The Humphreys family in America - citizen hylbom blog

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builders; but, instead of conforniiiii; to tlic drafts and instructions from me, he curtailed the dimentions of that ship
from a 44 to a 36; but by whose authority the alterations was made I [was] never able to find out; this ship always
spoke for herself as well as the others did. Old fellows like myself like to tell what they did in their younger days,
and I will say to you that I built the first frigate ['Randolph'], and fitted out the first fleet, under Com. Hopkins,
that sailed under the United States, in the year 1774. The great mark of attention you have shown me in sending
me so beautiful a present, has made me proud, although in my 86 year of age, a time of life when I ought to Ix;
more humble.
" The cane I shall leave as a Talisman to my grandson & namesake, son of my son Samuel, that, should he
ever coMe into action, he will recollect the bravery of the oflicers of the 'Old Ironsides.'
" ShouUl you ever come this way, I should be most glad to see you and spend some time with us. I live in
H rford Township, Delaware County, Pa., seven miles west of the Schuylkill Bridge.
"I am, with very great respect.
Address, "JosiAH B.\rker, "Yours, &c.,
"Naval Constructor, "Josnu.\ HuMPHREVS."
" Charlestown, Mass."
The following article appeared in the New York Tribune of Dec. 26, i38i:
"AN OLD SEA DOG."
" The frigate Constitution, which arrived at the Brooklyn Navy Yard recently, has now been put out of com-
mission, having been pronounced unseaworthy and incapable of repairs. Nearly fifty years ago an order was issued
from the Navy Department directing that she should be broken up. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes took a poet's view
of the matter and wrote his well-known lyric, beginning 'Ay, tear her tattered ensign down.' His verses had an
excellent effect, and the order was recalled. All such ships have a history, and the history of this one is e.xceptionally
interesting. If it were a matter of writing her obituary, there would be no default of detail. She was one of the
six frigates ordered in 1794 by Congress to be completed, launched and put into commission. It is a curious fact
ihit when Cooper wrote his Naval History, three of these ships, viz., the United .States, the Constellation and the
Constitution, were still afloat and in the service, neither having been long out of commission. The Constitution
carried forty-four guns. She with the other ships had been got afloat the year previous. She was a large vessel,
with batteries of thirty twenty-four-pounders on her gun deck—such a ship as the EngUsh'were then in the habit of
rating as a thirty-eight. She went into the West India Squadron under the command of Captain Samuel Nicholson,
and under the flag of Commodore Barry, then senior ofliicer of the service, with a general rendezvous at Prince
Rupert's Bay. Her consorts made several important captures from the French, but there is no special mention of
her own. Her crew were engaged in the cutting out of a French letter of marque at Port au Platte, under the
command of Mr. Hull, an ofiicer afterward to be distinguished. The Constitution did not emerge into her private
and personal glory until some time after. Congress, in iSoi, saved her from the ignominy of being disposed of. In
1804 she was in the squadron operating against Tripoli under Preble, and distinguished herself by her fierce attack
upon the town, batteries and castle. It was remarked at the time that though she was long within the reach of the
enemy's grape, many of which hit her, she had not a man hurt. In fact, she was always a lucky ship. In this
action she had several of her shrouds, back-stays, trusses, spring stays, chains, lifts and a great deal of her running
rigging shot away, and yet her hull was hardly touched.
"The Constitution won no more especial laurels until the war with Great Britain in 1812; but then the days
of her great glory were at hand. She had just before been sent to Europe, under the command of Captain Hull,
having on board specie for the payment of the interest on the debt due in Holland. After a short stop, having
fulfilled her commission, at Portsmouth, England, she sailed, and outsailed several English men-of-war sent in pursuit
of her, as there had been some difficulty while she was in port about deserters. The opening of the war found her
at home. On the 12th of July, 1812, still under command of Captain Hull, she sailed from Annapolis and stood to
the northward. On Friday, July 17, she discovered a sail to the northward and eastward, which subsequently proved
to be the Gucrriere. But the Constitution was soon encountered by a British fleet, and then began that chase,
unexampled in naval annals, which redounded so much to the glory of the officers and men of the Constitution. She
sailed proudly into Boston with a record of seamanship which has never been surpassed, and never will be, and
which places Captain Hull among the first of naval commanders of any age. But the Constitution was not kept
idle at Boston. Sailing from that port on the 19th of August, Captain Hull sighted and soon encountered his old
enemy the Guerricre. The particulars of the action have been a hundred times related and need not here be told
again. No victory ever made a deeper moral impression. There was no talk of absolute British supremacy at sea
afterward. The old ship, which had been badly knocked about, went back to Boston to refit, after a battle which
was decided in her favor in about half an hour. The first serious conflict of the war was immortality for the Con-
stitution. Hull honorably gave up the command of the ship, under the influence of a feeling that others should be
allowed to distinguish fhemselve.-.