“Boney is a great man, A soldier brave and true, But the British they can lick him, On land and water, too!”
This produced a roaring cheer from the British. The Americans, who knew what was coming next, waited, grinning broadly until the laugh should be on their side. The men gathered on the Thetis’s port side, and the officers hung over the rail to catch the next verse. As soon as the cheering was over, Danny fairly shouted, in a voice that could be heard a mile:
“But greater still, and braver far, And tougher than shoe leather, Was Washington, the man wot could Have licked ’em both together!”
At this “Old Wagoner’s” deck fairly shook with the thunders of cheers from the Americans, the midshipmen joining in with leather lungs, the grave Somers yelling like a wild Indian, while Decatur executed a war-dance of triumph.
The Thetis, as if disgusted with the turn of affairs, set her royals and all her studding sails, and began to leg it at a lively pace. “Old Wagoner” followed her example, and the men sprang into the rigging and set exactly the same sails. But they found within five minutes that the American could sail better, both on and off the wind, as she followed the Thetis in her tacks. The Thetis then, keeping her luff, furled sail on the mizzen and took in royals and studding sails. The American did precisely the same thing, and, as she still sailed faster, an old sail containing kentledge was ostentatiously hung astern and acted as a drag, keeping the two ships together.
This evidently infuriated the British, but they had found out that the American could walk around the Thetis like a cooper around a cask. They did not care to test it further, and the Thetis therefore sailed sullenly along for half an hour more. The Americans were delighted, especially Commodore Barry, who handled his trumpet as gayly as if he were a midshipman on his first tour of duty as deck officer. He next ordered the topsails lowered. This brought the American down very slow indeed, and she rapidly fell astern of the Thetis. The English thought that their tormentors were now gone. The Americans, suspecting some _ruse_ of the commodore’s, were all on the alert. Presently the commodore cried out jovially: