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

not only because the Constitution was anchored there, but because in those times everyone knew that Boston was a prime place for manufacturing gunpowder, revolutions, uprisings and minor struggles for the rights of man. Well, the Englishmen came to Boston, snooped around, spoke to one person and another, visited places like Paul Revere’s shop, Breed’s Hill, where the Battle of Bunker Hill had been fought, and the old belfry tower. But with all their visiting, they couldn’t find out anything except that the Constitution was built mostly of pine.
    Now the Englishman is kind of stubborn himself, and a lot of people say that’s where the Yankee stubbornness came from originally and that once a good many Yankees were English—although my grandmother doesn’t think so. Anyway, these Englishmen kept on until they got to visit the Constitution , and by passing themselves off as Virginia men, they got down into the hold where they heard the voice of the spirit of liberty. Some say that listening to this voice, they remembered a man whose name was Wat Tyler, and something else called the Magna Carta. That may be so.
    When these Englishmen came back to England, King George called them up and said, “Now, what is it those Yankees have that makes them so confounded annoying?”
    â€œWhy, Mr. King,” they answered, “it seems that down in the hold of that frigate they call the Constitution , they have the spirit of liberty.”
    â€œWhat spirit of liberty?” King George wanted to know, thinking that most of this was stuff and nonsense.
    â€œWhy, the same spirit of liberty we had at one time, Mr. King, only it seems kind of used to America and talking up their ways.”
    Well, the king hemmed and hawed and finally dismissed them, and maybe he had them punished a bit for taking in so much Yankee nonsense. Only, as my grandmother says, he got to thinking afterward that perhaps there was something to their talk. He didn’t want the spirit of liberty back, but he thought it would be a good thing if it were put away at the bottom of the ocean where it couldn’t raise any rumpus. So he let it be known around, here and there, that it would be a good thing if the Constitution were destroyed.
    When the good people of Boston town heard that, they laughed, and all up and down America there was more of the same kind of laughter. By this time, they were so filled with the spirit of liberty that they just didn’t have any doubts. They knew that England was merely talking big, and they knew that all the English navy couldn’t chase the Constitution from the seas. It got to be that you would bump into a patriot in America every few steps you took, and they were the real old-fashioned kind of patriots, with fire flashing from their eyes; and if you sat down in any coffee house, offhand, you could sit all night and listen to talk about the rights of man. Things were picking up.
    Now the people of Boston got ready to send the Constitution off again, and this time it was under the command of Captain Charles Stewart. You might think that Will Bainbridge and old Isaac would have been unwilling to give up command of the ship that way, but in those old days men were different. The spirit of liberty got into them, and they thought more about their country and freedom than they did about themselves. So Will and Isaac, who had had enough of the spirit of liberty, were glad to let Charley Stewart take his turn at it.
    Well, the sails filled, and the Constitution scudded away with the ropes singing “Yankee Doodle.” People said that the Constitution raced over the waves like a bird, and at the prow, scanning the horizon for a British vessel, was Charley Stewart.
    You may be sure that it wasn’t too many days before a British boat was captured. And then another. And then she sailed back to Boston harbor, the British glad enough to be rid of her. My grandmother says that old King George