Patrick Henry and the Frigate’s Keel: And Other Stories of a Young Nation Read Free

that the spirit of liberty was coming back into the land, and since he had already got enough to last him, it was time another stepped onto the poop deck of the Constitution . So he gallantly surrendered command of her to Captain William Bainbridge.
    By now, there was no lack of patriots, because the spirit of liberty was being spread up and down the land. Right off, you could see the change, the way people pricked up with hope. However, certain men knew the story of Patrick Henry sitting down to rest, and these men were worried that perhaps the Constitution might sink one of these days and take the spirit of liberty along with it.
    They went to Bainbridge and they warned him solemnly, and then they went below with him, into the hold of the Constitution , where he laid both his hands on the wood of the keel. Then he knew things that he hadn’t known before.
    It may be that my grandmother was wrong about the Java ; but she said that this English frigate was the finest vessel England had ever launched upon the seas. All of shining steel were her cannon, laid over with gold to show England’s majesty and pride; all of rich mahogany was her woodwork, and her stern was inlaid with gold and ivory. They built boats differently in those days, and you can see where such a vessel would sneer at the Constitution , which was only pine boards and some teak.
    When Bainbridge came in sight of the Java , the proud English officers aboard her laughed and wondered whether it paid to struggle with such a poor enemy. But Bainbridge bore down on them, and soon not even laughter could be heard above the thunder of guns. And at first things didn’t go too well with us, for the steering gear of the Constitution was shot away.
    Then the spirit of liberty came out of the keel and filled the sails, and the Constitution rode without a rudder, pouring her shot into the Java .
    That battle lasted a long time. With the defeat of the Guerrière , England had only been humbled on the seas, but the loss of this second frigate would be a fearful blow. As my grandmother says, the English sailors felt the spirit of liberty and lost heart. The battle lasted about two and a half hours, and when it was over, the Java hauled down her colors.
    Well, Bainbridge returned to Boston, and there wasn’t enough that they could do for him. The country had shaken off its despair, and almost every person you met had some small part of the spirit of liberty that old Isaac Hull had loosed from the Constitution . You wouldn’t believe that a thing could be spread so thoroughly and so quickly. In the taverns, in the coffee houses, everywhere, they spoke of nothing else. As for the Constitution —well, people went around saying that we didn’t need a navy so long as we had the Constitution .
    You may be sure the British didn’t take all this too well. Here, for hundreds of years they had been talking about the staunch wooden walls of England; here, for longer than any man could remember they had been sole masters of the seas, and here they were no longer masters of the seas, but made to look very foolish by a single crew of Yankees. It wasn’t as if a navy had defeated them, because you couldn’t rightly call the Constitution , just one frigate, a navy. The English looked around and said to themselves, “Time to do something, else we’ll be the laughingstock of the whole world. These Yankees are such confounded upstarts that first they take a country away from us, and now they’re running our navy off the seas with a bundle of pine boards.” That was just about what they said to themselves, and they were pretty hot.
    As my grandmother says, they began to look around and see just what was what. They sent their men into America, and told them to find out just how the Constitution was built, and also to find out about this Yankee stubbornness that made them up and lick a person who had them down. They sent them mostly to Boston,