1.
The ship was a naval frigate, the captain told us, out pirate hunting, and it was due in port in Philadelphia
2.
School, he was ordered to the frigate Independence, the flagship of the Mediterranean Squadron, under the command of
3.
Shenandoah since it was reported in April that the British frigate, HMS Ruryalus, had seen what was thought to be the
4.
“But we’re not a frigate, Commander
5.
terrain like a hungry frigate bird
6.
He would allow the frigate to track the yacht for the next couple of weeks under the cover of standard maneuvers
7.
usual to see a Navy Frigate or submarine passing by the restaurant on its way to
8.
‘’MSS KOSTROMA, this is the Terran Customs Navy frigate TIBERIUS
9.
Bridge of Terran frigate TCNS ALGIERS
10.
However, from their radar return strength, these are definitely ships of appreciable size, at least as big as our frigate
11.
Tension was now high aboard the frigate, with the sudden and still unexplained destruction of seven warships above Callisto only eleven days earlier on everybody’s mind
12.
The problem was that his frigate could fire no more than two laser beams at a time, beams of limited durations due to heat dissipation constraints and of a maximum power of forty megawatts per beam
13.
However, the powers that be had decided decades ago that the firepower of present frigate designs were quote perfectly adequate for their roles unquote
14.
He however had the satisfaction of seeing two of his missiles explode against the lead intruder ship before his poor frigate got blasted by four powerful explosions
15.
Undoing her harness at Marston’s request, she followed him and the technician towards the emergency access hatch of the bridge, opening it and floating in the central axis communications tube of the frigate, where the elevator shafts and staircase were
16.
When empty of cargo, the KOSTROMA can boost away at accelerations of over ten Gs, more than our fastest frigate
17.
A second frigate blew up, victim of the utter lack of armoring around its missile magazines
18.
and I want to be in there when it happens, sir, when she becomes a stone frigate and we train the
19.
A while before, the ‘defence’ company Mark and Murphy spent their working day lounging around in reading cycle mags, had been selling off a frigate and the three of us had entrepreneurialy formed a syndicate to buy it
20.
newest Cosmos Class frigate Meteor the most powerful and sophisticated ship
21.
again, his frigate Vega had been heavily armed and his second vessel had
22.
Originally a 2,200-ton frigate in the Canadian Navy,
23.
The men stood with chests puffed out just like the Frigate bird they had seen the other day
24.
On one of them was painted by some very poor hand the Rape of Helen, when the bold guest carried her off from Menelaus, and on the other was the story of Dido and AEneas, she on a high tower, as though she were making signals with a half sheet to her fugitive guest who was out at sea flying in a frigate or brigantine
25.
Our frigate drew nearer to the cetacean
26.
This chase dragged on for about three–quarters of an hour without the frigate gaining two fathoms on the cetacean
27.
For the next hour our frigate kept up this pace without gaining a fathom! This was humiliating for one of the fastest racers in the American navy
28.
And even at our maximum speed, it took the liberty of thumbing its nose at the frigate by running a full circle around us! A howl of fury burst from every throat!
29.
At 10:50 in the evening, that electric light reappeared three miles to windward of the frigate, just as clear and intense as the night before
30.
It was the frigate
31.
"What about the frigate?" I asked
32.
"The frigate?" Conseil replied, rolling over on his back
33.
The cetacean had rammed our frigate at about eleven o'clock in the evening
34.
"Till the moment," Ned Land answered, "when some frigate that's faster or smarter than the Abraham Lincoln captures this den of buccaneers, then hangs all of us by the neck from the tip of a mainmast yardarm!"
35.
I now know that sheer chance has placed in my presence Professor Pierre Aronnax, specialist in natural history at the Paris Museum and entrusted with a scientific mission abroad, his manservant Conseil, and Ned Land, a harpooner of Canadian origin aboard the Abraham Lincoln, a frigate in the national navy of the United States of America
36.
"Was it unintentionally that the Abraham Lincoln hunted me on every sea? Was it unintentionally that you traveled aboard that frigate? Was it unintentionally that your shells bounced off my ship's hull? Was it unintentionally that Mr
37.
