Many of them had won promotions for gallantry in hand-to-hand combats in boarding parties, for following the bold Stephen Decatur in 1804 when he cut out and set fire to the _Philadelphia_, which had fallen into the hands of pirates at Tripoli, and helping Thomas Truxtun in 1799-1800 when the _Constellation_ whipped the Frenchmen, _L'Insurgente_ and _La Vengeance_.

In wardroom or steerage almost every man could tell of engagements in which he had behaved with credit.

Trained in the school of hard knocks, the sailor knew the value of discipline and gunnery, of the smart ship and the willing crew, while on land the soldier rusted and lost his zeal.
The bluejackets were volunteers, not impressed men condemned to brutal servitude, and they had fought to save their skins in merchant vessels which made their voyages, in peril of privateer, pirate, and picaroon, from the Caribbean to the China Sea.

The American merchant marine was at the zenith of its enterprise and daring, attracting the pick and flower of young manhood, and it offered incomparable material for the naval service and the fleets of swift privateers which swarmed out to harry England's commerce.[2] [Footnote 2: For an account of the privateers of 1812, see _The Old Merchant Marine_, by Ralph D.Paine (in _The Chronicles of America_).] The American frigates which humbled the haughty Mistress of the Seas beyond all precedent were superior in speed and hitting power to anything of their class afloat.

It detracts not at all from the glory they won to remember that in every instance they were larger and of better design and armament than the British frigates which they shot to pieces with such methodical accuracy.
When war was declared, the American Government was not quite clear as to what should be done with the navy.