern end of North America, and so on to India and the riches of the East. Sir John Franklin, in the voyage that proved his last, demonstrated that such a pa.s.sage could be made, but not for any practical or useful purpose. After him it was abandoned, and geographical research, and the struggle to reach the pole, became the motives that took men into the Arctic.

"But why," many people ask, with some reason, "should there be this determined search for the North Pole. What good will come to the world with its discovery? Is it worth while to go on year after year, pouring out treasure and risking human lives, merely that any hardy explorer may stand at an imaginary point on the earth's surface which is already fixed geographically by scientists?"

Let the scientists and the explorers answer, for to most of us the questions do not seem unreasonable.