"Professor Aronnax," he replied, "do you dare claim that your frigate wouldn't have chased and cannonaded an underwater boat as readily as a monster?"
38.
"Professor, that troubled me, because it's one of the best ships in the gallant American navy, but they attacked me and I had to defend myself! All the same, I was content simply to put the frigate in a condition where it could do me no harm; it won't have any difficulty getting repairs at the nearest port
39.
I don't imagine you're worried that these gentlemen will stave in walls that shells from your frigate couldn't breach?"
40.
It was here too that Lieutenant Parker, aboard the American frigate Congress, was unable to reach the underwater soil at 15,149 meters
41.
Is it monster or moving reef? Something else? Any page now, Aronnax will plunge over the rail of the frigate; not long afterward, he and the Canadian harpooner Ned Land will find themselves on Captain Nemo’s submarine
42.
The Frigate was coming at us so rapidly that there was no Time to consult the other Ships regarding this Engagement
43.
The Frigate gain’d on us; we fear’d for our Lives
44.
They had begun to feel anxious at the Naval Department, on account of the lack of news from that fatal frigate, The Medusa, which was destined to cover Chaumareix with infamy and Gericault with glory
45.
The frigate of Captain Morgan was a fine Spanish man o’ war
46.
—British training ship Eurydice, a frigate, foundered near the Isle of Wight; 300 lives lost
47.
But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita, so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it
48.
And lo! close under our lee, not forty fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like the capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue, glistening in the sun's rays like a mirror
49.
Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home
50.
Could not a single foreign frigate enter almost any of our harbors now and batter down our towns? Could not even a single gunboat sweep some of them? Mr
51.
Story, that it would cost Great Britain as much to keep one frigate as it would cost us to keep two
52.
When we arrived at the end of the Revolutionary war we had but one frigate, and the best thing we ever did was to give that one away
53.
She embarked one frigate in the general struggle, and she had not rid herself of the debts incurred by it yet
54.
Now, he wanted a frigate at Savannah
55.
And now, when an attack was menaced at Savannah, gentlemen wanted a frigate! If nine-tenths of the people were opposed to the evasions of the embargo law, Mr
56.
It made no difference with him whether a foreign frigate came up to the piles of Potomac bridge and fired over into the town, or whether its crew came on shore and assaulted us with the bayonet
57.
Soon after these instructions were dispatched, it was found that the British Government, anticipating from early proceedings of Congress, at their last session, the state of our laws, which has had the effect of placing the two belligerent powers on a footing of equal restrictions, and, relying on the conciliatory disposition of the United States, had transmitted to their legation here provisional instructions, not only to offer satisfaction for the attack on the frigate Chesapeake, and to make known the determination of His Britannic Majesty to send an Envoy Extraordinary, with powers to conclude a treaty on all the points between the two countries; but, moreover, to signify his willingness, in the mean time, to withdraw his Orders in Council, in the persuasion that the intercourse with Great Britain would be renewed on the part of the United States
58.
As an instance of this general mismanagement of naval affairs, Marryat, who had been sent to join the Impérieuse frigate as a young middy, thus writes in his private log—
59.
Cobbett was unconscious, his face being as pale as death, but it was only a matter now of a few seconds to get him aboard the frigate, where he soon revived under the care of the surgeons, and was able to return to duty in the course of a day or two, much humbled in spirit, and very grateful to the courageous young messmate who had so gallantly saved his life at the risk of his own
60.
Rose arrived? Was there not some difficulty, under the proclamation, in the admission of the Statira frigate, bearing that Minister into our waters? And were not French ships of war then, and have they not since been riding quietly at Annapolis, Norfolk, and elsewhere? Has not, in fact, the gallant Captain Decatur taken our own seamen out of one of them? And yet, sir, the offer at that time made by us has been identified with the negotiation between Mr
61.
