uss frolick

In the old Time-Life book series on 'The Seafarers, there is a volume called 'The Frigates'. On page 160, a Algerian Artist had painted a beautiful tapestry about the capture of the Algerian flagship, the Frigate Mashuda, in 1815. She is here realistically portrayed dismasted, surrounded by Commodore Decatur's squadron. There is a stern view of the USS Guerierre shown firing into Mashuda. The artist must have actually seen the ships. Decatur's frigate, although small, shows interesting detail. The Guerierre has the three windows design, with two large white greek columns surrounding the center window, and two roses in the quarters. It looks like there is heavy, white lattice work, simulating a gallery, running across all three windows and the roses, beneath the stern boat. A shallower white lattice work runs beneath the windows, et al. Carved white rope work lines the outer edges of the counter all the way around. There may be other detail between the windows and the columns ... ? If anyone has this book and a working scanner ...

Do it!

The Connie's stern is a bit different. On Guerriere, the three gun-deck windows are as spread out as they can possibly be, to make 'room' to work three theoretical cannon, but on Connie's current stern, they are spaced close together, as though it was a five windowed stern with the outmost two windows planked over.

One old book I read was "The wood carver of Salem; Samuel Mcintire, his life and work", by Frank Cousins, from 1916. It is nearly all about his house carvings. Here is a free ebook: The pics are small, but look at the fireplace mantel photo before page 91. A good McIntire eagle is on a building before p. 143. The big coat of arms is the plate before p.141. https://archive.org/details/woodcarverofsale00cous There is a newer McIntire book out, but it is an expensive coffee table book.

The carvings on Chapelle's Essex are a close copy of a very rough ink sketch by Samuel McIntire (the Salem man who carved the Essex's figurehead, etc.) of the stern of an unknown merchant ship, currently held in the Peabody Museum of Salem. The sketch shows no windows. Another McIntire sketch, equally small, unidentified and rough, shows an official seal over a stack of flags/arms in the center, with cornucopias on either side, surrounded with a lot of vinery or "flora-nonspecificus". McIntire used an "eagle, wings pointed downward, on top of a seal, over a stack-of-arms" motif on many surviving fireplace mantels in the city. I suspect a version this is what Essex bore on the center of her taffrail. What very little that survives of McIntire's ship-carving ideas, shows that he didn't put any human figures on the taffrails. McIntire is known today for his carved eagles. One of the few actual carved items of his that survive, is a detailed seal of the state of Massachusetts, that hung in an open public place. The Indian in the center of the seal looks like the Essex's figurehead in the famous portrait. Books on McIntire's works (mostly house-carvings) show these examples. Five windows was probably just Chapelle's guess, based perhaps on the Chesapeake.

Essex has no stern drawings. If the Admiralty took off any plan it has not survived. Portia reconstructs only the 1799 stern with her original six windows, and seven counter timbers, in AOTS. In her earlier book (pamphlet actually) the Essex has five windows, with six counter timbers.

I'm happy to see such a clear view of the Constellation painting! It was listed as "lost" for many years, so perhaps somebody located it. I still wonder if the beloved Essex didn't get that stern too, when she was rebuilt in 1809. She traded in her six windowed stern (if the builder's glazier's bill is to be believed) for one with eight counter timbers (if Washington Naval Constructor Josiah Fox is to be believed), i.e., a new stern with either seven, five or three windows, the latter like the above. Imagine a counter timber on each side of all three windows of the Potomac, plus another pair for the extremities, and you get eight. Portia Takakjian's research on the Essex tells us that when she set sail in 1812, the Essex carried six 12-pounder chase guns - three on the gun-deck, and three on the spar-deck. Was this a crowded, foolhardy attempt to run all six chasers out the stern at the same time in an emergency?

One of them, I now forget which, maybe Forth methinks, was at the Battle of Baltimore in 1814. Whether she was close enough to fire her guns at Fort McHenry, only her log will tell. There is a sketch at the NMM of the Glasgow's figurehead - a full figurehead of a Scottish highlander - very extravagant for the time.

Just one small correction: The Endymion's fir sisters, Glasgow, Liffey, Forth, Liverpool, and one other, were redesigned to carry 28 main deck 24-pounder long guns, since at over 160 feet on deck, there was enough room to do so. Two of them fought at the Battle of Algiers in 1816, and the popular Glasgow survived to fight with the British fleet against the Turks at Navarino in 1828.

Interesting videos. Thanks for the heads up!

