Such masts, sails, rigging, and impervious side,
She floats a winged rampart on the tide.

Her scantling suits a large ship of the line- 1095
Before the breeze she looks a thing divine.
Who taught your Indian shipwrights to excel,
And from the British builders bear the bell?
Yet not your ships compose your naval strength,
Though broad their beam, and terrible their length.
Your crews confer the spell-by nature brave',
Rock'd on the cradle of the sky-mix'd wave;
Boasting their lineage from the naval train
Who proudly bear my sceptre o'er the main.t

Battle of the Nile. In that splendid action, while an English seventyfour was engaging a French ship of the same rate, a large French frigate placed herself in a position to annoy the English line of battle ship; but soon rued her temerity, by sinking under the fire of a single broadside.

• Neptune seems to labour under the same prejudices with respect to the United States thatm any of our Critics do-who, contemplating the New World through the distorted medium of the spectacles of books, image to themselves a nation of Mohawks and a land of rattle-snakes.

+ If Independent America be now a flourishing nation, in every stage of her advancement the Genius of England has presided over, and consecrated her efforts.

You think our seamen staunch?

1105

My realm they grace.

The genuine offspring of Neptunian race,
Who hold on sea a younger brother's place.

Your praise is niggard-if our flag you scoff,
Soon will we shake our base dependence off,
Another arbiter on ocean seek,

Nor longer hail you monarch of the deep.
Wedded to fame, the dow'r of conquest won,
What seamen equal ours beneath the sun?
Not slaves, but free-men, for the fight we arm-
There lies the talisman-the potent charm!

1110

Mournful their fate, who Neptune's laws e'er broke, Spurn'd his dread spear, and cast away his yoke— · My true blues, captain, scorn your yankey boast!

Let them approach again our frowning coast! 1120

In the United States Navy seamen enter voluntarily for two years, and subscribe articles, the same as in the merchant-service.

Our lofty battle ships of two tiers each,*
Shall from their guns an awful lesson teach
To after times-

Captain, you make me laugh,

1125

What time I lift the nectar'd bowl to quaff.
Say rather they will make you inly pine-
Saint George and conquest on their banners shine.

* The late war between Great Britain and the United States accelerated the growth of the American Navy, as will be seen by a comparative statement of its force at the beginning and the end of the

UNITED STATES NAVY in 1822.

Two one hundred gun ships-seven seventy-fours-twelve frigates➡ together with corvettes-making altogether fifty vessels of war.

See London Magazine (official document) for January 1822,

On our proud flag Columbia indites,
"Free trade, and independent sailors' rights."

This fragrant bowl is exquisitely wrought,
A nobler one my longing hand ne'er sought.
So deep to fathom, and so wide the brim,
An eight oar'd barge might in the nectar swim,
What quaint device is this-grav'd on its side?
The Constitution+ in triumphant pride!

1130

1135

The British Orders in Council prohibited Neutrals, and conse quently Americans, from trading with France, which was declared to be only a retaliatory decree; but the American Government con. sidered it an infringement of their rights, on the principle that free ships make free goods. But what galled Jonathan in the sorest point was the search of his vessels on the high seas for British seamen, who by acts of naturalization and certificates of citizenship, were manufac tured into Americans. These were novel pretensions, not to be admitted by Great Britain, as she recognizes no expatriation in her sons, and allows none to cancel the jurisdiction of their parent state. A similarity of language and manners made the exercise of this right liable to partial mistakes, and occasional abuse; a Yankey was now and then transplanted into an English man of war, who gave evidence of his consanguinity to the British, and vindicated the genuineness of his descent, either in taking a trick at the helm, furling a sail in a gale of wind, getting down yards and topmasts, or an anchor over the bow. It was, therefore, the uniform policy of the American Captains, to keep alive the remembrance of the outrage-manet injuria vexillo reposta and the American frigates went always into action with flags bearing the motto "Free trade and sailors' rights!"

+ The Constitution having taken in succession the Guerriere, the Java, and the Levant, and the Cyane, is the most popular ship in the United States Navy; and has exercised the skill and ingenuity of the trans-atlantic graver. From her strength and compactness, the Ame rican tars have bestowed on her the name of " Old Ironsides.”

1140

1145

The spangled-banner waving o'er the Cross-
A thousand left-one ship is no great loss.
How soon these vaunted trophies all were laid,
Won but to fall, and blooming but to fade.
Captain, be candid-can your lip deny-
(Though from your bosom steal the pensive sigh)
When Broke engag'd, and fought you gun to gun,
He made your yankeys from their quarters run?
Beneath the fell glance of the warrior's eye,
How many minutes did your colours fly?
The captain's cheek a blush of crimson dyed
And turning on his chair his guest he eyed,
Stamp'd with his foot, and frowning to him cried :
The Chesapeake! had I thy forceful mace,
From the great deep her hull I would efface. 1150
The Chesapeake ! oh! ever lost to fame,
Barron had scandal heap'd upon her name-
What time his foot her luckless plank first prest,
Her stars were darken'd-sunken was her crest.

In the year 1807, as the Chesapeake, commanded by Commodore Barron, was proceeding from Hampton Roads on her passage to the Mediterranean, the Leopard, of 50 guns, was detached from a squa dron to westward, with orders to search the American frigate for British deserters, and the unfortunate Commodore disgraced himself by suffering Captain Humphreys to take several men out of his ship, after a feeble resistance with one or two of his guns. Barron pleaded in extenuation that his main-deck was lumbered by the cables, not yet paid down into the cable-tier; but the sentence of a Court Martial suspended him from any command in the United States Navy for a