Does it comport with our honor and dignity to admit into our ports and harbors the very vessels destroying our commerce? Not to go into an inquiry what has been the fact heretofore, but what may be now—if you pass a law that a French frigate may come into your waters and partake of your hospitalities, where is the obligation that it may not take advantage of the opportunity to make its prey more sure by watching it in port and then going out and entrapping it? If, from the intoxication of the man who rules the destinies of the nations of Europe, he does not feel disposed to treat with us on terms of reciprocity, that circumstance should have no effect on our measures
62.
And, finally, that his proposals with respect to the other branch, the attack on the frigate Chesapeake, were founded on a presumption, repeatedly declared to be inadmissible by the United States, that the first step towards adjustment was due from them; the proposals, at the same time, omitting even a reference to the officer answerable for the murderous aggression, and asserting a claim not less contrary to the British laws and British practice, than to the principles and obligations of the United States
63.
The whole civilized world is a spectator in the discussion of this resolution; and all the civilized nations in the world are and will be anxiously desirous to know, whether the United States of America, after having hitherto, with impunity, suffered all the aggressions of Great Britain, and after having suffered Great Britain, with impunity, to impress thousands of their seamen, and retain them on board of their armed ships and vessels, and compelling them to fight against nations with whom the United States are at peace; after having suffered Great Britain, with impunity, to murder their citizens, and after having suffered Great Britain with impunity to attack their sovereignty, in case of the Chesapeake frigate, will, after all these outrages and hostile acts, tamely, meekly, and patiently, submit and bow down to the lowest degree of debased degradation, and suffer Francis J
64.
To attack a well-manned frigate, is a very different thing from attacking an old hulk, perfectly at the disposal of the projectors
65.
I have no idea of laughing the subject out of the House; but how can gentlemen see the least probability of success in the invention? Suppose a frigate at anchor, and a few boats endeavoring to harpoon this vessel
66.
A single frigate, a single privateer, a single pirate, might come into your waters and injure your citizens to a considerable amount
67.
Are they unfit for the East India trade? Was not the first vessel which ever doubled the Cape of Good Hope, under the flag of the United States, the old frigate Alliance? And would not these vessels, if sold, be purchased for that and for other purposes; more especially when we consider the immense loss of tonnage which the United States have sustained—I will not say how, but when—within the last two years? But this, if well founded, would be no objection with me to the reduction of the Navy
68.
This Administration, too, it should be remarked, not only built every frigate, every vessel of respectable force—yes, sir, built them from the stump—which the United States now have, but many others, which have been since sold, and the proceeds of which have gone into the Treasury
69.
To the vessels laid up were attached one sailing master, one boatswain, one gunner, one carpenter, and one cook, one sergeant or corporal, and eight marines, and from ten to twelve seamen, according to the size of the frigate
70.
But, sir, in the unfortunate year of 1806, the memorable year of the schism, as it is called, the year of non-importation-act memory, in that year when we had a war message against Spain on the table, and a message of a different character locked up in the drawer—in that year we passed an act which has been quoted, by which we repealed the second and fourth sections of the act to provide for the Naval Peace Establishment; that is to say, we undid the reform which had been carried into execution by our predecessors—with a very ill grace, I acknowledge, and at the very last time of asking, on the 3d of March, 1801, late at night—it was a forced put, no doubt of it—we passed an act in which we repealed the second and fourth sections of that act, and added to the officers of the Navy as follows: instead of nine captains, to which number the Federal Administration had reduced them, and which number we believed for four years to be amply sufficient, we added five new captains—and yet we ought to recollect that in the interim between these two acts the frigate Philadelphia had been wholly lost, and another frigate (the General Greene) retained in the service by the act of the 3d of March, 1801, worse than totally lost, as any one may see who will go and look at her remains in the navy yard—so that the number of officers made by Congress in 1806 was in the inverse ratio to the number of ships, and, with two frigates less, we determined to have five captains more
71.
