After Commodore Bainbridge sailed southward from Bahia on the cruise in which he fell in with and captured His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Java, Captain Lawrence of the United States sloop Hornet had hoped to coax the Bonne Citoyenne, the English armed ship he was blockading, to leave the safe moorings which she kept so closely in the harbor of San Salvador. Captain Lawrence prayed each day that she might venture out and give his gunners a mark worthy of their skill. One morning, as the little Hornet was lifting and tugging at her anchor in the rough water at the entrance to the outer harbor, keeping a watchful eye on the spars of the Bonne Citoyenne and on those of another British packet of 12 guns that lay well inshore, a huge cloud of canvas came in sight to the eastward. Spar and sail she rose out of the horizon sky, until it was plainly seen that she was a line-of-battle ship flying the English flag. The Montagu (74) had heard the news of the Bonne Citoyenne’s plight, word having been brought to her as she lay in the harbor of Rio Janeiro. Immediately she had set sail for San Salvador to raise the blockade. Reluctantly Captain Lawrence, on sight of her, got up his anchor and slipped into the harbor. He did not stay there long, however, and, after tacking about some time, escaped to sea that same night at nine o’clock. There were no ships of the line in the American navy at that time, and, perforce, the only thing left for any of our cruisers to do was to give those of the enemy the widest berth. So Lawrence, in the Hornet, shifted his cruising-grounds and went out into blue water. On the 4th of February, 1813, he captured the British brig Resolution, of 10 guns, and, not caring to man her, he took out $23,000 in specie and set her on fire. Then for over a week the Hornet cruised to and fro off the coast of Maranham without sighting a single sail. On the 22d of February Lawrence stood for Demerara, and on the 24th he discovered a brig off to leeward. At once he gave chase, but running into shallow water, and having no pilot, he had to haul offshore, much to his disgust, as the other vessel made her way in near the mouth of the Demerara River, and anchored close to a small fort about two and a half leagues from the outer bar, where the Hornet had been forced to come about. As the latter had done so, however, her lookout had discovered a vessel at anchor half-way in towards the shore. A peep through the glass showed her to be a brig of war with the English colors flying. Captain Lawrence determined to get at her; but to do this he had to beat to windward to avoid a wide shoal on which the waves were breaking furiously. At 3 P.M., as he had about made up his mind that the vessel at anchor and the Hornet were surely to try conclusions, Lawrence discovered another sail on his weather-quarter and edging down towards him.

In a few minutes over an hour the new-comer hoisted English colors also, and was seen to be a large man-o’-war brig. The Hornet cleared for action. As was usual in all naval actions when the wind was the sole motive power, both vessels manoeuvred for a time, the Hornet trying to win the advantage of the weather-gage from her antagonist. But do his best Lawrence could not get it until another hour had passed; then finding that the Hornet was a better sailer than the English brig, he came about. The two vessels passed each other on different tacks at the distance of a few hundred feet—half pistol-shot.

Up to this time not a gun had been fired in the affair. But as they came abreast they exchanged broadsides, the Englishman going high, but the Hornet’s round and grape playing havoc with the enemy’s lower rigging. The brig held on for a few minutes, and then Lawrence discovered her to be in the act of wearing. He seized his opportunity, bore up, and receiving the starboard broadside, which did him little damage, he took a position close under the brig’s starboard quarter. So well directed was the vicious fire that was now poured into the English vessel that in less than fifteen minutes down came her flag. No sooner had it reached the deck, however, when another crawled up in the fore-rigging. It was an ensign, union down; the brig was sinking. The sea was heavy, and before a boat could be lowered down came the Englishman’s main-mast. Lieutenant Shubrick, who had been on the Constitution when she captured the Guerrière and the Java, put out in one of the Hornet’s boats, and soon reached the captured vessel’s side, and found that she was H.B.M. brig Peacock, 22 guns, commanded by Captain William Peake, who had been killed by the last broadside from the Hornet. There was not one moment to lose; six feet of water were in the hold, and the Peacock’s decks were crowded with dead and wounded. She was settling fast. Her anchor was let go, and the Hornet coming up, let go hers also close alongside. Every endeavor was now made to save life; the men who a few minutes before had been fighting one another pulled on the same rope together and manned the same boats. The Peacock’s guns were thrown overboard; such shot-holes as could be got at were plugged; but the water gained despite the furious men at the pumps and the bailing at the hatchways. The Peacock was doomed. The body of Captain Peake was carried into his cabin and covered with the flag he had died so bravely defending, to sink with her—“a shroud and sepulchre worthy so brave a sailor.” All but some of the slightly wounded had been removed, and there remained but a boat-load more to take off the lurching wreck, when she suddenly pitched forward and sank in five and a half fathoms, carrying down with her thirteen of her own crew and three American seamen—John Hart, Joseph Williams, and Hannibal Boyd. Fine old down-east names, mark you.

A boat belonging to the Peacock broke away with four of her crew in it before the vessel sank. They probably tried to make their escape to land. In writing about this little episode afterwards, Lawrence says, “I sincerely hope they reached the shore; but from the heavy sea running at the time, the shattered state of the boat, and the difficulty of landing on the coast, I am fearful they were lost.” Captain Lawrence’s treatment of his prisoners was such as uniformly characterized the officers of our navy, “who won by their magnanimity those whom they had conquered by their valor.”

The loss on board the Hornet, outside of the three seamen drowned, was trifling—one man killed and three wounded, two by the explosion of a cartridge. The vessel received little or no damage. All the time that the action was being fought the other brig lay in full sight, about six miles off (she proved afterwards to have been L’Espiègle, of 16 guns), but she showed no desire to enter into the conflict. Thinking that she might wish to meet the Hornet later, Lawrence made every exertion to prepare his ship for a second action, and by nine o’clock a new set of sails was bent, wounded spars secured, boats stowed away, and the Hornet was ready to fight again. At 2 A.M. she got under way, and stood to the westward and northward under easy sail.

On mustering the next morning it was found that there were 277 souls on board, including the crew of the American brig Hunter, of Portland, Maine, captured by the Peacock a few days before. The latter was one of the finest vessels of her class in the English navy; she was broader by five inches than the Hornet, but not so long by four feet. Her tonnage must have been about the same. Her crew consisted of 130 men.

To quote from an account of the times which describes the return of the victorious Hornet to the United States: “The officers of the Peacock were so affected by the treatment they received from Captain Lawrence that on their arrival at New York they made grateful acknowledgment of it in the papers. To use their own phrase, ‘They ceased to consider themselves prisoners.’ Nor must we omit to mention a circumstance highly to the honor of the brave tars of the Hornet. Finding that the crew of the Peacock had lost all their clothing by the sudden sinking of their vessel, they made a subscription, and from their own chest supplied each man with two shirts and a blue jacket and trousers. Such may rough sailors be made when they have before them the example of high-minded men.”

It was not long before poor Lawrence was to be borne on the shoulders of his enemies and laid to rest, with all honors, in a foreign soil, a last return of the courtesy he had extended to all those whom the fortunes of war had placed under his care and keeping.