You might want to check the fittings page of Bluejacketinc.com . They have several different sizes of pewter carronade barrels. F0630 - 5/8" slide mt. $2.76 F0142 - 11/16" lug mt. $2.98 F0655 - 7/8" slide mt. $3.49 F0640 - 1-3/8" w/tamp. $5.10 F0304 - 1-3/8" open muz. $5.10 and regular pewter cannon barrels: F0101 - 1/2" $2.11 F0538 - 3/4" $2.62 F0540- 1" $3.12 F0100- 1-1/4" $3.42 F0099 - 1-3/8" $4.00 F0102 - 1-9/16" $4.15 F0103 - 1-7/8" $4.43 F0120 - 2-3/8" (Circa 1840) $6.53 F0121 - 2-1/2" (Circa 1840) $7.63

Best French 24-class? La Pomone, captured in 1794. Copied for HMS Endymion, and her fir copies of 1813, Glasgow, Liverpool, Liffey, etc. I still maintain that La Forte of 1793 was Humphries "French influence" inspiration for the United States Class, not the South Carolina of 1781, as Chapelle has stated. La Forte and her later sister-frigate L' Eqyptienne were 170 feet on their gun-decks, and carried thirty long 24-pounders . La Forte made a great name for herself raiding British Indianmen in the Indian Ocean, and especially so after she and three other smaller French frigates combined forces in 1796 to defeat and escape from two British 74's, HMS Arrogant and HMS Victorious, off Penang.

Corny, but fun!

Well MEDDO, the old PBS series "Upstairs Downstairs", the great Victorian TV drama, ended when the wealthy Bellamy Family, set off to visit the new world in the Titanic, where all were lost. Episode one of the newer victorian series, "Downton Abbey", began in 1912, when the Grantham Family learned that their cousins had perished on board the same doomed liner, thus throwing the family into financial chaos.

But lots of photos of the USF Chesapeake, right?

Two years later: Did anybody get this book yet?

Since I bought the first dvd version of the movie, I did not see these extra scenes, which are included in the newest versions of M&C. I wish they had included them in the theatrical release. I hope this is an appropriate place to post them off Youtube Enjoy:

One of the decorative elements on the tafferail of HMS Pegasus is a rather ghastly looking severed head - but with its flesh still attached, of course. The head of HMS Antelope, 50-guns, of 1803 (Sir Sydney Smith's infamous command), shows the full figurehead of Diana, the goddess of the hunt, holding forth a dinner platter, atop of which rests an antlered skull, presumably of an Antelope.

Possibly for the same reason that New England barns were usually painted red: Red ochre was the least costly paint pigment to make. (It was not to help cows find their way home in a Vermont snow squall, as has been given.)

For the American Navy there is "A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession" by Dr. Christopher McKee is an absolute must have. For the British there is always "Nelson's Navy" by Brian Lavery.

I wondered when you were going to chime in, Force9!

This was a peoples's victory too. In 1811, before the war had been declared, the Frigate Guerriere, then under the command of a "Captain Skeen", made a really bad name for himself, and for the frigate, by repeatedly impressing American sailors off our coast. When Guerriere sailed brazenly into New York harbour and took Americans out of a merchant brig, to the horror of the citizens of the port, President Madison ordered Commodore John Rogers, in the Frigate President, to sea. Rogers had instructions to rescue all captive Americans from the Guerriere, by force, if necessary. Rogers instead caught up with a 22-gun British frigate-built corvette, a captured dutch prize called the 'Lil Belt' or 'Little Belt'. It was on a moonless night, and Commodore Rogers mistakenly thought that Lil Belt was the much larger Guerriere, and that she was much farther away. A brief one-sided battle ensued, resulting in the quick defeat of the smashed British corvette, in what historians today called the "President/Little Belt Affair." When Captain Skeen heard of this battle, he publicly mocked Commodore Rogers for his mistake, by calling him "haughty", and having the words "Not The Little Belt" painted on the Guerriere's foretop sail, inviting Rogers to come out and fight him. Commodore Rogers responded by putting back out to sea, and hoisting a large motto-flag from his mainmast head proclaiming, "Here is the Haughty President, How do you like her?" The two never met, but the public was thirsty specifically for Guerriere's blood. That the President was much more powerful than even the Constitution didn't impress Captain Skeen. The Guerriere also was in the four ship squadron that chased the Constitution for three days in 1812 off New Jersey. The then Captain Dacres repeatedly fired his broadsides at Hull's frigate during the "great chase". Dacres wasn't overly concerned with 'fairness' and 'equal force' at that time either ... not until, of course, Hull later caught him alone.

Interestingly, Teddy Roosevelt wrote his famous 'The Naval War of 1812' solely to refute James's Ameri-phobic history. But James's facts are mostly spot on, it's his opinions which need caution. Dr. David Long, in his biography of Captain David Porter of the Essex, noted that in 1812, Great Britain possessed more than twice as many warships in commission, as the US possessed naval cannon!