I do hope that the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and the gentleman from Massachusetts, will be prepared to give this House some reason, when we have not added a single frigate to the number retained by the act of 1801, when we have even lost two of those retained by that act, when several others are almost in the last stage of decay, why we should require five captains more than the Federal Administration required for a greater number of vessels, and why we should double the number of lieutenants? In other words, why the number of officers should now be fixed agreeably to the act of April 21, 1806, rather than that of the 3d of March, 1801? Sir, the gentleman from Massachusetts has already demonstrated to the House, and I am thankful to him for it—I know with what authority any statement comes from that gentleman—that the real protection afforded to the constituents of my worthy colleague by the bill, as reported by the select committee, is greater than that afforded by the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania—that is to say, that it would keep a greater number of seamen employed, with fewer officers to be sure, because we retain only as many as we want
72.
Among the occurrences produced by the conduct of British ships of war hovering on our coasts, was an encounter between one of them and the American frigate commanded by Captain Rodgers, rendered unavoidable on the part of the latter, by a fire, commenced without cause, by the former; whose commander is therefore alone chargeable with the blood unfortunately shed in maintaining the honor of the American flag
73.
The ships of war before in commission, with the addition of a frigate, have been chiefly employed as a cruising guard to the rights of our coast
74.
Reparation for the attack on the frigate Chesapeake
75.
I communicate to Congress copies of a correspondence between the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Great Britain and the Secretary of State, relative to the aggressions committed by a British ship of war on the United States frigate Chesapeake, by which it will be seen that that subject of difference between the two countries is terminated by an offer of reparation, which has been acceded to
76.
The attack on the Chesapeake frigate had been lately atoned for, to the satisfaction of our Government; and, he trusted, had not been so done as to aggravate the crisis of affairs between the two countries
77.
A single frigate, the Constitution, has cost for repairs, from October, 1802, to March, 1809, the enormous sum of $302,582 21, or upwards of $43,000 per annum for seven years in succession
78.
And what real benefit has resulted from it to the Government? Has a picaroon or a buccaneer ever been chastised by them? If they have, he had no recollection of the case; he had seen indeed paragraphs in the newspapers mentioning that the frigate President, or some one of the vessels, had sailed from the navy-yard to Norfolk, from thence to New York, and finally arrived safe at Boston; but for what purpose he was totally ignorant, unless, indeed, it was to sail back again, and furnish the materials for a new article for the newspapers; and for these eminent services, the American people have already paid about $30,000,000
79.
Soon after the affair of the Chesapeake frigate, when His Majesty's Governor General of British America had reason to believe that the two countries would be involved in a war, and had submitted to His Majesty's Ministers the arrangements of the English party in the United States for an efficient resistance to the General Government, which would probably terminate in a separation of the Northern States from the General Confederacy, he applied to the undersigned to undertake a mission to Boston, where the whole concerns of the opposition were managed
80.
The frigate Constitution, commanded by Captain Hull, after a close and short engagement, completely disabled and captured a British frigate; gaining for that officer, and all on board, a praise which cannot be too liberally bestowed; not merely for the victory actually achieved, but for that prompt and cool exertion of commanding talents, which, giving to courage its highest character, and to the force applied its full effect, proved that more could have been done in a contest requiring more
81.
The President of the United States, in his Message, which was read on yesterday, has, in terms eloquent and appropriate, made mention of an engagement which has taken place between an American frigate and one of His Britannic Majesty's, which has rendered to the officers and crew of our frigate that justice which they so justly merited; an engagement in which American tars have proven to the world, that when commanded by officers of skill, valor, and fidelity, they are capable of contending with, and of vanquishing, those of any nation on the earth, upon any element—even on that element where British skill has so justly acquired so much celebrity, and that the American flag, when authorized by the constituted authorities of our country, will command respect on the high road of nations
82.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby, requested to present, in the name of Congress, to Captain Isaac Hull, a gold medal, with suitable emblems and devices; and that the sum of —— thousand dollars be, and the same is hereby, appropriated, to be distributed as prize money to the officers and crew of the United States' frigate the Constitution, of forty-four guns, according to the provisions of the act for the better government of the Navy of the United States; in testimony of the high sense entertained by Congress of the gallantry, good conduct, and services of Captain Hull, the officers, and crew, of the said frigate Constitution, in attacking, vanquishing, and capturing the British frigate the Guerriere, mounting fifty-four carriage guns, thereby exhibiting an example highly honorable to the American character, and instructive to our rising Navy
83.
