1815     THIRD CHASE AND ESCAPE OF THE CONSTITUTION     379

considered the Constitution as within an hour or two of becoming a British prize. The American officers now questioned the British officers as to the manner in which the commodore of the chasing squadron would treat them ; and ; in short, began making, in regard to their clothes and other personal effects, such arrangements as they thought necessary, in the change they were about to undergo from freemen to captives. All this while Captains Douglas and Falcon and the late officers of the Levant and Cyane were blessing their stars at the good fortune that awaited them, although, as we can readily conceive, their delicacy forbade them from making a display of it before Captain Stewart and his officers. When the Cyane tacked, and the three British ships still continued in chase of the Constitution, not a doubt could remain that the English commodore, whoever he might be, was determined to have her. The Levant tacks ; and (can it be possible?) all three British ships tack after her. Here is a change ! The joy of Captain Stewart and his officers was now as extravagant as their fears had been well grounded. But what were now the feelings of Captains Douglas and Falcon and the other British officers ? What were they indeed! " The British officers on board, " says the Constitution's officer, " who had expressed the utmost confidence that the Constitution would be taken in an hour, felt the greatest vexation and disappointment, which they expressed in very emphatic terms." * From the following passage in the same account, it would appear that some one of the British officers, to save as much as possible the credit of the service to which he belonged, pretended to understand the purport of a signal that was hoisted by the Newcastle, and of which we shall speak presently. Thus: " After the other ships tacked, the Newcastle made a signal that her foretopsail yard was sprung, and tacked also. " In less than three quarters of an hour after the Newcastle had tacked from her, the Constitution was becalmed or nearly so. As soon as a breeze sprang up, Captain Stewart steered towards the coast of Brazil, and through the West Indies home ; and, early in the month of May, lucky Old Ironsides," as now she well might be called, anchored in Boston.

The three British ships, on being first discovered by the Constitution, were taken by the American officers for what, in reality, they were: the Leander and Newcastle for " ships of the line," or two-deckers, and the Acasta for a frigate. But the Cyane, according to her log, made out all three ships to be frigates, even before the Constitution cut her cables and made sail. Yet, on board the Leander, the Constitution, of 1533, the Cyane of 539, and the Levant, a flush ship, of 464 tons, all put on the appearance of "frigates." Hence, when the Cyane tacked, " Sir George directed the Acasta's signal to be made to

* Naval Monument, p. 182.     † Ibid., p. 173

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