Sir: In order to enable the committee to form a satisfactory opinion as to the compensation to be provided for the officers and crew of the frigate Constitution, for the capture and subsequent destruction of the British frigate the Guerriere, I have the honor to state to you that the Constitution rated 44, and mounted 55 guns; that the Guerriere rated 38 and mounted 54 guns
84.
The Guerriere was a frigate of the first class in the British navy; and, no doubt, when the engagement between the Constitution and her commenced, she was completely fitted in all respects for the most serious service
85.
I am informed that, independently of their stores, the frigate President cost two hundred and twenty thousand dollars; that the Chesapeake cost two hundred and twenty thousand dollars; and that the Congress cost one hundred and ninety-seven thousand dollars
86.
Bassett, the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole, on the report of the Naval Committee on the proposed vote of a gold medal to Captain Isaac Hull, late commander of the frigate Constitution, and silver medals to the other officers, and a sum of —— thousand dollars, to be distributed as prize-money among the officers and crew, as an expression of the sense entertained by this House of their bravery and conduct in attacking and vanquishing the British frigate Guerriere
87.
) She is a frigate of the largest class, two years old, four months out of the dock, and reputed one of the best sailers in the British service
88.
Here, too, we have the fact, that six hundred and fifty men are sufficient for a seventy-six, while four hundred and twenty are required for a frigate
89.
The annual expense is, for the large ship, $202,110; for the frigate, $110,000
90.
As I am told, orders were sent from Washington in September to Captain Chauncey, then at New York, who made his preparation, took his workmen with him to the Lakes, and some days since we had the account that he had built and launched, before November was out, a frigate of twenty-six guns
91.
To illustrate this—the cost of a seventy-four is less than one-third more than that of a forty-four gun frigate, yet the force is as three to one, or according to the lowest estimate I have heard, as two to one
92.
This is easily explained when we consider that to make a seventy-four is little more than adding another deck to a large frigate
93.
Sir: Having received information that a most unauthorized act has been committed by Commodore Rodgers, in forcibly seizing twelve British seamen, prisoners of war, late belonging to the Guerriere, and taking them out of the English cartel brig Endeavor on her passage down the harbor of Boston, after they had been regularly embarked on board of her for an exchange, agreeable to the arrangements settled between the two countries, and that the said British seamen so seized, are now detained on board the United States frigate President as hostages; I feel myself called upon to request, sir, your most serious attention to a measure so fraught with mischief and inconvenience, destructive of the good faith of a flag of truce and the sacred protection of a cartel
94.
Sir: I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 30th September, complaining that Commodore Rodgers, commanding a squadron of the United States Navy at the port of Boston, had taken twelve British seamen, lately belonging to His Britannic Majesty's ship the Guerriere, from a cartel in the harbor of Boston, and that he had detained them on board the President, a frigate of the United States, as hostages
95.
At this interview, I stated to him the arrival of the frigate, and my solicitude to transmit by her to the United States some act of this Government, justifying the expectation with which the important law which she had brought hither had, undoubtedly, been passed
96.
It has indeed been frequently remarked on this floor, that the satisfaction offered for the unauthorized attack on the frigate Chesapeake was long delayed, and very reluctantly offered
97.
The engrossed bill providing compensation to Captain Hull, and the officers and crew of the frigate Constitution, for the capture and destruction of the British frigate Guerriere, was read a third time
98.
The House resumed the order of the day on the bill making compensation to the officers and crew of the Constitution for the destruction of the frigate Guerriere
99.
She was one of the finest frigates in the British navy, well manned, and commanded by one of their most experienced and gallant captains! This ship, our frigate, "the Constitution," of equal force, attacked, vanquished, and captured, after a short, though one of the most brilliant actions recorded in the naval history of any country; thereby giving certain presages of future glory, and a character to our rising navy, coeval almost with its existence, and setting an example which other officers and crews, equally emulous of fame, have since imitated, and have obtained the same laurels, which will never fade
